Forum Replies Created
-
Talking of rock\Doctor Who images, this cheeky image released today made me laugh.
Quite funny because Jenna is in Paul Mc position and is going barefoot. When Abbey Road was released the barefoot thing started this big old rumour that he was dead.
No problems @purofilion. I thought I’d post before going out for supplies for my ‘welcome back Doctor’ party.
There are some lovely moments in this. I thought Bors was a great sidekick, particularly the
Doctor: “I thought you were an idiot”
Bors: “I thought I was as well”
Doctor: “Good… I was worried I’d have to break it to you.”Lovely bit of business with the Tommy Cooper impression while playing with the coin as well. He was the original fez wearing magician, after all.
Hi – I have a small collection of the figures and can probably give some general advice. This is from the UK standpoint (we have a few different nationalities on the Forum) and in the expectation that you are talking about the 5 inch Character Options figures that were launched with the new series (and have grown to include the older series). I’m also anticipating that your child opened them up and played with the things as nature intended, rather than doing the collector approved thing of putting them in a shrine in their original packaging (which substantially increases the value).
The best single piece of advice I can give you at the moment is to keep them for a while. Put them in a big crate and stick them in the attic or at the back of a cupboard. The reason for this is that the average 8 year old who bought those toys back in 2005/6 is now a teenager looking to put childish things away, going off to University, getting a job, or whatever. The toys were the success story of the period and lots were produced in large volumes. With all these kids hitting the “magic age” for selling on within the last few years, there is an abundance of them on the market. Take any car boot or market stall that sells second hand goods and you’ll find a lot of them going for £1 – £2 each.
You’ll see prices like that on e-bay, as well as prices that are inflated, especially for niche figures that were ordered exclusively by people like Forbidden Planet (mainly the old series). At this point it’s really “what will I be offered” rather than “what are they worth”, because the manufacturer is still churning out figures, and what was once rare is becoming commonplace (for example this set of the Fourth Doctor, D84 and The Master, which were all “rare” last year is available currently from B&M for £12.99).
The ones that consistently seem to fetch a considerable amount at the moment are the “build a figure” Figures. These were assembled from multiple packs with an arm or a leg, head, torso in with other figures to force you to buy them all to complete the set.
The K1 Robot (big silver thing at the back) is valuable, as it required you to purchase all the other figure with it to assemble.So it’s quite common to see the K1 (Giant) Robot, Gelth phantom, Vespiform (giant wasp) and Cyber controller from a Second Doctor story going for considerable sums (£30 – £60).
The main reason for the advice is that I was in a similar position once upon a time. At 17 I sold all my Star Wars stuff I’d been collecting since 7 for beer tokens when I went to University. I got a couple of hundred quid, which was OK in 87. Everybody else was selling stuff at the same time. It was a buyers market. If I’d waited for ten years it would have been a four figure sum. I could kick myself now, but hey – beer seemed more important at the time.
In 10 years, some of the kids who sold decided their childhood obsessions were not so childish afterall, and started collecting. They wanted the originals. They were earning money and they would pay. The glut of figures had diminished (natural attrition – “dog ate my Stormtrooper, dad”, etc) and so the price went up.
When I sold my stuff there were a couple of items I wanted to keep. They went into the attic with books, comics and magazines while I went off and had adventures. When I settled into a house 10 years later, the first thing my parents did was empty their loft into mine. That was a fun weekend ploughing through all the gems and rubbish I can tell you. A lot of happy memories awakened. The point of this is that I found something I didn’t want to part with. My “Giant Robot” produced by the company Denys Fisher in the 1970s.
I showed it to a fellow fanboy who immediately, on the spot, offered me £80 for it. It’s worth a lot more even if it is unboxed. It’s not even a particularly well constructed figure, but it is a piece of history to him. Boxed at the moment, £300. Unboxed, £175. What will that build a figure version be worth in 10 years?So – wait for the rush to die down, sell later (if your daughter doesn’t go into gooey delights in 10 years and decide she is a collector after all) and get a lot more. Collectables is a waiting game.
If however, you wish to continue to sell, I think this forum that specialises in these type of things may have more specific advice.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
@purofilion
I actually resisted seeing the first Burton Batman film for quite a while. It was possibly the most aggressive advertising campaign that Warner ever launched and it just put me off.
I generally like Burtons work (the Dark Goth Fairytale stuff works for me) but I can’t help thinking the first film showed signs of “engineering for success” by the studio. I think we both agreed that Jack Nicholsons performance (and Kubricks focus on it) harmed The Shining. It’s a similar proposition here, I think. Add in that much hyped Prince Soundtrack (which doesn’t really suit the aesthetic at all) and it comes across as a bit forced.
The casting of Micheal Keaton as Batman, on the face of it, seems pretty weird because the script doesn’t leave him much to do in the first film. There was a “conspiracy theory” about the time of the movie that the original concept drew upon one of the most famous graphic novels of the time, a prestige “one off” called The Killing Joke by Alan Moore (which is one I’d suggest to @thekrynoidman – check out second hand comics stores. Is the bookstall in Grainger Market still in Newcastle? Killing Joke has been reprinted that many times you can usually find good used copies of it)
It’s about the position of Batman and Joker as Nemesis. Flip sides of a coin. The suggestion was that the original concept would have been Keaton playing both roles to emphasise this point. That sounds pretty weird until you remember that Keaton had appeared in Burtons Beetlejuice the year before this. Because what is that character except a high octane supernatural Joker? The theory goes that Nicholson was cast on studio orders as a “big name”. If this is true or not is kind off irrelevant now, but it is an enticing “what if?”.
The second film is much better, but it is interesting that Keaton, while his part is augmented, still comes off poorly in scene setting by the “villains” of the piece, Danny Devito, Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer. The soundtrack for the second jettisoned Prince and featured a one off by legendary Punk/Goth Siouxsie and the Banshees (I think I’ll post the video on the music thread later). I agree with @jimthefish that it comes across as a better (or at least more well balanced) film.
I actually like the first two Nolan films. Ledger gives an astonishing turn as The Joker in the second. The only drawback is the legacy aspect. It’s an approach that many sought to emulate very quickly and we had a generation of that type of character. It shouldn’t rob Ledger of that performance though.
I’m up to Episode 9 of Penny Dreadful, and with a couple of concerns this has been a stellar run for the series.
It is a great turn by Danny Sapani as Sembene, and it must be nice for him to have a role that doesn’t involve the hero of the story exhort children everywhere to shout “Colonel Runaway” at him. 🙂 Poor Colonel Manton.
I haven’t really come across the “Magic Negro” thing you discuss, although the “mystical noble savage” is a hangover from Victorian literature I certainly recognize. I think the next episode of PD will shape a response to whether Sembene is one or not, as the show plays some character cards close to its chest until it is fitting to reveal them.
I’m mightily confused by the chef Halloran in The Shining being considered that way though. Astonished. I could see it in the film, perhaps (it was a point of contention between King and Kubrick), but the book?
Halloran questions himself why he is drawn to help Danny, and his race is an issue in that deliberation (the Outlook’s last mental assault tries to reawaken his natural resentment in a book set in the decade after the civil rights battles). In reflecting on his life though, we see that the “shiners” are all drawn to one another sensing kinship of a kind. One example is the maid in the hotel who sought him out to tell him of the “thing” she saw in one of the rooms. She didn’t really know him, but he’s the one person she tells everything to.
On Halloran’s dashto Danny he meets an unusual amount of Shiners who help him in some way to achieve his goal. A coincidence, or are the outsiders (of whatever race) with the “shining” ability drawn when Danny lets go with his psychic scream? Halloran is a great character, whose life story and conflict with race was explored in IT where his first restaurant was burned down by an offshoot of “The Klan”. If he’s a magic Negro, we need to accommodate the magic Jew and the magic Redkneck who help him aid the magic white kid. The point of the story surely is that certain similarities and connections show genetic differences to be redundant? A great novel, to my mind, and that criticism of it should be treated with deep suspicion.
@purofilion
I hope you haven’t given up on Farscape. On the “torture” issue, I think I’m correct in thinking it was @ichabod who raised it as a concern, but I didn’t get any sense of where they stopped watching. It is a feature, but I will point out that we are talking about a show which went out at the same time uncut as Buffy (6pm) on BBC2, which I’d say features similar elements of mild physical and mental torture. It starts at the end of the first series, which introduces us to a new character (Scorpius) and his “comfy chair”.
There is nothing as strong as the confrontation between Faith and Wesley in Angel, and it certainly not Jack Bauer conducting DIY Guantanamo in 24.
Browder is great at conventions. Just very enthusiastic about his projects and he is a geek. He spent a period in London for his acting studies, and married Francesca Buller (largely an English theater actor, but she appears in some great roles in the show). He has some great anecdotes about going out on the lash with a fellow student – Gary Oldman.
Yes – he appeared in Who in the series 7 episode “A Town Called Mercy” as the Sheriff, Isaac. The pictorial evidence below:
In tribute to Christopher Lee, I think everyone has concentrated on his film work, which is fair enough really. I thought it was delightful that he maintained an active interest in some TV projects for the sheer hell of it though. It’s interesting that he characterised the work of Hammer as being more “gothic dark fairytale” than horror (he was pretty damning on the current state of horror films) and you can see that attraction for “dark fairytale” in much of the work he did since. So anyway, here are a couple you can try if you fancy sampling his TV works (I’m thinking of having a binge watch).
1967 The Avengers – Never, Never Say Die
A great appearance in a great run of the show with Steed and Mrs Peel investigating reports of a man who can seemingly survive being run over. Lee obviously having a bit of fun with his established images from Hammer. It’s interesting that Lee and McNee went to the same prep school as Children and appeared for the first time on stage together.1995 Discworld – Soul Music
When Cosgrove Hall tried to bring the Discworld to life in animated form, they needed someone who could talk in block capital gothic script. Lee is the obvious choice, and as a fan of the books jumped in with both feet. I don’t thing Cosgrove got the tranlations quite right for screen, but Soul Music is very enjoyable as Death goes AWOL for personal reasons. Lots of good musical pastiches as well. To lose both pTerry and the authentic voice of Death in one year is a double blow for the Discworld. Have a clip as Death joins the Klatchian Foreign Legion in an attempt to forget.
2000 Gormenghast
Lee was one of the driving forces behind this adaptation when he was cast as Flay. I think it’s great and yes – the Dark Fairytale of the books is captured on screen. @jimthefish reminded me a while ago that Neve Macintosh is another bonus in this as Fuchsia, in an astonishing lineup of on screen talent. It’s four parts to savour. Have another clip:
What’s sad is that there were rumours that Lee might make a guest appearance in Who, which we’ll sadly never know now. I mean, while I enjoyed REG as the Great Intelligence in Series 7, I do think Lee would have been an astonishing fit for that role.
