Daleks Exterminated From New Dr. Who 434
albino eatpod writes "The BBC are reporting that despite 'the very best deal possible,' a failure to agree terms between the BBC and the estate of late sci-fi writer Terry Nation has meant that we will not being seeing TV's most evil villains in the new series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billy Piper."
stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
star trek without klingons
c'mon
Re:Daleks and Dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. They often want editorial control as well. Which was the problem in case case, and I believe has been a problem with the Tolkein estate aswell.
SUCKS!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
That and the short skirts of the companions too, of course, but
You *CAN'T* call it Dr. Who if he's not battling the Daleks. Daleks are like, undeniably part of Dr. Who.
Would you have put up with Star Wars without Darth?
Lets be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Daleks and Dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
More than money (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the new show, I don't think the lack of Daleks will really hurt it. If you watch the old shows, they had a pretty big variety of popular villians. The Daleks didn't appear in most episodes. The BBC still has lots of other classic villians they can use, like cybermen, autons, the Black Guardian, and the Master, who was always popular. They also had some great baddies that were only on for one storyline, like Sutekh or the Tractators. Really, though, they should also be making up new villians and characters as well, not just using old ones.
fools.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:fools.. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I remember correctly, the series ran new episodes until 1989. Now I can remember some shows I watched from back when I was 3 or 4 years old (Dave Allen at Large, Paul Hogan Show). So to be a fan, I'm assuming you would have to watch at least two seasons. I was a fan of Family Guy after two seasons. 4 (yrs old) + 2 (yrs to be a fan) = 6. 1989 - 6 (total years of age required) = 1983. So someone born in 1983 could potentially be a fan of the show and that's assuming you would only be a fan if you saw the episodes when they were new. Most 21 year olds will be alive and well in 10-20 years.
Even a fan from the 1970's (I'll assume fan in 1970 and born in 1966 here) will only be 48 - 58 years old in 10-20 years and that would be a fan during the shows peak years.
Dr. Who is an old show, but I think that if it were going to fall to the asheap of history any time soon, it would already have done so in the 1990's when the show was pulled.
I'd love to see the Cybermen plus these guys... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Cybermen
2. The Master
3. Sontarans
4. Autons
5. Ice Warriors
Also, I'd love to see a return of historical stories, ones that reference Earth's history. These used to be fairly common for the first and second Doctors, (eg, The Reign Of Terror) but the latter Doctors almost always didn't have any such adventures (although the fifth Doctor did inadvertantly start the Great Fire of London in 1666 at the conclusion of The Visitation).
To be honest, losing the Daleks (for now) is a blow but as villains they were pretty one-dimensional. I'm far more concerned about the casting of Billie Piper as the Doctor's assistant. I thought we'd all learnt from the Bonnie Langford mistake.
Re:Dalek's were a bit overrated anyway.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:fools.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Daleks and Dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
The Real Question... (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, I'll miss those shrill screams of "Exterminate! Exterminate!! EX-TER-MI-NATE!!!"
Copyright Too Long (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright should end at death, and be at most 30 years in length. 30 years seems like a reasonable amount of time to get money out of the monopoly on the expression of an idea.
Re:Daleks and Dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New Villians! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Copyright Too Long (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if copyrights were shorter, we wouldn't need to worry about this crap.
Re:Copyright Too Long (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Copyright Too Long (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also the matter of how broad a copyright is. Here the copyright isn't about a specific story e.g. "The Daleks" or "Remembrance of the Daleks" nor a specific character e.g. "Black Dalek" or "Davros". Instead it covers the concept of the Daleks, a fictional race in a fictional universe. Does this really make much sense...
Stories versus Memories. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Many older fans don't want innovation or new things. They want comfort food for the soul. They want to be able to take refuge in the things of their youth. Punch the hot button on their emotional centers, wired up nicely from all the work they did reading, viewing, experiencing in their childhoods. Making new connections is hard work, especially with the much wider range of knowledge and experience they have available to filter stories through. When it is so much easier to see the shit, it's so much harder to bother looking. Finding good things to be motivated by is hard, because 'Good' is bloody rare. (I just finished watching the Firefly DVD set. That's good stuff!
2. The second type of audience is the one NOT looking for old thrills; they are looking for Firefly and new ideas.
So. .
This is not to say that revisiting Dr. Who is a bad idea. Either approach can be done in a successful way. If it's fresh enough and done with an honest intent to really explore and have fun rather than copy old successes, it could easily be a very exciting ride. While, as per Sam Raimi's Spider Man movies, which attempt primarily to be faithful to the originals, there are examples of how re-telling old stories can also work very well. --After all, there is a reason people once sat around the story teller and cried, "Tell it again!" Every society has its favorite myths.
I wonder how it will go with Dr. Who revisited. .
There are some extremely cool ideas which have only recently become available to our popular artists and which have not yet been properly explored, and which could be as explosive and fun as the first Matrix film. In much the way the last couple of Star Wars films could have blown the lid off today's society had they not sucked, Dr. Who could be dazzling. (Just watched the Phantom Edit again. . . Solid stuff. If only the Phantom Menace hadn't sucked, the world would have had a very powerful lesson in how corrupt fascist states can rise. --The methods used by Palpatine were actually more sophisticated and less 'Bruce Willis' than those employed by Bush!).
Anyway. . , Dr. Who could be a great delivery device for some sympathetic themes which the collective subconscious of the Human race would enthusiastically absorb, as it did with the Matrix. But we'll have to see what they come up with. My sense of jade says, "Suckage." But we'll see.
-FL
Re:Copyright Too Long (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Copyright Too Long (Score:2, Insightful)
And don't forget the estate has to pay off the creditors. Some of the great artists died in penury and their work only took off after they died.
But copyright isn't forever anyway. It eventually times out (according to most law, inlcuding the US Constitution), though the US Congress always seem to extend the deadline so that Mickey Mouse stays inside.
Terry Nation created the Daleks in the early sixties. Not really that long ago.
If the estate has the asset, they have both a right and duty to make sure it isn't watered down by bad implementations. Hence the arguments about control. For example, Ann McCaffrey has refused many offers to make movies of her Pern Dragons, as she doesn't want some stupid movie mogul to say "we need a really good dragon/dragon fight at the end", and the studios always want carte blanche.
These things should be resolved by negotiation. The Nation estate can always change their minds, or the BBC can agree some boundaries of control.