AICN Shocker!!!!

The first non-RD site to pick up on the latest RD movie news? Looks like it, to us. And I shouldn’t be so unfair with our headline; the article is in stark contast to the usual AICN shit writing.

Nonetheless:

“Last week, the FAQ on reddwarf.co.uk was saying that shooting was planned to start in May 2004, but this week it was updated to say that pre-production will begin in July and shooting is planned for January 2005. But if shooting had recently been planned to start in May 2004, shouldn’t all the pre-production be done already? It’s not like they’ve had anything better to do in the meantime.”

The funding had fallen through; and until you have funding, you can’t tie everyone down in order to form a team. This is part of pre-production. Of course, you could argue that GNP should keep us all updated; but this is pretty impossible when talking about behind-the-scenes financial machinations. As for not having anything better to do: how about a) trying to secure movie funding, and b) doing fantastic DVD releases?

“…the script it written, rehearsals have been videotaped to gauge the pace of the story and I had even seen some storyboards! (Isn’t most of that stuff pre-production?)”

Yes. The Movie Crew Information page does say “pre-production proper”, though; presumably it means the whole thing is planned to move into a higher gear. (Interestingly, the wording of the page doesn’t definitely say shooting will begin in January; merely that it’s slated. But it does seem pretty certain about the pre-production phase, which is interesting.)

“I just wonder why it is so difficult to put new “Dwarf” together? I mean, in some form or another, it has been possible to bring about new versions of “Farscape”, “Firefly”, “Battlestar Galactica”, and “Doctor Who”.”

The answer obviously is money; and as to why the others could get funding, they are either American, or have a higher profile in America. So it’s far easier to get funding for them. Still, hopefully the continuing success of the RD DVD releases will swing things.

“But should I be bothered? After all, everyone knows that any new Red Dwarf will be crap.”

Read this, you fucker.

“I just wish they’d make a two hour TV movie to finish off the annoying “like smeg it is” conclusion to Series VIII and get the crew home in one form or another.”

Correct. Is there anyone out there who thinks that ending is actually any good? I personally would love a TV movie or another series (and it looks like Chris Barrie does too); but I can’t see it happening. Pet idea time, even though I’ve done it before: in the third or fourth movie, the Dwarfers should enter a parallel universe that happenes to be the TV one, and resolve that story in a hilarious throwaway manner. After all, Doug has said he might resolve the story in “another medium”…

“And I say this as someone whose favourite television of all time is probably “Red Dwarf” during Series III-VI.”

The first two series are great, you fucker. Although you’re correct about VI, and anyone who hates it is a loony. Oh come on, you don’t think I’d resist a chance to shove that opinion in, do you?

More interesting that all this perhaps, is that we don’t know of any other online sites (apart from the RD ones, obviously) have picked up on this latest bit of news. Laziness? More likely apathy, sadly, with the constant breaking of dates. You can see why TOS didn’t do a news story on it…