Looking Back at Doctor Who: The Movie

So, with the 60th Anniversary film just a year away, I’ve decided to take a trip back in time and look back at the film that started it all, if you don’t count the Cushing films, Doctor Who: The Movie or simply just Doctor Who.

First, I want to talk about my history with this movie. I never saw the movie when it first came out in cinemas, and never owned the VHS copy. I first experienced the movie in 2007 when I first bought the DVD. So, let’s see if the movie still holds up to my childhood memories.

So, since this is the ‘first movie’ the plot is pretty simple. The Doctor and Sandra are summoned to Gallifrey by the Keeper because the defeat of Rassilon in the Season 40 finale caused time distortions that are messing things up, and will eventually erase all the Doctors from existence (1-3 are neatly written out via this plot point), so the Doctor summons 4-9, along with their various companions to Gallifrey, where each set of Doctors and companions are sent off to the places where the time distortion is happening in order to fix them.

So, as said, the overall plot is quite simple, but for a first movie and a 40th anniversary special, it gets the job done. The subplots themselves however are a bit of a mixed bag. The best of these is the Tenth Doctor’s subplot, where the majority of the focus lies, as he and Sandra help out Omega with the creation of the Eye of Harmony and time travel, with Patrick Stewart giving an emotional and brilliant performance; especially at the end. Eight’s subplot is also good with the emotion, as it features the Leftover team, and from Eight’s perspective, Katie is dead, so we get some nice character moments. Also, we get an awesome sword fight between Eight and a mediaeval knight. The other subplots are decent, but feel rushed in a few areas, and they don’t get enough screen time, making me feel that they maybe shouldn’t have had so many Doctors. Mel is sadly as annoying as ever. Dear god, Bonnie Langford can still shriek, even after all this time. Also, the Cybermen show up in Ten’s subplot, and while I enjoy the new, harsh voice Nicholas Briggs does, this is sadly the start of the Cybermen being shooty, stompy robots with a catchphrase, and sadly their new design makes them look too much like robots.

There’s also no proper explanation as to why most of the previous Doctors and companions look much older, except for the slight implications that it’s the time distortion.

One thing I’m not a big fan of is how they tie it into the events of The Other, which in my eyes is not very new audience friendly. If you want to start a movie franchise for your show, don’t have it tie into the events of anything; give the audience a fresh start. Thankfully, the rest of the movie does this very well; not weighing itself down with too much continuity, and nicely explaining how things in this universe work without talking down to the audience. On a side-note: the novelisation of the movie also adapts The Other, which helps nicely.

On the other hand, I absolutely love the new Emperor Dalek that we get in this movie: he’s big and imposing with a deep booming voice; the Dalek mutant itself is even visible through a glass tube. Also, he’s got psychic powers, which is actually quite terrifying when you stop to think about it: a Dalek having the ability to screw with your mind. Seriously, whoever becomes the next showrunner, bring this concept back and expand on it.

Sadly, another flaw I have with the subplots is that some companions don’t get anything to do, and are just sort of there. However, I do like the little cameos we get from Susan, Ian, Benton and Mike Yates.

The same however cannot be said for what they did to the Brigadier. WHAT! THE! HELL! Now, I get wanting to write out the Brigadier: Nicholas Courtney was getting quite old, and there really wasn’t much they could do with him anymore, but suddenly killing him off in this way was not the way to go, especially for such a beloved character, who deserved a way better death than this. Personally, I blame David Renwick for this: I refuse to believe that Russell T Davies and Nicholas Meyer would kill off the Brigadier in such a disrespectful manner. In recent years, the Brigadier has been joined in the hall of characters I liked that got shitty deaths by Mole from The Animals of Farthing Wood, Richard Poole from Death in Paradise, Breena Palmer from NCIS, and the original version of the Sixth Doctor’s regeneration.

Now as for my thoughts on the ending: I love it. It’s a dark and emotional gut punch, and nicely sets up the Redston era. The Keeper is an absolute dick in this movie: forcing the Doctor into a position he wants no part of for no real reason (at that point), other than the Doctor not fully taking on his role as President. To compare him to another Don Warrington character I’m familiar with, he’s kinda like Commissioner Patterson from Death in Paradise, except he never sent anybody to their deaths.

Sandra Armstrong fans: But Sandra might not beOh, weesht, ya wee dafties. Yeah, I ain’t going down that rabbit hole. Sandra is definitely, 100% dead. It was 19 years ago, move on and accept the tragedy. And on that note: Sandra’s death at the end has to be one of the saddest deaths in the entire franchise. Another good point for this movie is that the chemistry between the Doctors and their companions is brilliant.

Now on to some other things. Firstly, this movie introduced the Season 41-48 logo. I like this logo, it’s simple, but mostly nice to look at.

As for the movie’s title sequence, it’s decent: the particle effects on the Seal of Rassilon are nice to look at, but other than that, there’s nothing interesting here. I know that at this point movies weren’t using full title sequences, but even the future movies did something.

Murray Gold naturally provides the music for this movie, and he is on top form as always. A lot of pieces have this nice orchestrated feel to them, and all of the pieces fit each scene they’re in. This movie also contains brilliant renditions of Dudley Simpson’s music, as well as an even more beautifully haunting rendition of the Leftover theme, if that was possible.

Murray Gold also provides a brand new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, and I love it; the triumphant, grandiose nature of it, and in particular the opening part of the theme song.

Nicholas Meyer directed this movie, and as always he does a great job, with nicely designed new locations, great action scenes, and a cool looking rendition of Karn.

The effects were handled by Industrial Light and Magic, and they’re pretty good by mid 2000s standards. I really liked the regeneration effect they used for Ten.

Overall, this movie was a decent start to the motion picture franchise, and even with its flaws, it still somewhat holds up, and I honestly have a wee bit of a soft spot for it.