The Eagle Obsession – Space: 1999 documentary
eagledocumentary.com
eagledocumentary.com
I have mixed feelings about the show. As with pretty much all Gerry Anderson efforts the hardware and effects were top-notch. But the premise is too far fetched for adult me to allow for....
Obviously Brian Johnson and his work were a huge inspiration to the Star Wars model shop and concept artists (and then Brian joining them later, of course).
That the Millennium Falcon and Blockade Runner from Star Wars have radar dishes shows the degree to which everyone involved still had one foot in the "2001" and "Space 1999" modality. (And never mind that Eagle-esque engine cluster in the rear of the Blockade Runner).
This is all 1970s SciFi viewing. Silent Running was closer. Logan's Run wasn't. And then there's Ark III...
Note the first season was not about new aliens per episode. It was all about atmosphere and character development and relationships.
For money/political reasons, Season 2 turned into monster-of-the-week.
"THE EAGLE OBSESSION is a visually stunning feature-length documentary that follows sci-fi creator Jeffrey Morris as he investigates the origins of the iconic vessel and the ongoing global impact of a unique moment in human history—when people walked on the Moon."
The documentary will include interviews with Barbara Bain, Nick Tate (Captain Alan Carter) and special effects supervisor Brian Johnson.
I don't think Space 1999 ever spared a thought about what happened to the Earth after the disaster.
A small trivia: there was this educational tv series in Poland created in the early 80s and aired in the end of that decade called "Przybysze z Matplanety" (Visitors from Matplanet). The series explored mathematics for grade and high school. The main characters named Pi and Sigma were traveling in Eagle Transporter - at least that's how their ship look on the outside. A slightly repainted model is seen in the intro and few times in the show: https://youtu.be/CnJcZv9DnAA?t=87
And I'd like to see a spin-off showing what happened on Earth when the moon suddenly got ripped away, I imagine it would be a disaster movie. The tidal waves alone from loss of tidal forces would wipe out all the coastlines of everyplace everywhere.
As I understand it, we have tides because while the moon is fairly small with fairly low gravity, it's comparatively close to us so the moon's gravitational pull between one side of the earth is larger than on the other side, creating a kind of "sloshing effect" that we call tides.
The sun also does this, but less because it's further away (inverse square law).
Not a scientific analysis, but intuitively, it seems to me that stopping this wouldn't really be a calamity? There would probably be huge effects for ocean currents, climate, wildlife, and all of that, but no Emmerich-type spectacular calamities. Things will just stop "sloshing" and that would be that.
I have no idea how any of this would play out. I am not a scientist.
And frankly, considering what happens in scifi and media overall for last couple of years maybe it's for the good. I don't know to whom such remake should be given so it wouldn't end as yet another streaming pulp full of cgi and poor writing done to satisfy some company's CEO wicked goals of keeping up modern corporate image.
But if anything I think, situation on Earth shouldn't receive own spin-off - simply because it would end pretty fast. This should be an integral part of the whole series; story could initially show the situation on Earth and subsequently move action permanently to the Moonbase Alpha with occasional visits back home to see how things develop.
Dunno if you're familiar with RDM's Galactica but action there jumps between Caprica and the ship for some time.
Extremely sexist and misogynistic. That sort of stuff doesn’t worry me much usually but this was hard to watch.
Some good sci-fi though.
Get past the first episode and it’s great, like a sci-fi version of The Prisoner. Very much of its time but in a good way - filmed in 1970 but set in the eighties it’s like a vision of the future (past now) that never happened but could have - something very bad clearly happened in our timeline during the seventies to result in everything being so grim when just ten years earlier we were full of optimism.
The standard outro (if memory serves) had a very atmospheric sort of ambient soundtrack that, rather than using music, instead denoted a strong measure of fear and dread and a gut feel for the vast expanses of space.
I was thinking about it yesterday, waiting for news about the IM probe. Why do they make the landers tall? Wouldn't it be better something like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program
Tangential: the background music of the video is really nice.
Whatever they build also has to fit in the launch cowling. Surveyor was tiny.
My point stands (unlike the probe, heh). If it call roll, a different shape could have helped.
Whatever they build also has to fit in the launch cowling.
Folding telescopic arms? I understand that this stuff is expensive and weight is limited, but the worst result is a failed landing.
https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/36be634b1d4e51098a75...
I just ordered the box set of the predecessor, UFO [1]. Loved it as a child; I'm curious to see how it held up.
It had the fantastic true sci fi sense of strange mystery and wonder.
The core premise of the show was clunky which takes off some immersion but the stories were good.
Something really strange happened after the first season where they changed the music and it really threw the whole thing out… it’s hard to appreciate how much the music counts in establishing atmosphere until it’s wrong, and the later music in Space 1999 was really wrong.