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The Prisoner - 2009 remake


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With this production filmed and nearing its airdate on television, its probably time for it to graduate from the remake thread to get its own thread.

With American actor James Caviezel starring as Number 6 and Sir Ian McKellen as Number 2, I hope that this production is in good hands.

There is going to be a panel for this show at comic con and the first footage is supposed to be aired there.

The wikipedia page has some more interesting information.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_..._TV_miniseries)

The shooting location was Swakopmund City in Namibia. I initially wondered why that was the location but then I saw some of the local architecture......

300px-Leuchtturm_Swakopmund.jpg

300px-Woermannhaus_Swakopmund2.jpg

Cool eh, here is the local wikipedia page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swakopmund

Anyway, lets hope that this is a good production of an old classic.

Taksraven

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Once visited the filming location used in the original series (since i'm a native Welsh boyo). It was pretty creepy because there are some pretty hard-core fans who live the show. Everywhere we went you'd be greeted with people of all ages in cloaks saying "be seeing you".

I remeber a well-known Brirish comedy (Maybe 'Only Fools and Horses") in which a previously Trek obsessed guy becomes a Prisoner fanatic and pays his friends to trap the main characters of the show on the island in the Prisoner scenario.

Maybe Graham can remember which show that was on. Damn funny hom age to the show.

Edited by Alex
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Once visited the filming location used in the original series (since i'm a native Welsh boyo). It was pretty creepy because there are some pretty hard-core fans who live the show. Everywhere we went you'd be greeted with people of all ages in cloaks saying "be seeing you".

I remeber a well-known Brirish comedy (Maybe 'Only Fools and Horses") in which a previously Trek obsessed guy becomes a Prisoner fanatic and pays his friends to trap the main characters of the show on the island in the Prisoner scenario.

Maybe Graham can remember which show that was on. Damn funny hom age to the show.

I've also visited Port Merion. Don't think it was Only Fools & Horses, but I could be wrong. I left UK 22 years ago, so I'm a little out of touch with British TV.,

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I've also visited Port Merion. Don't think it was Only Fools & Horses, but I could be wrong. I left UK 22 yearr agn, so I'm a little out of touch with British TV.,

Didn't realise that you left 22 years ago. Woah. You missed so much interesting stu.....um.....well......GOOD FOR YOU!!!! :lol:

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The only British sitcom I know with a Trek obsessed member of cast was 2.4 Children; the Dad of the family had a rival who had a model of the Enterprise mounted on the front of his van. I also vaguely recall there was one episode featuring the family attending a wedding in Trek uniform.

"You won't get it!"

Edited by F-ZeroOne
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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, I'm going to recant everything positive I said about this project. After watching the 9 minute preview that has been made available due to comicon, which you can watch here I have decided that this show does not seem to have picked up on the spirit of the original show, has totally bastardised the concept and has generally screwed it up.

It looks like The Prisoner mixed in with The Truman Show and Life on Mars and it looks to be a horrible combination. Very disappointed.

I didn't want a shot for shot remake of the original but this looks like garbage.

Taksraven

(People not familiar with the original might enjoy it though.)

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Just watched the trailer, and it doesn't look like my cup of tea. It looks like it's just superficially like the original - people have numbers, the architecture's so cute it's creepy, and big while floating spheres are out to get you. But the acting is not doing a thing for me, especially James Caviezel. Patrick McGoohan was more menacing than anyone else in the village - the viewer wanted to get inside his head as much as Number 2 did.

I may watch the beginning of this if I get the chance, but I have low expectations. :mellow:

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OK, I'm going to recant everything positive I said about this project. After watching the 9 minute preview that has been made available due to comicon, which you can watch here I have decided that this show does not seem to have picked up on the spirit of the original show, has totally bastardised the concept and has generally screwed it up.

It looks like The Prisoner mixed in with The Truman Show and Life on Mars and it looks to be a horrible combination. Very disappointed.

I didn't want a shot for shot remake of the original but this looks like garbage.

Taksraven

(People not familiar with the original might enjoy it though.)

Something tells me that the new taxi driver won't speak French to him. The Village does have bigger maps in 2009 than it did in 1968, though. I guess that's progress of a sort.

Anyway, yeah. I won't be watching this one. Be seeing you.

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You've never seen the show, have you?

No, but the song was written because of the show. Hell, the chorus includes the phrase "I'm not a prisoner, I'm a free man. I'm not a number..." Even the opening of the song has a soundbyte (sp.?) from the show. as well.

Pick up a copy of the album The Number of the Beast and you'll see what I mean.

Edited by Wanzerfan
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No, but the song was written because of the show. Hell, the chorus includes the phrase "I'm not a prisoner, I'm a free man. I'm not a number..." Even the opening of the song has a soundbyte (sp.?) from the show. as well.

Pick up a copy of the album The Number of the Beast and you'll see what I mean.

Yes, I've heard it before.

But if you had seen the show, you would know that Ron Grainer's pening theme (which manages to be ominous AND twangy at the same time!) cannot be topped.

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Interesting......very interesting. I'm still hoping it will be good but honestly who here thought it would be better than the original?

To be fair, the look of the original is INCREDIBLY dated at this point...but I think the utter '60s-ness of the whole thing is one of the reasons why it works so well. But of course the real reason the show works so well is Patrick McGoohan. The entire show was his highly idiosyncratic vision, and the role of Number Six was carefully tailored to fit his strengths as an actor. Without his hand at the helm, any version of the series is doomed to be "not as good as the original." And that's probably the BEST case scenario.

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Oh dear.

Just saw the promo. Seems very bland and generic. Doesn't seem that this itteration of Number 6 will be the target of the same mind games that plagued the MacGoohan version. I always like the feeling that he was a rat in a maze.

The VIllage in this vertsion doesn't seem as much of a "character" as the 60's village did. Perhaps they should have gone even furthwer with the Truman Show feel and have a more 1950s, Americana feel to the town.

And there also seems to be little hint at why 6 is trapped here. In the first, it was hinted at that it may be his own government, a foreign government etc. More of a spy story. This has none of that from what I saw.

This seems like an average Outer Limits episode.

Edited by Alex
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Interesting......very interesting. I'm still hoping it will be good but honestly who here thought it would be better than the original?

I never ever thought or hoped that it would be better than the original. I guess that I hoped that it would be updated in such a way that it would at least be comparable to the original.....

Taksraven

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