^^^Such a shame what happened to that model.
Space 1999!!!
- Thread starter LaxScrutiny
- Start date
Nice toys here.
https://www.sixteen12.com/
Really, the Planet of the Apes ICARUS should have been the command pod of the Super Swift:
https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/models/w2msuper.html
https://moonbasealpha.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Swift
https://www.sixteen12.com/
Really, the Planet of the Apes ICARUS should have been the command pod of the Super Swift:
https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/models/w2msuper.html
https://moonbasealpha.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Swift
I watched most of this show last year, it was on BritBox I think. Extremely slow and the characterisation is…rudimentary at best. But i still kind of enjoyed it. It looks amazing thanks to being shot on film and properly remastered, and the visual effects are astonishingly good (compare with what was being done on Dr Who at the same time). The uniforms and sets remind me of TMP, my favourite Trek film. If only the writing and characterisation was tighter.
I think the idea was to recreate the atmosphere of "2001 A Space Odyssey". The problem is that what works well in a film doesn't always work in a television series. And honestly, the writers of the series weren't exactly Kubrik.
Or Arthur C. Clarke, for that matter. But TV shows were generally paced a lot more slowly in the 1960s and '70s than they are now.
Yep, but usually when one watches TOS or the original Mission Impossible doesn't think "This is so slow!"
I'm not so sure about that. I wouldn't because I'm 60 and grew up on that kind of TV. Ask someone in their 20s who's used to Fast & Furious movies and other modern pop culture to sit through a TOS episode or a 1960s Outer Limits episode. I think they'll comment on the pacing. Space: 1999 is a lot closer to that era of TV.
They also had longer run times for episodes. S1 of Space:1992 eps were roughly 52mins long where as modern shows are 41 - 42mins long as there's a lot more ad.
I loved that about S1 of Space 1999 when I watched it for the first time a few years ago. I haven't really returned to it since so I can't say if I'd still feel the same.
That might be, I can't relate to my niece and nephew on any level with anything "TV" or movies. I know they watch "stuff" but I think it's all just short-form things on Youtube, Tiktok and the like.
Yep, but usually when one watches TOS or the original Mission Impossible doesn't think "This is so slow!"
It's funny you should mention "M:I". In my 'Behind the Scenes' book, Executive Producer Bruce Geller is quoted as saying at the end of the second season, after a time slot and change in leading man, "The things they used to damn the show, they now use to praise it. Only the inflections have changed. They used to berate it - 'It's so fast!'. Now they praise it - 'It's so fast!'."
Thank you. My point was that Space 1999 isn't slow just for modern viewers, but it was slow even for the context of the time when it was produced, and it was a deliberate choice. It can be seen by comparing it with the second season, where the rhythms are comparable to the American action TV series of the time.
The Charlton Comics stories assumed Alpha had their own Hawks.
Honestly, the way they could seemingly rebuild and maintain Eagles, it'd be unbelievable if they couldn't have built makeshift Hawk-like vehicles, even if they'd never been issued them while orbiting Earth.
They didn't have the file for the 3D printer
Hence the word "makeshift".They didn't have the file for the 3D printer
I was 11 when S1999 premiered, grew up on Trek and various British action/sci-fi/fantasy shows (Avengers, the Saint, My Partner the Ghost, Thunderbirds, etc.) and found S1999 to be ponderous. It really just wasn't that entertaining of a show TBH.
Ah. I was 12. I guess that makes all the difference.
The slowness, the robotic acting style of Bain especially, these were criticized at the time the show came out.
I suspect these aspects were among the things that the show, so to speak, "inherited" from 2001; they were considered to be appropriate tropes for intellectual science fiction. See also Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They were certainly typical such tropes, how appropriate is debatable.
I suspect these aspects were among the things that the show, so to speak, "inherited" from 2001; they were considered to be appropriate tropes for intellectual science fiction. See also Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They were certainly typical such tropes, how appropriate is debatable.
Yep, after 2001 and before Star Wars slowness was the hallmark of any sci-fi film or television work set in outer space that wanted to be taken seriously. I remember Silent Running or Solaris.
I'm still amazed at how exciting Breaway's storyline (Space 1999 pilot) is on paper: a mysterious virus that kills astronauts! Political machinations! An unknown radiation! We must hurry before nuclear waste explodes! THE MOON GOES OUT OF ORBIT!!! And all in 50 minutes!!! WOW!
And then you see the episode and it's. All. glacially. slow. It's amazing how they did it. It takes a special talent to remove all traces of suspense and excitement from such a story. I'm almost in awe.
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Space 1999 vs Star Trek, by Isaac Asimov (Cue, December 20, 1975)
Just the other day I watched another episode of Space: 1999, television's new, and visually excellent, science fiction show. In this episode, Alpha (the name given to the base on the Earth's moon after the moon had been blasted away from the Earth by a miracle of scientific illiteracy) passed through a black hole.
It took the experienced astronauts of Alpha a long time to recognise the object as a black hole, though any 1975 viewer with a smattering of contemporary astronomy would have seen it for what it was at once. Then, when the great scientist and his great computer finally worked out the problem, the object was called a "black sun".
The point is that the accepted astronomical term is "black hole". The expression "hole" describes its most dramatic property, that what falls in can't come out again. The use of "sun" in this connection is completely misleading. Nor was the misnomer required by the plot in any way. The only conclusion is that the makers of Space: 1999 are chemically free of all traces of scientific knowledge.
Here is another example. Alpha is somewhere in the vastness of interstellar space, presumably far from any star. Its surface should therefore be totally dark except where it is illuminated by artificial lighting. Nevertheless, when seen from space it is always clearly visible. Very well, that's a dramatic necessity. Showing a black TV screen in the interests of accuracy won't go over.
However, Alpha is often given the appearance of a semi-circle or a crescent. No one responsible for Space: 1999 seems to be aware that the moon shows phases only because it reflects the light of a luminous body. They seem to think that the Moon (in its new state as Alpha) is intrinsically light and dark.
Such ignorance would never be permitted in any field outside science. Any program which referred to the British Queen as Isabella would hear it at once from a billion ignorant citizens- yet a royal name is trivial, and scientific knowledge is the key to the salvation or destruction of the world. Are we to fill the minds of the audience with garbage because the producers of a television show are too haughty to hire a science consultant or too foolish to listen to him once hired?
This was not the case with Star Trek. That program had Gene Roddenberry, who is scientifically literate himself, and who insisted on the same for the writing of the show. Science might be bent for the sake of advancing the plot, but never just because someone didn't have a sixth grade education, or didn't care.
Nor is it science only. It never is. A program that purports to be science fiction, and either scorns science or fails to understand it, can scarcely be intelligent in other directions.
The plots and characterisation on Space: 1999 have been primitive. All the events that take place are science fiction clichés. By the time the commander has frowned, and the scientist has raised his eyebrows, and the medical officer has flared her nostrils, they are all spent forces. They may be good actors, but no one has any lines of consequence to say, any deeds of interest to do. They are not characters, but stuffed scarecrows.
Again the situation is enormously different in the case of Star Trek where great effort was put into building believable characters who interacted with events and with each other in characteristic fashions. We could expect Captain Kirk to make hard decisions and to temper forcefulness with humour. We were always ready for First Officer Spock's cool calm, his rationality and his sense of ethics. We could count on Dr McCoy's dedication, emotionality and short temper. Every other regular had quirks that grew familiar.
Most of all there was a consistent streak of humour in Star Trek and an obvious affection of the characters for each other. Neither humour, affection, nor any other human characteristic has so far been visible on Space: 1999.
The Star Trek cult is based, in my opinion, on four things:
Just the other day I watched another episode of Space: 1999, television's new, and visually excellent, science fiction show. In this episode, Alpha (the name given to the base on the Earth's moon after the moon had been blasted away from the Earth by a miracle of scientific illiteracy) passed through a black hole.
It took the experienced astronauts of Alpha a long time to recognise the object as a black hole, though any 1975 viewer with a smattering of contemporary astronomy would have seen it for what it was at once. Then, when the great scientist and his great computer finally worked out the problem, the object was called a "black sun".
The point is that the accepted astronomical term is "black hole". The expression "hole" describes its most dramatic property, that what falls in can't come out again. The use of "sun" in this connection is completely misleading. Nor was the misnomer required by the plot in any way. The only conclusion is that the makers of Space: 1999 are chemically free of all traces of scientific knowledge.
Here is another example. Alpha is somewhere in the vastness of interstellar space, presumably far from any star. Its surface should therefore be totally dark except where it is illuminated by artificial lighting. Nevertheless, when seen from space it is always clearly visible. Very well, that's a dramatic necessity. Showing a black TV screen in the interests of accuracy won't go over.
However, Alpha is often given the appearance of a semi-circle or a crescent. No one responsible for Space: 1999 seems to be aware that the moon shows phases only because it reflects the light of a luminous body. They seem to think that the Moon (in its new state as Alpha) is intrinsically light and dark.
Such ignorance would never be permitted in any field outside science. Any program which referred to the British Queen as Isabella would hear it at once from a billion ignorant citizens- yet a royal name is trivial, and scientific knowledge is the key to the salvation or destruction of the world. Are we to fill the minds of the audience with garbage because the producers of a television show are too haughty to hire a science consultant or too foolish to listen to him once hired?
This was not the case with Star Trek. That program had Gene Roddenberry, who is scientifically literate himself, and who insisted on the same for the writing of the show. Science might be bent for the sake of advancing the plot, but never just because someone didn't have a sixth grade education, or didn't care.
Nor is it science only. It never is. A program that purports to be science fiction, and either scorns science or fails to understand it, can scarcely be intelligent in other directions.
The plots and characterisation on Space: 1999 have been primitive. All the events that take place are science fiction clichés. By the time the commander has frowned, and the scientist has raised his eyebrows, and the medical officer has flared her nostrils, they are all spent forces. They may be good actors, but no one has any lines of consequence to say, any deeds of interest to do. They are not characters, but stuffed scarecrows.
Again the situation is enormously different in the case of Star Trek where great effort was put into building believable characters who interacted with events and with each other in characteristic fashions. We could expect Captain Kirk to make hard decisions and to temper forcefulness with humour. We were always ready for First Officer Spock's cool calm, his rationality and his sense of ethics. We could count on Dr McCoy's dedication, emotionality and short temper. Every other regular had quirks that grew familiar.
Most of all there was a consistent streak of humour in Star Trek and an obvious affection of the characters for each other. Neither humour, affection, nor any other human characteristic has so far been visible on Space: 1999.
The Star Trek cult is based, in my opinion, on four things:
- Young people of intelligence who are concerned with our world and with their own lives are naturally interested in science fiction, since this is the only form of fiction that deals wit the future and with change- and it is in a changed future that the youngsters will mature.
- There was enough respect for science in the program to give it the support of the more sophisticated portion of the science fiction audience- who are the opinion-makers.
- Many Star Trek episodes dealt with ethical problems that were resolved in humane fashion. Even a "monster" was viewed sympathetically when she turned out to be a mother protecting her child.
- There were interesting, idiosyncratic and sympathetic characters about whom one's feelings could crystallise.
And that's the final cut of the pilot, the original cut was much much much slower & full of reaction shots.
