pubs
If you wanna get analytical (and assuming we’re looking at some technological solution), it seems like the choices we’re looking at are:
A) A high use of high technology (Star Trek: TNG)
B) A high use of low technology (steampunk)
C) A low use of high technology (cyberpunk)
D) A low use of low technology (Rube Goldberg?)
E) An inscrutable use of high technology (Impressive, flashy stuff that does… what, exactly?)
F) An inscrutable use of low technology (Levers that do… what, exactly?)
G) A high use of inscrutable technology (Teleportation jelly?)
H) A low use of inscrutable technology (Ping pong of the gods?)
The current, “coral” interior seems to be some mix of F (bicycle pump) and G (organic elements, god vapors under the console), with a twinge of D (modern phones, TV, scaffolding). The original interior seems to be some mix of E and G, with a bit of A.
I think the really interesting question isn’t so much the style but the use of the set.
Early on, the Davies interior felt a bit dangerous, rattly; incomprehensible both through the technology at display and the way it was apparently thrown together. It seemed just as likely to do something unimaginable as fall apart at any moment. Since then, from the way it’s been used and shot, the interior has become cozy and sort of arbitrary. Most of the psychological weight has dissipated.
The original TARDIS, meanwhile, seems like it was meant to give sort of this impression –
It strikes me a way the new series (say, under Moffat) could tackle the “default” TARDIS interior would be to play up the stark, brilliant alien sterility. Make it almost blindingly white in there, so it’s hard to see the walls and there’s a bit of a haze around its occupants. Turn up the ambient hum. Maybe make the light from the roundels thrum a bit, like a mechanical heartbeat. Perhaps make them a sky blue?
The thing is, the classic TARDIS has always felt uncomfortable — like a place that was never meant for people to really live there. Which makes sense, since it wasn’t. It’s a formal vessel; Time Lords and all. It’s like a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows. For all its sharp and rough edges, the “coral” TARDIS feels comparably cozy; lived-in. The console is like a crackling fire in a darkened room.
So, well. Instead of treating the discomfort as a problem, run with it. Make it feel safe, but a bit queasy. Overstimulating. The kind of place you would like to get out of as soon as possible.
– yet later became a tedious, dramatically limited, over-lit three-wall set.
It seems to me you could do just about anything with the TARDIS, and make it feel remarkable — and you could do the very same thing, and make it feel like nothing very special at all.
EDIT: I suppose I’m missing an inscrutable use of inscrutable technology…
This all arose from some confusion of terms and my resultant compulsion toward the following distinction:
Thing is, the idea behind steampunk is fantastical, out-of-their-time devices made with late 19th century technology — your Vernian brass and steam and gears. An extremely high use of low technology.
It’s a sort of reversal of cyberpunk, that being basically your Willian Gibson/PK Dick dysfunctional future where profoundly high technology (particularly pertaining to personal and interpersonal augmentation) is common and low, in application.
In Cyberpunk, you might have nanomachines and carbon nanofibers to give you a bizarre new hairdo or a snazzy weapon to use against a rival street gang. In steampunk, you might create a space ship out of clockwork.
An inscrutable use of inscrutable technology: “the what does what now?”
As a story-telling mechanism that’s … well, you don’t have a framework to describe what it looks like, you don’t have a metaphor for how it works, and you don’t really know what it does. It’s deus ex deus.
I like your breakdown, but I feel like it could use some tweaking if one wants to formalize it a bit. I’m curious as to where you’d put the sonic screwdriver in that list; it’s a high-tech looking tool that’s metaphorically related to a low-tech tool and is absolutely inscrutable in its use and capabilities.
Non-sequitur: I’m going to a production of Henry V on Friday that, I’m told, has many steampunkish elements to the costumes and staging.
Yes, there are a bunch of question marks in there. I’m perfectly willing to play Mad Libs. Most of the examples are off-the-cuff guesses.
Thing is, the sonic more or less still seems to tend to work by sound waves — albeit with a bunch of add-on properties and features. Most of the “crazy” stuff it can do is at least explicable, if not altogether probable, through sonic properties; the deformation and bonding of metal, ultrasound scanning of patients, exciting molecules to make things heat up.
Depending on how seriously you take the “screwdriver” bit, it’s probably somewhere between A and C.
I’d probably designate a real, practical, expansive application of technology as high; a low application would be something petty, perhaps vain. If the only intended use of a sonic screwdriver is to unscrew things without touching them, in most circumstances that would seem fairly petty. I can imagine some possible industrial uses, but offhand it seems like the kind of thing you’d buy on late-night TV. If “screwdriver” is just a sort of shorthand, and it’s really intended as a general-use sonic apparatus, that would seem like a higher application.
If you end up making a pongism-esque chart out of this, one of the anchors needs to be labelled “it goes ding when there’s stuff”.
But isn’t the difference between “high use” and “low use” just perception and presentation?
Both high and low applications are just the same thing, viewed different ways. Take air travel (contrasted with ground-based travel at the turn of the century). Flying from place to play is pretty extraordinary, but in and of itself you pack up, spend some time traveling, and get where you want to go, not terribly special.
You can have a single work dealing with air travel as an extraordinary thing, bringing down barriers between nations and changing warfare and the wonder of flight, but the same work can deal with how much it sucks to be crammed into an airline cabin. One does not diminish or interfere with or clash with the other.
at least the coral interior is not as cozy as the one in the tv-movie. you know, the one nobody wants to think about.
speaking of which, here’s to seeing more rooms in the TARDIS.
You’ve a point here. Next time I take a shower I may be able to think well enough to respond intelligently.
I adore the Vernian stylization — the whole console area is fine. Everything beyond those girders, though… could use a bit of work, yes. How is it interesting for the TARDIS to look like a room on an Ivy League campus?
Then again, I guess Professor Chronotis got away with it…
Beyond the console area, the interior has never looked more like a set.
I wonder if we’ll get a bit of a tour through the Davies interior just before it’s changed?