The Sinking Feeling

Last night I had the luxury of seeing the latest, and grandest, of the Doctor Who Christmas specials.

Luxury. As in luxury cruise, the Titanic.

Though it’s not the same Titanic that was felled by the giant iceberg on its ill-fated, maiden voyage through the Atlantic in 1912. This is a spaceship, mind you. A little different.

Some folks will need to stop worrying about the sacrilege of the famous ship or the fact that the spirits of those who died in that underwater burial will not be overly offended by this surprisingly good homage to the ship of the same name.

The title is “Voyage of the Damned.” It doesn’t sound very Christmas-y. But there are enough Christmas references to make it a lighthearted romp through the star-studded, story-laden feature that’s the longest Doctor Who episode at 71 minutes. Written by Yours Truly Russell T. Davies as a kind of gift.

The opener is amazing. When the Doctor played by David Tennant sees through the porthole of the ship… glancing through into the farther reaches of space makes for a great landscape, he really sees where he is. There’s a sudden feeling that the ship is isolated, high above in the earthbound orbit. There’s a silence that feels like an enemy in space.

The music theme will be something that needs getting used to. The little rockability is a departure from the old, classic orchestra score that I prefer.

The Christmas episode this time around plays like an epic disaster movie of the 1970s during the time when those horrible Irwin Allen films took to such popularity heights. But it’s an era with its own trademark. The disaster movie. Just sound of it brings to mind many memories of people struggling against forces of nature.

Look at the stars that fills the Christmas episode. Geoffrey Palmer, Bernard Cribbins, Clive Swift and many others. It wouldn’t feel like a disaster movie otherwise without the long list of well-known names gathered on the roster.

Interesting enough, for older Doctor Who fans, the film refers to the classic Doctor Who episode “Robots of Death” with the ever dependable Tom Baker. The scene with one of the angel robots getting his hand caught in the closing door is a direct reference to the old 1977 episode.

Tennant is very good in the episode. He takes the lead. Sure, confident, taking his stride, he walks amidst the flames like a soldier wading through the battlefield. He’s certainly taking form-fitting shape in his role. He knows how to play the Doctor with vast comfort while still managing to bring something new into the part. There’s a good scene with him standing in front of the bursting fire and you know this is a man who has nothing to lose. And everything to gain.

He made the promise of saving the Titanic. And he did.

At the same time, there are small loses.

I liked the fact that the Doctor was without his Tardis and his sonic screwdriver here. It brings a more dramatic tension to the building of the story. And makes him far more vulnerable.

His companion this time around is Astrid Peth played by Kylie Minogue. For some reason, the Doctor has a thing for blondes. And she does remind me of an older version of Rose Tyler. Blonde bombshell with a brain. Those are qualities to make his list. Minogue is a widely known singer in Europe as well. She’s known for her talent except for the United States. Not sure why.

Minogue’s not bad here. She’ll need to get into her part a little longer before she can grow into it. But she’s a lot of fun. She might be older, but that doesn’t show in the episode at all. She easily catches up with the Doctor. She makes some decisions for herself. Her pretty smile is long-lasting.

She's an orphan that has no family at all. She mentioned this in a conversation with the Doctor. Therefore she feels a connection with him. And she kisses him not out of any kind of physical attraction for him. But there’s a feeling that she can understand him on a same level of intellect. The same way Rose Tyler did in the earlier episodes. She knows the Doctor will be there for her.

The only part of the episode of the series that’s a let down is the appearance of Max Capricorn. I felt like he should’ve been better cast into the shadows without being seen. Someone who is in the far corner watching, not interacting. Pulling the strings. His presence could have been one that was felt. But the actor who plays Capricorn plays him over-the-top. A little too much perhaps. He acts over zealously which I thought took away a lot of credibility from the Christmas show. That’s too bad. I though the rest of the Chritmas episode wasn’t bad at all. But the madman-scheming-to-destroy-everything worked better in the Tom Baker shows.

However, Capricorn said in his dialogue with the Doctor that he had been in control of his business for a 176 years. It’s very possible that a prequel episode could be made when he was in human form and not some disembodied head encased in a giant glass shell.

The music was an amazing thing. The set designs of the Titanic were great too, with plenty of space, high ceilings. It gave a breezy, whimsical feel to the show. It’s still an enjoyable piece of television. Something you don’t get very often on TV these days.

I wonder what the Doctor, standing in for Santa Claus, will bring us for next Christmas.

Legend in the Making

“I am Legend” makes one of the biggest weekend splashes after its initial release on Dec. 14.

The original book was written in the 1950s by another legend of his time, Richard Matheson. Ahead of its time. A book about ideas. Revisiting old myths about vampires. About a last, desperate hope for mankind.

A book that suggested that mankind ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

There’s certain sadness about the “I am Legend” book that clings to you long after you read it.

It would make a difficult transition to film without losing much of its quality. But the film starring Will Smith as the lone survivor manages to take it into the spotlight. For a while.

Basically the film revolves around a man not affected by the raging plague that turns everyone in the world into a vampire. Not much of a future for the human race.

It takes some ideas of the original source with some success and brings a portrayal of the apocalyptic world to the big screen. The sense of isolation is there. The streets are filled with empty cars. Broken dreams in wastes. The buildings look nothing more than glassy tombs standing like un-living towers in the skies. There are a few familiar sights set in New York City.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, he does a nice job of transferring from the present day to flashbacks where the audience sees the lone man’s family, how they were separated by the disaster. We can see how he has reached the point of his daily routine of life. What makes him the person he is through the series of flashbacks. That worked well.

Smith’s real life daughter, Willow, plays his child in the film. Those flashbacks of quarantine and the decimated human race does come back to haunt.

Some of the elements of the book are here. Will Smith plays Robert Neville. His boredom sets him out to hunt for deer in a very good opening scene of his driving like blazes through the urban environments. Who cares? There’re no cops around to stop him. He sets up mannequins in video shops in order to recreate living people. As if he was trying to establish some semblance of his old life.

There are some nice scenes. The first appearance of the night creatures remains one of the best in the film. With them standing crowded in some kind of bizarre cult. They’re huddled together in a far dark corner. Their backs turned to Smith as he accidentally comes across them when looking for his dog.

The vampires move fast. Which makes them a little more frightening. Their shrieks, baying is flesh crawling. But when they are seen in the spots of daylight, they’re not as searing in the computer generated mode. But they work better in the night scenes.

However, the film doesn’t touch enough on the idea of the vampires creating their own society. You see blinding flashes of it. But not enough. They have pet dogs of their own, however corrupted. They seem to form their own society in the deeper end of darkness. But beyond that, it’s a missed opportunity. The book hints at the idea of vampires taking on a new evolution. Therefore they are creating a society to replace the old of human race.

There should have been further scenes of Smith’s character slowly losing it in a world filled with false hopes.

The ending is vastly different from the original book. It’s been changed to suit the heroic characteristics of the main character. I’m sure that most actors don’t care to play someone who is seen as a monster or a failure. (Hence Sean Connery playing a hero in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rather than a bummed out, old fraud). Here, Smith’s actions takes on a messiah turn as he sacrifices his life to save the other two survivors from Maryland. And he ends up saving the human race by finding a cure that’s been passed on. The original book isn’t like that at all. Matheson took the notion of the title “I am Legend” through the fact that Neville is a monster killing vampires and a threat to the surviving new world of the living.

But the film may have been modified to suit Will Smith’s need to play a born-again hero in its ending. The final twenty minutes may put off many viewers who read the book. Doing away the monstrous persona in favor of a more heroic fine-tuning of the story. The film’s ending establishes him as a legend who enabled the human race to survive. Some viewers may not buy the ending. I didn’t.

The film does have good things to offer. There’s a sense of loneliness stretched throughout the film. The troubled, marred life of a lone survivor might be something too difficult for anyone to bear. There’s the need for human contact to survive. The appearance of empty buildings in a soulless city is beautiful. With the broken bridges further representing how cut off the lone survivor is. Silence can be an awful thing.

I liked the movie. But wished they did not change the ending so much as to hamper the original message of the book. But to a newcomer of the film, it plays out well in its sordid affair of big city isolation. Something we can all feel from time to time.

Golden Compass Revisited

The multi-complicated plots for the Golden Compass would be difficult to translate to the movie screen. Some portions of the book may be dropped in order to fuel a more linear, straightforward storyline.

The Golden Compass tries hard. And with some success.

But there’s always ever blooming concerns of the religious references which weaves into the original books, being the Dark Materials saga. Because of the church’s initial reactions of the film, with the Catholic League calling for a huge boycott, it feels like having your boss look over your shoulder. You’re worried about making mistakes. If you do, then the church is surely to roar.

There is no doubt the books’ author Phillip Pullman is a much-confirmed atheist. He said so in his interviews. He has his own faith. As does everyone else.

But you can’t get away from an idiot like William Donahue, president of the Catholic League. He constantly rips into anything else that might offend. He’s adamant about the film’s intentions on damning children to atheism. He believes the books are evil, therefore the movie must be. If he would tell everyone to go jump in a lake, then people would. With a diving board.

It’s this kind of reaction that might have bogged down the film’s somewhat disappointing box office weekend sales. It seems that the controversy itself is far more important than the film is.

Which is too bad. For the most part, the Golden Compass works well as a stand-alone piece of entertainment. But much of the religious elements have been diluted for a more viewer-friendly film. The attacks of the church would remain in the original book version while the film continues to be a lukewarm venture into a battle between good vs. evil. Without the complications.

The film basically centers on a young orphan girl named Lyra who lives in a parallel universe much like our own. She is thrust into several different factions who wish to reveal the meaning of Dust while the religious faction, being the Magisterium, hide behind closed doors to keep centuries-old secrets in the dark. They don’t want people to learn of the dust origins.

Lyra is giving a device called the Golden Compass which reveals the truth to her every time she mentally thinks of a question. The hardware often leads her to learning different sides of people around her. And learns about herself. She does go on a journey which gears to an eventual discovery: that the Magisterium is kidnapping children and severing them from their soul-mate counterpart deamons. The political faction believes the deamons to be something evil. There are experiments. The Magisteriusm is secretive. Hiding from others. They reveal nothing except their opposition of Dust.

It’s not a bad film. And there are some pretty good points to the film.

Sam Elliot. Yes, he plays a cowboy again. But he’s always cool.

Daniel Craig, who plays Lyra’s uncle, gets a little bit of James Bondian action while travelling to the northern Arctic slopes in his search for the proof of Dust.

Ian McKellen’s voice as the great white bear Iorek is very excellent: the British accent alone gives the bear a distinctive locale. He befriends the orphan child and helps her along the difficult journey towards the snow-steeped regions of the north.

Seeing Christopher Lee is amazing. The guy is an immortal. There’s no doubt about it. He’ll be making movies until the end of time and always brings a presence to his part, however small.

Most importantly, the child star being Dakota Blue Richards is vital to the film’s immense success. She is a precocious child bringing complexity to the major role. Without the believability that she brings into the role, the film might not be as interesting. It's her first acting job which is to be commended. The threaded red hair flows around her face sets her apart from the other actors. There is a certain warmth about her. Perseverance describes her best. Especially her final line in the film when she announces, “Let them try and stop us!”

The film series may not be so potent without having outward references to religion or the Catholic Church which was author’s Pullman’s original intentions. And forever there will be controversy. And the great hawk in the skies in the form of the Church, ever censuring the film’s message, will be put to the test when the following two films will be soon released.

Let the audiences decide for themselves. And leave the controversy behind. There’s plenty of good ideas in the Golden Compass film that makes up a creative landscape sparking a child’s imagination. There’s challenge enough in the film, or book, which will courageously asks questions that everyone else is too afraid to.