You can’t have missed all the hullabaloo about the trailer for the upcoming Cats movie. The first look at the big screen adaptation of the classic musical was highly anticipated, as it comes from award-winning director Tom Hooper (Les Miserables). However, folks weren’t prepared for the terrifying, nightmarish sight of various famous faces plastered onto CGI cat bodies.
For Doctor Who fans, though, the whole thing is making them nostalgic for when the sci-fi series featured cat-human hybrids, and handled them much better. David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor encountered the Cat People of New-Earth in the far future in both 2006’s “New Earth” and 2007’s “Gridlock,” with the creatures being achieved via good old-fashioned prosthetics and make-up. And fans think the Cats movie should have followed suit.
How did Doctor Who manage to create better human cats over a decade ago with a small budget than a huge movie production in 2019? #CatsMovie pic.twitter.com/Iatdcm7wyF
— sanne (@mukefthxrry) July 19, 2019
Kind of embarrassing that 2006 Doctor Who has less terrifying cat people than the massive Hollywood film version of Cats. pic.twitter.com/cwortKoJEV
— venom 🇵🇸 (@Enbydiocy) July 18, 2019
Doctor Who did it better #Cats pic.twitter.com/vsTTOgwcV3
— Luismin💙💙 #StandwithUkraine (@largslauren) July 18, 2019
Okay so, who okayed the trailer for Cats? That was some horrifying design. Like, you wanna make them anthro so they can dance and stuff, fine cool but that human face plastered on fur is very unsettling.
Doctor Who did cat people 10000× better with practical effects. Look: pic.twitter.com/5kK4uDzhvR
— Kris || Lokiina (@BambiStark) July 19, 2019
Even those who don’t mind the looks of the characters in Cats have to admit that Doctor Who still wins out.
https://twitter.com/skyjodonnell/status/1152152136958038016
To be honest, even the Cheetah People from classic Doctor Who story “Survival,” which aired in 1989, are better than Cats.
TFW a 1989 Doctor Who had less terrible looking human cats than your big budget Hollywood movie pic.twitter.com/NnVkN8KeoT
— Seb Patrick (@sebpatrick) July 18, 2019
Apparently, the Sisters of Plenitude (evil cat nurses who genetically engineered humans to test diseases on) and Brannigan (a loveable guy with an Irish accent – he’s nothing like the Sisters, ok? Geez, don’t discriminate) are more popular than we thought. If showrunner Chris Chibnall is smart, he might want to think about bringing them back in season 12. Production’s still going on, so there must be time to squeeze them in somewhere.
We joke, but rumors say that a few old favorites might be making a comeback in the next run. The rhino-headed Judoon are officially confirmed to return, and the Cybermen are also said to be getting a darker redesign.
Doctor Who season 12 is set to arrive in early 2020, with a possible winter special coming beforehand. Cats, meanwhile, is due to give us a Christmas scare when it drops in theaters on December 20th.