And the verdict is... ? (Instrument of Destruction review)

by **shaqui** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:09 pm

Yes... no... maybe... ?

:-D

by **Clya Brown** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:35 pm

Okay... I've seen it - and I'd say it's looking extremely promising. I'm reluctant to make obvious comparisons between this and the original, since I don't really think they'd be helpful, though I did find the points of similarity reassuring in a sense: Colonel White is an astonishingly accurate recreation, and funnily enough, I actually found Captain Blue to be an improvement on the original (sorry Marion!). This one's rather grittier - perhaps more in keeping with the sort of characters that have been created in the fanfic section of this forum, I think.

Destiny I didn't care for much as a character, but I think I'll put her on hold until we meet the rest of the Angels - I suspect it's too early to start making judgments about characterisations, as they need time to develop. I think what is reassuring is that I am seeing them as characters, and not just computer animations. They have personalities, and I have no difficulty empathising with them at all - and that has to be good. The animation is superb - I felt it's actually an improvement on Final Fantasy (which I tend to think of as the 'gold standard' of computer animation at the moment) inasmuch as a little quality has been sacrificed for a lot of action. I find FF almost too flawless, whereas this is rather more fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing part 2.

As to the technology, I'm not at all sure about this business of taking a flying leap off Skybase and sailing all the way down to the ground - either with a bike or just a parachute - but let's put that one aside for the time being. Something tells me that this one's going to be hotly debated in the days that follow!

by **Carrie** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:39 pm

The problem now....is not to spoil everything for our poor

friends in the US/Aus and anywhere else not in the UK...before it's transmitted..(or they get the videos sent across...

)
Well....certainly action packed...
The graphics were most impressive..as were the backgrounds, eg. the canyon (grand?) scene where the Angel patrol flies over..ditto the countryside scene where Blue tracks Scarlet...
Skybase looks like a reconstruction of the Starship Enterprise...complete with warp drive :wink:

And BTW did anyone spot the Gerry cameo???
Guess the Colonel gave up on asking everyone to use their code names too....
The voices were pretty good. Scarlet certainly sounds transatlantic, White sounds uncannily like the the original Donald Gray... and does Destiny have a hint of a french accent?
However Blue has definitely lost his 'pretty' look! :cry:

Of course it does have a more polished feel...it's obvious that the production team have been influenced by many of the recent Sci-fi series..and certainly the dark nature of the premise has been well and truly retained.
The dialogue is pretty good and quite sophisticated (thank heaven as far as this... ahem... more mature veiwer is concerned! :wink:

) There is also certainly more of an impression that the characters have 'history' and 'background' and I am sure that will be explored further as the series progresses.
I shall be continuing to watch.....

by **Carrie** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:46 pm

I don't WANT to make comparisons Doc...the original is stil mega- wonderful as far as I'm concerned...and my fan-fic is sticking with it..
I'm hoping I can enjoy both...

by **ROBE** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:03 pm

I have to say I am really impressed from what I have seen so far, however Destiny didn't sound very French to me. Still another 12 episodes to go for the first series(season), so heres hoping they can keep the standards up. What a year this is, the return of Captain Scarlet and Doctor Who :-D

Website · by **Sage** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:28 pm

*tries very hard to avoid spoliers*

Okay good stuff first...
The mysteron complex, oh wow. That was just glorious.
I like that the characters first names are used more, and they actually seem to have a raport going.

The plot was a bit dissapointing, just seems a rehash of The Mysterons (not a good move, you can't beat the original, come on Brown spontaneously combusted!).
Bit confused as to how the Mysterons are supposed to 'take people over' (love the green eye thingy though, V cool)
Still it was only part 1 of episode 1. It will presumably pick up.

So aside from the fact they manged everything I loved about the original. This one really isn't that bad. Of course I'm hooked, only seven days till part two

by **ROBE** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:42 pm

The difference is now they seem to kill someone and now bring them back from the dead like a zombie, before you actually had the dead person and mysteron double.

by **shaqui** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:50 pm

ROBE wrote:The difference is now they seem to kill someone and now bring them back from the dead like a zombie, before you actually had the dead person and mysteron double.

Sorry? Isn't that the same thing? Only Black seemed to be 'resurrected from the dead' - but like Scarlet there's no indication this was the original Black. He could have been 'retriggered' in the same way Scarlet was.

But it does pose the interesting question - where are the original Scarlet and Black?

by **shaqui** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:57 pm

Time for my thoughts I guess... as probably the oldest one here?

The visuals were superb. I'm highly impressed by the CGI throughout, though one or two things (seen only briefly in the distance) looked a little unfinished or not properly rendered. But that is a very minor quibble.

Story - nice reworking of the original opener, though somehow it didn't leave me as breathless as when I first saw (or re-saw) 'The Mysterons' back in 1985 after a gap of some 12-13 odd years. 'The Mysterons' is probably the fastest paced and well-told of the half-hour episodes of any Supermarionation series. So this had a lot to live up to. It had to be standalone (no references to previous stuff like 'Zero X' etc) and I'm sufficiently intrigued to want to know what happens in part 2 without being a fan - that was a cool cliff-hanger!

Characters - more nicely human. But obviously there's a lot to establish before we get to know them better.

I hope this series grows. It has potential...

But... what happened to the end titles?

:grin:

by **Cerise** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:59 pm

Carrie- did you notice that in the burial scene, Captain Ochre was definitely a man? :grin:

by **ROBE** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:16 pm

In the original series you often saw a dead body being dragged away by their double, this time it looks different. As for Black in the original series wasn't it always a possiblity that he was different from the other Mysteron agents and had simply been taken over?
We have only seen one episode, so too soon to make any judgment. It is possible that as CGI is more realistic than the puppets the old body is completely destroyed and replaced by the copy and there are no dead bodies left around. This avoids a higher rating.

I presume Captain Ochre (male) has an "accident" and is replaced by a female agent.

by **shaqui** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:24 pm

Well it was quite obvious the guy at the end was killed, and the (nicely retrometabolised) Mysteron recreation was not the original. I tend to think this echoes the original format quite nicely.

But it's nice that Scarlet and Black were together on Mars at the beginning. it hints at closer origins (or re-origins) for their Mysteron equivilants...

by **Marion** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:11 pm

Here it comes - the backlash :wink:

I have just seen it after finishing work. I think it has a long way to go to be half as atmospheric or as gripping as the original.
It was action-packed, fast paced - almost frantic paced in fact - and very glitzy.
The machines whizzed about and the SFX were suitably lavish.
The characters rushed about a lot - just to prove they could? - and the somewhat minimalist conversations were 'grown-up' enough.
What was with the faces though? They seemed to be filmed as extra-close ups - which distorted them. The photographs we saw of Destiny made her look like a monkey... and I am not going to comment on Captain Blue - except to say that - whereas it has been a long-held ambition of mine to meet the original one alone on a dark night - I wouldn't want to meet the new one. :shock:

I liked the flashing glowy-green eyes thing though....

Yes, they all acted far more like soldiers would act - they were able to - the one good point about CGI - but however fantastic it was technically, it isn't a patch on the original.
However, early days yet... they might surprise us all... (whoops, was that a flying pig?)
I have to say - the music wasn't that good either... fairly non-descript and typical of 'action-TV' music...
I know I'm being negative and ungrateful and a stick-in-the-mud.... yes, to all those comments. Can't help it - I still don't like it. I had such hopes for it too...

BTW - I saw an edited video of the show - but I was told the episode was shown in 2 x 10 minute slots - with about a 15 minute gap? How about that for a tension dampener? What price atmosphere?

by **DAGWOOD** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:28 pm

Boo Marion Booooo.

;-)

I thought it was pretty exciting overall.I liked that Black was the heroic one for a short while.

Blues eyebrows are weird.Like mustard spread over his cranium

Scarlets hair looks like dolly hair.

The Mysterons Rock...again
DAGWOOD

by **captain wil** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 5:01 pm

Ok, I've been waiting for this for a while as I know a few people who have worked on the show.

+
Great sets and vehicles (although Scarlet's Patrol car looked as bad as the redesigned Fab1)
Good direction, especially on the action sequences.

-
Incredibly dull and forgettable music.
The title sequence was appalling - absolutely no visual flair at all.
CGI people and, especially, faces are still poor. The photo of Destiny made her look like like a monkey and none of the characters faces had enough, well... character.
Script and plotting needed to be a lot better for the speed with which they flew through the story. I could see it being quite confusing for smaller kids.

And, as usual, it got completely kicked in the teeth by splitting the show in half with a 20-minute gap. Putting it in the middle of one of the worst Saturday morning shows for a long time also didn't help.

I really want this to work and I'll quite happily watch the rest of the episodes to see if it gets better but I don't hold out a lot of hope. Surely to most kids it'll seem no better than Max Steel etc.

Wil