SciFi Friday Rebooted Characters: Doctor Who, The Prisoner, Superman, and Disney Princesses

We have a long way to go until there are more new episodes of Doctor Who beyond an occasional special, but fans are hoping for more. In the past there have been some Doctor Who movies and, although none were particularly memorable, fans have been hoping for another movie since the series returned. Steven Moffat responded to questions on a possible movie by saying, “A movie is one 90 minutes a year. So yes, so long as it never gets in the way of the show. If it gets in the way of the show, that’s appalling. It’s been in the cinema, with Peter Cushing. It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it’s great and fantastic.”

Moffat has also responded to questions about an older character playing The Doctor after David Tennant leaves but he suggested that the rigors of the role would be too great for an older actor. An older Doctor might also not appeal as much to the younger audiences the show is technically aimed at.

There have been rumors that one of the specials next year might include the return of Donna Noble. Digital Spy reports that Catherine Tate is eager to reprise the role. While the ending of Journey’s End would present complications, Tate notes that “in science fiction, anything is possible.”

Journey’s End also ended with a second version of The Doctor with Rose on an alternative Earth. While the series will continue to show what happens to the original Doctor, we are left to wonder what will happen between Rose and the other Doctor. Via I09 it turns out that the other Doctor has been posting a journal of his new life.

AMC appears well on its way to bringing back another classic British SciFi show, The Prisoner in a six hour miniseries. The remake will reprise many of the issues of the original series while also being influenced by the post-9/11 climate. AMC has a blog which chronicles the development of the miniseries.

Besides seeing reboots of Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and Star Trek, such reboots have become very common with comic characters, including with movie versions. With the success of rebooting Batman in the last two movies, Warner is planning to attempt the same with Superman according to this report in The Wall Street Journal:

Like the recent Batman sequel — which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far — Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as “The Dark Knight.” Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.’ DC properties. “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,” he says. That goes for the company’s Superman franchise as well.

The studio is set to announce its plans for future DC movies in the next month. For now, though, it is focused on releasing four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. Movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

Another project is being complicated by legal issues:

One of the studio’s other big releases planned for 2009, “Watchmen,” is the subject of a high-profile copyright lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox.

Based on the premise that superheroes are real people grappling with their own problems, “Watchmen” is an apocalyptic vision of their world. Fox says it is seeking an injunction to enforce its copyright interest in the film. Last week, a federal judge ruled that it may have rights to the property. News Corp. is the parent of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.

I doubt Disney will really go for rebooting their princesses in the manner presented at IO9:

Forget Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, I want to go for a spin in the Sin City Disney world. Artist Curt Rapala substituted Frank Miller’s Sin City vixens with our favorite Disney princesses. You’ve got Belle and Becky, Ariel as Nancy, Snow White as leader of the Old Town hookers Gail.

The pictures above are just two of several examples of Disney princesses as Sin City characters. There have been rumors of a fifth theme park for Walt Disney World for years. Maybe such a Sin City wouldn’t be a bad idea as a contrast to the Magic Kingdom.

McCains’ Rapidly Changing Message On Those Critical of Obama

John McCain came out with two negative ads after Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate, but the Republicans don’t seem to realize that they are making contradictory points. The first ad brought up the inevitable clip of Biden criticizing Obama during the primary campaign. I’m sure that soon we will be seeing plenty of clips of Mitt Romney attacking John McCain, especially if Romney becomes his running mate.

The second ad goes to a richer source of attacks on Obama by quoting Hillary Clinton. The message in this ad is a claim that Obama did not put Clinton on the ticket because he could not tolerate someone who had previously criticized him. This is immediately disproven by the first ad which shows that Obama’s pick was also someone who had criticized him. Obviously Obama is beyond such pettiness.

When Steve Benen moved from The Carpetbagger Report to The Political Animal on Friday I hope he remembered to pack his definitive list of McCain Flip Flops. McCain sure flip-flopped in one day on his message of whether Obama would choose a running mate who had criticized him.

This ad is also directed towards attempting to get Clinton supporters to vote for McCain. I imagine a few Clinton die hards will vote for the guy who promises to try to bring back shirt hanger abortions, but in the end I doubt the majority will. Obama is in a great position if he has a slight lead in the polls despite lacking the backing of a chunk of pro-choice Democrats. There’s a lot of room for upward movement there, which won’t be changed by an ad from John McCain.

Update: Hillary Clinton’s response (via Marc Ambinder):

“Hillary Clinton’s support of Barack Obama is clear. She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn’t. It’s interesting how those remarks didn’t make it into his ad.”

Mark Halperin Continues To Spread Republican Talking Points

When Mark Halperin was political director of ABC News he would put out The Note every day which all too often wound up repeating Republican talking points. Today Halperin was back at ABC as a member of the panel on This Week and he still was repeating Republican talking points. Halperin declared that the flap over John McCain not knowing how many houses he owns would turn out to be a key moment in the campaign–and that it would help McCain.

Halperin’s logic is that by Obama hitting McCain on the house issue it opened the door for McCain to suddenly go negative himself and hit Obama with Rezko. There are some problems with Halparin’s logic. Even the average voter realizes that it was McCain who first went negative in this campaign, as a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll demonstrated. It was inevitable that the Republicans would bring up Rezko, but hopefully the harm will be limited as their accusations against Obama related to Rezko are untrue, as recently demonstrated by Factcheck.org.

Update: Think Progress and Talking Points Memo are also commenting on Halperin’s statements.