Author Topic: TV and Movie Thread  (Read 32129 times)

Emil

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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #120 on: January 05, 2016, 07:18:16 AM »
Spoiler: show

don't take this personally, you are entitled to your own opinion and impression of the movie, but please look deep inside your soul and think about if you're 100% certain you'd have these complaints about rey if she was a male character. because every single female character who ever does anything gets the same criticism for being "too competent". because the way i see it, rey is one of the most important female characters i've ever seen in cinema because she gets to do things guys in movies do ALL THE TIME. yeah, sure, you can nitpick on anything she does, but i've seen the movie thrice and not once did i ever think "well that's just unrealistic". ok, so she beats up some dudes (that are already hurt or have just walked through a desert but whatever) and can pilot some ships, but finn is also like, the only stormtrooper in the galaxy that knows how to hit a target? HOW ABOUT THAT. she still get captured. she still gets rescued. she still gets help. she doesn't do everything on her own! SHE EVEN MAKES MISTAKEs like that with the rathtars!! she even admits to making the mistake!!

Rey is one of the coolest female characters ever and we never get anything like her and star wars is full of mary sues anyway, can we please just have her in peace without people left and right nitpicking her apart! but also i spent yesterday making a starwarsona with an actual rainbow lightsaber so i understand if you wouldn't listen to me.


Spoiler: show
I gotta agree with John on this one, just because past Star Wars movies had Mary Sues doesn't make it alright to do it again no matter the gender of the character.
I'm all for strong characters but her only flaw was wanting to go back to Jakku and to be honest how is that a real flaw? I'm sorta disappointed in how her character was ultimately handled. She went from 0 to 11 after being kidnapped by Ren and learned to do jedi mindtricks. Jedi mindtricks! And she was still in some sort of denial about her force powers.

It's a good film, but I feel it could have been done a lot better. If she had proper flaws, then she would have had a more interesting character development as she tries to tackle these flaws.

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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #121 on: January 05, 2016, 07:29:07 AM »
Spoiler: show

don't take this personally, you are entitled to your own opinion and impression of the movie, but please look deep inside your soul and think about if you're 100% certain you'd have these complaints about rey if she was a male character. because every single female character who ever does anything gets the same criticism for being "too competent". because the way i see it, rey is one of the most important female characters i've ever seen in cinema because she gets to do things guys in movies do ALL THE TIME. yeah, sure, you can nitpick on anything she does, but i've seen the movie thrice and not once did i ever think "well that's just unrealistic". ok, so she beats up some dudes (that are already hurt or have just walked through a desert but whatever) and can pilot some ships, but finn is also like, the only stormtrooper in the galaxy that knows how to hit a target? HOW ABOUT THAT. she still get captured. she still gets rescued. she still gets help. she doesn't do everything on her own! SHE EVEN MAKES MISTAKEs like that with the rathtars!! she even admits to making the mistake!!

Rey is one of the coolest female characters ever and we never get anything like her and star wars is full of mary sues anyway, can we please just have her in peace without people left and right nitpicking her apart! but also i spent yesterday making a starwarsona with an actual rainbow lightsaber so i understand if you wouldn't listen to me.
Spoiler: show
For what I read, it's not the question of a female or male character, but a problem with the "too talented character" :) Characters who success in everything are as boring as characters who fail in everything, for me, and if I read John properly, it's a similar complain.
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #122 on: January 05, 2016, 07:37:37 AM »

Spoiler: show
 
she did jedi mindtricks after having her head force-invaded twice?? And she knew myths about luke?? And she didn't do it on first try?? Look, I know this probably isn't good enough for you, but im saying that EVEN IF she could be considered a mary sue, she's a well-developed one, she's the mary sue we need and deserve because we never got to have anything like her (or at least not without a fight, apparently), and if her character in this movie doesn't do it for you then that's your loss. Obviously I loved her for all the things you didn't like about her, so we can agree to disagree.

Now I need a ten page essay on luke's flaws and how his character was handled in a new hope.


melusine: I really hope the complaints have nothing to do with the character's gender, but all my life i've seen female characters being criticized and nitpicked to bits over EVERYTHING, no matter what they do, while male characters are never analyzed to the same extent. There are just a lot fewer female characters on-screen, and they are therefore held to ridiculous standards, making it hard for me to let things like this go.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2016, 07:41:27 AM by Haiz »
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #123 on: January 05, 2016, 10:42:43 AM »
Spoiler: show
I really don't get the "Rey is too flawless" point of view. She does plenty of mistakes throughout the movie. From my memories of a single viewing:
— When she first sees Fin, she attacks him without asking question, based on the word of a robot she mate the day before.
— When escaping the planet, she first dismisses the Falcon as a derelict, only reluctantly taking it after the ship she wanted to take is destroyed.
— She mistakenly free three alien beasts that were clearly said to be particularly dangerous.
— She refuses Han's hiring offer and insists she wants to get back to her planet, even though she already knows that what she's waiting for will never come.
— After her vision, instead of accepting her fate, she runs away alone in the wood, even though Han had made clear that the First Order was probably already on their trail and they couldn't stay too long on this planet.
— When feeling chased in the wood, she panics and shoots randomly, instead of trying to hide or run away as far as she can, which gets her captured.

Also, her using the jedi mind trick without training isn't that shocking: it was established in Empire Strikes Back that strong force users can use jedi powers instinctively without prior prompting — throughout the movie, Luke uses both telekinesis and telepathy for the first time without ever having even seen another jedi perform those fits.

Rey is very competent, she's an ace, and I like the way they played that, with Finn trying several times to rescue her or help her when she obviusly outclasses him, and him only slowly coming to the realisation and growing to respect her — but she's certainly not flawless.
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #124 on: January 06, 2016, 12:18:25 AM »
Spoiler: Some wild change in my point of view • show
Actually, after some pondering, I think I noticed the real reason behind my annoyment at the way that Rey was handled. And its got nothing to do with her abilities; at least not directly.

This example based of the way I reacted and not in the movie details is rather subjective, and thus perhaps not valid, but is what lead to my conclusion. Anyhow lets get on with it:

When Finn fought against the Stromtrooper with the electro-prong thing, I remember thinking two things: first "YES! a lightsaber fight" and second "Will Finn beat him?" probable because the fight started with Finn losing, and I had seen Finn already loosing a melee fight and fearing defeat from his companions. So "winning" (or more actually participating on) the made Finn grow and develop as a character.

Instead when it came to the final battle sequence I remembered thinking this:  "YES two heroes versus the skilled Sith again, AWSEOME" because I remembered the awesome fight in Phantom Menace. But then my expectations were subverted Finn fought Ren alone and ate the snow. And so it was all up to our hero, not a bad thing by itself, but instead of thinking "Can Rey win?" I thought "Rey is going to win but I bet the fight is going to be awesome" which is a problem when it comes to the climax of your movie.  I think I came to that thought because I had seen Rey not being scared of Ren and  then defeating him in a force "duel", all in a situation were tshe had even worse odds (she was shackled, and in a torture room and Ren was uninjured). So when Rey ultimately wins, her character didn't grow, her victory was just the logical conclusion.
All because she had already defeated Ren at a more difficult battle.

TLDR: Perhaps instead of her abilities being the flaw, her actual flaw was that she defeated the antagonist halfway along the movie and in a way that came completely out of the blue (torture room scene). So that her ultimate victory was already a foregone conclusion. And then people blame her expertise because that's just more easily noticeable, and lead to that not overly overt victory?

--

But also let me make a side note to state that I ought to give praise to both the personality of the character and to Daisy Ridley's acting abilities. Because the two combined managed to amaze me enough to not notice this until some good 5 days afterwards.


But since Haiz kinda asked ask about Luke's Flaws I also wanted to share what I think are his flaws:

Spoiler: A New Hope spoilers? • show

-Luke is rather, and with rather I mean very, uninteresting. He is basically the archetypical farmer hero personified; an idealist of poor upbringing with incorruptible morals who wouldn't even think to abandon his dreams, no mattering how dire the situations. Easy places to notice this: Sees massacred Jawas, no noticeable reaction, His "parents" die, no real impediment; Obi-Wan dies; some faces for a few seconds. Not really realistic at the slightest, and to be honest I do consider Luke to be the worst character on the movie. Infact the movie would have probably sucked were it not for the very awesome cast of actors George Lucas chose (mainly referring to Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing here, who both made very important contributions when it came to the way the movie was filmed). Not implying the rest of the cast did a bad job.

-Your mileage might vary, but a lot of people consider the character rather whiney. I don't consider him whiney enough to be annoyed, but I can see why others would.

In the end the only reasons I consider his character to be better handled than Rey are because: with Luke we are at least shown some small amount of training and progression between him sucking and him not sucking; and also because Luke won only at the end.


Also your OC was cool, I dont know why it would even discredit you at all. Although I do think you lost some cool points for using a rainbow katana instead of a rainbow viking longsword XD
« Last Edit: January 06, 2016, 06:54:22 PM by John Candlebury »

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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #125 on: January 06, 2016, 02:10:12 AM »
Spoiler: show
 ok i'm just gonna pitch in on this one and say that Rey is My Queen and that's partly because she is good at most of the things she does, and doesn't have some kinda bs Romantic Subplot messing with her character. She's the kind of person that I like to pretend I'd be in that kind of situation, and yet she also handles getting randomly flung around the galaxy pretty well for being kind of a Reynir. She's powerful to me because he story says "yes, you can be the badassest badass while also having no clue how to adult," which makes me happy. Also have I mentioned no romantic subplot?
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #126 on: January 06, 2016, 04:07:48 AM »
Spoiler: show
Just adding here that I completely agree with John.

It has not much to do with Rey's character, but definitely all to do with the storytelling. I am pretty certain this was meant to be a trilogy, not three trilogies mashed into three movies, but man. They pushed too much into one film and it resulted into this weird situation where (at least in my interpretation) you have two climaxes to the story that seem about equal, rather than one being higher than the other. I am curious as to how this will be continued in the next two films.

Instead, I dislike Rey in another way which is entirely personal, and that is that I find her extremely annoying. Not because of an overarching fault or anything, just that she has a type of personality that really irks me. On the other hand, I'm certain my sister would love her. (Also on that note, my sister is one of those humans that really annoy me just through personality. Probably has something to do with it.) Don't get me wrong, I really really really love that she can actually think and do things, and I do like a lot about her character, but the type of flaws she has are ones I really hate.

But yes. All that stuff aside, it really is an entertaining film. Rather nice, really. Episode I was passable, but II and III were just... what. (Clone Wars series was so very fun, though - odd how the best Star Wars thing since the original trilogy is an animated series.) This one went back to what was fun in the original series. Does make it seem like a fanservice film, but... who cares, it's so fun to watch.
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #127 on: January 06, 2016, 05:32:23 AM »
Spoiler: more rambling about star wars is anyone even surprised at this point • show

John:
Hey, nice to see you reconsider it! it was kinda inevitable for this movie to be without complaints, it's frickin star wars, no matter what they do there will be a horde of people not liking this or that. So I'm honestly kinda okay with that. The plot is kinda whatever to me, because it's the characters that drive a story for my part, and Rey is so very important to me.

as much as I'd love to see criticism on rey to be without gender bias, it's just impossible. It's sad and downright terrifying it is how people will hold female characters to ridiculous and even impossible standards, and then wishing something bad will happen to them to, well, punish them for being... whatever they are, be it "too good" or "useless". Like female characters need to be 1000% perfectly written characters to deserve a place on screen, and if not, they should just not be there at all. I KNOW this is not what you said or even intended to say, I'm just saying it's everywhere and it ruffles my feathers. everyone has a gender bias. I agree with about everything you said about Luke (the essay request was a joke but i'm happy haha), but I've never seen him get nearly as much scrutiny as Rey has gotten, despite her, in my opinion, having more of a personality and being more developed. so my point is not so much "nobody is allowed to dislike rey!!", it's "are you really sure that's your reason for disliking her?".
(also i rewatched "a new hope" yesterday and luke had basically no training in that one except five minutes with the zappy flying droide. he still manages to explode the death star in the end. shrugs)

I think you might be right that the true battle in the movie was that of the force duel in the torture chamber. It's not so much in the middle of the movie as you'd think, but it's definitely not at the end. so yeah ok plot pacing is an honest complaint i guess?? .......... ok i need to start this paragraph of things i'm trying to say in a different way hang on (i'm not even defending rey at this point im just gonna ramble about her and her story and why it's so importnat to me)

Rey is this incredibly sad and lonely person who keeps trying to decline all the opportunities given to her in the movie. why? because she doesn't think she deserves it? she keeps giving more than she gets in return, and nobody ever comes back for her, of course she doesn't think she deserves anymore. she rejects han, she rejects maz, it's only when she's been pinned as a captive in the torture room with some evil dude invading her mind she sees that ok. she definitely does NOT deserve THIS. and here's this movie named "the force awakenes". like that's the major thing of the movie. and it's not like the force has been dormant or anything, there's kylo ren, and luke was training more people than just him. maybe you just can't stifle the force by slaying all its users. it's always gonna come back. and it's coming back through rey in full force and it's beautiful and it's exhilerating and it's the entire point of the movie. it's rey taking the fate that belongs to her. she's untrained but she's strong and that's everything.
and, finally, someone did come back for her. maybe they didn't need to rescue her like a damsel, but they came back to get her and that has never happened before. kdnjkns dkhsdf  fskjsdfkbef

i mean, in the end, she doesn't accomplish nearly as much as luke did in the first movie. she doesn't go on a rescue mission and she doesn't explode the wannabe-death star. but her force awakens. that's pretty cool.


honestly, The Force Awakens, for me, has been a massive relief. because i genuinely like it. that sounds like a really weird thing for me to say, but I've never really been sure if I like star wars just because i'm "supposed" to, or if it's because I genuinely enjoy it. I know I enjoy it, but I think when I got into it to begin with, it was mostly to be able to talk to/play with my friends about it. who, at the time in elementary school, were all boys. and star wars, for some reason, is one of THE most gatekeeped franchises out there, so it's a kinda Bad Confession to admit that maybe I really did like it mostly to fit in with the boys. It's complicated - because i DID like it, but how much of this liking did i play up? WHO KNOWS not me
Anyway, by seeing The Force Awakens, it was like being invited to like it for real this time. and i love it.


i was gonna write more but i gotta catch a bus, woops

and thank you, my oc IS pretty cool! i picked a katana because i was gonna make them as mary sue as possible but then i kinda didn't do that anyway i guess.


DISCLAIMER: i wrote this post while i was half asleep which is the haiz equivalent of being drunk. if i said anything particularly weird or stupid please forgive me, i have no chill when given an opportunity to rant
« Last Edit: January 06, 2016, 07:27:31 PM by Haiz »
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #128 on: January 13, 2016, 12:09:50 AM »
It's that time of the year.

Top 20 films disovered in 2015

The top 20 films of a total of 50 films seen for the first time in 2015 (note: I didn't go to the theater in 2015, not once).

Summary of all the films seen, by decade:

1920s: 2
1930s: 6
1940s: 5
1950s: 7
1960s: 14
1970s: 3
1980s: 3
1990s: 3
2000s: 2
2010s: 5

By country:

France: 11
Japan: 10
US: 8
Soviet Union: 6
China: 4
UK: 2
Italy: 2
North Korea: 2
Sweden: 2
Germany: 1
Iran: 1
Australia: 1


Now to the top 20:


Number 20 — The Face of Another

("Tanin no kao", Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966, Japan, black and white, 2h02)

A severely disfgured man commissions a life-like mask made after someone else's face, and observes the reactions of people around him.

A quiet psychological drama that evocates, with several years of advance, the themes and atmospheres of David Lynch's films, though with more subtlety.


Number 19 — The Cranes are Flying

("Letyat zhuravli", Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957, Soviet Union, black and white, 1h37)

The life of a Russian woman during World War II, as her lover is drafted and sent to the frontline.

The film is less about propaganda and more about the suffering of the Russian people during the war, not only due to privations and loss, but also due to the betrayals of their fellow comrades. The only Soviet film to win the Palme d'Or in the Cannes Film Festival.


Number 18 — Elevator to the Gallows

("Ascenseur pour l'échafaud", Louis Malle, 1958, France, black and white, 1h28)

What should have been the perfect crime for two lovers quickly unravel into a series of dramatic events after one tiny error.

A contemplative crime-drama about two unlucky pairs of lovers-would-be-criminals, with an original soundtrack composed and performed by Miles Davis.


Number 17 — Le samouraï

(Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967, France, color, 1h45)

A few days in the live of a hitman tracked both by the police and by his former employers.

A cold and relentless crime-drama film about solitude and death.


Number 16 — La traversée de Paris

(Claude Autant-Lara, 1956, France, black and white, 1h20)

During the German occupation of France in World War II, when a smuggler's partner gets arrested, he has no choice but to accept the help of an eccentric stranger to carry four bags full of black market meat across Paris, by night.

A comedy-drama with a surprisingly nuanced view of the people of Paris under military occupation, where no one is ever stricly a pure innocent victim nor a complete monster.


Number 15 — Gone With the Wind

(Victor Fleming, 1939, US, color, 3h44)

A tumultuous and fiery romance during spanning the Antebellum, the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era.

The prototypical american epic film, one of the most rewarded films of all time, and to this day the highest-grossing one (once adjusted for inflation).


Number 14 — Le deuxième souffle

(Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966, France, black and white, 2h30)

A recently escaped gangster is planning one last caper before his retirement, but personal business soon gets in the way.

A ruthless journey into the world of the southern French mafia.


Number 13 — The Great Killing

("Dai satsujin", Eiichi Kudo, 1964, Japan, black and white, 1h47)

A low-ranking samurai gets wrongly accused of being part of a revolutionary group — which he ends up joining in a bid for revenge after officials kill his wife…

A violent and extremely nervous samurai film, partially shot in faux-documentary style.


Number 12 — Raise the Red Lantern

("Da Hong Denglong Gaogao Gua", Zhang Yimou, 1991, China, color, 2h05)

The life of the fourth wife of a wealthy aristocrat, between boredom and rivalry with the other wives…

A gorgeous color drama about the superficially luxurious, but ultimately oppressing life of women in a Chinese harem.


Number 11 — The Wolves

("Shussho Iwai", Hideo Gosha, 1971, Japan, color, 2h11)

In the 1920s, ten years after a violent altercation between two gangs of yakuza, the culprits are released from jail, just as their two gangs finalize a peace treaty and a merger; but the released gang members soon start to get assassinated one by one…

Hideo Gosha paints a slow but violent Leonesque fresco of the shadow dealings of a transforming Japan, where industrialization marches on but gang members still fight with knives.


Number 10 — Samurai Rebellion

("Joi-uchi: Hairyo tsuma", Masaki Kobayashi, 1967, Japan, black and white, 2h08)

A samurai is asked by his master to marry his son to the master's disgraced concubine. But when the master's heir dies without issue, he asks to get his concubine back…

A cruel drama about the whims of the powerful…


Number 9 — Three Outlaw Samurai

("Sanbiki no Samurai", Hideo Gosha, 1964, Japan, black and white, 1h33)

Three samurai get involved on both sides of a conflict opposing a corrupt magistrate and a band of peasants.

Hideo Gosha's debut film is a rather dark and violence but entertaining and effective story.


Number 8 — Ivan's Childhood

("Ivanovo detstvo", Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962, Soviet Union, black and white, 1h35)

The life of a child serving as a military courier and spy during World War II.

A dark and dream-like war drama filmed with the already beautiful camera movements of Tarkovsky.


Number 7 — The Godfather

(Francis Ford Coppola, 1972, US, color, 2h55)

The story of the decline of the Don Vito Corleone, and the ascension of his son Michael.

The classic american crime drama and one of the most famous films of the New Hollywood era.


Number 6 — Ivan the Terrible (part I + II)

("Ivan Grozniy", Sergei Eisenstein, 1944-46, Soviet Union, black and white with one scene in color, 3h07)

The assension of Ivan IV Vasilyevich, progressively going from an idealistic young man to a sick tyran.

The first two parts of a planned trilogy (the third part was cancelled because Stalin hated the second one, even though he had commissioned the trilogy to begin with) is a monument of Russian cinema, filmed in a very unique style (it's also a strongly propagandistic movie).


Number 5 — Devils on the Doorstep

("Guizi laile", Jiang Wen, 2000, China, black and white, 2h19)

During World War II, a peasant living near a Japanese garrison is forced by a stranger to keep two prisonners hidden in his house…

A dark and satirical comedy filmed like an old movie from the 60s. Banned in China.


Number 4 — Singin' in the Rain

(Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952, US, color, 1h43)

How actors and film studios adapt to the arrival of sound in movies.

The most famous musical, surprisingly self-aware and caustic.


Number 3 — The Hole

("Le trou", Jacques Becker, 1960, France, black and white, 2h12)

Four prison inmates are planning an escape when a fifth inmate is affected to their cell…

A claustrophobic and realistic prison break film, based on a true story.


Number 2 — The Burmese Harp

("Biruma no tategoto", Kon Ichikawa, 1956, Japan, black and white, 1h56)

The wandering in Burma of a Japanese soldier who has lost all hope, after World War II has ended.

A powerful drama about hope and redemption.


Number 1 — Black Rain

[not to be confused with the similarly named film by Ridley Scott, released the same year]

("Kuroi ame", Shohei Imamura, 1989, Japan, black and white, 2h03)

The life of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, trying to find some glimmer of hope and joy in the middle of slowly degenerating diseases and social stigma.

Far from the usual melodramatic movies about tragic events, Black Rain shows a lot of subtlety and a lot of modesty in its treatment of the subject, showing us ordinary humans dealing as they can with extreme misery.


That's all for 2015!
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Re: TV and Movie Thread
« Reply #129 on: January 13, 2016, 01:35:05 AM »
Spoiler: Star Warsy stuff • show

Eh, I found the Force Awakens to not be particularly good. The plot itself was just a rehash of the first film, and I'm not enough of a fan of the series to not get bored at the endless tributes to nostalgia. Not to say its a bad flick, but I'd rank it roughly where I put the rest of the Star Wars series 'decently entertaining film with good special effects'. The plot and characters were for the most part fairly dull, but thats something I think the rest of the Star Wars series suffers from as well. At least they added more comedic elements in this one, so I'd say its my third favorite or so of the Star Wars flicks.

One thing I really found lacking was the villains though. We got basically a useless chrome trooper and a whiny teenager with daddy & grandfather issues, although Snook or whatever might be a bit more formidable with more screentime. In comparison to Palpatine, Vader, Maul, Dooku and even that robot with four lightsabers its kinda lacking.

As for the Rey thing, my biggest complaint was that none of the new characters seemed to get enough development on-screen, since the film spent waaaaay too much time referencing the older flicks and characters. Finn was interesting enough I suppose, but Rey, Kylo, the pilot guy and the volleyball robot didn't really add much. Hell, the Scottish gangster was way more memorable than any of these.

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The Doctor Who Appreciation Thread
« Reply #130 on: August 28, 2016, 03:49:29 PM »
So, here's a thread to discuss all things Doctor Who--the show (both Classic and New), the comics, the audio dramas, the games, the books, the music, the merchandising--everything.

As a courtesy, in your first post on the thread, please put your Doctor Who "origin story": how did you find your way to the fandom? Please spoiler the long ones--we're still interested, but courtesy.

My start in Whovianism came with the restrictions my parents put on my TV watching as a child. My watching hours were limited and I was strictly enjoined to watch only what they approved. Fortunately, PBS, the U.S. Educational TV Network, had blanket approval, and in the 1980s, it was the near-exclusive home of Brit TV. Doctor Who came on at 8am Saturdays, shown in the omnibus versions that ran the four or six parts together into one or two parts. So it was that I saw portions of Pertwee and almost all of the shows that followed, right up to "Survival", McCoy's final outing. A few years passed, and then the TV movie came and went. The failure to go to series was such a blow to my hopes that when the revival came, I held off on watching for years, afraid that it would prove as chimerical. It didn't, and I am simply loving how Doctor Who has blossomed under the modern Doctors.

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Re: The Doctor Who Appreciation Thread
« Reply #131 on: August 28, 2016, 07:26:04 PM »
I grew up watching Who - I honestly can't remember when I started! I do remember thought that my parents banned it for several years after my younger brother was terrified by the giant maggots in the Pertwee story The Green Death (stupid younger brother ;) ). I had to content myself with the novelisations instead. I still have a massive collection of them.

I got back into watching the show during the McCoy era. Sylvester McCoy will always be my Doctor, and the gold and yellow Imperial Daleks are my favourites. I was heartbroken when the show was axed.

I was sceptical when the show was relaunched, but Chris Eccleston was so good that he pulled me back in. I've enjoyed the show ever since, although it's something of a different beast nowdays, leaning more towards science-fantasy than science-fiction. But that's cool.

I cried when all the Doctors appeared in the Day of the Doctor ;D
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Róisín

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Re: The Doctor Who Appreciation Thread
« Reply #132 on: August 28, 2016, 10:06:30 PM »
I was staying in London - enjoying the British Museum, British Library, Kew Gardens, the Forensic Museum, and visiting old friends who lived there to help them set up/rediscover their garden. They had bought what used to be a nunnery, and were rescuing it from neglect, restoring the building, which eventually became a rather lovely artist/musician/writer commune, with a mediaeval-style herb and vegetable garden of which I was very proud. (Well, mediaeval-style apart from the Orgone accumulator that one of the hippies insisted on building in the garden - some of those folk were strange). I'd just come from working on a herb farm in the backblocks of Provence, and was on my way to Callanish.

 During my stay in London the first episode of Dr. Who was shown on the big clunky black-and-white television set my friends had. I think the episode was called 'An Unearthly Child'? It looked very interesting, but then I spent most of the next decade in places that didn't have electricity, little say television, and forgot about it. Some years passed, and while we were stuck in Melbourne my kids pooled their earnings from their part-time jobs and bought a television (again, an old second-hand black-and-white). They soon became fans of Dr. Who, and I got to watch several of the Tom Baker stories with them. Tom Baker appealed to me, with his subtle humour, beautiful Shakespearean-actor voice and wild hair, and that combination of naïvete and competence.

I've seen the odd few episodes since, but have never had time to watch the stories consistently, even though I now have both electricity and a colour television. But I've enjoyed what I've seen so far.
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Re: The Doctor Who Appreciation Thread
« Reply #133 on: August 29, 2016, 08:10:27 AM »
can I say it here that my (real) name mean river in a slavic language and I kinda cosplayed River and loved her the most in the serie?

I also had a time I drew some arts and comics of DW (even crossovers).
my first ep scene I have seen was the angel EP with ten talking on the video. Someone linked it to a forum many years ago were I was a tag. then some people said to watch it, so I started with the new series (from the first ep)
I started watching the classic who too, but I watched only few eps of the first season with the first doctor. I never continued because I couldn't find it anywhere onlien (with subs.... their accent is hard for me, so I prefer it subbed even in english)

I actually don't know more then the tv series (Sarah Jane and torchwood series too)
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Re: The Doctor Who Appreciation Thread
« Reply #134 on: August 29, 2016, 09:36:16 AM »
You never forget your first Doctor.  Mine was Tom Baker, because before it was on PBS in the NY area, it was actually shown on a regular broadcast station. We didn't have cable.  Very few people did in the mid 1970s.  The effects were silly and the plotlines often ridiculous,but I really loved the show.

I want to say that the first episode I ever saw was Robot.

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