Brian Johnson announces updated SPACE:1999 series.

[Gingerbread Demon]

Was Paul Darrow behind the darker edgier reboot version of Blake's 7?

There was some artwork floating around of the reboot Liberator which looked like it had random junk attached all over the hull.

 

[Skipper]

Yep! Damn fine upgrade to a great show.

Yep! @Christopher, I always love reading your insightful reviews. Is there any change you can give us your thoughts on this series..?

 

[Christopher]

Yep! @Christopher, I always love reading your insightful reviews. Is there any change you can give us your thoughts on this series..?

If you're referring to Yamato 2199, I haven't seen it.

 

[Skipper]

If you're referring to Yamato 2199, I haven't seen it.

Sorry, I didn't express myself well. I was wondering if you had any intention to watch it and then give your impressions about it...

 

[Christopher]

At the moment, I have too many other priorities.

 

[Noname Given]

IMHO a new version they did right is Yamato 2199 (Star Blazers 2199 for you American people )

It was both innovative and respectful of the original version.

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^^^
SBY:2199 (and 2202 for that matter) is a GREAT example of how an update SHOULD be done.

 

[publiusr]

I wonder if they will do away with some of the more hokey idea.

Was suggested in a thread here some time back that instead of massive nuclear explosion, Alpha is involved in the testing of a new FTL drive that makes use of wormholes which triggers accidentally whisking the moon off the to the other side of the galaxy.

The ironic thing is that the whole universe is making like Moonbase alpha--what with Dark Energy.
My theory was that gravity intensifiers of the moonbase coupled with the large explosion as some field anomaly was passing through--and that Moonbase Alpha was the only object in that universe that was imbued with Dark Energy.

I used to be on the "A reboot needs to find a more plausible premise" bandwagon -- my personal reboot idea was one where the base isn't on the Moon, but on an asteroid that turns out to house an ancient alien facility with a hyperdrive.

Agree.
the planetoid that Space Academy was built on was definitely a spaceship.

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That is the only asteroid ship I've seen on the telly.

The first season wasn't trying to be plausible science fiction; rather, it was a surrealist show that embraced the idea of outer space as an unknowable realm of mystery that defied human understanding and shattered all our certainties. The Moon being blown out of orbit didn't make sense because it wasn't supposed to make sense, because nothing in the larger cosmos fit into our narrow, inadequate human concept of sense. A reboot that wholeheartedly embraced that trippy, metaphysical surrealism and took it even further could potentially be more interesting, and certainly more distinctive, than one that just tried to "fix" the original's logic holes and make a more conventional space drama.

That should be one more reason to play with the Dark Energy concept--or that there was more than Dark Energy involved. Mirror matter, for example may not even be visible.

So if Moonbase Alpha was somehow changed so as to become entrenched in this new "layer" of the cosmos, you can have a rational explanation for surreal new forms....

 

[Christopher]

That is the only asteroid ship I've seen on the telly.

Well, the Academy/Star Command was one of two asteroid-ships in that continuity, since Dragos's Dragonship was also part-asteroid.

The title mining ship in Red Dwarf had an asteroid partially embedded in its underside, so that the crew could mine it as they traveled, apparently. But it was mostly ship and only a little bit asteroid.

There was Yonada in Star Trek: "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," a generation ship built inside (or disguised as) an asteroid. Episode 2.6 of Killjoys featured a rich collector whose spaceship was built into an asteroid. But those were both ships that looked entirely like asteroids from the outside.

 

[Galileo7]

Well, the Academy/Star Command was one of two asteroid-ships in that continuity, since Dragos's Dragonship was also part-asteroid.

The title mining ship in Red Dwarf had an asteroid partially embedded in its underside, so that the crew could mine it as they traveled, apparently. But it was mostly ship and only a little bit asteroid.

There was Yonada in Star Trek: "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," a generation ship built inside (or disguised as) an asteroid. Episode 2.6 of Killjoys featured a rich collector whose spaceship was built into an asteroid. But those were both ships that looked entirely like asteroids from the outside.

Also, the third asteroid-ship the starship Hope featured in this episode:

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[publiusr]

I stand corrected. Star Command was my favorite--I wish it had been a bit larger

I liked the main splinter's profile from 1979's METEOR
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/eyes-turned-skywards.208954/page-130#post-8804165

Having a series of towers and domes along one side--that is something I'd like to see more of.

 

[Christopher]

Also, the third asteroid-ship the starship Hope featured in this episode:

Yeah, I guess technically, though that was just a reuse of the Academy miniature and sets to save money. (Even though it was a thousand-year-old ship. Well, maybe the Academy's a thousand years old. The opening narration said the Academy was founded in the Star Year 3742, but it never said the show was set in that year.)

 

[Galileo7]

Yeah, I guess technically, though that was just a reuse of the Academy miniature and sets to save money. (Even though it was a thousand-year-old ship. Well, maybe the Academy's a thousand years old. The opening narration said the Academy was founded in the Star Year 3742, but it never said the show was set in that year.)

I do like that in the Space Academy/Jason Of Star Command production design we see three asteroid based starship designs: Academy, Hope and Dragos's Dragonship. Star Trek has the primary hull saucer and they have an asteroid in their designs.

 

[Mysterion]

I do like that in the Space Academy/Jason Of Star Command production design we see three asteroid based starship designs: Academy, Hope and Dragos's Dragonship. Star Trek has the primary hull saucer and they have an asteroid in their designs.

I've always wanted a set of tech drawings/blueprints for the Academy asteroid in Space Academy/Jason. Id did find a really good set of drawing for the Seeker awhile back, though. I like that these shows had a very distinctive and creative feel t them despite what must have been a relatively low budget.

 

[Christopher]

I've always wanted a set of tech drawings/blueprints for the Academy asteroid in Space Academy/Jason. Id did find a really good set of drawing for the Seeker awhile back, though. I like that these shows had a very distinctive and creative feel t them despite what must have been a relatively low budget.

They had a low budget, but high talent. Space Academy in particular was able to snatch up some designers and FX artists who'd just finished working on a little movie called Star Wars. And they did a really good job with strictly in-camera, multiple-exposure visual effects, the same technique that Space: 1999 used. Jason switched to bluescreen mattes, which were more versatile but didn't look nearly as clean due to the matte lines and image degradation inherent to the process. Jason also had some really impressive stop-motion creature animation for its day.

 

[Mysterion]

They had a low budget, but high talent. Space Academy in particular was able to snatch up some designers and FX artists who'd just finished working on a little movie called Star Wars. And they did a really good job with strictly in-camera, multiple-exposure visual effects, the same technique that Space: 1999 used. Jason switched to bluescreen mattes, which were more versatile but didn't look nearly as clean due to the matte lines and image degradation inherent to the process. Jason also had some really impressive stop-motion creature animation for its day.

Agreed - these two shows ( and to a lesser extent Ark II) and Land of the Lost are the highlights of my Saturday morning memories. LotL also managed to do a lot with a little, and did some pretty high-concept SF (at least in the first season). The late '60s and 1970's were a pretty good time for a geeky kid to grow up - these shows, Trek, Gerry Anderson's stuff (UFO, Space: 1999), the Starblazers cartoon, people walking on the moon in real-life...what more could a kid want?

 

[Christopher]

I don't really recall watching Land of the Lost. Looking at Wikipedia's Saturday morning schedules, it looks like most of its network run was opposite Scooby-Doo in its first season, The Shazam-Isis Hour in its second, and Ark II and Fat Albert in its third, so I may have only caught it occasionally during reruns, or something. From what I've seen of it over the years, I remember it having really cheesy visuals, though I gather it had pretty impressive writers like David Gerrold, Harlan Ellison, and D.C. Fontana.

Star Blazers was kind of a revelation when I saw it in '79. An animated show with a serialized story arc, serious violence with real consequences, character growth and change, and even a nuanced, morally ambiguous villain. It was the show that got me interested in anime, although back then nobody in the US called it that. (It was called "Japanimation" at first, but at that early stage, I didn't even know that term.)

 

[Mysterion]

I don't really recall watching Land of the Lost. Looking at Wikipedia's Saturday morning schedules, it looks like most of its network run was opposite Scooby-Doo in its first season, The Shazam-Isis Hour in its second, and Ark II and Fat Albert in its third, so I may have only caught it occasionally during reruns, or something. From what I've seen of it over the years, I remember it having really cheesy visuals, though I gather it had pretty impressive writers like David Gerrold, Harlan Ellison, and D.C. Fontana.

Yeah, visually it hasn't aged well. But I give them credit for ambition and what they were trying to do. Ellison did apparently submit a treatment for an episode, but it was never produced. But you're right about Gerrold (who was also story editor in the first season and an uncredited co-creator of the series), and Fontana. there were also episodes written by Larry Niven, Theordore Sturgeon, and Ben Bova.

Star Blazers was kind of a revelation when I saw it in '79. An animated show with a serialized story arc, serious violence with real consequences, character growth and change, and even a nuanced, morally ambiguous villain. It was the show that got me interested in anime, although back then nobody in the US called it that. (It was called "Japanimation" at first, but at that early stage, I didn't even know that term.)

I was immediately hooked by Starblazers when I first saw it for a lot of the same reasons. I had seen some other Japanese animation earlier on (Gigantor, Speed Racer), but this was the first really serious sci-fi cartoon I'd seen (except of course for TAS), and the visual of a WW2 battleship converted into a starship really caught my imagination. They did a really fun live-action version of this a few years back that's also worth a look.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

That second season of Space Command was just trippy.

What the hell? Drago kept a fish tank? He even seemed a bit more mellow.

First season was great his ship was awesome.

Loved learning that his helmet was covered in model car parts.

 

[Christopher]

I was immediately hooked by Starblazers when I first saw it for a lot of the same reasons. I had seen some other Japanese animation earlier on (Gigantor, Speed Racer), but this was the first really serious sci-fi cartoon I'd seen (except of course for TAS), and the visual of a WW2 battleship converted into a starship really caught my imagination.

Sometime in the early '80s, I went on a school field trip to the Smithsonian and I got a souvenir of a toy submarine from some machine that made them for you out of soft gray plastic while you watched. I liked to pretend the submarine was another converted spaceship in the Star Blazers reality, and I'd play with it while humming the show's music to myself (because the music was the best part), but eventually it, err, took too much battle damage and I broke it.

 

[Skipper]

Sometime in the early '80s, I went on a school field trip to the Smithsonian and I got a souvenir of a toy submarine from some machine that made them for you out of soft gray plastic while you watched. I liked to pretend the submarine was another converted spaceship in the Star Blazers reality, and I'd play with it while humming the show's music to myself (because the music was the best part), but eventually it, err, took too much battle damage and I broke it.

By the way, there was indeed a Space Submarine in the series!