Doppleganger

[Clya Brown]

Does anybody know if "Doppleganger" is available on DVD or video in the UK? I've never actually seen it, and I'd very much like to after all these years.

[hazel]

Just found it on Amazon: Journey to the far side of the sun.
It's only available on NTSC (Region 1) format. If that's no good to you, IM or PM me, and I'll be happy to lend you my own copy, taped from the telly. Can't vouch for the quality of the tape, but it should be watchable.

[Clya Brown]

An offer which, as we both know, I've taken you up on, Hazel: and many thanks to you for it - it's filled in a large gap in my Anderson knowledge database, albeit about 35 years late!

It's very much a product of its time, isn't it - from the opening music (that's so reminiscent of all those Thunderbirds episodes where you've got some massive rocket, crab-logging machine, skyscraper or whatever filling the screen and you're sitting in your chair thinking "That piece of hardware isn't going to survive for long!") through the UFO-style intrigue and action to the inevitable final apocalytic sequence of explosions galore.

Inevitably I found myself nit-picking the plot - something that made me realise just how infrequently we actually spot genuine flaws in Scarlet plots, even if we do end up debating them endlessly. There are one or two specifics: for example, Colonel Glenn Ross wakes up from dozing in the car thinking that his wife's driving on the wrong side of the road, but apparently failed to realise when he got in earlier that her steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car (though you could explain that away by assuming that he's still disorientated, and therefore vaguely assumes that it's an American car as opposed to a European one). Also there's the matter of how the two spacecraft managed to pass one another in space: if the two planets are exact mirror images right down to the molecular level, one would go round the sun clockwise and the other would go round anticlockwise - and they'd meet in the middle with an impressive display of Anderson-style pyrotechnics.

The key one however relates to the consequences of the phenomenon around which the plot is based - that there's a planet on the other side of the sun which is an exact mirror image of the Earth. Even accepting the basic premise, which I'm happy to do as it's a fascinating one, it seems to me there's an insuperable obstacle, brought about by the position of Earth² in relation to the visible universe. We look up at the night sky, and we might point out some constellation to somebody, and take some course of action because of it. Perhaps we're distracted by it for a second or two, perhaps we go and look it up in an encyclopaedia. An astronomer might spend a whole night looking at some stellar object of interest - but whatever it is, our counterpart on the mirror planet wouldn't do that - because they're looking at a different configuration of stars. Likewise, we know the other planets in the solar system are not duplicated (because we can see that they aren't), so their positions in the sky relative to Earth² are also different. Sunspots would only be visible to one of the two planets at any specific time, resulting in different patterns of interference of telecommunications equipment, and so on.

I reckon that would inevitably produce an inexorable divergence between the civilisations on the two planets. Even if the two planets started as identical, as they were assumed to be in the movie, it wouldn't be long before absolutely nobody on Earth had a counterpart on Earth², simply because of the number of uncontrollable factors that go into the creation of any one human being. At the most basic level, a man and a woman never meet because one of them was looking at the stars when the other passes by, and the result is that another person fails to be born, which in turn affects the lives of countless other people - and the same scenario could come about for any of a countless number of reasons.

Something I do wonder about is to what level you could expect alternative civilizations to follow similar patterns of development, even if they are completely different at the level of individual people - and I'm wondering about that in the context of the Multiverse Challange. What sort of religion would have become dominant in Europe if Jesus's apostles hadn't gone off touring the Roman Empire in the first century AD? Would a different commander of the Spanish Armada been able to conquer England in 1588? Would a more able prime minister than Lord North have been able to avert the independence movement in the American colonies in the years before 1776? Would Nazism have emerged in Germany if Hitler had never been born? What Gerry Anderson series would have followed Thunderbirds if Lew Grade hadn't felt it was time for a change? The potential for speculation is endless...

[Marion]

< Gulp>
Yes, well, I also watched Doppleganger and the predominant memories I have of it are that :
1. Ed Bishop (voice of Captain Blue & Ed Straker from UFO) and George Sewell (Alec Freeman from UFO) were in it and -I think- the guy who voiced Lt. Green, plus lots of other people I didn't recognise.
2. The special effects reminded me of every Anderson series I had seen up to and including Joe 90 (perhaps not a surprise) - but that was quite comforting... it was just that I half-expected puppets to walk on screen after every explosion
3. There was lots of 60's psychedelic swirly bits - just like in '2001- a space Odyssey' ( a film I fell asleep in the only time I saw it...)

So perhaps I'm not really qualified to discuss this further. I have probably done my sci-fi street cred no good by admitting that last fact anyway...

[chrisbishop]

Marion - I didn't fell asleep in front of "2001, a space odyssey" - but nearly did. I had to FORCE myself to watch it, because I was curious to see what was all the biz about it...

Maybe it was TOO sophisticated for me. Okay, I was impressed by the special effects (for the time), but that was all.

No offence, but I can't understand why the movie is considered a masterpiece.

Give me Star Wars (original trilogy, of course) any day.

[zero-x]

I loved space odyssey. The effects were brilliant and it was such a revolutionary film it was amazing

[chrisbishop]

That a certainty, we can't ALL have the same opinon . Or this would be a VERY boring world.

Hope I didn't shock you with my very personal view of the movie, Zero X. This was my - well - personal impression about it. And I'm not sure I will ever change my mind about it... But I respect the fact that you liked it - obviously, you are not alone, as there are MANY people around the world who liked it too!

Then again, there are also people who don't like Anderson's shows... Who can understand this?

[Clya Brown]

I also loved 2001. I can still remember coming out of it the one and only time I saw it thinking "Now I just know there's an answer in there somewhere - if I could just work out what the question is...". Mind you, I've never wanted to watch it again ever since: I reckon it's a one-off movie that scores in terms of originality value, and I can well imagine that I'd get very bored with it if I saw it now.

The one that I really hated was "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", which I thought was dreadful. I came out muttering "Okay okay, so there are aliens up there somewhere - I've never doubted it. So why make such a fuss about playing silly tunes at them, for heavens' sake? Saying hello to them ought to be a detail - not the high point of the movie - followed by the real question of why they've decided to drop in on us." I used to think I was in a minority of one over that one, but I heard one of the guests at a sci-fi con say effectively the same thing a few weeks later, which was quite gratifying.

Close Encounters stayed at the top of my list of sci-fi movies to be avoided at all costs for quite some time - until "The Black Hole" was released, in fact. After I saw that I was obliged to recalibrate the scale...

[chrisbishop]

You think 'Black Hole' was bad? Try 'Starcrash', one day - and then you'll REALLY cry... It's a 1979 rip-off of 'Star Wars' and it should have stayed in limbo. I've never seen such a bad science-fiction movie before in my entire life!

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0079946/

Read the review and weep.

PS: Of course, I may have to change my rating review over that one, because since then, I saw the totally awful, not-even-worth-to-mention super-hero movie 'Captain America'...

Oh no, wait... FORGET I even mention it!

[Maltray]

[color=yellow]An offer which, as we both know, I've taken you up on, Hazel: and many thanks to you for it - it's filled in a large gap in my Anderson knowledge database, albeit about 35 years late!

It's very much a product of its time, isn't it - from the opening music (that's so reminiscent of all those Thunderbirds episodes where you've got some massive rocket, crab-logging machine, skyscraper or whatever filling the screen and you're sitting in your chair thinking "That piece of hardware isn't going to survive for long!") through the UFO-style intrigue and action to the inevitable final apocalytic sequence of explosions galore.[color]

Doppleganger I'll have to keep a eye out for that!

he he he quite yes Doc, I think form eve the start of Thunderbirds and such you know the peice of technology/Building isn't going to make and there's going to be explosion after explosion. I think it might be better to give Scott Tracy a very large broom instead of Thunderbird one...

[Father Unwin]

For those Anderson fans in the UK who have not yet seen "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" I would just like to point out that it is being screened on ITV1 at 12:00 midnight this coming Monday, 8th August.

[Sage]

Cool, shall have to tape that.
Had vaugly heard of it, but never seen it. Does sound interesting.

LMAO at those 'Starcrash' reviews, thinking surely it can't be that bad. Then read the quotes. OK yup I believe them.
Shall have to mention it to my other sifi obsessed friends. Maybe we could get a copy and make a drinking game of it's terribleness (hmm considering that might put us in A&E within 20 mins that might not be such a good idea)

[AVON]

"Well now," caught this film for the first time and, can see the origins of U.F.O. quite clearly.

YES - several of the cast in this film did later end up as, regulars in U.F.O.

ED BISHOP, GEORGE SEWELL, NORMA RONALD, KEITH ALEXANDER, VLADEK SHEYBAL, JEREMY WILKINS and, CY GRANT who was the voice of Lt. GREEN in Capt. SCARLET was also in this movie.

It's definitely of its time and, pretty slow by todays movies but still enjoyable!!!

[James. C]

I'd like to let you all know that you can now watch JTTFSOTS on the streaming site, Anderson TV. I downloaded it and saw the climactic explosion and the rocket take off and a few other bits of interest, and I must say visually its very impressive. Certainly similar to UFO. I'll watch the full movie at some point soon.

James