invasion

September 27, 2010

Troughtonite Revisionism

Jack Graham dominators, genes, invasion, krotons, macra terror, marx, mickey the idiot, mind robber, reviews, space pirates, tomb of the cybermen, troughton, underwater menace, war games 0

I reposted my Hartnell stuff from Timelash II pretty much as it originally appeared. I’ve rejigged the following Troughton stuff a fair bit, however, so you’d better read it all over again very carefully, in case you miss a syllable of my searing insight and sage wisdom.

‘The Underwater Menace’

I could easily tear this story to pieces, yes? And feed the pieces to my pet octopus, yes??? But this story has sense of humour! I too have sense of humour!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

Look, if you think this story is any more silly than any other Doctor Who story… well, it isn’t.

Look at the amount of thought that went into the costumes and sets. Polly spends a lot of the story with a detail from a doric column on her head! Look at the detail in which Atlantean society is depicted. There’s a throne room, a temple, a lab, a hospital, a market… there are priests and acolytes, beggers and traders, slaves and workers, guards and orderlies… there are intimations of popular dislike for the forces of the state… Look at the variations in the personalities. Look at the way people change – from the king to the sadistic doctor to the disillusioned priest… And our heroes team up with two marooned sailors and a brave servant girl to form a little multi-ethnic band of rebels who instill industrial action… a strike that wins! And helps to bring down the government!

Yeah, I know… it’s daft. But it’s no dafter, fundamentally, than ‘The Caves of Androzani’. Yes, ‘Caves’ is infinitely better in many ways… but that’s not the point.

This has been called the Doctor Who version of Plan 9 From Outer Space… which is wrong, wrong, wrongarama. We laugh at Ed Wood movies because they’re badly made. This isn’t badly made. Actually – if you look at the verve and pace of Episode Three, the detailing of the designs and costumes, the wit of the dialogue, and the technical achievements – it’s rather superbly made!

The great underwater strike ballot ballet is amazing for the time, given that they probably made it in the cupboard at Lime Grove in 14 minutes on a budget of 2 shillings and fourpence. Yeah, you can see the strings a couple of times… but so what? Would you’ve thought it was all real but for those glimpses of wire? Is it really – I’m saying REALLY – any more fake looking than the CGI in most Hollywood blockbusters? Does that really – I’m saying REALLY – look REAL? Nope, of course not. And in addition to looking unreal it looks plastic, computery, synthetic… whereas the fish people’s underwater stuff looks physical, looks touchable, looks human. It’s like Ray Harryhausen animation. It’s obviously fake, but it has a beauty and a reality that goes beyond mere realism. It looks like its happening underwater! There are even bubbles! Yeah, they’re some form of obvious effect – but they look fantastic anyway!…

September 2, 2010

The Book of Pecksniff

Jack Graham bastard, Blair, hypocrite, invasion, liar, smarmy scumfuck, warmonger 0

All the extracts from Blair’s book that I’ve been reading in the papers… they’ve reminded me of why I used to always refer to Blair as “Pecksniff”. It was my special name for him, even back at the start (I’m proud to be able to say I never voted for him).

Pecksniff is described in Chuzzlewit as “a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.” That what Blair is. An utter hypocrite. A series of empty gestures towards morality, probity, mature realism, conviction, progressivism, etc. But you follow the gestures and see that they go absolutely nowhere. And then you turn back to the gesturer and, just for a second, you catch the smirk.

The unctuous self-righteousness that leaks from every pore even as he ruthlessly furthers himself with every word and deed; the pained sincerity with which he winces over the foolishness of those who are misguided enough to disagree with him or doubt his word; the Christian piety with which he carpet bombed population centres. And all of it fake. Even now, it’s clear that his dominant emotion concerning the Iraq war, and the subsequent fall out, is self-pity.

But the man is soaked in blood… and he knows it. All this “ooh, the scary thing is that he really believes it” bullshit. You can’t write material like that forensically picked over here without knowing that you’re being studiedly dishonest. The irony is that his own obfuscations and shifty evasions reveal the utter moral bankruptcy of the man better than anything else ever written about him. In a way, with the book’s artifice concerning the case for the war, he’s finally admitted the truth.

And we’re supposed to care that all the royalties of the book are going to charity! So what? The bastard could give every other million he owns to charity and hang himself in Fallujah and it wouldn’t make any bloody difference.

Oh, er… he’s a bit like a Cyberman or something. There, that’s made this post relevant to this blog. I’m covered.
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