Mr-Stabby

[Mr-Stabby]

The entire missiles sequence from The Beginning.

With you on that one. Though it does sound more like a scratch track rather than the final cue. I think it would carried a lot more weight if it had better synths or if they had the money, some real instruments. 

[Mr-Stabby]

Definitely my favourite of the commentaries is Series 7 once Chris has left. He takes great pleasure in pointing out how shit the show was without him :D

“Kryten’s trying to shag Kochanski! Craig’s showing off his packet and the cat hasn’t even appeared!”

[Mr-Stabby]

Haven’t got a copy to hand,  but it sounds like audio pre-echo. You often hear it on older stuff. There’s always a pre-echo of what’s coming up before it kicks in. Just an artefact of analog recording mediums of the time :) It’s so well known that they even inserted it deliberately into the theme tune of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace :)

[Mr-Stabby]

You know what i both hate and love about this video. This is exactly the kind of video i would have made as a teenager, and i’m jealous of anyone who has that energy nowadays :D

[Mr-Stabby]

Man, the world sucks…..

[Mr-Stabby]

Series 3 is certainly more silly. I mean compare an episode like ‘Terror’ or ‘Finger’ to ‘Contest’ in Series 1. They’re like two different shows. But I happen to like both types of episodes.

[Mr-Stabby]

Actually do you know what, i’ve just watched that shot back, and i think theres got to be something else. I’m looking at the edges of the moving photo to see if there’s ANY sign of manual movement on the shot, and there doesn’t appear to be any. It’s not a simple camera move either, the shot does an abrupt change right at the end, so if it was done manually, it was done by someone who really knew how to work a vision mixer paddle!

[Mr-Stabby]

Looking at the edges of the moving photos, my guess would be the photos had a blue or green square on them, they keyed that out, placed the shots in them, and scaled them up slightly, and then using a paddle on whatever vision mixer they had at the time, they moved the shot manually from right to left. If it was slightly scaled larger than the size of the blue/green box, that would allow room for error. As there are several photos, they probably had to redo that shot a few times to get the final version.

[Mr-Stabby]

Then every set would be randomly covered in crap fake snow, and Timothy Spall would have been played by Alan Titchmarsh.

/thread

[Mr-Stabby]

I gave up after they decided after watching Ace for a few minutes that it was an ‘Indiana Jones’ parody. Surely the British accent, cheesy one-liners etc would give off much more of a Bond vibe.

[Mr-Stabby]

Yikes, it’s been a while since i’ve seen the episode, but is that the final shot in the showreel? The rotating movement on those missiles is very awkward and jumpy. I remember the shot being better than that.

I think the reason i thought they were models is that they use the same shot flipped later on in the episode, and i understand why you would do that if you’d done a model shot, but surely to render a shot of the same animation done from a different angle wouldn’t be too much of an expense.

[Mr-Stabby]

Weren’t the missiles in ‘The Beginning’ models? They certainly had the look of models.

[Mr-Stabby]

I’d actually forgotten about the Terroform swamp stuff. That’s a mixture of really good and meh for me. The bug trying to escape from the swamp is really good stuff, yet the model supposedly being on the caterpillar tracks looked a little off methinks.

[Mr-Stabby]

I think the best all round internet forum thread claiming something was going to be a failure was on Macrumors.com when they announced the original Apple iPod. The entire thread was full of people proudly proclaiming that this was Apple’s biggest mistake as MP3 players were already saturated in the market and the iPod would bankrupt Apple. What little they knew!

[Mr-Stabby]

I seem to recall Only Fools and Horses were using film for exteriors right until the end. Yet on the flip side you’d see shows like Doctor Who using videotape for exteriors all the way back in 1974.

[Mr-Stabby]

I think it’s when Rimmer says ‘Imagine making love to a woman’ after Lister imagining making love to a woman with six breasts. Which is weird when you think it’s Series 1 and those audiences were a bit flat normally. But yeah you hear a lot of awwwwwws

[Mr-Stabby]

I think it’s when Rimmer says ‘Imagine making love to a woman’ after Lister imagining making love to a woman with six breasts. Which is weird when you think it’s Series 1 and those audiences were a bit flat normally. But yeah you hear a lot of awwwwwws

[Mr-Stabby]

And then Lister said ‘How did you lose your Virgin TV?’

Rimmer: My What?

Lister: Talk to me!

[Mr-Stabby]

>And I read somewhere (maybe on here lmao) that I think 28 Days Later was genuinely shot at 480p, and that’s as high as it will ever be. Now 1080p I can understand given that they basically invented digital cameras -for- Attack of the Clones, but 480p?! What were they thinking.

Watch the film. They film on a completely empty Westminster Bridge and City of London. They had literally minutes between the sun coming up and the city getting swamped. Rather than waste time setting up film cameras, they shot with a bank of Canon XL1 MiniDV video cameras, all filming at once, because they took literally moments to setup. The footage speaks for itself. No CGI, no fancy production tricks. REAL London looks deserted. I think that was worth using the slightly cheaper cameras. It looks amazing. And stylistically i think it works too.

[Mr-Stabby]

The preorder price for Series 1 Bluray is now £16.66 on my Amazon order history.

[Mr-Stabby]

The Tom Baker Doctor Who Bluray would actually have *some* benefit, as with the ‘Shada’ release, they have clearly rescanned the film elements of the show, and although the 16mm stock at the time wasn’t great, it still is a noticeable quality difference. So if they did that, then sure! Though I seem to remember, Tom’s first episode was a rare all-VT episode.

I’m going to buy Series 1 Red Dwarf Bluray anyway, because i’m a nerd and i like to compare things. But hell if they rescanned all the model shots, i’d buy them all. But i doubt they’ll do that, if they even still exist at all.

[Mr-Stabby]

And those same sound effects are used in Half Life too actually!

[Mr-Stabby]

>The BBC will have access to a sfx library, although which one I don’t know. You can hear a lot of re-used sound effects in Who, Dwarf etc if you’re listening out for them. Some sound effects from Doctor Who are in Half-Life, and the door opening sound effect from Doom 2 is used in a heck of a lot of sci-fi.

There’s a lot of cross-polination of Sound effects in TV, film and games. Just listen to the panels exploding on the bridge of the original Starship enterprise and you’ll also hear the sound of lightsabers in Star Wars bashing against each other.

[Mr-Stabby]

As Warbodog said, i actually prefer the first half of Series 1 best. Mainly because you actually get good character scenes with the secondary characters, and there was a sort of romantic will they won’t they think going on with Kirk and Yeoman Rand before she got kicked off the show. After that point, it’s the main three, and the rest of the cast are limited to ‘aye sir’ and ‘hailing frequencies open’ with the rare exception, like ‘Mirror, Mirror’.

[Mr-Stabby]

To be honest, the answer is probably something boring like there were no VT studios available when they needed to film that segment, so they used somewhere random and shot it on film because that was the only option they had. Even though VT had mostly taken over by this point, the late 80s and early 90s was a weird era where they’d occasionally still use film for some things. Only Fools and Horses used film for a lot longer than most programmes. They were still using it in 1996.

[Mr-Stabby]

Wow….arseholes ! :D

[Mr-Stabby]

Wow….arseholes ! :D

[Mr-Stabby]

Oh yeah i remember that competition. I actually still have the video I made. It’s painful to watch now, but hey i have no problem embarrassing myself for your pleasure….

https://youtu.be/vuQtJq1q2E0

[Mr-Stabby]

> Do we? I mean, for starters, Red Dwarf didn’t have a pilot.

Not officially, but I’m referring to the original recording of ‘The End’. it may have not been officially a pilot, but if we term pilot as an unbroadcast first episode of a show which is used to see what works and what needs to be changed, then the original recording of ‘The End’ is really a pilot, even if it wasn’t intended to be. And as much as we love the show now, and as good as the final recording became, that original show is weak.

Having said that, i suppose i don’t know if that first episode of ‘The Orville’ was the first recording of the show made or not. But my original point after all this was that it’s unfair to judge a show entirely on first episode, and that seems to be what people do these days. I think there’s enough there for me to continue watching the show.

[Mr-Stabby]

I think Ben’s review is probably the closest to what i would write. Saying it’s complete shit is unfair and untrue. There is a lot to like in ‘The Orville’ and i came away from the episode having enjoyed it overall, but it really needs to decide what kind of show it is. The straight sitcom lines that were in the trailer were scattered throughout the show and they jarred with the tone of the show overall. The comedy that was underplayed worked better, and hopefully that’s the way they’ll play it going forward.

We have to remember, this was a pilot! We on this forum know every well that Red Dwarf’s pilot was a complete mess. Star Trek TNG’s entire first two seasons were a mess. This was probably better than pilots of all those shows.

[Mr-Stabby]

People are saying Rob and Doug commentaries, but I think even on the series that he didn’t direct, Ed Bye would be the perfect person for commentaries. The guy has interesting production details but he’s also a real laugh. Like a perfect mix of the cast and director’s commentary in one bloke. Listen to those little easter eggs on the DVDs from that audio CD they did years ago to see what i mean.

[Mr-Stabby]

I seem to remember one of the cameras used in the studio on Series 3 had this horrible green line on the left of shot.

[Mr-Stabby]

I’m hopeful of the fact that it’s actually being directed by Star Trek regulars like Jonathan Frakes (who actually directed the better of the TNG films). I can’t imagine him agreeing to direct something if it actively insults TNG or is just bad. But then again he did direct the Thunderbirds movie…

[Mr-Stabby]

I must admit i’ve occasionally read these opinion pieces on shows like Family Guy, Big Bang Theory and also shows like The Simpsons, and started regurgitating those same opinions. The obvious ones like ‘Family Guy has lost its edge’, ‘Big Bang Theory used to be a show about nerds, now it’s Friends with shoe-horned in Star Trek gags’ ‘The Simpsons should have been cancelled years ago’ etc etc.

It’s certainly trendy to knock these shows now. But i then catch myself watching a new episode of ‘The Simpsons’ and thinking, wow this is genuinely actually very good. This deserves far more attention than its getting. Same with Family Guy. Big Bang Theory has certainly changed from its roots, and i must admit i don’t enjoy it anymore. But I’m not going to say it’s a bad show. When you watch some of the REALLY terrible comedies that appear on TV, Big Bang Theory is a masterpiece compared.

No matter how good it turns out to be, ‘The Orville’ i think will be ripped apart. We’ll see if it manages to survive that. Can you imagine if Series 1 Red Dwarf would go out as a new show today. We wouldn’t be here now!

As for the Seth swing albums, must admit i’ve never heard them, but Seth singing with Frank Sinatra Jr in those Family Guy episodes shows he really does have a terrific singing voice.

[Mr-Stabby]

I will say that the trailer did seem Family Guy-esque trailer as you say. Even in the style of delivery of some of the gags. The whole anti-banana ray gag is bizarrely delivered exactly like it would be in Family Guy itself. Almost robotic in the SETUP….PUNCHLINE with no natural pause.

[Mr-Stabby]

Interviews with Seth say that the one thing he tried to inject into the show is the 1990s Star Trek optimism of the future. That’s why I think Trekkies are looking forward to it as much if not more than Discovery.

I won’t judge it by the trailer, because Fox will have made the trailer. If you saw Fox’s original trailers for Firefly, one of my favourite shows of all time, it made the show look SHIT.

It may still be shit, but i’m going to give it a try.

If it’s any good, expect Fox to cancel it about 2 episodes in :)

[Mr-Stabby]

While I’ve never ever felt that post ’93 Dwarf has been milking the cow, I do get the occasional sense from watching some of them that Doug was using Red Dwarf as a vehicle to explore his other filmmaking aspirations. ‘Back to Earth’ being the more obvious example. Does anyone watching Back to Earth really feel that Doug was genuinely trying to make the best episode of Red Dwarf, the comedy? Or was he at least partly just using the commission to have a go with some Red Cameras, and bone up on his directing skills.

[Mr-Stabby]

Being a bit of a CraigyFerg fan, i spotted the news articles about this. The Scottish newspapers especially all reported it as quite a big story. It is funny how successful Craig is considered considering his ‘Late Late Show’ was not nowhere near as successful as people thought it was. It got a milion or so views a night sure, but none of the internet success that Cordon and Fallon are getting now. So if anything, his was the equivalent of a Jools Holland type slot over here. Considering that, ti’s amazing how much he was paid. Probably literally 100 times more than he’d get paid for a similar slot on BBC1!

[Mr-Stabby]

I still can’t hear his name without hearing it in the voice of Chris Barrie doing an impression of Tony Hawks. So now all i hear is ‘Ehh it’s Tony Hawks MBE!’

[Mr-Stabby]

The audience laughter changes are actually a problem with Series 3 Remastered in general I’ve noticed. Particularly in ‘Bodyswap’ of course, but then you’d think they’d used the same audience track from the original, so why the need for changes. But Series 3 Remastered also suffers from bizarre sound mixes. The fight with Hudzen 10 in ‘The Last Day’ is horribly sound mixed. It’s just a muddle of sounds, and I swear you can actually hear the original Howard Goodall music slowed down when everything goes slow motion, with that horrible library track on top of it.

[Mr-Stabby]

It’s really interesting seeing how rare TV shows were repeated even as recently as the late 80s and early 90s. It would be interesting to see if any of the early Satellite channels repeated Series 1 before the repeat run, or if the second airing of a later series wasn’t a BBC airing.

[Mr-Stabby]

John Hoare was born in Ealing in 1979. He was born with only one functioning nostril. The rest, as they say, is history. He also is one of the world’s leading experts on Macaques.

[Mr-Stabby]

I would go for Hattie for the reasons everyone has said above, but mainly because she gave Series 3-5 so much rewatchability. Even when she had no lines and the focus wasn’t on her, you could look at what Hattie was doing with no dialogue at all and still get a laugh or get a new reaction out of her. Look at her when Deck Sergeant Sam Murray appears in Holoship. Look at her when Kryten is talking to Rimmer over the intercom in Quarantine. There are so many examples of her just doing funny bits when left to her own devices. But also as we’ve heard from Hattie herself, she can suggest things that Holly can do that weren’t in the script. Ducking when the Simulant fires at her in Justice, fainting in Dimension Jump.

You’ve got all the above with Hattie. Norman would do none of that. He would just sit there and look bored.

The only thing that puts me off the idea is that the four main cast really do get on well with each other. They clearly don’t like Norm very much, but at the same time I don’t think they’re great friends with Hattie either are they? With the exception of Bobby. In the commentaries, they tend to ignore her.

[Mr-Stabby]

I must say I really enjoyed the shots overall, which I didn’t with Series X. With Series X, some of the shots were very nice and simple, but some were actually really bad. The side wide shot of Red Dwarf they used a couple of times in Series X and even once in Series XI actually looked out of focus!

Series XI, the quality was so much better. They were ambitious, and while i don’t think they pulled off the overall quality of say Series VI, the shots were more consistent and they actually tried to make them visually sumptuous rather than just treat them as a necessary evil, which is the impression I got with Series X and BTE. The only thing I didn’t like were most of the shots of Starbug. Starbug flying was a very bad attempt at making a static non moving model look like it was flying using camerawork rather than actually moving the model itself. Unless i’m much mistaken. Especially the shots when it was supposedly pass camera and change direction. Very artificial looking sadly. I also got a bit fed up of seeing the one flyby of Red Dwarf they used in pretty much every episode (and the same music cue too!). It would have been nice to get some different shots.

I know some people would prefer CGI, but I really like that they chose models as it does make the shots more interesting. I find CGI so lifeless when it comes to space and ship shots. While the model work needs improvement, i’d rather they stuck with it.

[Mr-Stabby]

Do Chinese Spammers wear braces?

[Mr-Stabby]

Unfortunately there is a Facebook post somewhere (i’m sorry i can’t find it) from a member of Dean Stockwell’s family that states that Dean is nearing the end of his life, which is really sad.

I think a rebooted Quantum Leap would be great as a UK made series. The US one was very US centric, and a rebooted UK version set in the UK past would actually be something new and therefore have a lot of new stories to tell. The core concept is great as people have said. But the relationship between the two main actors is what carries the show, so they’d have to get that spot on.

The one thing that should have made Quantum Leap successful was the fact that it was not really a sci-fi series. It had a sci-fi backbone, but the sci-fi was just a clever way of getting to tell just normal character stories. Something the best kind of sci-fi does I think. It’s why early Russell T Davies Doctor Who was so popular I think. Whereas current Doctor Who, while a very good series, is a bit too sci-fi heavy for a mainstream audience.

[Mr-Stabby]

The word Twat seems to taken on the American meaning these days. I always knew Twat as a very mild swear word. Just a slightly ruder version of Twit. Dammit even my parents said it around me at a very young age.

And in the context of that line, it’s even less rude isn’t it? Twatting someone means hitting them of course!

What is wrong with people…

[Mr-Stabby]

My Series 2 DVD is knackered, so if this includes all the commentaries and such, i may buy this just to see if there is actually any improvement.

[Mr-Stabby]

Also, what is the 1:78:1 stuff listed in the specs? Even the documentaries were 4:3 on the original Dwarf disks, are they actually going to crop the shows too?

[Mr-Stabby]

Waste of time.

The way that Doug has announced it on Twitter suggests BBCWW are doing it, and so they’ll no doubt get hold of the cheapest masters they can find, shove them through an upscaler and release them.

Although Dwarf is going to look shit on Bluray no matter what you do, you COULD at least rescan the analog masters using modern codecs and get SOME quality improvement over the original digitised masters, also do some basic colour grading to bring a bit of colour back to the early series. But they won’t do that. Especially considering back in the 90s when they did it for Re-mastered, the analog tapes were clearly knackered, even then. Plus they’ve lost the 35mm original Dwarf flybys. Man, they would be great to see in HD!

Be interesting to see some comparison shots though.

[Author]

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