The Big Bang: Spoiler speculation from Spoilery Pictures of Spoilerville
Okay, so here are my contemplations about the Pandorica, the cracks in the universe and a few other spoilery things that have been floating about.
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(sorry, channeling my inner Bender the Robot there)
I saw two spoilery pics in this thread. One is a blowup of one of the images BBC released on the official site (which I have also seen and which show a stone Dalek --wtf?) and the other is a new one. They are:
a) the Doctor with a Vortex manipulator on his wrist, holding some kind of red... ball? and talking to 7-year-old Amelia Pond. They are at what looks amazingly like Uluru (Ayers Rock), but as noted further down the thread, they most likely are at a museum.
b) Amelia walking into a room in the museum in which the Pandorica is roped off and obviously on some kind of display, but it is now opening.
There is also:
c) a slew (apparently) of leaked artwork and stuff linked here but the only thing I looked at was the little image on the webpage there, of the Pandorica being rescued from the London Blitz, I believe. I think it told me enough!
I also didn't read most of the comments on either of those threads. BUT that will not stop me from speculation based on these few photos. AND ONLY ON THESE FEW PHOTOS for now. Tomorrow after they release whatever clip they're goint to put out, I may have to come back here and revise, and in general there may be other stuff out there about plot and the Big Mysteries but I don't want to hear it!
-- Okay so... I'm thinking that my theories that I mentioned prior to seeing either part of the finale are at least partially correct. He wasn't in there to begin with as I'd thought, but it looks like they're setting up the fact that the Doctor spends a loooooong time in the Pandorica. Like, centuries. Multiple.
-- Another thought: the "key" to the Pandorica (and the reason why it started opening in the Underhenge) is Amelia Pond. It's keyed to her memories, so it makes sense that she would be the force that would make it open, regardless of whether or not the Doctor was inside. We don't know why it started opening in 5x12 but it's possible that it started opening when it felt that Amy wanted it to open. So that sets up the finale: little Amelia visits the Pandorica in a museum, and by being there, little Amelia opens the Pandorica and frees the Doctor from millennia of imprisonment. This is also an indication btw that Amy Pond is not a construct and is in fact the same person as Amelia.
-- There is something really weird-looking about the museum in the pictures. I'm wondering if little Amelia Pond isn't herself taken out of time, and is from eg, a much more distant future than we had imagined. Because as per the promo pic, there is also a stone Dalek or at least a Dalek statue in the museum. So at some point when she was a child, Amelia/Amy knew about Daleks, and her history has since been erased. On the other hand, the whole museum there could be some kind of MindScape of the Doctor. That would bum me out; I want it to be real.
-- There is some kind of way that being trapped in the box for thousands of years doesn't make the Doctor wither and die. I wonder if River Song has anything to do with it, OR if it's the TARDIS. Because despite the fact that I'm almost certain the Pandorica survives for a long, long time, I'm also pretty sure that they just showed, oh, you know, the Universe exploding into silence right after it got shut. So, something happens that staves off the impending TARDIS destruction until the Doctor is let out of the box in a few thousand years. Does the Pandorica fall through a crack and end up relatively far from the implosion of the Universe?
This is where it's useful to think in five dimensions instead of the usual four. I believe, to understand how "every moment" could blow up and there is still some sort of "time" through which you can escape, you have to think of each moment having its own trajectory as embedded in some kind of meta-timeline, accellerating almost surely toward a failure point. Man, I was way better at visualizing that kind of stuff when I was studying Measure Theory and convergence... Anyway, the question is, is the end of The Pandorica Opens just a projection of that five-dimensional timeline down into four-dimensional space, constricting all the explosion moments into one point in spacetime? Or... um... ow. My head hurts.
-- We also have, from the teaser "A message on the oldest cliff-face in the universe, a puzzle box opening from the inside and a love that lasts thousands of years... the fates are drawing close around the TARDIS-- is this the day the Doctor falls?" So I wonder if this is where the "love that lasts thousands of years" comes in. Somehow, the TARDIS is trying to save the Doctor who is stuck in the Pandorica, protect him from the passage of Time. And maybe that is what starts the cracks in the universe to begin with. She protects him from the centuries, and he keeps her from blowing up, until he's let out, and the link is broken? That's a long shot. But I'm wondering again if the "love that lasts thousands of years" is between the Doctor and River, or the Doctor and the TARDIS, as he waits out his imprisonment. Um, that kind of leaves Sinister Voiceover Man out in the cold though. I still don't know what he is. But anyway I'd heard somewhere that this series really highlighted the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS, so maybe now's the time when they step that up.
-- To tell you all the truth, I will be glad with ANY resolution that doesn't have the Doctor magically free himself from the Pandorica in oh, a day or something. THAT would be something I would totally expect from Mr, Russel Oh-I'll-Just-Transfer-My-Regeneration-To-My-Handy-Hand Davies. I HATE cliffhangers of doom that are built up and built up to amazing proportions and then immediately resolved with no consequences whatsoever. It's a total cop-out. Say what you will about Last of the Time Lords, at least it started off a year later than Sound of Drums ended, and the shit had way hit the fan. 'Course it was a big reset... so, hopefully Moffat took any inspiration from the beginning of that ep and not the end.
The whole reason I started seeking out these spoilery pictures was because someone said "Oh hey, the Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to escape the Pandorica!" And I was so angry I had to go re-watch and make sure he (a) wasn't wearing it when he was sealed in and (b) really had no way to get it out of his pocket and even then I was worried enough to go seek solace in spoiler pictures. Let me say right now if that happens (the Doctor escaping the Inescapable Prison Box with a stupid plot device) then Moff gets a big FAIL from me for the finale. There is so much potential for this finale; they'd better at least hit somewhere close to the mark.
L
A
S
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C
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N
C
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S
P
O
I
L
E
R
P
H
O
B
E
C
H
U
M
P
S
(sorry, channeling my inner Bender the Robot there)
I saw two spoilery pics in this thread. One is a blowup of one of the images BBC released on the official site (which I have also seen and which show a stone Dalek --wtf?) and the other is a new one. They are:
a) the Doctor with a Vortex manipulator on his wrist, holding some kind of red... ball? and talking to 7-year-old Amelia Pond. They are at what looks amazingly like Uluru (Ayers Rock), but as noted further down the thread, they most likely are at a museum.
b) Amelia walking into a room in the museum in which the Pandorica is roped off and obviously on some kind of display, but it is now opening.
There is also:
c) a slew (apparently) of leaked artwork and stuff linked here but the only thing I looked at was the little image on the webpage there, of the Pandorica being rescued from the London Blitz, I believe. I think it told me enough!
I also didn't read most of the comments on either of those threads. BUT that will not stop me from speculation based on these few photos. AND ONLY ON THESE FEW PHOTOS for now. Tomorrow after they release whatever clip they're goint to put out, I may have to come back here and revise, and in general there may be other stuff out there about plot and the Big Mysteries but I don't want to hear it!
-- Okay so... I'm thinking that my theories that I mentioned prior to seeing either part of the finale are at least partially correct. He wasn't in there to begin with as I'd thought, but it looks like they're setting up the fact that the Doctor spends a loooooong time in the Pandorica. Like, centuries. Multiple.
-- Another thought: the "key" to the Pandorica (and the reason why it started opening in the Underhenge) is Amelia Pond. It's keyed to her memories, so it makes sense that she would be the force that would make it open, regardless of whether or not the Doctor was inside. We don't know why it started opening in 5x12 but it's possible that it started opening when it felt that Amy wanted it to open. So that sets up the finale: little Amelia visits the Pandorica in a museum, and by being there, little Amelia opens the Pandorica and frees the Doctor from millennia of imprisonment. This is also an indication btw that Amy Pond is not a construct and is in fact the same person as Amelia.
-- There is something really weird-looking about the museum in the pictures. I'm wondering if little Amelia Pond isn't herself taken out of time, and is from eg, a much more distant future than we had imagined. Because as per the promo pic, there is also a stone Dalek or at least a Dalek statue in the museum. So at some point when she was a child, Amelia/Amy knew about Daleks, and her history has since been erased. On the other hand, the whole museum there could be some kind of MindScape of the Doctor. That would bum me out; I want it to be real.
-- There is some kind of way that being trapped in the box for thousands of years doesn't make the Doctor wither and die. I wonder if River Song has anything to do with it, OR if it's the TARDIS. Because despite the fact that I'm almost certain the Pandorica survives for a long, long time, I'm also pretty sure that they just showed, oh, you know, the Universe exploding into silence right after it got shut. So, something happens that staves off the impending TARDIS destruction until the Doctor is let out of the box in a few thousand years. Does the Pandorica fall through a crack and end up relatively far from the implosion of the Universe?
This is where it's useful to think in five dimensions instead of the usual four. I believe, to understand how "every moment" could blow up and there is still some sort of "time" through which you can escape, you have to think of each moment having its own trajectory as embedded in some kind of meta-timeline, accellerating almost surely toward a failure point. Man, I was way better at visualizing that kind of stuff when I was studying Measure Theory and convergence... Anyway, the question is, is the end of The Pandorica Opens just a projection of that five-dimensional timeline down into four-dimensional space, constricting all the explosion moments into one point in spacetime? Or... um... ow. My head hurts.
-- We also have, from the teaser "A message on the oldest cliff-face in the universe, a puzzle box opening from the inside and a love that lasts thousands of years... the fates are drawing close around the TARDIS-- is this the day the Doctor falls?" So I wonder if this is where the "love that lasts thousands of years" comes in. Somehow, the TARDIS is trying to save the Doctor who is stuck in the Pandorica, protect him from the passage of Time. And maybe that is what starts the cracks in the universe to begin with. She protects him from the centuries, and he keeps her from blowing up, until he's let out, and the link is broken? That's a long shot. But I'm wondering again if the "love that lasts thousands of years" is between the Doctor and River, or the Doctor and the TARDIS, as he waits out his imprisonment. Um, that kind of leaves Sinister Voiceover Man out in the cold though. I still don't know what he is. But anyway I'd heard somewhere that this series really highlighted the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS, so maybe now's the time when they step that up.
-- To tell you all the truth, I will be glad with ANY resolution that doesn't have the Doctor magically free himself from the Pandorica in oh, a day or something. THAT would be something I would totally expect from Mr, Russel Oh-I'll-Just-Transfer-My-Regeneration-To-My-Handy-Hand Davies. I HATE cliffhangers of doom that are built up and built up to amazing proportions and then immediately resolved with no consequences whatsoever. It's a total cop-out. Say what you will about Last of the Time Lords, at least it started off a year later than Sound of Drums ended, and the shit had way hit the fan. 'Course it was a big reset... so, hopefully Moffat took any inspiration from the beginning of that ep and not the end.
The whole reason I started seeking out these spoilery pictures was because someone said "Oh hey, the Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to escape the Pandorica!" And I was so angry I had to go re-watch and make sure he (a) wasn't wearing it when he was sealed in and (b) really had no way to get it out of his pocket and even then I was worried enough to go seek solace in spoiler pictures. Let me say right now if that happens (the Doctor escaping the Inescapable Prison Box with a stupid plot device) then Moff gets a big FAIL from me for the finale. There is so much potential for this finale; they'd better at least hit somewhere close to the mark.