April 2003 News Archive
Cast List
Just another really quick update - a Cast List is now online, detailing every actor who has ever appeared in Red Dwarf ever. To compile this, I had to sit through 52 credit sequences of Red Dwarf, and if I ever hear that theme tune again I shall personally go and strangle Howard Goodall. Anyway, expect a similar crew list over Summer, once I've recovered.
There was supposed to be a proper update today, but things aren't quite ready - so expect a bumper update tomorrow, including the launch of a new section of the site. I hope you're all suitably on tenterhooks, and won't be able to sleep tonight.
Plot Inconsistencies Project
Just a quick update today. The final official version of the Plot Inconsistencies Project (7.1) by Damone and Annette has now found a permanent home here (as far as I can tell, it's freely distributable amongst electronic sites). But as the document is frozen, we've also announced the PIP Addendum project, to cover problems that are not covered in the original document. See the page for full details.
Check tomorrow for another update - rather than have long periods without updates, and then a lot of content uploaded at once, we're going to try and have a small update every day. It's an utterly ridiculous aim, but we'll do our best.
Movie Bollocks
Always first with the latest info, G&T have spotted something posted on Ain't It Cool News - last week. Ahem. You may remember that they posted the article on the teaser poster back in February, which turned out to be completely genuine. Well, they've finished gloating about that (yes, we were the site who pointed out the mistakes - and they were mistakes, no matter how many quotation marks you put around the word), and have come up with some rather interesting stuff:
"I have info on 2 things, since you mentioned Red Dwarf recently I thought I'd let you know that while I was working on an Aussie TV film at Pinewood Studios, I bumped into the Chris Barrie double this month during pickup shots for Tomb Raider 2. He said he was about to work on Red Dwarf when Tomb Raider finishes - again as Chris Barrie's double and they are to film at a derelict refinery complex in Oxford towards the west side of the city, which will be the exterior shots of a huge crash site. There will also be filming at a military armoury somewhere in Hampshire that was also used for the last Bond movie."
So, is it true? Well, it's not from the same contributor as last time, so the previous news being right means very little. It certainly goes against everything we know about - for a start, the movie is being shot in Australia, not Britain - but as it's only not being shot in Britain because the studios aren't avaliable, this doesn't mean that location work could not be filmed here. And it's unlikely that they would tell anyone where they planned to film location work, to stop thousands of fans turning up on their doorstep. However, we know that shooting in Australia is scheduled to start at the beginning of October - doing location shooting straight after Tomb Raider 2 wraps seems rather too soon.
Personally, I think it's rather dubious - there's no good reason to believe it, and until then you have to take such rumours with a pinch of salt. But I guess we'll find out soon enough.
As for this site, there will be a proper update tomorrow. And following on from the Takeshi's Castle article, we're hunting for people to write stuff for us, on any aspect of Red Dwarf, either factual, or opinion pieces - or even just reviews of episodes. Please, just contact us with your ideas. We're also interested to see what you think of the site, and whether there is any way it could be improved (although if you mention trying to get news items up that are less than a week out of date, I'll tell you to fuck off). There's a sad lack of decent fan stuff on the net - we want to change that, what with the movie coming up...
Mirror Image
Promotional DVD fans! Don't forget to pick up a copy of the Daily Mirror on Wednesday, as it will contain a voucher entitling you to a free disk containing the Series II episode Kryten. It's part of a series of BBC promotional disks that are being given away by the Mirror and Woolworths this week. Not only that, the Mirror is almost as good as the Sun nowadays. As for Ganymede & Titan, we've got a review of Takeshi's Castle, written by Tanya Jones, who is also our resident spell-checker. If you enjoy her review, visit her website, Flange Log. I myself have nosed around in Tanya's Flange on many an occasion, and I certainly enjoyed myself. Oh, and have a look at the second part of the Paul Alexander interview, in which Paul seems very proud of his work in Series VIII. The fool.
New content? I'd prefer chicken
We've been very busy over the last few days, and we can actually bring you a decent update. Firstly, we've finally revised the Cast Commentary Corrections, to include mistakes made in the Series II track. And crikey, there's a lot of them, mainly from Craig, it has to be said. Also up today is a new article about the Lost Episodes of Red Dwarf, i.e. episodes that were written or planned, but not shot. Not only that, we've got three new reviews in the Parallel Universe section - of Crime Traveller, Random Abstract Memory and Ganymede & Titan's biggest fan Andrew Ellard's episode of Doctors. And as if that's not enough, The DVD and Movie FAQ has been updated to incorporate all the latest news. The next content update will be on Tuesday of next week, with a news update this weekend.
Movie News - We Were Right
Grant Naylor Productions have confirmed that the infamous movie poster, which Ganymede & Titan became the first Red Dwarf fan site to report on in February, is indeed genuine. They also tell us that Doug Naylor is currently on a recce in Australia, and that the snippet of the plot that we get in the poster is not the full story. Hmm. On Wednesday April 9th and Friday April 11th, the cast commentaries for the Series III and IV DVDs were recorded, in plenty of time for release in November this year and February 2004 respectively. The good news is that Robert Llewellyn and Hattie Hayridge were indeed present, which relieves an awful lot of irrational fears about the latter's inclusion. Also on the official site this week is an interesting interview with Paul Alexander, who is in fact seven years old.
As for this site, we apologise for the lack of updates recently. This is due to the University of Teesside's reluctance to allow John to live in the Learning Resource Centre over Easter. However, we've both been working hard, and we'll be uploading an awful lot of new content on Wednesday, including book reviews and a guide to the deleted scenes.
In the meantime, you may be interested to hear that Ganymede & Titan's biggest fan Andrew Ellard, who we are told is also in charge of the official site, Associate Producer of the DVDs and script editor on the movie, has written an episode of the daytime soap Doctors, which is been shown tomorrow (Tuesday) on BBC ONE at 2:05pm. Finally, on a sad note, Matt Dryzmala's popular fan site Back in the Red has been closed down. The good news is that Matt is currently working two new sites, including the Rimmer-dedicated Git Central. So good luck to Matt, and hurry up with it, you Mancunian git.
Site Updates
Well, the site has been relaunched now for over a week, and we're nearly at the stage where some of the site's original content can go back online. Ahem. Anyway, firstly, we'd like to thank Back In The Red for giving us a nice mention, and to Groovetown for an excellent review. On a completely unrelated note, why not visit Groovetown's forums, where me and Ian skulk about?
Anyway, on to site stuff. Ian's Dimension Jump X Report is now online (WHY COULDN'T I GO? WHY? BOLLOCKS FUCK SHIT). Expect some piccies of the event to go up soon. Meanwhile, the DVD and Movie FAQ has been updated. The goss at DJ was that shooting is due to start on 15th September - bearing in mind the previous delays, we're trying not to get too excited, but it really looks like it could be on this time...
UPDATE: There was due to be more updates today (the 13th), but seeing as I'm completely incompetent and fell asleep last night, there won't be. Hopefully they'll go up some time next week, but as I've got sporadic net access over Easter, you might have to wait until the week after. Oh, and thanks to friend-of-the-website Karl Eisenhauer for the piccy. You can see more of Karl and Snip's pics here.
Real III and IV DVD Details Released
More updates to the official site today - including, as if by magic, a new DVD Details section for Series III and IV. They will have a slightly bigger budget compared to the I and II DVDs, and the science room, bunk room and Starbug's hanger will probably feature as the menus. There will also be two more chapter points for each episode, bringing the total to nine, and (thankfully) the eggs will be hidden slightly better this time round - and there will be more of them. As for the cover art, Series III will obviously be of Starbug - with IV going back to Red Dwarf again. It'll be interesting to see what they do for Series V, seeing as Blue Midget doesn't make an appearance in that series; but what's the betting they use it anyway? Not much has been said about the extras yet, although there are hints of a few new things in that area - and that Hattie's DJ Video Diary is a definite feature. The Region 2 releases will be in November 2003 for Series III, and February 2004 for Series IV. The Region 1 release of both DVDs will occur in February 2004.
Other news stories on the site include an item on Craig Charles's new short film Ten Minutes, intriguingly billed as "a black comedy set in real time". It's directed by Ben Mole, who also produced the English edit of Takeshi's Castle with Craig. There's also a new navigation feature, Launch Scouter. Last, but certainly not least, there's a report on Dimension Jump X. Expect G&T's DJX report, along with more site updates, tomorrow.
Series III DVD Cover Preview?
The R2 Project has got what they think is a preview of the Series III DVD Cover in its Rumour Control section. "We received the following picture in the mail this morning, hopefully it is the sleeve artwork for series III of Red Dwarf", they say. Well, if it is, it's a very bad quality version of it - poor washed-out colour, with the ship being nowhere near as detailed as on the I and II covers. Also, if you take a look at the Desktop Backgrounds section of the official site, you can see that the design is nothing like the DVD Starbug one. In other words, it looks exactly like a mock, done by some wag or another. But we're willing to be proved wrong...
UPDATE (10/04/03): For the final (and blindingly obvious) proof, look at the bottom of the cover - and the dodgy editing work done on the black bar. Also, the green Starbug is... Blue Midget, tinted green (with a few minor modifications). Why the hell didn't they use the official Starbug desktop background on the official site? Anyway, it looks like we'll have to wait for some more DVD Details for cover news.
www.reddwarf.co.uk Updated
The official site was updated yesterday, with the best bit by far being Part 2 of Mr Flibble's Paul Jackson interview. It's truly fascinating, with quite a few things that we didn't know about, including the fact that it was him who directed the show during the first abandoned rehearsals, and Ed Bye was only doing 2nd-unit stuff. Meanwhile, the Series II DVD finally gets its Region 4 release, with some interesting sales info figures in the article too. Robert Llewellyn's Hollywood Science series (7:30pm on Wednesdays, BBC TWO), and Tony Hawks' Lights, Camera, Accident (8:30pm on Sundays, C5) are also advertised, and we'll try and bring you a review of those shortly - although the ever-excellent Groovetown covers both.
There's also a mention of the new Red Dwarf poster, which should be avaliable in time for Dimension Jumpers this weekend. Unfortunately, it looks pretty crap. I prefer my pictures of the crew to be big and un-wibblified, and I'm getting sick and tired of merchandise that uses the Remastered/Series VIII versions of Red Dwarf and Blue Midget, despite the fact that the earlier model shots were far, far, far better. Give me a full-sized poster of the original Red Dwarf model, and I'd be extremely happy. Or maybe a copy of Lister's London Jets poster. Anyway, I think I'll stick to my poster of this for now...
As for this site, there's been a few corrections to the articles - mainly spelling and grammar, as the site was rushed up for Dimension Jump. Thanks to Tanya Jones for going through it all. I'll try and get the Episodes section and News Archive online tomorrow. I've also fixed a font size problem in IE, brought to my attention by Squidy and clarified by mongrel, from NOTBBC's forums - the text size over-reacted to the Text Size settings. If anyone has any other accessibility problems with the site, let us know.
Welcome to Ganymede & Titan
There ain't no place in the whole of cyber-space. G&T is a website dedicated to the BBC2 sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. And, if you needed the fact that Red Dwarf is a BBC2 sci-fi comedy series explaining to you, then you've come to the wrong place, frankly. The site is written, designed and maintained by two long-term Dwarf experts from Internetland, whose aim is to bring you up-to-date news, in-depth guides and strongly-worded opinion pieces. As well as eventually providing astonishingly detailed capsules for all 52 episodes, we also aim to be the web's #1 resource for all information pertaining to the excellent DVDs and the forthcoming movie. Our favourite colour is orange.
We hope you enjoy reading the site, and that you'll re-visit us regularly. If you have any comments to make on the site, then contact us. Only, try not to use the word smeg more than three times in the same sentence.
For those of you who used to browse the old site, most of the articles have been updated slightly, and the new ones are: Don't Leave Us Hanging, Under Fire, and Alternate Personalities Featurette. The Red Dwarf DVD & Movie FAQ is also now hosted here. Expect updates at least weekly - with a report on Dimension Jump X next week.