Power of the Daleks - Special Edition DVD/BD (improvement of previous animation)

So, uh, this came out of nowhere:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Daleks-Special-Blu-ray/dp/B0851LJYCH/

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Patrick Troughton stars in this recreation of a lost classic from 1966.

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Polly and Ben to a colony on the swamp planet of Vulcan. Soon after arriving, the Doctor witnesses a brutal murder.

Meanwhile, in another part of the colony an ancient crashed space capsule has been discovered in the swamps. The colony's misguided chief scientist opens the capsule and discovers a group of strange metal 'creatures' inside. The creatures appear to be long dead. The Doctor calls the metal creatures 'Daleks' and claims that they are incredibly dangerous.

'Power of the Daleks' was the first Doctor Who story to star Patrick Troughton as the Doctor - broadcast between November and December 1966. Sadly, none of the six original broadcast episodes of 'Power of the Daleks' any longer exist in the BBC Film Archives. However, complete audio recordings of the lost episodes have survived in the hands of private collectors. And it is these audio recordings that are used as the basis for this special animated production of the programme. Now in a brand new edition and brought to you in glorious black and white...

Includes exciting new special features:
• Two new documentaries about Power of the Daleks
• 1993 BBC audio version of The Power of the Daleks narrated by Tom Baker
• Raw incidental music
• Photogrammetry Featurette
• Whicker's World - I Don't Like My Monsters to Have Oedipus Complexes
• Daleks - The Early Years: A 1992 documentary presented by Peter Davison
• Robin Hood - 1953 Episode: Patrick Troughton’s earliest surviving TV appearance
• BBC archive footage from BBC regional news, BBC Breakfast, Blue Peter and Newsnight
• Previously unreleased animation trailers and animatics

Additional bonus material:
• Audio commentaries by Anneke Wills on each episode
• Animation test footage
• Photo Gallery, including previously unreleased and rediscovered full colour on-set photos from 1966.
• Servants & Masters - The Making of The Power of the Daleks
• Doctor Who – The Highlanders
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Also (and bafflingly not mentioned in the PR), the animation has been substantially updated according to the director of the power animations (Charles Norton), and it should be closer to Macra/Faceless. Eager to see the animation differences between the previous release and this one. I'm sure someone will put up comparison videos.

 

There's nothing really wrong with the original animation so why double dip? (Yes, other animations are better. That alone isn't a reason to spend a ton of time reanimating the whole thing all over again.)

The narrated audio version by Anneke Wills is the far better one too.

Some of the bonus materials look good. Including Wills' commentaries.

 

The original animation was kinda rushed on a tight budget, and certain glitches crept in. Scenes not quite matching the telesnaps, clothes changing in mid-scene, colors being wrong (not noticeable in the b&w version, of course). I think it's more that they just want to fine-tune it and get it perfect before they end up putting it in the Season 4 Collection Blu-ray (which, at the rate they're going, can't be too many more years away). I wouldn't be surprised if they end up going back and reinstating the missing 'refreshment chamber' scene to Macra as well.

 

I hope so, although they'd also need to reanimate the earlier scenes with Polly's original hair and wardrobe.

 

I know from previous docs that the animation team were kind of unhappy with the Power animation - it was done in a huge rush. Also, it's not a case of reanimating the whole thing - here's what Norton said:

"The animation hasn't just been tweaked. It's been very extensively revised. Big ground up re-build. Huge job. Every shot has been re-composited. Many sections have been re-animated from scratch. In fact, the entire first third of episode 1 has essentially been redone completely anew. That part's unrecognisable now. It'll be a good quarter of an hour in before you'll see any shots that are even close to how they used to look. It's still limited animation of course, made with limited resources. However, it should be twenty times better than it was. It should feel like a new programme and will sit far more comfortably alongside the other Troughton animations we have done since. It's essentially what we set out to do back in 2016, on the original rush-release, but were unable to complete in the time. We've gone in and fixed all the things (well, most of them) that have niggled us since 2016. It's not a completely new animation - not a completely fresh-start - in that we've not scrapped all the original work. There's still lots of the original in there, but it is still a massive revision."

 

Talk about a labor of love...

A lot of animations aren't perfect and some were for more renowned stories... And given the nature of "Power" (like how previous DVD releases had more goodies based on reputation), so for them to rush the original release seems -- (a bunch of words you'd hear on Comedy Central or Star Trek Picard)?!

It's also not available for shipping outside of the UK, citing "high demand" - which seems a little strange.

 

I'll be buying it. And hopefully they'll fix Macra Terror, too, to make it more consistent with The Moonbase and to complete the overall story.

 

Okay, after reading that, I'm considering actually getting this special edition.

..if and whenever it actually comes out in the US.

 

One thing to note is that it won't have the colourised versions, only black & white. Apparently the colour version was done after the fact for the American release by a different team. I guess they don't have the budget to do that again.

My understanding is Power was rushed to meet the 50th anniversary deadline. These projects have always had issues with funding, presumably the feeling was that if it was timed for the 50th then it would sell better, which probably helped make the money available in the first place.

 

Fine by me. I would only ever watch it in black and white.

 

I actually prefer watching in colour for Macra and Faceless. Though I have no issue with watching in black & white at all. If it's there, I'll take it, if it's not, I won't mourn it.

 

I like that there are options available, and in the future there's no doubt in my mind that colorizations of the Hartnell-Troughton eras will be forthcoming... but b&w works for those eras in a way it doesn't, say, any of the Third Doctor's. I remember reading Wife in Space blog, before it went defunct, and the husband insisted on watching some of the Pertwee's in b&w because "they're better that way" and I wanted to shout at him just how wrong he was about it. Pertwee's The Silurians in no way looks as good in B&W as The Web of Fear or The War Games naturally do.

 

The original animation includes some slip-ups, including Ben and Polly wearing colony outfits before they change.

 

Sounds like they really mean it as far as not animating any of the historical episodes; Power was supposed to have a telesnap-only version of The Highlanders included (as listed above), but there just wasn't room left on the disc. Guess they'll save it for the Season 4 Collection BR.

 

If I recall correctly, the tartans in The Highlanders were a particular problem for animating.

 

That will be genuinely sad. I was hoping we'd get the full set. I know its hard work, but surely some exception can be made for The Crusade? Its two episode at least, and the work load could amount what would have been the equivalent for a whole serial, no?

 

The Crusade has been specifically mentioned as unlikely to be animated.

 

A shame. The whitewashing aside, I'm quite fond of that story and Julian Glover is terrific in it.

 

I'm really getting tired of how hard it is in 3D animation to change characters' clothes. It leads to ridiculous things like the scenes in Star Wars Resistance where Torra Doza is lounging on her bed in her quarters in her full flight suit.

But then, I suppose it's always been an issue in animation. In the animated Star Trek, the only time any character ever changed their clothes was in "Yesteryear" when Spock put on a desert robe -- and even then you could see his Starfleet uniform collar underneath it. Other than that, the only alterations were equipment belts, tricorder straps, the occasional special backpack, and force field belts (which were used specifically so that they didn't have to create separate spacesuit models).

 

Very interesting interview with the director of the Power animation here: