War and Peace

In 1956 the Americans made a film version of War & Peace starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova. This was shown in the Soviet Union in 1959, and though it was immensely popular, they also hated all the changes and omissions that Hollywood had made. So early on in the '60s it was decided to make a Russian version that would be better, longer and more faithful to the book than the American version. So much longer, in fact, that they decided it had to be split into four parts, with each part being long enough to be worthy of a film in its own right.

Part One: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966)

With Cold War pride on the line, virtually unlimited assistance was promised by the Soviet government and so the budget is estmated to have been the equivalent of (adjusted for inflation) $1 billion. This is most obviously to be seen on screen in the battle scenes, which are frankly ridiculously massive in scope and involved the use of Russsian army conscripts as extras. But the sets and costumes even in the peacetime sections are also detailed beyond belief, and all the balls, banquets and salons filled with extras.

Not being an aficionado of Russian cinema, I don't know any of the main cast from having seen them elsewhere, so only two are worth calling out - in the casting of Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova the Russians seem to be trying to out-Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn. Or as Chekov might say: 'Audrey Hepburn was invented in Russia.'

Then there's the main character of the story, Pierre Bezukhov - easily one of the most famous characters in Russian literature, his part must have been heavily sought after by all the leading Soviet actors of the day (this is the character that Anthony Hopkins went on to play in the BBC TV version). So how did the director cut through the dilemma of who to cast? Simples. He cast himself.

At just under two and a half hours, part one is the longest of the four films (which add up to being over 7 hours in length). It is perhaps subtitled "Andrei Bolkonsky" because Prince Andrei (or "Prince Andrew" as he is unfortunately called in some English translations) arguably undergoes the most emotional development of all the main characters in this early section of the story. The son of a war hero and general, he joins the army when war (clang!) is declared against Napoleon's France because it is what is expected of him, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Being of the nobility, he is immediately made a senior officer and put on the general's staff. In the battle of Austerlitz Andrei is wounded and there is a famous scene where he lies on the battlefield gazing up at the sky, and realises there is more to life than the petty ambitions of mannys, all the while unaware that Napoleon himself is passing within a few feet of where he lies.

It's quite hard to judge each part on its own. In terms of spectacle - alas we live in the age of CGI, where such epic battle scenes could be created for a fraction of the cost (and by that I even mean good looking CGI, not your crappy Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V cheap job), so I expect this loses a lot of the effect it would have had in the '60s, when it really would have shown up the BBC the Americans. In terms of plot, you need to see more than just part one since a lot of the disparate plot threads are nowhere near ready to come together yet. In terms of emotional impact, this comes nearest to the book of any of the adaptations I have seen (i.e. both BBC versions) - which I would expect of oh those Russians.

Part Two: Natasha Rostova (1966)

The second part of the story is set in the peace (clang!) in between Russia's two wars with Napoleon's France. It focuses on the character of Natasha Rostova, hence its subtitle.

Arguably less epic than the first part due to the lack of battles, this part's centrepiece is the grand ball where young Natasha and Prince Andrei fall in love. This scene is in its own way as impressive as the battle sequences, with a cast of thousands all in period-appropriate costumes in attendance. It certainly puts the low budget 1970s BBC version to shame, and even the more impressive second attempt from 2016 (where the ball was a spectacular centrepiece) can't compete with this cinematic grandeur.

Andrei and Natasha get engaged, but his father won't allow him to marry until a year has passed. Much of the film is then spent on the things Natasha and her family do during this year, such as travelling into the countryside to go on a wolf hunt, and enjoying other quintessentially Russian, rustic entertainments. These scenes are thematically important elements of the book but hardly essential to the main plot, so it does somewhat feel as though the film is being forced to spin its wheels a bit.

Upon returning to the city Natasha attends the opera, where she is seduced by the dastardly Anatole Kuragin (whom Colin Baker played in the BBC '72 version). Natasha acts so irrationally and so emotionally in this bit that it is very tricky to empathise with her, although it is somewhat more understandable when he looks like this:

Purr.

Although Anatole and Natasha are prevented from eloping together, in a scene which is oddly quite rushed considering how long and slow many of the earlier scenes were allowed to be, Andrei finds out and feels betrayed enough to call off the engagement. This creates something of a cliffhanger ending for part two.

Part Three: The Year 1812 (1967)

The shortest of the four parts at a mere 1 hour and 21 minutes. This part is pure spectacle, with over 50 minutes of the runtime dedicated to the battle of Borodino. Scene after scene of vast numbers of soldiers, horses, explosions and smoke are presented to the viewer, the cumulative effect of which is to numb us into accepting that we're not seeing a phenomenally expensive film production, but the actual historical battle which actually happened.

So successful is this that we even accept the absurd sight of Pierre Bezukhov wandering through the battle as a civilian in his suit and tie posh clothes and white top hat. If mishandled this could have been unintentionally comedic, but it succeeds because the surrounding grandeur - and the detail of the reconstruction - forces the viewer to think 'yes, this could have happened: I can see it.'

The resumption of war against Napoleon's France, and the invasion of Russian soil by his armies, forces the peacetime plotlines of part two to go on hold for much of the duration. The only subplot of note that there is room for aside from the war concerns the death of Prince Andrei's father, which he learns about just before the battle begins and the news of which contributes to Andrei's acceptance of the inevitability of his own death.

At the end we witness the wounded Andrei meeting the even more badly wounded Anatole (a scene which the '70s BBC adaptation, sadly, only described happening off-screen) and reconciling before Anatole's death. This sudden reintrusion of the plot from part two might seem unexpected to a viewer unfamiliar with the novel, since there is no foreshadowing of this twist within part three itself, but it is at least faithful to the original story.

If there is a weakness to this incredible piece of filmmaking, it has to be the very ending, where a voiceover about the consequences of the battle seems to have been added to give some sort of closure and a futile attempt to make the film stand on its own. But it really doesn't - you need to have seen the earlier parts to understand the significance of the non-battle scenes, and you need to see part four to get any kind of resolution to the various plot strands - both the war ones and the peace ones.

Part Four: Pierre Bezukhov (1967)

Despite not containing any big battle sequences on the scale of those in the first and third parts, the final instalment of the film series manages to feel even more epic thanks to the scenes set around the French occupation, looting and burning of Moscow, which takes up the first third of the 1 hour 36 minute duration. It looks like a similarly enormous number of extras were used as in the battles, and the director again uses overhead tracking shots to put across the epic scale of the event in a similar way, but this time with the addition of loads of things being on fire.

As main characters begin to get killed off, the direction becomes more experimental, with Prince Andrei experiencing an extended surrealistic dream sequence that is like something out of Excalibur, while scenes focusing on Petya Rostov (a character who, if this were a conventional war movie, would have you shouting "Dead!" at the screen, Mary Whitehouse Experience-style) go into black & white.

It is curious to think that only the first film would even approach the length of most modern films, since the other three are all under 100 minutes each, so there would be no way they would need to split it into four sections if it had been made in the 21st century.

They also wouldn't have needed to abridge the novel so much, since even at the combined length of 7 hours the ending still feels rushed, without the proper conclusion to Pierre and Natasha's story (it is sort of left for the viewer to fill in the blanks, perhaps presuming familiarity with the original story) and even omits some of the more significant subplots such as Nikolai and Maria's romance. Why, if they made it now they could even get Peter Jackson to add some extra subplots!

I felt that, sadly, the badly paced ending was the weakest part of any of the four films (the '70s BBC version didn't exactly stick the landing either). But the journey to get there was worth it - a unique cinematic experience, not to be equalled in scope and scale until the age of CGI made faking it possible, and never, I expect, to be surpassed.

The film studio Mosfilm have made this available to watch in full, in good quality and with decent English subtitles, on their YouTube channel.

Seven Ridiculous or Ridiculously Awesome moments from Mahabharat (1988)

But are they ridiculous, or are they ridiculously awesome? The line is sometimes a very fine one, so judge for yourselves...

1. King Shantanu's dilemma [Episodes 1-2]

King Shantanu the Shagger (whose inability to keep his royal penis in his pants is the proximate cause of all the dramatic events of the entire epic) watches his wife - the goddess Ganga - drown his infant sons, while absurdly melodramatic incidental music plays and the camera repeatedly crash-zooms to his face like a whole season's worth of Colin Baker-era Doctor Who cliffhangers have come at once.

Shantanu is bound by his oath never to interfere in anything that Ganga does, and his inner turmoil is written on his face in the form of some amusingly contorted facial expressions. Ganga's smile after each drowning is the smile of a serial killer, and yet this doesn't ever seem to stop Shantanu from fathering yet further sons with her. Eventually, as she goes down to the river with their eighth son, he finally takes an action to stop her.

2. Bhishma's Terrible Oath [Episodes 3-4]

Saved from drowning, the eighth son of the king is taken by Ganga to be taught by gods, immortals and sages and then returns to his father as the perfect prince and heir to the throne. But Shagger Shantanu's lust gets in the way again when he falls for a fishermanny's daughter, Satyavati. Her father insists that Shantanu may only marry Satyavati if it will be their son who inherits the throne instead of the prince.

Dutiful above and beyond what is expected of a son, the prince agrees to step aside in favour of any other sons his father may have. But the fishermanny is not even satisfied with that and suggests that the prince's descendants may try to claim the throne back from his descendants.

Thus, in order that his father may get a shag, the prince swears a terrible oath that he will be celibate for his entire life, and so is thenceforth called Bhishma: He of the Terrible Oath.

3. The wrath of Amba [Episodes 5 and 70]

Bhishma kidnaps three princesses to marry them to his half-brother (a perfectly acceptable custom within their culture). One of the princesses, Amba, objects on the grounds that she was already in love with, and secretly betrothed to, another manny. Bhishma apologises and sets her free, but her beloved then rejects Amba because his pride has been hurt by his inability to prevent the kidnapping. Rather than be angry at her lover for rejecting her, Amba turns her ire against Bhishma and swears to kill him if he will not make amends by marrying her himself - which he refuses to do becaue of his oath.

Some 65 episodes later we discover, via flashback, what became of Amba after this - she went to Bhishma's own martial teacher, the invincible Parshuram, and persuaded him to fight Bhishma on her behalf. The result was an epic battle between the two, with both deploying devastating celestial weapons, but which ultimately ended in a stalemate. So with Amba still not having achieved her vengeance, she swore to die and be reborn again and yet again until she could somehow be the cause of Bhishma's death.

4. The convoluted circumstances of Karna's birth [Episodes 7-8]

Princess Kunti was taught a magic spell by a sage that could see the future, and he foresaw that this spell would be useful to her later in her life. He explained to her that, when she recited the secret magic words, it would turn her into Superted summon any god of her choosing. But the mischeivous sage did not say what the god would do after it had been summoned. So Kunti tried it out, and summoned the Sun God to appear.

The Sun God then told her he would not leave until he had given her a son, which he then did in the unconventional manner of pewpewpewing Kunti with a special effect until a baby appeared in her arms. Being unmarried, Kunti had to keep the baby's existence a secret, so she set him adrift upon the river to be found and cared for by another family. The baby was Karna, and we have by no means seen the last of him in this series.

5. The even more convoluted circumstances of Krishna's birth [Episodes 10-11]

Evil King Kansa usurped his father's throne and reigned as a tyrant. When the gods themselves prophecised that his sister Devaki's eighth son would cause his death, he imprisoned both her and her husband Vasudev. Not taking any chances that he might lose track of which son is which, Kansa resolved to kill all of Devaki's sons, and so he killed the first six in an unnecessarily gruesome manner by throwing them against the wall of his sister's prison cell.

Obviously his attempt to cheat fate was literally destined to fail, with Devaki's seventh pregnancy being magically transferred to Vasudev's other wife, Rohini, leading to the birth of Balram, while the eighth son is saved by even more direct divine intervention - the gods setting free Vasudev for long enough to deliver his child to safekeeping beyond Kansa's power. This eighth son is Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu.

6. Baby Krishna fights some monsters [Episodes 12-15]

Rather than keep baby Krishna's whereabouts a secret, the villagers of Gokul openly celebrate his coming with a musical number, so that Kansa immediately discovers his location. Advised by an equally evil vizier, Kansa sends a succession of monsters who could have come straight out of an episode of Monkey to kill Krishna. Each one is foiled really easily, because Krishna has the full powers of a god from birth, and so he effectively acts as a living deus ex machina.

At one point he is fighting underwater with Kalia, a giant, five-headed cobra. His friends and family see blood come to the surface, and I was waiting for one of them to say

"Blood! I hope this is not Krishna's blood."

But of course it is Kalia's.

7. Krishna defeats Kansa really easily, while laughing the whole time [Episodes 16-17]

Evil King Kansa convinced himself that if he could defy the gods' prophecy of his death by killing Krishna before Krishna killed him, then he would become immortal. So he set a trap by pretending to repent his evil ways and then inviting his nephews to come and visit him. Krishna and Balram walked into the trap and trivially defeated the attempts by Kansa and his henchmannys to kill them, while all the time laughing in a way calculated to unnerve the king until he tried to run away. But Kansa could no more escape from Krishna than he could overcome him, so that was the end of his reign of terror.

It is unusual to see a dramatic presentation with such a lack of peril for the protagonists, because while on the one paw these episodes seemingly possess all the tropes of a classic underdoggy tail, with our plucky heroes vastly outmatched by the strength and power of the baddy and all his resources as king of the country, yet because of Krishna's godly powers we never feel he is in jeopardy for even one moment.

Doctor Who Night 2024: Eric Saward's Vision

For our 22nd* annual Doctor Who Night we watched some stories from season 22. We started with Attack of the Cybermannys, which was written by "Paula Moore" - a cunning pseudonym that Eric Saward used to fool the BBC into letting him write more scripts than he was really allowed to under their rules.

While an enormous step up in quality from the preceding story, this is a confused mess of a plot that is trying to be a sequel to Resurrection of the Daleks and The Tenth Planet and Tomb of the Cybermannys, while including topical references to Halley's Comet in a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere.

Speaking of subplots that don't go anywhere - something of a Sawardian trademark - the ultimate example of this has to be the way that escaped prisoners Bates and Stratton never meet or interact with the Doctor or Peri, and are killed off without accomplishing anything relevant to the main plot.

Another Sawardian trademark is the presence of space mercenaries - in this case Lytton (Maurice Colbourne), returning from Resurrection of the Daleks but with an almost unrecognisably different personality - whom it seems the writer would rather spend his time with than the Doctor and Companion. The early scenes establishing Lytton as a London gangster, diamond thief and all-round hardmanny seem to belong to a different show - not necessarily a bad one, but not Doctor Who.

Lytton eventually comes a cropper thanks to the third - and worst - Sawardian trademark: his love of gratuitous violence.

I always thought that radiation gravity gold was the Cybermannys' one weakness, but according to the Doctor:

"The Cybermen have one weakness. They'll react to the distress of their own kind."

I assume there's at least one Big Finish story out there about how undercover policemanny Russell somehow survived and ended up on Skaro, where he became the Kaleds' chief scientist? No? Funny how some actor reuse matters more to the superfans than others, mew.

Revelation of the Daleks, also written by Eric Saward (under his own name this time), is in general a much better story than Attack of the Cybermannys, although it is arguably an even worse Doctor Who story, what with the way the Doctor and Peri are kept away from the main plot for more than half of the duration. It is also an enormous step down in quality from the preceding story, for obvious reasons.

The parade of characters we are introduced to - who are mostly being set up in part one only to get killed off in part two - are interestingly grotesque and have a complex set of relationships with each other and with Davros, who sits at the heart of the story like a pider in its web. In many ways this is his story, showing him as a genius manipulator of the greed and vanity of the mannys around him, as well as the mad scientist we have seen him as before. It is trying to do something new with the character, and it is a pity that this doesn't extend beyond this one story, since the next time we will see him will be In Remembrance of the Daleks.

Most of the characters come in pairs, forming double acts as Saward tries to copy the writing style of Robert Holmes: Kara and Vogel, Orcini and Bostock (the obligatory space mercenaries for this story), Takis and Lilt (with a totally tropical taste), Natasha and Grigory. This gives one member of each pair somebody to tell their exposition to, which is good because this script has a lot of exposition to get through - to the point where there is a character whose role is to give a running commentary on events to all the mannys in suspended animation, a.k.a. the viewers at home.

This is the DJ, played by Alexei Sayle, a baffling inclusion even by the already eclectic standards of this story. Peri thinks he is a Space American, but it turns out he is just putting the voice on, which is ironic because Nicola Bryant is also putting the voice on to play Peri.

While the level of violence is less than in some stories this season (the worst offenders are Attack of the Cybermannys, Vengeance on Varos and The Two Doctors), it still includes a manny getting stabbed with a syringe and injected with embalming fluid. This scene is played for laughs, since even as he goes

his wig falls off, lol.

Not played for komedy is the scene with the see-through Dalek, inside which is a manny being turned into a Dalek. Doctor Who Mazagine once called this "the single most up-chuckingly disgusting thing seen in the show ever." Although this was before the return of the new series, so could easily be superseded by [spoiled for choice when it comes to this punchline -Ed]

After this season aired on the BBC, the series came within a gnat's crotchet of getting cancelled. I think it is quite clear who is chiefly to blame.

* I'm not sure how we managed that when I was only made in 2008. It must have somehow involved time travel.

Space Buttons

Despite the impending pantomime season this is nothing to do with a Space Panto written by Terry Nation. Sorry to disappoint, zanni.

This is actually about the visible futuristic space buttons I just noticed on Avon's costume, which you can see here:

Isn't it odd that I never noticed these before? I suppose I must have been too busy looking at Avon.

Purr.

Ben Steed tries to decide on a name for his latest episode

The Planet of Manly Men and Weak Women

Avon and Gunn Sar

The Planet of Gunn Sar

The Moobs of Gunn Sar

The Manly Moobs of Gunn Sar

Gunn Sar's Moobs

Avon and Gunn Sar's Moobs

The Power of Gunn Sar's Moobs

Power ✔

Best end credits of all time?

In any list of the best TV end credit sequences of all time, Terrahawks has to be in consideration for the top spot. It is glorious in its full early-80s fake CGI (very much in the style of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series), which portrays a wonderfully simple concept of the goody Zeroids and baddy Cubes playing a game of Noughts-and-Crosses.

I mean just take a look at this:

Purr.

And in this one the Cubes cheat, lol!

An Unexpected Crossover

Combat Colin was a comic strip that ran in the pages of Action Force and then, later, in the pages of Transformers and Action Force. It was written and drawn by Lew Stringer, who had previously written Robo-Capers for the Transfomers comic prior to the addition of Action Force to that title.

From November to December of 1989 the Combat Colin strip featured a five-part story (each part consisting of only a single page) that crossed over with the setting of a certain 1960s TV show, and included multiple references to the most iconic imagery and dialogue from that series, as well as a couple of title drops gratuitously crowbarred in.

I can only assume that most, if not all, of these references would have been lost on the intended readership of the strip, who would have been much too young to have seen the programme in question upon broadcast - even on repeat. And DVDs hadn't been invented back then!

The first reference to The Prisoner, other than the font used for the story title, is the knockout gas being put through the keyhole to incapacitate our heroes. This on its own could have been passed off as a coincidence - the real clincher comes in the final panels where we see the arrival of Combat Colin and Semi-Automatic Steve in a suspiciously Village-like place.

The second instalment references the famous exchange between Number Six and Number Two from the title sequence, even if it is somewhat mangled:

"Where am I?"

"In the place!"

"What do you want?"

"We want information!"

After encountering a number of other characters familiar to regular readers of Combat Colin who are respectively "the prisoners" and "the warders," the plot diverges from that of The Prisoner by revealing the identity of "Number One" early - it is Colin's old enemy "the Brain!"

Part three sees Colin attempt an immediate escape in a similar style to Number Six's early attempt from Arrival - though Colin's use of a penny-farthing is borrowing a different element of the show's iconography.

Making his way across the beach, Colin's shout of defiance is undeniably that of Number Six:

"I'm not a number... ...I'm Combat Colin!"

The pursuing Mountain Man answers him:

"Please yourself... ...It's your funeral!"

Clang!

Title drops continue in part four when Madprof tells Colin

"Better start living in harmony with this place, pal!"

and the comics tradition of teasing the next episode is here done with a simple:

Next week: Free for all!

Other Prisoner references on this page include the Brain making his base in "the greenish dome" and, after the heroes and villains team up against him, the Brain describes them as

"Six of one, and half a dozen of the other!"

The original plot, of the Brain stealing Colin's Combat Trousers to use against him, concludes in part five with no explicit Prisoner references other than the "Village" setting continuing from earlier parts, and there's one line that sounds more like it could have come from Police Squad:

"Now you'll be a prisoner, Brain, ~ in Wallytown jail!"