No Gary Mitchell

Went to see the new Star Trek this morning and golly it is good. Smart and exciting and often very funny, and I’ll avoid spoilers in what follows.

Jim Kirk is a bit of a tearaway in the Iowa of the future. But his dad was a hero in Star Fleet and he’s encouraged to sign up himself. As he meets some new chums – “Bones” McCoy and a girl whose surname’s Uhura – he’s got to battle the guy who sets his exams, an alien dork name of Spock…

Oh, and then there’s a big battle in space. With a dude called Nero – which is, m’colleague tells me, the Finnish word for “genius”.

I used to really resent Star Trek as the sort of popular, beefy schoolground bully to Doctor Who’s weedy victim. I even wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Star Trek: First Contact and the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie (basically: both try to make a long-running television series accessible to a wider audience by making them darker and more violent, with varying success). In them days I’d argue – a lot – that Doctor Who at least had people running up and down corridors, rather than walking and being pompous. But most of all what I begrudged was Star Trek being really quite good.

(My favourite episode of TNG, which used to scandalise its fans, is that one from the final year where they turned down the lights and turn the regular cast into monsters. Ryker’s a Neanderthal, Howlin’ Mad Murdoch’s a spider, and Worf is some kind of were-buffalo chasing the increasingly gibbonish Picard. It occurs to me now it the episode of Trek that’s probably most like Doctor Who.)

But recently this childhood injustice has been turned about. Voyager and Enterprise seemed – from as much as I could watch of them – to tediously go where no one else has bothered before, with ratings and credibility ejected into space. While Doctor Who, this side of the pond at least, is now all big and much beloved of the cheerleaders.

There’s a small part of me that wants to crow at this reversal. But the heroes of both franchises have a thing about extending a hand to their adversaries. And so not only was I hoping to enjoy the new film, but I even did some research.

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” is the second pilot episode, ignoring the not-broadcast-til-later pilot which didn’t even have Captain Kirk in it. It’s a bold, exciting story in which Kirk’s best mate of 15 years – no, not Spock but the not wholly sci-fi sounding Gary Mitchell – is infected with some kind of space alien something that gives him shiny eyes. Gary starts being able to control stuff with his mind and, since he seems to like causing mayhem, James, er, R. Kirk has to take him down.

There are lots of surprises, even though I thought I knew my Trek. It’s a visually dazzling episode, full of neat effects and coloured costumes. The multiracial crew is really quite radical – Kirk calls the heads of department at one point, who include a woman, an old doctor and Mr Sulu, without it being remarked on. Yet at the same time, Gary Mitchell is surprisingly rude to the blonde psychologist – effectively tugging her pigtails because really he thinks she’s nice.

It’s also odd not to see the expected regulars – Scotty and Spock are there, but no Bones, Chekov or Uhura. (There was some talk about Uhura at a panel at Gallifrey earlier this year and her positive role as a Black person on telly. I love the idea of Dr King slumped in front of Star Trek; and perhaps his wife asking if he couldn’t find anything useful to do…).

Kirk is also surprisingly terse, ready to shoot his pal the moment he’s taken over. He hardly needs Spock to enforce logic – he’s a steely guy in command, as ruthless as Connery’s Bond. Life in Star Fleet is sexy but also obviously dangerous: they seem quite used to losing their comrades. I suppose the production crew and most of the actors would have served in the army, and for all its brightly coloured sense of fun, the Enterprise is a submarine out in uncharted waters.

There’s no Gary Mitchell in the new movie, and there’s no patented ripped shirt for Kirk. And yet I can easily believe the crew in the cinema will grow up to have that more-than 40 year-old adventure. There’s no walking pompously up and down corridors discussing the new political regime of the planet Ng'othruok, either. Trek has damn gone and got its groove back.

I’ll post some more (when the film is out next month and I’ve seen it with Scott) on what it does that’s a bit like Russell’s reboot of Doctor Who.

Meanwhile, my chums Will and Nimbos have both blogged about making “Pressure Valve”, their own sci-fi movie, which they did in 48 hours as part of a Sci-Fi London dare:

Day tripper

It has been a weekend of day-trips to far-flung places, when I should have been writing a script. After work on Friday we ventured north to the Victoria Stakes in Muswell Hill, requiring a combination of tube and bus.

A man on the W7 provided a running commentary on the weather, and volunteered solo versions of When The Saints Go Marching In, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head and, er, Electric Ladyland, for as long as he could remember the lyrics. I drank lots of Black Sheep and forgot quite how long it would take to get home. Apparently I stank of warm beer all night.

On Saturday we made our way to Cambridge where some chums led us round some pubs. In the St Radegund - apparently the smallest pub in Cambridge - the Dr was much excited by the signs for Milton Brewery's Nero, but it wasn't on. So I had a rather nice pint of Icarus instead. I've always had an affinity for the mythic Icarus.

By the time we'd had tea and caught the stopping train home, it was getting a bit late. So I didn't quite get, as I'd hoped, to see Primeval on ITVplayer.

Today we were due to meet J. and R. and E., over from America and seeing the Science Museum. Being a bit early meant we could pop into see rooms 88a and 90 of the V&A where there's a small exhibition (until 22 November) of stuff relating to and by Owen Jones, author of the Grammar of Ornament (1856 and still in print). There are splendid abstract designs for wallpaper and furnishings, photos of the real Alhambra alongside Jones' ideas for the Alhambra court in the Crystal Palace, and his designs for an even bigger and bolder exhibition greenhouse never built in St Cloud, Muswell Hill.

Jones didn't like to base his designs on nature, feeling that disrupted the flatness of his surfaces. Instead he's much influenced by Islamic geometric shapes and tessellating trickery. Of one 1860 design (D. 817-1897), the sign says "The geometry and rigid layout may remind some viewers of school chemistry textbooks", and neatly places this next to Odell's 1951 wallpaper design for the Festival of Britain, based on the molecular structure of boric acid.

We sandwiched in the sunshine behind the Albert Memorial with J. and E. and R. (who'd never see the thing before), then got a cab across to the South Bank where we left them to the Eye. Instead, the Dr and I tried the Hayward Gallery and Mark Wallinger's Russian linesman exhibition (on until 4 May, then moving to Leeds and Swansea).

It's basically a museum of cool stuff: Wallinger's own TARDIS in all its reflective glory (I wanted to give it a hug); eerie photos of death masks of the Romantic poets; a corridor that climbs up a wall; stereoscopic photographs; footage of Berlin as it was and is now, the locations playing out side-by-side. The idea, if I understood it, is to showcase stuff on the boundaries of our perception, or at least that makes you thing, "Woah, cool!"

Also got a look round Annette Messager's The Messengers (until 25 May) for free, full of nightmarish conjoinments of stuffed toys and taxidermy, and body-like things inflating and shambling. The shop was full of much cool stuff too; though it only had three postcards from the Wallinger exhibition, and charged a fair old whack for everything else.

Was £5 for a glass of wine outside, but it seemed wrong to ignore the nice sunshine. And so home and to the script - and perhaps Primeval. New desk arrives on Wednesday, so I'm knocking this out on the floor. The photo, right, is me tocking away the first paragraph of this post. Which is like on the boundaries of our perceptions or something. Or, perhaps, it's not.

Calcium deficiency

YOU could win a copy of my The Slitheen Excursion in Digital Spy’s competition, which runs til noon on Sunday. They’ve also posted up a breathless interview with me on the writing of the book.

There are also now signed copies of the book in London’s Forbidden Planet – Colin Brake and I spent a happy 20 minutes scrawling in our books, then went for a sausage sandwich and beer.

My book seems to have split readers on the internet – some think it’s the worst New Series book ever, others think it good fun. It earns a middling 6 out of 10 from Richard McGinlay:

“Guerrier … has fun with the period setting, reinterpreting certain legends and archaeological evidence to give them a Doctor Who spin … The plot of The Slitheen Excursion seems to run out of steam towards the end of the book, and, like ancient Greece itself, the ending seems to last for ages. Nevertheless, this enjoyable excursion should help to tide you over between television specials.”

Richard McGinlay, “Book review: The Slitheen Excursion”, Sci-fi-online.com.

Maddeningly, there’s a stupid mistake on pages 185 and 197 where I put “silicon” where it should have been “calcium”. My kind bosses are going to correct this in time for the next edition, so no one will ever know as long as I don’t mention it anywhere.

Bother.

Some links

Hooray for the Internet and its fascinating contents. The paperback edition of Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science includes an extraordinary new chapter on “vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath”, also posted on the Internet for free:

Sadly I was unable to write about him at the time that book was initially published, as he was suing my ass in the High Court … It is a very serious story about the dangers of pseudoscience, as I hope you’ll see, and it was also a pretty unpleasant episode, not just for me, but also for the many other people he’s tried to sue, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and more. If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontieres is probably a pretty good clue."

Ben Goldacre, “The doctor will sue you now”, or “Matthias Rath – steal this chaper”, BadScience.net, 9 April 2009.

I’ve not got or read the book yet but have heard many Good Things and have followed Ben’s column in the Guardian for eons. Hope to get it for my birthday, when I’ve got through my Christmas books. Ben was also on Newswipe last night discussing press coverage of MMR.

Must admit I’d thought that old news; but it’s why we need to continue to be vigilant. And Graham Linehan has posted on the jaw-dropping behaviour from The Daily Mail in having it both ways on the HPV vaccine.

Graham has also posted the most wonderful link to a transcript of a story conference between Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan in the early, murky days of Raiders of the Last Ark. Just WOW.

On page 97 we learn that “slimy pirates” Kinglsey Shacklebolt and Presuming Ed were going to be Lithuanian. Which is my tortuous link to this:

“Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.”

Johann Hari, “You are being lied to about pirates”, The Huffington Post 12 April 2009.

And on a much more silly level, Alex alerted me to the existence of this rude Doctor Who Easter egg. And I, of course, responded with this.

Primeval competition

Those nice people at Titan Books are offering YOU a chance to win a copy of my forthcoming Primeval novel Fire and Water plus some Primeval toys. The competition is only open to those in the UK and closes on 7 May.

It also includes the new blurb for the book - at least, I've not seen it out in public before:

When strange anomalies in time start to appear Professor Cutter and his team have to help track down and capture a multitude of dangerous prehistoric creatures from Earth's distant past and terrifying future...

At a safari park in South Africa, rangers are disappearing and strange creatures have been seen battling with lions and rhinos. As the team investigates they are drawn into a dark conspiracy which could have terrible consequences... Back at home as torrential rain pours down over the city, an enormous anomaly opens up in East London...

In this brand new original never-seen-on-TV Primeval adventure the team confront anomaly crises both in rain-swept London and on the hot South African plains...

(I'm also reliably informed by Nimbos that the toy of Helen Cutter works well as a Bernice Summerfield.)

Research gig

Simon's Holub has posted up his lovely, lovely artwork for my July Doctor Who audio, The Drowned World.

Out this week is the Doctor Who DVD The Cybermen Collection, which includes on disc 2 a half-hour documentary, Best Cybermen Moments. Written and presented by Matthew Sweet, directed and edited by Thomas Guerrier, it also sports some important research genius from me - and is my first proper, formal credit in such a capacity. Woo!

Tom and Matthew have worked wonders. And there's already a glowing review:

"It's very good indeed ... Far from being new-series centric, it's a near-full overview with lots of lovely, intelligently chosen clips from classic stories, and even a brief reading from a novelisation to kick things off .... It lacks other talking heads, but where it scores most is in Sweet taking a thematic approach to discussing the Cybermen critically, rather than a story-by-story approach. Sweet is respectful and irreverent in equal measure, an entertaining host ... I'm not saying it's necessarily full of revelations for die-hards, but it's as good as the better extras on the classic Who range..."

Cliff Chapman, Doctor Who: The Cyberman Collection DVD review, Den of Geek.

The same site has some very nice things to say about my Judgement of Isskar, reviewed by Stephen Bray an episode at a time: episode one; episode two; episode three; episode four.

Is that all we've got?

I have now been married for five years and one day. On Thursday, I followed the Dr to Brighton to see the Egyptian bits in the free Brighton Museum. Then we had lunch with one chum and drinks in the R-Bar with another. I took photos of the urinals.

On Friday I transcribed 10,000 words of interview and then wrote a magazine feature which I'll speak more of in due course. Started about 10 in the morning, finished about half one in the small hours. At the same time, the Dr and R. were busy unpacking the bookcase and then painting it. The Dr ended up with paint all over herself, while R. remained pristine.

Yesterday we made the epic trek to Windsor - via closed tube lines and very slow trains - where we were marking our anniversary at the Oakley Court Hotel, the house used in Dracula and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Converted into a hotel and - why?!? - a golf course in 1979, the mad, mid-Victorian gothery of the main house now sports two gallumphing great wings of guest bedrooms that strive to be as little in-keeping as possible. But we mooched around, took photos and drank gin before watching splendid Doctor Who.

The Dr has Views on a "Fucking aristo nicking stuff from a public museum," and was much appalled by the Doctor hammering at Athelstan's goblet. I was more impressed by the 200, which goes from Oxford Street to Victoria via Brixton, with a big tunnel along the way. But hooray for a wild and wondrous adventure. As we ventured into Windsor to fill our heads with food, we spotted a real 200 bus... That's one hell of a route.

This morning the hotel had problems with hot water and a weird queueing system for breakfast. It took the shine off our stay a bit, but the manager let us off our previous evening's gins.

Thence by cab to Cookham for a mooch round the Stanley Spencer gallery. And, with the day grey and us feeling hungover, the long, slow journey home.

Sponge or stone

“I’ve never seen Star Wars” is fascinating. Originally on Radio 4 and now on the telly, each episode sees Marcus Brigstocke get some celeb to try five things they’ve never done before. So, for example, Paul Daniels reads The Female Eunuch, Clive Anderson tries judo and watches Withnail and I; John Humphreys listens to the work of his colleague Chris Moyles… They then score each new experience out of 10.

It’s a deceptively simple idea by creator Bill Dare, yet - perhaps more than similarish formats like Desert Island Discs or Room 101 – is surprisingly revealing about the celebs who take part.

The thing is, the more they throw themselves into the thing they're doing, the more fun and funny they are. Newsreader Emily Maitlis punches her way through her first video game; John Humphreys tries moonwalking and is so impressed by Michael Jackson that he says he’ll be going to see him in concert…

It’s also often surprising. Maitlis denied that The Godfather and gangster stuff generally is all about family – as its adherents sometimes claim. The wives and kids, she said, are shut out of the room. Instead it’s about the tough guys’ conflicting egos. And there’s little to like or admire about these men.

Maitlis also admitted skimming through The Satanic Verses looking for the controversial, offensive bits. (Like, she said, skimming Lady Chatterley for the rude bits.) On what’s a light-hearted, low-fi comedo-entertainment show, Brigstocke then concisely explains the theological history of the implicit allusion. The audience titters nervously, less out of awkwardness as at having learnt something rather profound.

The celebs don’t have to enjoy the things they’re given to read or see or do, but it’s their attitude to trying new things that is so revelatory. You warm to the ones who give it a go willingly, and who have to think about how their scores.

Then there are the ones who seem to have made their minds up beforehand. Sandi Toskvig doesn’t bother to see the end of her first football match, and has little to contribute but that she found it boring. What does it say about Rory McGrath as a writer of comedy that he’d never seen Fawlty Towers – and then didn’t think it any good? Or that as he explained what it did all wrong, the audience didn’t laugh?

It’s easy to decide what you think of something before you’ve given it a chance. I can think of a whole bunch of stuff that won me over once I’d learned to be less of a prick. And I also realise who odd, how disquieting, it is when people are proud of the things they’ve not seen or read or experienced.

(Relatedly, the Guardian had a bloke tell us what happens in Star Wars without having seen it.)

Something something eggs

I seem to keep saying this: it's all been a bit manic of late. Sort of finished a big thing as-yet unnannounced on Friday and sent it round the houses for corrections and approval. Then sped up to Victoria to get more material for the very thing I'd just finished. Had a beer with P. in the grotty pub in the station, where we swapped gossip and discussed Government policy.

Then home for fish, chips and mushy peas in front of Quantum of Solace. Much more intelligible and splendid second time round; perhaps the smaller screen size helps, perhaps it's 'cos I already know where it's heading. But the edit is still so frenetic it's an effort to keep up.

On Saturday, with the typing done, I dismantled my office in preparation for the new floor. This took pretty much all day, and ripped two holes in my trousers. I unscrewed and delegged the fitted, too-low desk but it wouldn't come away from the wall. It seemed to have been fitted with a combination of glue and magick. Decided I'd wait for the expert: at least if the builder should pull the whole wall down, I won't be the one feeling silly.

The Dr arrived back from a day's teaching to marvel at my efforts. We then schlepped round to M. and N.'s house for a nice fish tea. Some excitement at the mussels still being alive when we arrived. I imagined them shrieking "Help me!" like that bit at the end of The Fly.

Having done the shifting chores on Saturday, earned an unusual lie-in on Sunday. The Dr even brought me tea and Jaffa Cakes in bed, where I idly glanced through the paper. Margaret Drabble thinks writing a spell against depression, and workaholicism and alcoholism go often hand-in-hand. I suspect there's something in that; not sure it's something good.

Then up, and amid the mess of office furniture and files now heaped around our living room, I laptopped a rewrite of a pitch and did some general edits on Friday's writing. Still a few bits to add and tweak, but the end is nearly in sight. Then perhaps there might be an announcement.

Will also be able to announce something else next week, the first in a new foray for me. How exciting this mystery must make my tawdry existence sound.

Then to St John's in Smith Square to hear the Exmoor Singers do Bach's St Matthew's Passion. (The apostrophication like Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, but with less monsters and more singing.) My chum (+ neighbour + boss) G. was one of the singers, and even got a line of his own. We saved our whooping for the final applause.

Psychonomy was also in attendance, and without a programme for the first half was making up his own words. Apparently they featured Nick Griffin and something perhaps about eggs. In part two, he could follow the words in German and clunkily translated English. He didn't think much of the arias, but otherwise thought it Good.

Me and the Dr have been to a few versions of the thing; for my own future reference, the Dr would like the aria after Peter's denial to be playing when she snuffs it.

Erbarme dich, mein Gott,
um meiner Zähren willen!
Schaue hier, Herz und Auge
weint vor dir bitterlich.
Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

(Touch my willy, God,
Or I will cry!
See here, My heart and eyes
Want to drink buttermilk.
Touch my willy, God.)

Passion According to Saint Matthew, BWV 244 (1727)
Translation S. Guerrier (2009)

Beers after, and then home to thick slabs of cheese on toast. I left the Dr watching EastEnders and No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and fell to bed about half-midnight.

Up this morning to wash and shave in time for the arrival of S. the builder. He sussed the issue of the desk in five seconds, and undrilled some screws I'd not even noticed. With a clunk the desk was severed from its moorings. We'll need to replaster and paint, but we should have a wooden floor down by the time I get back tonight. Then I'll need to source a new desk. One that might actually fit me.

Life is manic and also a bit expensive. So you'll have to wait for the apoplectic rant about Clive Staples ****ing Lewis. Consider it a blessing.

Meet the meerkats!

I am thrilled - thrilled! - to see the new issue of Doctor Who Adventures (#108, 26 March 2009). The cover boasts my space-pirate meerkats!

(I first saw them in Sainsburys when I went to get more cat food; a rack of different mags all Jade Goody, and then, on the far left, one that was Not The Same.)

"Good Old Days" is my second strip for DWA. John Ross has worked wonders bringing my tortuously complex scripts into being. Hooray, too, to colourist Alan Craddock and letterer Paul Vyse. It's a huge tick on the list of childhood ambitions to be a proper, published writer of comics.

And also, the issue comes with a free time-watch and two glittering badges. Squee!

Floored

Here for the record is a picture of my new living room, showing the shelves built last month and the floor put in on Friday. Hooray to S. our handy workman, who's done such a splendid job.

(Compare to these pics from the beginning of February).

I've now got to shlep the stacked furniture back in there; it's currently all heaped around me in the office.

Bedroom was done Tuesday/Wednesday. The office needs doing next; but I've got a thing to finish writing before I can take my old desk and bits apart, so it might not be till later this week. And then we need new carpets on the stairs and landings. Hoping they do something acrylic that won't be eaten by moths and magic that won't clog with cat hair.

Am feeling grown up and tired and poor.

Dinosaur chasey-chase

Tomorrow sees the neck-and-neck launching of seasons three of Robin Hood and Primeval. I’ve written forthcoming spin-off merchandise for both (Fire and Water due out in about five weeks; The Siege out in June), but I’m dead excited about both shows. I mean, tomorrow’s Primeval has dinosaurs chasing through the British Museum! And then next week’s is by my gay lover. What is not to love?

(A small boy on a train a few months back described Primeval as “dinosaur chasey-chase”, and I couldn’t have put it better. Doctor Who, is of course “monster chasey-chase”, James Bond “spy chasey-chase”, Star Wars “Jedi chasey-chase”…)

I’ve just proofed my Primeval novel, and received my 20 copies of The Slitheen Excursion this morning. Yesterday, we recorded The Drowned World, where I had to record my death twice but everyone else was magnificent. Making these things is easy: you just employ tremendously talented people to paper over my wobbly writing.

There are currently all sorts of whispers of exciting things which I might be up for writing. And something I’m struggling to finish is due an announcement soon.

But none of this is why I’ve been so tardy on this blog. Sometimes you hit Life; sometimes Life hits you. Jehosophat I am tired. So of course I’m going dancing tonight.

Angry young men

To the first night of New Boy at the Trafalgar Studios last night, starring Nicholas Hoult off of Skins and About a Boy. It’s co-produced by my boss and features one of the girls I created, so I’m rather compelled to have liked it.

But blimey, that wasn’t hard. From the moment it starts – with the knotty problem of whether the labia are inside or outside the vagina – it’s a rude, funny and painfully well-observed tale of teenage sex and inner terror. Hoult plays Mark, with the lion’s share of the lines as he pours out the crises of his friendship with the new boy at school, Barry (Gregg Lowe).

They’re both still virgins when they meet, but Barry’s so pretty Mark thinks it will be a cinch to get him laid. Barry is soon working his way through the local girls’ school and has designs on his French teacher. Mark, meanwhile, has earned the interest of Barry’s sister – who knows it’s Barry he’s really in love with.

It’s a relatively short, fast-moving play, with plenty crammed in about confused and angry teenage feelings, and the clumsy stumbling into being an adult. In some ways it feels like a series of sketches strung together by Mark addressing the audience – and never quite getting why things never quite go as he’d want.

Half-way through the play gets a new lease of life when Mel Giedroyc (yes, of Mel and Sue) walks on. It’s a small, intimate theatre and you realise quite how much you’ve been drawn in as a voyeur to Mark’s story when she addresses you directly. She got her own applause for her first extraordinary scene, as did my mate Ciara Janson for her stint as a receptionist.

Ciara and Phil Matthews play an impressive range of different roles – some gags depend on us knowing which of several people they’re being. Top marks to Russell Labey for directing and writing (adapted from a novel by William Sutcliffe). And hello to Frankie who I met in the pub later, who commanded the noise and the lighting.

New Boy is on until 11 April and if you miss it you are a silly person.

Top of the pulps?

How exciting – readers of Unreality SF think the Prisoner’s Dilemma one of the best 10 tie-in stories of 2008-09. There’s now a vote for the best one, so go vote for me. Closing date is 22 March.

(The site’s own review of the story thinks the story “a bit disjointed” and seems to like my daft interview at the end with the actors and director the best of it. Pah.)

I’m very busy on something as-yet-unannounced which I can’t wait to shout about. But am taking tonight off to go watch New Boy with the boss and the tracer twin who isn’t already on stage.

Moran has written sizeable, wise advice for budding writers. He enthuses about reading widely.

Of no interest to anyone, my current reads are: Matter by Iain M Banks (re-reading for a thing I’m very late writing); Blood and Guts by Richard Hollingham (hot damn it is full of top and grisly facts); Something Borrowed by Paul Magrs (still reading this to the Dr) and The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis (because it fitted in my pocket on Saturday; read it as a believer back in my pre-teens and now find it enthralling for very different reasons…).

I’ve recently finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (goth fun, the usual sort of thing) and Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Geza Gardonyi, translated by George F Gushing (old-skool, Orientalist adventure, full of odd details). And I’m watching Red Riding, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle and the 50 year-old first series of The Twilight Zone (on DVD) at the moment, too.

Hope to blog on ‘em all when there’s a let up in the feverish beavering.

Destined for closure

The new issue of The DFC has some very sad news: it's closing in two issue's time. What a shame.

As I blogged last year, it's the first original, non-tie-in comic to launch since the short-lived Wildcat in 1988. For the past 41 weeks it has boasted no tie-ins to TV or movies or computer games, no cover-mounted freebies, no advertising. Just a mad squodge of new comic-strips through your letterbox to look forward to every Friday. Says the announcement:

"We're really sorry that we have to stop so suddenly, and that your stories are going to be interrupted. But we haven't been able to find the funding to cover the cost of creating more comics."

They promise there'll be ways to "find out what happens next in all the stories", but that's not quite the same.

My favourite strip is probably Fish-Head Steve by Jamie Smart, about a village of people who all have strange heads. But the range of styles and stories had been extraordinary: from the dark and scary Mezolith to the kooky Bodkin and the Bear, from the beautifully drawn sci-fi epic The Spider Moon to the strange adventure of Sneaky - cleverest Elephant in the world.

It's a been a fantastic ride for the last 41 weeks. I've had concerns about some of it: a couple of strips that left me cold, and sometimes the structure of strips has been odd, episodes not adding anything to what we've already learnt or finishing on what are hardly cliffhangers. But on the whole it's been a brilliant, fresh and vibrant read.

And, obviously, I learn it's closing the day after I sent them a submission.

How to make a banana look EXACTLY like a penguin

Bananas are good. They contain zinc. And can be made to look EXACTLY like penguins. Here's how:

Step one.
Take a banana, any banana. In these enlightened times, a straight one works just as fine as a bent one. Hold the banana with the stalk bit pointing up, the curve of the banana pointing away from you. Almost as if the banana is a longbow and you're about to fire it.


Step two.
Grasp the stalk and yank it backwards. The skin around the front of the stalk should crack easily. Pulling on the stalk, you should be able to peel backwards, down the outer, long curve of the banana. Ideally, you should have about a third of the circumference of the banana attached to the stalk, two-thirds still gripping the soft flesh. You might need to tear a bit to make that work. This is within the rules.


Step three.
Now confront the two-thirds of skin gripping the inner curve of the banana. Split it down the middle, to about half the length of the banana. Let the flaps flap. I'm sure your flaps will be much more evenly distributed than mine; no matter. Can you see what it is yet?

Step four.
Now flip the stalky flap back up, so it rests on the top of the banana. Say, that stalk looks EXACTLY like a penguin's beak. And those side flaps are EXACTLY like it's wings. Hot damn and hot diggedy, you've achieved alchemy! And must be burnt as witch.

Amaze your friends! Baffle your enemies! And chuck some money at Comic Relief.

"A guilty secret"

The splendid fellows at Doctor Who podcast Radio Free Skaro have posted up an MP3 interview with me, conducted at the Gallifrey convention in LA last month. Hear me stumble my way towards the articulate without ever quite getting there.

Who stocks the Guardian?

So what to to make of Watchmen? I loved the comic in my teens (though not as much as I loved V For Vendetta), and recall the bloke who wrote Batman (1989) and Terry Gilliam both saying it could never be filmed. It's complex and strange, packed full of incident and the juxtaposition of repeated images. So any film would surely just be not quite as good as the source. Which is what's happened whenever they've put Alan Moore's other great comics on screen.

And yet for the most part I think Watchmen works as a movie. It's complex and strange and I keep picking over it like with the gap between my teeth. There's an awful lot that I like – Rorshach's mask and his performance, the opening titles, the look and feel of Archie. But there's also much that is bothersome...

Spoilers

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The choice in any adaptation is what to keep and what to cut out. Director Zack Snyder has slavishly kept close to the source: it's evident Dave Gibbons' artwork has been used to storyboard the film, and whole sections of the film's dialogue are lifted from the comic's balloons.

I'm surprised by how much of the comic makes it into the film. In fact, it feels too long at two-and-a-half hours. They could have cut back more.

The change to the ending in the comic keeps things simpler, and cuts out a whole sub-plot about pirate comics and a writer off making a movie. Veidt setting up Dr Manhattan works better than the comic's faked alien menace anyway. It makes Manhattan's slow separation from humanity part of the plot rather than an intriguing aside.

But my major concern is not with what's been taken out but added. In the comic, the murder of the Comedian is shown in the first four pages, in flashback, pressed in between panels of the cops looking round over the dead man's flat. Eddie Blake doesn't have a chance to fight back.

In the movie, there's a whole martial arts sequence like out of any superhero movie. Blake goes out fighting, punching through bricks and the kitchen cabinets, revealing super-human speed and strength. It misses something fundamental about what the comic's doing: grounding the outlandish events and characters in a grubby, mundane reality. These heroes are (for the most part) ordinary mortals. They're as fallible, flawed and falling apart as the rest of us.

The film's costumed heroes sport the same PVC chic as the comic-book movies since Batman in '89. They fight in the same ways as other comic-book movies, and there are the same fast CGI pull-backs to reveal huge buildings and landscapes. As a result it feels like a response to those movies: more about the X-Men of the 21st century than the 1980s.

That's not helped by the music. I know a few people who love the film's music, but I found the choices of tune just odd. It doesn't give any sense of the period: Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix both suggest the 60s. “All along the watchtower” is used in Withnail & I to a much better effect.

While the comic had a very particular sense of its period – an alternative, awful “now” - the film is a mish-mash of the nostalgic and contemporary, and neither quite feels right. If only it could have felt more like the brilliant title sequence, showing American history with the added bonus of heroes. Well, brilliant but for one little grumble.

The sequence shows assassination of JFK and then shows the Comedian wielding the rifle. It's a crass realisation of what in the comic is just an aside, the Comedian boasting to some mates at a party.

Too often the film favours the crass and simplistic over the more intriguing and complex. Laurie tells her mother she loves her, while in the comic those words never need to be said because its implicit in the scene.

The Dr was concerned by the not-quite-brilliant qualities of the actresses playing Laurie and her mum. But there’s no subtlety in their dialogue to play off: they seem awkward and stupid for stating the bleeding obvious.

More than that, special effects movies mean playing to green curtains and ping-pong balls on sticks. The film's editor can be more thrilled by the assembly of the disparate elements of the shot than the quality of performance. Just as Dr Manhattan sees human beings and their feelings as merely some tricky jigsaw. (See also the affect on Star Wars once technology let George Lucas build his empire whatever way he liked.)

It also doesn't help how “false” a lot of the film feels. The comic is grounded in realism: heroes who get dementia and drunk, who get old and die. There's something still strange and disturbing about superheroes being drafted into the war in Vietnam. In the film, the Nam sequences felt especially contrived, more Photoshop than photo realism.

There's been some mocking of the prosthetics and President Nixon's nose. The film makes more of him – and Kissinger – than the comic does, which diminishes his impact. He's a weird caricature in the film, a credible world leader bent under terrible pressure when we glimpse him in the comic – where he never says a word. There's nothing in the comic I can think of that Nixon's estate might want to sue.

The film also gets in a gag about Americans not accepting a cowboy into the White House. To do this they fudge a better gag in the comic, where it's Robert Redford standing for election in 1988. Would Reagan have been well enough to stand in ’88? And surely the point about Redford is he offers an alternative to the hard-line Republicanism Nixon represents in this world. The film throws out the political reality in favour of a cheap gag.

Likewise, Ozymandias says in the film that he's “not a comic book villain”, when that's plainly what he is. In the comic its “republic serial villain” because in a world where there are real superheroes, they don’t feature in comics. Again, the film loses out by putting things so bluntly.

The comic is violent but this is more so: there are extended and bigger fight scenes, a man having his arms cut off where he's just quickly stabbed in the comic, Dr Manhattan not just disintegrating people but spattering them all over the ceiling.

While the comic shows sex and bosoms and a full frontal blue willy, in the film it feels much more like titillation. Like some of the swearing in the first series of Torchwood (or when I took over Benny) this desperate effort to appear more adult just makes it seem more adolescent. The sex scene between Dan and Laurie should have felt more like the one in Don't Look Now: no soft focus, unglamorous, tender.

But the film also pulls its punches. The scenes of devastated New York are much bloodier in the comic. Even the “clean” nuclear explosion would leave people burned and horribly disfigured. Perhaps this film plays to a modern audience's subconscious horror of 9/11 (I was surprised not to see the Twin Towers collapse in that final attack), but it didn’t seem horrific enough. We need to be utterly appalled by what Veidt has done for the moral conundrum of the last scenes to carry any weight. It's not enough in the film that one of those killed in New York is Rorschach's psychologist. The comic introduces a whole load of familiar faces, and we don't even know their names.

It's a bold film full of flickers of brilliance. This great long post suggests I didn't enjoy it when I largely did. But I keep thinking how it might have been done differently. How the same cast and crew made a better version. Just in a world not that different from our own...

Come dancing

All over London there are posters for incredible India, exhorting you to "dance with the locals."

Did we learn nothing from Siegfried and Roy? They're not dancing, they're having a scrap. That's what cats do.

Or has incredible India got hold of some lipstick tigers?

A good, original idea

Merely 12 years late, I’ve read Garry Jenkins’ book on the making of the first three Star Wars films. (A lifetime ago at a Doctor Who convention in Manchester the weekend that Tony Blair became Prime Minister, eager fans were getting the pristine book signed by Maurice Bronson.)

I love Star Wars. I love the prequels. I can see flaws and problems in all the movies, but that doesn’t change how much I love them. Love isn’t blind: it sees the flaws and loves anyway.

For the most part, this book tells a familiar story of triumph against adversity, of a small band of believers proving wrong all the Men who said “no”. That story’s been re-told in the DVD documentaries and in the puffery for the three prequels. So time has dulled some of Jenkins’ exclusives.

His real coup is getting detail – and photographs – from Gary Kurtz, who produced the first two movies. Kurtz seems to have taken the fall for the troubled production of The Empire Strikes Back. But the thing I found most interesting was the affect of the first film’s success – the toll it took on cast and crew’s lives, and the trouble it caused in making the next two movies.

“‘The problem with being a hit was that no one was going to work for the minimum, they all wanted top dollar,’ said Kurtz. Eventually Kurtz was given the $18 million he needed [to produce Empire]. Lucas would not allow him to forget whose money it was, however.”

Garry Jenkins, Empire building – the remarkable real life story of Star Wars, p. 213.

Stars were having problems with their new-found stardom, with drugs and whether their directors liked them. Crew struggled to meet the perfectionist demands of the rebel in charge. At one point, late on, Lucas changed his mind on a second alien race on Endor, and all the work on the yuzzums was for nothing. Jenkins’ skill is in showing the cost of the films’ success.

He is good at explaining the content of the times and the studio system, and how odd Lucas’ feel-good, expensive nonsense would have looked on paper. He’s also good at explaining Lucas’ canny – indeed revolutionary – attitude to merchandising, from the nascent idea of “Star Wars Stores” flogging product like Disney to the $2 billion deal with Pepsi in 1996 to “carry Star Wars characters on its products for the next five years” (p. 287).

There are plenty of fun details. Director Richard Marquand, for example, was the one responsible for revisiting – not just referring to – Yoda in Jedi. There’s the mischief caused by Carrie Fisher’s bosoms – bouncing around bra-less in A New Hope disrupting any scenes where she had to run, and escaping he metal bikini six years later in Jedi. And there’s Lucas’ great embarrassment at being asked how “Chewbacca and his family reproduced” (p. 240).

While there’s some acknowledgement of mistakes made, this is a success story. There’s no mention of the Star Wars Holiday Special or of the two Ewok movies. But the strangest thing about this story of Lucas fighting the man is him building his own empire in response. Valerie Hoffman, who embarrassed Lucas by asking about the sex lives of Wookies,

“had been hired as a secretary in the aftermath of Star Wars, and began her working days in a caravan. ‘The minute we moved into the new building [in 1979] there was a dress code.’”

Ibid., p. 240.

And there are plenty of loyal believers who fought alongside Lucas who are then left out in the cold. It’s a success story with an oddly bitter taste. Jenkins himself links the affect of Lucas’ divorce to the quality of Jedi. Marcia Lucas helped edit all three films.

“Yet, perhaps significantly, the emotional credibility she had always given her husband’s films – ‘the dying and crying’ as he called it – was absent [from Jedi].”

Ibid., p. 274.

The effects and monsters might all have come out as he wanted in this last one, but the heart had maybe been lost...

Jenkins finishes the book with word of the forthcoming three prequels – to be released, he says, in 1999, 2001 and 2003.

“Casting director Robin Gurland had been focussing on young actors for the parts of the young Anakin Skywaker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and a young Queen, presumably Luke and Leia’s mother. Ironically it was the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi that became the only one connected with an established name. A persistent, not to say intriguing, rumour that Kenneth Branagh had signed up for the role failed to disappear even after an official denial from Lucasfilm.”

Ibid., p. 288.

He says Lucas will need “a flash of magic beyond even his marketing and merchandising millions” for the prequels to succeed. But I felt he’d already identified those unmade movies’ major flaw...