My first response was shock at how young he was. The first seven Doctors were men when I was a child, David Tennant is about the same age as me, and now I'm seeing the Doctor played by someone almost young enough to be my child. Weird. However, incoming executive producer Steven Moffat has praised Smith for having a young/old quality which would be an important factor in playing the Doctor, and a second look at Smith confirms this. He's got an interesting face, and provided that his costume and behaviour are suitably different from Tennant, I don't see any reason why he can't work. The most fatal mistake would be for them to try and re-create Tennant, but as they say on the Outpost Gallifrey Doctor Who forum "in The Moff we trust". The production team have been doing everything right for four years, I doubt they're about to stuff up now. On a related note, I saw the Christmas special 'The Next Doctor' and it's great fun. Especially good to see Doctor Who finally get around to doing some proper steampunk.
I also saw The Clone Wars on Blu-ray. Now, I'm not one of those genre guys who rails against defiling of childhood treasures. If you've read my post on the latest Indiana Jones film, you'll know how benign my response was to that one. George Lucas' Star Wars prequels were all disappointments to varying degrees, but it doesn't bother me too much. I'm even pretty tolerant of the alterations he made to the original three films. Hell, when they seemingly destroyed Doctor Who for good with the 1996 telemovie, I didn't even bat an eye. And I find myself looking forward to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek more than I would have thought. The only defilement of a beloved story which really makes my blood boil is Brian Herbert's continuing exploitation of his father's Dune series, but even that one I usually just ignore. I'll always have Frank Herbert's original sextet of books, and nothing will take that away. I met Frank Herbert once - it was in 1985, about nine months before he died, and I got my movie tie in edition of his novel Dune signed by him. It's a memory I will always treasure. If I ever meet Brian Herbert, I will punch him in the face.
All of which is a windy prologue to my statement that The Clone Wars sucks, then blows, then sucks some more. The 2003 animated series was surprisingly good and more satisfying in a way than the prequel films. This one... where to begin? Anyone who knows anything about the Star Wars universe will find the main storyline - the Jedi Knights attempt to rescue the son of Jabba the Hutt from a separatist plot - about as plausible as if The Godfather II had a scene of Don Corleone imploring the US government for help. And those unfamiliar with Star Wars are shit out of luck - dumped into the middle of the clone war without a hint of setup or backstory, the only intro being a montage with an appalling newsreel style voice over, which plays like a scene from Starship Troopers without the satire. The storytelling - in terms of both visuals and dialogue - is so basic that it seems to be pitched at an audience that is just about ready to move on from the Teletubbies. Which is fine, although I'd argue that such an audience need not be confronted by the image of a Twi'lek whore dancing for the pleasure of a gross slug-like gangster lord. Dialogue is usually along the lines of 'protect Jabba's son' or 'we must keep those droids back' - bald statements of conflicts the audience are well aware of, and more than once a scene began with one character relating to another a description of the scene we just watched. The main dramatic conflict of the first ten minutes or so is a communications breakdown where a vital message ends up needing to conyeved in person. How thrilling is that?
No, The Clone Wars must rank as the least interesting Star Wars production - at least the notorious 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special had Harrison Ford! I nearly switched it off half way through, and in retrospect, my life would not have been any poorer if I had. I feel obliged to mention that the animation - a CG extension of the stylised characters from the 2003 show - is stunning, but here put to the service of a team of writers and a director who would struggle to tell the story of Goldilocks in a concise fashion. There are many, many, fan made Star Wars films with more compelling drama than this. One to avoid.
I really want to get around to reviewing The Mist, but I also got The Descent on Blu-ray for Christmas, and I reckon I'll end up writing about that one first. Second time around I loved it just as much - it's the genuine article, a scary horror film.
1 comment:
I agree about Clone Wars. But I also found Clone Wars difficult to consume as a movie for this simple fact: So much Star Wars-related product has saturated the marketplace, much of it in the form of video games that look not dissimilar to this, that it's hard to figure out why we should distinguish this from any of the hundreds of other Star Wars plotlines that are permitted to exist. At least with the prequels we had one of the few existing takes on Star Wars that featured human actors -- terrible as they were -- which distinguished those films, for all their faults. The Clone Wars is just the latest part of the video game homogenization of George Lucas' once beloved franchise. I think it's a modern ill we all must grapple with that no idea can be left alone until every possible related avenue has been explored, thereby leaving the idea totally dessicated.
One thing I'll say -- I was not offended, as such, by Jabba's farting little kid, nor by his Truman Capote-esque uncle. (Did you feel a recurrence of Lucas' famously unconscious prejudice toward minorities?) The most offensive thing was the sheer blandness of what was presented to me -- so bland that it's barely worth either praising or condemning.
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