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Doctor Who
The Story: “Day Of The Daleks”
Year: 2011
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What makes it special? There have been many examples of classic Doctor Who releases with updated CG FX, They rarely work, for two main reasons: first, they tend to jar with the threadbare production values of the time and second, (unlike the new FX in the classic Trek series DVD releases) they appear to have had about £10 quid spent on the and been produced on an Amiga. What’s the point is giving us “new” FX that look dated before they’ve even been released? So CG experiments in episodes such as “The Time Warrior”, “The Ark In Space” and “Earthshock” tend to be one-time only, curiosity value affairs (though the new FX is the black and white “Dalek Invasion Of Earth” were more acceptable because there was an attempt to make them feel “more of the period”… or maybe the mere fact they were in black and white helped).
There was also a ghastly attempt to recut “Enlightenment” to give it a pace more like modern Who , an experiment which rendered the story near incomprehensible.
But the recent release of “Day of The Daleks” is something a bit special, and not because of the new CG cityscapes, which, while much better quality than most Who DVD CG effects, still look like they belong in a different show. Instead, it’s the way the story has used digital doubling effects and much tighter editing to make a battle that was embarrassingly undermanned in the original look genuinely spectacular in the special edition. It goes from three Daleks and couple of Ogrons attacking a UNIT squad apparently entirely manned by their five-a-side team, to dozens of Daleks blasting away at massed troops. The Daleks also have new laser fire which helps (back in 1973, when the story was originally broadcast lasers were still a thing of the future). The idea was to create the battle that kids at the time remember today with the benefit of rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, rather than disappoint them with the cash-strapped original. You know what? They succeeded.
The Story: “The Five Doctors”
Year: 1995
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What makes it special? Doctor Who’s first genuine “special edition” (and marketed as such) was at the complete opposite end of the “special” scale and actually made the story worse. “The Five Doctors” was a multi-Doctor story broadcast to celebrate the show’s 20 anniversary in 1983. In 1995, for no apparent celebratory reason (37th anniversary, anyone?) the BBC released a new version of the story on VHS with added scenes and new FX. Sounded great. It wasn’t.
Most of the extra footage was shots of empty corridors (we kid you not) or people looking at each other for a little longer. Gone was a nifty Superman The Movie Phantom Zone-esque “Time Scoop” effect, replaced by a spinning walnut whip. The walnut whip makes an unwelcome return at the end to whisk all the Doctors back to their own time-lines, ousting a much simpler, but more appealing multi-TARDIS effect. Aside from a couple of improved laser effects, all other changes to the story are for the worse.
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