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Post by martinw8686 on Apr 10, 2023 11:14:28 GMT
My idea would be a bit like the lost stories range. Looking at productions that were well known to have difficulties, for example limited production time and budgets running out, or the messy behind the scenes shenanigans with JNT and Eric Saywood.
Stories like Underworld, Invasion of Time, Creature of the Pit, Horns of Nimon, Time Flight, Warriors of the Deep, The Twin Dillemma, Timelash, Trial of a Timelord, Time and the Rani, Paradise Towers.
All the above stories have interesting concepts and are still fun despite their flaws but with more care behind the scenes could be better. Perhaps taking a relook at the original idea/spirit and ironing out plot holes, questionable dialogue and things that just didn't work.
Watching Timelash and Time and the Rani, what stood out to me was that they both had potential to be really good,taking the seed of these ideas and reworking them, while still honouring charecter arcs.
What do you think?
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Post by cwm on Apr 10, 2023 12:35:24 GMT
I could *maybe* see the value in doing something like that for The Power of Three, where the originally planned ending was unusable because of a cast member outright sabotaging the production, or the original version of The Three Doctors before they realised William Hartnell would be too ill to take an active role in filming (which BF have strongly intimated we're getting). I don't think the world particularly needs remade versions of TV stories that aren't considered very good (and there's absolutely no problem whatsoever with the script for Paradise Towers, its problems are solely in how it is realised onscreen).
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Post by martinw8686 on Apr 10, 2023 17:43:39 GMT
My thoughts on this idea were after watching Time and the Rani, followed by Timelash for the first time. I was left with the feeling that these ideas could be reworked into something really good.
The Seventh Doctor certainly deserves a better start, just as the 6th Doctor got his reworked last adventure.
Fair point on Paradise Towers, it deserves a better reputation than the one it's got based on elements like Richard Briers later episode performance.
If it focused on 80s Who episodes the range could be called F##k You Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell!
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Apr 10, 2023 20:15:23 GMT
I could *maybe* see the value in doing something like that for The Power of Three, where the originally planned ending was unusable because of a cast member outright sabotaging the production. Really? The 11th Doctor story? 1 of the main cast was sabotaging?
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Post by cwm on Apr 10, 2023 20:20:00 GMT
Steven Berkoff deliberately ruined almost every take by doing things like reading his lines really badly or deliberately not standing on his mark. The ending of the episode as broadcast is pieced together from the tiny amount of footage featuring him that was usable and a day of emergency reshoots with Matt, Karen and Arthur.
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Post by tuigirl on Apr 10, 2023 20:42:00 GMT
I could *maybe* see the value in doing something like that for The Power of Three, where the originally planned ending was unusable because of a cast member outright sabotaging the production. Really? The 11th Doctor story? 1 of the main cast was sabotaging?
They even say so the DVD extras (not sure if there was an audio commentary) but during my very first watch of the DVDs while becoming a Whovian, this was one of the things I learned right away.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Apr 10, 2023 22:31:07 GMT
Really? The 11th Doctor story? 1 of the main cast was sabotaging?
They even say so the DVD extras (not sure if there was an audio commentary) but during my very first watch of the DVDs while becoming a Whovian, this was one of the things I learned right away. Who was it? Did they provide a name? This was a Chris Chibnall story I recall.
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Post by mark687 on Apr 10, 2023 23:40:56 GMT
I could *maybe* see the value in doing something like that for The Power of Three, where the originally planned ending was unusable because of a cast member outright sabotaging the production. Really? The 11th Doctor story? 1 of the main cast was sabotaging?
Didn't you know? Guest Star Stephen Berkoff spent 6-8 hours getting made up as the Shakri, stepped on set and indicated he wasn't going to perform such a poor Script, so Director Mackinon (apparently after several choice words with Berkoff and a call to an Exec Producer), rewrote it to keep the Actor's Role to the minimum. Regards mark687
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Apr 10, 2023 23:59:01 GMT
Really? The 11th Doctor story? 1 of the main cast was sabotaging?
Didn't you know? Guest Star Stephen Berkoff spent 6-8 hours getting made up as the Shakri, stepped on set and indicated he wasn't going to perform such a poor Script, so Director Mackinon (apparently after several choice words with Berkoff and a call to an Exec Producer), rewrote it to keep the Actor's Role to the minimum. Regards mark687 Honestly, nope. ! WOW.. Way to ruin your reputation ! EDIT: I just googled him.. ahh yes I recognise him.. James Bond, Beverly Hills Cop plus all sorts of Theatre stuff..
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Apr 11, 2023 0:05:21 GMT
HOW VERY DRE YOU insult Horny Nimons. It’s perfect.
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Post by mark687 on Apr 11, 2023 0:08:33 GMT
Didn't you know? Guest Star Stephen Berkoff spent 6-8 hours getting made up as the Shakri, stepped on set and indicated he wasn't going to perform such a poor Script, so Director Mackinon (apparently after several choice words with Berkoff and a call to an Exec Producer), rewrote it to keep the Actor's Role to the minimum. Regards mark687 Honestly, nope. ! WOW.. Way to ruin your reputation ! EDIT: I just googled him.. ahh yes I recognise him.. James Bond, Beverly Hills Cop plus all sorts of Theatre stuff.. Being awkward is part of his reputation Regards mark687
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Post by Kestrel on Apr 11, 2023 1:44:57 GMT
Hm... at the risk of coming across as overly contrarian, I don't really think a new range like this would really offer all that much. Doctor Who in general -- and Big Finish especially -- have never really shied away from iterating and reiterating on the same premises. There are plenty of story concepts that didn't work out so well the first time or two, but we're eventually nailed. My favorite example is probably the case of The Dark Flame (MR 042) and Dark Universe (MR 260). Assuming I'm not getting misremembering the titles, the latter is essentially a reimagine of the former, the one being one of the worst MR releases, the other one of the best. (Well, YMMV: I know some of y'all were kind down on it but I loved Dark Universe.)
And I think there's an immense amount of value in keeping this process of remaking/reimagining older stories unspoken. The moment you explicitly state that you're rewriting a story, you're effectively making a qualitative judgment -- not just of the original story, but the people who worked on it. And that's... kind of unpleasant. As it stands, to go back to that example, Dark Universe is just a good story that happens to share a great many similarities with an older story. But what if Big Finish had come out and said, "Yeah, The Dark Flame didn't turn out so well, so we're gonna do a do-over." That framing changes things -- the older story is now an embarrassing mistake, the latter a correction.
It also more directly invites comparison, which can be a pretty mixed bag, I think, for fairly obvious reasons.
Further, just from a creative standpoint, I think premising a story as a remake is unnecessarily inhibiting. The writers' goals shift from simply telling the best story possible to "fixing" another story -- or, to use another word, "adapting" it. This can lead to the remake feeling obligated to retain more of the original story than it maybe should. When the process is more... informal, more implicit, I think writers generally have a freer hand to make more drastic alterations, additions and subtractions.
Hm... hopefully I'm articulating my thoughts clearly here, and not coming off as rude or dismissive or anything. I've had a very rough day and have... a few more chemicals riding through my bloodstream right now than is typical. Basically, the gist of what I'm saying is that I think taking concepts from stories that didn't turn out so well and trying them again is a good and necessary idea, but one that I think is already in practice, if informally, and that formalizing the process to a specific range would be unduly limiting.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Apr 11, 2023 7:25:18 GMT
Now, as much as I’d LOVE to do animated versions of Dinosaur Invasion or Underworld, or add a postscript scene to Ke4blsm! Explaining the Doctor attitude towards keeping a sentience enslaved… but they exist. They have fans. They have detractors. They are a finished product of another’s work that they took pride in. Would I rewrite “Doctor Who and the Humans”? “Terror in Tibet”? “Extinction Day”? Anything else I wrote? Yes. Despite the huge pride I have in the written version of …humans” or performance of “Extinction Day”, I see places where I would do better now. But those are MY works. My proudly finished products. Would I be narked off immeasurably if even someone like Alan Barnes or John Dorney re-edited “to improve” (without my permission) Extinction Day? Yes. Would I happily hand them that same work to edit? Yes. I’d give at least one kidney if not both to hear Eccelston asking for a glass of ginger pop and soup while in a Silurian prison cell. But without permission? I’d be miffed, at least.
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Post by martinw8686 on Apr 11, 2023 17:12:32 GMT
Now, as much as I’d LOVE to do animated versions of Dinosaur Invasion or Underworld, or add a postscript scene to Ke4blsm! Explaining the Doctor attitude towards keeping a sentience enslaved… but they exist. They have fans. They have detractors. They are a finished product of another’s work that they took pride in. Would I rewrite “Doctor Who and the Humans”? “Terror in Tibet”? “Extinction Day”? Anything else I wrote? Yes. Despite the huge pride I have in the written version of …humans” or performance of “Extinction Day”, I see places where I would do better now. But those are MY works. My proudly finished products. Would I be narked off immeasurably if even someone like Alan Barnes or John Dorney re-edited “to improve” (without my permission) Extinction Day? Yes. Would I happily hand them that same work to edit? Yes. I’d give at least one kidney if not both to hear Eccelston asking for a glass of ginger pop and soup while in a Silurian prison cell. But without permission? I’d be miffed, at least. You make a good point, apologies if my original post implied any unfair criticism of the original writers. I suppose the lost stories range operates within the remit of allowing writers who feel their original ideas were unrecognisable on screen to have another chance to realise that idea. If I put some thought in to many of the episodes suggested, the good ideas have probably resurfaced in new stories. For fans of derided serials, a retcon, no matter how small would be dissapointing. I certainly didn't like the way legacy characters were revisited in the Star Wars sequels, nothing to do with any of the silly toxic fandom stuff, just that the stories in my head were always going to mean more to me than what Hollywood producers imagined were the best choices. Perhaps my idea is best left to my imagination, as it is boundless and pleases an audience of one.
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Post by thegreendeath on Apr 11, 2023 18:36:25 GMT
I think this would be a great idea of something that a fan production could do. If they really did improve the originals it could put them on radars and I’d it didn’t work out it’d just be some fan productions and not likely annoy anyone much.
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