Number 9 wrote:Owzat wrote:I read the book as a kid, sadly special effects are so damned advanced that they overuse them in TV and films these days. It can be quite good, but develop a story ffs. In the old days Dr Who used to be tense, building up to the unexpected. These days it is high octane action of a farcical level. One dalek might in itself scare you behind the sofa, BBC now have to have 200 ships full of them as if excess and special effects were order of the day.
If I remember I might well watch this, the trailer looked pretty good. No flying triffids, no explosion after explosion and OTT acting with lots of celebs wanting in on it.
A triffid fan...well Im hoping the same mate!Part of the books appeal and the movies was the fact that 99% of people were blinded by the meteor storm and had to rely on other people to make them function as a race...whilst fighting or running from triffids!
Its about togetherness....it better be good!
But like the Cybermen in Dr Who, it looks as if the person producing this version of the Triffids has we-written the origins - unless I'm mistaken. I read the review in the TV guide, they say that the Triffids are being grown for "Triffoil" and then effectively make a bid for freedom. I'm sure in the book they come to earth in a meteor shower or something like that, much like the Cybermen originated from a distant planet and had their parts replaced as they were dying rather than some nutter on Earth deciding to butcher people and turn them into robots. I mean what was the point in that? A) you'd do it while they were asleep, not on some kind of production line "slice and dice" set-up, and B) why retain the brain at all when it was incapable of active control of the cybernetic body? It ruined Dr Who for me, taking good "baddies" and giving them a new origin.
I fear the producer/director/writer (whoever) has tried to stamp his own mark, just like in so many remakes these days, and is going to ruin it.
If you like this book/film/concept, have you ever watched "Night of the comet" ? It's a little dated, now I have a DVD recorder that can record off VHS I may transfer it onto DVD. It's one of many films I recall watching when much younger, but instead of plucking classics out of the air and showing them, TV prefers to repeat the same films ad nauseam.
Owzat's Xmas 2009 Recommendations
- Night of the Comet - variation on zombie theme
- Wildcats - classic Goldie Hawn American Football comedy (with Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson)
- Catholic Boys - brat pack comedy
- Fatal Beauty - quality Whoopi Goldberg
- Don't Go To Sleep - saw it once, a horror story about a ghost who was killed by a prank played on her by her brother and sister (can only find in US/VHS)
- Masters of Time - animated sci-fi with a twist at the end
- Attack Force Z - last saw this about 10 years ago, behind the enemy lines war story with Mel Gibson
- Too Late The Hero - watched the DVD last night, Michael Caine and Cliff Robertson behind Jap lines
- By Dawn's Early Light* - classic WWIII drama, a race against time to stop a nuclear war escalating with James Earl Jones and Powers Boothe among the cast
- Stone Cold* - undercover cop infiltrates biker gang, with Doug (Chandler's boss) out of Friends and Lance Henrikson as biker gang leader "Chains".
- Codename Wild Geese - Lewis Collins goes into Vietnam to destroy drug-making facilities. Not to be confused by the other classic "Wild Geese" film with Roger Moore, Richard Burton and Rutger Hauer.
- Quatermass II/Quatermass & The Pit - don't see either on TV much these days, or the original, but all three are good. I guess it is really the original X-Files/Man In Black. Watched II the other day, it is something that if they remade would really suffer at the hands of the current fads and special effects.
- Real Genius - comedy set in a school and starring Val Kilmer who is a genius among a team who is building a laser for William Atherton (his professor) who is in turn building it for the............................ US Government. I guess the irony is the geniuses are clever enough to build a laser but not clever enough to realise its purpose..................
*be careful as there are films with Columbo and Tom Selleck in them by the same name.
"They don't make them like they used to" really rings true if you can see past high octane action and special effects. Try some older films with PLOTS where the story more than compensates the action and effects that kids these days are force fed. Compare the original Die Hard (1986?) with Die Hard 4.0 (20 years later) Did John McLaine need to drop a car down an elevator shaft or propel one at a helicopter or land on a jet fighter?!? Did the Daleks need 200 spaceships full of Daleks to invade earth or pose a serious threat? Did they need to fly? Did they need to fight cybermen or were the writers of the time clever enough with plots that they built up slowly and only needed one "baddie" ? One Dr Who had humans being turned into Daleks, they didn't need to be "sliced and diced". It even had Alexei Sayle blasting Daleks with a sonic weapon.
