Those were very annoying.
Colour Version of "The Daleks" coming 23rd November
- Thread starter Rich Watson
- Start date
Those were very annoying.
I missed it.
Any CGI to show the Thals shrivel from radiation? A zone of petrification advancing?
I watched this new version on iPlayer. I found the editing clumsily done with several key points removed (as others have mentioned), the inclusion of which would not have extended the runtime significantly. It's a worthwhile experiment, albeit not very well executed. I won't be buying the Blu-ray.
I think they're on the right track with the idea. It'd be fun to be a fly on the wall to see how the limits were placed with time allotment or other factors. Just enough key moments were removed... I recall Genesis of the Daleks was released in an edited format on LP in the 70s, Morbius was given a 60-minute truncated version on VHS, and Enlightenment and Planet of Fire getting omnibus edits on DVD. At least, prior to the DVD releases, people buying the condensed edits were wondering what was cut and were pining for the full-length versions. Now it's the other way around. It's hilarious in a way.
To be fair, especially with a long story, having to sit there and document scenes and decide what to take out is a bit of a lengthy chore. The tighter the net result (e.g. 75 minutes) makes it more daunting when you're going from ~168 minutes. One would have to watch it multiple times, and/or with an editor also familiar with the story and its progression, to confirm how the revised story flow progressed and hope that something springs to mind, such as "we need to keep that moment, what else can be shaved off?". There may have been deadlines and delays that rendered this a rush as well. The actual colorizing is amazing. The sound/music is competently orchestrated, even if it's either misplaced or trying to feel like the Cushing movie. The original, despite being slow in spots, did sell a buildup of mystery, fear and threat extremely well. Didn't bother me as a kid and that was in the late-80s when pacing was already faster than the standards set in the 70s.
I'll be buying it anyway; the original will be upscaled/enhanced for blu-ray and it'll be a while before the season comes out in full on blu-ray. hopefully there will be bonus features discussing how the colorizing was done, the how and why for tightening up a story, as well as other making-of tibits aren't included.
While obviously a lot of professional work and money went into this, the end result is disappointingly amateurish. It puts me in mind of a great many YouTubers' restoration and enhancement projects of the 2005-15ish period.
The colourisation itself varies - sometimes it actually looks like contemporary colour productions (e.g. the Cushing films) but other times, as already said, the colours look painted on. Really, it's the 405-line picture quality of the original that still holds the image back, even when no longer monochrome.
The layering of revival-style visual effects (such as laser beams and Dalek-vision) onto 1960s videotape is quite jarring as the textures don't match at all, and the modern music doesn't really synchronise with 1960s acting and direction either.
The heavy cutting also changes the feel of the piece. Way back in 2009 an online reviewer said "It's a shame they decided to stretch three episodes worth of plot over seven; they'd have had it over and done with in forty-two minutes in the modern era.", which is weird because this attempt actually does compress the seven episodes into the length of three, yet it comes off feeling too abridged. Perhaps one hundred minutes would have been better. It's as if I'm watching a summary of the story rather than the full thing, whizzing from plot point to plot point too quickly to properly take anything in so that it all winds up feeling a little artistically unsatisfying.
The colourisation itself varies - sometimes it actually looks like contemporary colour productions (e.g. the Cushing films) but other times, as already said, the colours look painted on. Really, it's the 405-line picture quality of the original that still holds the image back, even when no longer monochrome.
The layering of revival-style visual effects (such as laser beams and Dalek-vision) onto 1960s videotape is quite jarring as the textures don't match at all, and the modern music doesn't really synchronise with 1960s acting and direction either.
The heavy cutting also changes the feel of the piece. Way back in 2009 an online reviewer said "It's a shame they decided to stretch three episodes worth of plot over seven; they'd have had it over and done with in forty-two minutes in the modern era.", which is weird because this attempt actually does compress the seven episodes into the length of three, yet it comes off feeling too abridged. Perhaps one hundred minutes would have been better. It's as if I'm watching a summary of the story rather than the full thing, whizzing from plot point to plot point too quickly to properly take anything in so that it all winds up feeling a little artistically unsatisfying.
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the original music is there, but Mark Ayres added some. A very comic piece which doesn't work well in particular.
BritBox is the main streaming service for Classic Who, An Adventure in Space & Time and some of the other anniversary specials, so if it's going pop up on any of the streaming services it'll probably be there. They also have at least some of Classic Who, including the animated recreations, which are not on BritBox, on Tubi, so it could also show up there.
The War Games will also be getting this treatment.
Already being discussed in its own thread.
The War Games -- colororized
I wonder if this is going to be all 10 episodes or if it's going to be an edited down version. Most likely the latter, I imagine. The War Games is a personal favorite of mine and I'm usually not a fan of longer arcs. If the trailer is any indication, the regeneration scene seems to have been...
www.trekbbs.com
What is it with colorizing old classics, these days?
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
--Ian Malcolm
"und kleben ein Ettikett auf eine Plastikdose und verhökern es"... Indeed, indeed.
Not just "these days" -- it's been going on since colorization was introduced. Media mogul Ted Turner made a big push in the mid-1980s for colorizing old B&W shows and movies to make them "accessible" to narrow-minded audiences, though he backed down from some of it in response to criticism. But his cable channels like TBS and TNT showed colorized versions of B&W shows, which looked strange because it was just blocks of color superimposed on grayscale, giving fabrics a kind of metallic sheen. The idea was that you could turn down the color knob on your TV if you wanted (since TVs were still mostly analog) and it would look black-and-white, but the lack of color-graded shadows (if that's the term) made the color version look unreal.
I long for the day when everything is in colour. So long as the monochrome originals are available to satisfy the purists.
As I already stated: The idea of "Space Patrol Orion" in colour is interesting, yes - but I highly doubt, that it would look good.
I see no need for everything to be in color. I mean, a book is black ink on white paper, and that's enough.
Can't disagree for sure. But, yeah, when all is said and done, it's a delicate process and my second footnote poses the ultimate question. That said, comparing - of all things - "Gilligan's Island"'s first season to the proper color of seasons 2 and 3, it's both a technical marvel of the time (late-80s) as well as being just as hideously bad with mismatched colors* and **, non-colorized areas that quickly distract from what is***, and so on. Wasn't there a Simpsons clip of a parody of some show's colorization or something and it gets every single tone so hilariously wrong?
* Such as a lovely purple sky, overly-bright sky blue water that also turns puke teal as it fades into the background****, Skipper's shirt being very dark blue rather than the normal medium blue (it's quite pronounced), skin tones so oversaturated that look like they were simmering at 425 degrees in an oven next to a glazed chicken, then conversely when the colors were somehow undersaturated of all things, or anything in between where the colorization isn't done right with the result that the cast now look like blotchy gray/beige zombies that detract and create an unwanted comedy of its own as a result, and so on**.
** Most video/graphic design instructors will say any number of things about the concept, which isn't bad but still leaves so little room for error because the human eye invariably picks up on things that "don't look quite right", whether it's a color tone or set perspective/scale, substitute material (e.g. should look like metal but is plastic), and so on. IMHO, it was made with what was available and the goal was to have the story and characters sell what the technology of the time could not. Is it really that much different today compared to back then?
*** Bewitched, despite having been done decades later and was really well done, still had occasional goofs. My favorite involves Uncle Arthur's head under a covered serving platter - ostensibly silver, there are two problems: 1. no color casting or reflecting is a dead giveaway as everything reflecting from it is pure grayscale, and 2. it looks like LEAD because the black and white film process required other translations other than just RGB application (also think of Skipper's too-dark blue shirt for what might allude to the same cause and reason.)
**** being made in the 1960s doesn't quite explain the unintentional groovy psychedelia imposed, and - side note - I'm just glad that all of the original broadcast Star Trek still exists in color, since colorization would never ever be done right, especially given the intricacies applied in its original filming for lively hues and livelier shadow detail
I wonder if they cleaned up some of the colorized Gilligan's Island when they upgraded the picture quality. While there is still a little off, and there is purple skies, the versions they show now doesn't seem to be quite as extreme as what you describe. I kind of like how things have worked out with Gilligan's Island, MeTV and Sundance Channel both show it, and MeTV shows the colorized version, while Sundance shows the black and white version, so you can have can pick which you'd rather watch.
Well, maybe "purplish"... It's possible that color tones could have been tweaked rather than redone completely. I'd looked up images online and they were of varying quality. Depends on what sources they came from and when they were taken. The Skipper's dark blue shirt is a constant, regardless, as they just painted blue over a dark shirt and didn't compensate for relative brightness. YouTube has a plethora of examples of season 1 in color and they do vary in quality. Gilligan's red shirt is also a muted lighter red and not a bold red as well... that said, skin tones will never be perfect, as colorization won't fix everything. Even the other show's releases have the occasional zombie-like tones that reveal the monochromatic origins. Granted, to nitpick over a shirt is silly, but if a new colorization, using modern methods and not what was technically impressive for 1988, managed to color-match all of the known colors, they'd probably be a lot closer to the original.