Bodysnatcher doccos named News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 15th July 2007, 20:15 John is away on a very special quest, given to him by the, er… King of the Potato People. Yes. In his absence I will be bringing you this week’s TOS update, but never fear weary readers as John shall return in a blaze of glory just as soon as he’s completed his quest retrieved the Holy Grail of Smeg, or something, for the King of the Potato People, or whatever. I imagine. So, to business, as my jacuzzi water grows tepid. Old Andrew ‘TOSer’ Ellard has finally spilt the beans on the names of the three documentaries set to grace this autumn’s Bodysnatcher Collection. The Beginning, It’s Cold Outside and Re-Dwarf will be the names of the series 1, series 2 and re-mastered doccos respectively. Extra massive geek points to those of you who worked out precisely why they are called that before reading Andrew’s explanation on the main article, by the way. The Beginning and It’s Cold Outside will run in at a hefty yet manageable 70 minutes apiece – thus being roughly the same as the III-VIII efforts – but more interesting is the final confirmation of what to expect with Re-Dwarf. It’s runs a far more restrained 21 minutes, but is packed extra tight with information thanks to the driving narration by none other than Andrew Ellard himself. Be still my trembling knees. At first I was worried that 21 minutes wouldn’t even begin to be long enough to charter the full story of every fans favourite clusterfuck, but if that’s how long is needed to tell the sory, then that’s how long is needed, I guess. Besides, so long as it features Doug Naylor weeping into the camera screaming “I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY, FORGIVE ME O MERCIFUL FANS”, then I’ll be happy. In other news, well done to Smeg4Brains for picking up that the Downloads section has recently been updated. Nothing Earth shattering, but the Desktop Backgrounds are now categorised to stop the page getting too big, and our resident Photoshop genius Danny Stephenson has addded two more ident spoofs to our collection – Optic and Copper Cutout – along with a bloody excellent recreation of the ‘Quagaars’ screen from Waiting for God. Also, in an attempt to make really old content seem like brand new content, the Print Archive section has been put online – containing the exact same two articles from the old G&T. Shut up. Yeah, I prefer John, too.
It isn’t that surprising that the Re-mastered doco is short. I mean, it was never going to be a detailed account of each edit or anything. It just needs to explain what was done (a film effect and some CG along with pointless cuts and additions).
> It isn?t that surprising that the Re-mastered doco is short. Well, I’m not particulally surprised… I guess I think there’s just definitely scope to make a massive docco going into massive detail about how certain things were done, what bits were particulally difficult etc etc, that could run for ages. But, no, it’s clearly a swift 21 minutes for a reason, so I’m no longer in the least bit concerned.
A lot of the remastering is simply stuff done ‘a lot’. The film effect and grade applied across the board, one CGI ship render very much like another, background sound and stereo mix throughout, etc. etc. Cover it once, it counts for 18 episodes. When it DOES come to specifics, the doc nails a lot of things. It just does it quickly. The ‘animated’ Rimmer ejection in Backwards, for example, is covered – but the format means that one rushes shot and a VO makes it all clear in a quarter of the time. Then we have the remastering commentary, of course. As well as…something else. Soooo much cool stuff on this DVD. :-)
For all the people that dont like the remastered stuff, Re- Dwarf looks like Red Dwarf – minus something.
Oh, and: I can’t BELIEVE that I didn’t guess The Beginning. It’s so obvious! I’d never have got the Series 2 one, though. Although I like it a lot.
