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the 2 dr who movies starring peter cushing as the doctor

Mr Pointy Ears

Captain
Captain
Just wondering if anyone here have seen the 2 dr who movies dr who and the daleks(1965)and Daleks-invasion earth 2150 AD(1966) both starring peter cushing,i think i seen the 2nd one.What did u think of both movies?.
 
One of my local (then independent) TV stations aired the Cushing films as late-night movies while my local PBS station continued to air the actual program. From what I remembered of them, they seemed a bit more kid-oriented and Cushing's Doctor was a different take on the character (I think it was implied that he was Human and that the TARDIS was his Earth-built invention).

I think if I had seen it without seeing the original TV program, I probably would have dismissed them as little more than B-movies, although I remember that the production values were pretty good for the time. Within the context of Doctor Who, they represent an alternate version of the property.
 
They were both pretty fun. Don't expect anything too serious from them though. They're rewrites of the two early Hartnell serials of similar name. All three companions are somewhat rewritten - Chesterton's a buffoon for instance, and as c.e. says so is the doctor, who is now an elderly human scientist.
 
The movies are great and a lot of fun, love Cushing's take on the Dr, love the tardis interiour and the Dalek colour scheme is very groovy.

Its a shame the third movie fell through, they would have made a great trilogy.
 
I like these two films. Daft as a brush. And of course, one of them has The Cribbens!
 
One of my local (then independent) TV stations aired the Cushing films as late-night movies while my local PBS station continued to air the actual program. From what I remembered of them, they seemed a bit more kid-oriented and Cushing's Doctor was a different take on the character (I think it was implied that he was Human and that the TARDIS was his Earth-built invention).

Cushings doctor was indeed human with his own invented Tardis. In fact he's not even the Doctor, he's a guy literally called Dr. Who.

I actually saw these films long before i saw the television series. I remember them being quite enjoyable, although i was about 7 or 8 at the time.
 
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I think these movies are terrific fun, with much better production values than the tv show could manage at the time. I know some fans have problems with the rejigging of the backstory, but a lot of that is based on years of tv history which hadn't been invented at the time the movies were made. Consequently, I think the movies work perfectly well as an alternative rendering of the tv show concept. I would recommend both movies. In answer to the OP, yes, I have seen them many times, far more often than the tv episodes on which they're based.
 
One great thing about them, the Actress they cast for Susan was appropriately aged to the way the part was written. Susan Ford in the Series, was acting like a 10 or 12 year old character much of the time (I wouldn't be surprised if this was why she wanted out) and it was kind of uncomfortable, IMHO.

I actually have plans to watch them this weekend. For a few years, I've had the first one (A VHS I transferred to DVD) and just this week, I found the second one on an old VHS recording from TV I never realized I had, so, that'll be a treat since I've never seen it, and it will be great seeing Bernard Cribbins so young, since I really enjoy Wilf.
 
The movies are fun and worth seeing, especially the second one which features a certain Bernard Cribbins as a co-star.

Peter Cushing was a great Doctor and a fantastic choice in the role.

The reason why you often hear people putting them down is because they were so loose as far as being adaptations of the TV series, with the Doctor being named Dr. Who and made human and all of that. And it's the source of the fear and loathing over the David Yates film. But as standalones they're fine and the TV series made good use of the Daleks that were constructed for the films, too.

And the expanded universe of Doctor Who long ago worked the movies into continuity (I can't remember how - it's covered in one of the Virgin New Adventure novels I believe, or maybe a Short Trips short story). And the unauthorized John Peel book I Am the Doctor: Unauthorised Diaries of a Time Lord provides a great bit of rationalization -- that the two movies were based upon Barbara Wright's memoir of travelling with the Doctor, in which she changed a number of details such as renaming the Doctor "Dr. Who". It's a similar rationale given for why the Doctor Who and the Daleks novelisation is so much different from the TV story and does stuff like calling Susan "Susan English"...

One question I do have about the Cushing films is when are they coming to Blu-ray in North America? They'd make a great double-feature set.

Alex
 
^ So how come you can accept and praise the Cushing movies, to the extent of wanting them on Blu-ray, but you're dead-set against the proposed Yates movie?
 
LOve them both loads! Great way to kill an afternoon with my two kids, a bit scary here and there for the 4 year old but enjoyable for us.
Apparently Cushing really enjoyed the role when asked about it.

Here's a lil something I found on youtube
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/josI9YR45dI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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They would show up on TV quite often when I was a kid. Probably my first encounter with anything related to Doctor Who.
 
LOve them both loads! Great way to kill an afternoon with my two kids, a bit scary here and there for the 4 year old but enjoyable for us.
Apparently Cushing really enjoyed the role when asked about it.

Here's a lil something I found on youtube
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/josI9YR45dI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That look like a brillaint movie, and Dracula vs a Dalek.....awesome in evey way.

The CGI in that is also very well done, the Dalek stuff is very impressive.
 
I just finished watching Daleks 2150 on the DVR. I hadn't seen these 2 since around 1980, so my memory was quite dim on them (still is on the first one).

In this second one, they never mention the "Doctor" being Human. I could actually see Cushing being a slightly younger Doctor #1 in this movie. Similar mannerisms, but less cranky.

Susan was younger and there was a niece, so fast forward to Unearthly Child, and depending on how fast young Gallifreyans age, it could work. They just managed to lose Louise somewhere along the line.

Has there ever been a novel making a connection?

The Daleks-as-fire-extinguishers were sorta funny and good to see Bernard Cribbins again. A neat switch from the old Wilf/young Doctor of TEOT (which I just watched recently).

----
And on a completely unrelated note, happy promotion to me :techman:. I kept thinking I needed 5000 experience points to get to 10th level ;).
 
Couldn't get through the second movie, but the first one was fairly enjoyable.

Very strange though that these epic, big-budget movies actually had a cheaper TARDIS Console Room than the TV series back then. Hell, they couldn't even bother to cover the windows so you couldn't see the actors standing inside the prop!

And while everyone seems to love Cushing's Doctor, I find him very uninteresting and one-dimensional myself. He certainly looks the part, but he basically just comes across as the typical clueless grandfather/professor of most 1960s scifi.
 
^^ I haven't seen the serials in a while but it seemed they were more effective in some of the big scenes like the Dalek rising out of the Thames and the smashing through them with a lorry. The movie seemed to being trying to hard to be a children's film.
 
Couldn't get through the second movie, but the first one was fairly enjoyable.

Very strange though that these epic, big-budget movies actually had a cheaper TARDIS Console Room than the TV series back then. Hell, they couldn't even bother to cover the windows so you couldn't see the actors standing inside the prop!

And while everyone seems to love Cushing's Doctor, I find him very uninteresting and one-dimensional myself. He certainly looks the part, but he basically just comes across as the typical clueless grandfather/professor of most 1960s scifi.

:lol: I thought the same thing about the TARDIS interior. Not to mention the lack of any other effects.

It couldn't have been easy to out-cheap the BBC.
 
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