Time for another horror double bill. This time we’re hitting the 1950’s for some classic horror science fiction. This was a popular sub genre in the fifties and in truth swayed more to science fiction but usually meant some kind of monster was involved along the way. No exception with this duo. So for your enjoyment I give you “It Came From Outer Space” from 1953 and “Day The World Ended” from 1955.
It Came From Outta Space (1953)
First up is the sci-fi horror classic: “It came from outta space” from 1953. This was originally released as a 3D movie as part of the first wave of that gimmick in the fifties. Indeed this was actually Universals first 3D movie. The movie is directed by Jack Arnold, often regarded one of the masters of sci-fi horror in the 1950’s. His other works include “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954), “Tarantula” (1955), and “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957). The story comes from prolific science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. It stars Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush, with support from Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer, and Russell Johnson.
A large meteorite crashes near the small town of Sand Rock, Arizona. Author and amateur astronomer John Putnam (Carson) investigates and realizes this is not a meteorite but a crashed space ship. Shortly after a landslide buries the spacecraft and as the only witness John has trouble convincing others to believe him. His girlfriend Ellen is the only one willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and helps him investigate. Over the next few days people start disappearing. Occasionally turning up apparently dazed and distant. Convinced this is something to do with the ship, John convinces the local sheriff (Drake) to assist. The question is, what do these visitors intend? Are they actually a threat?
The Night The Earth Will Never Forget
It’s worth noting this movie predates Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but not the Puppet Masters novel by Robert Heinlein. So at this point a movie where aliens assume the identity of regular people from a small town was a pretty fresh idea. Yet, through the lens of the modern day this could be seen as a subversion of that theme as the Aliens are not doing this as part of an invasion. The 50’s did actually have a fair mixture of benevolent and malevolent aliens. As is typical with the former types there is somewhat of a judgement against humanity on display here. Again, through a modern lens this is a little cliched but in the early 50’s this trope was only just starting to be established.
I’m not sure why this was a 3D movie. It’s not exactly action heavy and is actually quite slow in places. Then again I could probably say that about half the 3D movies that were ever released. While the 3D is wasted, I also don’t find too much horror in this story. The replacement of people doesn’t lead to much in the way of paranoia. The abduction scenes show very little and look dated. Last but not least, the aliens only reveal their true form once and only in a peaceful setting. They did pretty cool though and very unique. Not as good as the “War of the Worlds” aliens from the same year, but that movie had more than double the budget. The science fiction elements have aged far better than the horror ones.
Conclusion
This is a straight forward science fiction story with mild horror elements. It would have been fairly original in it’s time, but feels cliched now. Likewise the alien when it is revealed would have been a lot more impressive 71 years ago. I’m not sure the 3D would have impressed even in the day, but I can only judge that based on the lack of action on screen since I don’t have a 3D version. For the most part this feels like a decent TV movie. There’s not particularly wrong with it, the acting is fine, the directing is fine. But it’s all done without any real flourish to it. Overall this is a perfectly reasonable 5.5/10. Not recommended as a horror, but if you are a fan on old sci-fi it is worth watching.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5.5 out of 10.
Day The World Ended (1955)
For the second part of this double bill I’m reviewing the independent sci-fi/horror “Day The World Ended” from 1955. This is a post apocalyptic tale from the godfather of B-Movies, Roger Corman. This was actually his first full horror and his first in science fiction. Before then he’d only directed a couple of westerns and a handful of scenes for “The Beast With A Million Eyes”. The movie was written by Lou Rusoff (Who would later be a producer on another apocalyptic tale “Panic In Year Zero”). Richard Denning stars with support from Lori Nelson, Adele Jergens, Mike Connors and Paul Birch.
Set just after the events of an atomic war. A handful of survivors in an isolated box canyon find themselves cooped up in the home of former U.S. Navy Commander Jim Maddison (Birch) and his daughter Louise (Nelson). The visitors include small time hood Tony (Connors), his moll Ruby (Jergens), heroic geologist Rick (Denning), an irradiated and apparently dying man called Radek (Paul Dubov) and an old gold prospector called Pete (Raymond Hatton). They face three separate struggles for survival, the first against the dangers of radiation and the question of what the coming rain will bring. The second against the dangerous feral mutants that have appeared in this new irradiated world. The final struggle comes from inside and Tony’s plans to eliminate the other men and claim the rations and women for himself.
War Never Changes
I’ve always been a sucker for post apocalyptic fiction. Not only is it one of the great “What If”‘s of fiction, it always provides an excellent character study. Many of these films are effectively versions of the “Strangers in a room” story. These usually feature people sheltering from a storm, but this time the storm is radioactive. Usually these groups of people include at least one villain that drives a lot of the plot and this is no exception. Tony is clearly going to be a huge life threatening problem the whole way through. It’s hard not to see it as a plot hole that they don’t do anything about him until after he’s tried to take over the shelter several times, attempted to rape Louise and obviously killed his own girlfriend.
The rest of the film is focused on more far fetched science fiction elements. This is exactly the kind of 50’s science fiction that the “Fallout” video games took influence from. Indeed Radek, recovery from radiation sickness and how he now thrives on radiation is suspiciously similar to the Fallout concept of “Ghouls”. In this film, much like in the game radiation simply mutates a lot of the animals it makes contact with. The film doesn’t show us anything but sketches of most of these mutations, but the idea is to pave the way for the movies primary monster. The monster looks pretty good, but only turns up at the end and dies shortly after.
Conclusion
This is a somewhat stripped down movie that features a lot of good ideas that struggle to fit in to the run time. Certainly none of them get as fully developed as they deserve. The acting is passable, but at this point in his career Corman didn’t really direct the actors and that shows. The personalities of the characters come across as stereotypical archetypes. The monster looks pretty good for the age and limited budget and Corman certainly made the most of the sets. It’s a pretty impressive debut in the genre, but Roger would certainly do better later in his career. This ties with the other half of this double bill with a 5.5/10. If you like post apocalyptic tales and old sci-fi you will enjoy it.
Three years after the release of David Villeneuve’s take on Dune, we finally have the second part. Both films together cover Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel “Dune”. Interestingly, they originally split the novel into two halves and published them in “Analogue Science Fiction And Fact” magazine. So they could have named the first part “Dune World” and this year’s sequel “Prophet of Dune” (as they were called in the magazine) instead of the rather bland “Part One” and “Part Two,” but that’s nitpicking really. Denis Villeneuve directs Dune part two and co-writes it with Jon Spaihts (but this time, without Eric Roth).
The movie sees Timothée Chalamet return to the role of Paul Atreides along with many of the very strong cast of the first movie. Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh join the cast as the previously unseen Emperor and his daughter along with Austin Butler as “Feyd-Rautha”, the character played by Sting in the David Lynch version of the story. Once again, the ensemble cast is incredibly strong. All the pieces are in place, strong cast, strong source material, solid budget and a film maker known for his visuals. This should easily be fantastic… but is it? I’m skipping the synopsis for this one, since this follows on directly from part two, it is hard to cover it without dropping spoilers. The Rest of this review has minor spoilers, but nothing that will impact your enjoyment. Skip to the conclusion of this is an issue for you.
Visuals
So first thing to cover is the look and in that regard this is excellent. The sand worms have never seemed more immense or dangerous. The landscape is imposing and the action scenes frankly put most other science fiction movies of the modern day to shame. The sound design is great too, however I don’t remember any of the music at all after leaving the theater. I remember from the first movie how much of the soundtrack was just noises and ambiance, which is a bit of a trend for modern soundtracks so I won’t hold it too much against this particular one.
With such a strong cast we were always unlikely to have any problems with the acting and it is very strong throughout. The main burden though falls on Chalamet as Atreides and he did a fantastic job. Despite his relatively small stature he managed to come across as powerful when needed and was able to convey both his conflicted conscience and he determination to get revenge for the destruction of his house. Despite the actors performances though, the script doesn’t given them a great deal to work with. With lesser actors that would have seen the film fall flat, but they just about get away with it here. It certainly helps when you have the likes of Rebecca Ferguson and Stellan Skarsgård in support.
Emotional Impact (Or lack thereof).
Now for the negatives. First of all, the emotional payoffs for this movie are built on setups from the previous one, almost entirely. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t re-watch that film before viewing its sequel so after a three year gap I didn’t feel even one of those emotional pay offs. That left the ending somewhat anti-climactic for me. That may be further impacted by the fact that I know the story, so there are no surprises for me. That said, I don’t think a recent re-watch would have helped feel the pay off in regards to the Emperor or Feyd, since neither are in the first film. The Emperor was behind the fall of House Atreides, but it doesn’t feel personal and so it is hard to really care. This was my biggest problem for Dune: Part Two. I really didn’t feel much in the way of an emotional connection to anything going on. Villeneuve’s directing style is very dry, and it reminds me of a lot of my issues with his Blade Runner sequel.
I always felt the biggest thing lacking from Blade Runner 2049 was heart. It was in some ways like a very good AI attempting to replicate the look and soundtrack of the first film, but without the ability to truly understand it. At the time I thought it was just a failure with that film but having seen both parts of Dune I have to conclude that it’s an issue with Villenueve’s approach in general. I think he perhaps focuses too much on the technical aspect of how things look and as a result sometimes forgets that a film is more than just visuals. Maybe it’s just me, but despite the source material and the high quality cast this is a movie that often felt as dry as the endless desert of Arrakis.
Pacing and Characters
My second issue is pacing (And this impacts my emotional reaction too). Some scenes really drag out. Not good in a movie with a running time towards three hours. Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel that some characters and story elements could have benefited from a bit more time spent on them. In what I gather is a change to the novel, the Fremen are split into northern and southern factions. The north is anti-religious and the south are effectively zealots. Another scene really drags out how the rebels got their hands on the Atreides nuclear arsenal. None of these elements are bad in themselves, they just felt unnecessary to the story.
As good as the actors were, the filmmakers wasted every single one of the antagonists. Florence Pugh’s “Princess Irulan” barely has more screen time than Virginia Madsen had in the 1984 movie. Neither her nor the Emperor (Played by Walken) felt like real characters to me. Feyd gets a pretty bad ass introduction, but has no real connection with Paul. When they finally fight it had the emotional impact of two people concluding a minor business deal. Meanwhile, the roles of both Dave Bautista’s “Beast Rabban” and Stellan Skarsgård’s “Baron Harkonnen” feel diminished. Gone is their powerful, intimidating presence from the previous movie, and as a result, their eventual defeat feels somewhat empty. These are good characters with good actors playing them, they shouldn’t feel like they are just there.
Conclusion
Ultimately the positives do outweigh the negatives. When paired with the first film it is both good entertainment and quality art. However it is not a masterpiece and this isn’t the new Lord of the Rings by a long way. Honestly I’m not sure the Dune novels are particularly well suited to movies. However it really does look superb and Chalamet probably does deserve an Oscar nomination. I’m somewhat torn, but I’m going to have to settle on a very strong 6.5/10. The movie would have scored higher had I actually felt something at it’s conclusion, but it is what it is.
Doctor Who is like a nice car, originally advanced and ahead of its time, then it became a cool and desirable classic, more fun than useful, but now its a rusting pile of unserviceable junk just waiting to be scrapped because its owners didn’t look after it.
This is a sad situation for perhaps the most iconic British show of all time. Something drastic must be done and it’s clear small changes such as a new Doctor or show runner will not be enough. Currently each new era of Who is worse than the last. More is lost from what made the show so beloved and more of the audience has departed.
1. Start From The Beginning
Let’s face it, “Nu Who” is a mess. Introducing “The Timeless Children” was akin to unleashing a bull in the china shop of Who canon. Doubling down on that under RTD’s second run means they can’t even side step the issue. The thing is though, even before the gender swap, there were a lot of creative decisions made for short term gain that did long term damaged and drove the series into a number of creative traps (Many of which I’ll touch on here). Right from the start, escalating the Daleks to near god-like monsters and eliminating the whole of Gallifrey severely limited storytelling options. Having The Doctor get romantically involved with his very first reboot companion was a cheap way to generate interest that never really fit with the character as we knew him from the original series.
Now you could simply do what many movie franchises have done and side step the entire reboot era. If you do that there’s no reason to even acknowledge the Doctor Who movie, you just pick up from the 8th incarnation. However, it can’t be denied that Nu Who does have a lot of fans (Most of which have also walked away now) and it’s not like the continuity was perfect before that. The best solution then is to abandon all that continuity and reboot from the 1st Doctor. Then the existing fans can decide what parts of the previous versions they want to consider canon and what they want to ignore. For me, it’ll just be classic Who, but if people want to consider all of it canon that’s fine. But Who will be restart from scratch.
What’s in a name?
It’s a common trend for people to make the argument that mystery is better than explanation. I disagree. In the context of a movie, yes that can work extremely well, but with a TV series that may run for decades pushing a mystery and never answering it is basically just going all in with the JJ Abrams mystery box style of storytelling. Eventually you can no longer provide any answer that will satisfy and yet if you provide none the story feels empty. For such a show, it’s a bad idea to get too carried away with unrevealed mysteries. With Doctor Who people make a big thing about the name of the show, yet the original show didn’t force the mystery and by the era of the third Doctor, we were presented with a fair amount of information about the characters childhood without any issue.
In my view, it was often suggest that Time Lords would take their own name and there are many examples of title-like names among Galifreyans. I had always assumed it was just a cultural thing and there didn’t need to be a big fuss over the mystery. Humans meeting him often remark “Doctor Who?”, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a big mystery as to his original name, instead for me the mystery was why he chose “The Doctor”. There is no reason the show can’t reveal elements of the characters childhood, but it doesn’t need to reveal his birth name, indeed that should be unimportant. It’s fine however to imply that there was a reason he took the name “The Doctor”. The obvious reason would be that he wanted to heal something. Mysteries about the Doctors past should be generated and solved at a relatively steady pace without letting anything dwell too long or stagnate.
Character Progression.
By the end of our first story we should have a Doctor very much like William Hartnell on Earth in the 60’s with his granddaughter. In the original story it was said The Doctor and Susan couldn’t return to Gallifrey but wanted to one day, there is no reason not to look into this a bit more. It’s also worth noting The Doctor has lived a fairly long life before he starts adventuring, that life doesn’t have to all be on Gallifrey. This isn’t the original series anymore and providing something new out of the door would certainly be refreshing, so why not look into some of this? In my view the reason the Doctor left gallifrey, the reason he took the name “The Doctor” and the reason he has his grandaughter with him should be linked and could be a very compelling story.
The full journey of the first doctor should be one where he eventually embraces the role of the name he chose. To begin with he wants nothing to do with the rest of the universe, but after travelling with Susan, Barbara and Ian for a while he learns the burden of power and responsibility. One element I did like introduced by the reboot series is the idea that a regeneration is somewhat guided by need, almost like a form of evolution. So the second Doctor would regenerate into this role and from then on each Doctors journey can help define the personality of the next regeneration and in turn bring on new things for him to learn. That should keep things interesting, fresh and consistent. Oh and only twelve regenerations!
2. Return to 4-8 Part Stories.
I understand why the Who reboot opted for single part stories initially. The TV landscape had changed and getting a new generation to invest in a weekly 25 minute episode to tell a 4-8 part story was going to be a big ask. Most shows of the time were based on 45 minute episodes, mostly self contained but with some overall linking story between all episodes in a season. This was effectively applied directly to Doctor Who. The linking storylines were somewhat weak, but the set up worked to bring in new fans.
But things have changed since then. Now streaming is king and with it the binge model. Most streaming shows have short seasons of no more than about 10 episodes, many substantially less. This is a set up almost perfectly designed for the classic Doctor Who. With the binge model you could drop a 4 or 6 episode story and let people binge it. Do that 2-3 times a year as a “Season” and you have the perfect set up for modern audiences.
Time And The Binge Model.
This is the trouble with the current show makers, they refuse to change the format. They don’t mind changing the Doctor, messing with the lore and the entire tone of the show but they don’t even consider that it may be time to revert to the old format. Times have changed more dramatically for TV shows between the launch of the reboot series and now then they did between the classic shows debut and the reboot series. Many modern viewers prefer the binge model and streaming services have been experimenting with formats that allow an amount of binge while also allowing for water cooler discussions. It couldn’t be better set up for a classic Who format.
Six part stories at 30 minutes each or four parts at 45 minutes each would fit the current market perfectly. With 3 hour stories (Less actually, once credits and recaps are removed), they could provide 3-4 of these every year. Pretty comparable to a classic season, but with the difference that you drop an entire story at once which will satisfy those fans used to seeing a complete story in one sitting and people that just like to binge watch. Returning to these longer stories also means they no longer need those vague season long arks that have frankly always been quite disappointing.
3. Bring Back The Science Fiction
There is a lot of misunderstanding with Doctor Who. People that don’t regularly go back and watch the old black and white episodes (Most likely have never watched them) tend to just believe it started out as a children’s show. This isn’t true. Conceptually it started out as an educational show for children. This isn’t the same as just a children’s show, since the whole point of an educational show is to provide education! That means accurate history and science. That leaned the show into genuine science fiction. It’s also obviously untrue to suggest that only Children were the audience for the show, even in those early days. That was not the case. Children did watch it, but it appealed to adults too and it especially appealed to adult science fiction fans.
However it may have been initially conceived, the show quickly left those tracks. Initially “The Daleks”, the shows second serial, was considered not appropriate for the show. Despite being solid science fiction, it wasn’t suitable for an educational children’s show. However after Verity Lambert went to bat for Terry Nation’s story and it became a huge success the entire shape of the show changed. Obviously there was a drive for “More of that” and that meant more science fiction. It was built into the shows initial success and formed a key element for the whole of the black and white era.
Science Fiction In Decline.
When the Second Doctor came along an element of comedy was introduced, but the sci-fi remained firmly front and center. When the show moved into colour with the Third Doctor injected a bit more action to the franchise with a bit of a James Bond influence, however many episodes also took on a Quatermass sort of vibe, again firmly science fiction with a touch of horror to boot. The Fourth Doctor stepped away from the action and brought back a bit of the comedy but didn’t lack for Science Fiction. This is the era where Douglas Adams was writing the occasional episode a man that blended comedy and solid science fiction concepts together with unmatched brilliance and it’s no surprise that Tom Baker’s era hit that sweet spot of “This is what Doctor Who should be”.
Things remained fairly consistent until the notable drop in budget and quality during the Seventh Doctor’s run. But even here, while things did get a too campy for my tastes, there was still a decent amount of science fiction. By the time we got to the reboot era however, this key element of the show had become heavily diminished. Russel T Davis is not a science fiction writer and that was clear from pretty early on (Indeed, it seems he only liked the campier stuff). Steven Moffat at least was capable and did introduce some of those elements whenever he was writing (He was a much better writer than show runner). Overall though the show took a huge step away from science fiction and towards fantasy, drama, campy theatrics and soap opera.
Too Much Feeling, Too Little Thinking.
The first thing the reboot era did was start pushing a romance between the Doctor and his companion. This was the most obvious, cheapest route the show could take and it was the first place Davis wanted to go with it. All too often the stakes were artificially inflated, and the Doctor would just pull out a Deus Ex Machina to solve it quickly at the end. Part of that was down to the length of the stories and the increased focus in the relationship between the Doctor and the Companion. The stories themselves became notably secondary to the characters. Their concepts became shallower and more about what would look cool than what was an interesting thing to think about.
All storytelling should make you feel something, but Science Fiction is meant to make you think as well. Nu Who however, was only interested in those feelings. If it found space between The Doctor and companions emotional journey to fit in something conceptually interesting, that was a bonus, but all to often this was totally lacking. But these days it’s not just Doctor Who that is like this. Even Star Trek has largely turned it’s back on Science Fiction, which to me is bizarre. Blade Runner watered it down for it’s disappointing sequel and Star Wars, which was always closer to fantasy somehow found a way to step even further from Sci-Fi concepts and more towards…. well, “Shipping” apparently. Don’t even get me started on that one.
The Importance of Nuance and Complexity.
These days it is more important than ever to encourage people to think on complex topics. Topics like the nature of humanity, finding balance in a world of differing perspectives and cultures, what our place is in the universe in the long term and the nature of life itself. We need to examine these and we need to do it with nuance and depth. People should be encouraged to think more deeply and not be controlled by knee jerk emotional reactions. In short, we really need proper science fiction back and yet all the science fiction franchises seem to have moved far away from these elements. With the current incarnation of Doctor Who, Davis has outright announced that the show is moving from science fiction to fantasy. He’s also clearly more interested in telling people what to think instead of letting them think for themselves.
There is clearly a big gap in the market for solid science fiction at the moment. The show should move towards it, instead of away and towards soap opera, fantasy and pantomime. That would not only bring back old school fans but also bring in the refugees from all those other franchises AND by encouraging people to think about and discuss these topics in a balanced, nuanced way with all views represented it could actually do some good for society. Maybe it could even bring people together instead of constantly dividing us with one sided lecturing like the current show does. Even those that agree with the narratives being pushed in the modern show must realize, you can reach more people through writing quality science fiction than you can with a lecture in the middle of a pantomime.
4. Stop Sensationalizing The Companions!
While we don’t truly know how a 1000 year old alien would feel about 20-ish year old girls of an entirely different species, it seems unlikely that he’d start falling in love with them. He certainly wouldn’t be talking to them like a school girl about how hot some random dude was. None of that seems right for such a character. It also doesn’t add anything really to the show except for cliches and complications. The Doctor should be aloof from all that. Now obviously there is a suggestion that the character has had a relationship in the past, seeing as he appeared to have a granddaughter, but that was before his first regeneration, before we even meet the character.
Had they just done the romance with Rose and left it at that, perhaps it would have been fine. But they didn’t leave it there. With the next major story arc, they gave him an actual wife, who ended up being the daughter of a companion that also had the hots for him, despite first meeting him as a child herself. The entire thing was a little creepy. Clara seemed out of the same mold and certainly they pushed the idea again with Yazz. Companions constantly falling for the doctor is boring, limits the storytelling and gets in the way of the individual stories.
The Importance of Variety.
Even when not having the companion drooling over the Doctor there has been a trend with the reboot series of making every companion super special and the center of season long story arcs. Donna became “The Doctor Donner”, Clara became a character out of time that had apparently been The Doctors guardian angel throughout his life (At least up until they added a extra regenerations). Amy Pond became the mother of his wife as well as someone that met him as a child and waited for him. These are all cheap mysteries and cheap replacements for telling actual stories. I mean how many “The girl who” titles do they need? The universe doesn’t need to always revolve around the companion. I think it’s for this reason why Martha was my favourite companion of the reboot show, Martha was good because of her personality not because she had superpowers.
But it’s not just about sensationalizing the companions. It’s about time the Doctor went back to having multiple companions, each with their own stories, identities and desires. These characters can have complex relationships with each other, instead of always making it about The Doctor. They can also have their own unique strengths and actually have flaws (Often missing from Nu-Who companions). Of course the reboot show did move back to a group briefly with Whitaker’s Doctor, but the men in that group were treated as unimportant, while Yazz ended up being shipped with The Doctor and as soon as the Doctor became male again he immediately went back to one female companion. Predictable. On top of that these were all companions from modern day Earth. Remember when the Doctor used to travel with aliens, Highlanders and people from the future? That is real diversity.
5. Keep The Doctor Male
This will be my most controversial rule. The fact is there are many differences between men and women (As I said, controversial). Some are physical, some are in how we think and feel and some are in how we are perceived by society. These differences mean that changing the gender of a character radically alters how the viewers will relate to that character. None of this appears to have been considered when they decided they wanted a female Doctor. It never really made any sense and yet it was clearly something they had planned since at least the arrival of Steven Moffat as show runner. Before then, there had not even been a hint that this was possible in the shows lore. But the moment we started seeing other Timelords change genders, we all knew why. This was done entirely for reasons external to the shows storytelling.
That in itself is an issue. You shouldn’t be taking a wrecking ball to your show canon, just because you want to somehow empower women by saying they too can be this fictional character that has been male for 50 years. The motivation for doing something in story should never be virtue signalling. It should never be justified by “Why not?” or “It’s about time”. It should only ever be about telling a good story. But outside of that there are many other reasons to keep the Doctor male. For example, you need to keep a character relatively consistent to make sure they can always be recognised by the casual audience. That keeps a franchise in the public’s conscious and ties the past to the future. As soon as it becomes unrecognizable, the link between the past and present is severed and brand confusion reigns supreme.
Role Models and Personality
But an even more important reason to keep the Doctor male is his personality. See the Doctor is a little forgetful and scatterbrained at times. For a male character that is sort of charming, but for a female character it is a negative female stereotype, the ditsy blonde. More importantly the Doctor solves problems with empathy and intelligence instead of aggression and violence. For a male character this is fairly unique and it makes the Doctor a great male role model. It tells young boys they can solve problems with empathy and intelligence instead of brute force. It was a lesson that I learned from the show and I think many others did too. Boys need that kind of role model. Girls do not. Indeed part of that way of solving problems can sometimes involve manipulation. Having a female character that empathetic is basically just a generic female character, but having one that is manipulative? Well again we’re onto negative female stereotypes.
In short, it simply doesn’t work. But since even complaining about it gets you labelled as a sexist misogynist, it actively drives people away from the show and divides the fandom into two equally angry factions. Last but not least it is absolutely unnecessary to gender switch the character. Doctor Who was always filled with interesting female characters that were ripe for a spin off, several of which are Timeladies or have similar capabilities: A Romana spin off has been an obvious thing to do since the 70’s; The Rani running a redemption ark could have been an interesting/unique spin off story and; The Doctor’s Granddaughter Susan who hasn’t been seen on screen since the 60’s could easily have her own adventures. Even limited to reboot era characters there are many options: The cloned “Daughter” of the Doctor, who presumably can regenerate; Clara and Ashildr, who have their own Tardis; Even Bill Potts and her puddle girlfriend are out there somewhere.
When you think about it, the Whoniverse is pretty much a universe of many strong female characters and very few strong male ones, so maybe those should stay male?
A Quick Note On Race.
Before I move on, I should touch on race swapping the Doctor. This isn’t an issue for personality or lore. However, it does impact that surface level character consistency, so to do a race change you need to make sure you have an actor that screams “Doctor Who” at your, either in their performance or just in themselves. Richard Ayoade has been a fan favourite choice for a while for that very reason. Not giving him a shot will likely always go down as a missed opportunity, though to be fair some have questioned if he is actually a good enough actor. In my experience comedians often surprise you, so I would have considered it worth a shot. The last thing you want to do however, is race switch and then also make them look and act radically different to past incarnations. Then it no longer seems like Doctor Who at all.
Of course that is literally what they just did. It’s almost like they deliberately wanted to make him more difficult to accept. Why? Well again it seems another decision done for reasons outside of the show itself. That does nothing to help the franchise. But in theory switching races isn’t a problem if the right actor is chosen. I would say though that given this is an iconic British show, the demographic should reflect the countries demographics. We are majority white, but our largest non-white demographic is Asian (Mostly South Asian). Black people represent just 4% of our population, while Asians represent 9.3%. That is more than double and yet the BBC treat this like it is the other way around. For me this exposes a larger issue: They seem more interested in pushing popular mainstream perceptions/politics than providing genuine representation.
6. Stop With The Power Creep
The last thing is a problem for a lot of franchises that are fantasy or science fiction based these days. In Doctor Who the best example of this going wrong is The Daleks. They have gone from radiation eating armored mutants that can only travel within their own city, to virtually indestructible flying, time travelling demi-gods that threaten all of time and reality, multiverses and the Timelords themselves and who are basically impossible to defeat… except with a magical bullshit machine performing a Deus Ex Machina. These power levels and stakes ultimately render the entire story meaningless. It’s silly and it needs to stop.
Somewhere along the line it was decided that threatening The Earth wasn’t enough. That enemies with weaknesses wasn’t interesting enough and that The Doctor himself effectively needs to be a god to be in the same playground as the other giants. It all became just a tad too ridiculous. Right now through a combination of this and the Doctors new infinite lives cheat code the show has literally no stakes (That anyone will ever believe anyway). Obviously with a full reboot you get a hard reset on that, but you must be ever vigilant to ensure bad writers don’t take these kinds of short cuts again. Every now and then it’s okay to threaten the universe or reality itself, but you have to pull things right back to a more personal level after so it doesn’t get out of control and you need to chose the right villains for those threats. The Black Guardian is right for that level, not The Daleks. Not that I’m saying the Daleks should go back to being killed by being pushed over a coat. But maybe they could be less god-like.
Final Words
I recognise there is a need to compromise with Who, because like any show that has run for so long and changed throughout, there are fans of each era and they want different things. So I’m not saying to drop everything the reboot series offered, just that these elements that were better in the original show should return. Even before the new show went into an era I can only describe as “Zombie Who” it was stagnating because of the lack of variety. Sadly RTD’s ideas to add variety are to reduce the show to pantomime and to virtue signal, neither of which will attract viewers. But combining what worked prior to that in the reboot with what worked in the original show could create something that keeps both sets of fans happy and brings in new ones.
This is how I would fix Doctor Who. But it is all theoretical. Sadly with the BBC where it is now and with Disney and Bad Wolf/Sony as their partners, there is almost no hope of course correction. To fix Who those corporations needs to either change internally or be removed from any control of the franchise and that won’t happen any time soon. So to create a situation where the show actually can be fixed, the most immediate thing that needs to be done is, well… to cancel it. Yes, the most important step right now is to stop inflicting further damage to this franchise and let it rest for around five years. Then it can be rebooted more sensibly and by that time hopefully the people in charge of it will be more interested in quality and less in what often seems a vindictive campaign against those that have spent their life loving the show.
Tonight’s movie is a classic B-Movie Science Fiction Horror from the fifties. “Invaders from Mars” hit the theaters in 1953 and was the first movie to hit the big screen about alien body snatchers. This is far more Sci-Fi than Horror but it’s close enough to make my October viewing. It was also remade in the 1980’s by Tobe Hooper, so it was enough of a Horror to attract one of the genre’s masters to the remake. This version was written by Richard Blake and directed by William Cameron Menzies. It was an independent production based on an original script.
Body Snatchers!
Viewing Invaders From Mars for the first time seventy years after it came out requires us to have a little perspective on things. Obviously it has a lot of similarities to the Body Snatchers story, which is much more famous and manages a remake about once every couple of decades. However it’s worth noting that the first Body Snatchers movie came out three years after this one and even the novel on which it is based came out a year after this. However, while there may have been some influence it’s worth noting that Robert Heinlein’s story “The Puppet Masters” pre-dates both of these as it was released in 1951.
So why was this trope so common in the 50’s? Well, the Red Menace of course. I’m sure you already knew that since you can’t read anything about 50’s science fiction and horror without pages of someone talking about communism. So I’m not going to waste much of your time on that. That said, an insidious presence trying to take over a community from the inside for nefarious reasons is just as valid today as it was then (Perhaps more so), so it’s a great example of how timeless a movie can be when it’s message is kept as subtext and metaphor and isn’t too on the nose.
The Insidious Presence
This is very much a movie of two halves. The first part is Body Snatchers light. As mentioned above, not a knock off due to the timing of releases, but it doesn’t drive the concept anywhere near as hard as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. The other key difference is this movie has a child protagonist (“David”) who we follow from start to finish. David is played by Jimmy Hunt, who largely retired from acting not long after this movie but did return to take on the small role of the police chief in the 80’s remake. For what it’s worth he does a pretty good job here. Not the best performance I’ve seen from a child actor but perfectly serviceable.
The first half of the movie kicks off when David spots what appears to be a UFO landing in a Sandpit area near his house. After his father goes to check it out, he comes back changed. David starts to notice several other people have been changed including his mother, a girl neighbor of his and the Chief of Police. He eventually is listened to by a friendly police office and a Doctor that meet up with a local Astronomer that knows the boy and his father who confirms the boy isn’t prone to making stuff up. This is where the story shifts and the Martians deception becomes a lot less of an issue.
Turning The Tables
The second half of the movie is instead about the army trying to find a way to defeat these martians. At this point it becomes a fairly standard Sci-Fi affair but with a slight twist at the end of the story maybe being a dream (Or not, it’s unclear form the ending). This second half is pretty reasonable for a B-Movie Sci-Fi of the 1950’s, but doesn’t feature much of note outside of a pretty cool design for the Martian “Intelligence”, who was basically the Meekon with tentacles. Considering the effects limitations and budget this is surprisingly well executed. That said, there is a great deal of repeat footage in this section (Both of military convoys
The first half though is where most of the horror aspects lay and it’s done pretty well. Victims being sucked down into the sand by martians, the changed people’s cold aggressive attitude (Including a hard slap to David from his “Father” fairly early on) and the mystery of what they are up to all play out rather well. The only issue with once we reach that halfway point most of this impact is lost and honestly by that point the kid largely just gets in the way of the narrative.
Conclusion
All told though this is a pretty solid B-Movie. It shows a great deal of imagination and it’s a shame this film is mostly forgotten due to the large shadow cast by Don Siegel’s 1956 masterpiece “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. Next year I will try and fit Hooper’s remake into my October viewing. That said, the second half is notably weaker than the first, the ending is an anti-climax and frankly the movie hasn’t aged that well. This is worth viewing if you are into 1950’s B-Movies or are a movie buff in general, but otherwise probably not worth the effort tracking down. I’m scoring this (In the context of the modern day) at a high 5.5/10.
Last October I was introduced to Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg through his movie “Infinity Pool” (2022). While it wasn’t one of my top films of the year, I was impressed by Brandon’s style and interested by both the similarities and differences with his father. So for this years Halloween Challenge I had a look for anything else directed by Brandon and found “Possessor”. It actually scores higher than Infinity Pool on IMDB (and more than Brandon’s only other feature film “Antiviral” (2012). So it seemed worth a shot. Possibly several shots and a few stabbings. Let’s find out!
Familiar Territory.
Written and Directed by Brandon Cronenberg, possessor stars Andrea Riseborough (as “Tasya Vos”) and Christopher Abbott (As “Colin Tate” and “Tasya Vos” in Tate’s body). It also has a support role for Jennifer Jason Leigh (Who also starred in David Cronenberg’s “Existenz” (1999)) and Sean Bean who you naturally assume is not going to survive the movie, but I’m not giving spoilers. The set up is very much something from a Science Fiction Action movie and had it been in that genre I’d probably comment on it not being especially interesting. However, this is Brandon Cronenberg, so I’m not expecting explosions and car chases.
Much like with Infinity Pool, the plot here is based on a fairly out there science fiction concept, in this case taking control of another persons body and using it to perform assassinations. Both movies are also sort of casual about it, the movie doesn’t appear to be set notably in the future and there is no real explanation about the technology. It ultimately is not about the tech and instead more about human psychology and the film uses the technology to examine that.
What It Is About And What It Really Is About.
True to form, the story seems barely interested in the actual assassination job for which Vos was hired, instead it is really about her mental state and that of her victims. This is a film about identity and the dark desires that hide in the back of peoples’ minds and provides a conclusion that is… well, very Cronenberg. Like with Infinity Pool, the classic Body Horror stuff you tend to expect from the family is present but used sparingly (Except on the marketing material, where it’s overused to the point that it could be called misleading).
What grounds the film more in Horror than Sci-Fi is we are looking at the main characters journey into her own darkness. Shedding her humanity (Much of which seemed to be faked, reacting as people would expect instead of how she feels). While this is laid out for the viewer fairly early on, the journey still offers some surprises and there are perhaps some double meanings behind a few of the scenes. Pacing wise it is a little slow with probably too much focus on people having sex (Another Cronenberg trait) but neither of these are particularly problematic. The film has a feel of a dream and the Jim Williams soundtrack is clearly designed to emphasize this.
Dark Desires
Abbott and Riseborough put in solid performances. Both play Vos, but in Abbots case only while she is in Tate’s body. This means Abbott has to convince the viewer he is two different people in one body, in some cases including Vos pretending to be Tate and others in a way that is meant to feel like it could be either. He does this pretty well. Risenborough meanwhile gets to play Vos as herself, which is largely unemotional and cold, but underneath that a character disturbed and frustrated by her own emotions. She does it well.
Overall I feel about this movie a lot like I did with Infinity Pool. It is interesting and well executed. However, it is a pretty linear feeling journey where we always feel like we are just slowly plodding from A to B. There is a little bit of depth but not enough to really drive discussion. The technology involved is one that obviously opens a lot of philosophical debate (Like in Infinity Pool) and yet Brandon (Again) ignores most of that to hyper focus on a fairly simple character journey.
Once again this feels like taking a David Cronenberg film and watering it down a bit to make it more accessible to the audience. The end result is a movie I definitely enjoyed, but will probably not watch a second time. I can’t help but feel Brandon has an all time great Horror in him, but this isn’t it. It is instead a narrow 6/10.
When following the films of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg it’s hard not to be underwhelmed when you get to this little number. It seems clear that while Frost may be a walking encyclopaedia of pop culture references, the creativity and flair of his more famous movies likely came from Edgar Wright, because this completely lacks either, but it does have a LOT of references in it. So if you are the kind of person that enjoys movies just because they reference other, better movies, TV shows and comics then this will be for you. If not… Maybe give it a skip.
Paul is written by Pegg and Frost and helmed by “Superbad” and “Adventureland” director Greg Mottola. It stars Pegg, Frost as a couple of Brits visiting America to attend comiccon and the talentless Seth Rogen (Sorry, but I don’t get why he keeps getting so much work) as the titular alien that stumbles into their path late one night after attending the con. The pair decide to help Paul return home, but are pursued by the FBI and various groups of rednecks… because rednecks, I guess.
By The Numbers.
The story itself is a pretty generic by the numbers, protect the friendly alien story. It could be “E. T.” , “*Batteries not Included”, even “Short Circuit” (If you ignore he’s not an Alien). Though those movies have a lot more heart to them. It could also be “Bumblebee” or “Monster Truck” or any number of similar stories of more recent years. The only thing different here is the Alien looks like a generic grey type alien…. So basically it’s a double cliché.
That’s really the game this film is playing. It substitutes any originality or heart for tired tropes and just out of the blue references that could have been stuck at any time in the film since they are only there to be references. This is exactly the kind of film I’d expect a pop culture junky to make and perhaps in the late 90’s to early 2000’s when those kinds of films/shows were relatively fresh and popular (I was a fan of Pegg’s own “Spaced”) they could have gotten away with it, but by 2011 that was all feeling pretty stale. Roll on to 2023 when I’m making this review and it’s still being over done but notably a lot less popular. Everyone is tiring of it now.
Clichés and Stereotypes.
Of course those pop culture referencing films of that period were also funny, which helped them a lot. Some even had artistic merit (The first Clerks film for instance). This doesn’t have either of those. It’s just references, tropes and cameos (Well, one cameo, but that’s also a reference).The closest it.
When the film isn’t doing pop culture references, it is basically just stereotyping people instead, because making a character that isn’t a hundred percent generic would apparently be beyond Pegg and Frost’s writing partnership in 2011. Honestly, it’s shocking to see the gulf between this movie and Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz. Both of those also featured a tonne of references, but actually had a good plot, some really funny moments and… well… style!
Conclusion.
Ultimately this film exposes the limitations of the Pegg/Frost partnership without Edgar Wright’s involvement. Pegg especially is a one trick pony, only able to throw in pop culture references (It’s even how he wrote his Star Trek script, that’s why you had a major scene involving playing The Beastie Boys). Wright brought the quality and style to that partnership and is sorely missed here. This is a 4/10.
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