gondorgirl
UNIT Red Shirt
Sleep is for tortoises
Posts: 99
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Post by gondorgirl on Oct 1, 2009 17:00:54 GMT
I thought these recurring villains needed their own thread I was listening to the Wheel in Space last night and I was once again reminded of something I'd decided while watching The Tenth Planet and the Moonbase; I miss the old cyber-voices. The old voices were truthfully more interesting and diverse (yes cybermen are supposed to be all the same but a little more diversity is allowed for them, they used to be humans! There is no getting past how different humans can be) and the new voices are just like every other robot in a science fiction show. I'd always thought there was too much similarity between all the robots but until I heard the old episodes I'd never heard any other kind of robot voice. Am I just totally by myself on this or do some of you agree?
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Post by primsong on Oct 1, 2009 17:34:02 GMT
I do agree, and very heartily. I found the old Cybermen much more frightening because they had those shreds of the humans-they-used-to-be hanging about them like ghosts, much worse (to my thinking) than the sanitized, mechanized, homogenized later versions.
I also love their waking up and ripping out of their little pods for Two, that was really quite a bit freaky when I watched that, even with the low-budget effects.
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Post by teeceeoh on Oct 1, 2009 17:40:51 GMT
It seems the modern versions are just human brains in robot bodies, which ruins the idea of them being cyborgs.
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Post by jjpor on Oct 1, 2009 20:44:21 GMT
I agree completely; the NuWho Cybermen seem so bland to me; sterile metal robots with robot-y voices (and a clunky attempt to give them their own catchphrase like the Daleks have - all of that "delete!" nonsense just sets my teeth on edge - if they wanted a Cybercatchphrase - for Cybermen, like the 60s TV version of Batman, have to put "Cyber" in front of everything they have or own - then that old chestnut "you will become like us..." seems much more threatening and Cyber-y). They lack the character and the definite sense of creepiness that they have in their best classic Who stories. Of course, some of the oldschool stories, especially the later ones, used them as bland robots-with-rayguns just like NuWho does, and Silver Nemesis even ended up mixing its metaphors by having them running round with Nazis (Daleks are Nazis! Cybermen are...communists, or something...) Having said that, Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, despite being, you know, rubbish, did have some telling moments of Cyberhorror (another one!), such as the conversion process itself, and the bit where Ten removed that one's "emotion chip" or whatever it was and gave it back its human personality. And the bit where he did it to all of them and they literally collapsed screaming in horror at what they had become... The thing is, the oldschool Cybermen gave the impression that they were incapable of such a thing, because whatever made them human had been cut or burned or ripped out of them. As I say, creepy. It was something about the combination of the blank faces and the voices and, quite possibly, the fact that the black-and-white made the costumes look far more impressive than they did in colour. It seems to me that a far more rewarding way of "reimagining" the Cybermen for NuWho (a horrible word!) would be to redo them as horrible undead cyborg-zombie things, with human bits and robot bits and pipes and wires coming out of every nook and cranny. If you read the initial proposal for the Tenth Planet by their creator Kit Pedler (it's online there somewhere), that's more or less how he imagined them, but the budget didn't run to it and the idea was considered a bit too horrific for teatime telly. Likely the same objections would be raised today, but even more likely people would just think you were trying to rip off the Borg from Star Trek (when I think the reality is that the Borg ripped off the Cybermen, but to the max. In fact, you could argue that early-period Borg were the Cybermen done right, before they fell into mediocrity in their later Trek outings). If you will permit me to go promoting my own fic, this was my attempt at portraying a rebooted Cyberman: www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=29382
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lostspook
Auton Daisy
(Icon made by bibliophile1887)
Posts: 503
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Post by lostspook on Oct 2, 2009 18:47:02 GMT
Hey, leave Silver Nemesis alone - it was my first proper encounter with Doctor Who and with the Cybermen and for all it's flaws, I can hereby assure you that it spells out what Cybermen are and what they stand for and no Who monster has ever come close in my estimation as a result (not even those pesky Daleks) - give me the 80s Cybermen. (The worst Cybermen old school story is surely Revenge of the Cybermen because even though it has Four/Harry/Sarah wonderfulness that makes up for a whole lot, it neglects to explain what the Cybermen are nor have them do anything other than kill people - they're just robots with a strange allergy to gold! Who decide to go to the Planet of Gold just to... well... does it make any sense? ;lol: At least Silver Nemesis has Lady Peinfort and Richard, who I am absurdly fond of. Never were there more incompetent and likeable villains!)
That might leave me very alone here, but oh well. I absolutely love the moment in Earthshock where the Doctor asks Captain Beryl (and I LOVE the inappropriate casting, too, sorry) how many of the crates she has aboard and she starts to answer and stops half-way through realising that she's actually telling him how many Cybermen there are on board her ship. And then (a la the 60s lot) they start bursting out of their boxes. One of the few Who moments I've seen since 1989 that actually gives me the shivers every time I see it.
I like the very home-made and eerie Cybermen in the Tenth Planet, too - they make for a very interesting story. And the all-new shiny ones that march about in the Invasion -yes, yes.
I'm a Cybermen girl. (Not a cybergirl). It grieves me much that the new ones are so mechanical, even though some of the tragedy of it remains, it's not as immediate as the 'proper' Cybermen. Still, as has been spelt out in the episodes themselves, these are AU Cybermen and the real ones are undoubtedly lurking about somewhere, maybe in the sewers, maybe in some abandoned tombs, may stowing themselves away as cargo in a freighter... ;D
Do you think we'll see them again? I like to think so.
Plus, what was wrong with "Excellent!" [hand clench] as a catchphrase? Or, all right, "You will be like us" then...
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