I have just watched the first of a two part story Day of The Triffids. Its a BBC remake, and I’m not going to give away any spoilers, I’m sure it’ll be on BBC America or the Scifi channel soon. This classic science fiction yarn was always going to be a difficult one to do, carnivorous spitting plants taking over the world is a bit tongue and cheek, but then again so are the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Its a half decent remake with some strong supporting characters. I was wondering if anyone else has seen it yet.
In the process of acquiring it right now. I'll check in tomorrow. I hope to god its better than the recent remake of 'The Prisoner'.
Not yet - but now I'm looking forward to it !!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I remember the original very well. In fact, wasn't the original title actually "The Night of the Triffids"? That's how I remember it...
Ok. I watched the other half of Day of the Triffids. It was a very good attempt by the BBC to reboot this classic scifi tale, however it did fall short of having me on the edge of my seat. Eddie Izzard was the bad guy Torrance, and he pulled off his role very well, what with wanting to take over the country and all that. Vanessa Redgrave played a very good psychotic nun hell bent on restoring God’s will into the community. Don’t know whether they’ll be doing a sequel next year but if they do they’ll have to do better. But like I said at the beginning, this classic tale is a tough cookie for the small or big screen, probably best left to the imagination of anyone who reads the book. And now for the geeky bit, picking apart the plot line. First off, there is no way in hell I would have stayed in London, imagine millions of blind people scratching around desperately trying to find any of those fortunate to still have their sight. People would almost start to die immediately the old, and very young first, people having accidents, and finally the mass succumbing to starvation. I would just grab myself those dearest to me and get the hell out of dodge. Not sure that I would have gone to the Isle of Wight though, defensible yes, but limited recourses. There are plenty of places in the UK that can be fortified. Resources wouldn’t be a problem either, plenty of vehicles around with petrol, and even though fresh food will go off in a few days, there is plenty of things like tinned food and other food, which would last long enough for you to have set up you own farm somewhere and grow your own cops. The show didn’t focus much on combating the Triffids, but slow moving carnivorous plants you could develop some kind of pesticide in time. But until then keep good a flame thrower handy. As for how many people would be blinded due to this solar storm, I’m guessing out of a population of 60 million you’re looking at a 50 million + casualty rate. Not everyone would be outside or looking up at the sky, some people work in total darkness, or won’t be bothered by the light show. Anyway it was a half decent watch.
I'm about 1/2 an hour in, and while I am enjoying it, so far I've found two problems [I think..] along technical lines: 1) During the live TV broadcast of the sunflare thingy, they show London, and then Sydney. Oddly, it's daylight in both cities at the same time. ??? 2) PlaneCrash guy sits down on a sign reading W1 [from what I recall of London, this indicates an area within the city, just West of centre, North of the Thames]. TV chic stumbles out of a Subway station just beside where PlaneCrash guy was sitting. Later, after hooking up with Scientist guy, they both head to Whitehall. Oddly, they somehow approach Whitehall by going over a bridge, heading North, where Whitehall can be seen just to the West. ??? Hopefully, some native Londoners can correct me on my geography here, as its been some time since I was in London...
er hem, excuse me, Arthur C Clarke, H G Wells, Ridley Scott, I think you'll find are fine examples of how us Brits can create good scifi. You're correct the geography in Day of the Triffids was a bit of a muddle, esecially around Whitehall and Number 10, and I forgot to mention there would have been tens of thousands in the London underground who would have been protected from the light show.
Jason, I don't think he was talking about authors and/or their books - I believe it was a reference to how they make films. And don't get me wrong - I'm a BIG fan of Dr. Who. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And even though their productions use rather cheap settings and props (and very few special effects), I still enjoy it. Oh - and Red Dwarf and Black Adder are two others. As one fellow I know put it, compared to American films, many British sci-fi production are more like stage plays. I sort of agree with that.
Wow, that was really horrible. Gaping holes in the plot, people doing thing for inscrutable reasons, nothing is believable. Amazingly bad, given the budget and actors.
Ok, I can't argue with that I suppose, Quatermass was popular in its day. In recent years British scifi productions have relied on US money to launch. The new Dr Who isn't too bad, although I wish they wouldn't rely so heavily on Cardiff, Wales as location backdrops. I live near this city and visit regular, every time I see a Dalek or other creature roll past a well known spot I cringe, don't know why, guess I'm not used to seeing Aliens on my doorstep. I do think the BBC are taking a risk with this new Doctor, some bloke called Matt Smith ????????? although his new assistant does look rather tasty. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'm used to seeing a middle aged Dr Who. I just hope they're not trying to turn this classic series into some scifi teeny ass kicking dribble. Anyway by the looks of things in this post I see no one is impressed with the remake of Triffids.
As a massive fan of apocalyptic stuff, I was dreading this remake. The BBC has a piss-poor track record of ballsing up sci-fi (Survivors, Doctor Who, etc.) and this looked to be no different. However, I was quite impressed with it. To set well over half the show in a ruined London was a refreshing departure, (they usually have the characters escape any cities for the relatively safe (and cheaper to film) countryside), the effects were perfectly good, the acting was okay, (apart from the kids-- British kids just can't act. At least not compared to the American ones), and the story moved along at a nice lick. In fact, I'd have liked it to have been about an hour longer, but that's just me! All in all, I enjoyed it. Now we, over here in England, have Season 2 of Survivors to look forward to in a couple of weeks. It'll be up against some stiff cinema competition though, at least in the post-apocalyptic stakes, what with The Road and Fallout: The Movie-- I mean The Book Of Eli both out here in January.
Let's face it DOtT was utterly crap. Dr Dougray works with Triffids, yet UTTERLY FAILS to don any protective eyewear? Yet two little girls (one armed with a Sterling Sub machine gun, WTF?) work it out. Hmmm, BULLSHIT. Also, you'd think security measures around dangerous plants would mean their escape would take a little longer at least? But no, one guy can open a few doors, throw a few switches, and in HOURS they are all on the loose. BULLSHIT. And yeah, all of those blind people were going to die real soon, and cities become disease infested thanks to their rotting corpses. Any sensible person would have taken a good sized van, filled it with fuel, stopped off at supermarket, stocked up on water, tinned goods, medical supplies, batteries, camping gear, and then gone to a garden centre, and taken weedkiller, chainsaws, stuff to make a flamethrower (butane 'weed wand' and a one of those 16 litre spray pumps that you wear on your back, filled with fuel.) maybe a scythe, ... you know, shit to kill plants? Also, Dr Dougray comes into contact with remnants of government, who just let him leave despite being the foremost authority on all things Triffid related? Well, of course they did, because NOT ONCE did any of his supposed experience help him, until right at the end, when we realised the significance of that tiresome flashback. Oh, and the last half hour was utterly predictable Spoiler 'Feeding time' says dad, and at that point you know he's going to die, and he did. They taser Torrence, so he can recover, and come outside, and get eaten by Triffids, and bugger me, that's exactly what happened. And of course the most annoying part is that the survivors didn't deserve to survive.
SPOILER WARNING It was shite. As always in television shows these days, everyone is a moron, and the story can only go ahead by everyone being incredibly stupid. Example: The guy who handcuffs each seeing person to a blind person. First, that's slavery, and every seeing person should have shot him straight away for even suggesting it. Second, all it does is drag the survivability of the seeing folks down to the level of the blind folks, thus screwing over everyone. The supposedly heartless people with guns behind the barricade had the right idea.
