Peter Cushing's Daleks -- Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

I have to say, this was an improvement on the first movie.  Also, they changed the characters around a bit from the original The Dalek Invasion of Earth so it didn't appear as though they were completely plagiarizing. 

Dr. Who has evidently 'lost' his granddaughter Barbara, and replaced her with his 'niece' Louise who seems to be around Barbara's age, if not a little older.  He still has the younger granddaughter named Susan.  You know when you are running around in time, dodging mind numbing aliens, it's easy to lose a few relatives here and there. Or maybe Barbara did run off with Ian in the end. I could buy that.  But why is his niece Louise living with him now?  He just can't resist those girl relatives. Unfortunately, Johnny the nephew was sent to the orphanage.

The interior of the TARDIS has greatly altered.  Gone are the millions of hanging wires.  The BSiF must have gotten on his case about that.  Hence the added wheelchair ramp. 

The plot starts off with Tom Campbell, a police officer, joining their group. He has unsuccessfully prevented a jewelry robbery and runs into the police box to call for back up.  Unfortunately, it is the TARDIS.  Tom is played by Bernard Cribbins, who much, much later plays the father of Donna Noble during David Tennant's reign.  That's a little trivia we should all know.  It must have been strange being in a movie that Doctor Who fans refuse to acknowledge, and then finally make it in the show. 

Although, according to my DW expert, Steven Moffat loves the movies. He even made Matt Smith's TARDIS to look like the one in this movie.  How's that for you fans? Hard to swallow?

 

The plot is pretty much the same in this movie as it was in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, except for some minor differences.  Instead of Barbara and her friend, we have Susan and Wyler.  Tom is running around with mostly Louise. David and the Doctor are teamed up.  We get the nutty professor in the wheelchair who is designing the bomb that will destroy the Daleks. Of course they don't work. 

I think this movie was a lot less child friendly.  There was a surprising amount of violence, and much of it occurred in front of little Susan.  I don't know if they were trying to make it edgier than the first movie, or what.  If you remember in the original story, these two women in a small house allow Barbara and her friend to rest there. However, they turn them in to the Daleks, for more food.  After Barbara and her friend are taken away, the women act like they really didn't want to do it, and display some amount of shame.  In the movie, the women are completely insane, and as Susan and Wyler are led away, they turn into the proverbial witches and cackle evilly, without any remorse whatsoever.  That's disturbing.

Is it me, or did the robomen's outfits look particularly awful with the shiny leather, football helmets, and whips? They had whips? 

Because this is in color, we get the really colorful Daleks, in blues, red, and the head Dalek who always wears black. 

There was a funny moment when Tom is disguised as a roboman, and has to look like he is one of them, down to eating lunch and taking a nap.  We all loved that moment.

The ending is slightly different from the original episode, and I think better.  In the original, the Daleks are blowing up the center of the earth so that they can build a piloting system that they use to pull Earth through space.  In the movie, the Daleks are building a bomb to blow up the center and build a piloting system to steer it. 

However, the Doctor and his friends calculate that if they can get the bomb to detonate in a different place, where the North and South Pole converge, the magnetic energy from the explosion with pull all the Daleks to the center of the Earth.  Of course it works, thanks to Tom, and the people are saved.  Hooray! 

 

The movie ends when the Doctor lands the TARDIS two minutes before the jewel robbery so that Tom can save the day.  How could he do that?  Hmmmm.  Well, I don't want to say this, but Dr. Who has much better control over his TARDIS than William Hartnell ,who can't steer it to save his life. Does that make him a better Doctor? 

Next Up: The Smugglers Stupid recons.