In our first Doctor Who-related video this week, we find the question is not, in fact, "Who?" Instead, it's...
A couple weeks ago, we got good and funky with the theme from Star Wars (among other music from the first four released movies). Now it's Doctor Who's turn. Amazingly/horrifyingly enough, this is the only arrangement of the theme ever made by its composer, Ron Grainer. Reportedly, he said that if he had had the chance to arrange it in 1963, it would have been something like this. So if you haven't thanked your deity recently for putting Delia Derbyshire on this earth, you will in a few minutes. (Okay, okay... despite the utter wrongness of this music, I sometimes find myself listening to it several times in succession.)
Finally, watch 45 years flash before your eyes. I don't know where that clip that's allegedly from "The Massacre" came from, because it has no surviving clips. The "Mission to the Unknown" clip appears to be a photograph touched up with CG. ("Marco Polo" has one existing clip, on the technicality that it repeated the end of the previous episode.)
Thanks to the fans who recorded the off-air soundtracks, and to the superhuman efforts of Mark Ayres in restoring them, you can, at least, hear those stories. (In the case of "Mission to the Unknown," he took two different recordings-- one that was generally superior, and one that had more top-end --synced them up line by line, and combined them into an even better version.)
It's depressing enough to do obituaries for people I just knew from their work, but for people I knew in person since before we even worked together... well, that's a real bummer, and it's why I've dragged my feet on it. Ironically, when an Arthur C. Clarke or a Philip José Farmer dies, I can put something together fairly rapidly from facts I remember or can quickly look up. When it's someone I knew, suddenly I can't think of where to start.
So I'll just say that Don Anderson was a great artist and a nice person. He never let his difficulties getting around get him down... or indeed, keep him from getting around.
He was a member of the Hamptons Round Table that Crystal Ann Taylor mentioned in her article on Star Trek: Phase II in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2. As I recall the story, Don had communicated with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro via email, but hadn't had an opportunity to meet in person. So he made one. He flew out to Prague, where del Toro was filming the first Hellboy. For the Table, "Go to Prague" became shorthand for cutting through your own fear and the difficulties in your own way, real or imagined, and just up and doing something. I only wish I had that kind of oomph.
Don Anderson was a vital part of the two most fulfilling creative experiences of my life so far: the award-winning short film I wrote and executive-produced, A Can of Paint; and the two volumes of Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Here are two features of Don's work that I assembled for the DVD of A Can of Paint. The first is a series of concept illustrations for Kilgour's spaceship, set to Gordy Haab's wonderful music. The second matches up Don's storyboards with extracts from the final movie audio (again featuring Gordy Haab's music, plus the voices of Aaron Robson as Kilgour and Jean Franzblau as the computer, and sound design by Brett Hinton and Gordy Haab).
Don's work for Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 appeared here in Thursday Previews for "A Gift Though Small," by Melinda M. Snodgrass, and "Palladium," by Diane Duane. I also used the latter on the back cover.
For Volume 1, Don illustrated Isaac Asimov's "The Portable Star" (shown at the upper left), imparting a lot of menace to what are essentially lumps of rock.
He also worked for clients a lot more high-profile than I will ever be, like Dreamworks, NBC/Universal, and Disney. You can see more of his work on his website, and think about all the world will never have a chance to see now. Think about what we lose when any talented person dies long before their time, and you can get good and depressed.
As usual with anything popular, I'm probably the last person on Earth to post these.
These just crack me up like nobody's business. There's really no explaining, except that these are redubbed by some people having nothing to do with what Craig Ferguson calls "the Mighty CBS Corporation."
Contains language not safe for (as they used to say on WTTW Chicago before Monty Python) younger or more sensitive viewers. (Seriously, it's not.)
A friend of mine sent a couple of these links to a foreign email acquaintance, who was appalled by them. My friend realized in retrospect that probably at least half the joke lies in familiarity with the stiff, stylized way the TNG crew normally talks. Or maybe it was the language? Who can say?
But I think some of the lines that crack me up most are the ones that take advantage of the actors' characteristic delivery. These aren't that funny written down...
"...and eat cheddar cheese."
"I used to run a soup kitchen... in my pants."
"My dad stabbed me with a hen... for free."
...but dubbed to match Stewart's characteristic delivery, they're hilarious to me. (I also like the one with Data saying, "I'm not a racist, but I don't like Alaskans.")
It's not quite as funny with a cooler crew.
...although "He who smelt it, dealt it," delivered in Jimmy Doohan's Scotty rhythm, is still pretty funny.
If you want to know what the hell this is about, check here and here.
If you just did, you saw that the second time I presented Space Adventure, I bemoaned the fact that it had been a "way too long" thirteen weeks since the first time. Since the second time, of course, it's now been fifty weeks.
To which I can only give my handy all-purpose excuse: I suck.
As it is, these episodes are now nearly three years old, so I'm going to hurry it up a bit. Really. I promise.
Like everyone else, I heard pretty much from the time that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out that Saavik is half Romulan. The movie itself, of course, doesn't actually say so. Until now, I didn't know this bit of information even got as far as being filmed.
Also in this video: a bit deleted from the final scene on the bridge, hinting at future Saavik/David romance.
This is the link I was going to use, until I found the one above with much, much better sound. But this one puts the clips in context.
An alternate version of the Kirk/Saavik turbolift scene. Same dialogue, but shot as intercut closeups, rather than a single long take with both on the screen. It appeared in the slightly longer cut shown on ABC. Someone on the YouTube page for this video suggested it was specially shot for use on TV, since it works much better on the 4:3 screen than the widescreen composition for the released film does. I think it's equally possible that director Nicholas Meyer shot coverage, as usual, but decided in editing that the scene played better in the unbroken master shot.
Speaking of the YouTube page, it's one of those things that makes me think the human race is far too stupid to survive. One person comments that it's exactly the same as the theatrical version. Another explains in detail how it isn't. A third comments that it's exactly the same as the theatrical version. A fourth explains in detail how it isn't. A fifth comments that it's exactly the same as the theatrical version...
Two vintage TV spots for the theatrical release.
A little mashup I found via io9. People have called Kirk a tinpot dictator before. They just haven't said until now which tinpot dictator.
Star Trek II performed by cartoon bunnies in 30 seconds (give or take 18)!
And, as we roll to a stop, we bring you the unreleased, unrated, far more vicious version of Khan's attack on the Enterprise.
I miss Siskel & Ebert. Yes, I know Roger Ebert is still reviewing movies in print for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has a great blog that's about whatever's on his mind (which is frequently movies, but also often not). But I miss the team, and I miss the show.
I'm from the Chicago area, and I was a child of the 1970's and '80s, which is as much as to say that I grew up watching the critics on Sneak Previews (1977-82), At the Movies (1982-86), and Siskel & Ebert (with and without & the Movies, 1986-99). Starting around the sixth grade, my friends and I got into a Siskel-and-Ebert-induced mania for giving things star ratings. My parents subscribed to Gene Siskel's Chicago Tribune, while a friend's subscribed to the Sun-Times, and we were partisans for the respective critics, and appropriately enough, argued for their points of view. (When Ebert's first book of reviews came out, though, I read it, and switched my allegiance.)
Unfortunately for S&E fans, neither WTTW, the PBS affiliate that produced Sneak Previews, nor the Tribune Company, which produced At the Movies, felt their movie reviews were anything but ephemera, and most of the episodes were wiped. (Disney, by contrast, keeps pretty much everything, so you can enjoy reviews from the Buena Vista-produced Siskel & Ebert on the website for its current incarnation, confusingly titled At the Movies.)
Fortunately, some episodes from 1980-86 survive via home video recordings. And, this being the future and all, they're on YouTube for us to enjoy. Here's a 1980 Sneak Previews "Take 2" episode (taking an in-depth view of a subject in lieu of regular movie reviews): "Invasion of the Outer Space Movies." (Only this clip of the first third is available.)
In this 1982 Sneak Previews, S&E take on Blade Runner. (That review begins at about 2:10.) I won't ruin it for you by telling you what they thought.
The next year, on At the Movies, they indulge in a surprisingly long review of Return of the Jedi.
Siskel: "I want the next ones to come out much quicker than one every three years." Ironically, he wouldn't live to see the next one, sixteen years later.
Here, Siskel and Ebert defend the Star Wars films against a snooty New York critic (who employs one of my least favorite debate tactics: "If you disagree with me, you are, objectively, an idiot") on ABC's Nightline in a clip from so long ago that I'd completely forgotten that Ted Koppel's hair was ever that dark. (WARNING: Much louder than previous clips.)
What I don't understand is how Ebert, a science fiction fan in his youth, has never really appreciated Star Trek. In practically every one of his Trek film reviews, he goes on about the clunkiness of its technology. Never mind that the Millennium Falcon was flown with levers. Oh, well.
Finally, from their last year on At the Movies, here's their review of Short Circuit.
Okay, I have to admit, all of these clips come from the same YouTube user. You can see a lot more S&E clips via his channel page.
The thought occurred to me recently that it's been 15 years since Star Trek: Generations was released. That's the same amount of time as between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Generations itself. Makes me feel reeeeally old, as though I need any help in that department.
It's also the same amount of time between "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I wasn't around for "Space Seed." In fact, I was conceived at about the time Star Trek ended its network run, and generally, anything that happened before one can remember ends up getting lumped together as The Historical Past. But thinking about these 15-year stretches, at a time when I'm watching the episodes of the original V on the 25th anniversaries of my seeing them the first time, gives me more of a feeling of scale, timewise.
But that's not what I called you all here for. Here's the original opening scene from Generations. (Note that it's intercut with the floating champagne bottle which ended up opening the film.) I remember reading somewhere that a stuntman was killed shooting Kirk's landing, but that may not be true, since I can't find anything about it via Google. If it is, the fact that the stunt ultimately needn't have been performed makes it even more sad.
Generations was originally written with Spock and McCoy accompanying Kirk, but Leonard Nimoy felt the script needed a rewrite, and DeForest Kelley thought he'd had a good send-off in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and a return would just undermine that. So the producers went with Scotty and Chekov instead. Unfortunately, as you can tell in the clip above, the writers made only minimal changes to accommodate the different characters. (Hence, also, Chekov oddly taking charge of Sickbay on the Enterprise-B.) In the clip below, after Kirk is thought killed by the Nexus, Scotty gets Spock's philosophical observation.
Generations was originally supposed to introduce a new Starfleet uniform. It was pretty much the Next Generation version, but cut more like the original-cast movie jackets, with sleeve rank stripes reminiscent of the original series. A set of action figures came out with this uniform, but the movie ended up just using the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine uniforms (which the characters alternate with puzzling frequency, as though they were constantly stopping in mid-action to change).
Until I saw this clip, I didn't know that any footage was shot before the producers made their decision. But here, you can (sorta kinda) see it at about 0:11.
And here's the original fight scene. More about that in a moment. But it is every bit as lame a death for Kirk as you've been led to believe.
Here's a clip from the Rifftrax of Generations, featuring Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy from Mystery Science Theater 3000. I haven't seen the rest of it, but this doesn't seem to be one of their best. (I did mostly enjoy Murphy and Bill Corbett's Rifftrax of the Star Trek New Voyages episode I co-produced, "World Enough and Time," although it was needlessly cruel to a couple of the fan actors.)
Okay, now about Kirk's death. I thought Generations was all right, but even at the time, I noted that the story was less like a plot than a to-do list: kill Kirk, destroy the Enterprise-D, give Data his emotion chip... The elements just seemed shoehorned together, without much logic or sense of occasion. Especially the use of Kirk. I mean, this is it, right? The big meeting between Kirk and Picard? The death of a hero some people had been following for 28 years? And it is such a damp damn squib, even in the reshot version that made it to the screen. Captain James T. Friggin' Kirk goes to the 24th century and lays down his life... as muscle to keep Soran busy for a moment while Picard presses a couple of buttons? Never mind that, had Picard (or the writers) applied a moment's thought to the situation, he could have found a better time to come out of the Nexus, and defeated Soran much more easily.
Which brings me to the next three clips, which are much more entertaining than you'd think a thirty-minute evisceration of Generations could be. That's because it's not a shrill rant, but more a sardonic, logical point-by-point takedown which notices the things I mentioned above, and many more. (For instance, I'd never noticed that Generations reused a couple of effects shots from the previous film. Granted, Khan reused numerous shots from The Motion Picture, but at least that one had economy as an excuse. Generations cost about three times as much as Khan.)
What if the Earth had rings like Saturn's? This video starts out a little dull, but it gets down to business at around the one-minute mark, showing how the rings would appear from various cities around the globe.
And here's something I'm really looking forward to, from Star Trek: Phase II's senior executive producer James Cawley: Buck Rogers. Judging from this little effects trailer, it's going to have that same mix of modern effects and retro style that makes Phase II so entertaining.
I think Buck Rogers will be an interesting test for the independent online production model. Unlike Phase II, this is a fully-licensed production, and therefore can be done as a for-profit venture. Can it make a profit? Can it have the same value-for-budget as Phase II without the power of those magic words, Star Trek, to get dozens of people, fans and professionals, to work for free? I'm hoping the answers are yes and yes, because a production and distribution model that could support professional-quality work for an audience of real SF enthusiasts-- that is, without needing to water it down for a mass audience --would be about the best thing ever to happen to the genre in the audiovisual realm.
Yet another video I wouldn't have known about if not for i09, here's an amusing CGI collision between two science fiction epics of 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Doctor Who Cybermen story "The Wheel in Space." (I hadn't thought of this when I decided to post the video, but the series turned 46 years young yesterday.) I particularly enjoyed the "recasting" of the Pan-Am shuttle scene. Even if you don't know Doctor Who from a hole in the ground, the re-creation of iconic 2001 sets is still pretty incredible. And if you don't know 2001 from a hole in the ground, either... well, there's not much I can do to help you.
If you're anything like me (and if you are, I'm so, so sorry), you've been waiting almost a year for this: Part II of the Star Trek: Phase II adventure "Blood and Fire," co-written and directed by Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 alum David Gerrold. This is the recap and Part II teaser.
They're still working on a final sound mix, but you can download the current working version here. Since I'm choosy, in addition to being a big, big nerd, I'm going to wait until it's all done, and then let the full experience wash over me in the fullness of its coolness.
And while I'm pimping the work of people I know... I finally watched Humanity's End, the new film by Neil Johnson, the other day, and it's a knockout! It keeps the action coming and delivers some unexpected emotional punch at the same time. And some of the effects are pretty damn impressive, too—the envy of science fiction films hundreds of times its budget of $140,000.
Don Baldaramos has a great supporting role in it as General Freitag. And he was in the Star Trek: Phase II episode "World Enough and Time," which we covered in the aforementioned TWS Volume 2, as well as being indispensable behind the scenes. So it all fits together, you see. (Kari Nissena, who has nothing to do with Thrilling Wonder Stories, but who I also know, appears in the film as a Nephilim officer, Gorlock.)
Speaking of things fitting together, it's nice to see the spaceship sets at Laurel Canyon Stages again. We shot most of A Can of Paint there in 2002, and I was just wondering the other day if it was still around.
You ever wondered what The Matrix would be like if Charlie Chaplin had made it as a half-reel silent comedy? Sure, we all have. But now, here's the answer!
I particularly like this film's rendition of the kung fu scene.
Again, by the way, we see that non-native writers of English have a problem with our language's bizarre rule that the word "I" is capitalized.
And again, I have to admit that the io9 website, where I first saw this, is doing a better job finding these offbeat videos than I am.
This is a darker than I usually like to go with these, and I was a step ahead on the twist, but it's really well made. Also, the woman-alone-in-a-bunker aspect reminded me of a story I just read and enjoyed the other day in a late issue of the original Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Oh, and it's in French, with English subtitles, which automatically makes it more artistic. (Your number one sign the subtitles were not done by someone fluent in written English: they don't know that, for some bizarre reason, the English first-person singular pronoun is always written in upper-case.)
And I fully admit I didn't manage to find this myself. Instead, I heard about it via the io9 science fiction news site. According to them, it was shot with the hot hot hot RED ONE digital camera. (george c. scott) Gee, I wish we had one of them RED ONE digital cameras (/george c. scott). I just mention this in case you draw my name to be my secret Santa.
A short student film inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke novel. Directed and animated by Aaron Ross, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU in 2001. Best Animation, Marin County Film Festival, 2003 Best Animation, NYU First Run Film Festival, 2003
Pretty impressive for a student film, especially one made in 2001. Here's a making-of video:
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that's the same spacesuit we used the next year on A Can of Paint. So that's two adaptations of classic stories it's been in.
I have this model kit. I bought it at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas. And although I've opened the box and looked at the pieces, it remains completely unassembled. Eventually, I'll lose some pieces, and throw the kit away. That's what happens to 75% of the model kits I buy.
I once had an AMT model kit of the original series bridge. That one got as far as my painting some of the pieces before I lost some and... well, see text above.
I actually did put together and paint an NCC-1701-A model once. Over time, the glue degraded the plastic, and the engine pylons broke off. Then I had the kit with the little LED lights, seen below. See text above as to what became of that.
I loves me some Wrath of Khan, and I loves me some Reliant. I bought an unlicensed Reliant model kit, and actually put it together, but I've never painted it. I'm sure I still have the decals, but Lord only knows where.
You know, I had an AMT original series Enterprise kit once, but etc.
It struck me that we haven't had a 1950's sci-fi kids' show here in quite a while. So sit back and enjoy... Space Patrol!
Since there isn't a high-quality version of these files, I'm just going to use the standard-size viewer windows.
I like how the sheet of "metal"—which Carol and Tonga take pains to emphasize is so heavy—freely wobbles like the cardboard it is.
And how about those hats, huh? Reminds me of Katherine Helmond's upside-down shoe hat from Brazil.
On the serious side, I enjoy the sound backgrounds. They kind of straddle the border between sound effects and musique concrète. Reminds me of '1960s Doctor Who that way. Also, the sets are pretty lively-looking for this type of show.
And even if, like me, you weren't actually around for them, you have to miss the days when maybe four minutes of commercial announcements was enough to sustain a half-hour show.
Space Patrol ran as a live half-hour weekly show on ABC from December 30, 1950 through February 26, 1955. It started out as a 15-minute daily program in Los Angeles on March 9, 1950. The daily version continued through the run of the series, and was syndicated to some other cities on kinescope film copies. Further, a radio version ran from October 1952 through March 1955. (You have to wonder where this cast found time to eat and sleep.)
This particular episode ran on February 9, 1952.
All in all, Space Patrol produced 129 radio episodes, 210 half-hour television episodes, and almost 900 15-minute episodes.
I don't know what's put me in such a "classic Doctor Who" mood lately, but here are some more videos around that theme.
To start with, one literally around "that theme"—the familiar "ooo-WAH-ooo" we also dealt with last week. This video mashes up all the original-series openings, plus some classic-style ones made up for the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Doctors. I think the first two minutes is just fantastic, with all the layering of the various credits sequences. Putting the 1980-84 stars in the background certainly gives the various 1963-73 howlarounds more pizzazz. (It drops off a bit after that.)
Here's a video that must have taken an awful lot of effort: the beginnings of a homemade Doctor Who anime. The Third Doctor stars, because if you want copious quantities of anime-style butt-kicking, there's no denying he's your man. If I were running the BBC, I'd hire this guy immediately, because what with Doctor Who currently taking over all available media... well, why not anime?
And here's the inevitable LEGO version. The punchline trades off a classic Doctor Who line. (I wonder if that's Arcturus from "The Curse of Peladon" that the Doctor's companion is bothering.)
Ever since I started watching the show in 1980, the Doctor Who theme has been my favorite science fiction music... maybe my favorite music altogether. I can walk on the treadmill for an hour, and listen to nothing but various arrangements of that theme. (Try it yourself—there are literally hundreds of them at whomix.trilete.net.)
But seeing as this is YouTube Tuesday, music alone won't cut it. So how about a video of someone playing both parts of a two-track synthesizer arrangement?
Not good enough? How about someone playing the theme on ukulele while wearing a the costumes of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors?
Or the theme played on tuned twin Tesla coils. (Try to say that ten times fast.)
Or how about the theme as it appeared on the BBC Micro computer in the game "Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror" in 1985, accompanied by two versions of the TV opening credits, treated to make them look like era-appropriate computer graphics.
While we're on the subject of opening credits, how about an example of the ever-popular mash-up? Here's a 1978 performance by "Mankind," set to the Colin Baker credit sequence.
What, still not satisfied? Well, here's a guy in a mohawk, playing it in front of the TARDIS on an electric violin.
Okay, I have to admit this doesn't have much in the visual department, but it's a cool heavy metal take on the theme.
WARNING: The following videos contain adult situations, and (as WTTW Chicago used to say before its broadcasts of Monty Python) may not be suitable for younger or more sensitive viewers.
Okay, I promised it a while back, and here it is: Part One of the first-ever two-part episode of Star Trek New Voyages Phase II: "Blood and Fire." Part Two is still in post-production. Check with the Phase II website for updates. (We're not associated with STP2, but we're mighty impressed with what they do.)
Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 has a 21-page feature article on the production of the previous New Voyages episode, the Hugo and Nebula-nominated "World Enough and Time," starring George Takei as Sulu.
This episode was directed and co-written by David Gerrold, based on his unproduced script for the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gerrold also wrote the original series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," which usually comes in #2 in polls of favorite episodes (and occasionally beats out "The City on the Edge of Forever" for #1).
A preview of an upcoming volume in his War Against the Chtorr series of novels, the story "Enterprise Fish" (no relation!), also appears in TWS2.
Because it's been way too long, here are the next three episodes of one of my YouTube faves, Space Adventure. It's simply a crime that these episodes only have viewership figures in the triple digits. Not that all of us here can roll it over to another digit, but maybe we can give Mik, oh, ten, fifteen more views.
