I was cleaning up my bookmarks when I ran across the Red Dwarf Homepage, to my surprise there was a recent update (June 18th) regarding the movie. See the “Doug Naylor Statement”, top middle of the front page. Some interesting stuff in there about the struggles for financing, including discussions with the WETA guys in New Zealand and the British Film Council rejecting the project because it was “too commercial.”
I found the show only a few years ago, I managed to gather all eight series quickly thereafter. No doubt fans have the usual “It was good up to Series (x), then it sucked” opinions. Though the show had changes in tone, apart from the Rimmer-free episodes I enjoyed the entire run. That said, and even though the show is unresolved, I’m starting to think they should leave well enough alone. A situation which worked with younger characters (and actors) may loose some of its humor with their ageing. I’ll be looking forward to the release of the rest of the DVDs. I suppose I’ll be curious about the movie, but I fear it will look more like the dreaded “Reunion Special” than a continuation/conclusion of the original show. Curious as to what you all think about this, or if you still even care about the project.
I still hope to see it, and if they use the same cast and writers, it should be pretty good. Though I could be wrong and unfortunatly, there seems to be a bit of precedent againest a sucess in this manner. The bean movie was pretty bad, no where nearly as good as the series(though it did have it’s moments).
I had an exprience similar to yours, finding it a few years ago, though unfortunatly have not yet purchased the series yet. I did read the first book “Infinity Welcomes Careful drivers” and got a bit of a kick out of it.
My cheif concern is that the fact the Cast is getting older all the time, and it’s going to be difficult to make a movie that can be watched by those who have never seen the series before as well as series veterans.
I personally felt that the first two seasons were okay, it got really good around season 3, and peaked around season 6 and then started to decline a little after that. Season 8 wasn’t as good as the previous ones, but still very watchable.
Although I am a fan saying it started to go downhill after season 6 there’s a very good reason.
The creators and original writing team are .Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. They’ve also written 3 (4? can’t remember) Red Dwarf books, one (2?) together and 2 separately. From the separately written books it’s clear that Naylor is overly saccharine and Grant is overly sadistic. Together they balance each other out.
After season 6 they broke up as a writing team with Naylor staying on and Grant taking his leave of the series. This was a bad thing as Naylor’s saccharinitity was left unchecked and stuff like an alternate dimension Kochanski and a resurrected crew got brought in. The writing also took a hit as a result of the team breaking up.
As far as I know they haven’t gotten back together for the movie, so that, coupled with the rapidly aging cast are enough hits against the movie that I hope it doesn’t get made, fan though I am.
What did Naylor write on his own? Last Man was pretty dire.
And the collaborations are Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (novelised the first episode and a couple others) and Backwards (which was adapted from Better Than Life, Backwards…) Hmm…I can’t remember which one involved Ace Rimmer.
Red Dwarf: Infinity welcomes careful drivers and Better than Life are collaberations between Grant and Naylor. They were compiled into the Red Dwarf Omnibus which is why I wasn’t sure without checking wether there were 3 or 4 books.
Last Human was written by Doug Naylor alone and is probably what you’re thinking of as the dire one.
Backwards was written by Rob Grant alone. It’s better than Last Human, I think, but is still goes a bit overboard in being harsh on the characters – Lister spends 3/4’s of the novel as an 80 year old!
See, my impression of these two is the opposite of yours - sure Backwards gives Dave a heart attack, but it’s pretty standard Red Dwarf - and Hell, Cat gets laid! (OK, that was less pleasant for the poor girl in question than it was for Cat. Still.) But Last Human is absolutely hellish, IMO - EvilDave, Dave in a Gelf prison, killing the rest of the gang (albeit in an alternate universe).
As I recall in Backwards all of the crew, but especially Lister, go through some hellish shite and wind up exactly where they started at the end of it all. In Last Human Dave winds up with Kochanski and quite happy with his lot in life.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the tv series would have done better had the other guy quit, but either way it wouldn’t have been as strong as if they’d stayed together.
In backwards it ends up with 15 year old Cat and Lister taking the faster-than-light ship the “Ace” Rimmer landed in and blasting into another dimension where their Cat and Lister died while playing “Better than life”.
Rimmer and Kryten were killed by the Apocolypse virus, and Ace and Holly were killed by the psycho androids.
I didn’t realise there had been a definite split between the writers. I had assumed one retained the “official” role and the other was still part of the show as a consultant. That does explain the different feel of the last two series. If they are no longer collaborating, that is another strike against the film for me.
