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Post by burrunjor on Jan 30, 2024 15:31:51 GMT
This is probably not a subject you'd see very often LOL. Ironically I'd say Saward and RTD fans are among the most hostile to one another. RTD fans generally, not always, but generally tend to see Saward as ruining the show by sucking all the fun out of it, and making it inaccessable to mainstream viewers. Plenty of Saward fans however view RTD as a sell out who in contrast dumbed it down and made it into shallow, celeb culture obsessed, Disney fair (even before Disney literally became investors) as opposed to Saward who brought a gritty edge to it.
In all honesty though I think both men's style is pretty much the same at least in the most important ways.
1/ Both of them were good at writing for an old villain, the Daleks in RTD's case and the Cybermen in Saward's. Both seemed to love these villains more than anything else in the show and really went out of their way to make them a force to be reckoned with, gave them a swanky new redesign, and had them inflict personal tragedies on the Doctor to further cement their status as the main villains, from Adrics death to the 9th Doctors regeneration and the Time War and losing Rose etc. Both also spearheaded the return of these villains after a long hiatus and helped integrate them into popular culture again.
It's also worth mentioning that both of them were among a handful of writers to write for both the Daleks and the Cybermen. Interestingly enough both when writing for the other big monster that wasn't their favourite (Daleks in Sawards case, Cybermen in Davies.) They made them more like their favourite monster. Saward wrote the Daleks as a desperate race struggling to survive like the Cybermen had always been at that point, and had them convert people, whilst Davies gave the Cybermen a Davros like figure in Lumic, flashing light bulbs when they spoke and a Dalek like catchphrase of "DELETE!"
2/ Both of them also wrote very dark stories, with huge body counts and tended to write downer endings too where the Doctor usually lost or at best had a phyric victory.
3/ Both also had a huge hero worship of Bob Holmes and tried to emulate his style at different points, to mixed results. Saward was probably the most obvious in this respect, but still some of their stories do bare certain similarities to Bob Holmes old scripts. The Visitation is the Time Warrior, and Waters of Mars bares a number of similarities to the Ark in Space, and the Satan two Parter is very much a Pyramids of Mars type of adventure, right down to Gabriel Wolf.
4/ Both tended to enjoy exploring ideas of body horror, from the Flood and Vengeance on Varos, to Cyber conversion (which both put at the forefront, unlike other writers for the Cybermen after the 60s.) Both also did stories about the Daleks turning humans into Daleks to explore body horror themes,
5/ Both also seemed to enjoy connecting the Doctor to important events in history like the great fire of London, extinction of the Dinosaurs, Pompei, Shakespeare's missing play, the Coronation. Again unlike others such as say Barry Letts they fully embraced the time travel aspect.
6/ Finally and this is where both fell down. They also seemed to dislike the character of the Doctor!A t least both of them thought the Doctor was an old fashioned, stuffy, boring, uncool hero that the kids of today couldn't get with, so they tried to make the Doctor more like what at that point were trendy, cool heroes.
Davies turned the Doctor into an Angel/Xena clone, a brooding immortal, dressed in a black leather coat, who has done bad things and wants to make amends, meets a little blonde girl that he saves from mediocrity, but she holds back his bad side etc.
Saward meanwhile tried to make the Doctor into a darker, edgier anti hero like the type you'd see in 2000 AD at the time.
To be fair to them other writers tapped into the zeitgeist before, like Barry Letts making Pertwee's Doctor into a bit of a James Bond expy. However Letts didn't do it to the point where it went against the Doctors character. His Doctor for instance didn't start shagging all the gorgeous young women around him. He still remained the old professorial character. However Eccelston's Doctor falling in love with Rose was for many too out of character.
In addition to this, though this is more of a coincidence on Saward's part they also both oversaw a younger more emotional Doctor, and a grumpy, spikier, darker Doctor and in both cases, ironically they fell out with the actor playing the spikier version who will NEVER be in the same room as them again LOL.
I think both RTD and Saward for the record where actually good writers. Stories like Utopia, Resurrection of the Daleks, Earthshock, The Next Doctor, and Waters of Mars are all classics. However both weren't the best person to run DW, simply because neither really liked the main character.
You can get away with that if you are just writing a story, as the script editor can then tidy up your scripts and write the Doctor in character, and give him a bigger role, but not if you run it.
What do you think?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2024 16:48:30 GMT
I'd much rather go for a pint with Saward.
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 30, 2024 16:56:08 GMT
I'd much rather go for a pint with Saward. Not if you were Colin Baker. He said he'd punch Saward if he ever saw him again in JNT's biography and is also on record as never showing up for a convention if Saward is there. Here's what he said in DW magazine. What I don't forgive Eric for is that later he betrayed my friendship
He had come to my home for lunch several times and aired his misgivings about what John was doing as producer. And i didn't agree with him, but i listened to what he said. I saw my role as dealing with someone who is part of the team and is going through some sort of crisis - and i did my best to reassure Eric. And he would go away at the end of it saying 'Oh, thanks for that, I had to tell somebody.' And he even said 'When i first heard you were playing the part, i wasn't that sure, but now i think you're great. Thank you for what you're doing"....but then, when he fell out with John and left the show, I read an interview in Starburst in which he said - I can't remember the exact words, but he said that he thought John was awful, and that he'd cast this bloody awful actor Colin Baker...Eric was very derogatory about John and me.
'This is a man that I have entertained in my home,' i thought. 'If i felt that way about somebody i was working with i wouldn't go to their house - I'd make and excuse and not go...I felt really betrayed. And i've never heard from him since - not a word. He went to a few conventions early on, but i just wouldn't go to them if he was there....I didn't want to be put in the position of having a public row with him because i'd have had to say 'You're a bloody shit, Eric. You've gone beyond the bounds of friendship' He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but why not express it to me, rather than the readers of Starburst.
If i had felt the way that Eric Saward had felt about Doctor Who, I would have left the programme 5 years earlier and gone and done something else.
In contrast Colin had rather a nice meeting with RTD when he visited the set of Voyage of the Damned. Worth remembering I suppose when we think Colin goes too easy on New Who. Still Eccelston DEFINITELY would agree with you there LOL. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2024 16:57:16 GMT
I'd much rather go for a pint with Saward. Not if you were Colin Baker. He said he'd punch Saward if he ever saw him again in JNT's biography and is also on record as never showing up for a convention if Saward is there. Here's what he said in DW magazine. What I don't forgive Eric for is that later he betrayed my friendship
He had come to my home for lunch several times and aired his misgivings about what John was doing as producer. And i didn't agree with him, but i listened to what he said. I saw my role as dealing with someone who is part of the team and is going through some sort of crisis - and i did my best to reassure Eric. And he would go away at the end of it saying 'Oh, thanks for that, I had to tell somebody.' And he even said 'When i first heard you were playing the part, i wasn't that sure, but now i think you're great. Thank you for what you're doing"....but then, when he fell out with John and left the show, I read an interview in Starburst in which he said - I can't remember the exact words, but he said that he thought John was awful, and that he'd cast this bloody awful actor Colin Baker...Eric was very derogatory about John and me.
'This is a man that I have entertained in my home,' i thought. 'If i felt that way about somebody i was working with i wouldn't go to their house - I'd make and excuse and not go...I felt really betrayed. And i've never heard from him since - not a word. He went to a few conventions early on, but i just wouldn't go to them if he was there....I didn't want to be put in the position of having a public row with him because i'd have had to say 'You're a bloody shit, Eric. You've gone beyond the bounds of friendship' He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but why not express it to me, rather than the readers of Starburst.
If i had felt the way that Eric Saward had felt about Doctor Who, I would have left the programme 5 years earlier and gone and done something else.
In contrast Colin had rather a nice meeting with RTD when he visited the set of Voyage of the Damned. Worth remembering I suppose when we think Colin goes too easy on New Who. Still Eccelston DEFINITELY would agree with you there LOL. I don't particularly like either of them as people, but I think Saward would have some interesting things to say. RTD would probably just talk about how great he is. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2024 20:37:18 GMT
RTD strikes me as a man perfectly competent at his job, but with nothing really to say at all. I bought the Writer's Tale some years ago and was shocked by how airheaded and giggly the whole thing came across. I think people really tend to underestimate how much of making a successful show or film comes down to being the right man in the right place at the right time. RTD didn't possess some otherworldy genius; everything just fell into place. This eventually burned out by the Moffat years and I'd argue Moffat even tried to capture the whole super-brain intellect thingy with his nonsense plots when he realised the zeitgeist was going south for Doctor Who.
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Post by rushy on Jan 30, 2024 21:04:24 GMT
It's hard to compare them because they're in very different positions. RTD had pretty much unlimited creative control since day 1. Saward had to share the reins with JNT.
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 31, 2024 10:00:23 GMT
RTD strikes me as a man perfectly competent at his job, but with nothing really to say at all. I bought the Writer's Tale some years ago and was shocked by how airheaded and giggly the whole thing came across. I think people really tend to underestimate how much of making a successful show or film comes down to being the right man in the right place at the right time. RTD didn't possess some otherworldy genius; everything just fell into place. This eventually burned out by the Moffat years and I'd argue Moffat even tried to capture the whole super-brain intellect thingy with his nonsense plots when he realised the zeitgeist was going south for Doctor Who. Yes I agree with this to some extent. Been saying it for years in fact. If something like that first Eccelston series had come in the middle of the Davison era, it would have killed the show stone dead. It was every bit as campy and silly as season 24, to be honest in some areas more so. Time and the Rani has silly moments, but is still a serious sci fi story at its heart. Bad Wolf literally is just an excuse for RTD to indulge in his Heat Magazine interests and the comedy is far more ridiculous and overt in season 1 too. McCoy rolling his Rs, and even the Rani's Bonnie Langford impression are not as bad as Jack shoving a gun up his arse, farting, nudist aliens, Anne Robinson robots and a plastic surgery leaf woman. However season 24 came when the show was a quarter of a century old, when the Beeb were doing everything they could to kill it, it was on opposite a show getting 30 million and it had no publicity, so it all fell on its arse. Series 1 came after a 15 year hiatus, when the general public who by and large despite what the panel show c*nts say, had fond memories of the original and wanted it back, when lots of young people like me had grown up on the videos and wanted their own Doctor Who, and when there were also millions of young people who hadn't seen it, simply because it wasn't on tv anymore. These young people would be introduced to things like Daleks, Cybermen, the TARDIS etc for the first time via this series giving it a special place in their hearts. On top of that he also had massive publicity, and a great time slot too. All of these factors played into his era being a huge success, and it's worth noting that until Voyage of the Damned, the first episode of series 4, no episode exceeded Rose in viewers, and even then the only episodes that did, were either ratings stunts like teasing killing off Tennant, or stunt casting like Kylie Minogue or big event episodes. RTD absolutely built his success from the original, NOT the other way around as sadly official fandom always claims. That said however you do have to give RTD some credit for maintaining the viewers over those 4 years. Whilst things certainly were easier for him consistently than they were for JNT, but hype doesn't always guarantee success. Still even then to call him a genius for that is ridiculous. To be honest I don't like the term genius anyway. It's misleading. People are skilled in different areas. Beethoven wasn't a great astrophysicist, and Stephen Hawking's music sucked LOL. Still to reserve it for a guy who made a tv show popular for a few years (and even then as we've been over his era actually isn't even close to the most popular era for said show.) That is utterly ridiculous. |
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 31, 2024 10:08:47 GMT
It's hard to compare them because they're in very different positions. RTD had pretty much unlimited creative control since day 1. Saward had to share the reins with JNT. There are differences, but overall I think their attitude to the show was pretty much the same. Preferring a popular villain to the hero, wanting it to be more like whatever was trendy, trying to be dark and edgy, obsessed with connecting the Doctor to significant historical events, trying to emulate Bob Holmes and often failing etc. To be honest we can be grateful Saward wasn't in complete control. Not only is the showrunner a terrible formula for even the best writer, but Saward would have been a disaster as seen with the stories he wrote without JNT's involvement. Birth of a Renegade was a 20th anniversary story Saward wrote for the Radio Times which is basically the Timeless Children of its day. It doesn't reveal there were hundreds of pre Hartnell Doctors, but it does reveal that the Doctor was brainwashed into being the Doctor and therefore removes his agency. The Timeless Children is even more embarrassing in this respect, being just a cheap rip off of an already crap story written for spin off material. As I've said before RTD may have actually been a good writer if he had someone to hold him back. His free reign as showrunner leads to him indulging in all of his tedious, heat magazine interests that are wrong for DW. However again when forced to actually write a sci fi story, either by the budget, or because he had to for variety, or it was a last minute replacement, he does a good job as seen with Tooth and Claw, Utopia, Next Doctor, Midnight, Waters of Mars etc. All stories that are set on genuine alien planets, or other times at least, so he can't indulge in his heat magazine interests, or the fact that he's Welsh LOL, or the Manchester gay scene in the 80s when he was keeeewwwwwlllll and is forced to actually draw on sci fi and horror tropes for inspiration. If he had been forced to do that as either a writer or a script editor, then he may have been great for the show, but sadly he would never do that as he is too big an egomaniac. |
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Post by rushy on Jan 31, 2024 11:10:20 GMT
If something like that first Eccelston series had come in the middle of the Davison era, it would have killed the show stone dead. You're forgetting that delivery also makes a huge difference. Classic Who had (mostly) static cinematography. 21st century TV is filmed to be much closer to a movie. It's designed to be more flashy, more exciting. Cinematic. Music video-esque, even. Which makes it easier to suspend disbelief, because it's less realistic to begin with. Classic Who isn't paced like a movie, it's paced like life. It's grounded. It's the sort of thing you'd see on stage, playing out in real time. So the silliness stands out that much more. If "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" had come in the middle of the Hartnell era, it would have killed the show stone dead too. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2024 12:00:08 GMT
If something like that first Eccelston series had come in the middle of the Davison era, it would have killed the show stone dead. You're forgetting that delivery also makes a huge difference. Classic Who had (mostly) static cinematography. 21st century TV is filmed to be much closer to a movie. It's designed to be more flashy, more exciting. Cinematic. Music video-esque, even. Which makes it easier to suspend disbelief, because it's less realistic to begin with. Classic Who isn't paced like a movie, it's paced like life. It's grounded. It's the sort of thing you'd see on stage, playing out in real time. So the silliness stands out that much more. If "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" had come in the middle of the Hartnell era, it would have killed the show stone dead too. Unfortunately this is the reality. Pretty much every Classic Who episode has pacing issues due to its medium. I know people find it charming but I roll my eyes at every cliffhanger basically. It just stops the story dead. Add to that none of its writers were particularly adept playwrights and you get a pretty glaring overriding issue with the show. I don't think there's any shame in admitting that Classic Who was for the most part shoddily produced, shoddily edited and shoddily directed. It's a very unserious show after all, and the "don't give a shit about how tacky I look" attitude comes across well from a certain point of view I find. I enjoy it a lot, but as a period piece. I would never think to ask for something like Classic Who to come to our screens now. |
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 31, 2024 12:01:24 GMT
If something like that first Eccelston series had come in the middle of the Davison era, it would have killed the show stone dead. You're forgetting that delivery also makes a huge difference. Classic Who had (mostly) static cinematography. 21st century TV is filmed to be much closer to a movie. It's designed to be more flashy, more exciting. Cinematic. Music video-esque, even. Which makes it easier to suspend disbelief, because it's less realistic to begin with. Classic Who isn't paced like a movie, it's paced like life. It's grounded. It's the sort of thing you'd see on stage, playing out in real time. So the silliness stands out that much more. If "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" had come in the middle of the Hartnell era, it would have killed the show stone dead too. Not necessarily. Is Greatest Show any more absurd in terms of its fantasy than say The Celestial Toymaker or The Mind Robber? I think it's better than the former to be honest. Meanwhile whilst The Mind Robber is a great story overall, I think it's first episode is what really pushes it ahead of Greatest Show. That masterpiece of an episode aside however, they are probably about equal in terms of quality, with both being great stories. (BTW spin off material has attempted to link all three stories due to their similarities LOL. The Gods of Ragnarok apparently created the Land of Fiction, but got bored with it, and the Toymaker I believe has been suggested to be one of them in other stories. Personally though I think all 3 should be kept separate, but it shows you how Greatest Show is not as out there as you'd think.) Obviously yes DW will evolve and different styles will be more popular in different eras and yes the Doctor will evolve as a character too making some stories only possible if they come later like say Remembrance that is specifically built on every Dalek story since Genesis. However the point is that it's not just the production or even character arc of series 1 that stands out. It's stories are intentionally silly and campy. The aliens are farting monsters with dialogue like "when they fart it doesn't just sound like a fart" "mind not farting when I'm saving the world." Then we also have Anne Robinson robots, a gun being shoved up a guys arse, a woman who has had plastic surgery until she becomes a leaf etc. To me it always came over as hypocritical for fans to still go on about season 24 made DW a joke because it was too panto, and praise stories with those campier elements as a return to form. Again to me it just comes down to what I and Yak said, that the outside context was more important. Eccelston was the first after a hiatus when people had come to really miss DW, and a new generation of potential fans were being introduced to the concept for the first time, and it had all the hype in the world, whilst JNT was coming after 24 years, when the Beeb hated it and were actively sabotaging it, and fans who are still so insecure about another cancellation, and have let their own biases and nostalgia could their judgement reinforce that double standard, not just against season 24, but all of 80s who to be honest. And yes even in comparison to other eras of classic who, there is a double standard towards the 80s. For instance Tom Baker is even more violent than Colin towards his enemies, whilst Spearhead from Space is just as continuity heavy as many 80s stories, but since it came in a healthy period for the show, people overlook that. I guarantee you that a story like Spearhead in the 80s that was a sequel to two previous adventures, one from two years ago would have been held up as "this is why it died in the 80s as it became an anorak show too obsessed with continuity." Similarly Clever Dick Films said it was out of character for Colin to make a joke about dumping those guys in acid in Vengeance on Varos, leaving aside the dozens of times Tom made jokes, or at least made light of badguys being killed, like when he poisoned the Cybermen in Revenge and made jokes about it so much so Sarah had to pull him away, said "BYE BYE" in a funny voice to the Dalek he blew up in Destiny, or had a bored, shrugged, funny look after blowing that guy up in The Ribos Operation, or joked around with a dying Magnus Greel "Eh you might die first Magnus you don't sound too good." All of that said however I do think you're onto something in regards to the film vs videotape. Most people do seem to hold Classic Who to a higher standard than New Who. I've often wondered why that was and assumed it was just the hype New Who got, but even then that doesn't explain why people arguably expect more from Classic and that could be a huge part of it. |
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Post by rushy on Jan 31, 2024 12:06:12 GMT
It's stories are intentionally silly and campy. The aliens are farting monsters with dialogue like "when they fart it doesn't just sound like a fart" "mind not farting when I'm saving the world." Then we also have Anne Robinson robots, a gun being shoved up a guys arse, a woman who has had plastic surgery until she becomes a leaf etc. No, they're not. You're just referring to a couple of puns from each episode. Aliens of London tries to do a larger scale invasion than any before attempted in Dr Who (yes, previous serials have been international, but not in a realistic sense). As a kid, I barely noticed the farting aliens and was heavily invested in how the Doctor manages to defeat the Slitheen - btw, the 'narrows it down' sequence is still pretty terrific and a lovely example of the whole cast of characters working together to defeat the baddie. Bad Wolf is a prelude to an incredibly dark story full of death and despair. It sets up the mystery rather well, and the realisation that the Doctor is partially responsible due to the events of The Long Game made my heart sink to my stomach. I don't give a toss if it references some popular UK shows. I didn't even know them at the time. They're just random game shows to me. And Jack is the kind of person who keeps a gun in his arse anyway. Who cares? It doesn't make the story any less grimdark. It's a brief moment of levity. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2024 12:11:00 GMT
If something like that first Eccelston series had come in the middle of the Davison era, it would have killed the show stone dead. You're forgetting that delivery also makes a huge difference. Classic Who had (mostly) static cinematography. 21st century TV is filmed to be much closer to a movie. It's designed to be more flashy, more exciting. Cinematic. Music video-esque, even. Which makes it easier to suspend disbelief, because it's less realistic to begin with. Classic Who isn't paced like a movie, it's paced like life. It's grounded. It's the sort of thing you'd see on stage, playing out in real time. So the silliness stands out that much more. If "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" had come in the middle of the Hartnell era, it would have killed the show stone dead too. In Series 1's case, adding a vaseline filter to it doesn't make it more cinematic. It just makes it look a bit crap. |
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 31, 2024 12:32:23 GMT
You're forgetting that delivery also makes a huge difference. Classic Who had (mostly) static cinematography. 21st century TV is filmed to be much closer to a movie. It's designed to be more flashy, more exciting. Cinematic. Music video-esque, even. Which makes it easier to suspend disbelief, because it's less realistic to begin with. Classic Who isn't paced like a movie, it's paced like life. It's grounded. It's the sort of thing you'd see on stage, playing out in real time. So the silliness stands out that much more. If "Greatest Show in the Galaxy" had come in the middle of the Hartnell era, it would have killed the show stone dead too. Unfortunately this is the reality. Pretty much every Classic Who episode has pacing issues due to its medium. I know people find it charming but I roll my eyes at every cliffhanger basically. It just stops the story dead. Add to that none of its writers were particularly adept playwrights and you get a pretty glaring overriding issue with the show. I don't think there's any shame in admitting that Classic Who was for the most part shoddily produced, shoddily edited and shoddily directed. It's a very unserious show after all, and the "don't give a shit about how tacky I look" attitude comes across well from a certain point of view I find. I enjoy it a lot, but as a period piece. I would never think to ask for something like Classic Who to come to our screens now. Disagree on two counts. First of all classic who is not only worth watching as a silly show. At it's best it is some of the greatest drama of the 20th century. Inferno, Genesis of the Daleks, The Mind Robber, The Curse of Fenric, Earthshock, Caves of Androzani, Remembrance of the Daleks, Silurians, Invasion, Seeds of Doom, The Daleks, Vengeance on Varos, Resurrection of the Daleks, The Visitation, State of Decay, City of Death, Horror of Fang Rock, Terror of the Zygons, Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, Carnival of Monsters, War Games etc are all incredible pieces of television. Meanwhile I don't think that even the bad who stories are as dated in some respects as those from other shows. I'll take the innocent charm and cheesy crap attempts at sci fi from some of the worst classic stories over the sexual hang ups of Joss Whedon and other male writers that are sadly present in some Buffy episodes like Riley being angry that Buffy prefers the creepy, would be rapist, stalker vampire Spike because women always prefer bad boys, or the hang ups over fan girls in Supernatural with Becky abducting and raping Sam and it being played for laughs! Though I'll give you the boring stories of classic who are a chore because of the format simply because they are longer. Still I 100 percent would want something like Classic Who, but when I and I'm sure other fans say that, we don't mean warts and all. Obviously yes, I would want better production values, better direction, more love and attention, and yes stories that were more modern in certain ways from a 21st century version of Doctor Who. (Unlike the fandom menace crowd I would have 0 problem with an LGBT companion for instance, as long as they were a normal character, and not either the writers ego on display or political drivel.) However all I or again I'm sure any die hard classic fan wanted back in 2005 was: The Doctor to be written in character and played by someone who was right for the part, the old villains whenever they were brought back to be in character and any developments and changes in them being natural and not stupid retcons, long standing continuity not to be completely ignored. Don't revel in it, but if need be reference it. Put the focus on adventure, sci fi, horror, the odd fantasy story etc. That is it. Very small, very unreasonable shopping list. I genuinely think all of those things could have been updated in practical ways for the 21st century. FFS Godzilla was updated in practical ways for the Monsterverse. Godzilla was far campier and sillier than DW ever was, yet the Monsterverse movies were able to retain pretty much all of the classic elements of Godzilla, him being indestructible, his design, him fighting other monsters, him having monster friends as well as enemies, his classic villains like Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla who were both in character, even some of the sillier elements like Godzilla having a human friend and people cheering him on when he saves the day. These were all kept but updated with great effects, modern stories etc and it worked to the point where the Big G is more popular than ever in the west and is now nominated for an Oscar. DW meanwhile had a bastardisation that was popular at first, for many reasons, not all of them its quality as we've been over, but didn't last long (it's now been over 10 years since DW was a mainstream hit) and the bastardisation of every area of the show and character has only got worse and worse, until now it's harder than ever for proper DW to return because we have an entire generation weaned on a bastardisation and politics have been brought into the bastardisation, making it even more of a challenge just to do a proper DW story. Here original 20th century Godzilla. Godzilla in the 21st century. See how they flow together, despite the new movies obviously being updated in practical ways and being considerably less silly. Why couldn't that have been done for DW? Only hurdle I'll give you is the serialized format from Classic Who probably would have been too clunky in the early 21st century. (Though thanks to series being streamed in a oner and the return of popular serialized story telling like the Umbrella Academy, that is no longer a problem.) Still dumping the serialisation did not mean dumping the character of the Doctor and everything else. Like I said before, Godzilla DID actually get a new who style update with the 1998 Godzilla. It was completely unfaithful to Godzilla's character and was trying to be more like Jurassic Park, the same way Eccelston was trying to be more like Angel and Xena. However Godzilla fans said "f*ck off, give us Godzilla or don't bother bringing the character back at all" and the result was the monsterverse. The Jon Blum's, Bendy Cock's and commandants of official fandom all said "oh this is perfect, now DW is keeeewwwwl again, Missy channelled Roger Delgado perfectly and only a sexist, sad old anorak would say differently. Totally what I actually think." The result? Doctor and the Master in the 21st century. Same characters in the 21st century History shows again and again how nature points out the destructive effect on franchises of the self loathing fan. Go, go Doctor Who (seriously just go before you embarrass yourself even more.) |
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Post by burrunjor on Jan 31, 2024 12:46:19 GMT
Oh sorry when I said go before you embarrass yourself there I meant DW not Yak LOL. Sorry Yak if it came over as needlessly aggressive LOL.
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