|
|
News
Topic has 16 replies.
  
|
|
Sort Posts:
|
|
|
|
 28/04/2008, 10:56 AM
|
Scaramouche
 
Joined on 02/04/2006
obscure
Posts 909
|
Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
Dismayed to hear the at following the BBC's success with the resurrected Doctor Who (or Doctor Camp as it's been dubbed), Sky One are to bring back Blake's 7.
Bearing in mind that the latter (if not the former) is to the Sci-Fi genre, what Graham Norton is to Six Nations Rugby, it seems to be an odd choice, although there may be some regional bonusses.
Q - Whitlingham Sewage Works as the filming location for the lost Planet Excretia.
Blake himself was of course, Welsh, with provided an excuse for his early demise, and the series went on to be dominated by a bizarre line-up of characters who seemed to have been cast out of a fetish club.
Remember the androgynous, Thatcheresque Servelan, and the supposedly macho, but decidedly faux/bondage/camp bloke who's name began with an 'A' ?
Most challenging yet will be the ambition to make the series in High definition. It's going to be much. much easier to spot the taped-over road markings and other scenic services tricks by which Norfolk or Northumbria become the Outer Limits.
I'd say that for Sky TV executives, this resurrection is not their brightest bet for ratings success.
In fact, they'd do better to bring back the Potter's Wheel.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 11:06 AM
|
keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 11:06 AM
|
spindrift
Joined on 04/04/2006
Posts 2,440
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Servalan wasn't androgynous!
She's an uber-babe:
Mind you, some of the special effects weren't very special:
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 11:43 AM
|
Wibble
Joined on 30/10/2003
Posts 459
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
When Blakes 7 was on I was still at school, and loved it.
After finding out that Paul Darrow - who played baddie Avon - was the uncle of a schoolfriend, he didn't seem so scary!
It's a wibbly wobbly world
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 12:29 PM
|
keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 7:54 PM
|
TheNorfolkOracle
Joined on 26/02/2008
Posts 26
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Surely a cult classic, I used to love sitting with my dad, bro & sis & watch Blakes 7, oh how I cried when they were all killed at the end! lol. That haunting, strange music too, Ken Bruce sometimes plays something he says is not that tune but gets bombarded by people who think it is, I think it is too, that little computer thing they had, the unique voice of that character, whoever he was, great stuff.
Obviously need to update the effects! Have to go way beyond what level the bbc have set their bar at to make it work, will be interesting to see.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 9:06 PM
|
Scaramouche
Joined on 02/04/2006
obscure
Posts 909
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
The only (ONLY) thing about Blake's 7, which you can take home is that even the BBC realised it had to die.
In dramatic terms it was not unlike a vampire.
Worried they m ight come back?
Take extreme measures. Stake through heart, beheading and then set fire to the remains.
Blake's 7 so deserved its denouement.
The trouoble is that with age (and nostalgia) we reall everything that dovetails with our youth as both venerable and valuable.
It's totally rationable, but nonetheless underserved.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
28/04/2008, 9:38 PM
|
keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
30/04/2008, 3:26 PM
|
Scaramouche
Joined on 02/04/2006
obscure
Posts 909
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I grew up
in the postwar sci-fi boom of US and British writers like Clarke, Bester, Matheson,
Philip K Dick, Van Vogt, Wyndham.
Mostly they applied and combined their arts
of prediction to the social, physical and technical sciences, so their fiction could
create future worlds and future times.
It’s not only a playground for the
imagination, but also for the cynic and the satirist. Not to mention the humorist
And few themes
went unattended. It's why even today, Hollywood keeps revisiting them for inspiration.
Although the Sci-Fi greats failed to predict the Aids Virus for instance,
there were at least three novellas which used the theme of an STD changing the
world (and society), through viral means.
When TV
came along, I believe it made a pisspoor job of tapping this rich vein of creativity, and
not just because it couldn’t match Hollywood
for effects budgets.
But though I’m no trekkie, I have to admit that by and
large the Americans managed it better than us.
In the UK, Dr Who
proved a poor successor to Quatermass (which at least challenged the
imagination), and Blake’s 7 was even worse.
Its ironic
that classic sci-fi flourished in an era before space flight was possible, but
dwindled in the disappointing aftermath of the moon landing, and the acceptance
that the nearest other inhabitable planet was a very long reach away, if,
indeed it existed at all?
Today,
thanks to authors like Ian M Banks, the flame is still alive, but the genre
is in danger of subsumation into the general field of Fantasy.
Brit TV Sci-Fi is
often excused because cheap FX fail to
convince or suspend disbelief, but most of us could have lived with that if
only it had been better written and more imaginatively and intelligently
plotted. Am I pessimistic about the small screen future?
Well put it this way. Sky won't be getting my subscription on the promise of a Blake's 7 revival.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
30/04/2008, 3:56 PM
|
keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
|
Re: Blake's 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I agree Scary, British TV lost the Si Fi plot with the end of Quatermass.
I would go even further and say that all the Si Fi since that era has not been real Si Fi at all, even things like StarTrek.
The science theory in these films and TV series was already covered to death in the era of the Eagle comic.
Warp drive, fazers,transporters and all.
Sure the ships are pretty and the background graphics awesome in some cases but I have seen little if any 'science fiction'.
All they have done is given westerns a different set of clothes.
I think this latest joke of bringing Blake 7 back from what should be an 'infinite' death, shows just how little imagination exists in the modern mind.
Not a surprise in a society that exists for comfort and the greed of the moment.
Real Si Fi like say, 'Nightfall One' or the proper book version of 'I Robot', would go way over their heads.
What I would give to find some modern 'real Si Fi, instead of things like 'Disc World' and the other attempts to produce imaginary civilizations from todays silly ideas of the future.
All we have today Scary is Science Fantasy.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
01/05/2008, 3:17 AM
|
Equitator
Joined on 04/11/2003
Posts 925
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Scaramouche wrote: | |
I grew up in the postwar sci-fi boom of US and British writers like Clarke, Bester, Matheson, Philip K Dick, Van Vogt, Wyndham.
Mostly they applied and combined their arts of prediction to the social, physical and technical sciences, so their fiction could create future worlds and future times.
It’s not only a playground for the imagination, but also for the cynic and the satirist. Not to mention the humorist
And few themes went unattended. It's why even today, Hollywood keeps revisiting them for inspiration.
Although the Sci-Fi greats failed to predict the Aids Virus for instance, there were at least three novellas which used the theme of an STD changing the world (and society), through viral means.
When TV came along, I believe it made a pisspoor job of tapping this rich vein of creativity, and not just because it couldn’t match Hollywood for effects budgets.
But though I’m no trekkie, I have to admit that by and large the Americans managed it better than us.
In the UK, Dr Who proved a poor successor to Quatermass (which at least challenged the imagination), and Blake’s 7 was even worse.
Its ironic that classic sci-fi flourished in an era before space flight was possible, but dwindled in the disappointing aftermath of the moon landing, and the acceptance that the nearest other inhabitable planet was a very long reach away, if, indeed it existed at all?
Today, thanks to authors like Ian M Banks, the flame is still alive, but the genre is in danger of subsumation into the general field of Fantasy.
Brit TV Sci-Fi is often excused because cheap FX fail to convince or suspend disbelief, but most of us could have lived with that if only it had been better written and more imaginatively and intelligently plotted. Am I pessimistic about the small screen future?
Well put it this way. Sky won't be getting my subscription on the promise of a Blake's 7 revival.
|
|
Keep it up Sunny Jim, you've found your metier.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
05/05/2008, 12:28 AM
|
JayTee
Joined on 15/11/2006
North Walsham
Posts 111
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Scaramouche wrote: | |
I grew up in the postwar sci-fi boom of US and British writers like Clarke, Bester, Matheson, Philip K Dick, Van Vogt, Wyndham.
Mostly they applied and combined their arts of prediction to the social, physical and technical sciences, so their fiction could create future worlds and future times.
|
|
Me too, and I still much prefer reading a good sci-fi story to seeing a dumbed down film/TV version (I tried to watch Starship Troopers, hoping that some of the cultural satire would come through but gave up in disgust, and as for I Robot....)
Still there have been some good attempts to translate stories to the screen fairly accurately - look at Clarke's 2001, or Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. My all time favourite has to be Blade Runner though.
Blakes 7 brings back memories, as a youngster I was much less critical and remember it fondly, along with 'the tomorrow people' (remember that?)
Lack of originality still persists. Will Smith in a remake of 'the Omega man' beggars belief, and I hear a new version of 'The Andromeda Strain' as a mini series leaves much to be desired.
Brit sci-fi isn't quite dead, but it has lost it's way (possibly from following the sat nav of popularity too literally). I thought 'The Last Train' showed promise initially, but it soon lost the plot.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
05/05/2008, 2:58 AM
|
HicklingGirl
Joined on 05/05/2008
Posts 1
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sky did okay with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books so I reckon they will spend on Blake's 7.
I've only ever seen clips of the Beeb series, but it looked like just another space opera.
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
06/05/2008, 11:51 AM
|
spindrift
Joined on 04/04/2006
Posts 2,440
|
Re: Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Scaramouche wrote: | Dismayed to hear the at following the BBC's success with the resurrected Doctor Who (or Doctor Camp as it's been dubbed), Sky One are to bring back Blake's 7.
Bearing in mind that the latter (if not the former) is to the Sci-Fi genre, what Graham Norton is to Six Nations Rugby, it seems to be an odd choice, although there may be some regional bonusses.
Q - Whitlingham Sewage Works as the filming location for the lost Planet Excretia.
Blake himself was of course, Welsh, with provided an excuse for his early demise, and the series went on to be dominated by a bizarre line-up of characters who seemed to have been cast out of a fetish club.
Remember the androgynous, Thatcheresque Servelan, and the supposedly macho, but decidedly faux/bondage/camp bloke who's name began with an 'A' ?
Most challenging yet will be the ambition to make the series in High definition. It's going to be much. much easier to spot the taped-over road markings and other scenic services tricks by which Norfolk or Northumbria become the Outer Limits.
I'd say that for Sky TV executives, this resurrection is not their brightest bet for ratings success.
In fact, they'd do better to bring back the Potter's Wheel.
|
|
On 24 April 2008, Sky One announced that they had commissioned two 60-minute scripts for a potential series, working alongside Blake's 7 Productions, a subsidiary of Blake's 7 Media who owns the licence to the show.[71]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_7#Television
|
|
|
|
|
Report
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 1 of 2 (17 items)
|
1 2 > |
|
|
|
EDP24 Forums » EDP24 General » News » Blakes 7 - Back to the Future
|
|
|
|