stunt_muppet

One more week of school. One presentation, one essay, possibly two. And then Easter break, and a couple of days reprieve. Thank goodness.

Fannish bits and bobs:

1. Longer Doctor Who Season 5 trailer, plus a sneak peek at a future episode! OMG OMG SO EXCITED. IT'S ALMOST HERE, GUYS, IT REALLY TRULY IS. The new trailer is even more exciting! There are yet more visual callbacks to Genesis of the Daleks, including the sandbags and the cramped "war room", hurrah hurrah, and there is also a SPACE DOGFIGHT. And HORSE RIDING. And HOARDES OF WEEPING ANGELS. And also River blowing a kiss and then floating out an airlock, omg I think I might really properly love her now, especially since she somehow has to escape from that and I can't wait to see how she does. And also AMY. And her waving a lit torch at a Cyberman and her wonderful "WTF" double-thumbs-up.

And then there's the clip from "Vampires of Venice" and I really do like Eleven thus far, it's so nice to have more concrete glimpses of who he is. He is so very Doctor-like, all talking to himself and puzzling things out and trying (and failing) to be genre-savvy and HE HAS A LIBRARY CARD WITH ONE'S FACE ON IT, MOFFATT HOW DID YOU KNOW I'M A SUCKER FOR CALLBACKS LIKE THAT. And he has that wandering, slightly wobbly way of moving like he's thinking out loud through his movements and I love that. Eeeeee.

2. Speaking of Doctor Who: A look at the new TARDIS interior! It's so orange! So very orange! I kind of miss the cool colors of the previous consoles, but I'm intrigued by this new brassy and mechanical look. Also look at that thing on the ceiling. That swirly thing on the ceiling makes me absurd amounts of happy and I'm not really sure why. No, actually, I do know why - it kind of looks like Eleven got Richard Serra in there to create an installment on his ceiling, so clearly he has good taste.

And now on to less-spoilery things:

3. Watched the 1986 Transformers movie with J, R, Other J, and M on Saturday, complete with drinking game (take a sip whenever someone dies, physics is really egregiously violated, a rock song starts, Blurr talks, or you just feel like it). Verdict:

a. They actually had an animation budget for this movie, and it shows: despite some errors or odd moments the animation is quite good - in particular, the coloring is gorgeous. There's rendered surfaces and tones on the robot bodies and everything.
b. That said, the plot did tend to kind of wander off on occasion and forget where it was supposed to be going (the sequence on Junk was...a little disjointed), but ah well, got to move those new...robot squid toys that we don't actually sell. Actually, why were Hot Rod and Kup on Quintessa? It's not like there were ever Quintesson toys. I know the Quintessons would later become important to the whole Transformers 'verse (or at least the G1 portion of it), but I don't know if they were intended to be so at the movie's release.
c. Also, I'd forgotten - the Quintessons are freaky-looking. Or at least the five-faced variety is; I can deal with tentacles and shell-like heads and jaws and such, but there's something about those five staring, masklike, perpetually-grinning faces that I suspect would have haunted the dreams of an eight-year-old me.
d. "What? What? Wheeljack and Windcharger don't even get to die onscreen? WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR DEAL, MOVIE. I HATE YOU." Seriously, much as I tried to be objective about this movie I was still all pouty the whole way through because a whole lot of my favorite characters die in incredibly stupid ways. I mean, in the first attack on the shuttle everyone just kind of stands there until the Decepticons start firing. And Brawn apparently dies from getting shot in the shoulder - this is a bot who's been shot point-blank in the face and still been in one piece the nest episode. And then there's the fact that they can apparently repair Ultra Magnus after he's been torn to pieces but they can't fix Optimus Prime after he takes a few gunshots to the robotic kidney.

Yes, I know why it happened, because they had new toys to market. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Freaking movie, killing Ironhide and Ratchet and Prowl and everybody. I won't buy your toy, Megatron, see how you like it.
e. Also, even aside from the staggering body count this movie was surprisingly violent. People get ripped apart by sharks, dissolved in acid while their limbs flail about and you hear their dying screams, Starscream disintegrates, smoke pours out of Prowl's mouth when he's shot...yikes.
f. That...was more Eighties power ballads than I think I've ever heard in one sitting. Most of them playing at rather thematically strange points, too.
g. Blaster got out of the city. Blaster got out of the city before the shuttles left. I need to believe this.
h. Laserbeak is the most competent Decepticon in the history of the franchise.



And now...it is far later than I intended it to be, so I need to get to work like now. Why does it take me so long to post things?