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Matloff is under no illusion that his colleagues will be convinced, but he remains upbeat: “Shouldn’t we at least be checking? Maybe we can move panpsychism from philosophy to observational astrophysics.”

Scientists would look at stars behaving weirdly and work from out existing scientific knowledge in an attempt to determine the rules by which the star is behaving, and how they can be modeled and predicted reliably in advance.

This guy goes “Dude, like, what if stars have minds of their own? Like we’re all in one big beautiful cosmic neighborhood, ya dig?”

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I am a satisfied consumer of [PRODUCT]. [PRODUCT] changed my life. Everyone loves [PRODUCT]. except for complete and utter [BASTARDS].

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If there was a time where some fan-wanky ties to past episodes would be OK, it would be the potential final episode ever.

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I still think the walker Blue Midget reeks the most of “Let’s do this just because we can” out of any change in the Remastered. Even in Series VIII it was one of the most cartoonish elements, let alone crow-barred into the infinitely more restrained Series II.

I find it fair for someone to prefer the Remastered if they started on it, but if you always watched the originals then the Remastered changes feel jarringly at odds with the tone of the early series. Added Holly lines like the one about urine being caught cheating just feel totally out of place in early episodes, but right at home in those made around the time of the Remastered. Between that and bizarre additions like the Polymorph in the vents, every time I watch Remastered I feel like little pockets of Series VIII’s worst indulgences are somehow infecting earlier episodes.

I just cannot see the Remastered as its own product. I can only see it as Red Dwarf with bizarre, ill-fitting changes tacked in. Absolutely nothing the Remastered ever did has added to my enjoyment of an episode, they only serve to distract and/or annoy.

And I will argue to my grave that Red Dwarf’s original model effects look objectively better than the CGI of the Remastered. I won’t bash VII’s CGI because it’s the only way they could afford all the shots they needed, but the Remastered’s CGI is needless replacement of existing superior model shots. That’s wasting huge amounts of what microscopic budget they had on making something that looks way cheaper than what it’s replacing. I challenge even the most ardent defenders of the Remastered to look me in the eye and tell me the Remastered Bodyswap chase isn’t some of the worst spaceship effects you’ve ever seen on a TV show EVER.

Even with CG spaceships, they should have kept the Red Dwarf model shots and devoted all the time and effort on the CGI to Blue Midget and Starbug. The CGI Red Dwarf holds up incredibly poorly in close-ups, with much of the fine detail blatantly just flat textures instead of actual geometry. Add to that that complete lack of shadow, just flat omnidirectional lighting from all angles and CGI Red Dwarf doesn’t look remotely like a real, physical object. The harsh lighting and dark shadows of the Red Dwarf model shots are a huge part of what made them look so good, and the presence of actual light and shadow are why Series VIII’s CGI spaceship shots look so much better than VII’s and Remastered’s. Though the over-shininess of the Red Dwarf ship itself in VIII pretty much screams “I AM CHEAP CGI” just as much as a lack of any real lighting does.

You know, without the dozens of shots of Red Dwarf to render, they could’ve had the time to render things like Starbug with proper light and shadow, maybe even with higher resolution textures. The horrible pixelly textures are probably the worst thing about Remastered CGI, the biggest issue with the Red Dwarf ship besides the lack of lighting, and also blatantly visible every time a planet is seen in VII. Good thing VII didn’t have eighteen giant planets in every single space shot or those bad textures might’ve been extremely visible.

Why the fuck does every spacescape starting in the late ’90s need to have a billion planets and nebulas in it? Why does it always have to be so busy? I noticed XI got back in the habit of having a planet in basically every shot, but at least those planets actually looked good.

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Red Zeppelin.

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Oh shit, that was supposed to go in another topic but my browser fucked up and I went back to the wrong tab.

Presumably though, since that midsection was seen in a reshoot, XII might have it connected to the cockpit. Maybe because of the budget allocation they couldn’t afford the set as part of XI, but they could build it for XII. It’s not like any XI episodes needed the midsection except for Can of Worms, and they just built an upper deck for that. I can’t imagine they’d build the nicer set if they were only going to use it to reshoot that one scene from Can of Worms.

But that’s wild speculation trying to compensate for a massive fuckup on my part.

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Red Zeppelin.

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It’s a mining ship so as long as its primarily transporting mining equipment and ore. So I guess as of Series X it’s a vending machine ship.

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That set said “Upper Deck” on the wall, or was that just the set in the deleted scenes version?

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The fact that not only did they never show the midsection, but that every time the door opened they’d cut to an angle to hide what was behind it was confirmation enough for me.

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And Voyager made a subtle reference to Red Dwarf by having the same premise.

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As for post 9/11 faux pas’, dare I mention The Lone Gunmen WTC incident from the pilot. I bet the producers absolutely cacked their pants a couple of months later.

It drives the conspiracy theorists nuts, but they’ll never figure it out.

Because they’re deluded.

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It’s the Metric equivalent of Imperial shitload.

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The moons probably already have specific mining colonies already set up. Mining ships like Red Dwarf would delivers new equipment and supplies, and transport the mined ore to its intended destination. If you just contracted miners who were already on the moon itself to continue working, every couple years they could have a Red Dwarf-sized mining ship show up and collect all the ore.

It’s probably a lot cheaper to just make one big trip with fifty thousand fucktons of ore (and drop off the latest Starbugs and Blue Midgets and White Giants) than to constantly send smaller ships to pick up 0.5 fucktons at a time.

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Die Hard 2 suffers from being basically the same movie on a bigger scale, but I still enjoy Die Hard enough to watch it happen again at an airport. One of the things that made Die Hard 2 so effective for me was seeing them destroy a passenger airplane with some incredible model effects. Not only did I not expect to see them destroy a passenger jet, which would be a major faux pas post-9/11, but the model effects were fucking fantasic. Even really good CGI would still look too clean and artificial unless the director really knew what they were doing, but that plane wreck did not look like a model to me. I bought that as a full-sized plane actually crashing on camera.

Not to get too far off-topic, I just love model effects from the last decade or so before CGI took over (late ’70s through the very early ’90s). Special effects got so amazing, and then they started looking a lot fakier with CGI only in its infancy.

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If only I’d watched Pete more often this could’ve been avoided.

I’m still not gonna do it.

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I’m in one called “Red Dwarf Posse…!!!” (sic), and it’s generally fun but…

Today somebody said Series VII was annoying because the audience wasn’t laughing. Every day somebody discovers the SMEG appliances. Back to Earth is fair game to shit all over, but Series VIII is the exact same show as Series V

I’m sorry, I’ve gotten so used to these people I jumped the gun..

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Goddammit, I can’t even quote right. Somebody help me reinstall my core operating system.

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International Debris
Er yeah, I was referring to Archie.

I um..

Well..

This what I get for spending so much time in the Facebook groups where people don’t even know there’s going to be a Series XII.

Sorry.

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The same could be said for the Alien parody in whatever episode it was. I remember really cringing at that when it was on TV. Felt so crowbarred in. “Look, it’s like Alien! But with a penis instead of an alien!”

Whether or not it was good is a matter of opinion, but…to put it lightly, you are grossly mischaracterizing the episode.

You’re straight-up saying Polymorph being an Alien homage is on the SAME level as the random Reservoir Dogs reference in Back in the Red. There’s no comparing the two; one’s a just a simple gag, one is the actual style the episode is shot in. One is a moment that could be seamlessly cut without affecting anything, one is the overall aesthetic of the episode, and one that looks very good too. Storywise, Polymorph really is not that close to Alien, since the monster is mainly a plot device to bring about comedy. Comedy that is primarily focused on the characters, as is usually the case with this show.

And penis? Seriously? That’s your take away, that’s what stuck with you is that the emotion sucker was phallic? What happened to the characters missing their emotions, the bazookoid chase, “This isn’t a meal, it’s an autopsy”, “I’ll let myself trout”? Does “LOL IT LOOKS LIKE A DICK” outweigh all of that in your mind?

I’m not even annoyed that you didn’t like it, I’m annoyed that you’re saying it’s on the same level as that stupid Dibley fanservice slow motion walk from Back in the Red. Even if you hate both, they’re not the same thing just because they’re film references. An apple isn’t the same thing as custard just because they’re both food.

GOD. I’M SORRY EVERYONE. THIS REALLY PISSED ME OFF.

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And I have to create a new ending becasue series 7 ends on a cliffhanger, with Red Dwarf constantly changing size.

Constantly? I mean they turned the planetoid back into Red Dwarf, and then shrank it down in the beginning of Series 8. I’d hardly call one time at the beginning of Series 8 constantly. I mean if someone ate roast beef one time at the beginning of Series 8, one would hardly say that person constantly eats roast beef. No, it would be a rare nay freak occurrence.

Possibly mad?!

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I’m honestly really surprised the Empire Strikes Back reference in The Beginning worked as well as it did for me, because if before Series X you’d told me Red Dwarf was going to parody that scene in a future episode I’d probably cringe. Referencing famous Star Wars moments has become a staple of hackneyed comedy by this point because it’s so easy to get a huge reaction doing it even if there’s no actual joke or reason for it to be there, and I’m pleased they were able to able to avoid that pitfall.

But I shouldn’t be surprised, because Red Dwarf’s film references and homages have always served the story first which is arguably the best use of that type of humor in a show with grounded reality.

Well that Reservoir Dogs parody didn’t serve the story in any way, but Series VIII isn’t a show with a grounded reality.

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-Maybe add some of the deleted scenes (I will have to purchase the DVD’s first, I have only seen the episodes on Dave so far).

I also object to the idea of adding back in deleted scenes just to add back in deleted scenes. Decide based on the merit of the actual material, don’t just restore deleted scenes because you can. They were each cut for a reason, and cramming them back in haphazardly is at the very least going damage the pacing.

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If nothing else, I doubt you could cut the RoboLister stuff without breaking the episode. It leads up to the discovery of the unreality bubbles, and without that explanation you’d need to cut that whole section of the episode.

Not even Remastered would try to do something that jarring.

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That’s not my problem with it. The problem with it is that Kryten knows Lister is a human and he has seen it proved on multiple occasions (in Legion for example, Lister had his appendix removed it again, somehow, but still proves he’s a human), so there is no reason why Kryten would automatically believe that Lister is an android.

The unreality bubble removing Cat also affected their memory of him, so how does it not make sense that they’d accept the unreality where Lister is a robot? The unreality is shown to affect their minds and memory as well as the physical reality.

I’m not just thinking of ways to justify it after the fact, this is always how it’s made sense to me while watching it.

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Why? If there is something to watch, I’d imagine the majority of British fans would tune in and watch it go out, and it’ll be available online – both officially and unofficially – immediately afterwards.

Considering how many fans I see on Facebook who haven’t even watched Series XI yet, or only just did, I wouldn’t be surprised if they missed out on something like this.

What’s that? It’s not gonna be new footage at all?

As you were.

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-Cut out the crap with Lister being an android since it makes ZERO sense.

It’s almost as if it happened inside an unreality bubble.

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I’m betting you the average fan won’t see this until it turns up on the XII DVD.

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Oh, and wasn’t there a Polymorph involved?

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I’d just like to say I’m pretty sure I’ve just written the single most niche article that will ever appear on the Internet

This makes me concerned over my level in interest.

Nice article.

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If you do continue to do fan-edits, can you keep them in their original 4:3 aspect ratio? There times in the Only the Good edit where Rimmer’s entire head was cropped off.

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I do know that. I have no idea why I fucked it up so badly there.

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[quoteblock]I don’t understand why they didn’t just copy and paste a laugh from the actual recording sessions instead of stock laughter….[/quoteblock]
Because that takes slightly more than the absolute minimal possible amount of effort.

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Scully thinks it’s a 14B.

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Doesn’t “The End” open with a man being shot through the head with a sniper rifle?

But yeah, I guess Homer completely nonviolently aiming a gun at Marge’s face while trying to do a cool pose with it is much worse.

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I’ve very happy with the level of quality XI has achieved, and if XII is as experimental as it sounds I’m in for a treat.

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That sound affects me just the way the 9th Symphony does Alex in the second half of A Clockwork Orange.

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Yeah, that’s my video. I posted a thread about it here a while ago. That same laugh also shows up in VII and Remastered as well, albeit to a far lesser degree than in VIII. Somebody else posted an instance of it from a different show entirely, which proved beyond a doubt it was stock laughter.

It’s a fucking annoying laugh and literally the thing I most dislike about Series VIII. It’s EVERYWHERE, and once you notice it you’ll hear it all over the place. Even worse, it’s almost always pasted after something that wasn’t even a joke. Besides the Rimmer line I included in the video, the second laugh in all of Tikka to Ride is that stock laugh inexplicably playing as Lister picks up the camera, something that’s clearly not supposed to be humorous.

Sweetening your audience reaction is one thing, a lot of shows do it to varying degrees, but copy-pasting the same distinctive, irritating laugh all over the place? I noticed this thing when I was a kid it’s so obvious. As an aspiring video editor rather proud of her own sound mixing ability I’m especially frustrated to see such unprofessional work in my all-time second favorite show.

I started a Tikka fanedit a while back that I never finished in which I made it a point to utilize the audio track of the extended episode to mute that laugh the couple of times it appeared.

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I made that Wikipedia page, thank you. I was hoping others would step up to contribute further but that never happened.

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“Crap” is not even harsh enough to be considered a swear word where I live and this list ranks it equal to “goddamn”, which if you said it on an American television show would get you a TV-MA rating (equivalent to the high end of a UK 15, I believe). “Pissed off” is pretty socially acceptable, though not child-friendly, and here it’s listed in the Medium section on par with all sorts of swear words including “shit”, which is another word that’ll get you rated TV-MA.

I feel like my normal everyday speech would get be jailed for public indecency if I traveled to the UK.

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As an American, I completely forget bollocks is even a swear word at all.

I certainly never imagined it was considered bad enough to bleep on TV.

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I think it’s a mistake to have the crew meet Mohammed in episode 3.

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Actually it now occurs to me that just adding the 2007 release date in parentheses to the listing title would convey that fine without renaming anything.

Or maybe just let anybody who buys it expecting every new episode learn their lesson to actually read the product description next time. Yeah, that sounds better. They should’ve been grabbing the Blu-Rays of BtE and onward anyway.

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I recommended they rename the listing for “The Complete Collection” to “The Complete Series I-VIII” considering that by next year it will be 21 episodes short.

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I have thus far successfully managed to get Amazon to correctly list X’s as DVD as “Red Dwarf: Series X” and XI’s DVD and Blu-Ray as “Red Dwarf: Series XI”. Now every DVD and Blu-ray is listed consistently as “Red Dwarf: Series [Roman Numeral]” except for the VIII DVD and the Blu-Ray of X, which are just missing the “Series” part.

But at least nothing is called Red Dwarf: “X” anymore, which is somehow the wrongest possible way you could ever write even though it included all the right words in the correct order.

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Might as well add ‘why is Lister sitting down when there’s no gravity in space?’ to the opening credits

And the hologrammatic pile of random crap Rimmer crashes into in The End: Remastered.

If we’re going to include Remastered we’ll be here until we die of old age. We could reasonably assume the spacesuit boots are magnetic in the original, like how they walked in the Discovery podbay in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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“Cat finds a lady cat. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not even close.”

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I’m surprised that’s a real book, but I wouldn’t be if it were published in the past decade.

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Is this the one whose name implies that the Official Fan Club is not actually a real fan club?

No, but for some reason the name ends in an ellipsis followed by three exclamation points. Wouldn’t that cancel out to nothing?

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I wish there was a social media group that wasn’t 10,000 strong and filled with people who are convinced that Red Dwarf is a parody of sci-fi or that it’s “never taken itself seriously” or are legitimately confused by the idea that anyone could think Series VIII is any less good or even a different style and tone from any other series.

And yes, every few days somebody discovers the smeg fridge.

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