11 Doctors, 3 Masters, but only one Brigadier!

The Geek world mourned today at the news of the death of Nicholas Courtney, the man who played the famous Brigadier Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewert, a commanding officer in UNIT (Originally the United Nations Intelligence Task force and now the Unified Intelligence task force)

Appearing periodically in the series from season 5 to 13, and reappearing the series 20th Season - and more recently in the Sarah Jane Adventures. Appearing alongside every doctor from Hartnell to Mc Coy he appeared in over 100 televised epsiodes with 5 different Doctor's

Having served in the military himself he portrayed the stalwart commander with a plomb in both the TV shows and the audio plays.

It would be a fitting send off to have a 21 gun salute of 'Five rounds,, rapid'

Nicholas Courtney passed away on 22nd of February 2011 after a short illness

X-Men: First Class

So the X-men: First Class has been on the cards for an absolute age in one form or another.  Rumours of the Magneto origins, Xavier origins movies have circulated the web since before the Wolverine movie was a twinkle in the plot writer’s eye. 

Set in the 60’s when Magneto and Xavier were both young men before all of the issues arose that eventually made them arch enemies.  While the plot has been left pretty oblique, I can only assume that ‘First Class’ refers to the beginnings of the X-mansion and the institute. 

I am concerned that there will be a lot of plot holes or things that don’t match with the Xavier we have been presented with in the previous films.  For a start Scott, Jean, and the others who formed the first class of X-men in the comics knew Charles when he was bald, even in the Wolverine movie Charles, although he can still walk, is bald.  I wonder how much of Jean and Scott’s back story, if any, will be shown. 

Moreover, if Emma is supposed to be the White Queen already she is going to be significantly older than Scott and Jean.  I know they aren’t sticking to the comics verbatim but at the same time the Emma/Scott/Jean triangle was a major feature of quiet a few of the comic runs.  While I think, January Jones will make a credible Emma Frost, she certainly has the 60’s movie starlet to pull it off I am worried that some elements of the movie will become a little like the overly cheesy hero shoes from the same period – especially since many of the characters will have costumes much like the ones from the comics. 

There were lots of debate over the role of Xavier and Magneto – at one stage there was talk of using the software that is used to age the faces of missing children but in reverse to make Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart look younger – which is a touch odd in itself and despite the general concern over the people that have been cast I think the line up looks pretty good.  Despite the few age issues I have. 

At the moment the line up appears to be (Left-Right):

Micheal Fassbender : Eric Lensherr

Rose Byrne : Miora McTaggert

January Jones : Emma Frost

Jason Flemyng : Azazel

Nicohlas Hoult : Hank McCoy

Lucas Till: Alex Summers

Zoe Kravitz: Angel Salvadore

Jennifer Lawrence: Raven Darkholme

James McAvoy: Charles Xavier

(Not Shown)

Kevin Bacon: Sebastian Shaw

Oliver Platt: Man in Black

As a massive fan of Oliver Platt I’m incredibly glad that he’ll be appearing in First Class, although my internal type cast means that everything he appears in should simply be as varying shades of Porthos! He is capable of more than that I know but I find I don’t care – I simply want the sash that was a gift to him from the Queen of America.

Due to be released on the 3^rd of June 2011 First Class is set to be the first of a new trilogy directed by Donner.  I don’t want to judge the series too harshly just yet but there will be more details as I get them!  A few more stills attached! 

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EDIT:

HERE IS THE TRAILER! HERE
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Geek Decorating

 When I talk about Geek decorating, I don't mean geek feng shui, or how to make your house look bigger on the inside, I mean the actual decor! What's the geekiest item you have in your home? Captain Kirk cardboard cut out?  Fantasy wall art? Doctor Who bed spread?  The topic of geek decorating came up in a conversation recently as to how deeply you hide your inner geek or how proudly you display it.  My current level of geek display equates to my DVD's on display, Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies wall art, and some full size Cybermen masks.  Which is all fairly tame – especially when compared to my friend whose home is bedecked with swords, spider man comic book art, a hand drawn star trek caricature of him fencing Captain Kirk and a telephone in the shape of a TARDIS (granted I gave him that).  

I blame my own lack of geek interior decorating on the fact that as a student I don’t have a space of my own, I live in one room of a rented house, with no living room.  So I don’t have a lot of scope for decorating, and my parents refuse to allow me to redecorate the Victorian dining room to resemble Ten Forward.  

However, I have recently received from serious inspiration as to what I would ‘like’ to do with my home the minute I get one.  One my unfailing fencers revealed recently she has a ‘secret room’ in her house –hidden behind a door.  ‘So What?’ I hear you ask, well here it is -->

THATS RIGHT! It's Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite as a door!  It was custom made to replace the original and while it doesn’t look like a door (which is rather the point) It does look EPIC! 

BUT WAIT! There is more! The room itself is her  own little geek haven for gaming and what not! And its protected by her other major geek displayed item is the 7 foot Warcraft Orc that stands behind the sofa!

I have however, warned her that should the door go missing that those pesky mandalorians do look a lot like 5 foot female law students! XD

From what I can tell the prop itself can be bought from suppliers like THIS ONE and it then has to be altered to be a door -the amount of work and the detail involved is amazing! 

My jealousy is utterly unending! If there was ever an inducement to PhD study and becoming a lecturer then this is it!  More than that it is a truly proud display of geek pedigree and a way of judging  the geekiness of your friends – if they realise what the door depicts or can indentify the orc as Warcraft rather than LOTR then they can be considered fairly hardcore.  

So there it is viva geek decorating and heaven help anyone I end up living with because I've just been given something new to aspire to! 

A Brand New Year and Five Daughters

First post back from Christmas! Thanks for hanging in there! Law sucked my Christmas from me and I’ve been up to my eyes in boring! I am only now getting into the swing of things. 

BUT I thought I would kick off the year with a slight break from the geek world.  I recently watched the BBC mini series ‘Five Daughters’.  Its not science fiction, its not even a geeky topic but I thought I needed to mention it all the same. 

‘Five Daughters’ is the stories of the Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls, the victims of Steven Wright, dubbed in the media ‘The Suffolk Stranger.’  It follows the last few days of these women’s lives as they try to protect themselves and come to terms with the death of their friends. 

When the series originally aired, I like many people, was concerned and angry as to how the events and the people involved would be treated in the serial and I originally refused to watch.   The media in general place their emphasis on those who commit the crimes rather than the victims – most people can recognise the names or the faces of Myra Hindley, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, but few would recognise the names of Janice Ann Ott, John Kilbride, Elizabeth Stride, and Darrell Sampson as their victims.  We are presented with headlines and pictures of the criminals looking callous or insane, with scant mention of the victims unless it is to point out how their lifestyle got them into trouble, as with Peter Sutcliffe victims, or how their lifestyle or age makes them even more pitiable. 

I admit now that my reservations were merely presuppositions on my part and I was entirely incorrect in what the scope of the show actually was.  It wasn’t a slasher movie; it didn’t portray Wright as a mythic Jack the Ripper type killer, indeed the actor playing himself was only on screen for about three minutes at the end. 

It instead, focused on the human tragedy of the events of October to December 2006 and the relationships of these women with each other, their families, and the police.  It was impressive that director Phillipa Lowthorpe, writer Stephen Butchard, and the BBC did not give in to the temptation to create a CSI/Silent Witness style show which I think would have diminished the series. 

Instead, the approach was sensitive and Natalie Press, Eva Birthistle, Jaime Winstone, and Aisling Loftus portrayed the girls as real people with real problems not as preconceived stereotypes of the fallen woman or as pretty woman parodies of their lifestyle.  It seemed a candid view of the victims lives. 

The victim centric approach is such a change from the normal series of this genre a d the emphasis on the human tragedy rather than the morbid fascination in their deaths helps to diminish the cult of notoriety that often attaches itself to people like Wright.  Well done BBC, in a genre where it is all too easy to forget the victims they’ve done a great job in focussing on the people who were really affected by the events of October – December 2006

EDIT!

I'd also like to add that the program that helped many of the street workers in Ipswich in the wake of the murders is on the brink of closure.  Help Save the ICENI - Sign the PETITION

If you've been affected by anything relating to the series please take a look at the BBC support site - HELP

ICENI Project Ipswich

BBC Five Daughters

Doctor Who Christmas Special

SPOILERS

Okay so it’s been a few days – we’ve all had a chance to digest and muse over Moffet’s latest offering of Doctor Who.  For my part I was tragically disappointed – the idea was sound, exciting even – the Doctor taking on the role of the spirit/spirits in an attempt to melt the heart of an old miser –all in order to save Amy and Rory who are trapped aboard an imperilled cruise liner.  

The Victorian Literature geek in me rather enjoyed some of the nods to Dicken’s classic, like references to the frozen people as the ‘Surplus population’ –echoeing Scrooge’s well quoted line ‘If they would rather die, then they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.’ The Doctor spends 8 Christmas Eve’s with the young scrooge as he grows –but of course he does it all in one night (spirits can do that you know, course they can, course they can), along with the rather hamfisted wrenching in of Katherine Jenkins into the plot with some ill conceived bit about fish reacting to the harmonics of her singing.  It seemed like a poor attempt to throw a pretty girl, that wasn’t Karen Gillan, into the plot as a love interest.

Unfortunatly none of this made for a satisfying episode of Doctor Who, it felt like it was written for people that enjoy Christmas specials of any show rather than for anyone with a particular interest in the show! More than that it felt very rushed! Normally A DW Christmas special is a two parter -one half Christmas day or eve and the other part on new years day/eve. Moffet should have made a single episode out of the beginning, up until the point where after he has done christmas past he still refuses to turn off the clouds ending on the lines - 'I've changed Doctor!' - 'Yes but not nearly enough' and Amy and Rory still stuck on the ship. Then taken more time to have Amy as ghost of christmas present and then the child as future.  As it was it felt like we rushing through the story for the sake of an episode! A missed opportunity here Mr Moffet – I was looking forward to some of your quantum puzzlry which has been a defining feature of his better episodes.  

 

I will refrain from dwelling on the detailed plot holes that were present in the episode, the most glaring being the older Kazran being able to embrace his younger self, an action that left Rose/Doc 9 battling against reapers.  BUT I will say that I have had several nightmares since about face spiders –the mental image of the creepy spider doll from Toy Story (shudder)

Now as anyone that knows me can attest I am an ardent support of Moffet, I was excited that he was taking over the reigns from Russel T Davis because he was responsible for some of my all time favourite episodes – The Empty Child/The Doctor Dance, The Girl in the Fire Place, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead before he took over – I wanted him to do well.  Largely because I had been so vocal about how awesome I thought he was going to be.  I’ve had to defend him all of last season thanks to a few ‘dodgy’ episodes and now even I have to admit my faith is wavering.  I hope that taking on the main seat hasn’t diluted his ability to write or that trying to spread his time between Doctor Who and Sherlock he will end up as the proverbial butter over too much bread. 

However! The trailer of next season looks AMAZING! The hints about what we are to expect that the BBC, Moffat and the cast have all dropped have me on the edge of my seat, if they deliver what they have promised it should make a season that more than makes up for some of the failings of last year.  For a start the season will be longer broken into a run of 11 episodes, before a mid season break over the summer and finishing with a 13 episodes the other side of September in the run up to another Christmas special.   This marks the first big change in the Who Franchise, the switch over to the US season format will make it’s scheduling on BBC America etc much easier.  My concern with this is that the show will become too Americanised, remakes, rehashings etc of UK shows for the US market have not been successful up to now, The Office was unrecognisable after it moved, and the thought of Shamless (due to be released next month) and Being Human (in production) make me cringe.  

But we are told that we will find out Amy’s ‘big secret’ and her true relationship with the Doctor, as well as more about the force that tried to destroy the TARDIS last year.  On the whole the entire season looks significantly darker than last (yeah!) .  While the Doctor is continueing his love affair with bowties and hats (a pot of coffee, twelve jammi dodgers and a fez) it looks like  Musketeers(?), Nazi’s and the Men in Black will all be making an appearance in the next season –as well as several hints that another Time Lord and/or another TARDIS will feature.  

Well enough from me! For those that havnt seen it – the trailer for Doctor Who 2011 – oh! And Happy Christmas! 

COMPETITION!

A Competition was held in connection with Time, Space and Chips to create a fan video or graphic for the Doctor Who Universe - the winners would receive their choice of some Doctor Who signed memorabilia. 

I am delighted to announce that the winners have been chosen and will be displayed on DANTE'S INFERNALS.com as Infernal Award Winners! Congrats again guys and thanks for taking part! 

Doctor Who: Two and a Half Doctors

First Prize went to Wolfe for the epic video 'Two and a Half Doctors' 

First Prize was a sign photo of 9th Doctor Christopher Eccelston

Come Along Pond

Second Prize went to Megs for the spiffy video 'Come Along Pond' 

Second Prize was a sign photo of 11th Doctor Matt Smith

THOR

At the end of Iron Man 2 we got a delicious teaser of Marvel Studio’s next offering, due out in 2011.  Those of us that had waited for the final scene, either because we predicted one at the end of Iron Man 2 as there had been one in Iron Man 1 were not disappointed.  We were shown Agent Coulson driving out into the New Mexico dessert, where a crater is swarming with presumably S.H.I.E.L.D agents, at the centre of which is the hammer of Thor.  Almost everyone in the cinema shrieked, ooh-ed, or otherwise displayed their excitement and shock. 

The blurb states that:

The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

                                                -Marvel.com

 Based on the 1962 comic ‘The Mighty Thor’ originally plotted by Stan Lee, scripted  by Larry Leiber and pencilled by Jack Kirby.  The character had several ongoing and limited series in his own right and then appeared in the Avenger’s series, along side Tony Stark in the original Avengers Line up.  I have to admit I expect quiet a lot from Thor, especially after how amazing Iron Man 1 and 2.  It will be interesting to see how they interpret the various powers and elements of the character. In particular the magical elements of the character such as the golden apples of Idunn, his belt of strength and the hammer Mjolnir which in the comics are powered by ‘magic.’  From what I have seen in the trailers it would seem they are going to pass it off as technology rather than sorcery but the characters magical background wouldn’t seem to match with the real world elements of the connected Marvel Movies like Iron Man and the earlier X-men movies, which rejected the magical elements often found in the comic books.  

            Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, stars as the titular Thor – his first major role although with several movies due out next year.  The seasoned Anthony Hopkin’s is due to make an outing as Odin which, given his general aura of awesome should be a treat assuming that Miller and Stentz’s screenplay gives him something to work with.  Clark Greg seems to have fallen on his feet, what was a bit relatively small bit part in Iron Man has escalated to appearances across 5 announced movies (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, The Avengers, Nick Fury).  In order to get through the movie though I will have to overlook the presence of Natalie Portman, okay so her ability to act has improved immensely since Star Wars, but I still find her totally wooden and a bit alienating.  Slated to play Jane Foster, who appears in the comic as a nurse with whom Thor/Donald Blake has a relationship before she marries another man, the character has be changed from a nurse to an astrophysicist (?)  and will no doubt provide a romantic subplot for the film.  

I REALLY hope they don’t make the mistake of making the entire plot Thor’s love/affection/lust for Foster.  If Iron Man displayed one vital element of the successful comic-film cross over it was that the romance plot should be sub and not form the catalyst for the drama!  I was also a little concerned by the creatures at 1:05-1:08 of the trailer looked to an awful lot like cybermen but maybe all that Doctor Who watching has infected my brain slightly. 

It’s odd to say that as a Northern Irish person I feel ‘responsible’ for the outcome of this movie as a fellow country man of director Kenneth Brannagh.  Brannagh’s background in Shakespeare and vaguely historical projects hopefully means that he is adept at making the old world Viking imagery work against the modern backdrop.  

Either way! Here is hoping! I can assure you that the moment it comes out I shall be there with bells on! Not literally since the jingling would disturb the movie BUT Ill be there with 3D glasses on at any rate!