Viewers’ views

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 4

Viewers’ views

MOONBASE THREE Stanley Kubrick’s ”2001: A Space Odyssey,” featured some of the most remarkable and realistic special effects of any science fiction film. The reason for this is simple: money, and lots of it The makers of “Moonbase Three,” working on a much smaller budget, have obviously suffered in this respect, the special-effects people being forced to cut comers wherever they can get away with it This has been the fault of ail the British science fiction series that have been shown in New Zealand—the epecial effects have not been believable. Indeed, the sequences actually look like the models they really are. It is disconcerting to be frequently subjected to slow-motion sequences which are intercut with normal motion for the purposes of speech, and then back to the slow-motion once again. The result is that it rums what little story-line the programme has, and gives one the impression of viewing a children’s show. —DAVID F. BROWN. JET BOATS

In the television column of February 18, your critic. D.M., suggested that the end to the regional news was little less than boring. From his comments that the three jet boats should form “The Prince of Wales Feathers, splinter, crash and sink from sight” I can only assume two things: (1) Either he is an agent for outboard engines; or (2) he is a keen fisherman that has been run over by a jet boat at some stage. If either of these assumptions prove wrong then possibly it is only envy that shines greenly through his writings. If this is the case, I would be only too happy to provide a trip up the Waimak for D.M. and his television set or wife (whichever comes first). It’s a far healthier pastime than watching television all the time and could cure the touch of the “John Collins” he seems to have at present. P. CALCOTT. Advertising Manager, C. W. F. Hamilton and Company, Ltd.