Transformers The War Movie.

War, it may be the most horrific of human experiences but it’s also one of the most gloriously visual and that means it’s always been a choice subject for films. The Dam Busters, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, the list goes on but what celluloid experience truly captures the pointless bloody slaughter and sacrifice that any major conflict involves? Well the answer may surprise you and the slaughter involved is not bloody but oily, because nothing shows the true horror of the battlefield as effectively the first 25 minutes of that animated classic Transformers: The Movie.

Yes the film that features Eric Idle voicing a robot that speaks in TV clichés is a better war film than Platoon. Why you ask? Because two years before Platoon’s release you weren’t playing with Sergeant Elias action figures(1). Lets put this in context, for the two years before the cinematic release of Transformers there where 65 episodes of the cartoon produced. So repeats aside that at least 65 times a young child of the 80s would have sat down on a Saturday morning and watched two sets of robots in disguise kick the crap out of each other, safe in the knowledge that by the end of every episode not only would the status quo be restored but all your favourite characters would be fine and if, they where an Autobot, possibly having a forced laugh at some terrible joke. It was fun, exciting and safe. But soon you were about to learn that where war is concerned nothing is sacred.

 

 Now it’s 1986 and you’re so excited because there’s a Transformers Movie and according to its trailer it’s ‘the most incredible rock ‘n’ roll adventure ever’!  AND it’s starring Judd Nelson! Well OK maybe that particular fact would be less exciting but it also has a giant transforming planet! How will Wheeljack, Prowl, Ironhide and of course Optimus Prime get out of this one? Then the film starts, and you have those opening shots of Unicorn floating through space which are weirdly beautiful.  You cut too a planet of robots, not Transformers but maybe second cousins? And oh look they even have little robot children running around, that’s cute even if it does rise the question of robotic procreation, none the less I’m sure the people on this planet will play some important role, maybe the Decepticons capture it and the Autobots have to save everyone…OH GOD THEY ALL JUST DIED! Right in front of your innocent eyes an entire planets' population is eaten by another planet, though this one has horns. We see two robots escaping in shuttles only for one to be sucked back right into this living hell, screaming as he goes. You stare transfixed at the inside of this horned beast and how everything that was once living is reduced to a pulpy mess that powers this robotic monstrosity. Cue opening titles.

 This sequence is like nothing the Transformers universe had ever seen and if you hoped that things would become more familiar and comforting afterwards you were about to be disappointed. Sure the theme tunes there and it’s familiar, if a little more hair metal than you used to, but then the voice over kicks in and sudden it’s 2005 and the war hasn’t been going well for the Autobots, in fact the Decepticons have been kicking their tailpipe it seems and they’ve not only lost Cybertron but they’re forced to hide on its moons. You remember that status quo that was so lovingly and reliably restored every Saturday morning? That’s not so much gone out the window as been smashed by a druken Dinobot and then used to wipe Devastator’s arse. But look don’t worry, there’s Optimus and Ironhide, hell it’s even reassuring to see Laserbeak at this point. Besides Optimus is going to send Ironhide to get more Energon cubes and as Ironhide says “Your days are numbered now Decepticreeps’. Oh thank God this is more like it. It’s not even a major worry that Megatron learns their plans, I mean that kind of thing happened all the time in the cartoon. So the Decepticons break into the Autobot shuttle and it looks like we’re going to get a fun fight scene, Brawn changes at them, Megatron transforms and Starscream uses him to shoot Brawn. Dead. But maybe he’s just hurt! Suddenly Prowl leaps out and starts shooting at them, Prowl who has been in the cartoon since the start and is one of Optimus’s most trusted lieutenants, he’ll surely do something heroic…no he’s just shot down and we literally see the life fade from his eyes. He hasn’t even said one single word and now he’s dead. Ironhide and Ratchet are equally swiftly dispatched, but Ironhide isn’t dead yet, we see him pathetically grab Megatron’s leg, who then just causally shoots him in the face. So that’s an entire planet and four of the original cast cut down within 8 minutes, honestly this makes Joss Whedon look overly sentimental.

 

 It doesn’t get any better from here once the Decepticons launch their attack on Autobot City. We at least see Prowl and Ratchet die which is marginally better than Wheeljack and Windcharger whose battered and broken corpses are just briefly glimpsed.

  And then there’s Optimus Prime. Yes he gets great final fight with Megatron but lets be honest he doesn’t die nobly, he dies because of Judd Nelson’s stupidity, there’s nothing heroic about getting shot multiple times because of one of the less successful members of the Brat Pack.

The film may continue beyond its first act but your childhood won't. Now you know what life is really like and even the sight of Wreck-Gar who has guns for nipples won't bring it back. Because you just saw your action figures die and nothing will ever alter that.

War is hell.    

1 Though due to his being so terrifying Willem Dafoe action figures are banned in a third of countries around the globe.

The Terry Nation Drinking Game.

God bless Terry Nation, as the creator of Blake's 7, Survivors, co-creator of the Daleks(1) and writer of The House In Nightmare Park his influence on television science fiction can still be felt today. It would however not be unfair to say that Terry had certain plot points that he liked to make repeated use of. But fear not, for we can turn these quirks of writing to our advantage and ensure that a knowledge of his works will make us a whiz at parties, because ladies and gentleman I present: 

The  Terry Nation Drinking Game. 

Now obviously some of these will apply to certain programmes more than others but there should be enough to make sure that no matter what your choice of viewing you'll end up pleasantly tipsy(2). The rules are exceptionally simple, every time you see one of the following on-screen take a shot of your favourite alcohol beverage

• A character called Tarrant.
• The story takes place in a hostile jungle.
• There are parallels between the villains and Nazis.
• Every time plague or disease is mentioned.
• A Dalek make a 'surprise'(3) appearance at the end of episode 1.
• There an exciting countdown at the end.
• A character make a heroic sacrifice.
• The story take place in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
• A race been reduced to savagery because of technological failure.
• There is a traitor in the heroes' midst.
• The Daleks subdued the local population and forced them into slavery.
• A villain have a physical deformity. 
• The story takes place in a domed city. 
• There a race of invisible creatures.
• There are mutants(4). 
• Every time the word 'space' is inserted in front of a normal job title, for example Space Captain, Space Security Agent or Space Gynaecologist.     
• A seemingly villainous/sinister character actually turn out to be heroic.  

 Feel free to add any other suggestions in the comments below and please remember that 50 freedom fighters die every year from drunken teleportation accidents, so be safe.

 


1 I'm sorry but if you don't think Raymond Cusick deserves equal credit ask yourself why we're not demanding that the Voord come back for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.
2 I deny all legal responsibility if you should attempt this while watching the entire first series of Blake's 7. 
3 It counts as a surprise even if the story has the word Dalek in the title or even in the case of Planet Of The Daleks when the Doctor is expecting to find them.  
4 You can also count the mutoids from Blake's 7 if you really want more liver damage. 

Sylvester Sundays - Time And The Rani

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 Time And The Rani starts with the TARDIS being knocked off course(1), crashing into a quarry with a dirty pink sky while being guided by what looks suspiciously like a rainbow. Then Kate O’Mara walks in and declares ‘Leave the girl it’s the man I want’(2) only for Harpo Marx to regenerate into Sylvester McCoy due to tumultuous buffeting.

Lets be honest, as a start to a brand new era it doesn't immediately fill you with an overriding sense of confidence.

 Here’s the thing, Time And The Rani it’s nobodies favourite and with pretty good reason, however as much as I understand the larger fan consensus I personally have a certain amount of fondness for it. As I explained in a previous post it's the first story I actually brought so I'm perhaps slightly more forgiving than some. I genuinely enjoyed it at the time and even though exposure to more Who made me realise that it wasn’t exactly a shining example of the shows strengths it's still a story I can watch. Given the circumstances behind the story it's amazing it doesn't just end up being 4 episodes of the production team sitting down and crying.

 Following the monumental behind the scenes cluster-fuck that was The Trial Of A Time Lord, long time producer and fandom punching-bag John Nathan Turner was forced by the BBC to fire Colin Baker, this combined with the fact that script editor Eric Saward had quit to start a career as a hard bitten cliché ridden mercenary(3), meant that Doctor Who as a programme was pretty much screwed. But as far as JNT was concerned at least he would be allowed to leave the programme. Imagine his surprise when after returning from holiday(4)  he was told he wouldn't be leaving and could he please start work on the next series despite the fact that he had no Doctor, no script editor and no scripts. Under these desperate circumstances he made two surprisingly good decisions, he hired the incredibly inexperienced Andrew Cartmel to be script edit and the relatively unknown Sylvester McCoy to be Doctor number 7, however because no one is perfect  he also commissioned a script by Pip and Jane Baker.

 Now as much as a lot of people might not, quite justifiably, like Pip and Jane there is a definite logic to hiring them. They’d already proved that they could knock out a script in double quick time when they had had to write Trial part 14 pretty much over a weekend and when taken into consideration that episode holds up remarkably well. And it’s not like the BBC where going to give Doctor Who any more time as the official management position on it was not to give a toss. So Pip and Jane wrote Time And The Rani without even knowing whether it would be Colin Baker’s last or Sylvester’s first, an important point we’ll get back too later.

 Now I don’t want to talk about Cartmel’s strengths and weaknesses in this entry because he had so little influence over this story that it really wouldn’t be fair, however there is one interesting tale that arose from the making of documentary on the DVD. Pip and Jane talk about how the story originally opened with King Soloman, who the Rani would kidnap for his wisdom, and Cartmel asked them to change it to Albert Enstien. Now this may seem like a minor detail but I think it’s especially interesting when you take into account one of Cartmel’s biggest influences when he started on Who where comics(5). Put it this way, while Eisten was obviously one of the great scientific minds of the 20th century, he’s also been used in various works of fiction, his image appears on t-shirts and posters and E=Mc2 is probably the most well known and quoted scientific formula, in other words he’s a genuine part of pop culture and Cartmel will slowly reconnect Doctor Who to pop culture in a  fashion that would continue when it returned in 2005.

 If you haven’t already guessed, I’m skirting round the actual story itself but before I get into particular plot details there’s one observation I want to make that will no doubt upset some Who fans if they don’t give me a chance to place it in context. Anyway here we go, the story that Time And The Rani shares the most qualities with is Tom Baker’s own début Robot. Now I can hear a few gasps of horror but let me explain. Part of the fun of Robot is that it is a 3^rd Doctor UNIT story that is missing the velvet elegance of Pertwee and has this gangly, wild eyed, curly haired loon in his place. It makes sense, ease the audience in to the new Doctor by surrounding him with familiar elements. Of course the Pertwee era was one that launched the programme into new heights of popularity, the Colin Baker era less so. But that’s what we get, a 6^th Doctor story that’s missing the larger than life(6) operatically theatrical Mr Baker and instead has this small Scottish clown who does prat falls and plays the spoons. If nothing else it provides an immediate contrast between the two. What we get here is almost pure clown, something that McCoy has stated he regrets, but given how last minute this all was he went with his natural instincts and he can't be blamed for that. He may prat fall and play the spoons but he's also immensely likeable, even while being grumpy. He's less imposing than Baker  but he's still able to bring a real sense of energy when he's on-screen. 

 Supporting this new Doctor we have Kate O’Mara,who, as always, is able to make The Rani work far better than Pip and Jane’s script deserves. I mean the poor woman must have  been more than a little surprised to find that she was going to have to cosplay as Bonnie Langford for the bulk two episodes. I mean don’t get me wrong she does the best she can and she makes it fun to watch, especially in those moments where her contempt for the Doctor accidentally shows through, with either a disgusted facial expression or a muttered aside, but at the same time it’s a gob smackingly dumb idea(7). Of course the idea of cosplaying isn’t nearly as dumb as her actual plan, she needs to blow up an asteroid but she has to do it at a certain time because despite the fact she has time travel she can’t build a missile platform that can move? And when something breaks she has a whole load of geniuses to chose from but she decides to kidnap the Doctor, even Mel points out what a stupid idea this is. Also at one point the Doctor stumbles upon the the device that she used to bring down the TARDIS and it's basically a futuristic hand gun, which does lead to the rather amusing image of The Rani walking out into the open pointing the gun up and just firing it into the empty air(8).  

If you’re expecting me to talk about Mel, you’ll have to wait until I tackle Paradise Towers, all I will say is that for the first time ever I noticed how pert her bottom was.

 So yes this story is stupid and like nothing else in the McCoy era but here’s the thing, I genuinely loved it when I was 15 and I still can’t entirely condem it now. Because despite it's script stupidities it moves along at a decent pace and if given a choice between Time And The Rani, The Mutants, The Time Monster or Attack Of The Cybermen I'd chose this every time(9).  

1 Seemingly while visiting the galaxy of texture-less CGI. 
2 Gay agenda.
3 To go along with his part time career of whining about his time on Doctor Who.
4 Which one imagines probably involved burning giant wicker effigies of Saward and Ian Levine.
5 It's pretty well established that Cartmel would often tell his writers to read Alan Moore's The Ballad Of Halo Jones, which was originally published in 2000 AD, while not one of his best works it's an interesting read especially if you look at it through the lens of Series 25. 
6 Not a fat joke.
7 She should be lucky the Doctor was no longer travelling with Peri, not only would she have had to put on a unconvincing American accent but perhaps a shockingly ugly top with plunging neck line. 
8 Also the Doctor says it would bring down any passing space-ship which means the TARDIS just happened to be near the planet when The Rani wanted him. Going on the Doctor's Wife I suppose the TARDIS took him there because he was needed, which seems to indicate that even the TARDIS didn't like the 6th Doctor.  
9. Yes that is what they technically call damning with faint praise.

Write The Theme Tune, Sing The Theme Tune - The 60s.

I have a confession to make, I can quite happily pass an afternoon on YouTube watching the opening credits of various TV shows. Done well they are an genuine art-form that can tell us the back story, tone and atmosphere of a show all with the aid of a tune you can whistle. I'm going to be looking at various decades and picking some of my personal favourites while trying to explain just what makes them so great.

 So first of all the 60s. Now obviously there are a lot of iconic openings and themes that come from this time but I've stuck to the first three that came to mind.

Doctor Who (original)

Lets be honest the scariest thing during this era of Doctor Who is still the opening. Delia Derbyshire's truly alien arrangement of Ron Grainer's theme introduces electronic music to a generation, as weird shapes move and swirl round the screen. It tells us nothing about the characters or the setting but it does tell us that whatever we're about to see will have an element of the alien too it. After all you don't go from something so strange to a kitchen sink drama. 


The Avengers (Series 5)

 So we now move away from the strange to the sophisticated in what might be the most flirtious opening credits in history. While like Doctor Who it doesn't give us anything in terms of back story it does totally establish the relationship between Steed and Ms Peel, the are they/aren't they flirting and heavy alcohol dependency. We also see them with weapons and pulling some fighting moves so we know that the drama probably doesn't revolve round AA meetings. It totally sets the tone of the whole show, stylish, laid back with just a hint of danger and it makes me proud to be British.

The Prisoner

While the previous two examples have been great in setting tone and atmosphere The Prisoner is a brilliant example of how to tell the audience everything they need to know in terms of back story. In the first part of the sequence we see that Patrick McGoohan/Number 6 is resigning from some high level job in government and he's pissed off about it, he's then followed home by a hearse, gassed and wakes up in a holiday village in Wales. All this without a single word of dialogue. The second half then sets up the basic conflict at the heart of the series, not only do we see the truly weird world of The Village we see Number 6 running round looking defiant all the while arguing with whoever is Number 2 that week and it ends with one of the shows most iconic lines 'I am not a number I am a free man' which is met with sneering laughter week in week out. Even if you've never seen an episode before all it's all set up so beautifully that despite just how unusual the show is you'll still enter an episode with all the knowledge you need.

 The next instalment will be the 70s, so we're pretty much assured some funk based themes to look forward too.

Far More Than Just Another Time Lord.

  Over the following months I’m going to be posting a series of articles about one of my favourite periods of Doctor Who. Now those reading this who don’t know me will be nodding their head sagely and muttering ‘Ah yes the Hinchcliffe era no doubt, with it’s wonderful gothic undertones and brooding performance by Tom Baker.’ Well no I’m afraid not, so perhaps they're now thinking ‘Well Adam perhaps you’re going to take us through your own personal journey concerning the master class in base under siege stories that where the Troughton years.’ again I’m afraid not.1 They may now be furious scratching their heads and saying ‘A look back at the glory of Pertwee or perhaps yet another spirited defence of the Graham Williams era?’ Once again dear reader no!  The era that I love the most is that of lucky number 7, Sylvester McCoy. Now I’m sure some of you have read that sentence and just gone ‘Oh....right’ and that’s OK, frankly I’m use to it by now and I bear no, well very little, resentment. Just the other night I meant a very pleasant fellow Who lover, who when I mentioned that I was a McCoy fan placed a hand on my shoulder and just said ‘I’m so sorry’. Now obviously he was joking but it does underline a certain attitude towards the last 3 years in the original series run. However the point of these posts will not be to say that people who don’t like McCoy are wrong, there purpose is to say why I like them and perhaps it’ll provide something of a cathartic exercise for me personal. That doesn’t mean I’ll be utterly gushing, like every era of Who it has it has produced its clunkers, but failures can sometimes be more interesting to examine than success, for such an example you should check out Tardis Eruditorum’s look back at the 6^th Doctor era.

This particular post is too give some personal context as to how I got into Doctor Who. I was very lucky, I grew up in a Who positive household, my parents watched the show regularly throughout its original run and I was always aware of its existence. I was born in 1981 so was around the right age to catch McCoy when he started, but here’s the thing dear reader I was an overly nervous child so I never properly watched it. I was aware of McCoy as the Doctor but never saw him until the first episode of The Curse Of Fenric in 1989, now in my head I knew it was brilliant but it was also absolutely terrifying so I didn't watch the rest. Who knows perhaps if the original series had gone on for just one more year I’d have tuned in but could'a should'a would'a is meaningless.3 So Doctor Who was cancelled and that could have been that for me. But then Doctor Who’s 30^th anniversary swung round and they started showing repeats on BBC 2 and I watched them with my parents and that was how I got to know the Doctor, by starting with Hartnell and going through to McCoy. Of course I really liked it but I wasn’t a fan, at least not just yet. Over the next few years I watched a lot of science fiction and read a lot of comics, sometimes I would go round to friends and we might watch the occasional video of Who, the Five Doctors for example, and once I borrowed Silver Nemesis (stop laughing) which I really enjoyed, especially as it had a cool making of documentary all about Doctor Who.4 Despite this outrageous flirting I don’t count myself truly becoming a fan until about 1996 when, a few months before the TV Movie, I made a conscious decision to use some birthday tokens to buy a Doctor Who video, from Boots5, that video was Time And The Rani and I loved it (no seriously stop laughing!). And that seems as good a point as any to leave you until the first proper instalment of what I’m going to be calling Sylvester Sundays.       

 

1. Has anyone ever written any fan fiction that mashes up series 5 Troughton with the Steven Seagal movie  and if not could they do so immediately please.

2. Though having said that once I have all the Pertwee on DVD I’ll definitely be doing a similar look back on the era as I think it’s weirdly misunderstood.  

3. It's also the name of a very good Farscape episode.

4. I'm still incredibly sad that they didn't put it as an extra on the Silver Nemesis DVD.

5. Does anyone else remember when Boots used to sell videos? Did any other chemists sell them?