The trouble I have with the cybermen, is that they, unlike robocop (to borrow the example) do not seem to have independent thought. Whereas I 'get' the suppression of emotion as an angle used to describe how they have lost their humanity but they all seem to just follow one protocol. No tactical assessment of a situation just machines to do battle. And this is why they are my least favourite Doctor Who monster/alien/enemy.
They ask questions as a form of understanding but sadly emotion has not been understood, just knowledge but knowledge needs understanding.
I love some of the suggestions here about going back to an origin type story or even showing how their technology had been intended to be used. I also agree that the catchphrase is pointless.
Big Finish did an origin story in the audio range called Spare Parts with the fifth Doctor. I don't remember the details now (it was 2002) but it really brought home the original concept beautifully. If you like the Cybermen I'd definitely recommend it.
The first good story post-2005 I'd say. Some really innovative ideas with the Gallifreyan hard-drive afterlife - It's cover story and the cyber pollenating rain. Part one was a lot stronger than the second though.
The "dark water" revealed bones inside the Cybermen - bones that they don't need considering the current Cybermen (and last gen) only seem to need the brains of their victims - replacing everything else.
Plus, while a fresh corpse (for the purpose of the story) might have a brain that could have a nethersphere personality uploaded into it - the corpses buried for 1, 10 or 100 years are going to be missing that vital blob of grey matter.
Also if you've got what is essentially a computer programme of a mind devoid of emotion - why do you need more than one? why not just download that same copy 1,000,000 times rather than "harvest" a million dead people's minds - wipe them - store them - and then download them?
Thought the voices were better this time, but the Cybermen need to lose the robot walk and to start being creepy / sneaky again. We need a story set on a dying Mondas where its people have to face up to surviving as Cybermen or dying out - with the Doctor trying to prevent them from deciding to get rid of their emotions.
I think the biggest problem is the 'nano-technology' cop-out - it always ends up as basically allowing the aliens to do anything they want, any time they like. They never even need to provide a power source.
Every time they keep giving the Cybermen new technologies that completely blow the last ones out of the water (they can instantly upgrade themselves in the field, they can fly, they can convert dead bodies instead of living ones, they can convert bodies buried deep underground), they dilute the idea and make future stories harder to write. There's no solid handle on who they are and what makes them tick, compared to the Daleks.
Even if they showed the new Cybermen as only partially converted as they rose up, proper Cyber-zombies, I could work with that. But no, they're all sleek and shiny like they've come out of a factory, because they already have the costumes and used up the FX budget.
Every time the Cybermen show up lately it's always just in the background to some other "more important" story, like they're just there for decoration, as things to blow up. The Cybermen these days are never intimidating, never presented in a scary way (except Pandorica Opens which was a truly great scene).
My biggest problem with the Cybermen is their new design. Old Cybermen looked weird and freakish, like proper scary monsters. But these new ones look aesthetically pleasing—almost cute and gentle. The prospect of being turned into one of the old Cybermen was the stuff of nightmares. But these new ones actually look pretty cool and the idea of getting one those cool, shiny, sleek, powerful suits is almost aspirational. (Hence the popularity of the Iron Man films.)
Another problem I have with the new Cybermen is their movement: they are stiff, rigid, clumsy and mechanical, always stomping around in militaristic regiment. Sure, they come across as "strong", but it's not enough for a villain to be merely physically threatening, they have to be emotionally threatening on a human level. Stomping robot drones are not scary—scary is the subtleties of human guile and cunning. Crafty Cybermen is scary. Cybermen who hide is scary. Cybermen who do unpredictable things is scary. But hundreds of Cybermen marching on display—as they always do, and heard from a mile away— is not in any way scary.
I know the Cybers are supposed to be cold, emotionless and robotic, but they still need to look like people to some degree. It's people that are scary, not inanimate, soulless objects. For instance, the Daleks may not physically resemble "people" but their voices give them a tremendous sense of personality. Cybers (sadly) can't emote with their voices, so we need to see traces of their "humanity" in their appearance and movement. Otherwise the villains may as well be toasters and dishwashers.
In summary, if I could change them I would make them more creepy, more grotesque, more ugly, more "human", more fluid in movement, more stealthy, more signs of human intelligence, and more unpredictable. Then they might be good.
One of the scariest things I ever saw as a child was the end of Superman III when Vera was turned into a Cyborg (video). It was scary because it looked like a genuinely unpleasant thing to happen to you, and the resulting cyborg was human-like in appearance. If Cybers were more like that (ie still wearing the clothes and hair of the humans they used to be) then that would be fantastic.
The only think I think they've got right with them lately is the voices, though it's probably more sinister when they're not talking at all.
A repeat of my message earlier in the thread, with additional thoughts
Giving the Cybermen a story...mmm...off the top of my head, with apologies if these sort of things exist in the books or plays, which I don't read or listen to...
1) Flip the character coin so it is discovered that the faction of Cybermen encountered have gone as cyber as possible and have gone full circle to wanting to become flesh again. They prey on people for parts. Potentially horrific. Rescue the family nature of the show by having the 'fleshmen' killed off by cyberman unit tasked only with wiping out rogues. Sometimes the main character cant save the day. Wouln't be a deus ex machina, but a reveal of a wider aspect to the story going on independently of the presence of the main character, which then becomes part of the wider legend...from this point on people will wonder which kind of cybermen are being encountered.
The half faced man and his fleshy robots seems to have given me part of what I wanted there. Unfortunately, as others have stated, the Cybermen were once again not true character in their own right but the rent a robot army of someone else, and this army didn't even need to be cybermen for the same story to happen.
The theme of wanting to continue living,however that may be achieved was all over the series and sort of carries an implicit reason for the existence of cybermen. However the flesh robots, the mummy cyborg and even the robots of sherwood were all more defined and scary than the ultimately faceless cybermen, who once again were presented as an unstoppoable army that was wiped out simply.
Either they are a race that continues to survive because they desire to and that spark can never be fully extinguished (the most human and, ironically, emotionally driven impulse survives all the suppression of logic) and this makes them scary or they are ultimately faceless tin men who stand up menacingly only to be knocked over again almost immediately. They can never be the former while they keep playing out being the latter. It is almost a shame the series didn't start with cybers and end with flesh robots because thematically that would have been forward movement and the scarier idea would have come at the end not the start.
However, the removal of emotion = mindless drone with no motivation for its actions once again removed any character from the cybermen. Removng emotion, then leaving behind logic as the driving force matters most for the characterisation, because there is/was an attitude of superiority in the upgrade. The superiority of the cybermen perceived and expressed by cybermen looking down on pathetic humans is a better story than we keep getting of mindless drones falling over at the first hurdle.
Instant adaptation to any attack previously reduced the threat level of the cybermen by making them more magical than technological. And as with the Daleks, their threat level practically disappears when they can fly. Their design and how the cause fear in characters up close and personal makes them scary to an audience. Large numbers of them, flying, results in them being very tiny on the screen and just an effects shot. Much more scary when a person is seeing cybermen, knowing they used to be human and absolutely not wanting to be turned into one of these things
2)End another story with The Doctor having gotten through to some cybermen about their lost humanity. They attempt to defect. Cyber controller requests speech centres to all Cybermen to be disengaged. Now our heroes can't tell the newly friendly Cybers approaching from the dangerous ones and the 'macguffin that can save the day' has to be used on all the approaching cybermen. Thus a level of emotional complexity can be introduced by The Doctor saying 'some of them are asking for help'and feeling chuffed, followed by the inevitable choice of having to wipe them out along with the still dangerous ones.
Series 8 did bring more emotional complexity and inevitable/impossible choice
.
Maybe situation 2 can create situation 1? Whatever, story has to be better than another redesign and unstoppable numbers approaching until they are stopped, and that being end of story. Actions could sometimes have consequences in the future. We have seen enough reset button episodes and arcs. The Doctor interfering, sometimes saving the day, sometimes making things worse in a way revealed in a later adventure adds element necessary to good drama: uncertainty and the notion of the actions of the protagonist creating consequences (both good and bad) that test his basic character and make him question whohe is and what he does. Otherwise in the case of this show he is just a travelling wizard
Ah well, at least the series totally focused on the last bit ;-)
Can't argue with those - the Cybermen need to be more than emotionless, they need to not just be magically able to do anything the story requires them to be able to do and forget about them later.
The Cybermen need focus, motivation and limitations. They need to be a species.
I don't get what the Cybermen are any more, really. They used to be living people who had replaced their body parts with mechanical ones keeping their brains intact but, over time, modifying even those to remove "useless" emotions. They would convert the people they met to Cybermen on the grounds that they were doing them a favour in upgrading them!
Now they seem to just be assembly line robots, built by nanobots out of nothing, with a biological component that's only there for window dressing and serving no purpose whatsoever.
They are not the concept originally envisaged by their creator and I think they've lost what made them cool as a result. They aren't emotionless humans with replacement body parts they are just robots controlled by a central computer. for the most part they are now Androids, not Cyborgs.
The Cybermen needs to be more humanized and return to their roots where they became cyber to survive and maybe have a companion become a cybermen to show how threatening and dangerous they are
A threat that is well-developed and complex is better and has more of an impact when theres a real sense of danger
I came up with an idea ages ago as I found the original Tenth Planet Cybermen much more scary. My idea was the Doctor comes across a small group of original Mondas Cybermen who fled the planet but crashed on an uninhabited or sparsely inhabited planet. I think it would be good to see the originals again but also interesting to get to know more about the originals not long after conversion.
Comments
Big Finish did an origin story in the audio range called Spare Parts with the fifth Doctor. I don't remember the details now (it was 2002) but it really brought home the original concept beautifully. If you like the Cybermen I'd definitely recommend it.
Totally wasted.
The "dark water" revealed bones inside the Cybermen - bones that they don't need considering the current Cybermen (and last gen) only seem to need the brains of their victims - replacing everything else.
Plus, while a fresh corpse (for the purpose of the story) might have a brain that could have a nethersphere personality uploaded into it - the corpses buried for 1, 10 or 100 years are going to be missing that vital blob of grey matter.
Also if you've got what is essentially a computer programme of a mind devoid of emotion - why do you need more than one? why not just download that same copy 1,000,000 times rather than "harvest" a million dead people's minds - wipe them - store them - and then download them?
Thought the voices were better this time, but the Cybermen need to lose the robot walk and to start being creepy / sneaky again. We need a story set on a dying Mondas where its people have to face up to surviving as Cybermen or dying out - with the Doctor trying to prevent them from deciding to get rid of their emotions.
Every time they keep giving the Cybermen new technologies that completely blow the last ones out of the water (they can instantly upgrade themselves in the field, they can fly, they can convert dead bodies instead of living ones, they can convert bodies buried deep underground), they dilute the idea and make future stories harder to write. There's no solid handle on who they are and what makes them tick, compared to the Daleks.
Even if they showed the new Cybermen as only partially converted as they rose up, proper Cyber-zombies, I could work with that. But no, they're all sleek and shiny like they've come out of a factory, because they already have the costumes and used up the FX budget.
Every time the Cybermen show up lately it's always just in the background to some other "more important" story, like they're just there for decoration, as things to blow up. The Cybermen these days are never intimidating, never presented in a scary way (except Pandorica Opens which was a truly great scene).
My biggest problem with the Cybermen is their new design. Old Cybermen looked weird and freakish, like proper scary monsters. But these new ones look aesthetically pleasing—almost cute and gentle. The prospect of being turned into one of the old Cybermen was the stuff of nightmares. But these new ones actually look pretty cool and the idea of getting one those cool, shiny, sleek, powerful suits is almost aspirational. (Hence the popularity of the Iron Man films.)
Another problem I have with the new Cybermen is their movement: they are stiff, rigid, clumsy and mechanical, always stomping around in militaristic regiment. Sure, they come across as "strong", but it's not enough for a villain to be merely physically threatening, they have to be emotionally threatening on a human level. Stomping robot drones are not scary—scary is the subtleties of human guile and cunning. Crafty Cybermen is scary. Cybermen who hide is scary. Cybermen who do unpredictable things is scary. But hundreds of Cybermen marching on display—as they always do, and heard from a mile away— is not in any way scary.
I know the Cybers are supposed to be cold, emotionless and robotic, but they still need to look like people to some degree. It's people that are scary, not inanimate, soulless objects. For instance, the Daleks may not physically resemble "people" but their voices give them a tremendous sense of personality. Cybers (sadly) can't emote with their voices, so we need to see traces of their "humanity" in their appearance and movement. Otherwise the villains may as well be toasters and dishwashers.
In summary, if I could change them I would make them more creepy, more grotesque, more ugly, more "human", more fluid in movement, more stealthy, more signs of human intelligence, and more unpredictable. Then they might be good.
One of the scariest things I ever saw as a child was the end of Superman III when Vera was turned into a Cyborg (video). It was scary because it looked like a genuinely unpleasant thing to happen to you, and the resulting cyborg was human-like in appearance. If Cybers were more like that (ie still wearing the clothes and hair of the humans they used to be) then that would be fantastic.
The only think I think they've got right with them lately is the voices, though it's probably more sinister when they're not talking at all.
Giving the Cybermen a story...mmm...off the top of my head, with apologies if these sort of things exist in the books or plays, which I don't read or listen to...
1) Flip the character coin so it is discovered that the faction of Cybermen encountered have gone as cyber as possible and have gone full circle to wanting to become flesh again. They prey on people for parts. Potentially horrific. Rescue the family nature of the show by having the 'fleshmen' killed off by cyberman unit tasked only with wiping out rogues. Sometimes the main character cant save the day. Wouln't be a deus ex machina, but a reveal of a wider aspect to the story going on independently of the presence of the main character, which then becomes part of the wider legend...from this point on people will wonder which kind of cybermen are being encountered.
The half faced man and his fleshy robots seems to have given me part of what I wanted there. Unfortunately, as others have stated, the Cybermen were once again not true character in their own right but the rent a robot army of someone else, and this army didn't even need to be cybermen for the same story to happen.
The theme of wanting to continue living,however that may be achieved was all over the series and sort of carries an implicit reason for the existence of cybermen. However the flesh robots, the mummy cyborg and even the robots of sherwood were all more defined and scary than the ultimately faceless cybermen, who once again were presented as an unstoppoable army that was wiped out simply.
Either they are a race that continues to survive because they desire to and that spark can never be fully extinguished (the most human and, ironically, emotionally driven impulse survives all the suppression of logic) and this makes them scary or they are ultimately faceless tin men who stand up menacingly only to be knocked over again almost immediately. They can never be the former while they keep playing out being the latter. It is almost a shame the series didn't start with cybers and end with flesh robots because thematically that would have been forward movement and the scarier idea would have come at the end not the start.
However, the removal of emotion = mindless drone with no motivation for its actions once again removed any character from the cybermen. Removng emotion, then leaving behind logic as the driving force matters most for the characterisation, because there is/was an attitude of superiority in the upgrade. The superiority of the cybermen perceived and expressed by cybermen looking down on pathetic humans is a better story than we keep getting of mindless drones falling over at the first hurdle.
Instant adaptation to any attack previously reduced the threat level of the cybermen by making them more magical than technological. And as with the Daleks, their threat level practically disappears when they can fly. Their design and how the cause fear in characters up close and personal makes them scary to an audience. Large numbers of them, flying, results in them being very tiny on the screen and just an effects shot. Much more scary when a person is seeing cybermen, knowing they used to be human and absolutely not wanting to be turned into one of these things
2)End another story with The Doctor having gotten through to some cybermen about their lost humanity. They attempt to defect. Cyber controller requests speech centres to all Cybermen to be disengaged. Now our heroes can't tell the newly friendly Cybers approaching from the dangerous ones and the 'macguffin that can save the day' has to be used on all the approaching cybermen. Thus a level of emotional complexity can be introduced by The Doctor saying 'some of them are asking for help'and feeling chuffed, followed by the inevitable choice of having to wipe them out along with the still dangerous ones.
Series 8 did bring more emotional complexity and inevitable/impossible choice
.
Maybe situation 2 can create situation 1? Whatever, story has to be better than another redesign and unstoppable numbers approaching until they are stopped, and that being end of story. Actions could sometimes have consequences in the future. We have seen enough reset button episodes and arcs. The Doctor interfering, sometimes saving the day, sometimes making things worse in a way revealed in a later adventure adds element necessary to good drama: uncertainty and the notion of the actions of the protagonist creating consequences (both good and bad) that test his basic character and make him question whohe is and what he does. Otherwise in the case of this show he is just a travelling wizard
Ah well, at least the series totally focused on the last bit ;-)
The Cybermen need focus, motivation and limitations. They need to be a species.
Now they seem to just be assembly line robots, built by nanobots out of nothing, with a biological component that's only there for window dressing and serving no purpose whatsoever.
They are not the concept originally envisaged by their creator and I think they've lost what made them cool as a result. They aren't emotionless humans with replacement body parts they are just robots controlled by a central computer. for the most part they are now Androids, not Cyborgs.
A threat that is well-developed and complex is better and has more of an impact when theres a real sense of danger