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Random Thought: Are James Bond and Batman Timelords?

Had some time last year and an though hit me “Are James Bond and Batman timelords?”

I am probably not the first person to have thought of this but bear with me on this one.

So Doctor Who has been running since 1963, the premise is of a Timelord who travels around in their Tardis (effectively a time machine that looks like a police box). The ingenious element of the show is when the first actor William Hartnell left the show they regenerated (Replaced) him with a new actor Patrick Troughton.

This process has been pretty much being happening now for the last 50+ years for this show.

The list of all of the Doctors:

First Doctor: William Hartnell (1963–1966)

Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton (1966–1969)

Third Doctor: Jon Pertwee (1970–1974).

Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker (1974–1981)

Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison (1981–1984

Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker (1984–1986).

Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy (1987–1989, 1996)

Eighth Doctor: Paul McGann (1996, 2013)

The War Doctor: John Hurt (50th anniversary episode)

Ninth Doctor: Christopher Eccleston (2005)

Tenth Doctor: David Tennant (2005–2010)

Eleventh Doctor: Matt Smith (2010–2013)

Twelfth Doctor: Peter Capaldi (2013-2017)

Thirteenth Doctor: Jodie Whittaker (2017-present)

Now lets look a James Bond and Batman, both are long running shows that have had different actors play the role but this doesnt seem strange to the recurring characters around them.

Batman incarnations:

James Bond incarnations:

I would go even further and say that other characters in these universes are also Time Lords eg All of the Batman Villains (Joker) Alfred, Commissioner Gordon in Batman and in James Bond M, Q and the villain’s as they also change actor without it seemingly causing any issues

The scenes we are are missing are the regeneration scenes where they change over to their new bodies, my theory is all of these Timelords fled Gallifrey to Earth and have been hiding here ever since.

Just my thoughts on this one, but it sort of makes sense.

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New vs New-Old

Like movie script writers, there seems to be a lot of game developers who have stalled on ideas for new stories and characters, and decided re-making their old games with newer technology is a good idea.

And in some cases, its a fantastic idea and works reasonably well.

However in other cases, the developers use the name and IP from the original game, but make it into something else… completely horrible (ok, I exaggerate, just my opinion on some releases).

One of these, titles was Syndicate.

On the Amiga (and eventually PC), it was a fantastic game – just everything about it was very well done and made the game very enjoyable.

In 2009, it was announced that a new Syndicate game was on its way.

Boy, did I get excited.

Then I read this :

however, it used a first-person shooter format, which differed significantly from the isometric real-time tactics format of the series’ original game

Oh.

It used the name, and some of the ideas etc but was not Syndicate to me.

I did buy it a while after its release, and while was a fun romp, just not Syndicate.

I wanted the original format of the original game – isometric, guiding your little team around these massive cities gunning down other Syndicates. But with newer graphics and sound. But LEAVE THE GAMEPLAY ALONE.

One of the original developers of the original game, did release a Syndicate type game, Satellite Reign, a few years ago and while did fit what I was looking for to a degree, it still was not quite there.

One game that was remade, and did it right, was the all time great, The Secret Of Monkey Island – Special Edition.

Graphics, sound etc updated. Fantastic. But overall gameplay was left as the original. AND you could even switch to the original graphics mode whenever you wanted for that nostalgia.

So developers, ask around before “remaking” a game – see if people want the same gameplay, or something else. I think you’ll be surprised how many will just want updated graphics and sound…

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League – My Thoughts

Justice League (2017) 2 hours – My Rating: 2/5

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) 4h 2min  – My Rating: 4/5

The original Justice League movie came out in 2017 and to put it mildly it was a hot mess, Zack Snyder was the original director but had to depart filming due personal reasons.

Joss Whedon took over directing, while this should have been a good thing the finished movie was giant mess (the behind the scenes sounded like it would make a good movie some day). It lacked heart and the story line sort of plodded along to a boring ending.

This all bought about a movement to see Zack Snyder’s version of the movie over the last couple of years, to be honest I never actually thought this would happen. This sort of thing pops all of the time with not much result.

But HBO Max in the US put the money forward to get this version made and released, you can read all of the details in the below Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Snyder%27s_Justice_League

I have finally finished watching this new version of Justice League, it is just a tad over 4 hours long. I watched in blocks as I cannot these days dedicate a single 4 hour movie watching block.

The question I guess is “Is it better that the original Justice League?” the answer to that would be yes, yes it is but with a few caveats.

With the extra 2 hours of run time the story has more room to breathe and characters like Cyborg and The Flash get more expanded story lines. The bad guys plans also make more sense and are fleshed out.

This movie does have about 5 different endings to it, obviously trying to setup for sequels that now not going to happen, it was also filmed in ratio setup for IMAX when it was plainly obvious this version was never going to ever a see a movie complex.

I would recommend watching it as it is a good movie if not a bit long.