#tr tidbits

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Unused / Practise Lara Croft Motion Capture - Early plans to use Mocap for an animated Tomb Raider cartoon.

Taken from The Rise of Britsoft, a video in the BBC Archives, dated 30th November 1997

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Down Among the Dead - The Tomb Raider: The Times Exclusive Story

Previously we wrote up the first part of the seven part story. Recently, we have found part seven and discovered that the render above was specifically made for this story! (We have a theory about a few others but we will share that at a later point.) We always believed that it was meant to be for TR4 but graphically, it didn't make sense. But when read the 7th part of the Times story, not only is it on the page but it clearly depicts the ending.

Below we have written it up, so if you read the intro to the story, now you can see how it ended.

In the Valley of the Kings, Lara has discovered the lost tomb of Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun's widow. She has done so without the help of Egyptologist Alvin Blackmore, whose mysterious death in London left her in the lurch. Standing before the queen's sarcophagus she discovers another tomb-raider pointing a gun at the back of her head. This is the concluding episode of Erica Wagner's tale.

Lara froze. She could feel the gun trained on her; it was like being stared, but worse. She'd have no chance to reach for her weapon. She could only stand and watch as the hulking figure of Alvin Blackmore emerged from the darkness behind to stand facing her over the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun's queen.

"Well done, Lara," he said. "Even if I did have to help you along those last few yards to the tomb. Still, I couldn't bear to deprive you of the pleasure of discovery. And really, these days, I'm far too old for all that digging."

"I guess you didn't have a heart attack," Lara said.

"Healthy as a horse, my dear, healthy as a horse!" He laughed - it echoed, caroming around the tight stone walls of the chamber - and slapped a meaty hand on his broad chest. "Never been fitter. And all the better for seeing you - for the last time."

"It won't work, Blackmore," she said.

"What won't work? Of course it will. You stole Carter's little notebook, of that I'm certain: and you wouldn't have taken it if anyone had been aware of its existence. So now there are two of us who know about it - Haggarty I was willing to take a risk with because I figured you'd do away with him, and I'm grateful to you for not letting me down. But really, once I'd seen what was at stake, I couldn't let you go running around raising a ruckus about it."

"So why not kill me straight away? Why bring me all the way out here, let me find the tomb?"

"Like I said, I wanted you to have some fun before you went, Lara. Mean to do otherwise, don't you think? But I wasn't about to murder the well-connected Lara Croft in cold blood in London. A most unlikely death for you, that would be. But if Lara Croft died in a rockfall while on the trail of one of Egypt's last hidden tombs - why, that would make perfect sense. No one would dream of asking any awkward questions."

"I suppose not," Lara admitted.

"It's a pity, really. I like you. I admire you. You're pretty sharp, if a little naive. But then I suppose you couldn't resist Ankhesenamun's promises either. The kind of thing to make a person throw caution to the winds, don't you think?"

"Looks like it," Lara said. "Then you believe it - the promise of eternal life?"

"Well," Blackmore said. "There's no harm in trying, is there? And anyway - even if it's all crap, you saw the treasure that were outside. I've never been a subscriber to the dour philosophy that money and fame can't buy you happiness. I've always found - at least where the former is concerned - quite the opposite to be true."

"Your sister's got your number, you know. She said nothing was ever enough for you."

"Cornelia? You spoke to Cornelia? Dear Cornelia. How was she? I would say - you must give her my regard, but it's too late for that now." Blackmore grinned, and keeping his gun trained on Lara, reached out for the jewel set in the sarcophagus. His voice trembling with excitement, he recited from the last page of the notebook that had been in his possession. "Whomsoever shall claim the jewel set in the widow's breast shall find that Re never sets on him, nor on his generation," he intoned. "Life eternal shall be his, just as the Nile rises and ebbs eternally in its mighty bank." And he reached out, curled his fingers around the emerald and lifted it from its place.

Instantly it burned with a white light; so bright that Lara could see the bones in Blackmore's hand. His face blazed with it, lit and shadowed by the unearthly light.

Lara began to shake, but held her ground, and when she spoke her voice was almost as firm as she'd liked it to be. "You never saw the last page, did you, Blackmore?"

"What?" His eyes were on fire; he seemed filled with something inhuman and terrible.

"Whomsoever shall claim the jewel set in the widow's breast shall find that Re never sets on him, nor on his generation. Life eternal shall be his, just as the Nile rises and ebbs eternally in its mighty bank. For he who is worthy, this reward will come; for he whose soul falls heavy in the scale, the retribution of the gods will surely follow."

Later, when Lara would try to explain what happened next, she would find her usual facility with words deserting her. How to describe it - she'd written it down, over and over, and then crumpled each effort and thrown it in the bin. The pictures had come off the walls. They had peeled themselves away and rushed at them - not as she'd imagined the falling statue of Anubis moving but reaching out with stretched arms and blazing black eyes, their flat shapes made flesh. Horus, hawk-headed, one-eyed, just and terrible; Osiris, the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt on his brow, bound as a god to rule over the dead; his sister-wife Isis, her fierce face streaked with grief of her loss. And behind them all a figure so awful that Lara felt the air punched out of her lungs to look at it.

Man or beast, impossible to tell - the head of some animal out of a nightmare, great teeth, fiery eyes, slime and foul breath: the stench of the dead. It was this figure that seemed to lead the charge as the creatures turned on Blackmore and tore him into a dozen pieces. The stink of burning human flesh filled the dry air of the tomb.

Lara would have trouble making up her mind whether to include the next detail in her story - she fainted. What she remembered next were shadows turned to spiderweb, to a nest that bound her and held her and bore her out of the tomb, leaving her stretched out on the sand in the desert air. When she opened her eyes she saw - or did she dream it? - the beast-head of Set looming over her with a warning before fading into mist. Death comes on wings to he who enters the tomb of a pharaoh.

The hot desert sand cradled her head. Lara sat up. Her rib ached worse than ever, but she could stand. In the distance she saw the film of smog that showed her where the city lay; she turned towards it and began to walk. Well, she'd certainly have something to tell Jeremy when she met him at the place his clues had led her to. She wondered if he'd ever outsmart her... but perhaps that wasn't the point. She quickened her pace through the desert heat. She really was looking forward to seeing him.

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TR Tidbits - The ‘Lara Croft’ Pizza

To tie in with the release of Tomb Raider 2, Domino's Pizza was assigned to create a special Lara Croft inspired pizza. 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness The Official Companion' noted that it was an Oriental pizza.

On November 19th, 1997, GameSpot covered it in a news article. They said that: 'From November to January Domino’s Pizza will be serving up a very special Lara pizza. The ‘Lara Deluxe’ will be topped with onions, green peppers, pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms. Some eight million special menus have already been printed, and there will be a tie-in competition to win a trip to China.'

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A star is unveiled for Lara Croft on 14th September 2019 at Made in Derby’s walk of fame. Nathan McCree, Gavin Rummery and Heather Stevens attended the unveiling.

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Did you know...

To celebrate the release of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness in 2003, artists from MAC (Mural Art Creation) were commissioned to create a 11 metres x 2.3 metres image on the theme of Lara Croft. People were invited to watch this event live. It took place on Wednesday 2nd July 2003 at 1pm on the facade of the Fnac Montparnasse, rue de Rennes in Paris.

Images came from jeuxvideo.com.

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Did you know...

That a little piece of Core Design still exists in the gaming industry (abeit in name and logo form). 'Core Design Studios' is a company who provides external art development services to the Gaming industry. Classic fans should recognise the CEO of the company, none other than Troy Horton, who was a producer for Tomb Raider 2, Tomb Raider 3 and Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, and for the Game Boy Color game Tomb Raider. The company has a website that you can visit here and if you would like, you can read an interview with Troy dated Nov 2016 on MCV UK's website.

This tidbit was originally seen on Captain Alban's twitter.

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Did you know...

That for some reason, Lara is unable to perform a handstand in the Sega Saturn version of Tomb Raider 1!

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Did you know...

That Eidos Interactive and Dutch newspaper 'De Telegraaf' held a competition in 1997 for the best Lara look-a-like. The competition also ran for Hawk look-a-like, which is a character from another Core Design game. The three runner-ups were Daisy, Joyce and Sarinah but the winner was Kitty. Interestingly, they were mentioned in a G4 Icons episode focusing on Lara Croft.

Check out the other links to read original articles and an interview with Kitty!

The Finalists

The Winner is

A biography of the winner

The Croft Times article