{"id":40572,"date":"2024-02-01T00:04:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T00:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/?p=40572"},"modified":"2024-01-31T11:37:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T11:37:44","slug":"the-star-beast-director-rachel-talalay-had-no-involvement-with-the-doctor-who-pre-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2024\/02\/01\/the-star-beast-director-rachel-talalay-had-no-involvement-with-the-doctor-who-pre-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"The Star Beast Director Rachel Talalay Had No Involvement with the Doctor Who Pre-Titles"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ttr_start\"><\/div>\n<p>It may have been a little while ago when the three <em>Doctor Who<\/em> 60th anniversary specials aired, but according to Rachel Talalay, who directed <em>The Star Beast<\/em>, she had no involvement with filming the pre-titles which featured the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) recapping the events of Series 4. This was confirmed on Twitter (now called X, but everyone still calls it Twitter, right?) when she replied to a fan about the fact that the shots with Donna breaking the fourth wall in the kitchen were &#8220;outtakes&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">No idea. The shots of Donna in the kitchen were outtakes within the episode. It&#39;s not uncommon for &#39;recaps&#39; to not include the director, although this is not exactly a recap.<\/p>&mdash; Rachel Talalay, The Star Beast (@rtalalay) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rtalalay\/status\/1730617730016084151?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 1, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Understandably, Talalay elaborated on the subject during the Chicago TARDIS 2023 event, a week earlier, as summarised in this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/bleedingcool.com\/tv\/doctor-who-star-beast-director-didnt-know-about-prologue-till-airing\/\">Bleeding Cool<\/a>&nbsp;article:<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>&#8220;Well, at the Chicago TARDIS convention event last week, the director of&nbsp;<em>The Star Beast<\/em>,&nbsp;Rachel Talalay, said that she hadn&#8217;t anything to do with the prologue.&nbsp;Doug Zetlin<strong>,<\/strong>&nbsp;in the audience for the Q&amp;A, told me that Talalay says she only found out about the prologue when her child called to ask about it, who had been watching the BBC broadcast live. And that was how Talalay found out that such a prologue had been added. At the time of the convention, she hadn&#8217;t seen it. What she directed begins with the credits. She wasn&#8217;t upset about it, but it did seem a strange way of doing things. It smacks a little of those Marvel post-credit scenes that the director of the movie discovers exist when the movie is screened\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"598\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774-1200x598.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-40570\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774-1200x598.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774-300x150.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774-768x383.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774-1536x766.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8774.jpeg 1936w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, writer Russell T Davies specifically touched on the opening scene of London in his <em>Letter from the Showrunner<\/em> feature in DWM 595:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>&#8220;OPENING SHOT oh my God, that\u2019s London, too much London?, I liked Sheffield, SHEFFIELD SNUB is this stock footage? How much does stock footage cost, are you telling me the very first shot of new <em>Doctor Who<\/em> is from stock, is that WISE?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time it was published, I had the impression that <em>The Star Beast<\/em> was originally intended to open with the title sequence. Seems to me that they were aiming to appeal to casual viewers who needed to catch up on the DoctorDonna arc, as well as providing a &#8220;recap&#8221; for fans. But it, so far, remains a mystery as to who directed the pre-titles, and what was the main reason behind the last minute addition. As much as I enjoyed the pre-titles, in hindsight, I think it would&#8217;ve been better suited as a separate prequel, therefore making it optional for fans and casual viewers alike. Something more in line with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/mtaIpkjF6Ss\"><em>He Said, She Said<\/em><\/a>\u00a0&#8212; one of the prequels to the Series 7 finale, <em>The Name of the Doctor<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And recently, I did my own fan edits of the title sequence, and a few other variants (with a separate edit that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/8n21mlAexH4\">&#8216;fixes&#8217;<\/a>&nbsp;the pre-titles), which include an extended opening shot that begins with a colourful nebula effect inside the TARDIS lamp. Since it syncs perfectly well with the theme sting, I believe this would&#8217;ve been the case had <em>The Star Beast<\/em> followed the exact same manner as the Series 1 opener, <em>Rose<\/em>, which did the right thing to kick off a new era by omitting the pre-titles. (For more information, please read the description in my YouTube video.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Doctor Who: The Star Beast title sequence - no cold open (with Whoniverse ident)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GtuG5OLCMpw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<div class=\"ttr_end\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;recap&#8221; featured the Doctor and Donna recalling the events of Series 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":40569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"The Star Beast Director Rachel Talalay Had No Involvement with the #DoctorWho Pre-Titles","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[205],"tags":[4871,280,44,516,281,5741,435,12,1873],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_8775-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38418,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2023\/05\/13\/new-doctor-who-60th-anniversary-trailer-reveals-episode-titles-but-what-is-the-giggle\/","url_meta":{"origin":40572,"position":0},"title":"New Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Trailer Reveals Episode Titles, But What Is The Giggle?","author":"Philip Bates","date":"13 May 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Why did this face come back? 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