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Daleks Exterminated From New Dr. Who
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."
star wars without darth vader
;-(
star trek without klingons
c'mon
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Estate holders only consider the money side of things
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.
The Daleks were one of the things that kept me going back for more, time and again, from Dr. Who.
...
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?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The daleks trundling about would look pretty pathetic to modern kids.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
That or they believe that the person doing it will do a horrible job and destroy the product (unfortunately it looks like George Lucas hasn't thought about this, during his new films).
Actually, money isn't behind this fallout. Basically, when Terry Nation died, he was pissed of at the BBC, and pretty much didn't want them to have the Daleks under most circumstances. So I'm not surprised that the estate is being picky.
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.
For a series that old I'd have taken whatever money was offered. In another 10-20 years most the people who know about it will be dead and the brand name will have zero value.
If we can't have Daleks, then my wishlist of featured bad guys includes:
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Actually this is a good thing. Most of the Doctor Who episodes with the Daleks were very fluffy. The fun of watching the Doctor try to figure out a new nemesis is greater than the annoying "Exterminate". I much prefer the Doctor face an enemy that can learn, evolve, and change. Otherwise, you get formula movies/episodes. (i.e like Star Wars) The Doctor should be stretching the limits of storytelling, not spending so much time revising old tunes.
" Shame the Tolkein estate didn't have editorial control over those dreadful films." Yet I believe that Suess's wife had a good deal of control over both the Grinch and Cat in the Hat, so you never can tell. Not to mention the wonderful things the Herbert family is doing with Dune. Estates are run by people. Some are greedy, others are altruistic. Perhaps a bus will hit Lucas and the Estate will choose to release Star Wars (the real one) on DVD.
The real question for me is will the new series have that wonderful "cheap" look that endeared many of us with the old one. Seriously, Dr. Who was what I'd watch to let my hair down after Star Trek. The cheesy sets were part of the fun, and left some room for the story to be more than it often is in the sfx laden features we have today. This is somewhat analogous to the old 8-bit video games days,when the gameplay had to be king because the hardware was so weak by today's standards.
In any case, I'll miss those shrill screams of "Exterminate! Exterminate!! EX-TER-MI-NATE!!!"
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
What benefit is it to society to have copyright so long that the great grandchildren of the authors have say over the work?
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.
The main problem with an estate wanting to editorial control is that there isn't a tenth of the talent in there as was in the person who died.
Find funky gifts
It's quite different, considering that Tolkien openly borrowed the elves and dwarves from assorted mythology (many of the names are lifted straight from Norse mythology for instance) while the Daleks was an original creation. But the rights to specific characters in Tolkiens works definitively belong to Tolkiens estate even if the general idea of elves and dwarves does not.
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