I absolutely adored The Sound of Drums last week. I know it divided people, but for me the Voodoo Child bit was one of my favourite bits of New Who so far. Just gloriously silly, and… you know… fun.
But one thing irritated me beyond belief. And it was the following:
THAT. SHOULD. HAVE. BEEN. DONE. USING. A. PHYSICAL. MODEL. It’s begging to be done using one. Sure, add CGI aircraft if you want – but the actual carrier itself should clearly have been a model. Just imagine how it would look – it’d be absolutely beautiful. The carrier is a great design – but the execution leaves rather a lot to be desired. It doesn’t feel real – which something like that needs to.
The thing is – I’m not irrationally against CGI, like some people. It’s a technique that has its place, like any other. The Toclafane were mostly excellently done (apart from the shot just before the President was killed), and an appropriate use of CGI. But New Who often seems to use CGI as the first technique they think of, rather than exploring all options.
The really irritating thing is the reputation Dwarf has with some people – completely unfairly – for poor effects, compared to New Who‘s reputation for having great ones. And yet time and time again, I see shots in New Who that Dwarf – for the first six series – would have managed better…
mick_aka v2beta / June 29, 2007 at 11:18 am / #
It was all very Sky Captain and the World of tomorrow, I hated it.
I think what was called for here was a good combination of CG and phisical models.
Seb Patrick / June 29, 2007 at 11:59 am / #
I thought it was a beautiful sequence, myself – but it could perhaps have done with the physicality of a model. On the other hand, a bit more tangibility and it could have ended up seeming even more like Captain Scarlet – perhaps it needed that almost dreamlike quality it ended up with.
Also, while not quite as good as a model would have been, it did at least demonstrate how much better the Mill are getting, compared to the CGI in series one. In fact, that was one of three utterly marvellous “money shots” in the episode, along with the Citadel on Gallifrey and the bit at the end with Martha on Primrose Hill as London began to fall.