Yesterday I noticed that the Peter Cushing Doctor Who film Dr. Who: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. was on one of the cable channels so we started to watch it. This film is in the so bad it is good category, but the missus made a comment about the plot, such as it is that I have the urge to share.
If you think it would matter to know the plot of the film you'd better stop reading now.
The central idea is that the Dalek's have invaded earth and are building a mine in Bedfordshire. The location of this mine will allow them to place an explosive device that will turn Earth into a space ship and they can then fly it back to their home sun and park it next to Skaro, their home world.
No really.
Anyway, the Doctor stops this by rerouting the bomb to a convergence of the Earth's magnetic North and South poles, and this sucks the daleks to their doom.
The Dalek's under the influence of magnetism is hilarious, and comes complete with comedy sound track. (Why is the noise of a piano falling from a height being played when a Dalek falls down a mine shaft precisely?).
Anyway the key point my wife made was that these were possibly the worst Dalek invasion fleet ever, and she thought they were the Dalek equivalent of the Golgafrincham B Ark. The Daleks identify the useless members of their planet and tell them that Skaro is doomed ("a mutant star goat I heard") and send them off to Earth with a hare brained plan. The real intention is to annoy the Doctor and remove the useless Daleks when the bomb goes off.
Suddenly the plot holes are filled and all is well.
(One question: the Dalek ship has spinning sections, and I noticed that the recent Dalek ships do the same. Is this the current series recognising this unbelievable legacy, or is their a common ancestor?)
Good to see Bernard Cribbins enjoying himself though.
The original new series Daleks (as seen in Dalek, , et al, up to Victory of the Daleks) are consciously based on the movie Daleks (Note for example the 'ear' lights as opposed to indicators, and the taller 'bumper' sections) as Davies thought they looked more sturdy and threatening than their TV counterparts.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that the spaceship designs were similarly a conscious copy. Indeed, I think it's probable.
That Dalek spaceships are saucers, of course, has been the case since The Dalek Invasion of Earth in 1964, but the BBC's budget didn't stretch to anything more than a couple of paper plates taped together and held up by fishing line. The movies added the spinning; I can't remember if the redone special effects in the DVD release form a couple of years ago had spinning sections or not.