NCS Versus Classic Scarlet.
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Doc
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Doc
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Doc wrote:NCS! OCS Captain Scarlet could barely move but to jiggle his tiny hands
I have to dispute that. In the original series, most of the close up sequences of hands were made by using real-life body-double... There's even a very good real-life sequence in "The Trap" where Scarlet is surprised from behind by the bad guy who shoves a pistol in his back.
Can't get more realistic than real hands - that said without criticizing the wonderful quality of the CGI animation for NCS
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chrisbishop
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chrisbishop wrote:Doc wrote:NCS! OCS Captain Scarlet could barely move but to jiggle his tiny hands
I have to dispute that. In the original series, most of the close up sequences of hands were made by using real-life body-double... There's even a very good real-life sequence in "The Trap" where Scarlet is surprised from behind by the bad guy who shoves a pistol in his back.
Can't get more realistic than real hands - that said without criticizing the wonderful quality of the CGI animation for NCS
There's a picture in Chris Bentley's book showing a member of the production crew wearing half a Scarlet suit for just that scene....
Always surprised me how slender and unlined some of the hands were. I wonder if they were chosen specifically for their puppet-hand-lookilikiness or whether they had somethiing sprayed on them (dim recollection that this could have been the case). Even so, there's some grubby nails that crop up sometimes!
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steviep
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steviep wrote:
There's a picture in Chris Bentley's book showing a member of the production crew wearing half a Scarlet suit for just that scene....
Always surprised me how slender and unlined some of the hands were. I wonder if they were chosen specifically for their puppet-hand-lookilikiness or whether they had somethiing sprayed on them (dim recollection that this could have been the case). Even so, there's some grubby nails that crop up sometimes!
If memory serves; in Fireball XL5 they used actors (or technicians more likely) wearing tight rubber gloves painted to look like puppet hands for close ups. Very strange!
I don't recall any gimmicks like sprayed hands or gloves being used in any of the later shows.
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Crank
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I’ve only seen the first 13 episodes of NCS but of those 13 I really only liked one (Chiller). When I watched it again recently I discovered the reality was; I thought it was the best episode in comparison with the other 12. Seeing it in isolation, I was struck by how cold, creepy and repellent the CGI characters seemed.
The scripts are generally poor and unlike the original series, the CGI version doesn’t have the very fine voiceover work of the original actors to fall back on to save it from any weak scripting (Captain Black can’t carry NCS alone!). With the exception of Black, I don’t think any of the NCS characters look very good and if they have personalities, they are really irritating ones. Nice bits of special effects in NCS don’t compensate for dull scripts and poor acting.
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Elentari
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Do agree about the scripts. I did a novelisation of Manhunt recently and only had to tweak the dialogue a touch to make it ring utterly true to the way people speak now (oh and Blue swears a bit).
You can't really fault the original script though. It was made 30 odd years ago and considering the context of the show and production era it does work.
They're supposedly a secretive military organisation so going around calling each by first names nearly all the time, that doesn't sound very professional. If they must then at least be consistent about it (if NCS Destiny is so important/pally why is she always called by her codename?)
The voiceovers of OCS were so good to compensate for the potential lack of emotion the puppets could express. It gave a richer feel and made them seem more real. You don't really notice the puppet's 'woodeness'. Maybe NCS got a bit complacent, yeah they can literally sing & dance but it's the little things that count.
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Sage
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Captain Black is possibly the only character to have benefited from the move to CGI - and, incidently, I am sure I read somewhere, that he only became a permanent member of the cast as Gerry liked the look of him once he'd been 'Mysteronised'... and if that's true it might explain why he is not used as much in the original as in the NCS - although even there, he wasn't omnipresent.
I really do feel that as the NCS production people spent so much money on making the show, they'd have been wise to invest in better plots and scripts to showcase their (admitted) talents... rather than hope we'd all sit back and wait to be dazzled by the technology. (Wonderful though it was ... )
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Marion
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