Christ, I’m sick of hearing about the sodding thing already.
Mooted cinematic Doctor Who outings
have so consistently gone nowhere that this feels too abstract to really believe that in
four years I might be here reviewing it.
But – regardless of the actual likelihood of this whole
thing coming to aught – my initial response, that refitting Doctor Who for a global audience will no
doubt be seen to require some major work, fills me with horror. But, actually,
there’s a lot about the template Davies established (and which Moffat has done little
to change, fundamentally) that I don’t like in the present incarnation of the
series, so the idea of an entirely fresh approach could in fact yield something
amazing, and perhaps unprecedented.
Could.
Maybe a ‘new take’ (in the sense that the UNIT era, or
season 18, or the Cartmel seasons – and numerous others – were relative
departures at the time) is quite exciting – there just seems to be an arrogance
immediately apparent in Yates’ patronising ‘they did a good job, but we’re
going to do something better’ implication… which reet puts my back up. On an
entirely first-impressions basis, I’m feeling maybe it’ll be a godsend if this
is entirely separate from the series, and even the existing canon/continuity
(rendering it as apocryphal as the Dalek movies).
Obviously, speculation at this stage on whether a film might
be a continuation of the series, or replace it (at least temporarily), or exist
entirely separately, is patently futile, so let’s put that to one side. More to
the point, a film, at least if done relatively straightforwardly – eccentric,
mysterious time traveller fights aliens – could be great. But David Yates' hand on the tiller
doesn’t fill me with massive amounts of confidence. Okay, he’s done some worthy
TV, and
Harry Potter admittedly isn’t
my bag, but he doesn’t strike me as a director with the individualistic or
original sensibility that a project like this might really benefit from. (The
Harry Potter movies’ self-importance and
sense of undeserved weightiness is actually not a million miles away from the
TVM. And if you've read
my thoughts on that,
well
– ALARM BELLS, to put it mildly.) Of course, from an industry perspective, what
you could politely term ‘a safe pair of hands’ (ie, not a Terry Gilliam) is
always going to be the preferred route – the path of least resistance - but creatively, that thinking is death.
In a period characterised by the bastardisation of
anything vaguely worthwhile (remaking The
Wicker Man, The Ladykillers, Akira, Let the Right One In, Straw Dogs, blah blah blah…), I can’t begin
to imagine how horrendous a big-screen ‘reimagining’ has the potential to be. Either
the excessive, pointless backstory-wank of the post-Survival movie pitches, or some ‘postmodern’ Bewitched-style metatextual abortion where ‘the Doctor’ is really
Peter Cushing’s son. Pretending to be an alien. (Or something.)
I shudder to think the liberties that might be taken in the
interests of making the property accessible to a global audience to whom Doctor Who means nothing. If the
twenty-first century revival has shown us anything, it’s that respect for the
existing series is not only possible in light of an effective reboot, but
desirable in terms of depth of story and also fan/audience goodwill. There’s
definitely an unfortunate potential for a movie to try to define itself as a
separate entity from the series (even if it does prove to be ostensibly linked
to the existing continuity) with gratuitous redesigns and rethinking of
established elements. (Which seems a bit pointless given the infinite
possibility for satisfying adventures within the ‘mad man with a box’
template.) I just really hope things aren’t changed things for the sake of
change, or that they're at least justified narratively if they are.
Also, in structural terms, with so much riding on a (by
comparison to TV) large budget and a short running time, I can imagine a
one-off Doctor Who movie becoming hamstrung by trying to represent the entire
franchise with a standalone hour-and-a-half story, and ending up trying to be
all things to all people and doing too much. This could be ugly. Given Doctor
Who’s ability (in a series) to change from episode to episode, maybe the way to
equal that in film would be a wide-ranging, multi-location story akin to
Moffat’s finales. It would also be good to see the budget used for foreign
location filming outside of the series’ means, but I imagine a biscuit-tin
England is more likely, given its ‘Englishness’ will no doubt be used as an
international selling point.
More generally, in terms of money, I’ve repeatedly said
that, in recent years, my favourite stories have been the lower-budget ones
that have to get by on invention rather than money, so the prospect of a big budget
take makes my heart sink. Though, on the (admittedly, rather meagre) plus side, a cast of actors of the calibre of
Maggie Smith, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Fiona Shaw, et al, in Doctor Who, would be pretty nifty.
So, I dunno. I’m not actually as absolutely scandalised by
this announcement as I could be – although apathy could be doing its bit there.
A big, fun, exciting, scary, mad adventure (which doesn’t mess up or,
necessarily, even engage with existing continuity) – sounds like it should be
easy. Just as long as it’s not mired in continuity, backstory, infodumps. Or
Gallifrey.
(I’ve seen a lot of messageboard comments suggesting pre-100,000 BC adventures. To which I can
only say: please, god, no. Not only because of my massive affection for the
earliest seasons, but because (DUH!) elucidating origins that have remained
opaque for 50 years would be even more of a disaster than, say, ahem, opening a
stand-alone movie with a regeneration. More prosaically, the First Doctor
doesn’t even like humans at the time of that first story, and he’s certainly
not a moral crusader at that point, so how would earlier stories work? A
Hartnell lookalike collecting soil samples hardly screams moneyspinner.)
I will monitor development with… trepidation.
Oh, and, okay, while we’re at it: the inevitable casting mêlée.
The one slightly interesting suggestion that I’ve heard so far (read as: which
will never, ever happen) is Andy Serkis. I’d go with
Toshiro Mifune, myself. But he’s dead. Or take a punt on Klaus Kinski. But he’s
insane
and dead. Or Tilda Swinton.
But that would be too ‘edgy’. Or Simon Russell Beale. But he’s rotund, 50, and
no-one knows who he is. More realistically, Chiwetel Ejiofor could be good.
Maybe Peter Capaldi, or Dominic West (a burlier Doctor?). Just no-one boringly
young, bland and good-looking – ta.
