Firstly, I would like to start by apologizing to you wonderful people, for the considerable gaps between each of my posts. This is either due to school, sheer laziness or because my mind is not allowing me inspiration to write. I will try my very best to shorten the gaps between each post and if I may request, any comments on my posts would be very welcome, so that I do not feel as if I am wasting my time with this blog.
Anyway, as most of you will hopefully be aware, not too long ago was the 31st birthday of Matt Smith; the fantastic actor who brought The Eleventh Doctor to life. When first announced that he would be the wonderful David Tenants successor- a number of fans were almost in shock(including myself if I am perfectly honest) because no one had ever heard of Matt before, he had some roles in television beforehand but none to make him generally well known. It was a bit of worry for fans, that he wouldn't have such an outstanding acting ability (being the youngest actor to play The Doctor at 26) and they weren't exactly wrong. The first series, he did show some excellent talent as an actor but it wasn't until the end of series 5 that he truly settled in to the role and grew amazingly well as an actor. At the end of his time as The Doctor, there was news of a number of roles in movies,etc that Matt had accepted and it was great to see that not only is he seen more as an actor now but he hasn't been typecast.
Considering the point I made in the first paragraph, I wanted to make a post to keep you going and assure you that I am still alive. It just turned out to be a happy coincidence that Mr Smiths birthday gave me this idea. I wanted to do something particularly special to celebrate Matt's run as The Doctor. A few ideas floated in my mind, but some of them I didn't want to put into action until closer to date of Smith's last episode. So I decided that I give a list of some of my favorite videos on YouTube in tribute of Matt Smiths era as the mad man with a box.
Note: I did not create these video and all credit goes to the people who made them.
1. A Tribute to the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)- by Mrlazarus01
Compared to other videos, this one will be seen as "slow" and for some of you that may be a bad thing, but that is not quite true. One of my reasons for choosing a video that I think you will see for all of them, is the music. This video particularity, had the most powerful music in my opinion; from the series two episode of Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia. I absolutely adore the music, it just gives me so much feels and the scene that it is used for in that episode just makes the scene so emotional. Another reason for this video reaching the top spot, was the number of memorable quotes put into the video and not with the music from that episode, making the video feel cheap. My favorite quote in the video due to how effectively it is used, is the speech made by The Doctor in the divisive series 7 episode "The Rings of Akhaten." When listening to the speech, and seeing clips of episodes matching what The Doctor is referring to-such as: "I have lost things you will never understand" and we can see the timelord putting on Amy's glasses to read the sad message she left for him in Rivers book. So many feels accompanied this video and the music only intensified the pain that fans such as myself would be suffering. A magnificent video, a wonderful tribute for Matt Smith and well deserving of the top spot.
2. Doctor Who, Series 5-7 Mega Trailer, 1,000 subscribers video (Matt Smith) - by taridselliot
Compared to the previous video, I feel this one covered Matt's era as The Eleventh Doctor a little bit better and the music was quite good, however the music combined with the powerful quotes in the other video, made for a more effectively emotional video and it is for that reason mainly that this video isn't at the top of the list. The build up at the start was quite nice, I liked how they began with clips from Matt's first episode "The Eleventh Hour" and Amy's voice could be heard referring to him as her "imaginary friend" and what set them off on their adventures together. It then touches on his other companions, such as Clara and the beginning of The Doctors endeavour to find out who she really is. As well as River Song, where we are given a quote from the first adventure that The Eleventh Doctor meets River and people who have continued to watch the show afterwards will know how significant that quote can be. From then on, the music got more fast paced and more exciting, that's why I quite liked about this video was that it covered a lot of his era at an exciting pace.Another thing that caught my interest, was the way that the Cybermen, Daleks and Weeping Angels all got a special mention in the video and was quite well done. The arcs of The Eleventh Doctor were touched upon quite nicely as well. This is a very excellent video but sadly didn't have that emotional edge to grab my attention. A well deserved second.
3. Ultimate Doctor Who Era Trailer, Series 5-7, Matt Smith- by tardiselliot
Another exciting video by the same YouTuber. Originally, this video had found itself in second place, but just as I was about to write the description of it, I re-watched both the videos and I believed the other was more deserving of the spot. My reason being, is that the video felt better structured and that it covered Smith's era better; the second video does also cover his era quite well but I felt it was a bit jumbled up in a bad way. Also, a few of the quotes or clips were used in the same order as the previous video but I didn't feel they were used as well as the other one. One thing that allowed me to quite enjoy this video, was the use of the guitar; it just felt right and built up the video quite well. I also, like the use of the last scene from "The Name of the Doctor" not only do I absolutely love that scene, but i thought it was placed perfectly within the video. It is quite unusual to hear guitar music quite clearly with Doctor Who (not that it hasn't been done at all) and it worked quite well together. To me, it felt that tardiselliot was trying to get across the dangerous, action-packed adventure that can come with traveling with The Doctor and they certainly did do that. It really did feel like a good trailer to advertise to a non-Whovian ( just the thought of it is horrible) and would surely prove to be very enticing to them.
4. Doctor Who: "The Matt Smith Era"-Ultimate Cinema Trailer-by TheAfroThunder1
A small conflict took place in my mind as to what position this video deserved? Quite simply because of the music; with the excellent use of clips from Matt's first episodes at the start of the video combined with the music, gives that "fairy tale" feeling to it. A very popular and well used theme of Series 5. However, I don't feel like this video touched on the best and most important parts of Matt's era as the previous two have. It still proved to be a very pleasing video, the music was quite catchy and enticing. I think what partly let this video down was the time that it was created; only being released the month after Amy and Rory's heartbreaking departure, they didn't have clips from the remainder of Series 7 at their disposal. Granted that this would not allow them to tocuh on Clara, but they could have looked a bit more at River and the arcs of Matt's run. However, one thing that I particularly liked about this one, was the specific scenes that it looked at. For example, the scene between The Doctor and Oswin, not the most significant scene of NewWho or the most powerful, but this was a very excellent scene and very well intensified with the music. A great video and a great shame for the time that it was made in.
5. Doctor Who, Series 5-7 Ultimate Trailer, The Pond Era (Matt Smith)- tardiselliot
The word to describe the music which accompanied this video would certainly be epic. They did take their time to actually get into it, to go at a more faster pace but from around 38 seconds onward, it did feel quite thrilling. What was nice about this one is that it did touch on the main arcs of Matt's era at the beginning but it just wasn't so spectacular to top it's successor, even with it's lack of coverage of the arcs. With this video, I made an exception because it was a pretty good video but it's time of release meant they had no clips of the Clara era as did the previous video. As long as it covered the majority of Matt's run then I would allow it to be a contender. I am really repeating myself a lot when analyzing each of these videos, but nothing else really comes to mind that I should be looking for in the videos. A good video none the less, it had a nice build up and quite entertaining.
6. Doctor Who, Series 5-7 Mega Trailer, Matt Smith- tardiselliot
I feel like this video had potential; it contained movie-like trailer music and generally felt quite exciting. One thing that let this video down, was the little to no quotes. The only one that was satisfactory was Doriums speech about "the question that must never be answered". Afterwards, only three more remained and even then they weren't very significant ones, nor could they be heard very well and some of the original music from the scenes could be heard seeping into the video; making it feel cheap. Again, the music did generally give a sense of it being epic. It did definitely feel like tons of clips were thrown in with no apparent order. As well as the previous one, I made an exception if it didn't cover Clara's ear so far, as long as it covered the majority of Matt's era. Compared to tardiselliots other videos, this one is disappointing Although applauds to tardiselliot, for filling four out of the six places.
I do apologize once again for being quite repetitive when analyzing the selection of videos. Also for how technically late this post is. If there is any videos that you think I have missed out, I do apologies but I have either seen them and not deemed them worthy of reaching the top contenders ( I sound like some kind of God) or I may have just not watched them myself. I didn't make full scale search for the best Matt tribute videos on YouTube, for I already had a few in mind and it would have required to much effort and taken up a lot of my time which should be spent studying for my Prelims.
All I hope is that you found some entertainment from watching these videos and this post has made you ponder over your own favorite Matt Smith era videos.
Geronimo!
Stephen.