Doctor Who New Series 1.11 - 'Boom Town'

Plot - The Doctor, Rose and Jack land in Cardiff, where they reunite with old friend Mickey Smith and old foe Margaret Slitheen.

The eleventh episode of this series is an episode more memorable to me than I ever would have expected it to be. This is a money saver story, existing to bump the overall episode count up to thirteen per series without blowing away too many of the BBC pennies in the process. Seeing as the next two episodes would be the final story starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, Davies wanted to hold back as much capital as was possible in order to give him a grand and memorable send off. The inception and execution of Boom Town, therefore, was purely common sense from an accountant point of view.

Boom Town is set in the centre of Cardiff City; a location which just so happens to be where the BBC Wales studio is located. Seeing as the story was also set firmly in the present day, this meant that Russell and his gang of BBC employees had to do nothing more than walk out the front door with their filming equipment and get on with the job. To make life even easier for the BBC accountants, Davies also decided to bring back a monster from an earlier episode; saving them the hassle of having to redesign another slimy baddy for the shoot. 

This reoccurring monster came in the form of Margret Slitheen, one of the surviving baddies from Aliens of London/World War Three. The sudden return of Margaret really was an interesting move for Davies to make, because it almost gives off the impression that he assumed this monster would be a series favourite. The idea of this diabolical invention ever becoming a villain that warranted a second story just weeks after its debut now seems absurd, however in fairness to Davies and co, this episode was penned and filmed long before anyone had been able to express their opinions toward the Slitheen; meaning that they had no idea just how naff the audience would find them.

To slate this episode for the use of Margaret Slitheen would be a tad unfair, however, because I actually found this episode to be really enjoyable. Seriously, Davies does actually utilize Margaret in an interesting and (dare I say it) somewhat challenging way. She’s not simply some two-dimensional episode nasty who spends the next forty-five minutes stomping after the Doctor (well, she sort of does), but is actually given a chance to develop as a character in her own right. 

Near the start of the episode, Margaret is revealed to have become the Mayor of Cardiff and has initiated the construction of a nuclear power plant right in the heart of the city. At this moment, she’s still up to her old murderous tricks, as is quite apparent when she lures an investigative journalist into a restroom area and plans on slaughtering her. But suddenly, the soon-to-be victim mentions that she is soon to have a child. Margaret stops her unmasking process and begins to question the girl about her unborn child. Eventually, Margaret tells the girl that she will be some time; allowing her to escape the claws of her murderous scheme. Margaret’s decision in this scene begins to suggest that there’s more to her than was initially established. Whilst in Aliens of London/World War Three, the Slitheen family were understood to be no more than selfish murderers, yet here we are introduced to a character with more complexity than previously established. Margaret can feel empathy for her victims. If you say the right thing to her, then maybe she will let you go. There’s something bizarrely nice about this scene. It’s sort of... well... sweet…

Margaret may very well have let one of her victims back out into the big wide world unharmed, but in the Doctor’s eyes, she’s still a criminal. The Doctor spots an image of Margaret in a local news paper and takes Rose and Jack (now a newly recruited companion of  the docs) along to capture her. After a couple of bouncy chase sequences, Margaret is captured and becomes the Doctor’s prisoner. Suddenly, the direction of this episode begins to become even clearer. This isn’t going to be an episode about the Doctor, Rose and Jack trying to stop Margaret, but instead an episode about Margaret stopping the Doctor. She is his prisoner and somehow becomes something of a victim.

The episode then proceeds by asking questions about the actions of the Doctor himself. He is not going to kill Margaret directly, but he's adamant to take her back to her home world, where she is wanted for execution. The Doctor doesn’t care about the rules and does not change his mind. Just as soon as the TARDIS has refueled on Cardiff’s rift energy (more on that shortly), he plans to whisk her off back to her own world where she will suffer a brutal and agonizing death. Like all life forms who are in danger, Margaret tries to talk the Doctor out of taking her, raising some very interesting points as she attempts this. The most staggering point she makes is the idea that the Doctor is an unstoppable force, adamant on shaping the lives and worlds that he encounters. He will choose who he believes is good whilst attacks those who he’s convinced are evil. Margaret is – based on his own moral compass – an evil person who should be punished for her actions. The man is an unstoppable force, capable of making his desires become a reality. He’s a man who can bring races crashing to the ground, send beasts running into the shadows and manipulate history simply with the power of his own words. In many ways, he's a force of influence who can quite easily get his own way. Personally, the Doctor has a problem with Margaret's morals, therefore she will be killed at the hands of her species.

And there is the problem with our time traveling hero. He’s too powerful for his own good. He can and will get his own way, simply based on his own ideas of good and bad. Yes, Margaret is an evil murder who has been responsible for ending the lives of many. But then the Doctor is also solely responsible for mass genocide. He has made it quite clear that the end of the last great time war, which he sulks about so frequently, was brought to an end by him and him alone. He was the one who wiped out two virtually indestructible races (The Daleks and the Time Lords). Like Margaret, he is responsible for slaughter. Some may argue that his act of double genocide was an act which saved the wider universe, but then who is to say that killing one to save a hundred is a good thing. There are many people who find such an outlook immoral and barbaric; but who is able to stop the Doctor when it comes to his own choices? 

Margaret might spend the majority of this episode as a prisoner and may also let one of her victims live, but she’s still not as nice of a person as I’m making her out to be. During a rather marvellous scene where the Doctor takes Margaret out for a last meal (or a date, which ever way you look at it), the last surviving Slitheen plants a whole series of sneaky traps to try and bring harm to him. Yet he's much too quick for her crafty ways, resulting in a heavily comedic and lighting paced sequence that sees the Doctor and Margaret having what can only be described as a dinner date duel. It’s subtle, fast, fun and hugely entertaining. For an episode with a miniscule budget, this type of ‘action’ sequence fits perfectly into the overall humdrum aesthetic of this story.

The idea of Margaret been a more emotionally complex idea is one of much brilliance. The fact that she also questions the Doctor’s moral superiority makes this episode even more of a pleasure to watch. However by the end, Davies decides to diminish the quality of what he has set up by cheating his way out of the story. Cheating will become a narrative technique that Davies will become notorious for using during the next few years and gets more persistent at it as time goes on. Here, he decides to solve the Margaret/Doctor dilemma by giving Margaret the chance to start her life over from scratch. Quite literally in fact, as she manages to transform into an egg at the end of the episode. This means that the Doctor can take her back to her home world where she can be raised to become a better person. Suddenly, the shackles of the Doctor’s choice are removed from his shoulders and he’s free to not have to face the burden of sending this alien to her death. This sort of ending really is a disappointment. Davies was on an absolute role with the theme of this story. For him to build it up to such a level and then slam his finders down on the dreaded reset button really does drain away great levels of quality from this story. This isn’t to say that I don’t like Boom Town. I do like it. But it could have been so much better.

The Doctor and Margaret’s philosophical chin wagging sessions are not the only events which take place in this episode of Doctor Who, however. Come to think of it, there is actually a fair bit going on in this low-budget episode filler. I assume that due to the fact that such a low cost episode frees up room which would have otherwise been spent on having the Doctor and Rose wander through marvelous sets and participating in some prolonged special effects sequence. Suddenly the script has to fill up its time slot by finding other none-expensive things to do with itself. Such a goal can be obtained by having a writer focus all of their energy on a set of characters. Lucky for Davies, this is something which he happens to be quite splendid at doing. 

This is where our dearest darling Mickey Smith pops back into the picture. The last time we saw Mickey was back in World War Three, during his ascension from the annoying idiot to the man who saved the world. Since the events of World War Three, Mickey has started to stitch back together the ruins of his life. Rose is no longer the obsession of his existence and regardless of him still fixating over the Doctor’s life, Mickey now has his own private life; girlfriend included. Rose is not a happy bunny about this fact and becomes enraged at Mickey’s decision to live a life away from her. I thoroughly enjoy this sub plot to the episode, as it once again begins to address the fact that after the Doctor and Rose sail off into the stars, real life still ticks away back on planet earth. The fact that Rose is not happy with this fact shows that she's still struggling to understand that both realities co-exist alongside one another. When she travels into the far past and future, present day London continues to tick on by. Rose’s old world can’t just sit by and wait for her to decide to stop traveling with the Doctor, but this is a truth which our young companion must still accept.

Here, this rejection toward change works in a positive way for the character of Rose. She’s young and naive. It’s understandable that she’s angry that the world doesn’t cater solely for her. She’s only nineteen years old, so such traits are only expected. Sadly, this angry, unaccepting Rose Tyler will begin to play an even larger part in her character during the second series. During series two, she becomes jealous and bratty when the world doesn’t go her way on frequent occasions. The frequency of her childish behavior in series two is not helped by the fact that Davies writes it in a way which suggests that her attitude is completely justifiable. Whilst in Boom Town Rose’s distress at Mickey’s romantic liaisons make her character flawed in a charming way, such behavior will inevitably go on to soil her character. But the slope from the likable and naive Rose to the spoiled and whiny brat is a problem which I will address later on down the line. Here her anger works fine and really does resonate with a lot of emotions which people experience in their day to day lives. Sometimes we do get angry and upset if things don’t go our away. Humans can be selfish creatures and can sometimes get upset over the happiness of others if we ourselves are not sharing a piece of that happiness pie. Rose doesn’t want to be with Mickey, but instead wants him there as her emergency safety net. Consciously she would never think or want Mickey to be miserable, but deep down she wanted him to wait for her, just in case she changed her mind.

Like with the Doctor and Margaret’s philosophical sparring, this sub plot is one of the stronger aspects of this episode, yet Boom Town is far from perfect. The main problem here is Jack. Not Jack as a character, but Jack as a character with little to do. I really do like Jack as a companion. He’s a real breath of fresh air in the series and I always find it better when there is more than one companion on board the Doctor’s TARDIS. Jack is a smart, flirtatious bowl of charm that really does help to light up the show like a Christmas tree. He’s great, but here he does pretty much sod all. He spends either a majority of time stuck inside the TARDIS or following the Doctor and Rose around whilst helping to explain the plot. He’s reasonably entertaining in this one, but he’s just sort of wasted. Seeing as this episode had the freedom and room to focus on the characters, Davies had no excuse to neglect him so heavily. He should have been as central to the plot as the Doctor, Rose and Margaret. 

One final interesting aspect to note about this episode, is just how memorable and iconic it is in the context of post-2005 to pre-2010 Doctor Who. The story is set slap bang in the middle of Cardiff bay, right underneath the bay’s fountains. Less than two years after the airing of this episode, the Cardiff bay will become the home of Doctor Who’s spin off show; Torchwood. To add to this, the screenplay of Boom Town focuses on the idea of a rift in time and space being centred right in the middle of Cardiff. The rift is a rip in reality which, although mostly harmless, can have devastating effects if it is abused or neglected. The Doctor uses his TARDIS to suck up the energy of this rift (which also fuels it) and helps to stop it from wiping the city off the face of the earth. The rift will play a massive part in the first and second series of Torchwood; burning its presence into the mind of frequent viewers. Boom Town is not only a low-cost episode filler, but strangely enough, it is the birth of semi-separate television program. 

In conclusion, this is an enjoyable and charming little episode which was wonderfully written and executed. My memory could be incorrect here, but I think that this is the last small episode that Russell T Davies will ever write for the show. He will pen one or two experimental pieces in the upcoming years, but never will he sit down to write a small drama piece like this again. It’s quite wonderful really, because this is the last time we have a tiny scaled episode before the show suddenly finds itself bowing down to the pressures of popularity. Just remember, that in one years time, this show will be  huge; meaning that no matter how small the show tries to be in its scale, the people writing it will be very much aware of how big the program they are writing for actually is. 

Not only is Boom Town beneficial for the show’s bank account, but it is also a much needed relaxation period for the viewer too. I say this because in the following episode, things are about to go from miniscule to epic. It’s nice to have a breather once in a while, but the next story will go all out on its audience, as it is the first part of a two part story which will inevitably be Eccleston’s last ever run as the Doctor.

Iron Man

By 2008 the superhero/comic book adaptation process was pretty much a summer blockbuster standard. The Dark Knight was months away from release, The Incredible Hulk was in the process of its own reboot, Spider-man now had its own billion dollar trilogy, X-men was dabbling in a post-trilogy prequel stage, Superman Returns had been and gone, Daredevil was all but a dirty memory that lingered at the back of movie goers minds and Fantastic Four had been the victim to two terrible feature films. By the time I heard about an Iron Man film, I had lost considerable interest. Every year was starting to become the same. Superhero this, Superhero that. I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. There’s only so many times I can watch a man save the world in a pair of tights before wishing that I was back in the good old days of Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis (kind of).

Things were beginning to feel a little bit standard with each passing superhero film. It had been three years since Batman Begins came along and reinvented the genre, so things were starting to become somewhat stale again. How much longer could they carry on with this conventional misunderstood superhero who uses his superpowers to fight evil in the name of a dead relative or in order to win the heart of that girl who he’s had a life long crush on?

But then Iron Man didn’t feel like any of these previous releases. It sure as hell wasn’t a reinvention of the genre in the sense that Batman Begins was, but it certainly felt different. I guess the best way to describe the 2008 introduction to Tony Stark is by saying that it added a bit of Jazz into this prevalent genre. Instead of the angst ridden teenager who tries to deal with the tightrope troubles of balancing his personal life with his responsibilities, we had an amusing, sophisticated and sassy story that decided not to take itself too seriously.

This is where the film really managed to catch my eye, because in recent times, this genre – which at its core is quite a far fetched adventure romp – was starting to consider itself as a category that was full of gravitas. There is not really a problem with such films taking a more serious stance on the themes and stories that they tell, but it was starting to get a tad cliché’. The idea of turning all of these heroes into angst ridden personas full of doom and gloom was a prospect that didn’t seem all that exciting to me. Batman Begins managed to pull off the whole gravitas portrayal perfectly, but I didn’t want every comic book/superhero film doing that now did I?

Instead of following in the heavy themed nature of Batman Begins, the socially metaphorical X-Men or the emotionally bulky Spider-man trilogy, Iron Man decided to kick back its feet and take a completely different path all together. The film’s protagonist was Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy who also happens to be the son of an incredibly successful arms dealer. When Stark is kidnapped by terrorists and forced to a weapon for them, he decides to use his brain in order to construct a suit which will help him and one of his fellow prisoners escape. Once free, Stark decides to invest all of his time and money into expanding his idea of a superhuman suit which will inevitably be used to combat evil.

Though the film’s catalyst is caused by a man who decides to undo the harm that his weapons have caused by fighting evil, the film rarely bathes in this theme for too long; instead choosing to focus most of its energy on the entertainment factor of Tony Stark and his cool robotic outfit.

And this is where most of the joy from this film can be found. The first segment of the movie generates its entertainment from Stark building the first edition of his suit. Him and his fellow prisoner – Yinsen –start to construct a machine which they hope will help to free them both from the world which they have found themselves trapped within. As an audience, we know what is coming. We have seen the trailers and are completely aware of what film we have walked into. But the story decides to take its time getting from point A to B. In a strange way, it loosely parallels Batman Begins in the way that it’s a film that doesn’t simply show its hero in action, but shows its hero during the developmental stages. The only difference here is that it’s not fastidiously exploring necessarily why Stark becomes a superhero, but instead extracts its entertainment factor from the nuts and bolts assembly of Stark’s Iron Man.

The escape from Stark and Yinsen’s prison reveals a version of Iron Man which is worlds apart from the one we initially paid to see. It is a beta version of the superhero; a large tin beast that resembles anything but the red and gold flying machine that was plastered across posters. This makes way for the second segment of the film; which is essentially a remake of segment one. Part two, however, is a little more light on its feet and void of the dangers of part one.

Having a prototype Iron Man before the proper version was a nice idea. It gives the transition of regular to hero a bit more exploration room than a lot of the other superhero films which have popped up over recent periods. Again, this is something that was extracted from Batman Begins, but here, it’s done in a more visual heavy manner. Whilst we get a few scenes of Bruce Wayne sneaking around Gotham in a hooded mask, we never really get to see a primitive design of the Batsuit. In Iron Man however, we get to see two types of our superhero; the bulky, unfinished design and the sleek, advanced version. It's a bit like a comic book adaptation of Steve Jobs going from designing the iPod classic to the iPod touch (terrible example, but who cares. I'm not getting paid to write this shit).

Segment two seems to be having a lot more fun with the development of “proper” Iron Man that segment one did. This is mainly to do with the fact that Stark now has the freedom and money to play around with his concepts; giving the plot more room to throw in some fancy gadgets at the viewers faces (plus a couple of sexy vehicles too). Also, Segment one had to take itself a little more seriously than the second part. This is mainly because not only were our heroes stuck in a life threatening situation, but they were also imprisoned in a foreign country by a group of extremists. The plot couldn’t get too self-parodic at this point, as it could end up coming across as insulting and offensive. Here we have none of the gloom and doom of Stark’s cave; allowing the screenwriters freedom to play around with Stark and his fancy gadgets in the most light hearted manner possible.

I like Iron Man a lot, but the film seems to only be truly in its element during these exploration and suit-building scenes. As soon as the plot tries to do other things on the side, everything just gets a tad boring. Ok, so it’s also fun to watch Robert Downy Jr. flirt and charm the heck out of everyone around him, but as soon as the film attempts to slip into romance mode or villain confrontation, the whole thing begins to shake a little under its own feet.

The film is at its best when it’s being smart and nonchalant, which seems to only be the case whenever Stark is playfully experimenting with his own knowledge and finances. It’s the building of Iron Man which allows the film to be playful and quirky, but such qualities seem to saunter off temporarily whenever we see Stark having semi-romantic chats with Pepper Pots or deep gumbling confrontations with Jeff Bridge’s Obadiah Stane.

One of the ways that I like to describe Iron Man is by comparing it to a classy, smart, yet superficial extrovert. If the film was a human, then it would be the sort of person who everyone else wanted to be like, could easily pass an exam and could bed any guy or girl they wanted. They would have a way with words and be most certainly be a switched on character. But the moment they start to act sincere or love bitten, people find it impossible to take them seriously. They may well be Mr and Mrs Charm, but they are not Romeo and Juliet.

Iron Man manages to stay fun for a majority of the time, mainly because most of the movie is dedicated to this smart and stylish construction plot. Yet there are times where it decides to abandon it in the hope of doing something else with the script. The main example and problem of this happening takes place in the film’ climax. Suddenly Stark has built Iron Man and is ready to battle the film’s core antagonist; Obadiah Stane. It is at this point that the film forgets about its previous intriguing qualities and becomes a standard Hollywood flick. You have the kidnapped Pepper Pots, the loud action scenes, the choreographed fight sequences, the unambiguous enemy and the hero who manages to secure victory at the last second.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these moments of course, they’re just not as entertaining as the other parts of the film. In comparison to the fun theatricals of Stark trying to perfect his suit, everything just gets a little boring. The script works best when it spends its time allowing Downy Jr. to put on a show, not when it’s blowing shit up. The blowing shit up is fine, it’s just feels weak amongst the more entertaining moments.

But after the average climax, we get a great final moment where Tony Stark stands up and reveals to the press that he’s Iron Man. This is a lovely breath of fresh air and was an oddly liberating scene in such a film. Whilst most superheroes decide to conceal their true identity to the world, Stark just decides to say “fuck it” and comes out to everyone. Yes, I know that I just used the word “come out” to describe his revelation as Iron Man, but after all the heavy use of heroes concealing their identities, the revelation of such a truth does seem to resemble that of a character concealing a deep secret which would inevitably rock the worlds of all those whom they know. The fact that Stark just decided to sod consequence and pretty much go “yep, I’m Iron Man” stays true to the film’s highly confident approach.

Iron Man is an audacious and sassy film which has the balls to be quirky, smart and playful with its narrative. It’s nothing hugely game changing, but it’s a really enjoyable chunk of entertainment that helps to remind us that the superhero genre is far from drying up.

This is the End

The use of characters playing themselves in modern day film and television is a format which I feel I should hate, but often end up loving. A perfect example of this was when I found out that the co-creator of Seinfeld – Larry David – had created a follow up sitcom where he played a heightened version of himself. Curb Your Enthusiasm sounded like a multimillionaire man giving himself a great big pat on the back by writing 10 episodes a year of him living his luxurious life. How could such a show connect with its audiences when David was a stupidly rich individual who could have pretty much anything he wanted? It sounded smug and shit. But then I watched it and realised just how wrong I was. Curb Your Enthusiasm turned out to be one of my favourite sitcoms. The show’s dialogue was all improvised; giving David and his co-stars the freedom to take set pieces into all sorts of weird and wonderful directions. Both David and the rest of Curb’s cast were on fire; coming out with some of the crudest and funniest lines ever imaginable in a televised show.

Since the uprising of Curb Your Enthusiasm, many other television shows have attempted to extract success from this very format; taking a number of celebrities and creating fictional/documentary hybrids. The blending of reality and fantasy have been quite a popular breed of comedy ever since Ricky Gervais made the world a brighter place with The Office, yet Larry David has stepped up the game somewhat; pulling real life individuals further down the rabbit hole of fiction (a move that Gervais also decided to toy around with in Extras and Life's too Short).

Regardless of my love for Curb however, each time one of these shows or films makes its way into the world, I always expect it to be a disaster. If not done properly, then it would be all too easy to end up with a show/film which just continuously praises the characters at the center of its story. The problem with celebrities is that the general public don’t usually like them. It is obvious that they have problems and hurt just like the rest of us, however their public persona gives many the impression that they live in a world of gold and happiness. They are rich, have big houses, fancy cars, beautiful partners and get to dine in the finest restaurants. If you are making a show about someone with that kind of life, then it can be all too easy to alienate the casual viewer.

When I saw the trailer for This is the End several weeks back, once again I was convinced that this would be the case. The comedic team of Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonan Hill and co have always been a group who I’ve never possessed much of a liking toward. Yes, at times I do find each one funny in some way or another, but over all I find their style exceedingly tiring. The Judd Apatow inspired body of work is always the same old hogwash; jokes about male genitalia, jokes about smoking shit loads of pot and jokes about watching pornography. It’s incredibly adolescent and grows very repetitive after a while. That’s not to say that I don’t like these guys. Sometimes I do find myself enjoying some of their movies, but I really have to be in the right kind of mood. On the plus side, they are far funnier in my opinion than Adam Sandler and his pathetic line-up (for the record, I absolutely despise Adam Sandler and his movies. Honestly, the very thought that such a guy makes a boat load of money year after year pretty much clarifies to me that there is no God).

The main problem with my semi-neutral stance on the adolescent humour of team Rogan meant that I was immensely skeptical about this film. So skeptical in fact that I didn’t plan on seeing this one at all. The only reason why I found myself viewing it was because on Thursday night a bunch of friends who I hadn’t seen for a while turned up at my house. I have spent the past several weeks locked in my house, only ever communicating with the outside world during work office hours, so it was nice to finally have a conversation with individuals who I genuinely like as human beings. When they invited me to the cinema that very same evening, I thought I might as well go along and attempt to keep our friendship alive. When I found out that we were seeing This is the End however, I sighed under my breath. Was I about to pay £10 to see Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonan Hill and co pat themselves on the back for two bloody hours? Please don’t let this be so.

But guess what? I actually enjoyed this film. It was certainly nothing special, but I actually laughed an awful lot during this feature. So ok, the genital/weed/porn humor is all very much there, but this time I just sat back and accepted it for what it was. The main reason for this, I think, is that the film really does not take itself seriously at all. It knows what it is and what it’s doing and just doesn’t give a damn about that fact. I was never under the impression that the film was trying desperately to be funny. Instead, it was just cracking jokes which the writers and actors found funny; giving it a much more relaxed feel. Yes the humor was just as crude and as immature as Superbad, but so what? The film was having fun with itself. It was catering to that very audience and was not at all self conscious in doing so.

As for the whole fiction/reality hybrid of characters playing themselves, I think it worked quite well in this film. The BBC Radio Five Live critic Mark Kermode was of the opinion that the feature was just one big self congratulatory festival for the stars of the film, but I guess I have to disagree here. Rogan, Franco and team seem to be quite happy to rip their previous bodies of work to shreds and ridicule one another in a fun and light hearted way. Characters attack Rogan for his lack of acting diversity, they ironically declare that acting is a ‘talent’ and James Franco even makes a vicious remark toward the horrific Your Highness. There’s also a great scene where Rogan and Franco dream up a plot for a sequel to Pineapple Express whilst getting high; which they later go on to film whilst drugged up to the eyeballs. The use of Pineapple Express 2 is incredibly self-deprecating and addresses all the flaws that critics have pointed out about such works. Films like the Pineapple Express do often appear to be features which have been dreamed up by intoxicated minds, so to see the actual creators dreaming up such concepts in this film is both funny and potentially honest.

But these self-attacks are not constructive or intellectual forms of criticism. The film isn’t trying to say something interesting or eye opening about these films; instead it is nothing more than simplistic name calling between the leading actors of this film. No one is taking any of this seriously and no one should. The cast are just trying to have as much fun as they possibly can with the script and it would appear that this is exactly what they're having. Everyone seems to be having a great time filming this; playing around and insulting one another. It is the Hollywood equivalent of a bunch of mates getting drunk and teasing one another. No one is here to push the envelop or make a statement; they are simply here to have a bit of fun with one another.

The idea that the cast are just mucking about may very well be what makes this film a joy to watch, but it’s also slightly problematic in several ways. First of all, the fact that the film doesn’t really have anything to say makes the whole experience feel little empty. The basic setup of this feature revolves around a bunch comedic actors being themselves whilst the world ends around them. The backdrop has absolutely no purpose in the story. It’s just there. It may drive the plot forward, but it really does have no impact on the overall theme. This makes the whole film come across as yet another stoned idea which was conjured up by Mr Rogan. The joke revolving around Pineapple Express 2 almost feels like the reality of This is the End. Seeing as the whole rapture backdrop turns out to be pretty pointless, the story quickly runs out of steam; meaning that the film has to rely on the stars for a majority of its run. This is not a film about the end of the world, but about a group of adolescent guys firing jokes back and forth.

But what the heck, as I mentioned before, I laughed a lot in this film and I enjoyed it more than I ever expected to. The film may be a little pointless and childish, but I liked watching these guys enjoying themselves whilst they made a movie. Because despite what I may say about cinema, the enjoyment of making a film can be just as pleasant as enjoying the experience of film itself. In a world where most movies are made for money, it’s nice when we finally come across one that was made for fun (though saying that, I’m certain that this film was made with money firmly in mind, but I’m just going to ignore that fact for a little while).

Or maybe this film was a crock of shit. Maybe it was just nice to get out of the house once in a while and the good mood of seeing old friends meant that I was pretty much open to any form of comedy. I mean I did briefly chuckle at Vince Vaughn gag during one of the trailers, which never happens, ever…

Doctor Who New Series 1.10 - 'The Doctor Dances'

Plot - The Doctor, Rose and Jack attempt to uncover the mystery of the capsule which is believed to be the perpetrator for the recent uprising of gas mask creatures. If they are to ever find out where the origins of the empty child and it's transformative powers came from they must uncover the secret before a German bomb destroys the capsule once and for all. 

The second half of Steven Moffat’s two part story serves primarily to do two things. First of all, it will shed light on all the mysteries which the plot generated during the preceding forty-five minute story; helping to bring together a multifaceted and cerebral story in all its glory. The second achievement which it will carry out is that it will act as one big metaphor to Doctor Who and the show’s stance on sex and sexuality.

One of the most interesting elements surrounding Doctor Who is the show’s attitude toward sex, or lack of it should I say. Because during the classic era’s 26 year run, sex and sexuality were pretty much kept well out of the program. Whilst shows such as Star Trek frequently showed the protagonist locking his arms around a beautiful damsel, the Doctor simply refused get involved with any of that whole hanky panky malarky. He was strictly an adventure man; appearing to have zero interest in physical relations.

Even his companions, who were most frequently sexually active humans, seldom expressed any sexual desires on screen. Sure, companions would fall in love, go off to marry others or develop closer-than-usual relationships with other men and women who collided with their world, but nothing more than a hug or a peck on the cheek would ever be shown on screen. The business of people getting their swagger on was strictly left out of Doctor Who and during the 1980s, show runner John Nathan-Turner even famously coined the rule “no hanky panky in the TARDIS”.

The reasons for the show’s hero not possessing sexual desires was quite a straight forward one. Doctor Who is a family show which caters for people of all ages; children in particular. The show was a Saturday night prime time program which focused mainly on the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. It wasn’t simply a case that the Doctor wasn’t interested in hanky panky, it was more a case of producers not wanting to have the show taking off the air because of outraged mothers and fathers (or more realistically, outraged Daily Mail writers). The show may have gotten away with being scary (minus the time when super-bigot Mary Whitehouse managed to influence the sacking of a head writer during the 1970s) , but it wasn’t going even bother trying to get away with anything more sensitive than that.

Fans on the other hand were not satisfied with this fact, so they started to read into the Doctor’s asexual attitude a little more closely. Due to the fact that the show's first ever series had a companion who happened to be the Doctor’s granddaughter, it would seem that the Doctor has indeed indulged in what many other humans obsess about so frequently (if his species reproduce in a similar fashion that is). Based on this information, it would seem that the Doctor was either able to suppress his sexual urges, or was a member of a race who's desires are not as frequent as other life forms.

As time went on, the Doctor’s sexuality began to fall under further scrutiny, as fans started to question whether there was a possibility that he may have played from more than one team. Seeing as he never expressed a particular sexuality, there was nothing to suggest that he was strictly a fan of the ladies. On top of this, some of those individuals who read into the show’s text in this way decided that the fact that the Doctor had so many platonic female friends suggested that he had homosexual tendencies. I assume that this concept stemmed from the stereotypical idea that all homosexual men have girl mates, whilst heterosexual guys simply can’t ever be just friends with a girl…

This is where Doctor Who stood for pretty much its entire run. It was a show which never dealt with hanky panky themes, ironically making people question the shows relation to sex more so than any other program on the box.

But then The Doctor Dances happens and all of a sudden, Steven Moffat brings this very subject right into the forefront of Doctor Who. Firstly, there’s the introduction of Jack from the previous episode. Now we had a fairly unambiguous moment in the first episode where Jack flirted with both Rose and one of his male officers, yet it isn’t until this episode that we are officially informed (in a metaphor, that is) of where Jack stands when it comes to getting his swagger on. Yet not only does Moffat use this episode as an opportunity to clarify to audiences what Jack's sexuality is, but it also briefly flirts with the idea of the Doctor’s.

Regardless of times having changed rapidly since the early days of this program, Doctor Who is still a kid friendly show and the BBC still have to be very careful about how they go about dealing with such issues, plus as I mentioned above, such a side plot is delivered through the useful metaphor of ‘Dancing’. Yes, that’s right, Episode ten decides to refer to sex by calling it ‘dancing’. This is how Moffat gets away with informing viewers that Jack is multisexual (or whatever it is he’s suppose to be) and that the Doctor is hanky-panky active. In the case of Jack, the Doctor delivers a line which is very difficult to read in more than one way, explaining Jack’s nature to Rose:

DOCTOR: Relax, he's a fifty first century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.
ROSE: How flexible?
DOCTOR: Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy.
ROSE: Meaning?
DOCTOR: So many species, so little time.
ROSE: What, that's what we do when we get out there? That's our mission? We seek new life, and, and
DOCTOR: Dance.

This is not the only time that the word “Dance” pops up in the context of sexual relations, and does so throughout the entirety of the episode. At the very end of the story, the Doctor excitedly declares to Rose that he too can dance. Now of course, this scene can indeed be read in more than one way, because the Doctor is quite literally dancing to Glen Miller at this point. But that’s where the use of this metaphor changes in comparison to that of Jack. When the Doctor talks about Jack and dancing, he’s quite unambiguously referring to the sort of people he likes spending his leisure time with, where as when the Doctor refers to himself and Dancing, there's always a double ended meaning to it. So Moffat plays it safe when it comes to the Doc, but nonetheless, he’s still flirting with the idea and the use of the dancing metaphor adds a playful euphemism to the title of this story; which can pretty much be read as; “The Doctor likes to Screws things as well”.

Why do I mention all this? Well because this is where all those ideas of new who and sex pretty much come into play. People often accused Russell T Davies of being the orchestrator of sexuality playing a part in the new era of the show, but in actual fact, it all started here. Just think for a few minutes about this fact. If Davies was the man who started to introduce sexual liberation and alternative sexualities into Doctor Who, then at when did he do it prior to this? Was it in Rose? I mean the “he’s gay and she’s an alien” line was just a random throw away line with absolutely no extra layers attached to it. Was it in The End of the World? Well, apart from Cassandra casually mentioning that she was born male (again, no extra meanings behind this line, only a sement of dialogue which suggested that sex changes are pretty much effortless procedures in the year five billion), I can honestly not think of any LGBT agendas in the story. What about Aliens of London/World War Three? Again, nothing springs to mind. As for the long game, well again, nothing at all from memory. The celebration of liberal sexualities as well as the embracement of sex in general within the Who universe was pretty much pushed into existence right here, in Moffat’s two parter. Heck, it’s even here were we get our first proper on screen gay character; a man who's revealed by Nancy to have been sleeping with the local butcher in order to get extra food supplies during the rationing months of the war.

I understand that Russell T Davies created the character of Captain Jack Harkness, but just remember, Davies wasn't the one who introduced this character into the show. Moffat was brought on to help establish his presence within this universe. Davies may have wanted a fluent and flirtatious hero from the 51^st century, but it was Moffat who made him the omnisexal love god that he became. Furthermore, this is the most sexually diverse that Jack will ever get in both this and Torchwood’s history. I mean sure, he will have liaisons with both men and women, but it will be much more binary than him skipping effortlessly between one or the other. They will also be far less frequent and will carry far more gravitas than they do here. In The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Jack skips from life form to life form; merrily flirting with them as if there's no tomorrow. Yet after this, Jack will flirt and charm others, but on a far less frequent basis. Whenever he does get into relationships with others, he will often crash and burn; either losing his lovers in death or having them turn against him. With Russell, Jack’s flings will often have consequences, whilst with Moffat, they were celebrated and frequent segments of fun for this character. Also, Jack's gender change amongst relationships in Torchwood always seem to be decades between one another; seemingly favoring men over women.

But enough of all that. Moffat is obsessed with writing screenplays that are filled with sexual themes and subtext, mainly because that’s what he loves doing the most. It’s how he became known for his writing and it’s a style that is pretty much second nature to him. But what about that other thing he appears to have gotten good at? You know, the whole complex story telling business.

Well like in the previous episode, The Doctor Dances simply does not seem to want to run out of steam when it comes to jigsaw style story telling. The Doctor, Rose and Jack are now reunited after a long episode apart, where together, they attempt to uncover mystery behind the gas mask zombies. It is here where we begin to learn that the pod from the start of the last episode has more to do with what’s going on that was initially thought. It turns out that Jack orchestrated the crash of the time capsule and intended for the Doctor and Rose to find it. It was a piece of space junk (or so Jack assumes) that was pre-programmed to crash in a spot which would eventually be the target of a German bomb. Jack was planning to sell the useless space junk to a naïve time agent, only for that time agent to never discover that it was useless due to the German bomb which was destined to fall on it. As Jack calls it, the “perfect self cleaning con”.

It would appear that the troubles revolving around the gas mask child began during the same time that Jack’s space pod landed; meaning that both events are connected. From this moment on, things start to slide into place.

Finally, after much waiting, everything becomes clear. The pod was not a useless piece of space junk, but is a 51^st century war ambulance; filled with microscopic nanobots who are programmed to fix up any wounded soldiers. It turns out that the gas mask child was in fact a little boy called Jamie who was killed during the night of the crash. Because Jamie was wearing a gas mask at the time, the nanobots assumed that the mask was a part of the human biological make-up structure. The nanobots have never seen human beings before, meaning that they were confused; resulting in them patching up any human which came into contact with them in the same way that they patched up the dead child.

Suddenly, everything makes perfect sense. Jack’s, Jamie’s, Nancy’s and The Doctor & Rose’s stories all come together. We spent two episodes watching what seemed like a collection of separate subplots dancing alongside each other, yet here we see them all mesh into one master story. Suddenly, everything makes perfect sense, and the feeling of enlightenment upon clarification is an absolutely riveting experience.

The revelation of this plot also reveals the impressive complexity of this story in comparison to all those which came before it. The idea of an intergalactic war ambulance mistakenly patching up a damaged human life form into a soldier during the 1941 Blitz is a difficult yet beautiful idea to pull off.

What works the most about this story is the fact that both the before and after effects of such a jigsaw puzzle narrative produce entertaining results in seemingly different ways. The pleasures derived from such a structure during the before moments are the viewer’s attempts to try and figure out what is going on. When an audience bare witness to any form of story telling, their minds work effortlessly at attempting to decode the information playing out before them. The more difficult it is to understand and process the information playing out before you, the more strenuously the brain will work in order to crack the code. This usually sends the imagination into overdrive. We start to fastidiously dissect every scene in intense detail. Everything is pulled to pieces in order to try and find the one true answer to all that is going on in the story which retains information from us. This is why films such Donnie Darko resulted in viewers producing so many essays surrounding the narrative. The information contained within the story was not fed directly to its audiences, meaning that more effort was required to figure out what was meant to be taking place on screen. As a result, all kinds of weird and wonderful ideas sprang into existence. This is what narratives such as The Empty Child result in; fans coming up with all kinds of lovely ideas to try and make sense of what is really going on. Despite being 'wrong' most of the time, coming up with your own theories can be hugely entertaining and is what makes the early parts of this story work so well.

The pleasures that can be experienced during the after moment of the plots revelation can be just as pleasurable also. Instead of your brain working tirelessly to decode the story's data, suddenly it becomes submissive toward the narrative. The release of tension and confusion dies away as everything slides into place. Suddenly, all that ‘nonsense’ makes perfect sense. Your mind transcends from a state of cluelessness to a state of pure understanding. You grasp all the answers and start to piece together all mysteries which took place during preceding scenes. The jump from cluelessness to awareness is euphoric, relieving and makes you feel bloody clever (particularly if any of your previously conceptualised guesses turned out to be bang on the nail; as mine was during the series five story arc surrounding the crack and the Pandorica).

The joys of such narratives prevent such stories from becoming boring and subject to distraction. They keep you watching from start to finish. Viewers are far too keen to figure out the mystery behind such screenplays. But how does one write such a story? How does someone like Steven Moffat execute ideas like this one? Is it written from back to front? Or do they just come up with an enigmatic mystery and then figure it all out as they go along? I’m not asking this question in search of an answer, I’m simply marvelling at such story telling styles. After all, it’s one thing drafting out a three act screenplay, but creating a story of such complexity has always been something which staggers my mind. The jigsaw narrative may very well be the most entertaining type of story in my eyes, but it is also one which I find incredibly difficult to write myself.

But then should such stories be prevalent in Doctor Who? I guess not. In fact, I think it’s good that such stories only pop up several times a year. The brilliance of this story structure is a novelty which I use to look forward to each year during a new series of Doctor Who. As the weeks would draw closer to a Steven Moffat episode, I would bite my nails in anticipation of what he had in store for me this time round. But as Moffat became the head writer and other writers tried to copy his style, some of the magic was lost in such stories. I’m not saying that Doctor Who gets bad when complex story telling becomes more prevalent (on the contrary, series five to seven have been my three favourite series of New Who), but what I'm saying is that it should not be the standard for this show. Doctor Who works best when it is experimenting and trying out new ideas/structures/styles/etc. Jigsaw narratives are brilliant in Doctor Who, but they should not become the be all and end all of this show.

The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances was originally planned to be a comical romp of a two part story, yet Moffat managed to pull something new, exciting and huge in scale out of his trick bag. Both this writer’s talents for writing brainy puzzle structures, merged with his dear obsession with the show makes episodes nine and ten the finest two episodes of this series.

The following episode is universes apart from this story; venturing right back to Davies’ classic soap/sci-fi hybrid. This is not necessarily a bad thing as an actual fact, but it does serve to remind us of just how dissimilar and experimental this show has become over the past few weeks. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t help but feel that Father’s Day, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances were the moments where this revived series really started to push the envelope. Who knows, but it sure does feel that way.

Doctor Who New Series 1.9 - 'The Empty Child'

Plot -  As the two of them hunt a time capsule hurtling through the time vortex, the Doctor and Rose arrive in 1941 London during the height of the Blitz bombing. Here, they discover that the ruined city is being terrorized by a little boy wearing a gas mask.

At some point during the writing and planning process of this series, Russell T Davies dreamed up the character Captain Jack Harkness. Jack is what can only be described as a multisexual human from the 51^st century; who’s ideas toward sex and sexuality were incredibly fluid in comparison to the generations who lived before him. It was quite clear what Davies was striving to achieve with this character. He wanted an open and sexually liberated individual to play a part in this show as a means of bringing Doctor Who firmly into the 21^st century. Alternative sexual and gender identities are still suppressed and ridiculed in many corners of modern society, however they are beginning to gradually break free from the shackles of previously conceived prejudice outlooks. Davies wants Doctor Who to be a show which celebrates such forward movements of liberation within contemporary society and Jack Harkness was designed in order to be one of the faces of such an idea.

Davies is pretty much spot on when it comes to writing homosexual characters, however it would seem that even the sexually diverse character of Jack Harkness proved to be of some difficulty for him to bring to the small screen. Rumor has it that he wasn’t too sure on how to introduce such a sexually fluent character into the series and instead wanted a writer with more experience in that area to come forth and do the job for him. It was during these moments of searching that Davies came across a 2000 television series called Coupling.

Coupling was a UK sitcom written by English-teacher-turned-screenwriter Steven Moffat. The show explored themes revolving around the troubles and misunderstandings of sexual relationships and was based loosely on Moffat’s own relationship with his wife Sue Vertue. One of the most notable aspects to Coupling was the staggering intelligence which the show possessed. Non-linear story lines and cleverly structured set pieces revolving around language barriers and misunderstandings made the show stand out from many other sitcoms of the same nature. The show appeared to be able to take a clichéd format of people struggling whilst in love and turned it into something intelligent, entertaining and highly engaging. It was a sex-based sitcom which also had a reasonably high IQ. The show also made several references to classic Doctor Who serials; establishing Moffat as a long time fan of the program. It was likely that around this point, Davies began to realize that Moffat was not only a lover of the show he was planning on reviving, but was also a man who seemed to be able to write about sex and sexuality in a highly intelligent a tasteful manner.

This is where things get a little surprising, because when we look back at The Empty Child, we remember the episode for its scares and creepy monster, not necessarily because of its introduction to Jack Harkness. Jack is indeed a memorable character from the post-2005 Who universe, but this is mainly because of his presence in the show’s spinoff Torchwood, more so than his debut outing. Moffat is mostly credited for being the man who can scare the socks of his viewers whilst also plotting out stories that are non linear and complex in their structures. Yet he was not hired for being the man who could provide sofa cowering thrills, but was brought on because he was supposedly bloody good at writing sexually charged characters. Moffat was merely there to write a Jack Harkness romp of an episode which would help to introduce the lovable-yet-horny time agent into the mix, but instead gave us more than we bargained for.

The Empty Child is one of the most complex and interesting stories from the 2005 series. It is a two part story which revolves around the Doctor and Rose chasing a time cylinder through the vortex and into the year 1941 during the height of the World War Two blitz. Whilst searching for the capsule, the Doctor encounters a young girl called Nancy; Rose is rescued by the handsome Mr Harkness; and the streets are troubled by a little boy who appears to have a gas mask welded to his face. Yet this is no ordinary little boy, as if you are to touch his flesh, you too would be doomed to become like him; an empty monster with a gas mask for a face.

As the Doctor follows the trail of Nancy, he soon discovers that she's helping a group of orphaned children who've escaped back to London after finding life away from home too difficult to bare. Nancy and her friends are constantly harassed by the gas mask child who endlessly utters the question “are you my mummy?” The Doctor, intrigued and perplexed by this enigmatic creature, becomes adamant to find out who and what it might be. This finally leads him to Albion Hospital where he meets Doctor Constantine; a man who spends the war tending to wards full of gas masked patients that have fallen victim to the little boy's nightmarish abilities.

Whilst the Doctor gets himself stuck into the mystery of the empty child, Rose finds herself hopelessly charmed by the dashingly flirtatious Captain Jack. Soon after Jack’s first on screen appearance, we quickly learn two things about this man. Firstly, he’s not from this time period, and secondly, he’s a fan of numerous genders. This taste for multiple genders is pretty much established in several seconds, where Jack both compliments Rose's backside and slaps the bum of a male co-soldier moments later; informing him that his bottom his great too. After this moment of sexually charged exposition, Jack proceeds to save Rose from a barrage balloon by catching her in a beam of light which stems from his spaceship. So yeah, he’s pretty much established as a bisexual fella from the future right from the get go.

Yet things are not as simple as that in The Empty Child, because Jack is not in 1941 just the ogle at and slap the bottoms of its residents. After lifting Rose off her feet (and treating her to a dance outside the clock face of Big Ben), he begins to question her about her role as a time traveler. The plot is flipped on his head. Jack knows more about Rose than anyone in this story should and more importantly, it would appear that he rescued her for a very specific and selfish reason. When Jack finds out about the Doctor being the leader of their little time traveling duo, Harkness is adamant to meet him.

This is where The Empty Child branches away from the episodes which came before it, because its structure is so far different from the standard A to B layout of episodes one through eight. Yet the difference in structure is not so much because of the mystery element surrounding the entire episode. Viewers are left in the dark for a majority of this plot, but then this was also the case in Aliens of London/World War Three. What separates this story from the rest is the number of questions and mysteries which play out before our eyes. Aliens of London/World War Three had one question and a straight forward answer. We had an alien ship crash into the River Thames and group of disguised aliens pretending to be members of authority. As soon as we were informed that the crash was a hoax in order to try and drive humanity into a state of paranoid fear, we as viewers pretty much nodded in acceptance and went along with what the plot had to offer. But here, there are all kinds of questions that keep the audience constantly guessing. Who’s Jack? What does he want with another time traveler? What is the gas mask child? Why is the gas mask child the way it is? Why does it transform others when it touches them? What is its relation to Nancy? Why does it keep asking for its mummy? What was the mysterious pod that the Doctor and Rose were chasing through time at the start? And how on earth do all of these questions interlink with one another?

Whereas the previous two part story was a singular question and answer game, The Empty Child is the first part of a labyrinthine puzzle narrative. Because that is exactly what this episode is. Viewers are given all sorts of information without the plot explaining how it all fits together. A series of set pieces, events and characters help to tell a story without giving away any solid conclusions. The audience struggle to piece everything together, yet such pieces just do not seem to want to fit. This is not an A to B story, but an A through Z one which slowly throws random letters at you in what would appear to be an incoherent manner.

This is not a critique on The Empty Child in any way shape or form. In fact, it is quite the opposite of a criticism, because I’m of the opinion that this is the finest story of the first series. Steven Moffat has built a perfect jigsaw of a story which not only helps to keep one's backside firmly in its seat, but also manages to tinker and toy around with all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas. This is not your usual monster-of-the-week story, but is instead the Jonathan Creek of Doctor Who. It is full of mystery, intelligence and complexity. We don’t know where it is going or what all of it means, but we are more than eager to discover the answers which await us in the story's conclusion.

The jigsaw puzzle narrative will become a recurring trademark of Moffat’s in the following years. With every series, his ability to write enigmatic labyrinth stories will grow in their complexity. In series two he will be responsible for penning a love story set in a nonlinear labyrinth of time; in series three he shall create a tale containing quantum beasts and characters interacting with one another via differing historical periods; in series four he will tell a story about a woman from the Doctor’s future which simultaneously jumps between two sets of reality; and in Series five onward he will fashion a vastly complex strand of uniquely designed story arcs which will span over several series. This is what Moffat just so happens to be good at doing, yet it all seems to have started here for him (well, he did write a novel for Doctor Who back in the 1990s, which did contain such structures, but I will come on to that at a later date).

Watching The Empty Child today is quite an interesting experience, because we really can see Moffat planting the very early foundations of what will later be known as his trademark styles. The timey wimey plots might not have been put into place yet, however the complexity of his story plotting most are certainly in play. Here we have three separate time periods clashing with one another. First there is the story of the Doctor and Rose who are hunting for a mysterious time traveling pod, the second is the story of Nancy and the Orphans and the third is the presence of a flirtatious time agent who’s overly keen on communicating with a fellow time traveler.

The puzzle which is The Empty Child may have given us a number of the pieces to this jigsaw, but we are going to have to wait until the following episode before finally receiving the answer to how all of this fits together.

Aliens

As is apparent from my post on Alien, the film had quite a resounding impact on my interaction with the cinematic art form. The horrors and imaginative beauty of the feature fueled my mind in new and wonderful ways. To bare witness to such a staggering piece of cinematic beauty at such an infant age had much of an influence on my love toward cinema in its entirety. Yet Alien was not alone in influencing my understanding of story telling and the cinematic medium. Interestingly enough, it was the sequel which had the biggest impact upon me as a child.

A year had gone by since I discovered Alien. In my mind, the story ended when Ripley sailed off into the stars with her pet cat Jones. I never knew at the time that there was a sequel, but once again, my dad was going to surprise me with some rather exciting news. Alien didn’t end in 1979, as in 1986, James Cameron was the director of its sequel; Aliens.

What captured my imagination the most about this sequel was that it was a complete reinvention of the original. Not in the sense of it being a remake or reboot, but a sequel which decided to take the original concept of Ridley Scott’s 1979 feature and flip it on its head. No longer was it a horror film with one nasty monster on the loose, but was instead an all out action movie which centred around marines battling a whole army of extra-terrestrial beasts. 

Like with the original, my father was not keen on letting me watch the sequel at such a young age. The film may not have been as gruesome as the previous, but it was still an 18 rated certificate with yet another dreaded chestbuster sequence which could quite easily terrify a young sprog. Despite my pleading nature, he was adamant to not let me witness this action packed sequel until I was much older. 

But as always, I was not going to go down without a fight. Much as was the case with Alien, my father’s words had ignited an explosion of curiosity in my mind. On top of this, he also had a copy of the damn thing in his video cupboard. Quite frankly he only had himself to blame for my adamant attitude to watch this flick.

So on one Saturday morning, during the summer of 1996, me and my younger brother crept downstairs to find our father’s VHS copy of the James Cameron sequel. My dad was nursing a hangover whilst my mum was indulging in her ritualistic Saturday lie in. It was 7am and it was quite clear that neither of them would stir until around at least the 10am mark. This meant I had a healthy three hour slot to watch and devour the film that had pretty much become the centre of my existence during that time period.

Two hours later and my desires had been met without even a shred of disappointment. The film was perfect. Too perfect for mere words to even express (though I am going to try to at the very least). It was nothing like its predecessor. We were in new territory here. Gone were the horror aspects of the first film. Thrilling though it may have been, this was an all out action movie; hell bent on taking its audience on a nail biting roller coaster ride to hell and back.

I can still remember the feeling that Aliens stirred within me to this very day. It’s one of those distinct feelings which you yearn to experience again, but know that you never will recapture. After watching the feature for the first time, I would continue to watch it year after year; hoping that I could stir up those emotions once again. I tried and I tried and I tried, but never once could I conjure them back into existence. That was the curse of such a perfect film. The staggering material that plays out before your very eyes captivates every corner of your imagination. Not once do you dare to look away from the screen. You devour every ounce of the material whole. Every strand of dialogue, every twist in the plot, every beat of the soundtrack as it downloads into your mind; destined to remain there for the rest of your days. It’s euphoric, exciting and intense, yet it’s a feeling that the film can only create once and once only. After that, you are trapped with the memory of that feeling; forever striving to pull it back into the present for one last joy ride.

As I mentioned above, Aliens is a sequel which was not directed by the man behind the film’s preceding story. Whilst Ridley Scott would inevitably return for a prequel to this franchise in 2012, here he removed himself from any involvement in such a project. Instead, the mantel of director is taken up by The Terminator director James Cameron. Now for anyone who has met me in real life will know, I'm an unashamed James Cameron lover. I adore his films a little bit too much. People are often baffled by how much I have managed to delude myself into thinking he's the greatest filmmaker of all time. They scratch their head in confusion when I call Titanic the Romeo and Juliet of the 20^th Century; Avatar the greatest intergalactic love story of the previous decade and Terminator 2 the most poetic cyborg story to ever make its way into our universe. My perception of James Cameron as a filmmaker is obsessive, inaccurate and incredibly warped and it’s all thanks to this film. This is where it all began for me. My fixation with Cameron was born in the summer of 1996 and it was all thanks to a worn out VHS tape which was tucked away at the back of my parent’s video cupboard.

So what’s so great about Aliens? Well in all honesty, if I was to make a list of what elements in this film work so well for me, we’d be here till next Christmas. So instead I’m just going to hand pick a few delicious beauties to waffled on about for the next thousand words or so.

One of the most exciting aspects to his 1986 sequel is its use of reinventing the story. One of the biggest issues which stems from a lot of sequels is their tendency to be a direct rehash of their predecessors. Often a sequel is born out of the success of the original film; meaning that producers, writers and directors are keen to extract the elements from the original which made them work the first time round. The problem with this is that no one has even been able to identify what makes a film a triumph. A film either chimes with the mass audiences or it doesn’t. The reasons are far too spontaneous and complex for any producer to ever fully understand. As a result of this, creative and financial forces behind a particular feature will often copy and paste the original screenplay for a follow up. To try and mask up the fact that producers/writers/directors have lifted a story from the original, they will lazily replace some of the names, locations, characters and dialogue (honestly, just watch the revolting Hangover Part II and tell me this isn't true). This is the equivalent of someone taking a famous quote and trying to make it appear to be their own by using a thesaurus to come up with as many synonyms to replace the original words as is possible (e.g. "One possesses a strand of nothingness to advocate except one's intellect"). Nothing is new and nothing is creative; it is nothing more than an idle clone. Aliens, on the other hand, decides to take the film in a completely different direction; acknowledging and continuing on from the original feature whilst simultaneously creating an entirely new world for its characters to exist within.

The film respectfully nods back and uses Ridley Scott’s original as a way to help tell the story, but never once relies on it in order to generate or recreate popularity. The original is mostly addressed in the early moments of the narrative; where Ellen Ripley is seen suffering from post traumatic stress as a result of her previous encounter with the monstrous beast. Not only does she endure endless bouts of night terrors surrounding the viscous beast which killed her ex-colleagues, but is also made to justify her actions of blowing up a Wayland Yutani space craft. When Ripley discovers that the planet where her crew found the alien beast has been colonised, her fears are amplified. Over seventy families supposedly occupy his world; a fact which serves to intensify her dread. When the company finally lose contact with the colony, Ripley knows exactly why. She’s asked to join a group of space marines as they carry out a search and rescue mission in order to be their potential advisor; an offer she feels she must accept if she is to ever get over these continuous bouts of trauma. 

From here on out, the film branches away from the original, instead choosing to take on a life of its own. This is where Aliens becomes a separate movie in its own right. As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to witness the first film in order to understand what is going on here. Ripley is quite clearly a survivor of an alien attack, yet one does not need to have seen this attack in order to know what is going on or why she has made the decision to throw herself back into such a hostile territory. This allows the film to stand on its own two feet. This is not a direct continuation in the classic sense of the word. We are not witnessing a second chapter in an on going story arc. Instead, Aliens is a completely separate film which happens to exist within the same universe as Alien. Both films may share the same protagonist, however each one is completely self contained from one another. Oh yeah, plus both films are also set 57 years apart from one another.

Self contained sequels have always been my favourite type of follow-up stories. The idea of a film that relies too heavily on the original always feels weak and half baked to me. Such stories become frail, flimsy and unable to stand on their own two feet. Any feature should be able to work entirely on its own. Anything otherwise comes across as a shoddy attempt at telling a story; unable to occupy its own space amongst the body of the cinematic art form.

The only other time when Aliens decides to address Alien is during the pre-climactic scenes. When Ripley throws herself into the center of the alien nest, the countdown to the colony base's destruction resembles the countdown sequence which took place during the climax of the original. The voice and sound effects are near identical to one another. As Ripley rescues Newt from the almost inescapable cocoons of the alien hive, a final reference to the original is made as the queen alien creeps into view. The tense and terrifying soundtrack from the semi-climax of the original movie leaps back into existence; throwing its audiences right the way back to that final pre-destruction moment which took place near the end of Alien. 

What’s interesting here is that the references to the original are not executed through the film’s visuals, but instead through its use of sound. The voice of the inevitable countdown, the wailing sirens and the nightmarish soundtrack are Cameron’s way of paying homage to the original. In terms of visuals, things are very different from that of Alien. We have a huge colonial complex crumbling to pieces; Ellen Ripley wielding a machine gun as well as a terrified child in her arms; an almost indestructible queen alien who’s hunting down the life form who has destroyed her hive and a heroic android who rescues our protagonist with the use of a drop ship. Audibly it’s a homage, visually it’s something else entirely.

Yet despite this pre-climactic audio nod to Alien, Aliens is far from a rehash. In fact, it the film goes to great lengths in order to branch itself away from that which came before it. This is most certainly the case in terms of how the film makes heavy use of universe expansion.

Cameron, who also wrote the screenplay, has decided to design a structured reproductive cycle for the alien species (now identified by the name Xenomorph). In the preceding film, viewers were given a glimpse at how the creatures were born, however things didn’t go any further than that (except for in the director's cut, but I'll discuss that in a future post). We were left in the dark as to how the alien functioned as a species, who laid the eggs of such creatures and how they maintained the growth of their own race. In Aliens, such mysteries are brought to light. We do not know where such a species came from, but we are invited to see how they function and exist as a larger community. 

The standard looking aliens (known as drones) play the role of a soldier in this film. Each one of them exists solely to find hosts for their eggs. The humans are such hosts and the warrior drones work in their numbers to disarm and take all living humans back to their lair; where they are to become the doomed incubators for the Xenomorph’s offspring. Sitting at the top of this chain is the queen alien. 

The queen is the egg layer of this species and possesses a very different physical, biological and aesthetic appearance to the ‘children’ of her hive. She is at least six times the size of her offspring (a completely random guess on my part there); sports a large, crown like shell on the top of her head; is the owner of six arms which vary in size and appears to be far more intelligent than the other breeds of her species. Whilst the drone aliens appear to inherit slight physical traits from their hosts, the queen alien does not appear to do so in the slightest. Whilst her children are slightly humanoid in design, she is more akin to that of a dragon. Despite her gargantuan size and extreme strength, it would appear that her existence amongst this species is solely there to serve as an egg layer. Her role is to expand the size of her race as best she can; using her own children as a means of physical force. It would seem that her incredible strength is only there as a tool for whenever she is separated from her children and in need of dependent physical assistance (as is the case in the film’s climax).

The expansion of the alien life cycle is one of the most exciting installments to Aliens and the presence of the queen alien adds a whole new dynamic to the creature that was last seen running around the Nostromo in 1979 (plus it also makes way for one of the most exciting climactic scenes in cinema history). The extension of the alien race is not the only way that Aliens enlarges the overall frame of this series, however. Cameron has also decided to build upon the concept of the ‘company’ which was established in the Ridley Scott original. In 1979, the company was nothing more than a name uttered by the protagonists of that story. We knew that they were the builders of the Nostromo, the employers of our heroes and the orchestrator of Ripley’s crew landing on that strange alien world (which is also given a name in this film), yet they were nothing more than a nonvisible entity that existed in the background for the feature’s entirety. 

Here, Cameron has decided to pull that concept right to the foreground; turning the company into a living, breathing reality that surrounds the entire plot. First of all, the company is not just the company anymore, but is given the name Wayland Yutani. Wayland Yutani are an intergalactic monopoly who seem to be the sole owners of humanity's future. They own the marines, the colony and the ships that surround Ripley. There isn’t a single scene in the entire movie which is not set in a Wayland Yutani owned environment. Every corridor, every craft and every weapon is owned by that very company. The company has expanded into a monster of its own; wrapping itself around every character and set that exists within this narrative. 

Wayland Yutani is to Aliens what Pandora is to Avatar. In fact, I can’t help but feel that the first half of Aliens is an almost mirror image of the first half of Avatar. Aliens spends most of that first fifty minutes void of action; instead dedicating large majorities of its screen time toward exploring the abandoned colony of LV426 (the name that the company…ahem… I mean Wayland Yutani have given to the planet). The camera explores everything; from the abandoned bunk rooms to the desolate control bays. The sets are rich in detail, giving off the impression that this is more than just a backdrop for the film’s action, but is in fact a world of its own. Alien was a film about a monster in a spaceship, whereas Aliens is a film about a species occupying a self contained world. As is the case with Avatar, Cameron is unashamedly fetishizing the world which he has helped to create. The camera takes great pleasure in following these marines around this abandoned setting and gives off the impression that it could quite happily do so for the rest of the film.

In many ways, the expansion of this universe could also be seen as the ultimate death in this franchise. Before Aliens, it is highly unlikely that the creative force behind the original had any intentions to turn this idea into an ever expanding franchise. It’s hard to believe that in 1979, Dan O’Brien and Ridley Scott could have ever envisioned their out of space horror movie becoming a never ending marketing tool which would assist in generating features such as Alien Resurrection and Alien Versus Predator Requiem. It was an intelligent, stand alone horror movie which happened to do very well. In many ways, the existence of Aliens and its use of expanding the world that Alien played out within showed audiences how far such a story could be pushed. Cameron turned it into a fluid and expansive universe which could change its shape with every passing film. The director’s execution may have made it possible for the film to successfully move forward with a sequel, but it could also be seen as the film that gave future producers/writers/directors the opportunities they needed to tarnish the very memory of such a series.

But whether or not this film sowed the seeds of the franchise’s own destruction is an idea that is open to debate. Plus the expansion of this universe serves to assist the quality of the plot in two ways. 

Firstly, the exploration of the colony during the fist fifty minutes of the film (thanks to the vast expansion of Wayland Yutani) gives the plot an opportunity to create suspense within its viewers. Before the release of the film, audiences knew full well that the sequel would contain not just one, but a shit load of aliens in it. We knew that this was going to be an all out war and such a promise was hopelessly enticing. We knew how much damage one of these monsters could cause, so just imagine what hundreds of them could do! Well this film promised to turn such a concept into a visual reality by giving us the tag line “this time, it’s war”. But instead of throwing a whole army of aliens into the mix early on, the film holds back on its promise for a large portion of the plot. Audiences are made to hold their breath for almost an entire hour before any alien makes an on screen appearance. The gap in revelation not only makes the viewing experience incredibly intense for its audience, but it also keeps them glued hopelessly to their seats. We know that we are going to see an all out alien battle at some point, but we haven’t a clue when such an event is set to take place. The exploration of the expanded universe helps to make this prolonged wait possible for Cameron to execute; filling out any potential vacuums that would otherwise exist amongst this fifty minute gap. 

Then there is the expansion’s finest gift of all; the queen alien. The greatest pleasure that was derived from that first ever viewing experience of this film (for me at least) would have to be the moment when the mother alien was first revealed to my eyes. I remember the moment as clear as day. Ripley slowly turns her head amongst a sea of silence; a heat swept wind blows past her face; in front of her, an egg slides out of an organic tube; both Ripley and the camera follow the tube toward its origin; at the end of the organic monstrosity sits a curled up beast that wheezes at a volume which resonates through one's existence; finally the beast tilts its head up, revealing itself to be the mother of all aliens. The following thirty minutes or so were the most jaw dropping moments of my childhood life. Right from the destruction of the mother nest, to the tearing in half of Bishop and finally to the moment where the queen is sucked from an airlock are the most exciting and memorable moments from those early days of my existence. I have yet to experience something as intoxicating as those final thirty minutes again and it’s all thanks to that marvellous mother alien.

Yet the film’s excellence doesn’t even end there. What also helps to yank the viewer right into this terrifying yet exciting world is the depth of the film’s characters. Because not only does the first fifty minutes spend its entire time ogling over Cameron’s ever expanding universe, but it also focuses large quantities of its energy on the characters of this story. The viewers are given the chance to spend great portions of time with Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Drake, Bishop, Gorman, Burke, Frost and Apone; only to then watch them all crash and burn in the final half of the movie. The time spent with the characters at the start force us to care about whether they live or die. This is where the film pulls us in as an audience and is why the film works so darn well. It doesn’t matter how many explosions or monsters there are on screen, because the key to any film like this one is the characters (I hope you're taking notes Mr Bay). It’s the same reason why the first feature worked so well upon release. We actually cared for those poor buggers who were under attack. 

And speaking of characters, what about the film’s protagonist? How does she hold up in this film? Well, let me just say right now that Ellen Ripley is, in my opinion, the greatest fictional character who ever lived. Women have rarely been treated fairly in the chauvinistic world of Hollywood, but here is a character who’s going to challenge all previous portrayals of women and the male gaze which came before her. At the start of the movie, Ripley is a woman in a mans' world. She's surrounded by loud egos and exaggerated masculinity. The men are convinced that they are the ones who wield the power in these parts, but they will soon be proved horrible wrong when they face the brutal nature of the Xenomorphs. Suddenly, the marines are well and truly helpless and it is up to Ripley to take down this impossible race. She grabs the narrative by both horns and steers it in her direction. She's the one who makes all the decisions, she's the one who rescues Newt, she's the one who makes Hicks and Bishop wait for her return and she's the one who brings an end to the virtually indestructible queen alien. Not only is Ellen Ripley stronger than the men who think they own this story, but she is stronger than the alien hive who annihilate her army of marines. She is an unstoppable force who rides this narrative out from start to finish. 

My reasons for why Aliens is such a masterpiece is forever growing and is a list which has been expanding for the past seventeen years. Yet it’s the self contained reinvention of the story, expanded universe, extraordinary climax, fully developed characters and indestructible protagonist which makes the entire experience of this film more sensational than anything else in existence. In my eyes, James Cameron is the greatest filmmaker who ever walked this earth and it is this very film which planted such an unmovable seed within my head.