RTD's 2003 pitch for NuWho

[ClockworkOcean]

"And considering he’s an alien, he’s more human than the best human you can imagine. He should also be sexy. Not necessarily young, but let’s move on from that neutered, posh, public-school, fancy-dress-frock-coat image."

"If the Zogs on planet Zog are having trouble with the Zog-monster… who gives a toss? But if a human colony on the planet Zog is in trouble, a last outpost of humanity fighting to survive… then I’m interested. Every story, somehow, should come back to Earth, to humanity, its ancestors and its descendants."

"The fiction of the Doctor has got forty years of back-story… Which we’ll ignore. Except for the good bits. The rest of the series continuity is absolutely irrelevant. I don’t care that in 1973, he used gadget X to escape from planet Y. And regeneration isn’t important... The new mythology mustn’t become as tangled as the old."

"Whether we develop it or not, ‘Last of the Time Lords’ has got a ring to it. And it guarantees that no men in silly hats are going to turn up."

"If we could have the voice at the beginning of The X Factor introducing each episode I would do it."

[iank]

The man was, is, and always will be an idiot.
New Who was never Doctor Who. Furthermore, it was never meant to be.

RTD was never anything but a conman. Sadly for him, I think most people have finally rumbled him now.

[Deleted]

The warning signs were there.

Seems like he's embarrassed by the original series. Obviously the perfect man to bring it back.

[burrunjor]

"He should also be sexy. Not necessarily young, but let’s move on from that neutered, posh, public-school, fancy-dress-frock-coat image."

Big words coming from an Oxford boy. 

This demonstrates why this buffoon should never have been let near DW then, never mind 20 years on. He is a tedious, shallow, heat magazine loving moron with 0 respect for the original and even less understanding of what made it work. Self loathing fanboyism, nostalgia and his drek being the introduction to great ideas from the original like the Daleks, Cybermen, regeneration etc saved him from the mediocrity of writing late night C4 dramas about gay men wanking each other off, and young brainless morons shagging that he was destined for (and where he should have stayed.)

[burrunjor]

Funny I shared this on the Buffy forum and one user assumed those quotes were made up! When I confirmed they were real their response was. 

wow. such a hatred for the source material

Again just a reminder that all the slavish devotion to RTD from classic who fans like Jon Blum does not look normal to the outside world. I have 0 issue with people who grew up on RTD being so devoted. That's fair enough, and I don't even mind classic era fans enjoying his version, but this insistence they have that his was the only way to do it, that he was actually being faithful to the original by not being faithful to it, and then that the original was just a joke and nothing like it could have ever worked is very unusual among fandoms. 

Meanwhile the Godzilla fandom who rejected their RTD, Dean Delvin and Roland Emmerich's similarly bastardized version in 1998, and insisted that you bring Godzilla into the 21st century by actually updating him in practical ways, and not just throwing everything about him out because he was rubbish anyway, they are celebrating a proper, faithful Godzilla movie being nominated for an Oscar. How is DW doing these days again?

PS it made me laugh when that AWFUL wiki Doctor Who General that was designed to be a satirical look at DW fandom,  but just repeated all the same talking points (and love Missy of course) sneered at Godzilla fandom all the time for being made up of sad man babies. 

Well if that's where sad man babies get you. 

www.indy100.com/showbiz/godzilla-minus-one-oscar-nomination

and the grown up "I accept that it's all about change because I'm not a sad anorak" modern fans get you this. 




Sign me up for the manbabies right away!

[iank]

It's just so shameful, and so, so sad.

[rushy]

my favourite bit is "the new mythology mustn't become as tangled as the old"

the weight of classic Who has NOTHING on the likes of the Time War, the undoing of the Time War, Gallifrey being forgotten, the Time Lords being killed offscreen, the Timeless Child

[ClockworkOcean]

Jan 24, 2024 21:30:09 GMT rushy said:

my favourite bit is "the new mythology mustn't become as tangled as the old"

the weight of classic Who has NOTHING on the likes of the Time War, the undoing of the Time War, Gallifrey being forgotten, the Time Lords being killed offscreen, the Timeless Child

Then there's RTD retconning the entire on-screen timeline pre-2023 out of existence and making it that the different incarnations of the Doctor aren't even the same person anymore with bi-generation, and Clara being responsible for pretty much every good thing that ever happened in the universe. For them to claim that a few fan-servicey references in some 80s stories made the show completely incomprehensible to mainstream viewers and then do all of this is beyond insane.

[rushy]

Jan 25, 2024 14:27:07 GMT ClockworkOcean said:

For them to do all of this is beyond insane.

Fixed that for you.

No other show - except maybe Once Upon a Time - has been so f*cked in terms of its continuity

[burrunjor]

"The 1998 Godzilla was a mistake. It just wasn't Godzilla. He didn't have the characters iconic fire breath, he wasn't indestructible. There wasn't any other monster for Godzilla to fight, he was too cowardly, running away from jets rather than just plowing his way through. His design was all wrong, and the writer and director didn't seem to care much for Godzilla. They said the old movies were stupid, and they seemed to be more interested in doing a Jurassic Park type movie than Godzilla. It wasn't the worst movie to bare the name Godzilla, obviously, but if you're going to adapt Godzilla, make it recognizable as Godzilla in some way. I don't care if it technically did better at the box office than any Japanese Godzilla movie did in the west. I don't care if it even introduced a whole generation of 90s babies to the character. I want to see a proper Godzilla movie, and I have faith the character is strong enough to work for a mainstream audience if you just update the effects, cut out the absolute overt silliness but make it fundamentally Godzilla." 

Result, next Godzilla revival?





















variety.com/2021/film/box-office/godzilla-vs-kong-box-office-milestone-1235001060/

apnews.com/article/oscars-godzilla-minus-one-visual-effects-75fac58852704fe1b71e1a84e701c27d

"No way can an old 20th century classic like DW that is seen as campy, silly etc, simply be updated with modern practical effects, a healthy respect for the source material, and even a little bit of fanservice to the original now and then. That's impossible and anybody who says that is just a sad manbaby, who would kill DW in an instant and consign us to the wilderness years. Face facts even though I like it, DW is a pathetic joke of a brand. All the comedians take the piss out of it on such enduring classics as it's only tv but I like it. You can't have any confidence in the brand without being seen as a sado loser. Russell T Davies clearly understands that and is tune with the general public better than anyone else. It's good if he makes it more like other, popular, trendy shows and includes references to the flavour of the month like Weakest Link. Let me post DW General Wiki's "Times DW was ruined forever"  article to write off all criticism of the show."

Meanwhile how the DW revival has developed with that attitude?



















Result?

www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10659956/doctor-who-ratings-fall-worst-ever/

There's some kind of lesson to be learned here? I'm not sure what it is? 

(PS this discrepancy is even more hilarious when you consider that Godzilla is Japanese and hasn't really had much success as a mainstream property in the west prior to the Monsterverse, whilst DW has as big a following as Godzilla in the US and has done since the 80s, and is THE most mainstream franchise in the UK.) 

[burrunjor]

Forgot this scene. Damn wish I had included it. Oh well. 




There has never, EVER in now almost 20 years been a scene like this in new who that sums up the character so perfectly, whilst being so unbelievably awesome. 

I guess the closest they came to was No Sir all 13. At the time that was even better than this, but it's let down since by the revelation that A/ Gallifrey was destroyed two years or so later anyway, and by one guy somehow, when it took billions of Daleks centuries in a Lovecraftian war, and B/ that the Time Lords were his torturers and abusers and therefore he is now free of those monsters, so saving them was actually an example of Stockholm syndrome. 

Again what a fandom of pathetic man babies according to DW General Wiki vs self loathing fans does for you. 

[rushy]

I don't at all understand the comparison of Godzilla to Doctor Who

[Spark Doll King]

That planet Zog quote has always been the one to annoy me the most. It' displays a total lack of respect or understanding for science fiction.

I think Godzilla, and if I dare say Ultraman, work as comparisons because they are long running franchises that while changing, have stood the test of time without betraying the spirit of what came befor.

[rushy]

Yeah, but it's not like it's an incredibly complex formula. You have your human story, you have your monster that has a few recognisable attributes. And your audiences will barely care if the human story gets mucked up so long as their monsters are represented well.

It's basically just a big budget Friday the 13th

[burrunjor]

Feb 18, 2024 19:34:40 GMT rushy said:

I don't at all understand the comparison of Godzilla to Doctor Who

Then you're being deliberately obtuse, which seems to be the only tactic people have for defending New Who, pretend the other persons argument is nonsensical so you don't have to answer it. Anything but actually defend it. 

The comparison is not that Godzilla and DW are similar. Its that Godzilla and DW were both 20th century sci fi classics that were huge in their native countries, and became known around the world. 

Both were also campy at certain points and looked down on by mainstream twats for that reason, despite their important places in popular culture and massive influence and creativity. 

At some point both franchises were eyed up by a chancer who wanted to exploit the brand name, and had an interest in certain parts of it, but didn't respect the fundamentals and wanted to make it more like another franchise that was trendy at the time.

In Godzilla's case this was Roland Emmerich and Dean Delvin, both of whom admitted they disliked Godzilla, feeling that it was too silly to be done seriously. The only thing Emmerich liked was the idea of a monster attacking and destroying a city, and of course rather than just do a film like that, he hoped the Godzilla name would sell it. He jettisoned so much of what made Godzilla, Godzilla like his firey breath, his indestructibility, his design, fighting other monsters, being the king of monsters etc. He also made it more like Jurassic Park, which was at the height of its popularity. 

RTD similarly had tried to make a Buffyesque fantasy show called Excalibur, but nobody would buy it, so he revived DW, and spun Excalibur off it as Torchwood. RTD like Emmerich had open contempt for the original, and only liked certain parts of it like the Daleks, the idea of a time travelling hero etc, but otherwise he felt there is no way DW could be done properly like it was as it was such a joke. Like Emmerich he therefore took many essential parts of the Doctors character and what made him unique away and made it like Angel and Buffy, with that type of show being at its most popular. 

In both cases the basterdisation was actually successful, but the difference was how the fans reacted. 

Godzilla fans? HATED it. They said that it wasn't Godzilla, it was an attempt to cash in on the name and insisted if you try and do a western Godzilla, actually try and make it Godzilla. As a result when a western company tried to do another Godzilla movie, they made damn sure it was faithful. Obviously they didn't keep the overt camp, an added their own twists to the Godzilla story, but overall they kept the fundamentals. They made the big G indestructible, had him fight other monsters, made him the king of the monsters, restored his atomic breath, etc. They just updated it in practical ways, better effects, more modern stories, etc.  

This new and faithful Godzilla series ended up being a massive success and the popularity of the Godzilla franchise has genuinely reached new heights in the west, with the Big G now being up for an Oscar! Godzilla has truly been vindicated in the west. 

Classic DW fans however? They were so desperate for it to be popular again, to be seen as keeeewwwwwwlllllll, and not mocked by panel show and media twats that they were happy to go along with ANY bastardisation if it made them popular. It did for a short while, for various reasons we've been over. It was the introduction for a new generation to things like Daleks, Cybermen, regeneration, the nostalgia for the original, it being hyped and given all the publicity in the world, and the hunger for adventure tv after the dearth of the 90s and 00s etc. However the success didn't last and worse as RTD and his successors insisted on latching this revival onto the original rather than just letting it stand as a remake, thy ended up f*cking up the identity of the entire thing as now they had to try and make these fundamentally different shows fit. From the Jackie Tyler adventures in Big Finish to pointless retcons in new who that reveled in the past, to the official history of the show being rewritten such as it being included in Roger Delgado's own biography about how he added a sexual, suggestive aspect to the Doctors relationship with the Master. It turned both shows into one big tangled, contradictory, ridiculous mess.

The result is that DW is now a cluster f*ck where nothing matters anymore, and the franchise has arguably never been in a worse position in every way. Dwindling fandom, international appeal completely dead, a joke among the general public rather than just panel show twats, nobody sure just what the Doctor is supposed to be thanks to all the retcons, just 4 seasons  in 10 years, all ratings disasters etc. 

The lesson here is always have confidence in the thing you are a fan of and don't let it conmen take it over.