I' currently working my way through '60s Doctor Who (first time for a lot of the stories), and the number of comments like this are making me VERY nervous, hah.
In my opinion, The Macra Terror is still the best animation. Why haven’t Sun & Moon studio been asked to do more? How have we gone to fluent 3D animation to Faceless Ones & Fury’s cardboard cutout animation
@@timelordrohan9425 They only animated the first episode of that. it's been a while since i checked but i believe ep 4 remains unanimated. Edit: No, i was wrong they animated both and it's available on Britbox.
The problem isn't that it's a recreation. You said what makes that scene is the cinematography, and the horrifying face. Why are those things suddenly impossible to be recreated faithfully in animation? If anything, cinematography and horrifying, inhuman expressions should be something that is even better in an animated medium, because you have full control of the scene, you can exagurrate things to a level that is just not possible in nature. You aren't held back by stuff like the physical world, or the human biology. The problem isn't that it's a recreation, the problem is the talent of the people animating it, and definitely the budget they had to work with. I can bet there are Doctor Who fans who are artists who probably drew that scene and faithfully portrayed it.
I agree that getting better animators (or giving them more time as Stu suggested) would almost certainly raise the quality of the finished product. That said, regarding the face in particular, I think there's a quality to the original that you can't really replicate in this style of animation. The power of the original shot comes from the experience of watching a real human face distort itself into something uncanny. Seeing it recreated in animation, so matter how faithfully-drawn, is never going to have the same impact. Our brains know it's not real, so it's going to be less horrifying. In order to make it effective, the animators would have to do a lot more than just "be better." They would have to completely reframe the scene, and probably the whole serial to be honest. They would have to be less faithful to the look of the original, and more faithful to the atmosphere and reputation it's picked up over the last 50 years. Such a process is basically creating a new story instead of recreating an old one.
Taking a face that in the original is like something straight of a nightmare, like an alien inside of a human skin contorting the face horrifyingly to burst out, and animating it in a way that it ends up looking so stupid it’s hilarious looking
@@crimsondynamo615 The problem isn't that it looks stupid, it's just really bland honestly. Like, if you're not gonna do something creative with it, which you should, at least be as slavishly accurate as you can. This shouldn't be a challenge. But I think the big problem was budget
I would also add I'm (just) old enough to remember watching Fury and it was every bit as scary as anything the soundtrack might make you imagine. The seaweed heartbeat and when the Doctor and Jamie go down the shaft is my stongest memory of it.
Same here. I'd never listened to the soundtrack, so when I heard the seaweed heartbeat on this DVD it made me shiver and brought back memories of 53 years ago. I was 6 then, and my strongest memories are of the shaft, and Victoria's screaming.
I suppose I'm quite lucky in a way that my first experience of Fury from the Deep was the animation, which I watched for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I spent the whole time really impressed with the animation (which I watched in full colour), to the extent that I'm not sure how much I liked the story vs how much I enjoyed the animation itself. It seems like a story that suits animation particularly well, and I loved how unsettling the seaweed looked. I watched that surviving clip of Quill and Oak in the special features after I'd finished and distinctly thought "they're just as creepy!", because I'd found them incredibly frightening while watching, not having any of the baggage of expectation. Your perspective of having grown up with the soundtrack and the surviving clips makes a lot of sense, and also sounds like a brilliant way of being introduced to the story, but it just goes to show how much of a difference it makes what your first experience is. You have made me interested to seek out the soundtrack with Frazer Hines' linking narration, though!
I actually loved this animation even if the surviving clips are not faithfully recreated because the atmosphere was truly something to behold in most scenes. I also really liked the style and its probably my favourite animation bar The Invasion. But this was my first time experiencing the whole story so I have a different perspective I guess
I've often heard that story of Tomb's visuals being a let down. I can understand, lucky enough to have seen it visually from the start. Used to be my fav DW story for a while until "The Invasion" took its place. Think the reason I choose it beforehand was if any new fans asked me what my fav DW story was I could say "Tomb, it's 96 min and complete!" as opposed to "Invasion, its over three hours and you can only see three quarters of it!" New fans be like "Oh god what have we let ourselves in for!" :)
Considering the animation was the first way I saw this story, it fucking terrified me. Having now seen the recon (which everyone said was better), I honestly still love the animation. The backgrounds were bloody gorgeous and I much prefer the more comic art style for this over Sun & Moons effort on Macra. Most of the complaints I saw from this could easily lobbed at the other animations, e.g. it’s not accurate enough etc etc. I feel like people wanted far too much from Fury due to its legendary status, they need to remember the budget behind the animations. But once you get past the animation’s short comings you’ll find it’s a worthwhile watch. But anyway, loved the review.
People often hold up The Invasion as the best animation. The animators literally got Zoe's costume wrong in Episode 1. Of course, this is also the case in Macra and Faceless, but no animation is perfect is the point.
"Most of the complaints I saw from this could easily be lobbed at the other animations" Correct, and they have. His reviews of the other animated reconstructions all gave these same criticisms. He is not singling out the fury of the deep recon in any way. And as for the point about the budget, that doesn't matter. Sure we can't blame the people making it for that, they did the best they could, but that doenst make the issues in the final product any less distracting just because theirs no one to blame them on.
The thing with Tomb of the Cybermen is the audio wasn't even out at the time of it's discovery (in fact the audio release was being prepared while it was getting recovered). At the time all fans had were the Target Books which are an even further experience from having the actual episodes or even the audio. The story was reappraised and people began to like it once it came out on DVD. I wonder how Fury from the Deep would have looked if the actual episodes survived (well they have the film can for Episode 6, with a completely different programme in it). If time travel was invented it would be an archivists wet dream.
Loose Canon Recon > Animation for me, although credit to the DVD release so more fans can experience the story which is a 10/10 no question. Also unpopular opinion, but the scenes with a pissed off Robson are a lot scarier and tense than the weed creature bits.
Oh yeah totally, that's why I make the connection to disturbing electronic music - the soundtrack basically sounds like a power electronics album (type "Whitehouse why you never became a dancer" into the search bar now)
I hate these animations. The BBC has ample money to produce gorgeous recreations but they can't be bothered, knowing that your average Classic Doctor Who fan - me included - will buy any old crap. I have purchased Power of the Daleks, The Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones. I'm not going to invest in the ongoing shambolic animations because I've had enough.
I think BBC doesn't care about it. Just try to think what would be if they go to some big VFX or animation studio, like DNEG (they made really hand drawn 2D animated segment in "Can you hear me?", also made all effects for show now) to make animated recreation of classic episodes. Of course this would be much, much more expensive than current quality level.
In fairness, 60’s Doctor who is a pretty niche interest so I can kinda understand them not wanting to splurge out on these things. And don’t forget that the tv show itself barely gets a budget so it’s at least in character for the series.
The animation for Fury from the Deep was my first experience of the story and I absolutely LOVE this story! :D It's no wonder it was your favourite!! :) Great review!! :D
The animated stories are selling to fans and collectors. The number of sales of animated reproductions of a 1960's British sci-fi show to casual buyers must be very small. You are therefore wrong about _The Space Pirates_ ; it will shift pretty much the same number of units as anything else. If this was not so, we wouldn't have seen the animated versions of _The Macra Terror_ which is an obscure little story by any measure, or _Shada_ either. It made sense to test the waters with _Power of the Daleks_ whith it's high reputation and Dalek selling points. But it is obvious that by far and away the target consumer group for these things is the fans and you won;t get Doctor Who fans turning up their noses at ANY missing story being made available. Heck it's hard to imagine animated recreations of almost any other missing 1960's TV show being worth doing at all. Of course economic factors do some into play - it makes sense, for example, to re-use material like character models already done, which likely explains why we're seeing all Troughtons and no Hartnells (yet), even though some of the Hartnells are just as good as candidates ( _Galaxy Four_ springs to mind, which has a tiny cast of just the regulars plus essentially a Drahvin and Chumbleys which, like Daleks, are easy to effectively animate). So my guess would be they will exhaust the Troughtons first and then move on to the Hartnells. As you say, the historicals are problematic as they tend to feature relatively large casts but the worst aspect is that the essential cast of Doctor and companions often have multiple costume changes. If story popularity or having a selling point to casuals was a prime factor, the first stories out would have been *both* Dalek stories, followed by _Wheel_ and _Fury_ . Instead we got _Macra_ and _Faceless Ones_ .
True, but that is why I made that point about the Underwater Menace - I collect these things and yet its been stuck in my amazon "buy later" basket for about 4 years at this point because its just not a very exciting release. Though the amount of fans like me who would be unenthused by it is probably marginal enough to not make much of a difference
(Have yet to see video) I hope Stu is happy with this recreation of his favorite Doctor Who episode. If he isn't i'm afraid he'll unleash the living flesh supercomputer on us all
Only reason why I haven't bought Underwater Menace is because they didn't bother to animate the missing episodes lol. I felt that spending that much on what was an unfinished product wasn't worth it. Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones were amazing recreation wise though, loved both from start to finish.
As much as I would love to see Evil of the Daleks in March or something I would rather the animation was as good as in Macra Terror! It could be a good October released next year!
Recently watched the animation and I personally love it! Such a shame you couldn’t enjoy it as much but I can kinda understand as your expectations were always too high!
I can't comment on your disappointment in relation to the narrated audio track, as I've never heard that. I can only say that I found it wonderful to see once again a great story that was so exciting when I saw it on TV as a boy.
Good video. I remember the disappointment around Tomb of the Cybermen when it was discovered in the early 90's, The soundtrack created some real imagination. Without the internet, we couldn't google what the tombs looked like so when the VHS came out - it was great but never lived up to the hype.
Well this is the first time for the second animation Team we got. We have two animation Teams and thats why the have 2 full Stories a year. So it is a big weird seeing that style as opposed to the Animation style we had from Power of the Daleks to the faceless ones. What I do appreciate about this animation is its direction. It makes some really weird decisions to Amp up the Horror factor and not knowing how something could be presented, being it very open, wide and empty or claustrophobic and intense. Also really liked Victorias depature scene, that was handled really well. As someone who only watched the Loose Canon Recon without Narration, I was very happy to finally have some visuals for this Story (but yeah that one iconic scene just could'nt be done), so I can appreciate it better, especially in the climax with the seaweed
Despite the animation being lackluster, I was fully engrossed from Part 1 to 4 but from Part 5 onwards it wasn't as engaging. The final scene with Victoria's goodbye was well done (story wise)
the direction is so weird, I remember a scene in the abominable snowmen animation where two people are supposed to be talking to each other in a small room, and they literally have their backs directly turned to each other and the room is super large for no reason
I'm actually curious to know what your thoughts on The Web of Fear part 3 and The Evil of the Daleks animations are as the two are basically polar opposites to one another in terms of quality
I want to buy Fury From the Deep, but I don't want a physical DVD. Just a download. I haven't been able to find an option to purchase a download copy.... Anyone know where I should go?
Its strange how the animation manages to make the characters arms look a lot longer than what they should be. The animator obviously overreached himself.
Moffat's main draw for his better episodes is making everyday things scary. Gas masks (not exactly everyday at the time, but still), clockwork robots and clocks, statues, shadows, and more dotted in his era, but I can't be bothered to think too much into his era right now, but yeah, you made a good point.
Actually animations of the missing episodes (1 & 4) of The Underwater Menace were set to be on DVD in 2014 to compliment the recovered episode 2 (that was 2011) and the long held episode 3. Then the power that be cancelled the project and it eventually came out as it did in 2015 with what were apparently deliberately poorly done telesnap recons for 1 and 4.
Almost wanted to ask this, how and when did you get into Doctor Who as a kid? I got into it by buying New Who Series 1 on a whim at a DVD shop. But what's your story? Would really love to know!
I had an awareness of it for years - I have vague memories of the first Cushing movie on TV when I was a kid, first formed memories are getting the soundtrack of fury from the library, then revival happened in 05 when I was 14 and obsession started there
I think they have said that they won’t do the Dalek’s Masterplan for now due to how long a story it is and how many locations and characters are involved.
I agree with your review, yes the animation itself was great and I'm happy to be getting this animation, but this story regardless if it were found or animated would suffer the same way as Tomb or Web of Fear where the story had been hyped so much over the years that it would never live up to peoples expectations. That's at least how I felt whilst watching this story though I did enjoy it and its absolutely wonderful to have it on the shelves.
My first experience of Genesis Of The Daleks was a free CD from the Daily Telegraph that featured an abridged hour-long version of the story, with linking narration by Tom Baker as The Doctor. Then a few years later I watched the actual story, and if memory serves it wasn't actually that jarring - just certain bits that weren't particularly well-explained in the audio version finally made sense. For instance, Nyder pretending he's betrayed Davros in order to find out the rebels' plans was glossed over, and we only got the scene where he's talking to Garmen and then Davros appears, which isn't quite as effective as the original slow build of that subplot. The Doctor trying to force Davros to give the order to destroy the Daleks only to be knocked unconsciousness was also not clear - I spent years wondering why Davros suddenly stopped speaking and then changed tack, and Nyder suddenly sprang up out of nowhere. Basically I have a different experience with transitions from audio recons to the real thing, but no less odd and undermining of the images you built in your head. Re the Fury of the Deep animation, I wish I actually cared, but to be frank I find myself caring more about the new style of BBFC age certificate on the packaging. See, it used to be red, and it's now orange!! No? Alright, I'll shut up then.
Fair comments. They seem to have found their style (although I know a different team to previous releases made this), so I can't really see anything changing. I've yet to actually get into any of them since Power left me a bit cold.
If the story is mostly incomplete, I would buy an animation of it - including The Space Pirates. Rubbishy new-fangled solar toasters! I like that line, I've no idea why. Personally, I'm glad to have an animation of Fury. It's the classic story I *most* wanted visuals for, and overall, I did enjoy it quite a bit. But yes, they were never going to do justice to that Oak and Quill scene, which is just insurmountably good in the original. To be fair, I probably listened to the audio CDs for the lost stories only once or twice, so I was never really attached to them. The Loose Cannon reconstructions don't really cut it for me - especially given how long these stories are.
The animation will never make up for the originals being junked, never. But I enjoy watching them and especially in color. I hope we eventually get all missing stories animated so then I can have a complete Doctor Who DVD (then Blu-Ray) collection. I only watch the classic show so that is what I want.
2:37 This line that you have said doesn't really make sense considering that there were images of the Cybercontroller before the episode was recovered in 1992. People wouldn't have been disappointed with something that was already featured in countless DWMs and it's on the VHS cover. People were more disappointed with the fight with the Cybermen that had people being on wires when the Cybermen lifted up. As for Fury, looking at the clips you have shown, it really disappoints me with how they've directed some of the shots. They look odd and honestly quite bad. But then again, I haven't seen the thing in full, only the recreation from Loose Cannon.
I’m someone who never lets the animation take away from the story! The few clips I’ve seen of this story don’t put me off the animation at all however, Power of the Daleks does put me off because of how clunky it is! This isn’t clunky at all!
This was my first experience of this story, so I was really invested in the story and despite the weaker animation, the story was brilliant, I’d give it a 9/10, if yeh animation was better, maybe a 10/10
Well, it's here. And it's... alright? I'm certainly not too attached to this story - hell, I'd never heard the soundtrack before seeing this - but I did like this animation, although I definitely think Macra Terror and Faceless Ones work better for this medium.
I enjoyed the animation for what it was, kind of. From here on out though I guess I'll recognize these releases as a means to get official telesnap reconstructions on BluRay and treat the animations as VAM. These might be made with the best intentions, but with the budget they're dealing with they're somewhat lost causes, I'm afraid.
I would have been about 6 watching the original broadcast. The model shot of the TARDIS landing on the sea didn't look very convincing back then. But when you think about it the real thing - if it were possible - wouldn't anyway. This story was frightening to me as a child. My minds eye recalls a ton of foam and a bit of weed. The weed became larger and more frightening as the episodes progressed. I'm going to watch the animation.
Black & White animation is still pointless- We have color settings on the tv. Also- Come on man! I'm just impressed that you got your predictions right! The first 5 you predicted ended up being the next 5 they did! It's an achievement man! :)
I keep meaning to mention they've been doing a bonus disc with colour versions - I feel that kinda ruins it though cause I feel 60's who suits black and white - makes it feel spookier to me
@@Stubagful I mean yeah, but... I dunno- Remember Loose Cannon with Marco Polo- They did a color reconstruction and said that if you want to watch black & white, you can just turn down the color on your tv- But whatever, apparently I'm in the vast minority of that thought 🙃 Also- Shameless Plug! I literally JUST uploaded my first video in a series of podcast things I'm planning on doing where I watch movies and give my opinions on them as they're playing, like what Oliver Haper does with his commentary- Not asking anything, just getting the word out there :)
@@Stubagful Certainly true for Fury and Faceless Ones, but for some reason, the Colour version of Macra Terror feels all the more atmospheric, yet colourful and suitable for the location it's set in. I can't watch the Black and White version
Shocked you didn't mention this was animated by Big Finish, considering the tongue baths you constantly give them (and, honestly, I wish you'd give them more, I love hearing you talk about them). As someone who hadn't seen the story before but did get overhyped as shit, I thought it was... Alright? It wouldn't say it was bad and I think the quiet scenes with Jamie and Victoria were very much ahead of their time, but I just didn't find it to be the most ultra interesting story ever. It might be a Web of Fear situation: I respect and admire what it's going for, but I find it ever so slightly boring
I had no priory exposure to this story, I think they captured Troughton's features better than the previous ones however the atmosphere sort of dissipated over the course of the story as we got more exposure to the weed. I think The Faceless Ones was the overall better experience even though The Macra Terror had better animation.
Before I watched fury I knew it was highly praised and when I watched it I felt a bit underwhelmed maybe due to the animation not saying that I hate the animation I think it looks good but it could’ve been better I do hope at least one or more parts of this story are recovered because I’ve watched the surviving clips and it looks much better fingers crossed for at least one or more parts are found
I like the animation but have to agree that when you put it side to side with the creepiness and the framing of the original shots it couldn't have been as good. I prefer the recon that came with it but I wouldn't avoid the animation the recon is just my preferred way of viewing just like how the audio track is yours. Also that soundtrack is so fucking good like how do you instil that amount of electric and scare into something I want to listen to while on a walk. I don't hate animation at all I think Fury is just a story that couldn't live up to expectations. So yeah still holding out for a recovery. Evil is a story I love and I have no doubt an animation will improve my viewing experience.
The Faceless Ones worked better because of it's faithful set recreation I think alot of the sets were too wide here whereas the original probably didn't.
I actually quite liked this release (having waited so long for my preordered copy to come through). I mean, you do have options with these releases (with colour, without colour, with animation, telesnaps and recovered footage). I wonder what I will think when they finally do Evil of the Daleks though, we shall see...
Will we be seeing another big finish review? Perhaps rage of the time lords or ravenous or stranded Also I though fury from the deep is boring and very dull, I fell asleep watching it even though I got a perfect night sleep, but if you like it hey that’s your opinion
Ive not seen this animation, but seeing the animated quill and oates clip is enough to convince me im not interested. A shame since i love fury from the deep.
And this is why I don't listen to the original television soundtracks because I know if I'm going to listen to them and go straight into the animation, I'm going to be disappointed. And yeah the animation looked very low budget, then again it's the BBC they always had small budgets
My god the animation looks god awful I mean the faceless ones looks fantastic so I think it would have been better if they took a year to make it you know look good
How you know classic who is trash..... cant buy this in the US. no one outside the US cares enough to put it online. I want to give them money, they wont let me so theres only 1 alternative which then cant even do that ROFL. honestly they just need to find some good actors to play the roles and refilm all the lost content because all thats left is trash quality audio which they sometimes layer passable animation on top of. While the BBC is trying to push agendas on new who and burn the franchise to the ground why not respectfully redo all the old lost content? probably because they arent capable of being respectful I mean the force capaldi out to replace them with someone who was gifted the roll rather than cast for the part to then have someone else step in and show her up in her own role..... smh
