Whoa!! The Doctor's a stone cold killer!! When I first watched this in work I had no idea what it was about, and Matt Smith's work made me swear with shock.
Whether the visitors to my work noticed the idiot say 'Holy F##k!' as they walked past I don't know, but they had the good grace to ignore me.
Looking at this clip, while I don't think the Doctor will be escaping dangerous situations by chopping someone's head off with a machete (it would be a HUGE change by The Moff if he did), it still shows the kid looks to have the acting chops to pull this off.
THERE are times when every scy-fi geek must face .... the ultimate challenge.
I have just faced mine, in Tom Baker's Ultimate Sci-Fi Quiz, an interactive DVD which promises out of this world family fun (even though, wisely, it has a single player mode).
Before you start, let me clear up right out of the gate that it was given to me in work by a colleague who received it through the post.
Liinked with the Sci-Fi channel, and boasting the production values and budget of a 1970s Eastern European porn film, you are the captain of the SS Hawking, which falls through a black hole and can only get back to Earth by answering questions posed by Tom. Leaving aside the unlikely scenario, those questions are posed by the legendary Tom Baker, whose face on the box looks like you've just burst in on you've just burst in on him and Mrs Baker playing hide the TARDIS or Doctor Who and the Naughty Companion.
His costume also makes me think he must have sacked his agent shortly after this was filmed.
Obviously, Baker is the best thing about the game by several miles because it is just so great to hear his voice. Even clunking through terrible jokes about shoulderpads for the 1980s round, or whether things compute for the round on robots, he displays such charm that it is impossible not to go along for the ride.
I'd like a word with the Sci-fi channel researcher who put the questions together though. For the record, Klingon is not spelt Kilingon, and the actor who played Data in Star Trek was not Brent Spinner, nor was the captain of the Enterprise John Luke Picard
On top of that, Buck Rogers was not marooned in the 21st century with a robot companion called Tweaky!
But hey, despite all that it was an easy way to waste half an hour if you're absolutely desperate for faux company and 'challenging' questions.
To whet your appetite, here's a selection: (answers in invisotext)
In The Blob, the creature has a fear of what? water
Final Fantasy sees Earth invaded by what aliens? Spirits
Serenity is based on what TV show? Firefly
V for Vendetta takes its premise from which historical character? Guy Fawkes
In the Man Who Fell To Earth, an alien sets up a business to do what? Pay for a spaceship to be built so he can return home
Tom Baker's Ultimate Sci-Fi Quiz - available from me, now, to anyone who wants it.
THE new Waters of Mars trailer has been put out by the BBC, so in case you haven't seen it, I'll put it on here.
This is looking more and more creepy, with no hint of the jokey 'Alonsi!' perkiness of Tennant's Doctor. He is facing his own mortality as he knows his death is approaching.
Plus, he goes on in the trailer about some things being fixed in time - 'what happens here must always happen' - but he said the same thing in Pompeii and still saved the Roman family from certain death.
So what? So either he has to stand by and let people die because time says so, or anything could happen.
One way of the other, it should make for cracking viewing.
I love the bit too where the woman - what's her name again? - says what happens? It wouldn't be much of a show if he told you would it love?
"Well, you know Dave? Dead meat. And don't book any holidays with Karen - she'll never pay. But in the end we just turn up the heaters so the water evapourates - simple really." Cue end titles.
Duncan Jones's autograph and a thank you to Craig Grobler
Once again, thanks to @ckc1ne - Craig Grobler. Truly a great thing to do for a fellow geek you hardly know. To go to a film Q&A session is one thing, but to get an autograph is something else.
New Doctor Who The Waters of Mars trailer - with extra Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins
WITH all the fuss, not least on this blog, about the new Doctor Who Matt Smith, it is easy to forget the current Doctor still has some time to go before his song ends for good.
Here's the latest trailer for The Waters of Mars, with lots of extra stuff if you watch to the end.
Clearly that is the Master's Ring (and the master as a kid) - picked up from his ashes at the end of Last of the Time Lords. With Donna and Wilf in there too (Bernard Cribbins - brilliant!), does that mean all the rumours about Donna's shiny, shiny ring were true?
I guess we will find out and while I have been against Donna coming back, I can't deny that having seen just how good Russell T Davies's work was on Torchwood: Children of Earth, I am excited to see what he does for David Tennant's finale.
Whatever it is, he said in his book The Writer's Tale that he thought of David's last words as the Doctor waaay back in 2007.
New picture - Doctor Who Matt Smith in costume, plus companion Karen Gillan
HERE'S the first on set picture of new Doctor Who Matt Smith in costume and assistant Karen Gillan on set.
What do you think? The bow tie, the jacket, the boots - a bit geography teacher? Henry Jones Jnr? Geek chic? Will blog on this later, but would welcome your thoughts.
Karen's character name has also been revealed - Amy Pond. Again, your thoughts are welcomed but my first impressions are positive. They look good together.
First picture - New Doctor Who Matt Smith and companion Karen Gillan
The good folks over at Radio Free Skaro tweeted about this picture of new Doctor Who Matt Smith and companion Karen Gilan, so I thought I'd throw it up too.
I should stress they are not in costume and the beaming fangirl in between them is not the new villain, but it was taken in Cardiff which does mean that work on the new series is about to get underway.
Word also reaches ScyFiLove towers that Monday will see the first in-costume picture of the pair - any suggestions what they should wear?
IN WHAT is becoming a regular feature here on ScyfiLove, we return again to art lovers' corner to gaze in wonder at this piece of brilliance from Tim Doyle, called The Secret Weapon.
Why doesn't my local art gallery show stuff like this? And how many can you name? (I've had a go in inviso-text below - highlight it after you've had a go and see if we can name them all.)
The glaive from Krull, Dirty Harry's Magnum, a Ghostbusters proton pack, the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans (name?), Robocop's gun, the Man With the Golden Gun's gun, James Bond's Walther PPK, Han Solo's blaster, a lightsaber, Lion-O's sword from Thundercats, Inigo Montoya's sword from The Princess Bride, Deckard's gun from Blade Runner, a Star Trek phaser, the one ring, Jason's mask, the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a Predator mask, Tron's disc, Johnny Five's head, a thermal detonator and lightsaber training droid, Odd Job's hat, Ash's chainsaw, Old Painless from Predator, a Pulse Rifle from Aliens, Batman's grapple gun.
A few I have no clue on - the red pack at the bottom of the picture, a couple of swords and knives, the boxing glove, the gas canister and the old looking gun on the right. Any help?
Judge Dredd in Mega City One image by Gary Erskine is stunning
Zarjaz! That is beautiful, just beautiful.
This tremendous picture was put together by artist Gary Erskine and the love for Judge Dredd and Mega City One shines through in every pixel.
On his blog - where this was unveiled - he said: "The Sergio Leone close up of Dredd is a deliberate attempt to force a contrast of scale to image and there is more than a passing nod to Blade Runner, Fifth Element and AKIRA too.
"A bit of work trying to pull in all the seperate elements and lots of colour correcting but done for the day. Pleased with final version and not bad considering it was completed over a Saturday afternoon and early evening."
On my blog I say I wish I was talented enough to shrug this off as a few hours of work and kudos to you sir, for giving geeks like me such a thrill. Splundig Vur Thrigg!! Thanks to io9 for the heads up
Evoking memories of the Buster Crabbe era Flash Gordon series, it follows Edward Borman, a lowly government office drone, who is trapped in his office building when it is seized by the glowing and deadly Mercury Men.
Borman must help the mysterious and dashing Jack Yaeger to stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.
The MM's creator Christopher Preksta took time out of working night and day finishing the post production work ahead of the autumn release to answer some Scyfilove questions....
How did the Mercury Men come about?
The Mercury Men started out as a short film we shot in October 2007. I really just wanted to make something with ray guns. So in one ridiculously long day we shot a short little black and white adventure with this office employee fending of glowing invaders. The whole thing cost around 300 bucks.
It ended up screening at dozen or so film festivals, including San Diego Comic Con, and even picked up a few awards. Somewhere in that process I knew the idea could grow into something bigger.
What were your influences on The Mercury Men? It looks beautifully retro.
We of course are influenced heavily by the old serials, but the films with the greatest impact on TMM is the Indiana Jones series. I'm almost certain that we talked about Indiana Jones EVERY single day of production.
When doing something born out of vintage or retro storytelling it'd be easy to copy the style down to the smallest detail. Retro posters, cheesy announcers, corny dialogue, etc.
What Spielberg and Lucas did with Indy, and what we hope to emulate, is taking that old style of storytelling, the adventure, the mystery, the cliffhangers, and do it in modern way. And without Shia LaBeouf swinging with CGI monkeys.
How long did it take to film and produce, and how many people were involved?
Pre-production began in the spring of 2008. We filmed for three weeks in October of that year with a week of pick-ups in the summer of 2009. Post production, including a lot of VFX work, has been going on since filming wrapped. We've got roughly the same amount of VFX shots as the first Star Wars film!
All in all there's been roughly 15 - 20 people involved and of those roughly 3 or 4 (including myself) are behind the continuing day to day work.
Who are the team behind it - is it just you and some friends, or a bit more serious?
Definitely more serious than just a group of friends, although I do try to make opportunities available to filmmaker friends whenever possible. We posted notices and brought on cast and crew from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and even Ohio.
About a third of us had worked together on our first series, Captain Blasto, another third was the crew from the original TMM short, and the rest were all new to the team.
How did you get into this type of work, and what made you start making web films for yourself?
I've been making short films since high school, and oddly enough nearly all of them were serialized. We'd come up with goofy characters or ideas and tell the story in chapters. Even my first feature length film Captain Blasto, which we later adapted into a web series, was broken up into chapters in the screenplay and final film.
So when the web series medium really took off with shows like The Guild, I'd realized that our abilities and my style of storytelling where already really well suited for it.
It looks incredibly polished, with solid special effects, despite what must be a tight budget. How do you pull that off?
Everything we've ever made has been micro-budget. We've learned over time how to turn a handful of cash into something that looks much more valuable. We've got it down to a science or an art form at this point. That comes from a couple things. One, we have an incredibly dedicated and talented cast/crew. Two, I spend A LOT of time making sure the production is ridiculously organized, including storyboarding EVERY single shot.
And lastly, rather than just writing a story and then trying to go find money to make it happen, I look at how much money I know I can get and then write a story I feel I'm capable of telling for that amount.
Does making a web series give you greater freedom, as you call all the shots?
Absolutely. If we're successful enough to make a living from the series, I'll gladly stick with it.
Did your past success put you under any more pressure to deliver this time around?
Not at all. My biggest success was with Captain Blasto and I was practically a kid when I made it. Didn't have a clue what I was doing. I've felt much better about this project every step of the way.
After Joss Whedon's web series, do you think people are paying more attention to them?
Yes and no. A lot of people that never watched a web series before saw Dr. Horrible. But did they watch anything else? Or are they just waiting for the next chapter of Dr. Horrible?
Any Mercury Men singalongs planned?
No sing-a-longs in our future, but we've got plenty of other great things planned for the series.
This first set of episodes really is the tip of the iceberg. I'm really hoping it's successful enough to warrant the flood of ideas we have planned.
What does the future hold? A MM sequel? New films altogether? Moving into the mainstream production world?
I would love to continue the TMM story, and I'm committed to it, whether that's a web series or another medium. I've already got plans for the sequel and beyond. On top of that we have things we'd like to do outside of the actual episodes, including our digital props series and a role playing game based on the TMM universe.
When will it be released and what reaction are you hoping for?
It will be released this fall, hopefully late September or early October. Like any film or series, I'm just hoping people connect with the story, characters, and world.
I've been calling this series a "knothole" because you're really only getting to peek at the much larger world behind the fence. And I'm hoping we attract enough people that we're given the opportunity to start tearing that fence down.
..... Good stuff eh! Thanks to Chris for having a chat with me for you Scyfilovers and here's hoping the Mercury Men takes off this autumn.
Is intelligent science fiction making a return? Guest post by Chris Brown
Here's Chris's second guest blog, this time about intelligent sci fi. Enjoy!
RECENTLY it has been television that has been the trail-blazer for intelligent sci-fi.
Battlestar Galactica, the first season of Heroes, even that last series of Torchwood seemed to show that there was something still worth saying with the genre.
Films on the other hand seem to have gone in the opposite direction. When the Terminator series finally came around again the last strips of intellect seem to have been torn away in favour of huge explosions.
Even a film like Cloverfield, effectively a shakey-cam homage to Godzilla, managed to tell the same story but with none of director Ishiro Honda's dark undertones of the concerns about the nuclear age.
This summer things might be changing, first up is Duncan Jones's Moon, a low budget ode to the 70s sci-fi he grew up with such as Silent Runnings and Dark Star. The trailer may make the film look like a Twilight Zone episode but the movie itself deals with loneliness, responsibility and regret.
Next month we're also getting Neill Bloomkamp's District 9. On the face of it an alien invasion movie with a snazzy viral marketing campaign and Peter Jackson as Executive Producer on the poster.
But there are themes of racism and distrust running through here as well.
Are these an indication of a change for sci-fi?
Well, considering Transformers 2 made $200m in its first weekend I think we can safely say that explosions and mayhem will be on the cards for a while yet.
But the fact that the fringes see fit to actually shoe-horn in some relevant themes is a reminder that there are a lot more legs in the genre than just nostalgia.
Chris Brown - aka Orange Monkey on Twitter - has written a guest blog for me on Moon. There's another one to follow too, you lucky people!
There's a moment about 30 minutes in to Moon that you'll realise that this isn't the film that you thought it was going to be.
Watch the trailer and it looks like you are going to watch a mystery, and worse, one that's got a pretty obvious twist.
But director Duncan Jones has something better in mind and suddenly the rug's pulled from under you. When the reveal does come, and if you really want to know there are are a ton of spoiler-ific reviews knocking about, it's so early on that you wonder where it can go.
Go with it though and it's hugely rewarding.
In fact, in a year that's contained some disappointing blockbusters this is a film that impresses with just how much its got to say, Sam Rockwell plays an astronaut stuck on the other side of the moon doing a humdrum job of caretaker working on his own at a mining facility.
With two weeks left of his three year contract all he wants to do is go home to his wife and child and have some human contact. But then he starts to hallucinate and wonders if his computer helper GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacey, is trying to aide him or not.
Referencing movies such as 2001, Silent Running and Dark Star this is as much a story about loneliness, responsibility and personal identity as it is cool effects.
That said this British film milks the last penny out of its £2.5m budget and using some great old school SFX, including some cool model work and optical tricks.
But what really makes this stand out is the human aspect, Rockwell manages to hold the film despite this, basically, being a one man show for large part. It's an incredibly charismatic performance and roots the entire thing.
For something that is so white and clean in its aesthetic this has plenty of heart.
Torchwood: Children of Earth review - a terrible perfection (SPOILERS)
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
That quote perfectly sums up Torchwood: Children of Earth for me, as Russell T Davies tore down what he had lovingly nourished, on almost every level.
At every stage, when you expected the story to take an upward swing, to head back into the positive worldview RTD made his trademark during his time in charge of Doctor Who, it took the opposite path.
The NHS doctor shot Jack! The Hub is destroyed! Jack's buried in concrete! The 456 want the kids! Jack gave up the children! The government is discussing a final solution for 325,000 kids! The kids are drugs! They'd kill us all if they benefited! Ianto is dead! Frobisher shot his own family! Jack killed his own grandchild!
By the end my jaw was hanging open and the tone of the comments on the Scyfilove live blog had changed from amused and entertained to shocked and stunned.
It meant CoE was very difficult to watch at times, but RTD and his team of writers showed an unflinching determination to carry this dark story through to its painful and harrowing conclusion.
Because of them, Torchwood finally became a truly adult drama and - I would say - one of the greatest television events of the past 10 years - a terrible perfection even.
If for nothing else, I would put Torchwood into that class for the way it treated the show's central character, Captain Jack Harkness. First introduced as a shallow con man in Who, he had developed into a charismatic and decisive leader, Torchwood's Han Solo, who we thought would always do the right thing.
By the end of episode five, he was a broken man whose compromised heroism in the face of the 456 alien threat cost him his lover, his grandchild's life at his own hand and ultimately his own sense of who he was.
A hero? Not any longer. A leader? Of what - his team is dead or gone, their base destroyed. Immortal? Undoubtedly, but that means having to live forever with the terrible things he had done and seen, things which he was left running away from.
To undermine your leading man to such a degree was an incredibly courageous thing to do, and John Barrowman rose to the challenge with a committed performance of a character he clearly cares deeply about.
He was not alone in the acting stakes, with everyone involved turning in top class work under director Euros Lyn's sensitive and skilled direction.
But like Jack, he lost his place when faced with an impossible choice. Capaldi's subtle and nuanced acting perfectly captured a man losing his grip.
His final scene - calmly climbing the stairs, gun in hand, to the room where his family waited..... even now it gives me pause, because the closing of the door and four gunshots were easily the darkest moment in the Whoniverse.
The result of all this was the highest viewing figures in the show's history, but ironically Davies's scorched earth approach means it will be very difficult for it to return and if it does, to reach the same standards CoE reached.
I hope it does, because we have see what this show can achieve now. But also because I think I would find it hard to watch Children of Earth again.
Some things should only be watched once, and having glimpsed that terrible perfection, once was enough for me.
Join in with the Torchwood: Children of Earth live blog from 8.45pm tonight. We're now up to day four.
Just watch the show with your laptop or alternative multi-media device logged in here to leave your comments and thoughts in real time - the more the merrier! Please note, we are blogging as we go so here be spoilers if you haven't seen Torchwood yet.
In case you don't know it tells the story of the human race - blinded by a meteor shower - struggling to survive while also being hunted by carniverous plants, the Triffids, with poisonous stings.
Back then I was 10 and I can remember being absolutely petrified by the titles of the show, which didn't bode well for the rest of it. As it turned out, for consistency's sake I was petrified by that too.
As a nipper, the whole man's inhumanity to man plotline passed me by, as did some of the darker elements. Instead I was mesmerised by the Triffids. Yes, they look plastic, but the way they moved, the tapping of their stems, the stings was so creepy. (I know now they were powered by operators on little go-karts - so much for terror!)
I saw one in Chester Zoo once and demanded to be taken back to the car immediately.
Watching it again now, I was pleased to see how well it has stood the test of time. Of course, it helps that the story itself is such a great one - kudos to John Wyndham. (Read the book if you can - excellent storytelling and years ahead of its time)
But the Beeb, as they often did, made the lack of production values into a virtue by going down the 'what you don't see is scarier than what you do' route, with the lack of people and action - as we would define it today - increasing the sense of silent, post-apocolyptic dread that Wyndham captured from the novel's first line:
When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.
For large parts of the first show, nothing happens apart from John Duttine, as the story's hero Bill Masen, lying in a hospital bed. That would be unthinkable nowadays, in our drive for momentum.
I think there is something about the film stock that the Beeb used for filming away from the studio then which is unnerving too - it just looks slightly off.
By the time the prequels came around, the wheels were well and truly off - I'll just say Jar-Jar and leave it at that - but this moment was when the warning bells started to ring.
To say I was excited when it was announced the 20th anniversary of Star Wars would be marked by special editions of the original fims on the big screen was an understatement and I watched all three, mainly enjoying the new special effects.
But then Greedo shot first and it all went pear-shaped.
Because this wasn't just anyone Lucas was messing with - it was Han Solo, my boyhood hero and still one of the coolest characters in any film ever.
When he gunned down Greedo without warning, it showed the dark side to the lovable rogue and smuggler. The side that would take out anyone who got in his way if they were between him and the money, and then nonchalantly swagger away - kill or be killed.
That made his eventual change of heart and return to save the day at the end of the film all the more compelling.
Instead we had a pointless change that reduced one of the main characters and actually weakened the film, where a professional assassin misses his target at point blank range. In the 2004 dvd release, it is actually made worse by a CGI Han dodging a laser bolt by moving his head before shooting Greedo.
For god's sake Lucas! Han Solo is a kick ass desperado, not someone who has to be invited to blow away a low-life putting a gun in his face.
No doubt in the 2017 super-duper edition, hLucas's meddling means Han will become even more moral by reasoning with Greedo about the merits of his lifestyle before convincing him to give up crime and instead return to his first love, singing showtunes with the Max Rebo band.
Watching every version but the original, I felt like Indiana Jones at the end of Raiders, when he is told they have 'top men' working on the ark - frustrated and cheated.
Thankfully, I still have the films on VHS, but for anyone out there who wants to see the scene as it should be - my great sci-fi moment - here it is.
