Mark

Yup.

There are plenty of criticisms to be levelled at the ending of Superman: The Movie (1978 vintage), many of them pretty fair - taken as a whole it's still one of my favourite films ever, but the flying-back-in-time fixit is more than a touch dodgy in both concept and execution. But it gets one thing crucially right - faced with a hopeless situation Superman will do something impossible, even if it means breaking the logic of the narrative, to save everyone. Because he's Superman, and that's what he does. It's who he is, it's what he represents, and if you can't do that concept at least some sort of justice you should probably be writing stories about some other character instead.

"He is better than us, but we can aspire to be like him". That's about as good a summation of what makes Superman great as I've ever come across.

I'm going to go and read All-Star Superman again.

The rather excessive strength of my reaction does, I'd be the first to admit, say more about me than it does about the film. As I said, it was a perfectly adequate effects-heavy disaster movie - no humanity or emotional resonance, but plenty of well-constructed whizz-bang kicksplode. If that's what you want from a Superman film, then you're welcome to it (and indeed, it seemed to go down pretty well with the crowd of non-fans I saw it with, so job well done I suppose). But it's not for me.

Oh, yeah. Cavill in particular did a superb job with the material he was given, Michael Shannon was similarly excellent (quibbles about the story aside, I thought it was a good take on General Zod), and most of the rest of the cast were splendid - there weren't any major weak links in the acting. The effects work was fantastic - in terms of pure choreography and visual impact, the fight between Superman and Zod is probably the best depiction of a battle between superpowered beings ever put on screen. It just belonged in an adaptation of Moore's Miracleman, not a Superman film.

The same goes for pretty much the entire final hour - I'd heard about the gist of it before seeing the film, but even then I wasn't prepared for just how stunningly, devastatingly gratuitous the destruction actually was. If it had been intended as a dark, '80s-style grim'n'gritty deconstruction of the superhero mythos, the final act would have been spectacularly good. But it wasn't - I think we're genuinely supposed to take it seriously as a note of triumph when what's-her-name breathily exclaims that "he saved us!" in reference to the only five people left alive in the middle of the smoking crater that used to be a densely populated city. And then the straight-up holocaust that has just taken place is literally never mentioned again. Not once does the film so much as acknowledge that several million people have just been wiped out, let alone show any of the characters expressing a single second of sadness, grief or trauma about it. "Disaster porn" doesn't even begin to do it justice. It's obscene.

I had a similar problem with the climax of Star Trek Into Darkness, to be entirely fair. But at least that one (a) wasn't pretending to be about a superhero saving the world, and (b) bothered to include a memorial service.

I have, as it happens - saw it yesterday. I wasn't going to go, but fell into a free ticket (properly free, not even inherited from a friend who couldn't go, so not a penny went to the film on my behalf, something that felt important for some reason). And even for free, I wish I hadn't, or at least that I'd had the sense to leave early, because predictably enough, I hated it. Really, really hated it. It was an adequate, if amoral and tonally odd, scifi disaster movie, but a pretty weak superhero story, and a crushingly, heartbreakingly bad Superman story. Same reasons as everyone else who felt the same way has already said, so I won't bother reiterating them at endless length, but yeah. Those things.

It didn't even make me angry, just rather sad. That argument doing the rounds about Hollywood as it currently exists being only a few big budget flops away from a full scale collapse feels positively encouraging to me, because I'm just done with this generation of blockbusters. Joyless, overlong, self-important and sociopathically uninterested in anything but the spectacle, which was nothing we haven't seen before, often in far better films. Awful.

Nolan was for it; Goyer and Snyder opted for a good ol' fashioned neck snap.

Man, just imagine how much better things would be if DC/Warners would stop "dickriding" Nolan, eh?

...and, much to nobody's surprise, that missing episode rumour appears to have been total bollocks. Some marvellously irresponsible hype-mongering from several people who should know better (and Ian Levine), combined with an ill-considered and ambiguously worded not-quite-denial from a BBC. spokesman did make it look a bit more plausible than some previous iterations of this rumour, but the sense of "far too good to be true" was always hanging over this one.

Ok, now I'm just holding on to "there's just no way this is true" because...well...come on, there's just no way. Right?

At this point, it looks like a lot of people are going to be indescribably disappointed if/when this fails to pan out. I do rather wish they'd managed to keep it secret until it was known for certain, but that's the internet for you.

NB: In the unlikely event that this story turns out to have any truth to it, my shrieks of joy - and those of a good many other nerds - will be audible on the moon.

After a bit more digging around, it would appear that at least a few people with a bit of authority on the subject have come out and said that these rumours are complete bullshit - or, more plausibly, the result of several people being fooled by a fairly well-executed hoax. So, I'll be sticking with a big ol' plate of "I'll believe it when we see it", possibly with side helpings of "which we almost certainly won't" and "it'd still be quite nice, though".

This one does seem to have a bit more weight behind it than the usual rumours - it's not so much that it's coming from reliable sources (although it apparently is, or at least so various news sites are claiming), but that several people in a position to deny that there's any truth to the story (and who have done so for similar rumours in the past) have remained pointedly silent.

I'm still sceptical, for reasons of bitter experience. But it does look like there's *something* big due to be announced in the next month or so. What that something is, though, is less certain.

Likewise. It'd be very nice indeed, obviously, but it's been rumoured so very, very many times (and on the handful of occasions when new episodes actually *have* been found, it's tended to be completely unexpected) without a word of truth to it, so I'm erring on the side of suspicion. I'll be delighted if that suspicion turns out to be wrong, but I won't be holding my breath.

Just send the same set of people a few more emails, each more batshit nuts than the last, incorporating some dubious-looking advertising links. Then follow up a day or so later with a "sorry, looks like my email account got hacked" mass mail. Simples.

I was rather hoping that this rumour would turn out to be bollocks. Not because I think Kinnear would make a bad Doctor (the part is virtually actor-proof anyway...give it to almost any suitably talented and/or charismatic actor - or to Sylvester McCoy - and they'll be able to make it their own through sheer force of personality), but because I'd rather they go more strikingly different from Matt Smith. I'd really like the new Doctor should be at least one of the following: much older, much less caucasian, or much more female.

Of the rumoured candidates so far, I don't think Ben Daniels would be a terrible choice. I've seen him in a few things, he's clearly a decent actor, and I've got no real idea how he'd play the Doctor. The latter is probably the most important thing - I'd like to be surprised, both by the actor who eventually gets announced and then by his/her take on the character.

despite David Tennant's claims that he was inspired by Peter Davison, their Doctors are nothing like each other

Of course, "inspired by" ain't the same as "channeling". But yeah, I agree - there's very little, if any, of Davison's Doctor in Tennant's performance. They share a certain tendency to end up railing imponently against the situation because people don't take them seriously - they're probably the two Doctors with the least natural authority about them - but the actual acting tics and traits play out very differently.

I agree completely about Smith, too. He was certainly inspired by Troughton - cue that oft-repeated story about him excitedly calling Moffat in the middle of the night to rave about Troughton, having just watched 'Tomb of the Cybermen' - but besides the bow tie (which was his own idea), precious little of Trout is detectable onscreen. The only direct influence I can see is in a few of the scenes where he's talking to Amy/young Amelia in 'The Big Bang', which do rather echo Troughton's similarly intimate, comforting tone in the scene where he talks to Victoria about her dead father in 'Tomb'. But that's not really a linchpin in either actor's version of the character, it's just a nice little character beat (and works beautifully both times).

Oh, it's certainly a distinct possibility, and I'm quite sure Moffat will be under some pressure from the BBC to cast someone nice and marketable. But the mere fact that he's still in the job after failing to produce a full season for two consecutive years (a situation with which the Beeb are apparently deeply, deeply unhappy, not least because it's losing them a fortune in marketing revenue and overseas sales) gives an idea of how much clout he has, and there's been no suggestion that there's any dissatisfaction with his creative choices. If Moffat wants an older Doctor - and we know he does, (a) because he's been saying so for years and (b) because he's already given us John Hurt, the oldest actor to be given the role by a huge margin - then there's every possibility we'll get one.

Not a bad call. OK, now we just need Sam, Merry and Pippin to round out the Fellowship...

No, he's still a long way short of that title - off the top of my head I think he'll be the 6th longest-serving Doctor. The actor with the most TV episodes is, and almost certainly always will be, Tom Baker, simply by virtue of having played the part for over 7 years, around twice as long as almost anyone else. After that comes William Hartnell, who was only in the role for 3 years, but that was in a period when the show was on the air for almost 50 weeks a year, so his episode count far outstrips his calendar tenure. After that are Jon Pertwee and Pat Troughton, in which order I'm not sure - Troughton's case is similar to Hartnell's but not quite so extreme, as the production schedule had relaxed a bit by the time he took over, while Pertwee was also in the role for a fair bit longer than average.

Tennant is the longest serving new series Doctor...Smith will be close to his record, but not quite beating it. Both of them played/will have played the part for around 4 years, or three-and-a-bit seasons, but Tennant did more episodes in his 'gap year' 2009 than Smith will be doing between now and Christmas. It'll be close, though - just a couple of hours' difference.

Whew.

Anyway...yeah, I'm ready for Smith to regenerate. He's been a good Doctor - not quite living up to the promise of his first year, to my mind (after the 2010 season he was on course to be one of my favourite Doctors ever, but he's slipped down a bit since then), but still excellent. I don't think he's been quite as good at elevating the weaker episodes through sheer force of acting as Tennant was, but when he's been given the right material he's done a brilliant job with it. But all things must pass, and it's good that he'll be leaving before he's outstayed his welcome.

Yes please to a female Doctor, but not until Steven Moffat has left the producer's chair, thanks very much. I point once again to TimC's excellent suggestion of Michelle Gomez, who has been high on my list of dream casting choices since Tim first mentioned it. Failing that, a non-caucasian actor would be appreciated, for all the same reasons as were brought up the last time we talked about the this.

I don't share Pål's certainty that it's inevitably going to be another photogenic young guy. We know that Moffat was mainly looking at older actors before Smith wowed them with his audition, and it's widely and credibly rumoured that Paterson Joseph was almost offered the part - if they were that close to hiring a fortysomething year old black guy last time, I don't see any reason to assume they wouldn't consider it now.

I've been having a bugger of a job thinking of a good Gimli.

He is a bit pretty, isn't he?

Also, the noises Malin was making as she looked over my shoulder while I was googling up a suitable picture of pre-Aragorn Viggo would be enough to make a man lacking in my iron-clad self-confidence* feel terribly insecure in his marriage.

*narcisissm

I dislike greatly the fact that the gender-swapped version of Lord of the Rings we're busy casting over in the "What if they queered LotR?" thread is never going to be made. Because I want it to exist, so I can watch it again and again and again.

Yeah, but remember that Viggo Mortensen looked like this just a couple years before shooting LotR...

You can do a lot with a bit of grimy make-up and some decent acting.

Guilty as charged.

Admit it, though...she wouldn't be a bad choice for the role.

It occurred to me that if we're race-bending Gondor, Aragon should probably be played by a mixed race actress. In which case, I should like to propose the extremely beautiful and highly talented Ms. Nina Sosanya.

Helen Mirren would be a far better Elrond than Meryl Streep would. Change approved!

Also:

Miranda Otto as Eomer, Karl Urban as Eowyn. Obviously.

'Legacy' is by Gary Russell, isn't it? Based solely on that piece of information, I'm quite happy to believe that you're right. There are significant numbers of the NAs I haven't read, so my "least favourite" is hardly an authoritative claim. 'The Pit' is merely a convenient whipping-boy (and not without reason...it really does read like the work of someone who hasn't entirely grasped the fact that there are some pretty simple rules dictating how sentences work, and certainly doesn't see why he should be expected to abide by them).

'Lungbarrow' is, I think, fundamentally misguided, but it's a competently written book with something approaching an actual idea behind it. That alone puts it several notches above 'The Pit', or 'Timewyrm: Apocalypse', or, indeed, absolutely anything Gary Russell has ever written.

(I figured as much, don't worry ;-) )