Tag: Doctor Who

Warning: Spoilers Ahead Star Trek & Doctor Who Musings

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Bruce

This weekend had two things going on that for a geek like me were exciting- Star Trek Into Darkness opened and the Doctor Who Season Finale aired.

I have held off posting my thoughts about Star Trek Into Darkness until now not because I didn’t want to talk about it, but because I was actually pretty conflicted about how I felt about the film. I wanted to check out other reviews (spoiler filled or not) and really try to wrap my head around what was going on. Let’s start off with something simple and not spoilerish at all- I had the chance to see the film Wednesday at a local theatre in 3-D thanks to Comic Carnival North (My local comic shop) and Dan who handed me two passes one for Sue and one for me with the advice “show up early.” In some cities “Show up early” means “Camp out days ahead of time” in Indiana it usually means “arrive before the closing credits role.” Sue and I went out for a quick bite and arrived about an hour before the film was scheduled to start- the line had already formed, but it wasn’t too bad. We got to our seats and then sat. The theatre’s air conditioning was either off or broken so it started to get really hot. I would comment on the PR person trying to convince us to go to their website, who kept calling us “Star Trekkies,” but it was almost too sad to mention. SO 9:00 rolls around and… nothing. A little after nine and nothing, A little after, a little after nine and the lights start to dim, you could feel the tension in the theatre grow the theme music starts and… nothing. A blank screen. They try again- same result. We see the taskbar of the digital projector and they try again… this time a picture! except since this was the 3-D version it was all messed up. Stop again, reset try one more time… I have frankly forgotten how many times they reset, but then the movie started and everyone quieted down. Now for the spoilers.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on hyper analyze what was going on… I’m actually writing this more for me to try to figure out what the purpose of the film was (besides making money) and how it fit or doesn’t fit in the Star Trek universe.  I’m going to post this as almost a wish list.

I wish John Harrison was just John Harrison – I was hoping that this new reimagined universe would have new villains not repurposed ones.  While it worked well in the overall story, and made sense they way it was explained, I was hoping that this would be something different.

As a friend said- I wish they would quit messing around with the Klingons… I can understand how the new timeline shifted the balance, but I don’t see how the destruction of Vulcan or Nero’s little time travel escapades changed Klingon physiology and how they look.  That said I don’t have anything against the new style of Klingon, I’m just wondering how necessary it was.  Then again someone could say the same thing about the Klingons from the series and those who appeared in the first film.

If this had been the third film in the series I guess I wouldn’t be that nitpicky about it, but since it is basically a remake of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan (without the Space Seed setting it up) I’m concerned that the next film will be a remake of Search for Spock and so on and so forth… Will Sybok come into the series at some point?  

While I did enjoy the role flip in the engine room scene at the end, I was waiting for Kirk to say ‘The needs of the many…”

Why did Spock contact Spock?  Was it really necessary? or was it just to get the “Star Trekkies” excited?

As many have said – this was the film that needed to be made to get a certain monkey off the back of the writers- since everyone would be asking about if Khan would come back every time they make a film- he has, and now it’s done, time to move on.  There have been rumors about a possible TV series, but those are just that- rumors.

I do plan on seeing it again? If only to rewatch the Simon Pegg scenes. Was it a horrible film- no not at all,  I just was expecting more.  As for 3-D I want to repeat that I have yet to see a film that has used 3-D in a way that makes it work for me.  Save your money… Although I am considering seeing it in IMAX to see if there really is a big difference.  I remember seeing Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom in a regular theatre and then on a massive screen, it did make a difference.  Then again as someone commented that they are waiting for a holodeck version- so am I.

The point I keep stumbling over is that I really, really like Ultimate Spider-Man (this will make sense, just be patience).  When Marvel comics had Bendis rework Spider-Man for a new audience, he did so masterfully.  You started back at the beginning, old villains came back in new and sometimes more powerful roles.  They really did a great job (including the clone saga). Even to the point of killing Peter Parker and then bringing in a new Spider-Man.  So since I liked what happened there, why am I so mixed up in my feeling towards Into Darkness?  It’s the same thing just a different universe!

I am looking forward to seeing Darth Vader come back in Star Wars 7 after the Death Star falls into a wormhole and…

—

Now to this Season of Doctor Who-  where time is not linear, but kind of a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

So the Doctor is transfixed with Clara who died in the Dalek Asylum, and Victorian London and is now in present day… Why is she so important?  Why is she so special?  Moffat has continued leaving breadcrumbs through every episode that will ultimately get picked up by the audience.  An example of this was the first series with Matt Smith we end up seeing that the doctor at the end had come back at various times (talking with Amy on the ship filled with weeping angels comes to mind)  The audience doesn’t notice, until the final episode.  This time, thanks to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, he is now going to drop the impossible girl everywhere, and it makes sense (in some sort of timey-wimey way).  When the season finale started with all those clips from the various incarnations I was blown away.  I feel like I need to go back and check out the graveyard and see who is actually buried there. Now for some spoilers or things that I am thinking about…

So The Great Intelligence, Clara, and the Doctor are now going to zoom around in the Doctor’s time line…  I did like Clara telling the first incarnation not to take “that TARDIS, take this one the navigation’s a bit off but…”  So are we going to find Clara is the reason for so many things that have happened?  

In the realm of Science Fiction is this possible?  The rules can be made up and messed around, but there has to be an explanation-  the question is will Matt Smith and Clara be interacting with all the incarnations of the Doctor or will it just be Clara (I’m assuming it will be both).  So many stories have so many different twists to what is possible in time travel, “All You Zombies…” by Robert Heinlein is just one example of some weird stuff in time travel as is “By His Bootstraps” also by Heinlein.

The biggest question I have is if John Hurt is an incarnation of the Doctor (before he was called the Doctor) doesn’t that make Matt Smith the twelfth and final incarnation? or is there some Timelord rule about this?  The Master has come back many times past his 12 regenerations- but then again the Master is a little loopy now.

As for which was better Star Trek Into Darkness or The Name of the Doctor… until I get another chance to see Star Trek… The Doctor is ahead.

 

 

In 1963 the BBC launched a rather interesting foray into Science Fiction on this rather newfangled medium called “television” and so Doctor Who started.  Being a Science Fiction aligned geek, I did attempt to watch Doctor Who when it came on our local PBS channel when I was growing up.  It never really caught my fancy at that time.  It was about this guy who had this obnoxiously long scarf and a robot dog.  I couldn’t really even say what the first episode I saw was, I was that underwhelmed.  I went back to watching Star Trek reruns, Battlestar Galactica, Space: 1999, UFO, Thunderbirds, the Bionic Man, even The Man from Atlantis, completely forgetting about Doctor Who.  Then one day I was listening to a podcast with Mark Waid (comic book writer) and he was talking about Doctor Who and how corny it was, and how someone had loaned him the reboot on DVD.  He felt obligated to watch at least one episode… hours later, he said, he was hooked.  That was the relaunch with Christopher Eccleston.  I thought I should at least try it out and as Mark Waid had said, “the first word spoken by the Doctor shapes the entire series, the word was ‘run.'”  I was hooked and then started to convert friends (as many geeks do).  Some ignored me, thinking I was loony… others gave it a try.  SO on this the 49th anniversary of airing of the first episode I salute the Whovians, and those who have at least given it a try.  I am not a scholar when it comes to the series, I have 49 years of episodes to catch up on, but I have made sure to have seen at least one episode of each incarnation of the Doctor and I think I have finally seen all the episodes from the 9th, 10, & 11th Doctors.  For me if you are going to watch only one episode it should be “Blink” with David Tennant.  While the Doctor isn’t necessarily in the episode, it is suspenseful storytelling.  The latest incarnation played by Matt Smith is one that I happen to like- he definitely is a “Madman with a Box”  He has brought the bowtie into fashion and the fez… and for some strange reason I can identify with him.

The Doctor Who online store headquartered in Indianapolis does sponsor Doctor Who episode viewings each month at Tilt Studio Downtown, Check out their forum or Facebook page for updates as to dates and times.

So let’s see if we can get interactive here-  What episode do you like the best? What do you think is a good starting off episode?  Who’s your favorite Doctor? Remember- NO spoilers 😉

Doctor Who & Lego? My TARDIS Interior Build- a review

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Bruce
For true Lego diehards- the Doctor Who sets from “Character Building” (an arm of COBI, a Polish toy company) and therefore do not use real Lego bricks.  I knew that going in, but they are Doctor Who which is really what this should be all about.  When visiting the warehouse for WHONA in Indianapolis, I decided to pick myself up a present (a birthday present, my precious) SO after looking at a number of “Lego” Doctor Who kits, I went for the TARDIS Interior which came with mini figs of the 11th Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, & River Song.  Previously, I had purchased online a TARDIS set with the 11th Doctor & Amy, and the complete set of all the Doctors.  The TARDIS was a simple build and very small so it really didn’t give me a feel for what building with CB bricks was like.  This mega-set did, and I now understand the double entendre in the name (building with these bricks was, at times, “character building”). The set itself is the interior of the 11th Doctor’s TARDIS which has a slightly steampunky feel to it.  Unlike the TARDIS from Christopher Eccleston & David Tennant which was more of a natural construction, the pillars looking like they might be coral.  This TARDIS is “shiny.”  All in all it is a nice set when it is finished… but the building process and instructions that’s another story. The Build CB instructions are interesting in that they remove the color from any previous steps this is a help, but also a hinderance in construction.  It helps because you know exactly which pieces are going where.  When building the Sopwith Camel it sometimes became a game of “Where’s Waldo” to figure out where a piece went.  By having the bricks you use for a step the only bricks in color, it makes it simple.  The problem is when you need to check your construction as you move along in the process.  In Lego you just look over the illustration and you can see all the pieces and how they fit.  In CB I found the need to go back to the page in which I constructed certain parts to make sure it was correct.  This back & forth did become a bit annoying.  As the build continued I noticed a few things about the instructions, they seem to have missed a few key things that would have helped with the rigidity of the structure.  In Lego you start building things and you overlap bricks creating a rigid structure, these directions ended up with larger pieces that were barely holding together.  Adding one more connection would add stability.  There is still a portion of the TARDIS wall that if I try to reattach it the entire wall breaks!  I think the plan could have used someone who had been through the Lego Master Building Academy. The actual bricks, seemed to feel different, I’m guessing they are lighter and therefore they felt flimsy… from what I could tell they weren’t, but I had the impression that they just seemed a little subpar.  CB also created a number of specialty bricks for this build to create the angles needed for the interior.  Unfortunately I discovered that unlike Lego bricks these bricks didn’t connect as well and while I am used to putting two bricks together in Lego and knowing that it will take some effort to separate them, in some places these disconnected effortlessly, overall this lead to a less than satisfactory building experience.  Again back to one specific portion which I had to rebuild numerous times because every time I tried to attach it,the wall crumbled once the slightest pressure was put on it. While there is always a bit of overage in any kit I was a little distraught when I got to one instruction and couldn’t find the pieces I needed!  This was not my typical “teeny tiny” piece hiding in a pile.  I was looking for two large grey planks.  They just never made it in the box.  What did make it were the exact same sized clear planks that fortunately were extra pieces.   These were a middle portion of a layer being used as the floor so they were hidden from sight, but that still made me concerned, and I wasted time going over and over the instructions to see if I had read something wrong. Final Thoughts I am happy with the final result, just a little leery about moving it anywhere.  Will I buy any more sets?  Probably not, right now I’m torn between two different Lego sets, but feel I should probably finish the Lego Master Builder Academy before moving on to any other builds.  I did end up picking up some Doctor Who mini figs from series 1 & 2.  The CB mini figs are not the generic Lego design which is neat, but also makes it impossible to put them in a Lego build without having them stick out like a sore thumb,  Then again having an army of Daleks and Cybermen is cool.