The Important Questions…

[Piplup2003]

We’ve all been to a Q&A panel (or watched one on YouTube) and there’s always the same questions. ‘What’s your favourite episode? ‘Why do you think Red Dwarf has continued for 30 years?’ etc.

So, I want to know, what are the questions you really want the answers to?

For example, in Me2, Rimmer gives a two finger salute to the other Rimmer by casting a shadow on the screen. But, as Rimmer at the time was made of soft light, how is it possible for Rimmer to cast a shadow, not only here but at any point before Legion?

Another few good ones I’ve seen on other threads are ‘Do Holograms produce bodily fluids?’ and ‘Does Archie produce semen?’

Topic

[Pete Part Three]

Well, maybe Kryten’s “way out of this” was to “sit here and get blown up, and then be restored by the paradox”.

>the heroism is largely about the intent.

Oh, agreed and that’s the way it plays out in Out of Time. It a “heroic” moment because it’s Rimmer, and his usual solution is to go and hide under the table rather than take action. If the Cat had blown up the timedrive (and he’s often the one to take action; cf. Demons and Angels, Cured) it wouldn’t really be a thing.

[Dave]

The weird thing is that the crew in Tikka still have access to CCTV footage showing their deaths in Out Of Time: events that never happened.

[Pete Part Three]

Maybe that’s the real reason the video camera blew up.

[Dax101]

but it was Out of Time which first showed Starbug blowing up, not Tikka to Ride.

It’s even made clear by the editing that the explosion was caused by future Starbug, not by Rimmer shooting the time drive; it cuts away to the explosion before the bazookoid shot hits the time drive.

There is a mild difference between Out of Time and the Flashback and that is you see Rimmer blast the time drive before Starbug blows up in Out of Time while with the Flashback it cuts before Rimmer blasts the time drive and i think they added a shot with future Starbug firing at past starbug blowing it up

Feels like remastering syndrome. trying to fix something that you think helps it make sense when you are really taking something away from it by doing so

[flanl3]

Was Rimmer maybe not trying to destroy the time drive, but instead blow up the ship, so that if the timeline did reset he wouldn’t be there because he couldn’t stand to take the responsibility for the death of a whole crew a second time?

[Dave]

Rimmer was actually trying to destroy his bronze swimming certificate, which viewers couldn’t see as it was right next to the time drive on the wall.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I always took it as this:

1) Rimmer shoots the time drive wiping out the future crew

2) At the same time, the missile from the future crew hits Starbug

3) The creation of two alternate dimensions:

RealityA – One without the future crew as in this reality the boys don’t become them since they don’t abuse the time drive, which we see in Series VII they don’t unless its curry-related.

RealityB – One where only the future crew exist, having no past, they are unable to fix their time drive

This may or may not make sense, but really, how would the future crew exist unless they did encounter themselves in the past as the boys from the Dwarf did. It all really makes little sense, unless the future crew were from an alternate dimension. Then my theory is canon and you should all accept it as such.

[Pete Part Three]

>This may or may not make sense

[Ben Saunders]

>>This may or may not make sense
This is written at the top of all Grant Naylor scripts

[clem]

It’s an early draft of the caption at the end of the series VIII trailer.

[Dave]

This makes sense.

The smeg it does.

[Dax101]

Red Dwarf VIII Trailer = “Somethings were never meant to make sense”

[Jonsmad]

You start off asking a pretty good question about widening the level of enquiry to the cast and crew, and pose what is unanswered that you’d like to hear about…

I’d say things like the movie script, the aborted episodes of series x with Kochanski and series 8’s ending are the kind of things It would fascinate me to read should they be ever given more details to fans at any point. Equally in working out what in “the beginning” does and doesn’t owe to those movie drafts.

Hologrammatic shadow gags bother me in explanation no more than microwave kebab plate materialisations, and Archie was too limp a penis gag to ever achieve robo orgasm. so I wouldn’t waste the casts time asking them such wank myself.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I bet any scripts from Series X involving Kochanski will possibly be resurrected if/when Chloë comes back on the show.

Do we know much about the movie plot really? I heard it involved the crew teaming up with their past selves to fight the homo sapenoids, but that’s all I really know. I know Hogey was picked up from the movie drafts, and the simulant generals are based off the homo sapenoids since Kryten mentions they’re inter-breed with humans as the homo sapenoids would’ve been.

[bloodteller]

> the crew teaming up with their past selves

where’d you hear about this part? i don’t recall this ever being mentioned

[Pete Part Three]

Don’t think I’ve ever heard about the past-selves thing.

I think *this* is as close as we ever got to an plot summary. (Although how it was ever released without a decent proof-read is a mystery):

[Bargain Bin Holly]

>where’d you hear about this part? i don’t recall this ever being mentioned

If I recall correctly I picked that up from some news article talking about the failed movie project. The idea got thrown around when the movie was being considered a prequel according to my faulty, unreliable memory. But idk, maybe I’m remembering this wrong.

btw, was that the only poster made for the movie? I was looking online and found another poster from the Red Dwarf website from 2003:

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2003/04/18/making-the-movie/

But I can’t tell, it uses the Red Dwarf ship model from Series VIII and has it snapping in half with (what I assume) to be a homo sapenoid looking out a porthole. I can’t find any verification for this though

[Dax101]

There were a fair amount of stuff in Series X that was taken from the movie script. if i remember right. these are 2 of them

*the flashback in “The Beginning” and Hogey were taken from the movie script (might be wrong)

*The kidney stones thing with Jesus was from the movie script but was with Captain Hollister

[bloodteller]

the kidney-stones scene probably would have been funnier with Hollister. it’s really amusing to imagine Rimmer feeling all priveliged and considering that holding some obscure mining ship captain’s penis is the highlight of his career.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Would be kinda out of character tho, Rimmer doesn’t respect Hollister enough to want to be handling his goods.

Where’d you hear about that bit with Hollister from?

[Dax101]

It being Hollister feels like something that would happen in Series 8.

[Dax101]

>Where’d you hear about that bit with Hollister from?

its in a Digital Spy interview with the cast for Series X i believe where they mentioned the scene saying it was taken from the movie but was with Hollister

I think it was mentioned also that they wanted Madonna to play the Cat queen or something like that

[Pete Part Three]

Well, it’s a flyer for, presumably, drumming up investment. The “Poster” is just the outside, the synopsis etc is the inside. Doug wrote a shedload of movie scripts so I’m sure Red Dwarf splitting in two made at least one version. I think it’s ambigious over whether the script that synopsis focuses on would be a prequel, although the fact that it doesn’t detail the whole “Three million years setup” does indicate that it’s a given.

Think that’s the only promotional material that was ever “released”, although the official site printed some storyboards

[Dax101]

It sounds like its an alternative universe story that is set before lister joins the space corps. so basically the first novel but a different take.

The storyboards really did make it look exciting though and its almost a shame we didn’t get to see it to a certain degree.

[bloodteller]

> Madonna to play the Cat queen or something like that

IIRC it was the Sapienoid Queen, not a Cat Queen lol. there’s a lot of concept art for her online (i think one of them is used on the flyer?) where she’s only referred to as “Her Holiness” for some reason

[Dax101]

Oh i swear Craig said it was the Cat Queen.

[bloodteller]

also i think it was said from the very beginning that the Movie was a reboot, wasn’t it? the announcment article was boasting about it being the only “non-sequel” sci-fi film currently in development, and that it would be a different universe to the TV show.

[Dax101]

Well this what Doug told the Fanclub Magazine back in 2002. word by word.

<b>Does the plot of the film follow on where series VIII left off?</b>
No, it doesn’t; it’s a complete story unto itself. The story begins before the series started, and then goes off in a direction that the series didn’t go off on. So it’s set up and then has it’s own story, complete in itself, whilst still being able to assemble the cast that we know and love.

[Dax101]

Damn bold tags didn’t work :/

[Ben Saunders]

So it’s Star Trek (2009)

[International Debris]

Would be kinda out of character tho, Rimmer doesn’t respect Hollister enough to want to be handling his goods.

Rimmer doesn’t like Hollister, but there’s enough superior officer respect bred into his character that he would still jump at the chance.

Red Dwarf exploding into two pieces always excited me.

[bloodteller]

but Red Dwarf already exploded into no pieces in Demons And Angels

[International Debris]

That was exciting too.

[Seb Patrick]

For example, in Me2, Rimmer gives a two finger salute to the other Rimmer by casting a shadow on the screen. But, as Rimmer at the time was made of soft light, how is it possible for Rimmer to cast a shadow, not only here but at any point before Legion?

The shadow is also a hologram?

I mean, it’s not exactly a massive reach.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

>Oh i swear Craig said it was the Cat Queen.

Ye, he did. It was in this interview back in 2012 to promote Series X: https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/red-dwarf-special

He must’ve just gotten it confused, since it was probably a longtime since he had read the script for the movie plot.

[Flap Jack]

The shadow is also a hologram?

I mean, it’s not exactly a massive reach.

A shadow made of light? I love it!

Overall my favourite headcanon explanation for “Why does an opaque object cast shadows?” is still “because it’s opaque”, but that’s just personal preference.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I think this blog is probably the best documentation that I’ve read of what the movie might’ve contained: https://kriscarter.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/red-dwarf-the-movie-that-wasnt/

From this I think’s its safe to say the movie would’ve been a prequel and an overall retelling of the main premise of the show.

I never knew there was a Homo Sapenoids Queen, nor did I know Paradroids were a thing at some point. Holly would’ve looked like a massive projection I assume from the storyboards, kinda like Blade Runner.

It had to be a prequel around the time the storyboards were made cause one has a JMC poster that I believe Lister would’ve found and get inspired to join à la Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers.

This is some cool stuff, also appearently Doug used some parts of the movie script(s) into Series XI and XII according to this interview (He says it somewhere between 22-30 minutes in this interview, along with Danny doing a funny impression of fans who want a movie that would include me)

https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/red-dwarf-special-with-craig-charles-robert-llewellyn-danny-john-jules-doug-naylor

[Pete Part Three]

I’m imagining a film where they have to build a futuristic world of mining ships , introduce Lister, Rimmer and Kryten (played by Robert Llewellyn), sell the idea of Kochanski as an actual bloody character, show Lister’s relationships with all of them in a way that actually works, kill off the rest of the crew, spin forward three million years and introduce the Cat, then explain what the Sapienoids are and try and give that enough focus that it doesn’t seem like an afterthought for the final third of the movie.

You’ve basically got two massive plots competing if you do the prequel thing. I don’t really get how it would sell the gravity of the 3 million years thing, if they’re already in an battle with a bunch of robots by act three.

I’m not really getting the impression that there would be much time for any character comedy. Frankly, I think it would have been shit, especially coming off the back of Series VIII. I echo Kris’s sentiments in that blog (he does frequent this parish).

[bloodteller]

>kill off the rest of the crew, spin forward three million years

are we even sure the crew would’ve been killed off in the movie? given the big catheter cock scene from Lemons was originally taken from the movie script and involved Captain Hollister, it seems as if the crew were going to be alive in the movie. but then i could be wrong, i have no idea. the movie is a bit elusive like that

[bloodteller]

>in this interview

i listened to the interview, some interesting stuff about the series and what must be the eight hundredth re-telling of The Legit David Ross. it was nice to hear doug joking around and laughing with the cast though, that was sweet.

i resent the interviewer saying Waiting For God was “lamentable” though.

[Pete Part Three]

>are we even sure the crew would’ve been killed off in the movie?

Well, we need to spin forward three million years to get Cat…so we need a reason for that time-jump. Maybe Lister (& Kochanski?) in Stasis. Lister is called “The Last Human” in that flyer (although that means very little). I guess the Red Dwarf crew could go through a wormhole or something and the Cat species pops up. Again, these are petty huge ideas that if a film explored properly you’d expect it to overbalance the whole thing.

Making Lister, Rimmer, The Cat and Kryten the focus of the film (which was obviously the intention) when they’re not in control of the ship and thus get swept along in the adventure as part of a large crew would be…weird.

>Lemons was originally taken from the movie script and involved Captain Hollister

I think Doug has mentioned that there’s about 30 drafts of the movie written for various different budgets. The Sapienoids and Hollister needing an operation may be from different ones.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Hey, you read me blog! Thanks!

And yeah, the movie would have been bobbins. I really hope we get to read the scripts some day in some shape or form.

[Moonlight]

Personally, I’d enjoy the final Red Dwarf outing being a decent budget TV movie that lets Doug go truly ambitious with the runtime and money to fully realize it. And in my fantasy Rob Grant decides to join in for the hell of it since it’s the last ever Red Dwarf. What an adorably naive idea.

My less fantastical fantasy is to end on a Series XV with 8 episodes, a standard 6 episode series with two extra slots for a big finale.

[flanl3]

My dream for Red Dwarf is having a plot arc run through a seties which seems to actually matter at all without being shit.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

>Series XV

Just a question, what year would you think that’d come out? Assuming XIII gets made next year.

[International Debris]

I honestly think XIV will be the last.

[bloodteller]

i think there’ll be a XIII, and if we’re very lucky, an XIV too. but i can’t at all imagine Red Dwarf continuing after that.

plus visually, XIV isn’t a very appealing looking roman numeral. it just looks a bit wrong, doesn’t it? so maybe its best if they finish it at XIII

[International Debris]

If there are no pets allowed on board JMC ships, why is there a tin of dog food in Starbug?

[bloodteller]

It’s for people who have had a roverostomy, obviously.

[Hamish]

The exact same reason they have dog’s milk.

[Author]

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