Clangers!

[major_clanger]

At last - the 2015 version of The Clangers has arrived!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05zh5dp/clangers-1-the-lost-notes

(Viewability probably dependant on region).

I'm glad to see that the animation style is the same as before, with stop-motion knitted puppets. Mind you, CGI Clangers would look very silly indeed! I like the added touches, such as the puffs of dust knocked up by the Clangers as they walk around; also, I don't recall the originals blinking or closing their eyes - is this new?

Not sure about the title sequence, which seems to introduce a whole host of characters that were met one at a time on the original show (Froglets, Sky-moos, Iron Chicken). Maybe you need to grab young viewers' interest very quickly these days.

The ceiling of the Clangers' caves looks distinctly Artexed to me. If that's a 70s joke, it's a good one.

"Small Clanger's Clangery ears". Why am I reminded of Herr Flick from Allo, Allo and his "powerful Gestapo binoculars"?

Is this a continuation or a reboot? Evidence suggests the latter, as Mother Clanger has a plain tablecloth rather than the combined Stars and Stripes / Hammer and Sickle flag helpfully left by a space traveller in one of the original episodes. (On the strength of that flag, I presented a paper at the Clanger Symposium held at the 2010 Eastercon positing that The Clangers takes place in the CoDominium timeline of Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye, and that the Clangers' small size and mechanical aptitude thus indicates that they are distantly related to the Moties.)

Also, plenty of opportunity for new userpics!

Comments

[watervole]

They've done a really good job. I too wondered about the tablecloth, but Mother Clanger may own two.

[uitlander]

I think the originals did blink, but not often. Anyway, watching it cheered me up considerably yesterday evening.

[unwholesome-fen.livejournal.com]

Fortunately I have the DVDs, and so will be able to settle this important question within days. No sign of blinking in the first couple of episodes, though.

Also, what has happened to the neighbours?

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure but I think they've also done something with the gravity - when the Clangers were running they seemed to hang in the air a fraction longer than they did in the original series.

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

But it was set on a moon! Moons are grey. What's with all the colour!?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it, but I'm also thinking reboot rather than continuation.

I gather the US version has Shatner as narrator, but I don't think it's airing yet.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

I think the idea of the new title sequence is that the characters shown in it should thus be familiar when they're introduced in a story. I seem to remember the original allowing the viewer a little more time to watch, and get a bit more confused before the narrator explained what was going on.

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Do you think the Clangers fixed Philae?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Fanfic!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to ask if your Clanger presentation is on line anywhere - I'd love to link to it on the Clanger page on Fanlore.org

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It's not - it contained several images that I grabbed off the net and although I tried to give attribution, I think that what might just scrape in as fair dealing for a quasi-educational talk probably wouldn't be so for making it available online.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Blast - the only one I can find on line is my own, and you're not supposed to link to your own work on fanlore - at least I think you're not, I should check...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Great Cthulhu, is it really five years ago since the 'Study of a Knitted Race' panel at Eastercon?

I recall your observation about the CoDominion flag; I recall that I
perpetrated an unforgiveable pun.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Time has erased it from my memory; no doubt you will remind us...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I think it better not to: I picked up on your point on a CoDominion future with A Remark about Clanger Fascism and a 'Blasphemous Verses' episode they never screened.

[timscience.livejournal.com]

The only thing that is a bit jarring is that the sky in the new version seems to be blue rather than the deep infinite soul crushing blackness of the inky void.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

My explanation, again riffing of a Niven novel, is that the Clanger planetoid is orbiting within a dense gas torus like that in The Integral Trees, which explains the various atmospheric phenomena.

The cloud that featured in the first episode is clearly a juvenile member of the eponymous lifeform in Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud.