The New Star Wars Trailer

When I was growing up, Star Wars was in the background with the Hasbro toy releases and occasional TV repeats or VHS re-releases. Then the media started hyping the release of the Special Editions in 1997. Shortly after that I saw the Special Edition of A New Hope in the cinema and became a fan. Some fans tend to get annoyed at the changes made in the Special Editions, but these releases got a whole new generation, including myself, hooked on the franchise. It got quiet after that, but then the trailer for The Phantom Menace arrived, drawing lots of attention. Now, Star Wars is getting ready to make another comeback with a whole new film and we've finally got a trailer to see what it's like.

Anyway, enough of that. It's time to do the over analysis of the trailer that every fan and every website is probably doing right now.

It opens in a desert while a portentious voice informs us that there has been an awakening in the force. Then we see John Boyega in a storm trooper suit. But is he a good guy or a bad guy? The Stormtroopers are supposed to be clones. Either they've augmented their troops with ordinary citizens or he is actually a rebel disguising himself in the uniform. Could the awakening of the Force be to do with him, or is it simply a voice over? Is he an Imperial Officer who becomes a good guy?

We then cut to a funny looking droid. It's good that there will be some comic elements to the film. Jar Jar Binks may have been annoying but you still need some humour in the film, otherwise you end up stuck with the solemn and dull Jedi of the prequels.

Then we see more Storm Troopers. Presumably the Empire has survived after the fall of Palpatine, which makes more sense.  But who is in charge of the Empire now?

The woman in the picture above rides off into the desert on an unusual looking speeder. She is probably helping the rebels.

X-Wing fighters skim across the surface of some water, piloted by the guy pictured above.

Then we see a Sith clambers through the snow and activates his lightsabre. A voice over says 'The dark side and the light'. Doesn't really mean anything but sounds effective.

Then the classic theme starts and the the Millenium Falcon flies across the desert, shooting at Tie-Fighters with that memorable blaster sound.

There's not much to analyse here. But it's exciting to type it out. To think that Star Wars is coming back. With the appearance of storm Troopers, Falcon and the Tie-Fighters, the trailer seems to have been catered for fans.

51 Years in the Tardis

A year has passed since the 50th anniversary special and Doctor Who is 51 years old today, This time last year  The Day of the Doctor, was simulcast to several countries across the globe, winning great acclaim.  So how has the show been faring in the wake of its anniversary celebrations? On this day in 1974, audiences would have already seen Jon Pertwee regenerate and Tom Baker's debut was only a month away. In 1984, the fresh new start promised at the end of The Five Doctors was somewhat diminished by the premiere of Warriors of the Deep. By this time, in November, The Twin Dilemma had aired, and fans were probably hoping that the next series was going to be much better (though at least the comic strips with Frobisher were decent) In 2004 there was a mixture of anticipation and fear as the New series with Christopher Eccleston was being filmed. So what has changed between 2013 and 2014?

Two days after the 50th anniversary, Doctor Who Legacy launched. It is probably the best videogame to come out for Doctor Who.

The first piece of Doctor Who to air after the anniversary was, of course, Matt Smith’s departure story, The Time of the Doctor. It was a story with a good idea behind it but not enough time to get it across and a general feeling that Moffat was having to cram everything in to tie everything up. It was a slightly disappointing end to the otherwise excellent 50th anniversary year, although it did at least leave us with the promise of a new and exciting Doctor in Peter Capaldi.

                                     

There was never any real question that Peter Capaldi would fit the role of the Doctor like a glove, but we had to put up with press and some internet users making a big deal about how old he was. Some think he's an improvement over Matt Smith, who gets criticized with the same repetitive complains that he was "wacky" and "zany". Words which fail to do Matt's performance justice. Personally, I loved Matt Smith's Doctor and now I'm love Peter Capaldi as well. That’s two Doctors I’ve liked in a row. Of course that probably means I'll hate the next one.

                                                        
Another older incarnation of the Doctor got a bit of promotional boost this year as well. The War Doctor, played by John Hurt, was one of the more controversial aspects of the 50th anniversary special. This year saw the character getting two new outings. One in the official BBC book Engines of War written by George Mann, as well as the charity anthology Seasons of War. Whether you like this interim Doctor or not, the fact that it led to  Jim Mortimore and Kate Orman writing for Doctor Who meant that it was worth it.

In the wider world we had the World Tour as Steven Moffat and his team continued to publicize Doctor Who overseas. Heading through London, South Korea, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio De Janeiro, this was one of the more interesting stunts of the year. There were a couple of hilarious results of this, such as the picture seen above, which was presented to Peter and Jenna in South Korea. Still, for all its cheesiness, it’s good that fans in other countries can feel like they matter. I used to be a big fan of Japanese video games and it was always annoying that they'd be released in Europe last. Giving these fans an opportunity to meet their heroes means that they can feel included and overall it proves that the production team aren’t getting complacent about sticking with the same old audience.

The fictional world of Doctor Who has also had some pretty interesting developments. A year ago,the Time Lords could only regenerate into the same gender. The Corsair may have been mentioned, but had never seen on screen. This year Moffat has added to his list of changes to the Doctor Who world with the revelation that the Master has regenerated into a woman. The first on screen proof that Time Lords can change gender when regenerating. This has oddly enough become one of my favourite moments in the latest series. Michelle Gomez was brilliant and she has said recently she will be coming back next series. That is definitely going to be something to look forward to.

The Doctor and the Master weren't the only old character to get a new body this year this year. Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart being reborn as a Cyberman is a development that I was personally not so keen on.  I felt his exit in The Wedding of River Song was perfect and this resurrection was unnecessary Still, it can’t be changed now, and the Brigadier had a similar death and rebirth plot in the New Adventures, so there is a precedent for it. Will we ever see the Cyber Brig again? It's possible. Maybe there'll be some sort of time paradox in which his head comes off and he becomes Handles? Time will tell.

Beyond that we’ve still got The Doctor Who exhibition is about to reopen Currently still undergoing refurbishment but is rumored to show the scene of the  Doctor saving Gallifrey from Day of the Doctor. I enjoyed the original exhibition, which I saw in Olympia, but, annoyingly I am too busy to attend this one at the moment. Other fans are likely to report back on this experience and hopefully it will be an enjoyable one.

Overall the shows' creators have not been idle since the 50th. There have been many changes in front of, and behind, the scenes. In an interview last year, Moffat said that he didn't want the 50th anniversary to feel like an epitaph. In this he has succeeded admirably. The show is continuing to change and expand its audience. Who knows what will change in Series 9?

Next year it will be the 10th anniversary of the show coming back so it’ll be interesting to see if Moff addresses that. Good things don’t last forever but the show is doing okay so far.

Doctor Who: Series 8 Overview

 

So, Peter Capaldi’s first series has been and gone. To be honest, I approached Series 8 with a mixture of anticipation and dread. While I was excited by that Peter Capaldi was going to be playing the Doctor, Series 7 had been fairly bland and I was worried that Steven Moffat had run out of ideas. Things looked positive at the start of the year, when Peter Capaldi got a decent costume, and the production seemed to be moving on with very little problems, but then the first five episodes leaked, making the build up to Deep Breath seem less exciting. Finally, the first episode arrived and I was relieved when not only did Series 8 turn out to be not bad, it's one of the best series we've had a in a while.

When Matt Smith became the Doctor we had no idea what he would bring to the role whereas when Peter Capaldi was cast, we all knew he could be a good Doctor and all this series really did was to confirm those expectations. The trailers suggested that he would be darker Doctor, but it turned out that he’s not so much “dark” as pragmatic. He does what is necessary to save people, regardless of sentiment. Moments of emotion do get through, such as his genuine surprise that Clara is walking out on him in Kill the Moon and the moment he tells Clara that her betrayal would not end their friendship. There are moments where he’s as gawky as Matt Smith, but with less frills it feels different. He may have had a costume similar to Pertwee's, but he’s not copying that performance. His little victory dance in Flatline was hilarious, but it’s not the primary feature of the Doctor. In some ways he reminds me of the Timothy Dalton version of James Bond. A little less audience friendly, but nonetheless extremely compelling to watch.

The Doctor's not the only character to have had an overhaul this series. Now that she’s free from the impossible girl story, Clara has been given far more depth than she was in Series 7. We actually got to see her being a control freak rather than just having her tell us she is. It's also been good to see her in a proper workplace, with fellow teachers and students. It makes her feel like she's got a real life and job in a way that her role as an au pair didn't. The biggest problem with the impossible girl story was always that Clara could never react to it. This time we get to see her losing her temper at the Doctor's actions in Kill the Moon as well as her stunned response to the death of Danny in a car crash. This has allowed us to see lots of different facets to Jenna's character It’s up in the air at the moment whether Jenna is actually staying beyond the Christmas Special, but I hope she does.

By coincidence or design, Moffat’s episodes have often matched events happening in the real world. Matt Smith was playing football in the Lodger while World Cup 2010 was airing. Voting and elections were mentioned in the Beast Below before the General election. This particular series tackled the theme of soldiery, which was fitting for the anniversary year of the First world War. Moffat handled the issues tastefully, dealing with the good and bad involved in armed conflict through Danny Pink. Danny is a good man who helped to dig wells, but was also responsible for the death of a child civilian. The whole of the human race is converted into an army of Cybermen, but this army is turned to good purposes to protect the human race rather than to attack. 
 

The exploration of soldiery ties in with the fact that this series has dealt with darker themes than Doctor Who has for a while. We’ve had the idea of corpses being cremated alive, an ex-soldier meeting the child he killed and a man being shot with his arm falling off. After the "everybody lives" Matt Smith fairy tale years, this change of tone is more than welcome. We seem to be pushing into the same edgy territory that was there in the Hinchcliffe era and I love it. This has inevitably led to complaints by some viewers, but I've always felt that drama should push you emotionally. Even the central characters are more morally ambiguous. Clara lies to her boyfriend, Danny occasionally becomes a bit controlling and the Doctor wants everyone to love him. This change of tone might have come about simply to emphasise the difference between Doctors but I wonder if it’s partly to do with the different point that Moffat is in his life now. Steven Moffat always used to let his kids read the scripts but now that they are teenagers themselves. This might be silly psychoanalysis. Either way, it’s resulted in a brilliant series, so I’m not complaining.

The story arc of Missy and the Nethersphere wasn’t quite as well handled. It was great to finally have a female incarnation of the Master, and Michelle Gomez gave a brilliant performance. Nevertheless, her plan to give the Doctor an army didn’t really make sense, nor did her reason for keeping Clara and the Doctor together. At least we got some progress on the Gallifrey situation as we now know that at least one Time Lord has managed to get back into this universe. It will be interesting to see whether Gallifrey will return during Steven Moffat’s tensure or whether that will be left to some hypothetical future show runner.

There are still some plot threads that have been left dangling that may or may not get answered in the future. We were never given the reason why Peter Capaldi's Doctor like Caecilius or John Frobisher, despite the hints of one in Deep Breath. There's also the question of who was behind Gus in Mummy on the Orient Express, and if Danny is really dead what will happen to Orson Pink? Has he been erased from history? Sometimes Moffat deals with these things, sometimes he doesn’t, and in the case of who blew up the Tardis in Series Five, he left it until Matt Smith's last adventure. So who knows if or when we’ll get answers to these things.


The production has appeared to progress smoothly with everyone confident in what they're doing. The standard of direction has been consistent, with the odd exception of the Bus with the Doctor Who poster appearing in In the Forest of the Night . The most likely reason for this improvement is having old hands like Brian Minchin and Peter Bennett around. Steven Moffat has never had the chance to build a consistent production team, with other producers coming or going regularly. Having the old guard back is helpful and hopefully they will stay on for next year.

A lot of little touches have helped. The decision to remake the fan-made title sequence was a good one, and the new theme music is not popular with everyone but I personally quite like it. Murray Gold has continued to produce excellent music this series. Even the Tardis interior has been improved this year with warmer lighting and more props to make it feel like a lived in space.

Overall, the best episode of this year was Listen. It was a very small scale story that managed to say something about the human response to fear. My least favourite story was Robots of Sherwood, which felt less ambitious than the stories around it.

Next up, we've got the Doctor and Clara meeting Santa Claus, so where will Series 9 take us after that? Things will inevitably be changed around as the producers decide what worked and what didn't. Given that Steven Moffat got rid of the Paradigm Daleks in light of the viewer responses, I can imagine that he might also try and lighten the tone of the next series. Peter Capaldi’s Doctor may also mellow in response to some of the reception. Personally, I think it would be a shame if this happened as I enjoyed those elements. Still, things move around.

Anyway, what we have here is a series that has been bolder and more interesting than Series 7. It seems that the arrival of a great new Doctor has galvanised the production team. Peter Capaldi’s Doctor has been given a great start. It was definitely worth the wait and we've got a run in with Santa Claus to look forward to in a months time. Let's hope it's just as good as the rest of this years run.



Interstellar (2014)

I got the chance to see Christopher Nolan's new film, Interstellar at the Cinema last Friday so here are a few rambling thoughts on it. If you haven't already seen this movie then look away now as there will be spoilers.

It's always nice to see a piece of fiction promoting the idea of space exploration in age where we seem to be becoming more and more insular. Doctor Who did something similar recently with Kill the Moon, but where that story used the fantasy concept of a moon dragon, this story used concepts rooted in hard science fiction. We have time paradoxes, black holes, gravity and concept of a tesseract. Apparently the filmmakers had a scientific advisor to help, but you don't need to be a science expert to understand this. As with Inception, Nolan has a knack for making complex ideas appear simple enough for the mainstream audience. Besides, most of the concepts are familiar to science fiction terms. I guessed early on the true identity of the "ghost" that was haunting the protagonist because I've been watching Steven Moffat's Doctor Who long enough to be primed to recognise a time paradox.

The special effects used to portray outer space and travel were very well done. The effect of the spinning Endurance spacecraft and seeing space moving were good as well as the ship moving in a different direction. The watery emptiness of Miller's planet. The scenes of Cooper going through the wormhole and ending up in the fifth dimension were very trippy.

The characters were fairly straightforward archetypes, which is the case with characters in a Nolan film. The protagonist, Cooper is the standard adventurer who ends up leaving his two children and father-in-law, behind to go into space, and later comes to regret it. It's very familiar territory.The other main character is Cooper's daughter, Murphy. She gets to grow up and be a scientist. The fact that these two characters reconcile at the end is no surprise. The young father seeing the last moments of his older, dying daughter is visually interesting.

The other cast are fairly decent. We have the obligatory appearance of Michael Caine in a Christopher Nolan film, this time as Dr Brand. But it's always good to see Michael Caine so this isn't really a complaint. Matt Damon made a fairly good cowardly villain as Dr Mann. Not a nasty character as such, but a weak man whittled down until he cracked.  The weakest character was Amelia Brand played by Anne Hathaway, the daughter of Dr Brand and potential love interest for Cooper. Despite being a scientist she is made to look irrational to her male crewmembers because she loves Edmund and wants to land on Edmund's world despite the better result from Mann's. The robot TARS was fun though. Good to have a bit of comic relief in a fairly serious film.

The only rough bits to the film. The fight sequence between Cooper and Dr Mann oddly enough felt more comical than serious because of all the messing around in space suits. The other rough bit was the cheesy ending
when Murphy cracks the code to Plan B and starts throwing around the papers and kissing her lab assistant was a bit clichéd. Other funny seen was son coming back after his crop had been burned and just listening to Murphy's gleefulness rather than getting angry.

Overall a fairly decent sci-fi film. Perhaps a bit too long, but another decent film from Christopher Nolan.

8/10

Doctor Who 8x12: Death in Heaven

Oh dear. Up to this point, Series 8 has consistently maintained a high quality, so it's a shame that it fell slightly at the last hurdle. What we have with Death in Heaven is an episode where the individual moments were more enjoyable than the piece as a whole.

The revelation that Missy created an army of Cybermen for the purpose of handing control to the Doctor didn't really work. This Doctor has been so strongly opposed to soldiers that it's hard to believe he'll ever do anything with the army. It also makes the plot feel small in scale. Davros tried to reveal the Doctor's soul in The Stolen Earth, but that was just one part of a much larger plan to destroy reality. It wasn't the whole point of the exercise. Likewise, the reveal that Missy was the woman in the shop and that she manoeuvred Clara into the Doctor's life so that she could lead the Doctor to the point of taking the army was unconvincing as well. How many variables did Missy have to think through to imagine them reaching this point?

It was good to see UNIT again, but they were somewhat wasted. They may well link into the central theme of soldiers, but they didn't accomplish anything other than to nearly get killed. Kate Lethbridge Stewart appears for the sole purpose of introducing her father. Osgood is here to die so that we can tell how evil Missy. And what is the point of hiring Sanjeev Bhaskar for such a minor role as Colonel Ahmed? They might as well have hired a lesser known actor.

The story did manage present the Cybermen in a far more effective way. The idea of them as the living dead was used in Tomb of the Cybermen and here we get them rising from the grave. The notion that they were literally pollinating from the ground might seem a bit ridiculous, but then again this is the same race that hatched from eggs in The Wheel in Space. The only trouble is that once they've risen from the graves, they just stand around doing nothing.

Danny's story arc concluded reasonably well. The realisation of his Cyber Converson looked good. All palid skin. There were still some problems though. We never knew if Danny had made the decision to wipe his memories. It's also unclear why he decided to take Clara to the graveyard. Did the Cyberman programming override his will at that point? His final decision to lead the Cybermen to the destruction was good. What happens to Orson Pink?

The scene of the Doctor having to kill Missy was good. Her apparent death at the end of this story is fooling no-one. She's probably as dead as Ainley's Master was after being burned to a crisp in Planet of Fire.

I have mixed feelings about the Brigadier living on as a Cyberman. As Danny proved, it was a kind of living hell. This is then followed by another ridiculous moment for Clara. The kid shouldn't have been able to come back as he was just a mind within the Nethersphere, not a person.

In a way this feels like Moffat was trying to recreate the RTD era finales. We have Cybermen invading as per Doomsday, the Master from The Stolen Earth and the morale dilemma from Journey's End. But this didn't work as well.

While the plot felt like it was a bit all over the place, the cast are utterly perfect in what they do. Michelle Gomez has become one of my favourite incarnations of the Master. You laugh at her jokes but then you hate her for killing Osgood.

All of the problems of the above were almost worth it for scene of the Doctor and Clara in the Café, lying to each other about their happiness in the hope of protecting the other. In some ways its a shame that this won't be Clara's genuine departure because it's just so good.

Clara is another highlight of this episode. From the opening moments when she pretends to be the Doctor with a wonderful confident swagger to her sadness at Danny's passing. I don't know if Jenna is staying on for much longer but she's definitely hasn't outstayed her welcome.

And of course, we get to the leading man himself. Peter Capaldi has been a brilliant Doctor. It's funny that when they showed Matt Smith in the flashbacks, he now felt like an old Doctor. Peter no longer feels like "the new guy". He is the Doctor.

This episode might have veered up and down in quality, but it doesn't cancel out all of the great stuff that happened elsewhere. Overall, I'd say that Peter Capaldi's Doctor has got off to a great start and I look forward to seeing how his Doctor develops in the next series.

5/10

Next Time: Nick Frost is Santa Claus, but is Santa as real as Robin Hood or is something else going on?

Doctor Who 8x11: Dark Water

While the journey from the beginning to the end Series 8 has been fun, I wasn't entirely sure I'd like the destination. All of the pre-publicity for Dark Water suggested that this story would be a traditional invasion of Earth by the Cybermen. What we got was something that combined the traditional elements, with some more disturbing ones.

The story opens in the most unusual manner for a Doctor Who story, with Clara about to tell Danny something over the phone when he dies in a car crash. As Clara says afterwards, it's a very mundane way to die, especially in a show with laser guns and science fantasy. After a particularly emotional scene between the Doctor and Clara, the Doctor concedes to take Clara to find Danny in the one place he has never visited. The afterlife.

Moffat’s stories have often explored the theme of death, as well as ways of cheating it. In the past, cheating death has been painless, but this time around the theme was presented in a much darker light in the form of the Nethersphere and the 3W, and had a much grimmer sense. Danny Pink, like Rory before him, dies. But this time he awakens in the 'afterlife' he can still feel linked to his body. The notion suggested by Doctor Chang of 3W, that bodies can feel when they're being cremated, is wonderfully disturbing and edgy for a Saturday night family show. The idea of Danny Pink coming face to face with the boy he killed was just as bleak and interesting. The Nethersphere itself is well presented, a city, bleak place. Some people might have been offended by the idea of cremated people still being alive. Good. This series has pushed at the boundaries of further than others, which is why it’s the best since Series Five. I’m reminded of Russell T Davies’ statement that drama shouldn’t make people feel comfortable. In the end of course, the notion of being scared of cremation is just a fake, designed to force humans to preserve the bodies for cyber conversion.

The Cybermen were one element that everyone was expecting, not only because of the trailers, but also because of the outdoor filming. The show does not even bother to hide it. As soon as The Doctor refers to “Tombs” you know what the skeletons really are. The only trouble is that, as with a lot of other stories, such as The Invasion, Rise of the Cybermen and The Next Doctor, is that the Cybermen are still upstaged by the humanoid villain, in this case, Missy. These particular Cybermen are neither from Mondas or from Pete’s World. These are just Missy’s footsoldiers.

Up until this episode, Missy is the one element of Series 8 that I hadn't really cared for. Fortunately this has now changed. The sense of disorientation that people feel after entering the Nethersphere is probably the same as the way I felt when Missy revealed herself to be the Master. This was followed by a sense of glee. I knew there'd been rumours that Missy was the newest incarnation of the Master, but I'd dismissed it as plain fan theory. The scene where she was pretending to be an android was never really going to fool anyone as she was given far too much importance prior to this episode to turn out to be a minor part. Still, at least it's fun to watch the Doctor's reaction to her charade. I did think she might be Susan Foreman, but the “welcome” she gives the Doctor would have made that plot twist really icky. It could have been Romana, but then that would have turned Romana into a villain who wants to invade Earth, which isn't really like her. Some people will no doubt dislike the revelation. A few years ago I would have been the same, if I hadn't had the chance to see the Barbara Benedetti fan film Doctor which changed my opinion on female Doctors. For those unhappy with Moffat's decision, let’s not forget that the Master has been a decaying corpse (The Deadly Assassin), a morphant snake (The TV Movie) and an x-ray skeleton guy who shoots lasers from his hands and eats tramps (The End of Time).  Some fans think that Steven is paving the way for a female Doctor, but I think if he'd really wanted to cast a woman he would done that last year. If there is another Doctor after Capaldi, I doubt it’s going to be a woman, but this gesture makes the likelihood more possible in the long run. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. This could all be a massive feint, like when Tennant’s Doctor appeared to be regenerating in The Stolen Earth, or when David Morrisey was promoted as 'the next Doctor'. Perhaps Seb is also the Master and they are both just fragments of the same character. Still, I hope that’s not the case because this is the more daring and more interesting idea. My only real issue with the whole reveal is that if the Doctor had felt her hearts, he should have confronted her about it sooner

The regulars are all pretty great this time.  Danny Pink got a lot of material this time around as he comes to terms with the Nethersphere and is forced to confront the child he killed. Samuel Anderson really plays these scenes very well. Danny's decision to lie to Clara about the Nethersphere to protect her was good, but will he truly go through with the decision to delete his emotions?


Clara is particularly interesting this time around. She has something she wants to say to Danny, but what is it? What was her deal with the post-it notes? Was she going to admit to all her journeys in the Tardis, or was there something else? Next week's episode should make that scene a bit clearer. Her attempt to blackmail the by throwing the Tardis keys into the volcano was the probably the most dramatic scene this character has ever got, even though it was undercut by the knowledge that the Doctor could have just clicked the fingers to open the doors.

Peter Capaldi's Doctor was given several great moments this week when he decides to help Clara in spite of her betrayal. This is the same Doctor after all, albeit more pragmatic. He also got his first kiss this week, and it was amusing to see him react in the same nervous way that Matt Smith did. It's not clear yet whether Steven Moffat will stay on Doctor Who for all of Capaldi's run, but if he continues to write the Doctor this well, I hope it's for a while yet.

All in all, this was an enjoyable part one. There's still more to come as Kate Lethbridge Stewart and Osgood have yet to appear. Let's hope Death in Heaven is a good follow up to these threads.

9/10