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Big Mean Jerk posted:The visuals on the wall can also move in sync with the camera’s movement so that things like perspective and lighting stay “correct”. It’s a pretty clever piece of tech. Mostly became known because Favreau and Filloni used it for the Mandalorian to get all the barren desert or open plains shots to look good
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May 15, 2024 15:57
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I really liked The Devil's Chord and thought Space Babies was fun enough though not great (a little too goofy at points but that's nothing new from RTD). Ncuti is great in the role and I'm excited to see where he goes with his portrayal of the character. I also started catching back up on the show with Season 10, which is where I had fallen off before the recent specials. I've watched the first two episodes and it's definitely leaving a better impression on me than from what I can remember about most of season 9. Based on the near-universal disdain for it I do not plan on watching all of Chibnall's run beyond probably a couple of the episodes people have some nicer things to say about.
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May 15, 2024 15:59
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Really wasn't expecting a callback to Smile of all things "Sorry, can't kill this thing because it's a new sentient race despite being educated snot. Have fun getting along with one another despite us not being sure if it's actually safe or tame!"
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May 15, 2024 16:28
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galenanorth posted:but I don't believe methane would work as a rocket propellant to another planet in the same star system, either. I'm no rocket scientist and the fart cloud visuals are probably not how it looks or works in real life, but I don't see any reason methane couldn't work as a propulsive gas, I assume an explosive/flammable gas would work for the purposes of propelling mass in space. Looks like there are proper methane rocket fuel mixes as proof of concept. Notably the fuel is not lightly expelled from metallic butt cheeks. https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/china-landspaces-methane-powered-rocket-sends-satellites-into-orbit-state-media-2023-12-09/
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May 15, 2024 17:01
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Khanstant posted:I'm no rocket scientist and the fart cloud visuals are probably not how it looks or works in real life, but I don't see any reason methane couldn't work as a propulsive gas, I assume an explosive/flammable gas would work for the purposes of propelling mass in space. Once you're in space technically all you need is reaction mass that you fling in the opposite direction to the one you want to go. I'm not sure that, realistically, they'd have enough reaction mass to shift a bloody great space station out of orbit, let alone to another planet in a reasonable time frame, but the alternative is that the space babies will all die so I'm ok with letting that one go.
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May 15, 2024 17:29
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The episode had a monster made out of mucus, guys.
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May 15, 2024 17:45
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Watching The Time Warrior for the first time, it's pretty nicely directed for this kind of thing. But man, I get so distracted by the hay they've put down everywhere (in the place of rushes, I guess?) and wondering how many people slipped and fell in the production of this story. The TARDIS is super shabby looking in this one. The exterior I mean. It's crazy to think that it could go by for seasons without being touched up with a bit of paint. IIRC the TARDIS interior gets pretty bad by the end of season 26, and the walls end up getting replaced with a cloth wall hanging.
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May 15, 2024 17:50
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Open Source Idiom posted:IIRC the TARDIS interior gets pretty bad by the end of season 26, and the walls end up getting replaced with a cloth wall hanging. You only see the inside of the TARDIS once during season 26 (at the start of Battlefield), and it’s virtually unlit to hide how shabby it all is.
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May 15, 2024 17:59
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The other thing about the Volume is that it lights itself, or rather the light of the screens lights the set. This really helps because with a greenscreen you have to match the lighting to the visuals and it can look awful. Physical sets are still very often the right choice if you can do them but if you want to have a Golden Hour that you can turn on at will, the Volume does give you that.
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May 15, 2024 18:00
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lines posted:The other thing about the Volume is that it lights itself, or rather the light of the screens lights the set. This really helps because with a greenscreen you have to match the lighting to the visuals and it can look awful. This can still look really, really awful though. Shazam 2 rears its head again.
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May 15, 2024 18:02
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Open Source Idiom posted:This can still look really, really awful though. Shazam 2 rears its head again. Oh it seems extremely possible to completely gently caress it up. I haven't seen Shazams 1 or 2 I'm afraid, though.
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May 15, 2024 18:06
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You can roll your eyes at Russell and his fart jokes, but Robert Holmes was slipping those in on the regular
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May 15, 2024 18:27
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The_Doctor posted:You only see the inside of the TARDIS once during season 26 (at the start of Battlefield), and it’s virtually unlit to hide how shabby it all is. Is that a printed sheet?
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May 15, 2024 19:17
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I think it’s a white sheet behind the roundel holes. The wall itself seems solid enough, but the white spaces definitely have fabric folding visible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8RtjxqAGhY
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May 15, 2024 19:30
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Honestly I'm surprised Grade wasn't paying local school kids twenty quid to get in the prop store and set fire to things, we're lucky there was even a console there.
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May 15, 2024 19:54
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lines posted:The other thing about the Volume is that it lights itself, or rather the light of the screens lights the set. This really helps because with a greenscreen you have to match the lighting to the visuals and it can look awful. Yeah, it was a great choice for the Mandalorian for that reason. It wasn't used to replace all practical sets or wider effects shots, it was used so that when Mando was prominent in the shot his suit was properly reflecting the scene.
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May 15, 2024 21:04
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I've assumed that the Abbey Road scene was using Volume, yeah?
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May 15, 2024 22:13
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Wolfechu posted:I've assumed that the Abbey Road scene was using Volume, yeah? Nope, dressed a zebra crossing in Cardiff and good old fashioned green screen, I believe
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May 15, 2024 22:16
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Considering Nanny had scheduled nappy change times for the Space Babies the bogeyman could've been made out of something much worse!
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May 16, 2024 05:09
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There's a Green Jello song about that!
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May 16, 2024 06:07
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Gaz-L posted:Nope, dressed a zebra crossing in Cardiff and good old fashioned green screen, I believe Not even green screen! https://twitter.com/nemonihil1664/status/1655607034014842881
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May 16, 2024 06:23
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The_Doctor posted:Not even green screen! I think they did digitally extend the background
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May 16, 2024 12:00
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Gaz-L posted:I think they did digitally extend the background Oh yeah, that definitely happened
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May 16, 2024 13:05
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The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang Fine, sometimes it's OK to maximize the stakes. For example, if you actually do follow through, blow up the entire universe, and then have the story suddenly be about the last few people left having a chinwag. I realised recently during a rewatch that I didn't know how or where the Doctor had actually acquired the fez, so I rewound to pick it out. The Doctor bumps into an exhibit model, knocks the fez off it, catches it and carries it around until, apparently unwilling to throw it away (literally treating it more respectfully than the painting Vincent van Gogh personally painted for him!) he just puts it on his head. Matt Smith makes it all look perfectly organic, to the point that even when I hadn't paid enough attention to notice the fez's provenance I didn't question its appearance at all. There's a similar moment in the Angels two-parter where in the middle of discussing the Angels' quantum lock he accidentally rips a velcro strap or something off the ceiling and fiddles with it a bit before just tossing it. My favourite bit like that is in The Eleventh Hour where he picks up a glass to listen at the wall, tosses the water out of it, then briefly turns around at the sound of the water hitting the floor. There's less of that kind of thing after series 5, I'd guess as the production problems started to seriously interfere with the business of making episodes there was less time to add little flourishes like that. The Pandorica not actually having anything inside but being something to put the Doctor in was something I twigged before the reveal, not that it made the reveal itself any less effective. I'd read enough mystery stories to know the culprit isn't one of the suspects and it isn't someone previously unmentioned in the narrative, it's someone who was explicitly ruled out as a suspect or someone who's so above suspicion they were never even ruled in. The game is in keeping you guessing. I enjoyed Knives Out because it came the closest I've ever seen to my fantasy of a murder mystery where you don't know until the end that a murder was even committed. Christopher Brookmyre's book Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks is another decent one with that premise, kind of ruined by me recommending it in this context but nevertheless. Anyway, applying the mystery story rule to this episode of Doctor Who leaves us with basically two options: there's nothing in the Pandorica, or the Doctor is in there. Under these circumstances, the line "I hate good wizards in fairy tales, they always turn out to be him" is tipping your hand a bit. Pandora's Box (or I think it was actually a jar or bottle right?) doesn't just have all the evils of the world in it, of course. I liked how the big Pandorica Opens bit reflected more of the whole myth- the box opens, all the evils of the universe are unleashed, and the box is sealed shut again with hope still inside. Gotcha! The Big Bang has two of my favourite bits in the whole show in it- the bit where the Doctor keeps zapping back in time to do stuff to set up a time loop, capped off with the "punchline" of a future version of himself appearing and dying. Second is the most obvious one possible, but it's obvious because it works: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. A Christmas Carol Kind of cringeworthy that the Doctor literally does A Christmas Carol to a guy, but possibly loops back around to being good again that everyone openly acknowledges that's what's going on. This is another one of those episodes I don't really come away with anything much to say about. Pleasure to watch, great way to spend an hour, I think a real talent of Moffat's is that he can take a ludicrous image like Ebenezer Scrooge and his girlfriend riding a carriage pulled by a flying shark and make it a lovely ending image for a TV episode. Merry Christmas to all! The Impossible Astronaut / Day Of The Moon God I hate the US release of series 6. It adds this little monologue to the title sequence which stretches it out to double the length. Idiotic! That's a major reason I've rewatched very little of series 6. The other being that even as a fan it's hard to deny this series contains some of Moffat's weakest work. This story is a headspinner in retrospect. Amy goes to the US with her daughter, and watches the Doctor get killed by her daughter, and then shoots her daughter, all while pregnant with her daughter. It's funny Moffat has a reputation of trying to do big complex series-long story arcs, because it really is just this series where that happens. And the fact that this series coincided with Moffat trying to also do Sherlock at the same time and all kinds of madness coming up behind the scenes is probably why they backed off from it after this. It turns out Doctor Who can't be Lost! But while I'm not about to call the series a resounding success, I respect the ambition. And this story holds up well even after all the pieces of the rest of the series have hit the floor, which is nice. Curse Of The Black Spot I may have been premature when I said there was less comic physical acting from Matt Smith after series 5, because in this episode him running into the cabin, grabbing the kid's little mermaid pendant and huffing on it frantically while giving the captain a relieved thumbs-up without a word of explanation to anyone was hilarious. This is the first of three stories written by Stephen Thompson, the other two being Journey To The Centre Of The Tardis, which I love, and Time Heist, which I do not. Thought it might be worth looking for common themes among these very different episodes. The most obvious is greed/selfishness leading to doom- the captain can't let go of his stolen crown despite reflective surfaces literally being how the monster gets you, and then later in Journey Bram Van Baalen will be tempted by riches and die because of it. And well Time Heist is about an evil bank owner. Time Heist is a bit dimmer in my memory, but it has those things that are exposited to kill you but are really- and, visually, obviously- teleporters, same as in this episode. Something which seems evil but is actually benign, and through which the characters must pass as part of the story, which is probably something out of the Hero's Journey, is also in this pirate episode. And in Journey, when the Doctor and Clara come to an illusory cliffside which is actually totally safe and he confronts Clara with her impossible nature, demanding to know what sinister secret she's hiding... only to find out she's hiding nothing at all. Of course, at the end of that episode the Doctor has to actually die horribly to throw the plot resolver back in time. But that's all in the future! Here and now, we get Amy in a pirate outfit, and that's good enough.
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May 16, 2024 13:30
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Well, I guess that explains why that street looked absolutely nothing remotely like Abbey Road then. Surely they could have just green screened that one shot across the crossing to make it look slightly like the album cover? The weird effects shot of the apocalyptic future where the Thames was magically a straight line to fit a bunch of landmarks in the same shot still really annoys me for some reason.
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May 16, 2024 17:10
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DavidCameronsPig posted:The weird effects shot of the apocalyptic future where the Thames was magically a straight line to fit a bunch of landmarks in the same shot still really annoys me for some reason. That's just what happens when you don't have music. Straight rivers, dogs and cats living together, wonky Abbey Road. Honestly, respect to the Doctor and Ruby for bringing back gay rivers.
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May 16, 2024 17:42
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Lol most roads with a white barred crosswalk leading to a two lane street look at least a little like Abbey Road. Add 4 dorks walking across it and you're 75% of the way there. The extra steps got them so much closer it's absurd to say it looks nothing like Abbey road, an incredibly average looking location.
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May 16, 2024 18:56
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2house2fly posted:The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang I absolutely loved all these bits of business in season 5 as well, he's so much more authentically weird, and the 'hyper attentive to the point of distraction' thing was fairly unique to him. It felt like Eleven got a bit of a character reboot from season 6 onwards. It all feels a bit more polished and plasticky and formalised.
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May 16, 2024 19:14
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Hey, guess who's on the cover of Time?  https://x.com/TIME/status/1791070073395753429 
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May 16, 2024 19:21
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Barry Foster posted:I absolutely loved all these bits of business in season 5 as well, he's so much more authentically weird, and the 'hyper attentive to the point of distraction' thing was fairly unique to him. Maybe that's when Smith stopped doing as much coke.
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May 16, 2024 19:21
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Daed si aralc.
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May 16, 2024 19:24
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The_Doctor posted:Hey, guess who's on the cover of Time? lol, cool. I'm glad he got to be the Doctor just when it got the Disney explosion, he seems to really enjoy everything about it.
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May 16, 2024 19:44
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Open Source Idiom posted:Maybe that's when Smith stopped doing as much coke. Is that a known thing?
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May 16, 2024 19:53
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PriorMarcus posted:Is that a known thing? I don't know if it's a *known* known thing, but yeah. There's a story about him and Karen Gillan going buggering off to a Hollywood party during one of their US press tours and the BBC doing damage control.
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May 16, 2024 19:59
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LOL at the new Eighth Doctor story "Birdsong": (On an alien world they discover Earth bird feathers) "What's wrong with birds?" The Doctor: "It depends on how big they are. And if they're yellow. And if roller skates are involved." "What are you talking about?" The Doctor: "A very peculiar street I once visited in New York."
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May 16, 2024 21:10
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Open Source Idiom posted:I don't know if it's a *known* known thing, but yeah. There's a story about him and Karen Gillan going buggering off to a Hollywood party during one of their US press tours and the BBC doing damage control. Not a story I’ve ever heard before
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May 16, 2024 21:12
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Well now I wanna see Ncuti visit said street and reminisce Come on, Russel, I know you lurk here, that one's free Make it a Children in Need skit or something
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May 16, 2024 21:13
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Barry Foster posted:I absolutely loved all these bits of business in season 5 as well, he's so much more authentically weird, and the 'hyper attentive to the point of distraction' thing was fairly unique to him. I don't know about anything else but series 6 onward Matt seems to have a little more influence on how his doctor was written. This really gets more pronounced in series 7 where he's doing more improv, most of which is pretty regrettable like forcing a kiss on Jenny in The Crimson Horror.
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May 16, 2024 21:39
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Open Source Idiom posted:I don't know if it's a *known* known thing, but yeah. There's a story about him and Karen Gillan going buggering off to a Hollywood party during one of their US press tours and the BBC doing damage control. I think I remember that, there was some tabloid story about a hotel guest being bothered by a noise that turned out to be Karen Gillan wandering the hallways lost, blackout drunk and crying. I remember being angry that the story was framed as if Karen Gillan was being an rear end in a top hat
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May 17, 2024 01:27
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The_Doctor posted:Hey, guess who's on the cover of Time? Well, why not? He is a Time Lord, after all.
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May 17, 2024 04:01
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