The NeverEnding Story (1984)

"To the winch, wench!"

This isn't a film I have any great nostalgia for- it didn't seem to connect with me the one and only time I saw it on video in the mid-'80s. But I'm happy to say o thoroughly enjoyed this fantastical pawn to storytelling, imagination and puppetry.

It's odd to see this very German tale awkwardly transported to the USA- "Bastian" is not a very American name- but all that vanishes once we arrive safely in Fantasia for a wonderful picaresque tale of no stars but many wonders which knock modern CGI into a cocked hat. Books are dangerous things!

We get a dreamlike quest narrative, with the child hero Atreyu obviously mirroring Bastian, who is reading this in a book. We get Alan Oppenheimer, the voice of Skeletor. And we get Falkor the luck dragon, dangerously close to a kids' show cute puppet but who works. Why doesn't he take Atreyu all the way to the Empress's tower, though? 

A film that has dated in the best possible way, The NeverEnding Story is well worth a rewatch.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

"I'm sorry, I was having a flashback."

So, Tim Burton did a movie version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Bound to happen, wasn't it? The book is perfect for his whimsicality (is that a word?) and visual style. There  is room, I suppose, for the complaint that Burton has become too comfortable with a certain kind of film and a certain type of approach- vaguely gothic, whimsical films in the fairytale style which tend to star Johnny Depp or the missus, Helena Bonham Carter, and that it would be nice to see him do something else for a change. But the formula works, again and again.

Here, for example, we focus on a poor family who live in a version of modern England in a kind of poverty which implies no Welfare State, and all of whom, Oliver Twist-like, speak in not entirely realistic RP accents. The town in which they live is a highly stylised version of an Industrial Revolution northern city, a sort of cross between Coketown from Hard Times and the paintings of L.S. Lowry. It's some distance from the American setting of Roald Dahl's novel (a childhood favourite, naturally), but it works wonderfully well.

The children accompanying Charlie on his tour of Willy Wonka's factory are deliciously horrible grotesques, as we might expect. It's an inspired idea to have the great Deep[ Roy portray all of the Ooompa Loompas, and their delightfully and darkly funny songs at each child's comeuppance are a highlight of the film, although the sequence with Mike Teevee, inveighing against the bad influence of television, has dated somewhat; the twenty-first century has very different, though equally silly, targets for its periodic moral panics.

Johnny Depp is superb, and suitably weird, as Willy Wonka. I didn't like the treatment of the character towards the end of the film, however. When he and Charlie take the Glass Elevator up and out of the factory we get not an exciting adventure with the Vernicious Knids but a load of sentimental family-themed twaddle that I could have done without. Still, at least this silly subplot gives us a glimpse of the great Christopher Lee. There are also lots of nicely metatextual gags throughout, and that sort of stuff is right up my street.

If you'll forgive the ending, this film is a delight. Yes, it's exactly what you'd expect Tim Burton to do with the source material, but isn't that what we all want?

Blake's 7: The Web

“We gave them life. We have the right to take it from them.”

What an odd episode. It feels strange, after a four episode arc, to go into a standalone story with hardly any Federation involvement and lots of alien weirdness. In fact, this has a lot more in common with Terry Nation’s Doctor Who stuff than anything we’ve seen so far.

We begin on the surface of an alien world which just happens to look like the South-East of England. There are webs and a rather cheap looking bouncy castle. Inside the bouncy castle is some stuff, including two plastic chairs and a bloke putting his head through a piece of cardboard with a little embryo-like body drawn on it. Scary. Not for the last time this episode, I’m reminded of Nation’s rubbish Doctor Who story The Keys of Marinus.

Meanwhile, the Liberator is being controlled by forces unknown. More worryingly, so is Cally. Also worryingly, Jenna is still expressing doubts about having an “alien” on board. Refreshingly, though, it’s night, and most people are asleep. That’s something which notoriously never happens on television spaceships, so well done to Terry Nation for that at least.

Still, a bomb? Very Terry Nation, that is. It’s an interesting scene, though; Avon saves Blake’s life, probably, by instinctively grabbing him. He insists it was just reflexes and he’s as surprised as Blake is, but Blake replies “I’m not surprised.” Blake is seemingly quite convinced that Avon is basically trustworthy and not as amoral as he seems. This certainly makes a nice contrast to Avon’s later comment to Gan that “There will come a time when [Blake] won’t be making the decisions.”

The Liberator is drawn to an uncharted system (for the first time it’s confirmed that they exist within Federation space). By now we’re a good way through the running time; I believe Trekkies refer to this sort of thing as a bottle episode. But then some aliens possess Jenna, announcing that the ship cannot escape. The crew are to follow a beacon signal and land. Cally then, conveniently, proves her worth with some much needed exposition. (She’ll be developing a personality next, just you watch.) Apparently there’s an old legend on Auronar of something called “The Lost”. Ooh.

Blake finally makes it to the alien planet. It looks every bit as embarrassing as the opening scene, except that there are blokes wearing some arse-clenchingly embarrassing rubber suits. They seem to be laying siege to the bouncy castle, inside which there is a laboratory. Yet again, I’m reminded of a particularly dull episode of The Keys of Marinus.

Blake is welcomed by a rather odd couple, a brother and sister. They explain that they are genetic engineers, the webbing in space is one of their experiments which has got out of control, and that they are able to release the Liberator if Blake will replace their dwindling power supply. How convenient that a ship should pass by just as they’re about to run out of power. What are the chances of that, eh?

There’s a snag though. The unconvincing rubber suits are called Decimas, and they are a genetic experiment, intended to be slaves, who have had the effrontery to show independent thought. Our rather cold scientist couple intend to destroy them all once their power is restored, yet Blake can see a group of them mourning their dead friend, who got nastily done in by one of the scientists a few minutes earlier. Now, I don’t want to be accused of reading things into things here, but don’t you think there might be a slight subtext here about the ethics of genetic experimentation? Just throwing that one out there.

Blake is appalled, of course. He soon discovers that the scientists are also artificially engineered slaves controlled by the bloke with his head through a bit of cardboard. Mr Cardboard Body is a gestalt entity comprised of six separate scientists, all of dubious morals, and they are indeed who Cally says they are. Avon, who has now turned up, is not quite as bothered by this as Blake is. Still, it’s interesting to hear Blake refer to Avon to the two scientists as “my friend”.

The ending is a bit disappointing; a group of Decimas just get through the door after it’s carelessly left open. They then proceed to ransack the place while Blake and Avon bugger off back to the Liberator, where they manage to evade some Federation pursuit ships. They then carry on with what they were doing before they were so rudely interrupted.

That one was a bit rubbish, really.

Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Part One

“You’ve been drinking.”

“Not a drop, sir.”

“Then it’s time you started.”

An unusual way of starting a story, straight into the backstage area of a Victorian theatre, but effective, and a brilliant setting from the outset. The constant stream, of great Robert Holmes starts as soon as Henry Gordon Jago starts talking (“I’d have propelled him on to the pavement with a punt up the posterior”), not to let up for six whole episodes. We’re also presented with mysterious and disturbing goings-on from the start, with a missing woman and a ventriloquist’s dummy able to move on its own.

The Doctor and Leela arrive, both in Victorian clothing and the Doctor in a deerstalker. The Doctor wants to show Leela how her “ancestors” enjoyed themselves (she’s human, then) but they’re caught up in trouble very quickly and asked to return to the police station. The Doctor’s gradual shift from suspect to taking charge is expertly and amusingly done.

Aside from the clothes and the general surroundings, a reference to “Jolly Jack” implies that the Whitechapel murders must be fairly recent, giving us a rough idea of when we are. Some of the characters are heard to express a few less than enlightened attitudes to Chinese people, however. To an extent this can be said to simply reflect the time depicted and there’s certainly no indication of any overtly racist intent in the script- Chang’s line “I understand we all look the same” actually undercuts the policeman’s attitudes quite nicely, even if said to the Doctor. But some of the story’s dialogue as presented would probably make the story unbroadcastable today, which is unfortunate but understandable- next episode Litefoot will refer to an “inscrutable chink”. A shame, as a simple ironic comment from the Doctor upon hearing some of these comments, something analogous to the line “It’s political correctness gone mad” from The Shakespeare Code, would probably have done the trick. But let’s not get started on John Bennett’s face make-up!

Oh dear, it’s a giant rat. Moving swiftly on…

Part Two

“A hat box?”

We get some answers here- Chang has a boss with a hidden face, who lives in an underground lair which, this being the Hinchcliffe era, is full of bottles containing bubbling, brightly coloured liquids. He speaks of “Time Agents”. Hmm. No doubt a one-off throwaway line. I’m sure we’ll hear no more of this.

There’s a lot of fun in this episode- I love the Doctor’s magic tricks and Jago’s exasperation, and Litefoot’s reaction to Leela’s eating habits are a joy. It’s only the second episode and already it’s clear that both Litefoot and Jago are more than ordinary supporting characters, both being exceptionally well written and played.

Part Three

“Explode? Unthinkable! It was made in Birmingham.”

Only Robert Holmes could satisfactorily resolve a proper get-out-of-that cliffhanger by having Leela distract the Doctor by jumping out of a window, for entirely valid reasons. This story is great! The Doctor’s fab in this episode, from “Sleep is for tortoises” to the map on Litefoot’s tablecloth to the quoted line. Apparently the Doctor once fished in the Fleet with the Venerable Bede, who’d come down south for some reason.

But there’s lots more good stuff- I particularly enjoy Jago’s “explaining” what’s happening to Casey. Plus Leela continues to be great, sneaking into Weng-Chiang’s lair and escaping again. Only the giant rat is in any way disappointing, and that we shall not speak of.

Part Four

“He’s gone to join his ancestors.”

We start with more amusing dialogue between Jago and Casey, and the episode centres around a performance by Chang in front of the watching Doctor. The moment where Chang points a gun at the Doctor only to shoot the cards is gripping stuff, but ironically Chang has been sacked by his master and has no agenda here but to entertain. So it’s shocking to him as well as Jago and the Doctor when Casey’s corpse is made to appear on stage- a turning point in the story.

It’s partly as though the initial four-parter is concluded, as we end with Weng-Chiang in possession of the time cabinet, waiting for the final two-parter to begin…

Part Five

“I may have had a bang on the head but this is a dashed queer story.”

We start to get some real explanations here: Mr Sin is in fact the “Peking Homonculus from the year 5000, where there is apparently an Ice Age. He has the cerebral cortex of a pig and almost started World War VI- some pleasingly random world-building there. And we get some ratcheting up of the villainy from Weng-Chiang, with the traditional scene of an underling being forced to commit suicide for the crime of failure.

I love the way Litefoot describes the area the Doctor and Leela as being full of “scenes of vice and squalor”, but, this being a tea-time show, we see nothing but the underside of a trap door! Meanwhile, Jago and Litefoot finally meet, and about time too. Jago’s dismissal of the police is classic Holmes: “we all know they’re solid, sterling fellows, but their buttons are the brightest thing about them”- shades of authorial voice from our ex-copper scribe here?

I love Leela’s attitude, deciding with real anger in her voice, to set up an ambush for Weng-Chiang. Louise Jameson is great.

Part Six

“Let the talons of Weng-Chiang rend your flesh!”

A superb finale. It’s pretty much all go from the off, but we also get room for a nice character moment as Jago confesses his cowardice to Litefoot- it’s nice that he gets a chance to be brave later on, distracting Greel while Leela reaches for the gun. There’s also more backstory- the Filipino army, a final advance on Reykjavik, Greel as the “butcher of Brisbane”. We also get a hint of just how nasty a dictator he was: “At my camps, the extraction process was considered the most painful of all.”

But of course he is defeated, and we finish with one of the best final scenes ever, from Litefoot’s attempts at Eliza Doolittling Leela to the contrasting reactions of Jago and Litefoot to the dematerialising TARDIS.

A magnificent story, not quite as good as its reputation but easily a high 5/5.