Media Watch
Here we go then: a few media-related bits that have caught our eye this weekend. And we start with the current issue of Starburst (#307), and specifically their article entitled "Top 50 Sci-Fi Movies, Books and TV Series EVER!" Now, Dwarf usually tends to do very well in these things (in UK mags, anyway) - Dwarf is in there at number 16. Here's the entry:
Red Dwarf (1988 - 1999)
Synopsis: When a radiation leak kills the entire crew of the mining ship Red Dwarf, Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is brought out of hypersleep three million years later to find he is the last Human being alive.
Defining Moment: Lister deleted the duplicate Rimmer in the episode Me², but doesn't tell the original until the supposedly doomed hologram is made to tell his deeply embarassing gazpacho soup story.
Yeah, yeah - it's hardly the defining moment of Red Dwarf. The concept is silly anyway (it usually just amounts to "thing which has been repeated over and over until everyone thinks it's the only thing ever to do with a show"). On the other hand, it's a fairly important piece of Dwarf-lore, and there are certainly worse choices that could have been made. And hey - we beat Back To The Future, all Trek series apart from TNG, and The Empire Strikes Back. Which is great until you remember how pointless doing this kind of thing actually is. Never mind.
The mag also contains a review of the IV DVD! It gives the extras 5/5 (hooray!), but the main feature only 3/5. CUNTS. I'll just quote the review for that bit, and leave out the extras stuff:
Red Dwarf IV
Starring: Craig Charles, Chris Barrie
Director: Ed Bye
The dialogue is as memorable as ever, but writers Doug Naylor and Rob Grant appear to be short of ideas in a season that sees the crew menaced by a curry monster, visiting a prison world and playing pool with a white hole. Best of the bunch is Dimension Jump, with the introduction of the alternate 'Ace' Rimmer ("What a guy"), while the big-budget Meltdown, set on a planet of waxwork androids, proves the show works best when keeping things simple.
Now, let's just stay calm, shall we? But: "short of ideas"? Erm, if anyone can tell me where, I'd love to know. The series is bursting with wonderful ideas. And there is yet more Meltdown-bashing, with no real reason given as to why. And whilst I'm at it, in the technical details box, the year is given as 1989. Gah.
Next: Rob Grant is interviewed in the current SFX (February 2004, #114). He mentions a few interesting things; firstly about Incompetence's birth:
True to form, the story itself was born in a haphazard way. "I don't know why, but I had this period in 1998 where it was the hardest I'd ever worked in years. I was doing two TV series and a novel, so I wrote the first chapter when I should have been doing so many other things. I showed it to a couple of people whose opinions I trust, and they said 'Oh no, it's horrible.' So I thought, fair enough, and I put it in the bottom drawer. But when I dug it out a couple of years ago I thought I liked it, so I showed it to them again and they said, 'It's brilliant!'"
Of course, they denied ever seeing it, says Grant. "It's just one of those things. Ideas have their time, and then the world was not ready."
There's also a very interesting section on Cruel Aliens:
Funnily enough, the world is also ready for something else he wrote back in 1998 that he shouldn't have been writing. It's his next TV project, Cruel Aliens, an animated show.
"I am very interested in computer animation because I think it's the future. And I thought maybe you could do it with computer-generated animation with off-the-shelf home computers," says Grant. "I mean, it's expensive home software, but it is home software. So I thought I'd give it a bash. I wrote the scripts and I really liked it, I thought it was pretty funny, so I tried to get it off the ground myself. I got nowhere."
Fortunately, fate smiled on him this Summer.
"A friend of mine, who used to work on Absolutely, moved to a major UK animation studio. He wrote to me and said, 'I don't suppose you've got any animation scripts?' How weird is that? We're just at contract stage now to go into production. It's very exciting."
So, it'll be computer animated then? Grant looks a little sheepish. "Er, I imagine so. I forgot to ask. The problem is, we had really good dialogue up until the point we started negotiating contracts, and now I can't really talk to them. It's all done through lawyers."
Ha ha! (Have Aardman done any computer animation, do you know?) Also: I believe you can safely say that those quotes are not "for the purposes of review", and in fact completely breach UK copyright law. Excellent.And finally: something sent in by the incomparable Peter Object. The latest question to be asked Nick Gillard on StarWars.com is about his involvement in Dwarf. (He worked on Stoke Me A Clipper as Stunt Co-ordinator, along with Lee Sheward.) Note the in-depthness and care taken with his reply.
Comments
I seem to remember Nick Gillard's name in the end credits to Cassandra, too.
Posted by Austin Ross at February 1, 2004 11:32 PM
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/index.cfm?frameset=deck05/deck_fs.html&page=cast_crew_8.html
Rick Gillard? Ho!
Posted by John Hoare at February 1, 2004 11:34 PM
No, it's Rick Gilliard 4, the amazing stunt-co-ordinating robot.
"RICK GILLIARD 4 SAY FALL ON MATT AND DON'T DIE"
Posted by Darrell Jones at February 2, 2004 12:55 AM
Fuck, I meant 'mat'. Matt'll be furious.
Posted by Darrell Jones at February 2, 2004 12:56 AM
Just in case Ian didn't receive my text message:
Chris Barrie has just been interviewed on Radio 5. He was there to promote the new Tomb Raider DVD but he talked a bit about SEMG and Brittas as well. When asked if there was going to be a SEMG movie, he said "No." he then backpedalled slightly and added, "There *should* be one at some point, but I can't offer any kind of schedule for it at all."
Posted by Simon at February 2, 2004 11:26 AM
I did recieve it. I was going to do a news story when it came on Listen Again, but you had to STORM IN.
Posted by Ian Symes at February 2, 2004 11:57 AM
Just remembered Chris is on Des and Mel in a bit as well.
Posted by Ian Symes at February 2, 2004 11:58 AM
Damn, I forgot that was on today :(
Posted by Paul at February 2, 2004 01:22 PM
That wasn't exactly the greatest interview ever but it's good to see Chris on live TV, no matter how mediocre the show may be.
Sadly, Tomb Raider - a rather dire movie franchise that is practically dead - hogged the conversation.
Posted by Pete Martin at February 2, 2004 02:11 PM
So what was the gist of it all?
Posted by Cpt-D at February 2, 2004 02:27 PM
Mainly Chris talking about his early career choices (graveyards, supermarket carparks, Spitting Image). Then came the inevitable plug for the Tomb Raider DVD, a brief discussion on Angelina Jolie and, finally, a hasty mention for Chris's show on Discovery.
Posted by Pete Martin at February 2, 2004 03:07 PM
I'm hoping to do a transcript later if anyone's interested.
I presume all these appearances are in aid of Tomb Raider then...?
Posted by McGruder at February 2, 2004 03:14 PM
Will the person who keeps linking to comments containing arguments just stop it, please?
Posted by John Hoare at February 2, 2004 04:46 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/tv/titles/reddwarf.shtml
But I love linking to arguments so much. It saddens me that we're not having them anymore, and to be honest, I'd rather we still were. Anyway, on the subject of nostalgia, I was skimming through video clips of Look and Read The Boy from Space and came across the above link to Red Dwarf clips. Seeing as being off-topic seems to be rude, thought I'd redress the balance.
Posted by jesley carrion at February 2, 2004 06:53 PM
Actually it's not "clips", just the one clip, of the series 1 and 2 pull-out from Lister painting Red Dwarf intro.
Still.
Posted by jesley carrion at February 2, 2004 06:54 PM
There are 52 clips on the BBCi mini-site, though.
Posted by Ian Symes at February 2, 2004 07:13 PM
One clip for each episode only makes 36 clips though.
Posted by jesley carrion at February 2, 2004 07:51 PM
ISWYDT. Well done.
Posted by Ian Symes at February 2, 2004 08:11 PM
Post a comment
<trackback>
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://admin.ofla.info/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/169
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Media Watch' from Ganymede and Titan.