The Reality of Back To Earth.

Well, Back To Earth has finally graced DVD, and well, just to celebrate that, I thought it’d be a good idea to post this little article/essay I wrote after most fans said that the special was a let down.

Since the airing on the digital channel Dave of the brand new one off episodes of Red Dwarf, some have proclaimed it a letdown for being too similar to the series V finale, Back to Reality. However, the similarities stem farther than just having the same ‘villain’ in the form of the despair/joy squid.

The most basic and also most obvious similarity between Back to Earth and Back to Reality, is naturally, the title. Both contain the phrase “Back to” and then the relevant plot premise of the episode.
Now ending this here after only pointing out this one similarity is pointless. Firstly it is a waste of time, Secondly it makes the argument that Back to Earth is a re-written (possibly what Doug Naylor originally wanted from Back to Reality, essentially making Back to Earth a ‘Directors Cut‘, which is somewhat appropriate considering the level of influence from Blade Runner in the Back to Earth episodes, it would be unsurprising for Doug Naylor to pull a Ridley Scott move and continue to edit Back to Earth for the foreseeable future.) edition of Back to Reality redundant. And thirdly, it is an insult to your intelligence.  Fortunately, the similarities do not end there.

The next similarity I have lined up is the beginning. Or rather, the concept created within the beginning. The beginnings of both episodes revolve around the Red Dwarf crew undertaking a ‘deep-sea’ expedition, eventually finding, as the one and only Dave Lister put it, “Some prehistoric leviathan that’s porked it’s way through this entire ocean”. And both times, The Cat, Kryten and Lister are ‘attacked’ in some way by the squid, whilst Rimmer remains in relative safety, and both times, he comments about the size of an object heading towards the Cat, Kryten and Lister.
From then on, the story of both episodes appear to go their own way. But, both episodes feature the same idea of the ‘Dwarfers’ then going through events which lead to them believing that they have left their world of Red Dwarf behind them and into a new world where they discover that they aren’t who they thought they were, where they must also deal with the consequences of not being who they originally believed they were, and accept who they are in these new realities. Even the start of their journey to discover who they are in the new ’dream world’ realities is similar, right down to the camera shot and lighting! (Referring to the discovery of the car that they are to drive.)
From then on it’s business as usual with random madcap capers for the crew to negotiate. Until it gets to the end, with them eventually realising that they are in an artificial reality and subsequently leaving it behind for their world again, where they then discover that there artificial dream state was created by the aforementioned leviathan, and that everything they learned from the people in the different realities were a lie, and that they are who they believed they were.

So in conclusion, as many have proclaimed, Back to Earth is, at it’s very heart, an essential clone of Back to Reality. Ok, on the surface Back to Earth and Back to Reality are highly different, but once you strip away the fancy CGI effects (which somewhat fail to keep in with the charm that the model shots from series 1-6 had.) and the new sets, outfits and gimmick plot devices, E.g. the Carbug and the “Creator” (In an unashamed copy of Blade Runner), the overall arching story arcs are almost mirror copies of each other, which is almost appropriate because for the continuity to not shoot itself into the nearest black hole (or 5), Back to Earth must be set within the Mirror Universe entered in Only the Good… at the end of series VIII, as this is the only way that the Red Dwarf crew can be onboard Red Dwarf, as the original was destroyed by the corrosive virus, leaving the mirror universe Red Dwarf as the only place left for them. However, if this is the case, the question of “what happened to the crew” has to be raised, as the entire resurrected crew of Red Dwarf was present in the mirror universe, albeit in their respective reversed roles.

Hall of Fame – Ridley Scott

You may have heard the name (you better had if you’re on this site!), you more than likely will have seen at least one of his films. But do you know how extraordinary this man is? How much of a geek icon this man is? If no, then you’re about to get the education you need.

Ridley Scott’s career began in 1965, when he directed the short film “Boy and Bicycle” This was the first step into his incredible movie career. For the next four years, Scott directed TV, before returning to films with “The Troubleshooters” in 1969. Scott seemed to take a sabbatical from directing until 1977, when he directed “The Duellists” a wonderful example of what swashbuckling can do when it’s not being forced into green tights for another Robin Hood film. The Duellists earned Ridley Scott his first award at The Cannes Film Festival, with a unanimous vote for “Best First Work”, and earned him his second award the next year at the David di Donatello Awards, where he won “Best Director – Foreign Film” in a tie with Herbert Ross for “The Goodbye Girl”.

Ridley Scott’s next two films however, would prove to be the crown jewels in his career. 1977’s Alien, and 1982’s Blade Runner. Both films have been credited as two of the most influential science fiction films in history, as Doug Naylor (Red Dwarf) has often credited the films as being his main influence in set design etc.

Alien would go on to win Scott his first Oscar, as it won “Best Visual Effects”, admittedly, not the greatest award up for grabs at the Oscars, but it was a start, and as proven by the past, Sci-Fi and Fantasy films hardly ever win the awards they should win. But, Alien would still win Scott a “Best Director” award, as he won the Saturn Award for Best Director from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (USA).

Whilst Blade Runner is very often credited as being a lot of writer/director’s main influence, the film did poorly (awards wise). Some of this can be blamed on the lame “Hollywood, sunshine and lollipops” ending the studio forced Scott to add, as opposed to the darker, more grim ending he had favoured. Thankfully, we now have DVD, and the five disc special edition of Blade Runner with the original sucky ending, the various directors cuts, and the last and final definitive directors cut.

For the next 18 years, we weren’t to hear much from Ridley Scott, until 2000’s Gladiator, a somewhat highly story driven film, and (much ironically for a film named Gladiator), very little in ring gladiatorial combat. This made it (in my eyes at least) a bit of a disappointment, but it is far from a bad film. Scott’s next adventure would be Hannibal and the high regarded Black Hawk Down. Both films are highly intense films, which certainly mark out Ridley Scott as the directorial genius he is. Ridley Scott would disappear for some time from our cinema screens, until 2005’s frankly EPIC Kingdom Of Heaven, the story of a young knight (Orlando Bloom) leading the defence of Jerusalem against Saladin’s massive army. Sadly, as has often been the case in Scott’s career, despite the absolute genius and brilliance of Kingdom of Heaven, it gathered no wins at the awards ceremonies (Oscars, BAFTA‘s, Golden Globes).

Top 5 British Actors

I’ll tell you who I think is a good actor, I know you never asked but I follow Stephen Fry on ‘Twitter’ so you’re the lesser in this writer/reader dynamic. Anyway, do you know who I think is a good actor, well no it’s a choice of two… no three… erm no just two oh for god sake! See what you’ve done, I was going fine then until you brought up the stupid little point of who asked who. Anyway, below is a relatively short list of my Top 5 Favourite British Actors.

5. David Threlfall
In at five is David Threlfall, famous for his role as Frank Gallagher in Shameless. He’s in my top five not only for his outstanding performance in Shameless but also for his outstanding performance in Hot Fuzz. Now I bet a few of you didn’t know he was in Hot Fuzz primarily because he both didn’t look like and didn’t sound like his alcoholic, drug abusing and shameless counterpart. In HF he played Martin Blower, the flash amateur actor who got ‘decaffeinated’. I don’t only love his acting but him as a person, in the outtakes for HF there is a scene where he pops a bottle of bubbly and starts pouring it into two glasses, both Threlfall and Lucy Punch pick up the glasses as he says ‘alone at last’. Edgar Wright then shouts over the camera ‘lower’, meaning the two glasses but Threlfall just says ‘alone at last’ in a lower register. Of course he knew what Wright meant which just makes him seem like a down to earth bloke who you would want to have a conversation with.

4. Leigh Francis
Now I may be lynched for saying that I think this ginger, moronic, word slurring star of ITV 2 is a good actor. Even though I despise each and every show he has done I still can’t suppress the fact that he’s both an amazing character and method actor. With every ‘Ooh’ as ‘The Bear’ in ‘Bo’ Selecta!’ to every time he screams ‘Cha ching’ as ‘Keith Lemon’ in ‘Celebrity Juice’ you forget that it’s the same person. He immerses into these characters, when he’s Keith Lemon it’s believable, you would think that this bandaged guy with facial hair was actually a real person and not some genius creation by a man from Leeds.

3. Jack O’Connell
Probably most famous for his role as James Cook in Skins, in my opinion Jack O’Connell is surely one of the greatest current British actors to have the affliction of being northern. Now I don’t know if I am slightly biased because I adore Skins and the fact that he was the only one in the programme to show any evidence of being able to act but still he is a phenomenal actor. Granted he’s not really diverse, well either that or he does get type cast but he always seem to play a loud mouthed young Danny Dyer like role but none the less he does pulls it off extremely well.

2. Stan Laurel
I trust you have all heard of Stan Laurel? If not he was a pioneer of both silent movies as well as talkies along with his American comedy partner Oliver Hardy. In 1927 the double act ‘Laurel and Hardy’ started making films for Hal Roach Studios and went on to be comedy greats. In every film Stan plays bumbling clown who messes up every situation resulting in Oliver Hardy getting frustrated and fussing with his tie. But in real life this couldn’t have been further from the truth. He was often descrbed as the brain behind the duo as he was always pushing for diversity. Now to someone who’s never seen one of their films that might sound quite, well repetitive but trust me, you have to see one of there films, they are phenomenal.

1. Simon Pegg
Now of course at number one it was going to be Simon Pegg, it is impossible for it not to be. Everything Pegg does is simply ‘fried gold’, god I love this man. Also for those who haven’t heard his next instalment in the ‘Blood and ice-cream trilogy’ is called ‘The Worlds End’ and is rumoured to be a sci-fi based alien film as they have already had the ‘red cornetto’, the ‘blue cornetto’ and if true now the ‘green cornetto’.