Friday, February 27, 2009

Red Dwarf: Pre-Post-Production update



An interesting little update on the Red Dwarf site today. Rather than entering parrot mode I'll let you read it for yourself, here.

All this technical stuff is quite interesting, particularly the fact they're already working on post production work before they've finished shooting! Part of the wonders of digital video no doubt. And they're actually piping stuff over to Australia for some of the effects work!

When I read that Farscape's Mike Seymour was involved I assumed it would be over here. It's easy to forget how small the world is becoming even now in the twenty-first century! And to think of all the advancements you have yet to look forward to! Talking toasters! Little boxes that go Boom! Semi-intelligent computers sporting the heads of bald headed men and ditzy blonds! Stasis booths (good for a nice millennial long... well nothing really) and (not wishing to blow my own tooting device) android technology...

Which leads me to the picture up above. Did you see what is on the screen in the background? Go on, click on it for a bigger picture. It nearly made my optical sensors pop out, I can tell you. I'll engage stand-by mode while I wait....

[/stand-by]... and back. Did you see him? In the middle being apprehended by our brave Dwarf boys?

I waxed on at length about mechanoids in my introductory post. How us 3000 series got a raw deal due to the issue of the flat-top 4000 models despite being infinitely more handsome. Well... if the new models have a tendency towards pomposity and showing off their ludicrously enhanced attachments, at least they don't make a habit of dismembering people and making balloon animals out of their lower intestines.

That my friends, if my ocular sensors aren't deceiving me (they could be, I haven't had a service in decades,) is a simulant. The bad boys of the android world. In fact they have such a bad rep, we don't even class them as androids despite fitting the most predominant ("humanoid robot") definition of the word.* He looks like one of those old crusty looking models too, like that chap the Dwarfers encountered on the Justice World penal colony. Very nasty:


(Credit to the Red Dwarf Space Corp Database.)

Pretty boy isn't he?

It's obviously way too early to tell what is going on for certain, but is this lad responsible for the attack which leads to the crew members' return to Earth? Is he one of many responsible? Or is this just a ginger mackerel?** As a (sort of) wise man once said, "it will be a lot of fun finding out." Mind you he got pregnant a few months later, so you have to be careful when making such statements.



*I believe Kryten (one of those flat-top 4000s I mentioned earlier) put it succinctly when he stated: "The main difference between an android and a simulant is an android won't rip off a human's head and spit down his neck." He might look like a contestant in the 'Michelin Man lookalike of the Year' show, but you couldn't meet a wiser droid than old Kryters. Well... okay you could. But lets not put him down. He has had a lot to contend with these last few centuries.

** I suspect my piscine phrase database might have gotten a tad corrupted there.

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