news:885298037370021236.4...@free.teranews.com...
> Ross <
rras...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:
>> So was I. It doens't look futuristic. It looks like someone from the
>> 60s' idea of what "futuristic" looks like. Like one of those old
>> "House of Tomorrow" things where in the future everything will be
>> white and sterile and full of buttons and pneumatic tubes.
>>
>> Anything you make based on one period's idea of "High tech" is going
>> ot look silly and dated in a few years. So the modern TARDIS instead
>> goes for an anachronistic look that marks it as something "out of
>> time" entirely.
>
> Maybe I'm one of the few that like the older style of the Tardis controls.
The modern movement started in the late 19th Century. Modernism was
essentially over by the late 1940's, which would have been formative years
for Doctor Who designers, when American abstract expressionalism took off as
the 1960's moved forward.
Today's design looks like it's been influenced by steam punk which was big
in the 1990's. Now we're in the 2010's the design is an American style
mashup of steampunk which I suppose makes it retro expressionalism. So in
spite of a generational gap nothing has changed much.
Personally, I like the earlier Tardis design and given the design parameters
at the time find it works very well. The current design feels awkward and
busy which restricts the placement of actors and cameras, and has the
aesthetics of a shanty town. Neo-trustafarian.
One of the things most people commenting online don't get is designers
spend most of their time creating a future that's at least five years away
but popular media tends only to be rooted in the present. Maybe we'll all
look back in another 20 years and laugh.
Another thing that's bugged me is the classic show did at least show some
locations within the Tardis and made a passable job of them. All we've been
shown recently are cheap and nasty hexagonal corridors. Okay, DW is not Star
Trek: TNG but still...
--
Charles E. Hardwidge