Has Fred Freiberger been misblamed for Season 3 over the years?
- Thread starter Lance
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Reservations here as well. The only area I really found myself nodding in agreement was about keeping the original model work intact. Other than that...I just don't know. A flying camera probe to explain impossible screen shot angles? I'm just envisioning that "improvement" being used in The Menagerie, Part 1, when Spock's viewer image of Kirk and Mendez pulls back with dramatic zest. 
They used to have a site specifically dedicated to this project a few years back, but it was taken down at the request of the current rights-holders of SPACE:1999.
Oh, I know. It was a serious flaw in UFO, that was in that case compounded by having only three interceptors, all of which were stationed at the moonbase. Plus, each interceptor had only one missile (the signature one at the nose). Each had cannons for close engagements as a last resort, but at least four UFOs sufficiently simultaneously from sufficiently different directions would all but assure that at least one could get through, and that's without mixing it up with decoys.
A wiki on the development of Space: 1999 out of UFO is here. The summary of "Zero G" at The Catacombs is here.
"Disarming Earth" is my way of putting it. The aliens (not the same ones as in UFO, by this point) seemed concerned with the militarization of the Moon. To justify the expenditure of taking out the Moon and for that to have the stated effect of containing humanity, it would naturally be necessary for lunar industry to be an important capability that the aliens would want neutralized, and for lunar industry to be necessary for interplanetary colonization, especially after the geological and climatological upheavals that would have resulted from the Moon's departure.
Thinking all this through with the contributions of first-rate science fiction authors wasn't ever a priority, which never benefitted either UFO or Space: 1999. Gerry Anderson shows tended to be more about vehicle porn than anything that made sense. I likes me some vehicle porn, nothing is wrong with that, but it is what it is, and isn't what it isn't. The fact that we're talking about a setting within the 20th century was another curtain that we weren't really supposed to be looking behind.
I'm not sure where I read this, but it does seem to fit the subtext within the series UFO.
I always got the feeling the Moonbase operations were still somewhat relatively new. Also basing the first line of defense there was just another way of trying to keep everything out of the public eye.
The other idea I got was the aliens themselves were not really in a position to mount a large offensive. Their homeworld was rife with problems and their forays to Earth were largely acts of desperation.
I always got the feeling the Moonbase operations were still somewhat relatively new. Also basing the first line of defense there was just another way of trying to keep everything out of the public eye.
The other idea I got was the aliens themselves were not really in a position to mount a large offensive. Their homeworld was rife with problems and their forays to Earth were largely acts of desperation.
Just watched the 2099 promo.
No no no no no no no no no. The last straw was the super sweet 70s typewriter she was using and they turn it into a MacBook. Argh!!!
If I get Christmas money I'm buying the original, like my beloved clamshell TOS DVDs.
Everybody wants to change everything. Are we that dullardly that everything must be in today's manner or it is somehow unintelligible?
What is the music they open and close with? Is it the 1999 theme rerecorded? I'm really in the dark about the show. That music has some great slow chords and voicings. Sounds like John Barry.
No no no no no no no no no. The last straw was the super sweet 70s typewriter she was using and they turn it into a MacBook. Argh!!!
If I get Christmas money I'm buying the original, like my beloved clamshell TOS DVDs.
Everybody wants to change everything. Are we that dullardly that everything must be in today's manner or it is somehow unintelligible?
What is the music they open and close with? Is it the 1999 theme rerecorded? I'm really in the dark about the show. That music has some great slow chords and voicings. Sounds like John Barry.
I don't think so. While I found it more 'miss' than 'hit', I thought the TOS new-effects project was interesting to see and I had no issue with them making the attempt.
It's still on a website I stumbled into. Glad to see the project was nixed by the rights holders.
I wonder if all this Lucasing of existing shows is just the path of least resistance for people who don't have the facility or ability to produce something original, so they try to figure out some way to tweak something they like to make money from it.
Yes, that's cynical.
I would recommend trying books by either Greg Cox or Dayton Ward. Cox' The Rings of Time is very good. Picking up on the events of Shaun Christopher, the not yet born offspring from "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
Thanks! Glad you liked the Shaun Christopher book!
I would recommend trying books by either Greg Cox or Dayton Ward. Cox' The Rings of Time is very good. Picking up on the events of Shaun Christopher, the not yet born offspring from "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
Thanks! Glad you liked the Shaun Christopher book!
It was the one I had to PM you about because I wasn't sure about the ending!
I fight the good fight by showing the original Mr. Smith Goes to Wash., Grapes of Wrath, and Bad Seed in class. Black and white is very offputting to many teens. They do not grow up seeing old movies on uhs stations as we did. TCM is WAY up the cable lineup, far beyond what they see. Though I use all three for curricular reasons, I feel I am also doing my part to help a few broaden their tastes and imaginations a bit to see that old can be good, too. What is a deification of "the new" called? I feel like there is a word, and I am not finding one in my gray matter.
Well, gotta go, Fibber McGee and Molly is coming on, and the Mrs has my pipe and slippers warmed up.
Well, gotta go, Fibber McGee and Molly is coming on, and the Mrs has my pipe and slippers warmed up.
I find it odd that so many young people profess being unable to get into movies which are black and white given how common that look was in music videos, etc. I suspect that black and white is just convenient shorthand/excuse for media which they consider to be out of date and inaccessible to them for a lot of things from acting style to music to cinematography.
I can watch black and white movies and TV shows. I just have to be in the right frame of mind to do so.
Keep fighting the good fight (what do you teach?).
It really is depressing how averse many teenagers are to watching films made before they were born. One of my friends taught a film genre course last quarter, and at the beginning, not a single one of her students had seen a movie made before 1980 (and only a few had seen movies that "old").
I suspect you're onto something here. I watch way too much TCM (including Sullivan's Travels last night), but there's no denying that vintage movies are different from modern films in ways both subtle and not so much: the pacing, the fashions, the slang, the censorship restrictions, the gender roles, etc. Which can require a mental adjustment if you're not used to them. That's probably what younger people are actually reacting to, not the lack of color.
BTW (and sorry if this has been mentioned in the previous 11 pages and I've missed it) but on the subject of Fred Freiberger, it's worth reading The Making of Space 1999, and Barney Rozenweig's autobiography (which is more of a behind the scenes book on Cagney and Lacey). The latter is really dismissive of Freiberger, saying that the late pick-up for a series after the success of the C&L TV movie meant they had to hire anyone who was available, and Freiberger came as part of the team with the person they actually hired (but didn't want to retain for the full season the next year); whereas the S1999 book, despite being the authorised behind the scenes book and therefore presumably subject to his approval, doesn't really depict him well. It gives a picture of someone who was more interested in finding people who'd fit in with his view of how you made TV than trying out interesting ideas (I'm thinking here of the account of meetings with a writer on an episode which was never produced when Freiberger comes across pretty badly, at least to my mind).
trevanian
Rear Admiral
B&W monochrome can be awesome. The monochrome look I can't stand is the one that kinda started with DIE HARD, where it looks like you've shot the movie through a pair of polarized sunglasses, and which, since the advent of the digital intermediate, seems to be the way 70% of movies wind up looking (and pretty much all horror movies, where it is kinda dirty brown tones.)
I think the 'look' of the last 10 or 15 years (and the lens flare nutsiness for the last 5, which still seems on the upswing) will date worse than the choking on smoke look of the 80s (at least THAT look can be appropriate some of the time.)
The rejection of the older films is probablly cuz the young-uns (under 40?) see the style of the films as being something like the high-pants/fast-talking and stripe-shirted-guy-on-piano inserts on FAMILY GUY ... as in, don't wanna go there.
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