If made, this film would suck
It would be sentimental, have a plot that is simultaneously simple minded and overly complex, lack thrills, and have plot holes you could drive a bus through.
Down vote if you want, but you know it is true.
TV writer quells rumours of Doctor Who movie
TV writer Steven Moffat has dismissed rumours of a Doctor Who movie coming soon, despite comments from director David Yates, supposedly in the driving seat for the adaptation. MTV News quizzed Yates, director of four Harry Potter films, on the red carpet last night about Doctor Who's silver screen incarnation, which he had …
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Friday 2nd December 2011 15:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Internal politics
This is internal politics. The Beeb has a long history with Who of one arm doing one thing while another arm pulls against it, always to the detriment of the series. Right back to the 80's this has been happening.
For me this is Moffat putting a few people in their place. He's the show runner. If some execs are sniffing around excited by Hollywood he's just put them back in their place.
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Sunday 4th December 2011 23:57 GMT Grease Monkey
Indeed Moffat as exec producer has the final say. And this isn't the first time this has happened.
Earlier this year some BBC exec with no direct connection with who decided to announce that there would only be a handfull of specials in 2012 as there was in 2012. He cited as his reason that Moffat would be concentrating on Sherlock. I, along with many other Whovians, actually saw this as more of a wish by the exec concerned. Basically it appears that he is more of a fan of Sherlock than Who. However anybody of a logical turn of mind would realise that Who makes a lot of money for the BBC, certainly more than Sherlock ever will. So the Beeb would always favour Who over Sherlock. Moffat himself pulled the wayward exec up short by stating that he had plenty of time to concentrate on both shows and other projects and would not be cutting back on Who.
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Friday 2nd December 2011 15:04 GMT TRT
Not necessarily...
There's plenty of room for a prequel. Something that might chronicle the Doctor's flight from Gallifrey, For example, the Doctor take up his first job, a post at the Bureau Of Temporal Observation and Monitoring, hoping to rise amongst Timelord ranks to join the Temporal Operations division (Ah, but Doctor, everyone here starts at the BOTOM and works their way up to the TOP!) when he monitors a temporal crime being committed by none other than the arch-chancellor. His discovery has been noted, however, and the complete record of his life erased, including even his name, and replaced with that of a renegade.
He is pursued across the death zone (plenty of scope for some monster encounters there), his "family" are held to ransom and entirely exterminated with the sole exception of his infant grand-daughter whom he rescues. The President (or maybe Rassillon) observes the arch-chancellor's deceit, knowledge of which would destroy Timelord society and spread chaos throughout the universe. He locks the bad guy in a temporal prison and offers the Doctor a deal - eternal imprisonment, banishment to the anti-matter world of Omega, or his memory of these events is erased and he must go into exile for the "murder" of the arch-chancellor.
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Thursday 8th December 2011 19:40 GMT TRT
Although...
If whatever event occurs at the climax of a prequel was dramatic enough and timey-wimey enough, the Doctor could be fragmented and end up as (1) The one that gets sent back in time by Omega in Lungbarrow, (2) The Valeyard, (3) The Doctor and (4) The Watcher.
They've done temporal fragmentation stories before (e.g. City of Death).
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Friday 2nd December 2011 15:20 GMT goldcd
I believe it should read:
Steven Moffat, at this time, doesn't wish to criticise the idea of a Dr Who film whilst he still thinks he has a chance of being involved.
Should the BBC wish to produce a film based on their IP, but not involve him, he reserves the right to slate it from the moment of conception through to the screening.
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Friday 2nd December 2011 16:26 GMT Gordon 10
Given that
Moffat us probably one of the only writers in the BBC who is a bona fide Hollywood writer (for Spielberg & Jackson ffs!) the chances are that he already has more clout there than any BBC exec could dream of.
He could quite easily end up as Exec Producer on the film.
An imagine if Speilberg was on board too.
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Friday 2nd December 2011 15:33 GMT Anomalous Cowherd
Aw, an American Doctor Who could be fun!
Jones: Doctor, the Cybermen are attacking. What do we do?
[Doctor pulls automatic pistol from belt, slams in magazine]
Doctor: Well Jones, this shit just got real.
[Cyberman appears from arount the corner. Doctor blazes away firing several hundred shots form his pistol without reloading. Many unnamed ancillary characters are shot and killed immediately without screaming, bleeding or begging for their families]
Doctor: Fuck yeah, have that you motherfucking tin-can.
[Cyberman shouts something in language other than english before stealing a motorbike from a passerby and taking off]
Jones: Doctor, he's heading straight for the Superbowl! And that bomb only has seconds before it explodes.
Doctor: Cor blimey Jones, don't get your knickers in a twist! [pats tardis] this old girl has a few tricks yet, what what.
[Cue Hard Rock soundtrack. Tardis leaps into the air and transforms spectacularly into a Chevy muscle-car. Doctor gives chase in largely straight line, weaving only to knock over as many improbably-sited market stalls and water-filled bollards as possible. Several police follow only to fly into the air and land upside-down for no obvious reason...]
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Friday 2nd December 2011 18:23 GMT Why Not?
Missed a few key plot devices
Good start!
The doctor needs to be in his vest showing off airbrushed muscles.
The Automatic should be the size of a house. It should be shot from the hip allowing the Doctor to take out snipers 3 miles away (he is a skilled alien after all). The 200 round magazine does have to be refilled ostentatiously by slamming the butts of both your automatics together behind your back think Lara Croft.
The Doctor needs to be assisted by a cute kid & the day saved by a female. Extra points if the Kid/female are from an ethnic minority / disabled / or an adult male with alternative sexual orientation.
The villain should have a posh British accent even if they came from outer Venoa major.
The Doctor needs to have a buddy from an ethnic minority who has a traditional family which whilst dysfunctional is very cute. Cut to loving scenes with parent & child as the world ends.
Of course the Cybermen (who will have Gold legs and a curious crescent motif) will be defeated by either a hairclip, the attractive assistants glasses (removed with a lingering cleavage shot and hair flick) or the cute Brat's science project a pocket fusion reactor made out of waste coke cans (demonstrated to attractive assistant such that the gratuitous cleavage shot can be achieved).
Of course large screens showing a command line interface controlled by handsome hero wiggling his Pecs.
Don't forget the courageous Mexican who sacrifices his life so his family & friends can live.
It must include Global warning and the Aliens being invited to take over the world by Maggie Thatcher & Ronald Reagan / Bush lookalikes.
Oh and senseless but brave sacrifice of the Green Berets.
Chuck a few helicopters & fighter jets in there and we have a Blockbuster.
Agree the time war could do with expanding on (sorry Timothy Dalton in Aztec robes was not the detail we were looking for) , the relationship with the master is still a good seam to be mined.
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Friday 2nd December 2011 16:25 GMT Dinky Carter
It's already been done...
There's already been an American made Doctor Who film (1996)
It had some good aspects (Paul McGann was an excellent doctor, the TARDIS was wonderfully steampunk, plus it was totally canonical) but featured typically American trashiness (car chases, gang shootings, references to the Doctor's "Britishness" etc.) And the music was a bombastic, full orchestra, god-awful version of the beloved theme tune along the lines of "Star Trek - The Next Generation."
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Wednesday 7th December 2011 10:21 GMT Grease Monkey
"I'm half human, on my mothers side"
And that's totally canonical is it? That and quite a few other references in the TV movie are best forgotten. It started out with a decent premise that would have made a good Who story, but unfortunately it got battered about by the usual production committee and turned into utter dross. Bear in mind that it was originally intended as a pilot, but the option was not taken up. Wonder why?
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Sunday 4th December 2011 23:57 GMT Grease Monkey
Those two were terrible movies, but their premise was ridiculous. The laughable premise was that the lead was a human doctor who's surname happened to be Who had invented the TARDIS more or less in his garden shed.
BTW back in the nineties I used to have a GP who's surname was Oo. He said it used to cause all sorts of problems particularly with telephone conversations where people would request that he pull the other one because it was endowed with bells. I bet he has even more bother since the series' popularity has blossomed.
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Friday 2nd December 2011 18:10 GMT CmdrX3
Don't let America anywhere near it
They've already completely fucked up Torchwood, God knows what they'd do to Doctor Who. Not that all American shows are bad, Breaking Bad for example is outstanding, it's just that they don't really translate British TV shows very well. Skins is another example that they screwed up.
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Friday 9th December 2011 16:13 GMT mittfh
Torchwood
RTD was in overall charge of that operation. Apparently he likes the idea of Torchwood being mini-series (like the past two) rather than extended "monster of the week" series like the first couple. He claimed Miracle Day was still firmly rooted in Wales despite being largely set in America. Since Eve Myles said in a Radio Times interview that if recommissioned for future series she'd move to LA, it looks as though the US is the future of Torchwood, with RTD capitulating to the requests of Starz.
Why oh why couldn't they have put Moffat in charge of Torchwood? He'd probably also be able to produce a decent replacement for SJA while he was at it...
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Friday 2nd December 2011 23:57 GMT The Grump
Great movie...
I just came back from 2016 (don't ask), and the Dr Who movie was great with the new Doctor. The "Children" of the Master were very well done, possibly the most frightening enemies in the Dr Who universe. No, the movie didn't have a big plot hole, but it did have... ok, I'm giving away too much. I have a reliable source who told me that if they do not make the Dr Who movie which already exists in 2016, the temporal consequences will be severe.
Paris, because she would made a great Dr Who companion.
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Saturday 3rd December 2011 00:02 GMT Msan
BBC, please don't take your love to town
Let's say a $US 100 million budget for such a movie, which would require approximately $150 to $200 million in box office to break even taking into account payments to cinema's, profit share and marketing.
I think we can all figure out where such a flick would have to go to make a profit and that place has a especially vile fecal smell to it.
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Saturday 3rd December 2011 02:17 GMT Hooksie
@TRT
Almost completely nailed it my friend. There is no reason on Earth or any other planet that they couldn't do an origins story with a different young Doctor in his first incarnation. That's actually the story I would love to see but at the same time it's the mystery surrounding that story that keeps Doctor Who so interesting. I suspect, however, that Mr Moffat has some plans in that regard 'the question that must never be answered' (because whatever the answer was it would be more boring that what you can imagine yourself)
I would definitely like to see an origins story and talk about how he stole the TARDIS and why but it would have to be delicately done. I actually really liked the Paul McGann TV movie (except for Eric Roberts who was utter gash) but the Peter Cushing ones were either a remake of an already done episode or, again, utter gash.
I like your idea for the story TRT, you should send that to Mr Moffat. Seriously, it's really good. No need to wipe his memory though, that can just happen with old age. There's no need to worry too much about canon either, as long as they don't piss all over it then it's fine.
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Wednesday 7th December 2011 10:18 GMT TRT
Well....
I am actually a massive UFO fan, and the best thing about that programme was that they didn't ever establish anything definite about the aliens. The ambiguity and intrigue was crucial to both the drama and the number of non-canon, contradictory things that happened. That was British, and I suspect something about the British psyche allows a level of ambiguity that American audiences won't tolerate. Except maybe now they've caught up and gone beyond the UK in that respect. I'm thinking of LOST here; I was. Hated that show after Season 1.
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Saturday 3rd December 2011 09:52 GMT Francis Vaughan
Critical Point
"Doctor Who is a vitally important BBC brand"
There is a deep truth here that will talk louder than any other issue. The BBC makes more money off the Dr Who brand than any other income stream. This a big difference from a decade odd ago, when it was unloved by management, and prone to the idiotic whim of whoever was in charge. Damaging the brand would be what is known as a "career limiting move". The BBC already sells millions of DVDs, toys, and books, has had a number of spinoff shows, and has a continuing core TV series. One that sells for serious money all around the planet. This is the sort of success that makes a Hollywood exec cream themselves just imagining the prospect. Hollywood movies don't make the real money at the box office. It is this second stream where the gravy is. The BBC does not need Hollywood. There is nothing that Hollywood could teach it or provide to it that it does not already have. Not that that would stop various Hollywood executives pitching to the BBC to try to get the rights to do a film. But this should be recognised as the weaker party (Hollywood), bereft of any originality or actual creative talent, attempting to make money off the back of the BBC's brand.
There is no upside for the BBC is getting into bed with Hollywood. The best that can happen is a continuation of the current astounding strong brand, and the money that already rains from the sky from it. Everything else is downhill, with a damaged brand, reduced income, and no doubt any money that is made from the film being syphoned by the Hollywood moguls before the BBC sees a share.
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Tuesday 6th December 2011 00:07 GMT Helldesk Dogsbody
Nice analysis, do you perchance work in a coloured pencil office? Not a dig, just that I've rarely seen the word "brand" used in that way other than by those in the marketing trade.
Marketing sense aside (and it definitely is sense in this case) what's to stop some muppet with a different agenda and a better grasp of buzzwords selling it to the higher ups? Milking the cash cow on the assumption that it will sell better on the American market if it is produced by Americans? Dr Who light edition - half the content, twice the explosions and a metric shit ton more guns!
I agree that there is no sense for the BBC as an organisation to sell out to Hollywood but there would be one hell of a lot of benefit to the individuals that manage to sell the idea. Never underestimate the power of Murphy to screw everything up or the inherent greed in most management types.
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Saturday 3rd December 2011 22:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Doctor Who Prequel
wasn't that already done- or at least sketched out- in Lungbarrow? Makes it even easier for them to do a Prequel! And the Tardis (well, "Sexy") has even given the Tardis's point of view on her abduction of the Doctor.
And a feature-length Doctor Who episode is hardly without precedent- they were commonly 4 episodes (about 2 hours) long in the "Pre-RTD" era.
The Death Zone on Gallifrey and the Time War could both provide an explosion-packed background for the American market. Though I hope they don't show something like Davros' command ship flying into the jaws of the Nightmare Child; it's much more fun trying to imagine what it could possibly have been!
The Daleks- ideally not the Fischer-Price ones- would be an obvious addition, maybe even with a second Dalek Civil War breaking out (no more Imperial Vs Renegade, now NSD vs Duplo).
If you want to Hollywood-ify it properly, you could even go for the 'Wacky CrossOver' type of movie and have Amy Pond with, say, David Tenant and Rose with the new boy. Or a 'bit for the fans' where the Doctor drops off convenient objects that earlier-him just happened to stumble across in previous series. And of course get RTD involved to make every single one of the characters gay, drumming up news coverage as the Yank Right shout about it.
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Sunday 4th December 2011 23:57 GMT Grease Monkey
Two hours? Air time of each episode was about 24 or 25 minutes. Once you had taken away the titles and the recap at the start of three episodes (and occasionally even the first where a story arc was concerned) you were usually down to not much more than 20 minutes of actual content. IOW they were generally under an hour and a half.
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Friday 9th December 2011 16:58 GMT Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware
Re:
Yes, but only in that Shalka thing.
Still...
'Exterminate! Exterminate!'
'What fucker said that?'
***
'You shall die, Doctor!'
'I have a (twin) heart condition... if you attack me, it's murder'
***
'It's bigger on the inside....'
'Free to those who can afford it. Very expensive to those that can't'.
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Monday 12th December 2011 12:55 GMT Grease Monkey
That Shalka thing was part of an internal push to resurrect the show and apparently REG was the BBC's preferred choice for the ninth doctor at the time. I don't know whether he was ever approached to play the part a couple of years later. Maybe he wasn't available or maybe the fact that the contract was only available for a single season ruled him out.
Anyhow why does everybody always assume that REG can only play Withnail. Yes it was a blinding performance in a terrific film, but he has done an awful lot of other work you know. I don't recall his performance as Hugo Guiler being particularly like Withnail.
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Monday 5th December 2011 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
H2G2 - pretty ropey!
It doesn't lend itself to a film (as most of the humour is in the writing not plot) but even so - 'pretty ropey' is a bit harsh. If the source material was so bad how come they managed to make a decent TV series from it? (10 x better than the movie).
Go was your mouth out.:-)
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Monday 5th December 2011 14:54 GMT Grease Monkey
Sorry all but H2G2 was basically a script treatment that Adams did before he died. It wasn't some Hollywood studio screwing it up, it was Adams. Much a I respect Adams and his work I have to say that he did manage to screw up H2G2 on more than one occasion. Mostly Harmless, for example, seemed to be written more out of a resentment of H2G2's success than anyting else.
Adams, it seems, wanted to write something new and successful and felt H2G2 was something of a millstone. One of the reasons the film took so long to materialise is allegedly that he didn't simply want to simply do yet another treatment of the original radio scripts. It had already been done as a book and a TV show and Adams, perhaps understandably, didn't want to go through the same process again. IOW it was Adams that wanted to do a complete reboot, not the studio.
I'll never understand artists of any genre who resent their own success. Sure he's done other work, but H2G2 was hugely successful and was also the first major standalone work he had done. Imagine a rock band who'd first album was a huge financial and critical success, but who's subsequent work didn't scale those giddy heights. Now imagine them refusing to perform any of the tracks from that album when they went out on tour. How popular do you think that would make them with their fanbase? Adams was the literary equivalent of that band.
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Monday 5th December 2011 15:00 GMT Grease Monkey
The TV series was good I'll grant, but not that good. In places it sucked and probably blew too. A lot of that was down to the fact that for some reason the BBC decided to hand it over to the LE department rather than the drama bods who did such a good job on the likes of Who and Blakes 7.
A good example of where this failed was that they wasted a huge chunk of the series' budget on the effects for episode one and were left therefore with a fraction of the projected budget for the remaining episodes. If the team responsible for the likes of Who had made the show they wouldn't have needed to spend so much because they knew what they were doing in that area, the LE people had no experience in that area at all.
The weirdest thing they did was the sunrise scene. The could have just gone out and filmed a sunrise, hell they could probably have found the necessary footage in the BBC archives. The natural history people have probably done it many times. The producers of the show decided to have a landscape model made at considerable expense and then mock up the sunrise with a lightbulb.
But then what do you expect if you put the director of the bloody awful Last of the Summer Wine in charge of it?
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Wednesday 7th December 2011 11:21 GMT Grease Monkey
Hollywood works best and worst when there is a single strong mind in charge of a movie. Most of the great Hollywood movies have been run by one or two people, as well as some of it's biggest turkeys. If you don't believe me about the turkeys just watch Hudson Hawk.
What usually happens is that everything gets run through several committees several times and ends up being the usual bland, homogeneous dross. Unfortunately many brits see this as being the American way. It isn't it's the way of big business. We're just lucky that most Brit movies are made on a small budget.
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Wednesday 7th December 2011 10:20 GMT micheal
People seem to have forgotten
the US made a Dr Who for the Millenium, BECAUSE the Beeb had already canned the series.
Bad as it might have been to us Brits, it prompted the ol Baked Bean Company to rethink and give us David "Hamish Macbeth" Tennant as the new Dr.
I'm sure plenty of people have good / bad plot idea's, lets not judge what may happen until it does.
Go back to the 70's, and every sitcom and action prog spawned a cinema version, some, like Steptoe and Son had more than one cinema length version (sweeney, Are you being served etc) which was a seperate story, idea and backdrop to the TV ones.
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Wednesday 7th December 2011 11:37 GMT Grease Monkey
You seem to have forgotten much yourself.
Firstly "the US" didn't make the Doctor Who TV movie and they certainly didn't make it "for the Millenium". I wasn't aware the US made films other than government propaganda, but the TV movie was a joint production between the BBC, BBC Worldwide, Fox and Universal. So not a solely american production then. It was made in 1996, so hardly "for the Millenium".
And the film certainly didn't inspire the BBC to give us Tennant as the new doctor for several reasons. Firstly the TV movie was always intended as something to test the water for the return of the series, perhaps as a joint BBC/Fox production. Since it was so poorly received in the US Fox never followed up on the option. Although the first showing had good viewing figures fans generally did not receive it well and the BBC also decided not to make a new TV series. Secondly you may have noticed it was nine whole years until the TV series resurfaced, IOW there was a longer gap between the TV movie and the start of the reboot than between the airing of the last McCoy episode and the TV movie. If the TV movie had really inspired the reboot of Who it would have come along a lot sooner than 2005. Finally, and the biggest error in you recollection, the BBC did not restart Who with Tennant in the lead role, it was Chris Ecclestone.
Oh and WTF has Hamish Macbeth got to do with anything? AFAIR Tennant never appeared in that particular bit of sunday teatime televisual fluff. If he did it must have been a very small part.
And as for the seventies movie spinoffs, IIRC they argue against you pretty convincingly. They were almost all shadows of the TV series, few of them were commercially successful and, lets be honest, they were generally crap.
You seem to approach this from the viewpoint that this should happen unless people can argue strongly enough against it. I approach it from a more simple viewpoint, which is to ask the question "Why?". Doctor Who is a TV series and a succesful one at that, why is there a need for a film (Hollywood or otherwise)? Nobody has yet come up with a convincing answer to that question. Certainly to say that it's what used to happen in the seventies is not a convincing argument. As parents like to say to their kids; If everybody else jumped off a cliff would you do it too?
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
