SF Spaceships by email1710

The Ultimate Guide to Sci-fi

ROBOTS AND

SPACESHIPS Star Wars

FEATURING

Hunks of junk FROM THE MILLENNIUM FALCON TO BB-8

REVEALED!

SCI-FIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COOLEST TECH STAR TREK WALL-E DOCTOR WHO TRANSFORMERS FROM THE MAKERS OF

AND

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS In-depth retrospectives NEW CONCEPT ART

Welcome When it comes to sci-fi there’s nothing cooler than robots and spaceships. Whether clockwork best mates or mechanical killers, hunks of junk that can barely reach escape velocity or sleek starships capable of carrying crews of hundreds on journeys across the universe; there’s something endlessly fascinating about the magnificent tin cans that populate all the greatest works of SF. Their impact on the genre cannot be understated. From Metropolis and Le Voyage Dans La Lune to Ex_Machina and Interstellar, robots and spaceships have continually opened our eyes to the future. In fact either could have easily filled a 148-page special like this on their own, which meant drawing a line at cyborgs and spacestations in order to squeeze everything in – so no Six Million Dollar Man or Deep Space Nine. And before you ask, the Terminator gets a pass for being a cyborg because he’s all robot under that meat suit he wears to blend in. As well as counting down the 50 best bots and spaceships from sci-fi history (much easier said than done) there are classic features from the SFX and Total Film vaults on the Terminator, Robby the Robot, the Eagle Transporter and the Enterprise. There are also brand new interviews with the likes of Kryten actor Robert Llewellyn and Millennium Falcon designer Roger Christian, as well as a glimpse at the hottest tech from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Plus: more spaceship porn than the average human being can handle in a single sitting, so be sure to give your eyes a break by staring at some flowery wallpaper every once in a while. Now all that’s left to do is boot up and prepare for blast off! Jordan Farley, Editor Robots and spaceships | 3

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Contents

The Ultimate Guide to Sci-fI ROBOTS AND SPACESHIPS Section 1: Robots

Top 50 Robots Interview: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) How to be a robot Flashback: Short Circuit Designing Ex_Machina’s Ava The making of WALL-E Flashback: Transformers: The Movie Interview: Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) 60 Second Screenplay: Transformers The men who made Ultron Flashback: Forbidden Planet History of the Terminator The Terminator timeline Interview: Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) First Read: Meeting Infinity Flashback: The Day The Earth Stood Still The making of Chappie Flashback: Silent Running Fannish Inquisition: Brent Spiner (Data) Flashback: Robotech Interview: Bender Robot wars Quiz 4 | Robots and spaceships

p6 p20 p22 p24 p28 p30 p34 p38 p40 p41 p42 p46 p50 p52 p54 p56 p60 p62 p66 p70 p74 p76 p77

Section 2: Spaceships

Top 50 Spaceships Interview: Roger Christian (Millennium Falcon) Flashback: A Trip To The Moon Blake’s 7: The Liberator Flashback: Fireball XL5 The evolution of the Tardis The ships of Battlestar Galactica Star Trek: USS Enterprise Under the hull of the Enterprise LEGO® Star Wars Classic Scene: 2001: A Space Odyssey Flashback: Farscape Babylon 5: Starfury Space: 1999: The Eagle Transporter Firefly: The Serenity 60 Second Screenplay: Interstellar Dark Matter: The Raza Flashback: Red Dwarf Classic Scene: Gravity Flashback: The Empire Strikes Back The machines of The Force Awakens Star Wars Battlefront Celebrating Chris Foss

p78 p92 p94 p98 p100 p104 p106 p110 p114 p116 p118 p120 p124 p126 p128 p129 p130 p132 p136 p138 p142 p144 p146

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CONTENTS

14 Editor Jordan Farley Art Editor Nicky Gotobed Production Editor Andrea Ball Contributors

Stephen Baxter, Paul Bradshaw, Luke Dormehl, Dave Golder, Kevin Harley, Steve Jarratt, Richard Jordan, Matthew Leyland, Richard Luck, Richard Matthews, Joseph McCabe, Damien McFerran, Jonathan Melville, Phil Millard, Jayne Nelson, Steve O’Brien, Oliver Pfeiffer, Nick Setchfield, James White, Josh Winning

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Robots and spaceships | 5

“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”* Isaac Asimov’s first law of robotics, Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 AD

* Clearly The Terminator never read Asimov

6 | Robots and spaceships

50 greatest robots

Robots and spaceships | 7

No cyborg zone! Squidgy stuff not allowed

The 50 Greatest Robots From mechanical killers to faithful automatons, we count down the best ever bots, androids and mechs from film, TV and videogames Words Dave Golder, Paul Bradshaw and Richard Jordan

’80s Robot

Johnny Cab

Robot

Kermit’s trusty “man”-servant and chauffeur was a welcome addition to the Muppets’ roster for their 2011 comeback. He bears an uncanny resemblance to Tomy’s early-’80s robot toy the Omnibot 2000, and also served as Rocky’s robotic butler.

In the future, taxis will be driven by sarcastic ventriloquist’s dummies. Robotic driver Johnny Cab gets a small but unforgettable scene in the original Total Recall, when a very agitated Arnie tries to use his taxi as a getaway car.

Given to Frank Langella’s ageing ex-con by his son, Robot’s programming makes him an instant bad influence. Picking locks, hiding loot and helping Frank get back to his old cat burgling ways – he’s the best bad friend anyone could ask for.

The Muppets

8 | Robots and spaceships

Total Recall

Robot And Frank

50 greatest robots

Teddy

Robot Police

A cuddly Jiminy Cricket to David’s chilly Pinocchio, Teddy (created by Stan Winston as an elaborate animatronic puppet) is a toy who refuses to believe that he’s not real. If he was, he’d be on everyone’s Christmas list.

The FX might look a bit cheap, but George Lucas’ first cinematic droids hit a lot closer to home than anything in a galaxy far, far away – their chilling chrome faces reflecting the civil rights violence of the late ’60s.

AI Artificial Intelligence

THX 1138

41 The Tachikomas

Ghost In The Shell: SAC The rollerskating Tachikomas didn’t appear in the original Ghost In The Shell film but they made an impression when they became the true stars of the spin-off series, Stand Alone Complex.

40 EVE

WALL-E

Bishop

Chappie

One of the noblest bots of the lot, Bishop puts up with Ripley’s robo-racism for an entire film before sacrificing his milky insides in order to help her escape from a bug-infested planet. He also plays that “knife-between-the-fingers” game pretty well.

Kidnapped by two Johannesburg gangsters at “birth”, big-eared Chappie becomes the adopted son in a strange family. Taught never to kill, but tempted to the dark side by his new parents he’s a bot coming of age on fast forward. Read more on p60

Aliens

Chappie

WALL-E’s soul mate (they have souls, don’t argue) may look like a roll-on underarm deodorant, but Pixar has proven it could make a sink plunger look cute and adorable. You’ll believe a robot can love.

39 Bubo

Clash Of The Titans Crafted by the gods as a present for Harry Hamlin, Bubo the stop-motion owl is one of history’s oldest robotic heroes – plated with gold, whistling like a Clanger and helping Perseus to bring down the mighty Kraken.

Metal Mickey

Ultron

Metal Mickey may well have been the counter cultural antihero of the ’70s. Not because he managed to get away with being downright rude to just about everybody but because he used to get high on Atomic Thunderbusters. Boogie boogie.

This twisted tin man made a splash on the page as one of the Avengers’ few worthy foes and proved equally compelling on the big screen – not only was he a physical match for Marvel’s mightiest he could also equal Tony Stark quip for quip. Read more on p41

Metal Mickey

Avengers: Age Of Ultron

38 IG-88

Star Wars: episode v – The Empire Strikes Back For a character who only appeared in one scene IG-88 didn’t half make an impact. Mainly because he looks so cool. And he’s a bounty hunter.

Robots and spaceships | 9

NO CYBORG ZONE!

37 Sonny I, Robot

The robot that overcame the three laws of robotics in the movie version of I, Robot, Sonny looks so suspiciously like he was designed by Apple it’s a wonder they didn’t rename the film iRobot. He was voiced and motion-captureperformed by Firefly’s Adam Tudyk.

36 Tik-Tok Return To Oz

L Frank Baum’s clockwork man first appeared in Ozma Of Oz in 1907, 14 years before Karel Capek coined the phrase “robot” in RUR. His big screen debut in 1985 was worth the wait: Tik-Tok was a glorious, steampunky creation and one of the film’s few memorable elements. 10 | Robots and spaceships

35 Starscream Transformers

The Decepticons might all be on the same side, but that doesn’t mean they can’t stab each other in the back… Starscream’s defining characteristic (aside from his irritating voice and the fact he transforms into a freakin’ SPACE JET) is his treachery; in many ways he’s the series’ most dangerous villain. Read more on p34

34 T-1000 Terminator 2

An upgraded version of the T-800, this unshakeable, shapeshifting liquid-metal assassin is played to chilling, dead-eyed perfection by Robert Patrick. Makes Arnie look like a puppy. Read more on p46

50 greatest robots

Megatron

Sentinels

Decepticon leader Megatron is driven by a desire to wipe out the Autobots. He can typically transform into a gun, tank or weapon and when upgraded becomes Galvatron. Read more on p34

These giant, blank-faced mutant-hunting robots have been making life difficult for the X-Men since 1965. In Days Of Future Past their fearsome future variants are the most formidable opponents the X-Men have ever faced.

Transformers

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

31 Mechagodzilla

SOUNDWAVE

K1 was the misunderstood metal nemesis in Tom Baker’s first story as the Doctor, “Robot”. Designer James Acheson went on to win Oscars for The Last Emperor, Dangerous Liaisons and Restoration.

Forget the rubbish satellite thing from the movies, Soundwave is one of the coolest Transformers because of his obscenely outdated alternate mode – a cassette recorder! Best of all he can eject an army of spies from his tape deck. Read more on p34

Doctor Who

Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla

What could possibly stop Godzilla when he’s angry? How about a giant robot Godzilla that spits laser beams? Created by alien Simians to fight the lizard, ’Zilla’s robo self swaps scales for space titanium and sports a nifty rotating metal head.

Transformers

The Vision

Cylons

VINCENT

Roy Thomas’ god-like synthezoid was the second Marvel character to bear the Vision moniker but has become the most enduring, with superhuman strength, agility and the ability to alter his own density. Read more on p41

Forget the skinjobs and toasters of the otherwise superior reboot, the original continuity’s disco bots are the real mechanical deal. The fact they look strikingly like Star Wars’ Stormtroopers is little surprise as they were both designed by Ralph McQuarrie.

There was more than a touch of Mickey Mouse about Vincent, the relentlessly optimistic robot hero of The Black Hole. He was also saddled with one of the clunkiest acronym’s ever devised – Vital Information Necessary CENTralized.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Battlestar Galactica (original)

The Black Hole

Robots and spaceships | 11

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Twiki

Johnny 5

“Biddi-biddi-biddi-biddi… Hiya Buck!” The most mimicable sci-fi robot ever, Twiki – voiced by Bugs Bunny’s Mel Blanc – entranced kids while mum and dad sniggered behind the cushions about how he looked like a sex toy.

His real name is Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport (SAINT) 5, but everyone calls him Johnny. Likewise, his real job is blowing stuff up for the American military, but everyone knows him as the wise-cracking, TV-quoting, prankster who spies on Ally Sheedy when she’s naked. Read more on p24

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

23 Ash Alien

At first, the Nostromo’s science officer (a spectacularly sly Ian Holm) seems like nothing more than a jerk. It’s only later that his sinister true identity is revealed. Even when he’s discovered and decapitated, he still has time to taunt the terrified survivors: “I can’t lie to you about your chances but... you have my sympathies.” 12 | Robots and spaceships

Short Circuit

22 Huey, Dewey & Louie Silent Running

The Valley Forge’s adorable, multi-talented servo-droids can weld, garden, perform surgery and play poker. They were performed by amputees Cheryl Sparks, Steven Brown and Mark Persons, who walked on their hands. Read more on p62

50 greatest robots

18 GLaDOS Portal

Here come the results. “You are a horrible person.” That’s what it says. We weren’t even testing for that… Witty, sinister and oddly loveable, GLaDOS is a big part of why Portal is now a genuine phenomenon.

ED-209

Ava

The future of law enforcement (if they iron out a few bugs), ED-209 is a heavily-armoured tank on hydraulic chicken legs with a serious attitude problem. “You have 20 seconds to comply” may be the most famous line ever uttered by a robot.

Forget the Turing test, Alex Garland’s exquisite android isn’t just capable of passing as human – she’s fully conscious. Beautifully designed, sympathetic and endlessly intriguing, if Ava is the future we’ve got a lot to look forward to. Read more on p28

RoboCop

Ex_Machina

17 Robot

Lost In Space Many people incorrectly call the robot from Lost In Space “Robby”, but in fact he never had a name. He did have a catchphrase though: “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” Usually said while waving his stunted arms.

16 Gunslinger Westworld

A cowboy-themed tourist attraction turns into a deadly killer in Michael Crichton’s techno-thriller, as Yul Brynner’s relentless, remorseless Wild West bot rampages his way through a futuristic theme park.

19 TARS

Interstellar Matthew McConaughey’s NASA sidekick might seem like a clunky block of stainless steel with an MS-DOS display, but he’s more than capable on field missions and – voiced by comedian Bill Irwin – has the banter to match.

15 Scutters Red Dwarf

The maintenance robots on Red Dwarf were as quirky as the show itself, and though they never spoke you got the feeling they were cracking jokes amongst themselves at the crew members’ expense.

Robots and spaceships | 13

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14 The Iron Giant The Iron Giant

This gentle giant just wants to be a hero and in the end he saves the world (or a small town, anyway) that tries to destroy him. If you don’t have a lump in your throat when he utters the line, “I am Superman!” then you’re the robot, mate. 14 | Robots and spaceships

13 Baymax Big Hero 6

The breakout star of Big Hero 6 is a healthcare droid with a big heart. While spending time with Hiro, he starts to pick up human traits, and after a nifty upgrade even becomes a superhero. As a big softie (literally) he’s also one of the few bots you’d want to hug.

50 greatest robots

False Maria

Gort

The template for all humanoid movie bots since, this evil doppelganger of the sweet-natured Maria was created by mad scientist Rotwang to foment rebellion among the working class. Her statue still stands proud outside Berlin’s Babelsberg Studios.

The silent robot sidekick to Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still, Gort spends most of the film standing motionless in front of Klaatu’s spaceship, but when he’s called to action he can make tanks evaporate with a single glance. Impressive stuff. Read more on p56

Metropolis

(1951 original)

The Day The Earth Stood Still

10 Robby The Robot Forbidden Planet

Robby is a true robot superstar with an IMDb list of entries some film actors would envy. He looks the business, like an old wood-burning stove, and has a wicked wit. When Leslie Nielsen’s Commander Adams notes the planet’s high oxygen content, Robby retorts: “I seldom use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.” Read more on p42

09 Optimus Prime Transformers

Far and away the most popular Transformer, Optimus Prime is a genuine robo-icon. Unwaveringly noble, a formidable warrior and possessing the ability to transform into one damn cool truck, Optimus is a symbol for everything good. Read more on p38 Robots and spaceships | 15

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06 Data

Star Trek: The Next Generation An integral part of the Starship Enterprise crew throughout The Next Generation (and four movies), Lieutenant Commander Data’s continuing quest to become more human drives many of the franchise’s funniest and most moving beats. Read more on p66

08 Kryten Red Dwarf

04 WALL-E WALL-E

Left all alone on a deserted Earth, Wall-E has bucketloads of lo-tech charm and is one of Pixar’s most heart-tuggingly human creations. Just look at his fire extinguisher-propelled space dance with EVE – three minutes of cinematic loveliness. Read more on p30

Red Dwarf’s pathologically-loyal, houseworkobsessed droid with a head like a novelty condom (insult ©Arnold Judas Rimmer), Kryten 2X4B-523P has been played with unrestrained gusto by Robert Llewellyn since series three. Read more on p52

03 K9

Doctor Who

Marvin The Paranoid Android

(TV SHOW)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

The TV Marvin tops his film counterpart because we got even more of Marvin’s marvellously self-pitying quips. He also looks great, like an ’80s toy robot who’s hating every moment a child sticks a Smartie up his nose. 16 | Robots and spaceships

05 Bender Futurama

Futurama’s gloriously un-PC mech with a shiny metal ass is the acerbic secret weapon in Matt Groening’s future-set animation. Well, not that secret really, he likes to announce his arrival to cries of “Bender’s the greatest”, swiftly followed by an inflammatory belch whenever possible. Read more on p74

Ah, K-9, the robot mutt that gave countless Doctor Who actors bad knees as they had to endlessly crouch to talk with him. He was massively popular with the audience – a smart aleck tin dog with a laser in his nose, how could he not be a hit in the post-Star Wars, robot-loving world? But he was a pain to write, and his remote control system was notoriously wiggy. So, having been introduced into the show in 1977, he was written out in 1981 accompanied by a public outcry. He reappeared several times over the years, most notably in the revived Doctor Who for a few adventures with the Tenth Doctor, before undergoing a bizarre regeneration and turning into a flying creation for Australian TV. But he’s still a smart aleck.

50 greatest robots

“Lose the fleshy dead weight and he’s just as effective a killing machine”

02 The T-800 The Terminator

Though generally considered a cyborg we’re including Arnie’s T-800 on this list because the organic skin wrapped around his shiny exoskeleton is far from essential for the machine to function. Lose the fleshy dead weight (as the T-800 memorably does at the end of The Terminator) and he’s just as effective a killing machine. The Terminator plays smartly to Arnie’s limited range, giving him the forward momentum of Halloween’s Michael Myers and the pure purpose of Ridley Scott’s alien, while the exoskeleton itself is one of the ’80’s seminal images – pure metal terror. The increasingly duff films post-T2 have left him more comedy sidekick than sci-fi icon, but the bot who can’t be bargained with will always have a place among the all-time great machines. Read more on p46 Robots and spaceships | 17

NO CYBORG ZONE!

BEST BITS 01

R2-D2 and C-3PO

Space Chess “I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, Artoo: let the Wookiee win.” Threepio proves he’s got his robotic life partner’s best interests at heart during a game of holochess with an increasingly irate Chewbacca. We’re sure a little bit of self-preservation came into it too.

STAR WARS

Is it a cop out giving two robots the top spot? Not when they form two halves of the greatest double act in sci-fi history. And just like Laurel & Hardy or Wallace & Gromit or Richard & Judy there’s an annoying one and a cool one – we don’t need to tell you which is which. George Lucas’s incessantly whittering golden protocol droid was of course the straight man in a comedy act where the punchlines came in whistles and bleeps. With a look partly inspired by Metropolis’s Maria, C-3PO was designed by concept artist Ralph McQuarrie and production designer Norman Reynolds. The sculpt was by Liz Moore but finished by Vader sculptor Brian Muir who took over from Moore when she left the project in early 1976. Moore sadly died before C-3PO was actually built, but her R2 wishes he’d just shut up.

18 | Robots and spaceships

influence over the design remains. He’s fluent in more than six million forms of communication and helped to defeat the Empire, but C-3PO is probably the most comically annoying robot in the galaxy – moaning, whining and wimping out of everything from Ewok attacks to games of chess. But while C-3PO whinges his way through the galaxy, his plucky little life-partner bleeps in the face of danger – trundling into every setpiece since Episode I and emerging as the real hero every time. Essentially a dustbin on wheels, his accessories include a buzzsaw (for cutting Ewok nets), a cattle prod (for annoying Threepio) and a drinks tray (for moonlighting on Jabba’s sail barge). The prequels also retro-fitted Artoo with a handy set of flying boosters that help him do a lot more than act like the comic relief he was initially intended to be. Originally based on one half of the two comedy sidekicks in Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (a favourite of creator George Lucas) and gamely played by Kenny Baker since 1977, he’s one of only two characters set to star in Episode VII that will have appeared in every Star Wars to date. The other, of course, is C-3PO, but when the Sith hits the fan, everyone knows who’s going to end up saving the galaxy (again). Read more… on the next page!

02 R2 Fixes the Hyperdrive We reckon it’s Threepio’s incessant nagging that spurs Artoo on to greatness. “You don’t know how to fix the hyperdrive. Chewbacca can do it! I’m standing here in pieces, and you’re having delusions of grandeur!” Wouldn’t you want to prove the gold twit wrong too?

03 Top Of The Bots On Endor C-3PO ascends to the status of a god in the eyes of the cuddly Ewoks. You can practically feel R2’s robo-eye rolling into the back of his head. “I’m rather embarrassed, General Solo, but it appears that you are to be the main course at a banquet in my honour.”

50 greatest robots

“There’s an annoying one and a cool one – We don’t need to tell you which is which”

Anthony Daniels

Interface

Going For Gold As C-3PO he’s fluent in six million forms of communication, but if it weren’t for Star Wars Anthony Daniels could have been selling ladies’ shoes Words Nick Setchfield and Steve O’Brien

nless the Force ghosts of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi put in an unexpected appearance during The Force Awakens, come 17 December only two characters will have appeared in every Star Wars movie – and they’re both robots. Anthony Daniels was 30 when he first donned the Metropolis-inspired gold suit and adopted the strangulated Wodehouse vowels of C-3PO. Now 69, he’s doing it all again in the first chapter of a new trilogy. In this classic interview we probe Star Wars’ best-known protocol droid about life in a galaxy far, far away. What made you decide to take the role? It was a painting. I saw a painting on the wall by Ralph McQuarrie, who did all the concept art for the movie. It was a painting of this character, C-3PO, a little metal box – that was Artoo – and the desert. I went up to the painting and he looked out at me and down to my soul. It was a remarkable experience and it’s never happened before or since. I look at the painting now, and I try to see into his soul, but these days it’s a bit like looking at a photograph of yourself.

Can you remember the first time you wore the costume? It was the very first day, out in the desert. I thought there were going to be Hollywood Ensuring interplanetary etiquette is thirsty work.

trailers, and there was a tent, like a boy scout tent. I stood there and put on my underclothes and then I had six people attack me with various bits of the costume. Two hours later – two hours to put that costume on the first day – I was in pain. Already I didn’t want the job. Too late! But then somebody switched on the light and C-3PO’s eyes lit up, and then they pulled back the curtains of the tent and I stepped forward into the rising sun. The sun was just coming up over the dunes. We started very early, and the sun just hit my costume – and of course everyone just stopped work and gazed. And the American crew just said “Wow! That’s incredible!” And the British went, “It’s really quite good, isn’t it?” And the Tunisians just fell to their knees and worshipped. It was his greatest moment! Tunisia can’t have seen too many droids before... I was out in the sand dunes. The cameras were about a mile away and Artoo was being pulled along by someone with a wire. I was all alone. I’m looking around and I look at this dune and there, very close to me, is a Tunisian desert person. A real one, not someone George had made up. Face like a million old leather handbags all sewn together. He was looking at me in this strange way. Remember that scene in ET where the little girl opens the closet, and she screams, and ET screams right back? It was exactly the same. We both went “Arghhhhhh!” I looked at the camera and then looked back and he’d gone, absolutely melted back into the sands. He’s in some village now, saying, “And then there was the day I saw the golden god...” How does it feel to be half of one of cinema’s true great double-acts? It was a double-act, but the problem for me was that the other half wasn’t there. Physically it was there, but I might as well have been acting with a chair. I explained to George that it was difficult talking to myself because I had whole scenes where it would only say, “Artoo beeps a reply.” And I thought that the beeps would be there

20 | Robots and spaceships

when I was performing, but they weren’t. I said, “Look, George, when it says ‘beep’, could you go ‘beep’?” And he said, “Sure.” So we did the scene. I said, “Where are you going, Artoo?” And there was this long, long pause. And then George said, from way behind the camera, “Erm… uh… ah… oh… Beep.” From that moment on I did it all by myself. Is it hard to get back into the character? Not at all. I’ve lived with him for so long in so many different ways, whether it’s commercials or electronic books or toys, he’s stayed with me. Usually people don’t get to play a younger version of their character, especially not 30 years later. Did you play him differently in the prequels? His voice was a bit lighter mainly because he was new and new machines mostly work better than old ones. Sometimes… Although come to think of it I did fall out of Padme’s sitting room window. I tripped over a step and went headlong and for the first time I did damage to myself. Ouch. Was it bad? Just a little bruising. But it’s a nasty costume with edges that can seriously cut into you. Where would you have been without Star Wars? I don’t know. It was a road I took – a road that has given me some very hard times. It’s also a road that has allowed me to maintain a loyal friendship with a character I love. I always think that if I hadn’t taken that role, I probably would have been a ladies’ shoe salesman. Is there anything left to discover about Star Wars? Watch the moment where Threepio is in the oil bath. Mark Hamill has taken the towel and plonked it in my hand and I’m gripping it really hard. And as we are talking I’m drying myself, and because I can’t really see down there, there’s a certain physical non-attachment. Look carefully – I’m very gently rubbing my crotch all through the scene!

BIODATA Name: Anthony Daniels AGE: 69 From: Salisbury, England Anthony Daniels spent a CV: number of years performing at the Young Vic theatre, voiced Legolas in Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings and had a recurring role in Prime Suspect, but it’s C-3PO with which the actor will always be associated. He’s played the golden protocol droid in every Star Wars movie (including The Clone Wars pilot, which was released theatrically), has voiced the character in everything from theme park ride Star Tours to The Lego Movie and is stepping back into the suit (complete with a nifty new red arm) in this December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

“I went up to the painting and he looked out at me and down to my soul”

synth sense

Do The Robot Humans choreographer Dan O’Neill reveals how to be a synth in six easy steps Words jordan farley

hether impersonating the Terminator or failing to impress on the dance floor, at some point everyone has tried to be a robot. And probably failed. Horribly. Which begs the question: with androids that can convincingly pass for humans still not a reality (boo!) how did Channel 4’s top robodrama Humans get such uncanny performances out of its cast? The man responsible for turning Humans’ fleshy homosapiens into superior synths was choreographer Dan O’Neill, who put every robotic cast member, however small their role, through synth school. So pen and paper at the ready, Synths 101 is about to begin.

Kids’ book number 7 recorded and stored.

1. Be Efficient

“The most important thing was the economy of movement, the idea that the synths had a battery life. It was about being economic all the time with the choices and movements they make. The other thing was they don’t have, or don’t express, a personality through movement. They don’t scratch their noses or cross their legs or twitch or fiddle or bite their nails, they aren’t doing those things because they want to save energy, but also they don’t have those personality traits.”

2. Eyes First

“The eyes were key. Any movement leads with the eyes, like a nanosecond before, because most of us turn our faces and look at an object almost with our noses and our faces, then we focus. And we thought, ‘Well they’re a camera’, so the eyes lead every kind of action and then the head and body follow almost simultaneously. They blink, but as a screen sensor, or cleaner, and if they didn’t blink they’d be very unnerving to have around. Also for the actors it’s just not playable to do a long scene and never be expected to blink. For eye contact... it sounds really pretentious, we used the principle of the third eye, so the eyeline is slightly dropped. You’re looking like a ninja or a boxer would. Most of us look down our noses a little, but not intentionally. Eye contact is also very steady and very centred and it doesn’t have an opinion, or reflect back any necessary empathy, it’s just trying to understand.”

3. Sit Up Straight

Blink first and you lose.

22 | Robots and spaceships

“The synths are supposed to be a desirable technology, so we tried to make their bodies as symmetrical as possible and looked at martial arts techniques. I trained as a dancer, so all the things you learn about standing with your shoulders over your hips and your knees over

your ankles – we looked at that alignment of the body. After doing that for six hours everyone had these fantastic abdominal muscles, because you’re actually using your core. The other thing was we didn’t want them to be laborious or slow. They had to move at the tempo we exist at because if they run they use up more battery, and if they’re slow you’d just think, ‘Oh I’ll do the washing up.’ We tried to make them present, and not to have them switch off when they were standing around, but actually to be like a refrigerator humming away waiting for an instruction.”

4. Walk The Walk

“When we walk we move with our heads and shoulders, we’re stumbling forward using our body weight, and that’s why we trip over things. Sprinters are very low, they use their body weight to get speed. We thought we’d do something else. The synths actually walk in one piece, they take everything with them and don’t trail anything behind. They run that way as well. We nicked Michael Jordan’s running style because he seemed to run in one piece.”

5. Be Observant

“Everything the synths see and do is recorded and stored – what would that be like? We did

humans

Focused Fred makes like a ninja.

lots of memory games, walking around an unknown space and then asked how many bins were there, what colour the statue was, and tried to get the actors to be very aware of their environment. It was fascinating doing something that was so detailed and on a very small scale physically, but it was very rigorous.”

6. No Distractions

“When you’re a robot everything’s an instruction, so every decision to move has been planned. This is key – really thinking about them being computers, and thinking that they have to be instructed before taking action. I used to task people after workshops to go home while trying to be a synthetic, and saying, ‘When you get off the train, just think all I have to do is swipe my oyster card. Don’t think about anything else, don’t take in the environment. Avoid collisions, but just swipe.’ And everyone reported back that it was very odd. People started noticing them, like ‘Why isn’t that person bumbling about or looking one way and going the other? Why are you just passing through the space like this?’ You can play being a synth, it’s a really good way to do something if you’re in a hurry.” Humans: Series 1 is available to own on DVD now.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS Gemma Chan, Anita

“Playing a synth is a very challenging, physical job. You can’t take anything for granted. I had to learn to be ambidextrous, we weren’t allowed to blink too much and you couldn’t breathe too much either. Usually as an actor everything is connected to your breath, anything emotional can be connected, but this works the opposite way. You can’t cry. You can’t use your breath in that way.”

Everybody loves a comedy robot, and one â&#x20AC;&#x2122;80s model in particular delighted audiences Words Jonathan Melville 24 | Robots and spaceships

short circuit Brent Maddock, Steve Wilson and producer David Foster on the day the opening scene was shot.

he thing that always got me about robots in movies is that they’re always alive. Forbidden Planet’s Robby the Robot seems to have an attitude with a sense of humour. C-3PO and R2-D2 are obviously alive and nobody ever questions it.” Less than five minutes into our interview about his 1986 SF comedy Short Circuit and veteran screenwriter Steve “SS” Wilson is threatening to get all existential. Released into cinemas almost 30 years ago, Short Circuit still hangs heavy over popular culture. Some easily quotable catchphrases and visual references in films such as 2008’s WALL-E have ensured that a certain anthropomorphised robot going by the name of Number 5 remains a favourite with fans. “I got my start as an animator on educational films and one of them featured a stop-motion robot,” says Wilson, recalling the film’s genesis. “My partner and I, Brent Maddock, had written spec scripts but couldn’t get anyone to read anything. Because the robot film had worked so well we thought ‘let’s do one about a robot’.” All Wilson and Maddock had to do was come up with an explanation for the creation of a hi-tech robot. Luckily ’80s screenwriters were blessed with a ready-made enemy in the shape of Russia, with the US military pouring millions of tax dollars into research projects designed to stave off the Red Menace. “We fell back into the old gag of lightning bringing him to life, and the rest of the script grew from that concept.” Keen to hone his skills, Maddock enrolled in a screenwriting workshop at UCLA and continued to develop Short Circuit. In a twist of fate worthy of a Hollywood movie, one of his classmates was a friend of Gary Foster, the son of independent film producer David Foster. The friend gave the script to Gary Foster, who gave it to his dad. Thanks to the popularity of robots in toy stores the previous Christmas,

Foster was looking to jump on the bandwagon with his next film.

Chance to shine

For Wilson and Maddock, this was the big break they’d been waiting for. “It was on the front cover of Variety, ‘Two film students sell film script’, and we were launched into the limelight. David Foster set about looking for buyers and there was a bidding war. A couple of directors were also interested, including one big-time name who wanted to have a kid in it. We flipped out and said no, at the same time thinking ‘Are we out of our minds?’” Eventually, the script found its way into the hands of English-born director John Badham, who had graduated from episodic TV to recent techno-thrillers Blue Thunder and WarGames. “The thing I responded to was Number 5,” says Badham. “I thought ‘here’s a real character we’ve never seen before because of the way he

“Released into cinemas almost 30 years ago, Short Circuit still hangs heavy over popular culture” was created, yet there’s incredible humour and feelings’. That was what made me think this would be a huge movie.” Though the original script had humorous elements, its transition to the big screen wasn’t a painless one. “We were somewhat disappointed by the level of silliness that John [Badham] put in the movie,” admits Wilson. “In our minds Number 5 is the lead. Hollywood refused to look at it that way and it was very Robots and spaceships | 25

FLASHBACK

(No) Toy Story

In 2015, a new science fiction film is almost guaranteed to come with an array of console games, action figures and a fast food meal deal. In 1986 it was a very different story… “I’ve never understood what happened there,” says Steve Wilson of the lack of Number 5 merchandise. When they said this was a big hit and they wanted a sequel, we asked, ‘Will there be toys?’ “They said they had a deal with a big toy company and when Short Circuit 2 came out there’d be many Number 5s. Because the production company went bankrupt, nothing ever happened.” “It was a tremendous mismanagement by the studios at that time,” reckons John Badham. “They didn’t see the potential and merchandising was hugely overlooked. I know how much kids loved Johnny Five and responded to him and there was no taking advantage of that.” “There was a point when some marketing department did a study, and I was in the meeting,” adds Wilson. “They said, ‘You need to do a toy because with kids between age X and age Y, Number 5 is the most recognisable character behind Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.’ Still no toy!”

Ally Sheedy disobeying the rule never to work with robots.

26 | Robots and spaceships

important to them to cast a star with the reputation of Steve Guttenberg.” “It definitely was a very funny script and there was no way around it that the situation was very silly,” retorts Badham. “Guttenberg brings a lightness to a lot of his work. We could believe him as a scientist serious about his robotics but he’d get so wrapped up in the reality of the fantasy that he’d be destroyed when the robot died.” “Steve is perfectly fine,” says Wilson. “The Austin Pendleton character is broad; Ally Sheedy is out there in her own universe; Number 5 is a slapstick character; and Ben is scene-stealing right and left. Guttenberg is actually the everyman centre of the movie.” Mention of Ben brings us to Short Circuit’s most infamous character, Indian scientist Ben Jabituya, as played by the distinctly non-Indian actor, Fisher Stevens. “The irony of ironies is that the character we get no end of credit for is Ben, who is not in the original script as an Indian character,” sighs Wilson. According to Badham, numerous white actors were auditioned for the role of Ben, but none of them worked. “I realised it’s not the

short circuit Director John Badham prepares for a scene.

Three of the biggest stars of 1986…

One of the movie’s creators’ original drawings of Number 5.

actors, it’s the character. I took inspiration from Beverly Hills Cop, Bronson Pinchot’s Serge, another personality who had a different take on America. I talked to Fisher and said, ‘What if he was Indian?’ “I received a message from the producers saying, ‘Please don’t do this’ and there was a lot of worry that we were ruining the character. The minute we saw dailies we realised we were adding humour and different possibilities.” Was the race issue a problem in ’80s Hollywood? “If it had been an American Indian, yes. ‘India’ Indians were still far enough off the radar,” Wilson says. “It did come up in a lot of discussions about the remake, which may never be made, and the decision was made not to have Ben in it at all.” Of course the star of the piece is Number 5. “It had to look practical and like it had been developed for the military,” says Badham of the robot’s design. “I put my production designer and effects guy in a room along with a futurist called Syd Mead [a veteran of Blade Runner] and locked them in there for three days.” How much of Tim Blaney’s performance is in the script? “It was all there,” says Wilson. “All the things Number 5 is watching is there. Blaney was just the puppeteer. The first time we heard Tim Blaney do Number 5’s babyish voice we didn’t like it and John loved it.” “One thing we learned was that because there wasn’t a problem synchronising Number 5’s mouth we could stick in as many jokes as we could come up with,” notes the director. “We previewed the movie to so-so results; the more jokes we added the more the audience liked it.”

“Brent in particular was furiously writing one-liners,” says Wilson. “One of the most famous lines, ‘Hey laser lips, your momma was a snowblower’, went in just a few weeks before the movie was finished.” Has Wilson spotted the WALL-E comparison himself? “The WALL-E people insist they never thought or even knew about Short Circuit, maybe that’s true...” The writers may not have been ecstatic about the script changes, but the film’s box office success softened the blow. “Most of the reviews, and I’m reading them from my perspective, corroborated our snooty attitude that it’s a bit silly but good for the kiddies,” Wilson says. “But it was number one for two weeks in a row.”

a numbers game

While sequels to hit movies are almost inevitable in Hollywood today, it was a different story in the 1980s. “Our agent said, ‘Guys, nobody does this – sequels are for hacks’. But we loved Number 5. We knew the overall arc: people accepted he was alive so let’s go all the way and make him a citizen.” This time around, John Badham found himself replaced by Kenneth Johnson (V, The Incredible Hulk). “I was finishing up Stakeout when David Foster said, ‘We’re ready for Short Circuit 2,’ and I said I needed four more weeks to finish it. They had to meet a certain release date and I thought I’d better stay and protect this baby, so I sadly had to pass on it.” “The sequel didn’t come together seamlessly,” recalls Wilson. “The first cut was over two hours – too long for a fun, rompy, film.”

While Number 5 may have renamed himself Johnny Five at the close of Short Circuit, the character of Ben returned with a surname change, from Jabituya to Jahveri. “We were told Ben is hysterical and he and Johnny Five will be in the movie. The name change was a mandate from the studio. It was too broad and by then people were cringing at the idea of the character.” Though a third film never materialised, it seems that there could still be life in the franchise. “A few years ago we developed a sequel idea and Dimension were interested. They said, ‘We don’t want to do a sequel, we want to do a reboot. And it has to have a kid in it’. Here we were back at square one after 30 years! We said it wasn’t a good idea but were told, ‘We don’t care what you think, if you want to write it put a kid in it.’ So we did and they didn’t like it. “We thought we could come up with a more adult version – play the scientist and security guys straight. There’s a robot that’s gone nuts and it’s going to kill innocent people and they’re doing everything they can to destroy it.” What are Wilson’s thoughts on Short Circuit’s legacy? “I’m always grateful for it. I got a long ride out of it, got to do a lot of things and met a lot of wonderful people. The two Short Circuits, the first in particular, have entered the public consciousness in a mini way. “The other day I was looking at a website about jailbreaking phones and it said, ‘Android completely jailbroken, device screams “No disassemble!”’ And I thought there it is, I’ve made my mark!” Robots and spaceships | 27

building beauty

She, Robot Ex_Machina’s sentient machine is one of the most striking big screen bots in years. New book Ava Evolved chronicles her creation

lex Garland’s Ex_Machina features one of the best-realised robots in recent memory. A mixture of top notch special effects and a remarkable performance from actress Alicia Vikander, Ava is unlike any other big screen machine. When it came to her look one of the key challenges was not retreading old ground. “What we discovered really fast is how it doesn’t take much to attach a robot design to pre-existing robots,” Garland explains. “If you make a robot gold coloured, they are basically C-3PO. White plastic makes you think of the Chris Cunningham Bjork video, or I, Robot. And certain kinds of

mechanical structures in a female form make you think of Metropolis. So we had to go through quite a lot of stuff to get to where we got, because otherwise your first impression of her would be to think of a different movie.” Garland worked with comic artist Jock on Ava’s design, iterating on dozens of concepts and ideas. Lavish new portfolio book Ava Evolved details this creative process from “She-3PO” to Ava’s half see-through final look. Ava Evolved, a 60-page, loose-leafed, A3 scale portfolio book is limited to just 500 copies. It costs £50 and is available from 2000 AD at http://bit.ly/AvaEvolved

“Before Ava had all her internal workings she had a much simpler look. We were focusing on the spine – with the idea that it might act almost like a cobra’s body, bending and suspending the upper body in a graceful way,” says Jock.

“We went through so many versions in the early stages of designing Ava, and she got progressively more robotic as we went along,” says Jock. “To present something as entirely mechanical and see how the audience feels about her – that’s a really interesting question, and it’s at the heart of the film.”

28 | Robots and spaceships

ex_machina

“The real breakthrough was the concept of a mesh covering Ava’s body. It meant we could show a very robotic figure, but as she turned the light would catch the mesh and you’d see a glimpse of a beautiful female figure,” Jock says.

making of

WALL-E

How We Made

Pixar genius Andrew Stanton reveals what inspired him to create the loveable trash compactor Words james white

30 | Robots and spaceships

wall-e

Robots and spaceships | 31

making of Just peel the stickers off. Worked for us.

omance, action, adventure and… robots. Small. Cute. Robots. Who communicate solely in beeps. With its imagination and pure visual storytelling, Pixar pushed boundaries once again in Wall-E, heading to the future, 700 years after humanity has ditched its polluted planet, leaving a single Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class to clean up. But as the movie’s writer/director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) reveals, there was love among the litter…

The Spark Of WALL-E

“WALL-E began life as something that Pete Doctor [director of Monsters, Inc.] and I were throwing around at a lunch in 1995 with John Lasseter and Joe Ranft [Pixar’s late, great story guru]. This amazing little robot character idea dropped into our laps and we wanted to do something with it. It was one of the first characters we knew people could get invested in for a whole film. Pete took it and developed it for a couple of months, but he was having real trouble coming up with an idea. We figured it should be a love story, but he wasn’t sure what that should be. Also, we’d had the idea that WALL-E should communicate using just machine sounds, with almost no spoken dialogue. You’ve got to remember that, at the time, Toy Story hadn’t even come out and we knew that no one would give us the money to make a film like that! It was a real 32 | Robots and spaceships

challenge. Eventually Pete went off to work on what became Monsters, Inc. and WALL-E sat on the shelf for a long time.”

Gearing Up

“In the middle of 2002 I was hard at work on Finding Nemo and fighting my way through some really tough rewrites. As any writer likes to do when there’s a deadline, I was procrastinating as much as possible. I begged for some office time alone and started throwing pencils into the ceiling. The idea of WALL-E sort of popped back into my brain, and – after checking with Pete to see if it would be okay to take the character – I started writing. I’m a huge soundtrack fan and my computer was full of Jerry Goldsmith’s themes for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (not that

I’m endorsing that movie, you understand!) and John Williams’ Star Wars work. I got inspired by the music and ended up writing the whole first act in treatment form. I kept the idea that his dialogue should be based on movement and electronic sounds because a character that emotes through movement is an animator’s wet dream. Once Nemo was finished, I figured that the Pixar name would give us a little leeway with that aspect and jumped into the film with both feet.”

Sound Advice

“Obviously if you’re going to create a character who never ‘talks’ (though I’d argue the movie is filled with ‘dialogue’), except for electronic sounds, you need an expert. We reached out to

wall-e

Ben Burtt [the famed Star Wars sound designer who is responsible for R2-D2’s voice and the lightsaber burr, among many other elements], because he’s the best. Fortunately for us, there’s a lot of crossover between our team and Lucasfilm, so it was like a reunion for him. I pitched him the concept and showed him all the artwork and basic computer tests we had to date. And my big sell was, ‘How’d you like to be 80 per cent of my cast?’ He got intrigued and now every sound WALL-E makes is Ben, whether it has a vocal inflection or not. It’s all created by his hands or his mouth.”

“I never intended to make a broad statement about the environment… We just figured we had a lovely story” A Design For Life

“People always ask us what the next innovation is for the new movie, but in truth, we really don’t start out aiming to make any sort of leap. It always tends to happen by necessity. On WALL-E I wanted to change how the movie looked. Obviously, we could do robots and rubbish well enough, but I never liked how our footage looked when we compared it to 70mm movies shot in the real world. We weren’t aiming for photorealism, but I wanted the depth of focus and shallow lenses to look right. The technical guys were convinced they had their calculations right, so we set up a shoot late one night in the Pixar campus atrium and put a grid on the floor. We then used a proper camera to film foam models of WALL-E and EVE [his robot love interest] moving around. With the grid, we were able to map the footage onto a virtual room and prove it could look different. There were some hurt egos, as if we’d told them they had folded a map wrong, but once they saw what could be done, they embraced it.”

Man Vs Machine

“The human characters in Ratatouille are more complex than in this movie. We found a way to make the real-world footage [of the musical Hello

Nuts And NEW Bolts EVE was regretting taking on the Christmas tree.

Dolly! and of Fred Willard as the president of mega corporation Buy n Large] incorporate smoothly into the animated film thanks to some hybrid production design. The rest of the human characters are what our race has evolved into, basically human blobs – living couch potatoes.”

An Inconvenient Truth

Forget ET and Short Circuit. Andrew Stanton confirms the real WALL-E influences…

LUXO “It’s a challenge to make an object a character because you think of the object first. But Luxo proved it could be done. I just needed something that could show a little more emotion than a lamp!”

BINOCULARS

“I never actually went into WALL-E with the intent of making a broad statement about the environment or how we treat this planet. The fact that Earth is empty aside from those piles of litter is really just the best setting for a robot who, after all, is designed to pick it up and process it. We just figured we’d found a really lovely story about a character who is completely alone and how he deals with that. It evolved over time, because we realised that Wall-E, in his own way, ends up showing the humans of his time a little of their lost humanity – but that’s without us explicitly telling you what we’re doing. We simply loved the contradiction: it’s a little robot obsessed with a musical, who falls in love with another machine, who makes us think about what it means to be human.”

“I was using a pair of binoculars at a baseball game in 2002. I missed half of an innings because I started studying them. I turned them towards me and realised it could be a face. I ended up buying them from my friend and bringing them to work!”

Heart beeps

CHARLIE CHAPLIN/ WOODY ALLEN

“I love the character of WALL-E universally throughout the movie, because every time I see a successfully finished shot of the little guy, it’s like watching your child graduate from school. But if I have to pick a favourite moment, I’ve got to go with the first scene in which WALL-E and EVE really start to connect. I defy you not to be grinning when you watch that particular moment and, while I hope we’ve got a lot of moments like that in the movie, that was the point when I really thought we nailed it completely. Under everything else that’s going on, WALL-E really is a simple love story. It’s the story of this simple, boxy tractor that falls in love with a Porsche.”

DISNEYLAND’S STAR TOURS ROBOT “Before you get on the ride at Star Tours in California, there’s a little robot guy who also has a binocular head. I think it’s a bird from one of the other attractions with the feathers removed. I always remember it looked cool.”

“These two great comedy performers definitely helped define how WALL-E moves and acts. He’s a bumbling physical type like Chaplin and a hopeless romantic, like Woody…”

R2-D2 “There’s a moment in Star Wars that is just R2 and the Jawas interacting, with no human dialogue and you understand perfectly what’s going on. I wanted to draw from that.”

Robots and spaceships | 33

Transformers: The Movie Those robots in disguise continue to dominate at the box office but they made their first big screen appearance almost 30 years ago... Words luke dormehl

TRANSFORMERS

“it’s surprisingly dark in some respects, regardless of the colourful animation and distinctly ’80s rock soundtrack”

ROLL OUT

Galvatron revealed himself to be a huge Pokémon fan.

Story elements we never saw

ontrary to popular perception Transformers started life not as two duelling factions on the technologically advanced planet of Cybertron, but as two separate toy lines produced by rival Japanese companies under the monikers “Car-Robots” and “MicroChange”. The names may have been distinctly uninspired, but the transforming toys themselves were impressively high concept. Hasbro – an American brand which started life as a New Jersey textiles company making pencil cases and school supplies – saw the potential immediately, bought the rights to both toy lines and made the decision to merge them for audiences outside of Japan, adding some shonky pop mythology about covert warring robot factions to explain away the gimmick. The first wave of crossover

Transformers: The Movie has dedicated fans and one such group pooled their resources at the end of 2010 to purchase a series of documents from screenwriter Ron Friedman. The most anticipated among them was an early draft of the script, dated 27/4/1985. Among the other (never happened, but cool to consider) revelations from the draft are the inclusion of more graphic character deaths (“[an] arm, leg, torso of Windcharger [rains] down”), a galaxy-sized version of Unicron, and the appearance of sparks (the life force of a Transformer) a decade before they appeared in Beast Wars.

merchandising was done with Marvel Comics (no less than seminal Batman writer/editor Dennis O’Neil came up with the name “Optimus Prime”), but Hasbro was acutely aware that the best way to hook youngsters was through a televised cartoon series. One obstacle that stood in their way was a killjoy protestation from the bodies that governed television which barred too much product placement and promotional content from appearing in children’s TV. Fortunately for Hasbro these voices were becoming increasingly faint as the ’70s gave way to the ’80s, and the advent of nationalised cable television behemoths such as MTV tore down the regional, locally controlled television stations. Children’s programming had always been sponsored (as far back as the 1930s, at the height of the then-thriving children’s radio business, 50% of programmes were sponsored by breakfast cereals, while another 40% by

miscellaneous children’s products) but it was the bald-faced blatancy of splitting production costs between TV producers and toy manufacturers that changed children’s television forever – and made the programming itself indistinguishable from the commercials surrounding it. The animated series of Transformers successfully debuted on US television on 17 September 1984 (arriving here early the following year), and quickly became a colossal hit, driving up toy sales exponentially. Close to two years later – bang in the middle of the show’s 1984-1988 original run – Hasbro executives, counting their piles of money, figured that the franchise was popular enough to sustain a feature length film. They didn’t faff around when it came to picking a director. Instead they went straight to Nelson Shin, one of Korea’s most successful animators and the overlord who had worked as Robots and spaceships | 35

FLASHBACK

Transformers’ supervising producer since the show started. “I had made test films with some of the Marvel comic properties and the company approached me for the Transformers TV series production,” Shin says. An incredibly modest man given his tremendous career, Shin had already had his fair share of involvement when it came to memorably bringing sci-fi to the big screen; he was the man responsible for creating the lightsaber effects for the first Star Wars. The budget for the Transformers film was set at $6 million: low for a major animated movie at the time, but astronomical in comparison to the animated series – where 90 minutes cost less than $1 million. If the film was six times as expensive as the TV series to make, however, then it had to look at least 10 times better, thus ensuring that Hasbro got their money’s worth. Computer graphics were starting to become more widely used in animation (the year Transformers: The Movie was released a small upstart company called Pixar, comprising of just 45 individuals, received a cash injection of $5 million from a fellow by the name of Steve Jobs) but Transformers: The Movie, like the 36 | Robots and spaceships

cartoon, called for traditional 2D animation. Since it took a team of close to 100 people three months to draw one episode of the television show from start to finish, the workload for the film – complete with its superior animation – was just one of the hurdles Shin and his team faced: “Time constraints and the sheer amount of work needed were the two biggest challenges, since everything had to be hand drawn by people!”

“SHARKTICONS, EXECUTE THEM!”

Given that, from the Hasbro suits’ perspective, the main purpose for a Transformers film was to sell more toys, the picture would, of course, require new characters – as well as the dispatching of old ones, who executives felt would, by now, already be owned by every child around the world whose parents were willing to buy them. Exit Optimus Prime (in a death sequence which, in a testament to the artistry of those involved, is surprisingly moving) and enter Unicron, a planet-eating monster that would

have had Galactus running for cover. What happened to these characters was largely out of Shin’s hands; the decision of scriptwriters answerable to the higher-ups at Hasbro. “They created the story using characters that could best be merchandised for the movie,” says Shin. “Only with that consideration could I have freedom to change the storyline. What I tried to focus on was animation-ising the story. For example, when Optimus Prime died, I changed his colour from red and blue into grey in order to show the spirit was gone from his body.” On television it was fine to fill these new characters’ parts with the same voice actors who, on another day of the week, may well be voicing characters on The Chipmunks or The Muppet Babies (as Peter Cullen, voice of Optimus Prime, did), or bringing Peter Parker to animated life in Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends (as did Bumblebee thesp, Dan Gilvezan), but this was a motion picture – and that meant movie actors. Calls were immediately put out to Tinseltown’s elite, and answered by Judd Nelson (as Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime), Leonard Nimoy (as Galvatron), Eric Idle (who, in what can only

TRANSFORMERS

I Am... Unicron The Price Isn’t Right

More perhaps than even the failure of the film at the box office, the most heartrending news for Hasbro in 1986 came when they received a prototype model of Unicron, the film’s big baddie, and sure to be the most demanded new toy on the block. Unicron would have stood around one foot tall, with the ability to transform into a planet, and be accompanied by a voice chip and a “planet microphone” which would enable owners to speak through the toy. Unfortunately sample costings proved too great. Unicron was shelved – and fans would have to wait until 2003 until a version was released.

be considered a satire of the series’ raison d’être, plays Wreck-Gar, a robot that can only speak in advertising slogans) and none other than Citizen Kane’s director/actor/producer Orson Welles. While Nimoy’s inclusion in the film is of interest given his Star Trek connection – “He was cooperative and professional. I liked working with him,” says Shin – it is Welles’ participation that’s truly fascinating, as well as rather sad. By the 1980s Welles had been reduced to taking cut-rate roles in schlocky B-movies, and was better known to the public as the onscreen hawker of Birds Eye frozen peas than as one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived. But he still carried a “name” cachet, and his sonorous voice was instantly recognisable. “When we offered Orson the role of Unicron and sent him the script, he was delighted to take it and said that he liked animation very much,” recalls Shin. Behind the scenes though, Welles – well aware of how much his star had fallen – complained to a friend: “You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy... I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I’m destroyed. My plan to destroy

“What the hell did you do to me in the live action film?”

Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen.” Temptations for career parallels abound – not least the dark humour that could be found in the fact that Welles, having ballooned to a gigantic size and transportable only by wheelchair, should play a character that can receive nutrition only by eating entire planets.

“AWW SHIT, WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?”

Transformers was the last role Orson Welles played. He was incredibly weak at the time of his one-day voice session (“He was seriously ill,” says Shin. “His voice was so weak that we had to synthesize it with effectors”), to the point that some fans have – incorrectly – speculated that Nimoy impersonated Welles for certain lines. Five days after coming in for his recording, Welles passed away at the age of 70. Transformers: The Movie was released on 990 screens in America on 8 August 1986, and arrived in the UK four months later, in time for Christmas. On its opening weekend it grossed a not-unimpressive $1,779,559; between a quarter

and a third of the ultra-popular Top Gun’s opening weekend from a few months earlier. Unlike that film, though, Transformers quickly levelled off and the final box office came in at under the film’s $6 million production budget. Reasons for this are open to interpretation. Certainly the film is surprisingly dark in some respects; regardless of the colourful animation (which is far superior in both detail and fluidity to that used on the television show) and distinctly ’80s rock soundtrack. The killing off of beloved characters to make way for a largely new cast met with a considerable fan backlash, and there were few things more distressing to a child than sitting in a cinema watching their prized toy collection meet its demise. Parents were likely upset too, although for entirely different reasons – dreading forthcoming birthdays and Christmases during which entire new sets of toys would be demanded and expected. Equally objectionable to many parents was the misjudged inclusion of onscreen profanity in a couple of places. Robots murdering each other was one thing, but swearing? Too much. Longer term, the movie has stood up impressively. Some praise is undoubtedly the product of the same nostalgia that has us claiming that moral-a-week shows like ThunderCats are still entertaining today, but, as one would expect, there is more than meets the eye here. The animation, in particular, is a good stab at the anime stylings that would burst into most film fans’ consciousness half a decade later with Akira. The darker tone to the film in terms of plot is also refreshing, and not only prefigures the more adult-targeted animation that would follow in the years to come, but results in the film actually being fairly enjoyable when watched through the eyes of an older fan. If you haven’t seen the original show since it stopped airing on television, this may be your best bet. Just don’t let your children hear you repeating “Aww shit, what are we gonna do now?” or “I am Galvatron... bitches.” Yeah, we made that last one up. Robots and spaceships | 37

Peter Cullen

Interface

Prime Time As the voice of stoic Autobot leader Optimus Prime, few have a larynx more beloved than Peter Cullen Words jordan farley

rom G1 to Age Of Extinction, those robots in disguise have undergone unending transformation. The one constant: the voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen, who first performed as the Autobot leader in 1984 and still does to this day. Cullen based the role on his brother Larry, a Vietnam veteran who gave him some priceless advice before his first audition for Prime: “Real heroes don’t yell and act tough; they are tough enough to be gentle, so control yourself.” That gentle courage has been at the core of Prime ever since (his Prime Directive, if you will). And who doesn’t love a robot that can turn into a truck? How does your approach to voicing Optimus Prime change with each new project? I don’t think there’s a significant change. You could probably notice it depending upon the plot or the progression of the story line, but for the most part I maintain the basic characteristics of Optimus Prime that were moulded many years ago, and I have never strayed very far from that. I’ve felt that perhaps over the years the character has gotten a little older but the basic character principles that he stands for are always going to remain with me. They’re key to my interpretation and that will never change. Then again it depends on the script and what kind of mood he’s in, I will follow that with loyalty.

Prime dies. Everyone cries.

38 | Robots and spaceships

Do you feel a sense of ownership of Prime? Certainly that happened in 1986 when I was killed off in the feature film. And I was rather disappointed, but in those days I didn’t have any idea how popular he was. Nobody ever let on that there was fan mail, so I had no thermometer to regulate a sense of achievement. But at the same time, when you’re axed from something you have to ask yourself, was it that bad? Over the years, I’ve discovered there was a fanbase and possibly there was a wrong decision that was made. It’s flattering on one hand but it’s sad too. Kids wouldn’t come out from under their bed after watching that film. I remember doing that death scene and it affected me. I’d never really done a death scene before. When I was a young actor at the National Theatre School of Canada I was in plenty of Shakespearian tragedies. I remember doing Richard III, but nothing compared to Transformers. That was really a kick in the butt, I tell ya. When did you first get a sense of just how popular Prime was? My daughter was in high school and I told her that I was asked to go back to Rochester, New York for a Transformers convention, and I said, “Why would they want me?” And she said, “Dad, they want you because you were Optimus Prime, they love you.” So reluctantly I went. And I walked up on the stage and there were 300-400 people in the room who just clapped for a long time, and I was amazed. It was humbling. How do you react to something like that? So it was about that time I did some searching and discovered that over the years I had a following and a responsibility to respect and to give back, which I continue to do. The fanbase taught me an awful lot of things, and I love them for that. I love their dedication and I feel a part of them. They’re a part of my heart and soul and I feel very close to them, I feel very close to anybody that shows that kind of affection for what I’ve done. It’s a great honour, I’m mesmerised by it a lot of the time.

How aware are you of the effect Prime has had on people? I’m very, very, very concerned because of the effect he’s had on so many people over the years, in a positive way. It’s something that I get a twist in my stomach about. At some conventions a young man would get up – somebody who didn’t have a father, or may have ended up in jail, or be dead as one expressed to me – and say “Thank you for raising me.” Wow, just thinking about it is quite powerful. It’s very humbling. It really makes me feel like I’ve done something of significance in my life. Did you ever suspect when you took on the role, or when Optimus was killed in the 1986 movie, that you’d still be playing him 30 years later? Nope I wouldn’t have dreamt that in a million years, and the only way I came to some form of conclusion, I guess, was when I started getting feedback from fanbases and the fight that they put on to keep me as the original Optimus Prime and to make sure that I was in that movie. Boy oh boy did they do their job. You have no idea how much gratitude I feel for that. And hopefully that’s gonna continue. I really do enjoy playing him. It’s a tribute to my brother Larry, who passed on. It’s a legacy I would love to continue for him. How did working on the Michael Bay films compare to doing the TV show and the games? When you look at the budgets and when you’re in a room with a whole group of other actors having a great time, you know time is money. But when you’re working on the movie and there’s millions and millions of dollars you have a sense of magnitude that you don’t normally get with a TV programme. And there’s intense responsibility. You can feel it, it’s very palpable. Working with Michael Bay has been nothing less than a real joy because I love watching somebody that’s really good at what they do – I’m overawed by it. I compared him to a general in a huge battle because that’s what he’s doing.

BIODATA Name: Peter Cullen AGE: 74 From: Montreal, Canada French Canadian actor CV: Peter Cullen started his career on comedy radio and The Sonny And Cher Comedy Hour. A fateful audition for a cartoon featuring shapeshifting robots saw him bag not only the role of Optimus Prime, but fellow Autobot Ironhide. He voiced Prime throughout the G1 years from 1984-1987, and in Transformers: The Movie – where Prime was killed off, leading to widespread outcry among fans. Cullen returned to the role 20 years later after a fan campaign to bring him back in Michael Bay’s first live action Transformers movie. He continues to embody the voice and spirit of Optimus Prime on the big and small screen.

“It’s very humbling. It really makes me feel like I’ve done something of significance in my life”

transformers

c o n d

Screenplay NICOLA PELTZ Irritating squeal! I’m not walking down those cables!

FADE IN: EXT: EARTH, YEARS AGO. Think the opening of Prometheus, but with exploding dinosaurs instead of that naked Blue Man Group guy.

JACK REYNOR You’ve got to! It’s the only genuinely exciting scene in the movie!

MICHAEL BAY Where are all the product-placement ops? Screw you, land before time – let’s fast-forward! INT: CIA OFFICE, PRESENT DAY KELSEY GRAMMER Transformers suck – let’s kill ’em all. Autobot, Decepticon, whatever. It’s not like anyone can tell the difference. INT: DISUSED CINEMA, NOWHERESVILLE. Inventor MARK WAHLBERG – stop laughing – noses through a junkpile. MARK WAHLBERG Let’s see if we can salvage something from this piece of utter, utter crap! I refer, of course, to this battered old truck I’ve just found. MARK fixes up the truck, which turns out to be OPTIMUS ‘PAST HIS’ PRIME. OPTIMUS PRIME Thank you, human, for swabbing out what for your sake I’m going to call my exhaust pipe. MARK WAHLBERG The last time I got into a speaking-to-things-notpeople situation it rained Razzie nominations. OPTIMUS PRIME Well, we do like to set

40 | Robots and spaceships

OPTIMUS gets a sword, MARK gets an alien gun and the audience gets piles.

TRansformers Age Of Extinction Words matthew leyland

the bar high, as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley will tell you… CIA DOUCHES and robo-bounty hunter LOCKDOWN arrive to shoot the place up. MARK and daughter NICOLA PELTZ are saved by OPTIMUS and NICOLA’S secret boyfriend JACK REYNOR, whom MARK is ickily jealous of. NICOLA PELTZ Aww, shoot – caught in a love triangle: me, Jack and Michael Bay’s perving camera. Heck, it’s as if my short shorts have more personality than I do! JACK REYNOR I’d have said “as much as”, to be honest. OPTIMUS PRIME We need back-up! Calling all Autobots! Preferably stereotype-embodying ones! The call is heeded by BUMBLEBEE, JOHN GOODMAN-

BOT (redneck nightmare), KEN WATANABE-BOT (every Japanese cliché under the rising sun) and another one no one cares about. INT: STANLEY TUCCI’S APPLE-STORE WHITE TECH-COMPANY HQ STANLEY TUCCI We’ve discovered the silliest word in the universe: “Transformium”. It turns an already-daft movie into one with the IQ of a shoe! The AUTOBOTS storm the facility, only to get a bollocking from STANLEY. STANLEY TUCCI The world doesn’t need you anymore! We can create our own wondrous yet charmless giant robots! The heroes LOCKDOWN’s conceals a plagiarised

all wind up on ship, which secret: it’s from HR Giger.

OPTIMUS PRIME To China! For vital plot reasons! And sweet-ass tax breaks! EXT: HONG KONG The warring robots trash the place for several hours, until all that’s left standing is all the third-party branding. OPTIMUS PRIME You know which thread we should pick up? Those dinosaurs. After a glug of a popular beverage! (Beverage may vary depending on territory.) OPTIMUS unleashes the DINOBOTS, allowing their untamed majesty to blaze across the screen. For five minutes. KELSEY dies for being evil. STANLEY lives for being evil but funny. SOPHIA MYLES – hang on, who was she again? OPTIMUS PRIME Well, we won again, whoop de doo. But wait! I’m not going to stand here and do my usual pompous sign-off. I’m going to do it in space! Call me when it’s time for the next reboot… FIN

Avengers: Age of ultron

Assembling The Avenger

and the Vision… ords: Nick Setchfield

Veteran creator Roy Thomas reveals the true secret origins of the Vision and genocidal machine Ultron… Words Nick Setchfield What inspired the creation of the Vision? I wanted to bring back an old Joe Simon and Jack Kirby character called the Vision but Stan nixed that. He said he wanted me to make up a brand new character who was an android. He may have looked a little like the old Vision but he was really a brand new character. The idea of him being an android and trying to deal with humans, and the human emotions that he had, even though he wasn’t human… I found it kind of challenging to write.

“I knew who Spock was and I suppose there was some influence there” Why do you think the Vision resonated with readers? People talk about parallels with Spock on Star Trek… I had sort of seen Star Trek. It was playing in the next room when I was playing poker on Friday nights! I would just see little pieces of it and pick it up by osmosis. I knew who Spock was and I suppose there was some influence there. In some ways it could have been the same kind of influences that influenced Spock! Otto Binder wrote the famous story I, Robot with the character Adam Link, who was a robot with human feelings. I think I took a lot from that. I called him a synthezoid. I made up that word – which I don’t think was a great one!

But that’s what he was. It just meant that he was a synthetic human. What inspired the creation of Ultron? I was in part channelling a Captain Video story I’d read in 1951. Captain Video was fighting this super-intelligent robot called Makino that wanted to destroy all of humanity, and which seemed pretty much indestructible. The first look of Ultron owed a lot to Makino – I must have shown a picture of that to John Buscema or else he wouldn’t have come so close to it. Sal Buscema ended up drawing a revised Ultron that was based on a Bob Powell robot that I had loved that was in an old comic called The Avenger back in the mid ’50s. I would see these robot bodies that I liked… But there were new things in Ultron too. It wasn’t just a copy of the Captain Video villain, he had his own thing going for him – the idea of a robot creating an android to be a weapon, for example, and then the android turning against him. It was kind of an Oedipal thing. He was an appealing foe for the Avengers and probably one of the better villains I made up during my days in comics. What did you make of the big screen Ultron? It looked very much the way I though it ought to look. I was prepared for Ultron to look quite different because they’re reimagining him, of course, but in fact it looked very much like the version that Buscema drew based on what I wanted from Makino. I think it really reflects what John and I did.

A very bronzed Paul Bettany (Vision) in Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

When robots go bad…

ART-IFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Age Of Ultron comic book artist Bryan Hitch talks metal menace Why does Ultron’s original design endure as a comic book classic? I think the simple answer is John Buscema was brilliant. I know he didn’t like drawing superheroes but he was so very good at it. It’s also one of those classic designs, like most of Marvel’s ’60s output, that allows anybody to draw it either as a literal copy or an interpretation and it still be recognisable. That head and face is pretty much all you need. The permanently open mouth burning with atomic fire? What kid wouldn’t love that? What did you want to bring to the design in Age Of Ultron? Simplicity for the sake of repetition. I know I’m known for my detail but in Age Of Ultron I knew the environment of the destroyed world was going to be quite detailed – and I do like my backgrounds – so in drawing large numbers of Ultron drones, they needed to be easy to repeat without killing me or my inker. Did you like the big screen version? Joss [Whedon] talked about it since we had dinner after the first film came out – and over many nights out while he wrote it. Seeing all that come to life was a joy. What I saw on set were motioncapture suits so the first time I saw the Ultron stuff finished was in the trailer. Looked like Ultron to me! I liked that Spader’s Ultron Prime has a more expressive face; you need to see his emotion, not just hear it. Remember the conversation with Goblin and Spidey in the first Spider-Man film? Can’t have that. It’s James Spader and you don’t want to waste that!

Robots and spaceships | 41

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the SF classic that blazed the trail, the Shakespeare-influenced, Robby the Robot-introducing Forbidden Planet Words joseph mccabe

ForbidDen planet

forbidden planet

The Forbidden Bang

1977 69 9 1

Science fiction cinema may not begin with Forbidden Planet – filmmakers have embraced sci-fi since George Méliès took A Trip to the Moon – But no other film has had so much influence on contemporary sci-fi on the big screen. Here’s how…

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Federation of Planets? Check. Landing parties with communicators and ray guns? Check. Deep-space distress signal? Check. Nubile young women waiting to learn the pleasures of the flesh from a virile commander? Check. The bottom line is – without Forbidden Planet, there is no Star Trek, and without Star Trek, there’s no Babylon 5, no Battlestar Galactica… why, there’s even no Galaxy Quest! Yes, to wipe out Trek in all its various incarnations, just slingshot around the sun, go back in time and prevent the making of Forbidden Planet.

1969 2001: A Space Odyssey

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t’s tough to imagine how the world would look, sound, feel today had Forbidden Planet never been made. So much of what we take for granted in films, and in our media-driven society in general, has its origins in this deceptively simple, half-centuryold tale – inspired by Shakespeare himself – of a spaceship investigating a mysterious signal from a distant planet. The first truly big-budget English language science fiction film, Forbidden Planet starred a then-unknown Leslie Nielsen as stalwart space cruiser commander John J Adams, forced to confront the terrifying legacy of the Krell – a long-dead alien race whose secrets are uncovered and used by the brilliant

1966 Star Trek

Professor Morbius (screen legend Walter Pidgeon) to construct Robby, the world’s first true robot movie star. Robby’s mystique is rivalled only by that of Adams’s love interest – and Morbius’s daughter – Altaira (played by a young Anne Francis), who served as the template for every sexy sci-fi princess that followed. But Forbidden Planet’s influence is felt in countless other ways. And some of the children it spawned, with names such as Star Wars, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey, have, through the technology and the people they’ve inspired, forever altered the popculture landscape. Altair IV may no longer exist, but, half a century later, the Krell’s legacy lives on… The much-loved, Ariel-alike movie robot Robby.

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke’s epic science fiction poem, with its muted colours and long, slow tracking shots, may be more subdued than Forbidden Planet’s kitschy pulp-cover-palette world, but it’s no more sincere in its intent to seriously depict space exploration. And you could argue the HAL computer is another descendent of Robby’s sympathetic AI (particularly during his breakdown scene). 2001’s success is legendary, informing Kubrick’s later films, as well as Star Wars, and every space saga that followed.

1977 Star Wars It’s human nature to ascribe personalities to objects, especially if those objects are lifelike. But despite the many robots that came before him (including Metropolis’s destructive Maria), Forbidden Planet’s Robby tore down the walls that divided man and machine, simply by having a friendly personality. In so doing he served as the template for Star Wars’ R2-D2 and C-3PO, and almost every screen robot that followed them.

1982 Blade Runner Isaac Asimov’s influential three laws of robotics (under which a robot cannot harm a human or himself and must prevent harm from befalling a human), were first taught to mass audiences through Forbidden Planet’s Robby, who operates under them. This mature approach to artificial intelligence was later explored through robots such as those in the Alien films and, of course, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Nasty replicants like Roy Batty may seem a far cry from good ol’ Robby, but the moral code he introduced defines their worlds. Robots and spaceships | 43

flashback

“robby remains one of the best-loved movie robots ever” The Bard: The Father Of SF Cinema?

There are many reasons for Forbidden Planet’s success – its groundbreaking special effects, its production design, Robby the Robot, Anne Francis’s legs… Ahem. Despite all of its innovations and ingenuity, the film would have been destined for the scrap heap of cinema history, were it not for its script, inspired by the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. Planet was conceived by Irving Block and Allen Adler. Block was a special effects technician, but he also had a literate side, and his favourite play was The Tempest, which he suggested as Forbidden Planet’s template. Shakespeare’s The Tempest is the tale of Prospero, a magician who lives on an enchanted island with his virgin daughter Miranda and servant Caliban. But their lives are disrupted by a visiting group of Italian nobles and a spirit named Ariel. Even with this summary, it’s not hard to suss the basis for Planet’s characters: Morbius and his daughter Altaira take their cues from Prospero and Miranda, while the Id Monster, Morbius’s subconscious made manifest, is Caliban. Robby, with his limitless abilities, is modelled after Ariel, who can create illusions. Finally, the United Planets officers are based on the Italian nobles. “O brave new world, that has such people in it…” 44 | Robots and spaceships

Top Of The Bots

Robby remains one of the best-loved movie robots ever. His inability to harm humans, drawing on the then well-established Laws of Robotics set out in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot stories, places him light years away from the usual “kill-all-humans” idiot-robot portrayal much panned in The Simpsons, but still taken seriously such as in, er, the movie I, Robot. Robby went on to star in an unrelated kid’s movie called The Invisible Boy (1957). The “Danger, Will Robinson!” robot of the 1960s TV hit Lost in Space, itself a kind of cartoon of Planet, wasn’t Robby, but wasn’t terribly unlike the altruistic avatar of Ariel. Robby toys are still produced, and original models are highly prized collectables. Communications Officer Quinn, the C57-D’s Lt Uhura…

forbidden planet Commander Adams (Leslie Nielsen) and Altaira (Anne Francis).

Known to a generation as bionic boss Oscar Goldman, Richard “Officer Quinn” Anderson has another SF classic on his CV…

Cookie Spills The Beans

Earl Holliman has appeared in scores of films, but he’s best known to SF fans for his roles in two groundbreaking productions: “Where Is Everybody?”, the first episode of The Twilight Zone, and Forbidden Planet, in which he starred as James Dirocco (aka “Cookie”). But even after 50 years, Holliman remains ambivalent about his trip to Altair IV. “When I was offered the script I was doing Giant,” says Holliman. “But I had done Tennessee Champ; that was directed by [Forbidden Planet’s director] Fred Wilcox. I was playing a wonderful scene-stealing kind of part, called Happy. But because of that the director said, ‘I’m gonna have you in my next picture.’ They sent me the script, and I read it and it was wonderful. But the part of Cookie, I just didn’t think I was right for it. I thought I

After 60 years, are you tired of talking about Forbidden Planet? “It’s just extraordinary. I’ve made a lot of movies, and the list of TV credits on my website goes on and on. I’ve been in the business for a few weeks, you could say! But I’ve noticed people have now started saying Forbidden Planet, not Six Million Dollar Man, not Bionic Woman… “It was made by MGM’s B-unit, and they always had the great, great films – visually, they were wonderful. We had the A-crew in a B-movie, and all our equipment was used in the A-unit, and that shows. The studio made that picture what it is. There was a smooth professionalism and a knowing-ness that’s virtually disappeared from American movies. But this whole business of sci-fi has taken off, and Forbidden Planet was the leader…”

A Tale Of Two Robots

Though Robby the Robot may take a certain pride in his design and abilities, he’s not unique. In fact, Robby has an almost equally famous brother, created by the same designer (or father, if you will). Production designer Robert Kinoshita was the head draftsman of MGM’s art department when Forbidden Planet was produced, and was responsible for designing the seven-foot-tall Robby, with a budget of anywhere from $125,000 to $1 million. Several years later, producer Irwin Allen appointed Kinoshita as art director on his space adventure Lost In Space. Kinoshita immediately designed a new robot for the show, one whose similarities to Robby have led to some confusion over the years. With the generic name “Robot”, Robby’s younger brother had a smoother motorised walk. This became clear when, in two episodes (“War Of The Robots” and “Condemned Of Space”), Robby appeared as – what else? – a special guest robot.

The Six Million Dollar Crewman

was too young. It needed more of a character actor. And working with Robby the Robot… Not all, but a lot of the scenes were with Robby the Robot, and Robby was made out of plywood! [Laughs.] Robby didn’t speak. All of his conversation, all of his dialogue was done by a very uninspired script woman, who was a very lovely lady, but it was very, very [laughs] ungiving. I was often uncomfortable with this. I remember there was a scene where I had to slap him on the back, and later you hear the sound of the metal. It’s plywood! Anyway, Robby the Robot ended up being the star of the film. He’s the one that everybody wants…”

From Star Cruisers to Airplanes: The Career of Leslie Nielsen

Of all the actors associated with Forbidden Planet, the one best known to today’s audiences is its leading man, Canadian-born Leslie Nielsen, who plays the straight-laced, nononsense John J Adams, commander of United Planets Cruiser C-57D. But though Nielsen’s film career blasted off with this SF classic, once it broke free of the genre’s gravitational pull, it never attempted re-entry. In the years following Forbidden Planet Nielsen enjoyed guest roles in TV thrillers like, well, Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. And he starred in big-screen chillers like Creepshow and Prom Night. But, sadly, the closest he came to sci-fi was with the aptly titled (and thankfully forgotten) 2001: A Space Travesty. In the latter film, Nielsen played – as he often has since his breakthrough hit Airplane! – a clown, albeit one who uses Commander Adams’s deadpan expression to deliver outrageously dumb one-liners. Nielsen’s approach has, over the years, launched his own film franchise, the successful Naked Gun series, and lends support to such spoofs as Spy Hard and the apparently never-ending Scary Movie saga. Like his fellow Canadian-turned-deepspace-commander-turned-Airplane-star William Shatner (thought you could forget about Airplane 2, did you?), Nielsen’s spent his twilight years earthbound, lampooning the very same screen persona he created. Perhaps he felt that in space no one can hear you laugh.

It inspired Star Trek and much of the sci-fi we have today... “Well, the thing about a movie is, it’s a random business. When you see a script, and you say, ‘I wanna make that picture’… you never know how that picture is gonna turn out. No one knows. They start out with the greatest ideas and – nothing. That’s the thing about movies. You’re saying, ‘This stands the test of time’? We didn’t know it.” What are your thoughts on the character you played? “Well, Quinn was the communications operator. I wanted to do something funny – something that tapered off from just ‘Hello’. Our boss was played by Leslie Nielsen. I had a scene with him where he said, ‘You’ve gotta do this, and you’ve gotta do that!’ He was very straight in those days – ‘straight’ in the sense that he became a comedian afterward [laughs]. Then he was just hired from Canada and being paid to play the part that way, and it was perfect. He gives me all these orders, and I look at him and say, ‘Well, I… I’ll do the best I can.’ It was funny. It was subtle, but I had a chance to show a side of what I would have done.” Who do you think gave the best performance in Forbidden Planet? “Walter Pidgeon. He’s amazing. He had technical speeches, and he’d demonstrate and show us all the things about how this worked and that worked. Man, it was one take with him, because he was there. And [director Fred] Wilcox was terrific. He’d say, ‘Print!’”

Robots and spaceships | 45

Arnie lets his bulk do the talking in The Terminator.

The Sky(net)’s The Limit More than 30 years after the Terminator’s creation we look at the big-screen highs and lows Words kevin harley 46 | Robots and spaceships

f the world of the Terminator is one of triumph and tragedy, it hasn’t been so easy behind the scenes. No wonder it started as it went on: with a nightmare. Two nightmares, even. As fans know, James Cameron’s gig directing Piranha II: The Spawning for producer Roger Corman was a fright-mare of fishy business dealings. Stressed out with man-flu while editing in Rome, Cameron suffered fever dreams. One involved half a metallic man emerging from fire in pursuit of a woman, clawing himself along with a knife… Cameron’s producer/future wife Gale Anne Hurd was hooked, but studios took more convincing until original star Lance Henriksen gatecrashed production company Hemdale’s office in scary DIY Terminator drag and – miraculously – secured their investment. Packing backing, Cameron lived to fight a new nightmare: a barrage of silly studio ideas. “Somebody, whose name will go unmentioned, thought it

THE TERMINATOR

“The terminator radically changed hollywood’s opinion of me” james cameron Linda Hamilton channelling a Neighbours-era Kylie.

would be really significant for [Michael] Biehn to have a robot dog,” he scoffed. Eventually cast as the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger put his dukes up for Cameron: “Everyone around me said: ‘Maybe you shouldn’t play a villain, it might be bad for your career’,” Schwarzenegger recalled. Cameron approached him warily for the Kyle Reese role, but Schwarzenegger became his lethal weapon as the T-800, particularly on a tense, tough shoot. Even with extra prep time granted by Schwarzenegger’s Conan The Barbarian commitments, the gig was tight and hard. Biehn had to do his own stunts. Arnie had acid poured on his jacket to make him smoke. Linda Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, trooped on with an injured ankle and got no sympathy from her director. “I was young and thought Cameron was too tough to work with,” she said. “I felt he was too machine-orientated and there wasn’t room for my measly acting concerns.” But the tension stoked energy, invention and determination. Effects were rustled up on the hoof: Stan Winston’s model of the Terminator was completed on set on the day of shooting.

Brad Fiedel walloped a frying pan with a hammer to create the score’s distinctive clang. Cameron’s scrappy snap instincts saved him when Hemdale tried to snip his original nightmare vision. “Chairman John Daly at Hemdale didn’t beg, he demanded that I remove the last reel of The Terminator,” said Cameron. “The entire last reel. He said: ‘When the truck blows up, the film has to end.’ I said: ‘No, fuck you, it’s not done yet.’” On release in 1984, further battles included a plagiarism lawsuit from sci-fi author Harlan Ellison and shoddy distribution from Orion, who, says Cameron, treated him “like dog shit”. But the lean, metal-mean, high-concept result boosted Arnie’s stardom and confirmed Cameron’s clout. “It radically changed the Hollywood community’s opinion of me,” said Jim. “Other people get remembered for lines like, ‘Time and tide wait for no man.’ I’m going to be remembered for, ‘Fuck you, asshole!’”

Judgment Dread

“We all looked at it, and we were horrified,” said producer BJ Rack when she and her team received the Terminator 2 script. “It was going to be the biggest picture ever made. Every sequence was like the ending of Die Hard.” A sequel wasn’t certain for Cameron: he considered taking a writing/producing role while Martin Campbell (GoldenEye, Casino Royale) helmed. But Arnie persuaded exec producer Mario Kassar to buy the rights for Carolco Pictures from a flagging Hemdale, and Cameron and co-writer William Wisher hit the script full-bore. Six weeks of feverish writing later, Cameron gave his FX crew a new nightmare: liquid metal. After Aliens, Cameron’s luck stuttered with The Abyss. But the watery ET yarn’s tentacular FX inspired T2’s T-1000 – with one difference. “On The Abyss, the computer was brought in to solve one sequence, and if the sequence had failed the film still would have worked,” Cameron said. “On T2, the success or failure of the film was predicated by the digital effects.” Pity Stan Winston and ILM’s Dennis Muren, effects godheads. “Jim came up with

hundreds of impossible effects,” Winston later recalled. “There were more in the first two minutes of this script than in the entire first movie.” And Cameron kept on pushing. “It’s always stressful on Jim’s sets because he’s very improvisational,” said Muren, who used Photoshop to help realise ambitious effects that took almost a year to polish. As the budget stretched towards $100m, Cameron favoured a hands-on approach. He choreographed stunts like a cross between a military campaign and playtime, taking over a conference room with colleagues and using toy trucks to outline key setpieces; the results were filmed and printed for storyboard use. Then he rearranged real landscapes: office blocks, flood channels, steel mills… Yet Cameron’s concerns exceeded stunts and CGI. He cast well. Robert Patrick was a struggling actor when Cameron deployed his laser-eyed intensity for the T-1000. For John Connor, casting director Mali Finn found cocky 13-year-old Edward Furlong in Pasadena. Cast in hand, Cameron started punishing them. But if the cast suffered for Cameron’s ambitions, he galvanised them. He ran Hamilton ragged for the scene where she confronts Miles Dyson, but: “A lot of that is kind of the character seeping through,” she admitted. “I remember one day we were shooting some stunt sequences,” Arnie said, “real physical stunts, and Jim came onto the set to demonstrate how the stunts should be done. He did them without padding and without seemingly giving a second thought to his safety. I thought to myself that he must be crazy.” Not crazy, just driven. After wrapping, Cameron slogged to meet July 1991’s release date, spending Christmas Eve editing. Schwarzenegger cancelled a trip to Saudi Arabia with President Bush on 22 December for more T2 work – but then he was paid $11-15m, half of it as a Gulfstream G-III jet. The molten core of T2’s excesses is, however, Cameron’s genius for simplicity. It’s a chase movie at base, hugely ambitious but plotted to perfection and running on reserves of heart: the T-800’s transformation fulfilled Cameron’s Robots and spaceships | 47

connor chronicles Not even Batman could rescue 2009’s Salvation.

Clarke ditches dragons for a single-barrelled shotgun in Genysis.

intent to make a pacifist action movie. When the $520m box office and four Oscars validated Cameron’s vision, the days of struggling to convince backers looked long gone. Which made what happened next look nightmarish. The sale of the Terminator rights was a messy business. At their bankruptcy auction, Carolco outbid Miramax for half the rights, leaving Cameron feeling betrayed. When the other half was bought from Hurd, Cameron stepped back completely. Arnie almost didn’t make T3 without his director, until sage wisdom swayed him. “Ask for a shit-pile of money and just do it,” said Cameron, Buddha-like. Arnie got a $30m shit-pile plus 20 percent of the cut. John McTiernan (Die Hard) was rumoured to direct until the gig went to Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, U-571), who at least approached T3 with the right willingness to suffer. “It’s daunting, semi-masochistic even, to step into the director’s chair,” he said, “but you know what? No pain, no gain.” Yet writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, whose credits range from The Game to Catwoman, alienated fans with a script that fudged John Connor’s age. “You know, we finally 48 | Robots and spaceships

just decided to heck with that stuff,” sniffed Ferris. Hamilton’s reasons for not returning compounded anxieties: “It didn’t take my character in any new direction. It was like a no-win situation for me… Without Jim breathing the breath of life into the film? No, thank you.” Mostow claimed Hamilton had seen an early draft but problems remained. True, the stunts and effects impressed. “We built robots,” said Winston. “In The Terminator, we pretended. In T2, we went a little further. In Terminator 3, we’re building robots… There is no digital [early Terminator model] T1. Everything you see is a completely performing robot.” VFX artist Pablo Helman oversaw 300-500 effects shots, some required to make it look as if Kristanna Loken’s slinky “Terminatrix” was duffing up Arnold. The 55-year-old Schwarzenegger had his work cut out too: he still had to buff up and take bumps. “I will remember the weeks that I spent hanging off the hook of a huge monster crane,” he said. But the outrageous stunts couldn’t ameliorate T3’s creaking levels of self-parody (disco glasses, the catchphrases) or the silliness of Loken’s T-X remote-controlling cars. Even the

normally indomitable Schwarzenegger felt the fear during filming: “When I first came out of my trailer in the Terminator gear, I felt uncomfortable and that everyone was disappointed and laughing at me.” Dark climax and some generous reviews aside, T3 (released in 2003) fell short of T2’s standards. The whole “I’ll be back” thing seemed far from set.

Halcyon Days

In May 2007, Halcyon Company’s Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek bought the rights and welcomed the challenge of re-energising a tarnished franchise. “A healthy dose of fear is good for creativity,” reckoned Anderson. Stung once already, fans remained cynical. When McG (Charlie’s Angels) was named director, internet forums howled. A shoddy rumoured ending was “spoiled” online and rumours of a PG-13 rating caused more upset. Cast and crew went to battle. McG rallied for Christian Bale’s involvement and milked it when he got it, seeing the fan-coercing benefits of having Batman on board. “It started with me coming over to London and chasing him,” says McG. “He told me to fuck right off.

THE TERMINATOR

The catlike Kristanna Loken in Terminator 3.

The Terminator By The Numbers 2:53 Hours and minutes until the postponed Judgement Day, according to Arnie at a key moment in T3.

3 Number of days at which coyote becomes worse than two-day old coyote. Ask Kyle Reese. 3.5 Number of minutes of liquid-metal effects in T2. A quick Oscar grab for ILM magician Dennis Muren. 4 Number of Oscars won by T2: sound, sound effects, visual effects and make-up. 8 Actors to play John Connor across film and TV’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Infants included. 10 Age of John in T2, though he looks older. T3 got a bit muddled. 16 Number of lines Arnie’s T-800 gets in The Terminator. 17 Number of police officers killed by Arnie’s T-800 “that night” at Westtown in 1984. 31 Age of The Terminator this year. Released in May 1984. 78M T1’s gross in dollars. Not a bad haul considering its $6.5m budget. 120 Number of years the T-800 can live on its “existing power cell” in T2. 215 Number of bones Hamilton threatens to start busting in Dr Silberman’s body if he doesn’t behave. It’s more like 206, but who’s counting? 10,000 Joss Whedon’s generous franchise rights bid in dollars. 450M The amount of money in dollars Terminator Genisys needs to make to break even. At the time of writing it’s managed to bring in $410m.

The character wasn’t there. Only in continuing to hone the story did I get him to a place of confidence where he felt, okay, we’ve got something.” But problems centred on Bale’s character. Ferris and Brancato wrote the initial script: cue fan-rage. The John Connor material was allegedly beefed up but the WGA writers’ strike meant Terminator Salvation began shooting without a fixed script to work from. “In my naiveté, I thought, of course we’ll push back filming,” said Bale of the schedule. “No. Ain’t a possibility. And that strike kept going on, and we were getting less and less time… In the end, it was a real balls-to-the-wall kind of effort.” On set, McG aimed to create “the grit and patina of Apocalypse Now”. As a war movie, Salvation didn’t lack bangs and bruises – Anton Yelchin fell off a truck, Sam Worthington tore his intercostals. Bale, meanwhile, verbally exploded at lighting man Shane Hurlbut – and the internet quaked. But the noise, multiple new ’bots and Worthington’s new human/Terminator hybrid failed to add up to a satisfying climax. McG admitted to initially being torn between a pair of endings on the Blu-ray, one dark but daft and the other (the one seen in the film) compromised: either way, his indecision suggested a general shortfall of vision. As Salvation blustered its way to a middling gross on release in 2009, Worthington agreed that its sound and fury crushed story and sense: “If there was a big 10-ton robot coming outside that gas station, surely we would fucking hear it! I missed that. So I’m going to be a bit better when I’m looking through my fucking scripts.” Fans everywhere hoped future T-movie actors heard him…

Open Future

The solution? Cough sweets. Apparently. “Christian Bale’s John Connor will get a throat

lozenge,” promised Joss Whedon, laying out the reasons why he should be sold the Terminator rights when Halcyon went bust in 2009. Although Halcyon sold elsewhere, it looks like filmmakers will not stop, ever, trying to revive the franchise. It’s hardly surprising: the Terminator’s influence is everywhere, from Rian Johnson’s timey-wimey Looper to a 2014 Guardian news story which ran under the headline, “Scientists create bionic particles ‘inspired by Terminator’.” After various legal kerfuffles, latest franchise entry Genisys was produced by Megan and David Ellison, whose solid joint pedigree ranges from Zero Dark Thirty to Star Trek Into Darkness. Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry) collaborated on the script, Alan Taylor (Game Of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World) sat in the director’s chair, and the cast looked can’t-miss: Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Lee Byunghun, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, JK Simmons… “We really are creating a new universe and it’s not so much a sequel or a reboot but more a reset,” reckoned Courtney. But the results were a decidedly mixed bag, with the film suffering a critical mauling and underperforming at the box office. After Genisys, a film intended to kickstart a new trilogy, the Terminator’s future looks more uncertain than ever. But one thing’s sure: the Terminator won’t die without a fight. Robots and spaceships | 49

TIMELINE

1974

Alt timeline madness! After her parents are killed by a terminator (sent back by someone at some point, who knows) nine-year-old Sarah Connor is rescued and raised by a T-800, who she later takes to calling “pops”. No one ever bothers to explain who sent the T-800 back.

TERMINATOR 1,2,3 and Salvation

12.05.1984

T-800 Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, which looks a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger, is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (frizzpermed Linda Hamilton) before she becomes pregnant with the future leader of the human resistance in the War Against The Machines, her son-to-be John; Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is also sent back to protect his mother; Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor “interface” and Sarah conceives John.

1984

terminator genysis 28.02.1985 John Connor is born, the floppyhaired little twerp. Kyle Reese, born in 2008, is his, er, dad.

1985

The sarah connOr chronIcles

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1974 1984

Kyle Reese (now the improbably buff Jai Courtney) arrives from the future but is attacked by a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) and rescued by Sarah Connor and “pops”. They dissolve the T-1000 in acid. Kyle and Sarah jump forward to 2017. Pops hangs around for 20 years.

Terminator Timeline Confused by the multiple paradoxes resulting from all the time-hopping antics in the various incarnations of the Terminator franchise? No? You will be… Words Richard Matthews and Jordan Farley

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Tech whiz John, now an advanced Terminator, is hours away from launching Genisys aka Skynet. Sarah, Kyle and “pops” stop him and blow up the evil nascent OS. “Pops” gets a T-1000 upgrade, audiences groan. John (now played by Batman, er, Christian Bale), still not leading the resistance (take your time, John, no rush), encounters Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington – fittingly also in Terminator creator James Cameron’s Avatar), a death row inmate who turns out to be a robot. Kyle Reese is played by Chekov. Skynet gears up for the final annihilation of humanity, but it’s averted yet again.

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

1992-95

1992

1993

A prototype mimetic poly-alloy shapeshifting T-1000 (the skinny and fast Robert Patrick) is sent back to kill the young John (Edward Furlong); future John sends back a reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold again) to protect his younger self; Sarah Connor (Hamilton – buffed to within an inch of her life) is broken out of prison; the Terminator artefacts are destroyed; Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) is killed while debuting the body-popping Miles Dyson dance (put on a house track then pretend you’re being riddled with bullets).

1994

1995

1997

1996

1995

*29.08.1997

Sarah dies of leukaemia and John starts living “off the grid”; Skynet project is taken over by CRS.

Skynet becomes self-aware, goes apeshit and launches a nuclear attack on the human race, causing the original Judgement Day (since postponed due to rain on the circuits).

1997

1998

1995

Derek Reese, Kyle’s older brother, is born.

1999

2007

Sarah, John and Cameron arrive from 1999 to search for the creators of Skynet and stop the again-delayed Judgement Day: Take Three – This Time It’s For Keeps Human Scum; Derek Reese (Beverly Hills 90210 star Brian Austin Green) rocks up after the rest of his squad are “terminated”.

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2008

2001

2002

2003

A female T-X (Kristanna Loken) is sent back to kill John’s (less floppy-haired Nick Stahl) lieutenants, with Connor as an overriding mission if discovered; a T-850 is sent back to protect them; vet Kate’s (Claire Danes) dad, General Brewster, activates Skynet after it fakes a global computer virus to make us turn over all defence control to it; Skynet launches nuclear attack (the second Judgement Day); John and Kate survive in Crystal Peak facility.

2029

Advanced T-800 model is introduced, upgraded with cloned human skin (that looks like Arnold), indistinguishable from normal humans (unless they don’t look like Arnold); undetectable by dogs (Arnold will kill mutts if tested).

2027

Cameron jumps to 1999 to protect John and Sarah; Cromartie jumps to 1999 to kill John and Sarah; Connor sends back four soldiers including Derek Reese, to meet up with his younger self in 2007. Phew…

2027

2004

2000

24.07.2004

Kyle Reese is born. Hello sunshine!

2026

1999

Ahnuld knock-off the T-888, aka Cromartie (played by lots of actors because he likes stripping skin off people to disguise himself), arrives to kill John Connor (lank-haired Thomas Dekker); the TOK-715, aka Cameron Phillips (sultry and small Summer Glau from Serenity) arrives from 2027 (two years before Arnie’s despatched – yes, we’re in alternate reality here, people) to protect him; 78 days later Sarah (still alive, and now future Cersei Lannister Lena Headey), John and Cameron jump ahead to 2007 to stop the creation of Skynet.

2028

2029

Late 2029

Skynet’s defence grid is smashed (yay!); two T-800s sent back – one by Skynet to 1984; the other, reprogrammed by Connor, to 1995 to protect his younger self – with Kyle Reese sent to 1984; Skynet also sends the T-1000 back to 1995; the scary/ sexy T-X is sent back to 2004.

2030

2031

2032

2033

04.07.2032 18.10.2033

2029

John is killed by a T-850 (whoops), which Kate then reprograms, as you do.

After destroying Skynet (with the exception of one little time machine) weirdo world Kyle is sent back to 1984 by John (Jason Clarke, who should have known better); meanwhile the living embodiment of Skynet (Matt Smith) travels from a parallel timeline, turns John into a robot and sends him back to 2015 (or thereabouts).

Kate closes her eyes, sticks a pin in a calendar and sends the T-850 back to 2004. Frankly we’ve had enough now.

Robots and spaceships | 51

* part of an aborted timeline changed by the events of T2

1991

Sarah tries to blow up a computer factory, gets committed and John goes into foster care; John makes out with a young Kate Brewster in a basement; scientist Miles Dyson creates a neural net processor by reverse-engineering the first Terminator’s CPU, the naughty boy; Cyberdyne becomes the world’s biggest supplier of military computers; Skynet begins... DUN-DUN-DUUHHHHHH!

THE TERMINATOR

12.05.1995

Robert Llewellyn

Interface

Robert The Robot After more than a quarter of a century playing Kryten on Red Dwarf, Robert Llewellyn isn’t sure where the mechanoid ends and he begins

obert Llewellyn is the new boy on Red Dwarf. The servile robot butler, who likes nothing better than hoovering and has problems swearing or lying, was originally played by the creator of the Daleks. No hang on, scratch that… was originally played by Dave Ross. But when Llewellyn’s very different take on the mechanic debuted in series III it was like a missing piece of the puzzle and he became part of the crew with seamless ease. Well, Kryten really wouldn’t want seams showing, would he?

Let’s get the elephant out of the room – you can’t say anything about Red Dwarf XI and XII can you? The only clue we’ve had is that in one episode every member of the cast is a mechanoid. I don’t know how or why – whether it’s a Kryten dream or whatever the plot is – but we’re all mechanoids. So everyone is having a mask made for them. They all said they wanted to do it and I think they’ll all end up regretting it. Congratulations on X being so well received. Now if XI and XII aren’t so good all the fans will moan about how the show’s losing it again… Yeah, I know what you mean. There’s always a long gap between series. Doug has been writing since we finished the last lot. He’s a real stickler. He’ll have done thousands of drafts. And as soon as we read it he’ll change the whole bloody

Okay, so the joke needed work.

52 | Robots and spaceships

Words dave golder

thing. But that’s why all of us want to do it because the writing is so consistently good.

been doing it so long it’s become muscle memory almost.

How long have you been playing Kryten now? Since 1989. I’ve known I was doing it since 1988 as Doug reminded me the other day. Which is as long as I’ve been with my wife.

The costume looks pretty much the same after all these years but have there been refinements? We have industrial Velcro now because it always used to burst open. And it now has a secret gentleman’s comfort fly. I used to have to be unbolted – literally men with high speed drills used to have to unscrew the groin attachment when I needed a wee. Now I can just go to the bog without having to ask. It’s a great relief.

Was it the costume that sealed the relationship? Oh no! No, no, no. God, I met her before that. Actors playing robots normally have to repress their emotions but you don’t have to worry about that as Kryten… He’s a mechanoid who loves human emotions and wants to have a go at them. And is quite rubbish at them. Over the years Rob and Doug have written the parts more and more for the actors. Every year there’s more of us in them. And now I catch myself hanging laundry on the line and thinking, “I really enjoyed doing that. I actually like doing laundry.” Which is weird. I don’t know how wrong that is. I like folding! I’m listening to the radio, and the dog is on my foot, and I’m folding and enjoying it. So, you’re method acting as Kryten? No! Well, not consciously. Actually I’m a macho superhero who’s repressing all that to play this house proud mechanoid. The thing is it’s become imbued in all of us. So I don’t know… I do not know how I play Kryten, I couldn’t intellectualise it. I put the costume on, I put the mask on and it just happens. It really does. It takes over. It’s quite freaky, I just… become him. On the DVD about the making of series X it astonished me that you were in character the whole time you have that costume on… I wasn’t even aware of it. It was Craig [Charles] that pointed it out. [Does passable Craig Charles impression] “You never stop, you know! Have a break!” [Slips into Kryten] “Sir, what do you mean, have a break?” “We’re out the back! We’re not in front of anybody, man!” It’s quite hard not to be him when you’ve got all that stuff on. I’ve

Does it feel odd wandering into the loo as Kryten? The last series we did in a big studio in Shepperton and next door was a magic show. Occasionally I’d go into the staff loos and a guy from the magic show would wander in and basically see a mechanoid taking a piss. They would clearly be slightly thrown by that. There are stories about Peter Cushing wearing slippers while filming the Death Star scenes in Star Wars. Can you ever get away with wearing just the top half? No I’m always in the whole thing. There isn’t a “sitting down” alternative. And we film in front of an audience so I can’t slip into a pair of Crocs and orange socks. We’ve got a favourite Kryten line. We were wondering if you have one too? We only ask because we secretly hope it’s the same one… There have been so many. I can now recognise a classic Kryten line. The first few series I didn’t know… we didn’t know what the audience reaction was going to be. Now when I read a classic Kryten line in the read-through I go, “That’s the one!” You know, “Sir, are you sure you want to step up to red alert? It does mean changing the bulb.” That’s it! That’s the line! When I read that… I knew. Read more about Red Dwarf on page 132.

BIODATA Name: Robert Llewellyn AGE: 59 From: Northampton, England CV: Science and tech enthusiast Robert Llewellyn started his career in cabaret and comedy. An appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe led to him auditioning for the role of Kryten in Red Dwarf’s third series. He co-wrote series VII episode “Beyond A Joke” with Doug Naylor, and was the only cast member to reprise their role for the ill-fated US version of Red Dwarf. Llewellyn is also an evangelist for clean energy and presented Channel 4 game show Scrapheap Challenge.

“men with high speed drills used to have to unscrew the groin attachment when I needed a wee”

first read

Read an extract from new robo-themed anthology Meeting Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan and with stories by Kameron Hurley, Aliette de Bodard and Gregory Benford

RATES OF CHANGE BY James SA Corey

When a young boy is involved in a deadly accident his family turn to advanced robotics to keep him alive…

iana hasn’t seen her son naked before. He floats now in the clear gel bath of the medical bay, the black ceramic casing that holds his brain, the long articulated tail of his spinal column. Like a tadpole, she thinks. Like something young. In all, he hardly masses more than he did as a baby. She has a brief, horrifying image of holding him on her lap, cradling the braincase to her breast, the whip of his spine curling around her. The thin white filaments of interface neurons hang in the translucent gel, too thin to see except in aggregate. Silvery artificial blood runs into the casing ports and back out in tubes more slender than her pinky finger. She thought, when they called her in, that she’d be able to see the damage. That there would be a scratch on the carapace, a wound, something to show where the violence had been done to him. There is nothing there. Not so much as a scuff mark. No evidence. The architecture of the medical center is designed to reassure her. The walls curve around her in warm colors. The air recyclers hum a low, consonant chord. Nothing helps. Her own body – her third – is flushed with adrenaline, her heart aches and her hands squeeze into fists. Her fight or flight reaction has no outlet, so it speeds around her body, looking

54 | Robots and spaceships

for a way to escape. The chair tilts too easily under her, responding to shifts in her balance and weight that she isn’t aware of making. She hates it. The café au lait that the nurse brought congeals, ignored, on the little table. Diana stares at the curve and sweep of Stefan’s bodiless nervous system as if by watching him now she can stave off the accident that has already happened. Closing the barn door, she thinks, after the horses are gone. The physician ghosts in behind her, footsteps quiet as a cat’s, his body announcing his presence only in how he blocks the light. “Mrs. Dalkin,” he says. “How are you feeling?” “How is he?” she demands instead of saying hello. The physician is a large man, handsome with a low warm voice like flannel fresh from the dryer. She wonders if it is his original body or if he’s chosen the combination of strength and softness just to make this part of his work easier. “Active. We’re seeing metabolic activity over most of his brain the way we would hope. Now that he’s here, the inflammation is under control.” “So he’s going to be all right?” He hesitates. “We’re still a little concerned about the interface. There was some bruising that may have impaired his ability to integrate with a new body, but we can’t really know the

extent of that yet.” Diana leans forward, her gut aching. Stefan is there, only inches from her. Awake, trapped in darkness, aware only of himself and the contents of his own mind. He doesn’t even know she is watching him. If she picked him up, he wouldn’t know she was doing it. If she shouted, he wouldn’t hear. What if he is trapped that way forever? What if he has fallen into a darkness she can never bring him out from? “Is he scared?” “We are seeing some activity in his amygdala, yes,” the physician says. “We’re addressing that chemically, but we don’t want to depress his neural activity too much right now.” “You want him scared, then.” “We want him active,” the physician says. “Once we can establish some communication

“what if he has fallen into a darkness she can never bring him out from?”

Meeting infinity

with him and let him know that we’re here and where he is and that we’re taking action on his behalf, I expect most of his agitation will resolve.” “So he doesn’t even know he’s here.” “The body he was in didn’t survive the initial accident. He was extracted in situ before transport.” He says it so gently, it sounds like an apology. An offer of consolation. She feels a spike of hatred and rage for the man run through her like an electric shock, but she hides it. “What happened?” “Excuse me?” the physician asks. “I said, what happened? How did he get hurt? Who did this?” “He was brought from the coast by emergency services. I understood it was an accident. Someone ran into him, or he ran into something, but apart from that it was a blunt force injury, we didn’t. . .” Diana lifts her hand, and the physician falls silent. “Can you fix him? You can make him all right.” “We have a variety of interventions at our disposal,” he says, relieved to be back on territory he knows. “It’s really going to depend on the nature of the damage he’s sustained.” “What’s the worst case?” “The worst case is that he won’t be able to interface with a new body at all.”

She turns to look into the physician’s eyes. The dark brown that looks back at her doesn’t show anything of the cruelty or horror of what he’s just said. “How likely is that?” Diana says, angry at her voice for shaking. “Possible. But Stefan is young. His tissue is resilient. The casing wasn’t breached, and the constriction site on his spine didn’t buckle. I’d say his chances are respectable, but we won’t know for a few days.” Diana drops her head into her hands, the tips of her fingers digging into her temples. Something violent bubbles in her chest, and a harsh laughter presses at the back of her throat like vomit. “All right,” she says. “All. . . right.” She hears Karlo’s footsteps, recognizing their cadence the way she would have known his cough or the sound of his yawn. Even across bodies, there is a constancy about Karlo. She both clings to it now and resents it. The ridiculous muscle-bound body he bought himself for retirement tips into the doorway, darkening the room. “I came when I heard,” he says. “Fuck you,” Diana says, and then the tears come and won’t stop. He puts his arms around her. The doctor walks softly away. To find out what happens next pick up Meeting Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

THE AUTHORS

James SA Corey is the pen name of two authors – Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Together they are behind the bestselling Expanse Series, which started with Leviathan Wakes in 2011. The fifth book in the series, Nemesis Games, was released earlier this year. They have written a number of short stories set in The Expanse universe, and a small screen adaptation of the series is set to air on Syfy this December. Outside of The Expanse they wrote the Star Wars novel Honor Among Thieves in 2014 (the last book written for the old Expanded Universe) and contributed a short story to George RR Martin’s Old Mars anthology.

Robots and spaceships | 55

Klaatu! Barada! Nikto! And not a Keanu in sight. We look back at the original incarnation of the chillingly memorable science fiction classic Words Joseph M Cabe

sunny afternoon in Washington DC. Children play, lovers picnic, and excited dogs run across the wide stretches of grass that surround the monuments of America’s capital city. But something is amiss in the midday afternoon. It starts as a low, distant hum. A sound that grows louder as a blinding oval of light becomes visible, and glides along the clear blue sky. As even the noon sun is paled by its brilliance, the disc descends, and its form is defined as a metal saucer. The children and passersby are hypnotised, transfixed. They watch with mouths agape as the saucer descends on that most American of all landmarks – the capital mall. Finally, it lands, its light fades, replaced with only the cool exterior of a device more foreign, more frightening, than any enemy warcraft. A crowd approaches the saucer with caution, and a barricade is quickly erected. The military arrives, tanks and guns trained on the giant disc, poised for attack. The saucer… moves. A smooth ramp protrudes from its mid-section,

and a small door slides open atop it. Something emerges. It’s a humanoid figure, helmeted and clad in a gleaming metallic suit. It walks to the rim of the saucer, and declares, in a man’s voice, “We have come to visit you in peace, and with good will.”

An unwelcome visitor

The visitor descends the ramp, a small metal rod clutched in one hand. The crowd draws a breath. Upon reaching the lawn, he continues toward them. He raises the object, points it at them. From the object’s outer casing springs forth a ring of needles, each of them glistening in the sunlight. A young GI, sitting atop a tank, can’t stand it any longer. He fires a shot at the stranger, tearing open his arm, and blasting the tiny rod out of his hand. The visitor collapses on the lawn, and the military moves forward. As they approach him, a metal giant steps out of the saucer, and trains a pulsating electronic eye at one of the tanks, instantly disintegrating it with a destructive ray. The visitor quickly shouts some words of a language never before heard on earth, and the robot stops, frozen in

Carpenter with the Einstein-like Prof Jacob Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe).

56 | Robots and spaceships

place. The soldiers see the visitor to his feet. “It was a gift,” he says, indicating the shattered rod on the lawn, “for your president. With this he could have studied life on the other planets.” The soldiers take custody of the stranger, confident once more in their power, their authority. But their actions today will have repercussions for their world, repercussions that will be felt on another day. The day on which everything changes. The day the Earth stood still. Though director Robert Wise’s seminal 1950s science fiction screen classic was concerned with nothing less than the survival of humanity in the newly born atomic age, its origins were modest. It began, like so many films of its era, as a product of the dying Hollywood studio system. Julian Blaustein, a staff producer for 20th Century Fox, and his assistant began searching for a suitable subject for a thoughtful SF film. “People don’t buy tickets to listen to lectures,” Blaustein once remarked. “You defeat yourself if you try to say something in purely politically oriented statements. It becomes a bore.” He told his assistant, “Our theme is that peace is no longer a four-letter word.” After reading “a couple hundred science fiction stories and novels,” the pair found a tale in the October 1940 issue of the popular magazine Astounding – Harry Bates’s “Farewell To The Master”. “It was about 42 pages,” said Blaustein. “And I just didn’t like very much about the story, but what I did like really started the wheels turning…” Bates’s tale provided the basic set-up for Day, in which a visitor from another world travels to Earth in peace, only to be attacked by those who fear the unusual. “The idea that

the day the earth stood still

â&#x20AC;&#x153;its origins were modest. It began, like so many Films of its era, as a product of the dying Hollywood studio systemâ&#x20AC;?

Robots and spaceships | 57

FLASHBACK

Gort reanimates Klaatu/Carpenter (Michael Rennie).

what turns out to be a man steps off the spaceship, brings an offering as a gift, but because it’s strange and certainly unusual, he’s immediately shot at by our military and seriously wounded… That appealed to me. The way that we deal with strange things is with weapons, guns. No effort at finding out how the other person thinks, feels, works. Different from us? Kill him!”

Better Dead Than Red

Broad as this theme was, it was certainly controversial in the early ’50s, when McCarthyism was in its infancy, and the Red Scare was just gaining momentum in the United States. As Kenneth Von Gunden and Stuart H Stock describe it in the chapter on The Day The Earth Stood Still in their definitive study Twenty All-Time Great Science Fiction Films: “There was a very real fear that Communist-controlled producers and screenwriters were secretly inserting party propaganda into movie scripts.” But factor in that America had dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan just a few years earlier, and that

Klaatu with oversized metallic mate Gort.

58 | Robots and spaceships

Gort neutralises the soldiers’ weapons.

the polarising Korean War was one year underway, and any concerns about blacklisting on the part of Blaustein were tempered by an even greater fear – that the world’s destruction was imminent. Blaustein brought in Edward H North, a staff writer at Fox, to adapt Bates’s story to the screen. North developed the character of Klaatu, the kindly alien visitor, who – in an effort to better understand humanity – disguises himself as an ordinary man and befriends an understanding widow and her son, eventually enlisting their aid in demonstrating the awesome might of his people by neutralising all electricity on Earth for 30 minutes (only hospitals, planes in flight, and “things of that nature” are spared). Klaatu is eventually gunned down, but he’s brought back to life by his giant robot companion Gort (“Gnut” in Bates’s story), who – it’s revealed in the film’s climax – is actually an intergalactic law enforcement officer that Klaatu’s race has surrendered some of their sovereignty to in order to ensure the survival of their race. The only means of stopping Gort is

We have lift off.

“Wise brought on board composer Bernard Hermann, with whom he’d worked on Citizen Kane, to compose The FILM’s eerie, memorable score”

the day the earth stood still

Klaatu! Barada! Nikto!

the three-word command the film would make famous: “Klaatu barada nikto.” North’s religious symbolism – Klaatu adopts the name “Carpenter” before he’s killed, resurrected and ascends into the heavens in his ship – went unnoticed at the time by director Robert Wise. Wise had made his Hollywood breakthrough as an editor, cutting Citizen Kane for Orson Welles, before honing his skills as a director of suspense and the fantastic for legendary RKO genre producer Val Lewton. For Lewton, Wise directed 1940s gems such as The Curse of The Cat People and The Body Snatcher. On Day, he applied his gift for cool, realistic drama, and once more grounded a story many may have perceived as a little too fantastic. “Because of the nature of this story,” said Wise, “I felt it was very important to make it as real and believable as possible. We had this opportunity of having a visitor from another planet come to us, so let’s make it as everyday as we can in terms of the settings, the surroundings. This place, Washington DC, is the capital of our country – we see the streets, the buildings of Washington, and the homes of Washington, and I thought it was very important to make this as down to earth and believable as possible – to put our character from the other planet right in the midst of the ordinary, everyday life of people in this country.” To that end, Wise was helped immensely by cinematographer Leo Tover, whose black and white photography, deep and crisp, underlined the human drama that distinguished the film from the many gaudy colour sci-fi spectacles of its decade. “I was happy to do it in black and white,” said Wise, “and get as much of a realistic documentary feel as possible, even though it was a fiction piece.” The black and white also allowed for the careful placement of shadows across Gort, whose eight-foot-tall costumes – worn by seven-foot, six-inch Lock Martin, an actor and former doorman at Grauman’s Chinese Theater – were lined with laces. When Gort walked towards the camera, he wore a costume with the laces on the back; and when he walked away from the camera, he wore a second costume, with laces on the front. Wise brought on board composer Bernard Hermann, with whom he’d worked on Citizen Kane, to compose The Day The Earth Stood Still’s eerie, memorable score. Hermann, well known to genre fans for dozens of classic compositions (including those for Ray Harryhausen and Alfred Hitchcock’s finest efforts), created

Three words that form the most famous command in science fiction and that have inspired countless pop culture references… Army of Darkness – In the capstone to director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, Ash must retrieve the Necronomicon (the Book of the Dead) by trying, in vain, to speak a variation on Day’s famous command…“Klaatu Verada Nikto.” Why the variation? Raimi and company were also unsure how the words were pronounced! Return Of The Jedi – One of the aliens on board Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge is named Nikto, and two of the guards on his flying skiff are named Klaatu and Barada. Gort, Helen and the reanimated Klaatu.

electronic themes for the film years before Forbidden Planet popularised the style for science fiction cinema. “I felt,” said Hermann, shortly before his death in 1975, “we should do it by taking advantage of using electronic instruments, which hadn’t been done then.”

The Judas Touch

Wise also enlisted future Academy Awardwinner (and wife of famed children’s book author Roald Dahl) Patricia Neal in the role of Helen, the widow whom Klaatu befriends; and Hugh Marlowe (later to star in the Harryhausen epic Earth Vs The Flying Saucers) as Helen’s boyfriend Tom – the film’s “Judas”, who betrays Klaatu for a shot at fame. Klaatu himself would be played by British actor Michael Rennie, despite the protests of studio chief Darryl F Zanuck, who initially wanted Spencer Tracy in the role, and Wise’s instinct to go with Claude Rains, who was then too busy with a stage production to sign on. Michael Rennie’s performance, understated yet confident, cool but impassioned, is perhaps the definitive screen portrait of benign life. He’s entirely believable in the climax, as he delivers the film’s pivotal speech about universal peace through compromise. “The main idea in that story that was appealing was that peace in the universe had been achieved by sacrificing some sovereignty to a central agency,” says Blaustein. “But irrevocably. So that the United Nations, for us, became the focal point of the way to go to world peace. Give the United Nations full authority to step in, to put down violence wherever they saw it. Give them the equipment, the manpower – which of course we knew was unrealistic. To give up sovereignty is something that’s very hard to ask heavily

Willow – George Lucas must be quite a fan because in his high fantasy epic Willow, the title character recites the words when attempting a transmutation spell. The X-Files – Agent Fox Mulder has the words mounted on a wall in his office. (They also make office cameos in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Tron.) Klaatu, the Band – In 1973, a Canadian prog-rock group took the name of The Day The Earth Stood Still’s alien and recorded under it for eight years. Their Beatles-esque sound inspired rumours that they were actually the Fab Four in disguise. Had those rumours turned out to be true, the music world would have stood still.

nationalistic entities to do. But it was an idea that was very appealing.” Today – with seemingly never-ending war in the Middle East, civil strife on every continent, and a distrust on the part of many Americans towards the UN – the appeal of Blaustein’s idea has, sadly, not lessened. But neither has the conviction with which other filmmakers choose to tackle it. The Day The Earth Stood Still’s legacy can be seen on screen in everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Man Who Fell to Earth and ET The Extra Terrestrial, from Spielberg’s mothership to the ominous shadows of Independence Day. It’s a warning, an inspiration and an enduring touchstone. Robots and spaceships | 59

build-a-bot

Creating Visual wizards Doug Williams and Greg Broadmore talk us through the evolution of Neill Blomkamp’s childlike police bot Words josh winning

shouldn’t say this, because he’ll get a big head, but he’s kind of like Michelangelo,” says conceptual artist Doug Williams of his director Neill Blomkamp. “He sees what he wants in the marble and he’s just got to chip away at it.” That said, the actual chipping is mostly done by artists such as Williams and Weta Workshop’s Greg Broadmore, who spent months perfecting the robotic structure of Chappie. Given the taxing brief to create something that didn’t look like a science fiction ’bot, they took into account industrial design principles as they sought a creation that could move like a human being, and also convey a sense of naivety and youth. Here’s how they came up with the final design.

Real deal

For audiences to buy into Chappie’s story, they need to buy into Chappie himself. “You intuitively know when something feels real, and you definitely know in films when something feels fake,” Broadmore states. “Even if you can’t articulate it, you instinctively know it.” To avoid that happening, the designers paid obsessive attention to every detail of Chappie’s construction, drawing influence from real-world robotics companies such as ABB Robotics and Boston Dynamics, as well as other kinds of industrial machinery, such as excavation equipment. The result? “You look at him and think ‘that could come out of some high-tech facility somewhere on the planet,’” says Broadmore.

Ears the thing

Chappie’s rabbit-like ears are probably his most distinctive feature, and they’re something Blomkamp insisted on from the beginning. “You can tell that Neill is a fan of [1980s manga series] Appleseed, and that’s where the inspiration for the ears came from,” Broadmore explains. But the twitchy ears serve 60 | Robots and spaceships

a purpose, too. “You don’t have to literally give a robot eyes and a mouth like a person for it to be able to express emotion,” he says. “You can get that through body posture and subtle movements of the head and hands. The ears are another way he can express himself, even from a distance.”

Age of innocence

“The one thing I was very aware of is that, in the film, he’s like an infant,” says Broadmore. “He’s a naive creature and he starts out with no understanding of the world. He’s essentially a baby.” But how do you possibly convey that sense of youth and innocence in a man-sized metal robot that was originally supposed to be a police drone? Well, partly it’s down to posture and movement, but it’s also something that’s communicated through Chappie’s square, open face. “I think the headpiece is unique,” says Williams. “It’s not sleek, it’s kind of chunky, and I feel like there’s a strange innocence to it.”

Growing pains

Over the course of the film, Chappie learns and matures – but unlike a human, his body doesn’t change. To communicate Chappie’s growth process, the designers added extra emphasis with some decorative touches. “When he starts out, he’s just this default untouched unit, just has a bare paint job from the factory,” says Broadmore. “Then we added cigarette burns, some gold chains, and elements of graffiti and tagging to him, as if the gangsters who kept him

Chappie

“It’s a combination of the colours of the South African police force and a bit of an homage to RoboCop” He was starting to regret buying a motor off eBay.

Though Broadmore admits the 2014 remake wasn’t a bad film, the robotics design wasn’t his cup of tea, so any influence on Chappie comes from the original.

Big softie

Double take

Robots are made of metal, right? Wrong. Weta Workshop cast Chappie in resin. “It’s a kind of resin that’s like skateboard wheel material,” says Broadmore. “It’s slightly soft, so it’s durable. It’ll take a dent, and it’s not brittle. It’s very hard wearing.” All of which is pretty important when you’re talking about a prop that needs to interact with people on a film set. The resin pieces are attached to an internal metal framework, and there are wires and hinges involved also, to ensure Chappie’s various elements are connected properly. had just drawn all over him. So he evolves as he’s picked up by these quite scary people, and he’s transformed.”

On your bike

Maybe the biggest challenge for the designers was creating a robot that had a full range of human motion. So they turned to an unusual source of early inspiration – 1980s dirt bikes. “Neil wanted to stay away from a film industry kind of design; he wanted to have an industrial engineering vibe,” remembers Williams. “So there was a version of Chappie that had these dirt-bike suspension things in his chest and stomach, so he could twist and turn.” The dirt-bike influence

got toned down as Chappie’s design evolved, but you can still see hints of it in his chunky but flexible shape.

Fair cop

The most obvious thing that changed between early concept art and the finished version is the colour. “The original versions we designed were white,” explains Broadmore. “We went through a number of different colours before ending up with that steely blue, which I think is a combination of the colours of the South African police force and a bit of an homage to RoboCop.” That’s the original 1987 RoboCop, of course, a film that both Broadmore and Blomkamp unashamedly love.

As realistic as he might look, Chappie is still a sci-fi creation. So while physical models were used, a lot of the robot action in the movie is CGI. “One of the advantages of making a robot CG is that computers are very good at rendering solid objects, like a car or a robot,” says Broadmore. The CG Chappie was constructed by Image Engine in Canada, and Broadmore reckons the transition between the real prop and the computer-generated version is seamless. “Their rendering of Chappie was so solid you probably won’t be able to tell the difference between a CG shot and a physical object.” Robots and spaceships | 61

t n e l i S g n i n n u R

silent running

The film’s special effects belied its micro budget.

It may have been almost silent at the box office, but Douglas Trumbull’s eco-SF film is still running…

Words Richard Luck

“while it might have been watched by only so many people, those that saw it embraced it with a rare enthusiasm”

guy famous for gunning down John Wayne, a disillusioned special FX genius, four amputees and the female Bob Dylan – it can only be Silent Running, the small scale eco-flavoured science fiction epic without which we probably wouldn’t have WALL-E. “People always want to talk to me about Silent Running,” smiles Bruce Dern. “I’ve done a lot of things in film. I worked with Hitchcock, I’ve been nominated for Oscars and Golden Globes, I’m one of the few people who’s shot John Wayne onscreen, and my daughter [Jurassic Park’s Laura] has been in some of the biggest movies ever made. And still barely a week goes by without someone stopping me in the street to talk about that great little movie.” A “great little movie” is a fitting description of Douglas Trumbull’s eco-friendly space fantasy. Made in the window between 2001 and Star Wars, Silent Running is a film less ahead of its time than very much of its time. Our hero is Dern’s Freeman Lowell, a space gardener who loathes his human colleagues but adores the arboretums he’s been entrusted with cultivating. At least that is until the order comes for Lowell to return home and destroy his beloved forests – instructions that result in the quiet man taking unusual, brutal action. Perhaps the closest Hollywood ever came to restaging the 1970s counter-culture struggles in outer space, Silent Running was only a modest box office success on its original release. But as Bruce Dern explains, the film’s cult following continues to flourish. More pertinently, Silent Running is still shaping the way cinema sees the future. Indeed when Duncan Jones released his lo-fi sci-fi drama Moon, it was rare to read an article in which he didn’t lavish praise upon Trumbull’s picture. And when Pixar introduced the world to WALL-E, there can’t have been many critics who didn’t look at the amiable automatons and think back to Huey, Dewey and Louie, Lowell’s trio of robot aides whose quiet lo-tech charm made Silent Running one of 1970s sci-fi’s genuine delights. Robots and spaceships | 63

FLASHBACK

The robots were played by double-amputees.

Trumbull Ahead After Silent Running its director went Back To The Future. Sort of. First time director Douglas Trumbull could’ve been forgiven for thinking Silent Running would completely alter his career path. Whatever dreams he had of taking up residence in the director’s chair were cruelly dashed by his debut’s mixed success and by the fact Hollywood already had him figured for a technician rather than a filmmaker. While Trumbull has only shot one further feature – the ill-fated Brainstorm in 1983 – he’s been able to live out his directing dreams shooting footage for theme park rides such as Universal Studios’ acclaimed Back To The Future extravaganza.

64 | Robots and spaceships

The Man Who Saw The Future

Scripted by two men – Michael “Deer Hunter” Cimino and Steven “NYPD Blue” Bochco – who’d shape the future of film and television, Silent Running’s destiny ultimately lay in the hands of Douglas Trumbull. The man responsible for 2001’s brain-bending “Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite” sequence, Trumbull still enjoys an unrivalled reputation in special effects cinema. “Douglas is the man!” laughs his colleague and sometime pupil Scott Farrar. “I got one of my first breaks in FX working for Douglas and I can’t tell you what a piece of luck that was. When you work in American film, you’re forever being told what you can’t do. Douglas is someone who’ll never tell you not to do something. He also teaches you how to make the best of what’s around you. Take the remarkable cloud formations in Close Encounters

Of The Third Kind – Douglas achieved that look by injecting white paint into tanks of water!” With 2001 already to his name, Trumbull might have been a big wheel in the world of visual effects but his real ambition was to direct. As he said in 1972, “It can be quite a lonely thing, special effects. I’m a social person so I think I’m very well suited to life on a film set. And I certainly have stories I want to tell.” Stories he might have had, but Trumbull’s lack of behind-the-camera experience meant no one was willing to splash out on Silent Running. In the end, the debutant was granted barely $1m to make his movie. As Scott Farrar recalls, Trumbull’s frugal nature and a stash of second-hand footage made bringing the film in on budget something of a breeze. “When Douglas began work on 2001, Stanley Kubrick had it in mind that Saturn rather than Jupiter would provide the backdrop for the finale. Douglas loved the idea but as he went to work on it, it became apparent he didn’t have the money or the time to give Stanley what he wanted. I’m sure Stanley wasn’t too pleased to hear that, but he eventually got what Douglas was driving at and he agreed to substitute Jupiter for Saturn. So, fast forward four years and Douglas is trying to make Silent Running on a shoestring and he goes back to the Saturn footage and decides it’s salvageable. Doug knew how to get the most out of a dollar.” Trumbull also proved to be a dab hand when it came to casting a picture. In the original version of the script, Freeman Lowell was a crotchety old man at odds with the rapidly evolving world around him. When the decision was made to rewrite the character as a young, antiheroic type, Trumbull knew exactly who he wanted. “If you wanted an antihero in the early 1970s, you phoned me,” laughs Bruce Dern, a lupine grin flickering across his face. “I’d gotten a reputation for it and out of that I got the part in Silent Running.” Besides playing crazy-mixed-up-kids, Dern also had experience working for the budget-

silent running

Lowell’s fellow crewmen ain’t gonna be collecting their pensions.

busting Roger Corman. So how did Trumbull’s cost-cutting compare to that of Corman the penny-pincher? “Well, when I signed on for the film, I assumed we’d be shooting on the backlot. But it turned out most of the interiors were shot aboard an old aircraft carrier. I’m sure we were there because it was less expensive than hiring studio space but it turned out to be an amazing space to work in. Given that we were playing astronauts aboard a huge space freighter, you really couldn’t have hoped for a better location. We all felt pretty small aboard that ship, which is how I imagine Douglas wanted us to feel.”

Are These The Droids You’re Looking For?

Cost-cutting was also crucial in bringing Silent Running’s most enduring characters to life. “When you’ve got robots in a script, I don’t care who you are, you want to make real robots,” enthuses Scott Farrar. “When you get into this business you do so because you want to make your dreams come to life. And who hasn’t ever dreamed of making their own robot? I’m sure Douglas, at least early on in developing Silent Running, wanted robots of his own. I know I would have!” With barely enough money to feed the cast and crew, Trumbull had to find a cheaper sticky-backed-plastic-style solution to his robot problem. The answer eventually came in the shape of Mark Persons, Larry Whisenhunt, Steven Brown and Cheryl Sparks – four highly unusual performers. “I’ve seen a lot of things in movies but those guys were something else,” says Dern. “Mark, Larry and the others were all doubleamputees. I’m sure a lot of people would consider them severely disabled but they wouldn’t have any of it. To do what they did all day, walking around on their hands, took amazing strength and real talent.” Hiring amputees to play Lowell’s beloved robots was certainly an odd idea. As Scott Farrar recalls, the notion came to Trumbull after screening one of America’s most infamous

An R2-D2 forerunner?

horror movies. “I once asked Douglas about the origins of Huey, Dewey and Louie and he said that he got the idea of hiring people who could walk on their hands after watching Tod Browning’s Freaks. In the film, Johnny Eck – who was born without legs – walks on his hands. Doug clearly thought that if Johnny Eck could do that, he could find people to make his robots mobile. And he was right.” It says a lot for Silent Running that, while it features a quartet of amputee performers, they aren’t the most peculiar cast members. No, that honour must go to Joan Baez, the queen of 1960s folk who contributes a pair of songs to the soundtrack. The element that does most to date the movie, Baez’s numbers not only seem out of place, they unnecessarily underline the movie’s central messages. The singer, however, might be quick to point out that she didn’t write lyrics like “Gather your children to your side in the sun/Tell them all they love will die, tell them why, in the sun”. And, as Bruce Dern adds, “an unusual soundtrack was but just another element that helped Silent Running stand out. We were the science fiction film with the Joan Baez songs – no one else could say that.”

Trees In Space

How Alien 3 was almost the Silent Running sequel no one expected

How do you improve upon space-bound arboretums? By conjuring up a wooden planet, that’s how. Sadly, Alien 3’s first choice director Vincent Ward was unable to put his elaborate plan into action, the director being replaced by David Fincher shortly before shooting and his “timberland” concept giving way to a rusting prison colony. But you have to admire his candour as far as his source of inspiration is concerned. “Silent Running was a big influence,” he told interviewers in 1996. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Keep On Running

Sadly the presence of Ms Baez and the cutest darn robots the world’s ever seen couldn’t encourage the great unwashed to embrace Silent Running. Trumbull’s picture opened and closed with little fanfare and even less fuss. But then Silent Running refused to go away. While it might have been watched by only so many people, those that saw it embraced it with a rare enthusiasm. And with many of the film’s fans apparently working in the movie industry, Silent Running began to shape other, far more expensive movies. Movies like The Black Hole which featured a brace of pleasantly-cumbersome robots. And then there was the small matter of Star Wars, and a spirited, dwarf-powered droid by the name of R2-D2. “I’m sure George Lucas saw Silent

Running,” smiles Scott Farrar. “I reckon he was a big fan.” And more than 40 years later Silent Running is still affecting the film world. From the hearty praise of flappy-handed movie buff Mark Kermode to WALL-E’s Andrew Stanton fronting up to being a huge admirer, Silent Running seems to occupy a space in the collective movie conscience akin to a lo-fi 2001. If it is forever destined to be dwarfed by Kubrick’s epic creation, there is at least one count on which it’s every bit its equal. For if there is a closing image to rival the enigmatic, unknowable Star Child it is that of a robot tending plants in a forest bound forever to float through the vastness of space. Robots and spaceships | 65

THE Fannish Inquisition

Brent Spiner Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Pinocchio-inspired android answers your searching questions Words dave bradley

eing sung to during an interview is not a common occurrence, but Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran Brent Spiner is proud of his voice and has recorded a pair of albums to prove it. Sat with him in a small but opulent hotel drawing room in London’s West End, Spiner is disarmingly friendly, and funny – everything’s an opportunity for an affectionate joke – as we put your questions to him. When he wants to demonstrate a favourite song, he bursts into performance, which is both brilliant and surreal at the same time. After a quick rendition of “How Deep Is The Ocean?” Spiner listens with interest to your queries...

What’s the strangest request you’ve ever received from a fan? Paulky The other day a guy online asked me to be best man at his wedding. They’re being married at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas on the deck of the Enterprise. I’ve never been there! I’ve been to the hotel, but I’ve never been to the Experience. And would I be best man? I said, “Absolutely not!” Surely he has friends that would be more appropriate! But I’ve had people do odd things that they didn’t ask, like take a tile off the roof of my house! Have the TNG icons secured their place in popular culture the way that Kirk and Spock have? Vincent B Who are Kirk and Spock anyway? No, I haven’t a clue. That’s not really for me to say, and I guess time will tell. We’re in the cultural icon business, right? I don’t know how long it will last – will they be talking about any of it in 100 years, or will there be another Star Trek on TV still in 100 years? Probably so, if they’ve got any sense. It’ll just have way better effects. 66 | Robots and spaceships

How did you feel when the new Star Trek film was announced and it became apparent that the TNG crew were not involved? Narin What? Wait! There’s a new film?! I don’t really feel anything about it. I don’t think any of us expected to be in it or part of it. We’ve done our deal – now it’s onto “the next generation”. Do you enjoy acting more than singing or is it about equal? Liam Austin I don’t enjoy acting more than singing or singing more than acting. I like creating something, that to me is the joy. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes, as long as I have a creative outlet, an urge. It’s been that way for me since childhood; I knew I was going to be in showbusiness from an early age. Now I have a five-year-old son and I look at him and I think, “Oh my God,” cos he is a real character too, and he’s constantly amusing and funny and he does characters. I become these people that he wants me to become: he goes, “Make Captain

Brent Spiner as Data, and the cast of Star Trek: Next Generation.

Data

FACT FILE

Name:

Brent Spiner

AGE: 59 From:

Houston, Texas

CV: After minor roles in sitcoms and dramas (including a murder suspect in Cheers), Spiner’s break came in 1987 when he was cast as Lieutenant Commander Data. After seven series he also played the character in four big-budget spin-off films. He has released two albums (Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back and Dreamland), starred on the Broadway stage, played Nigel Fenway in the short-lived Threshold, taken small but pivotal roles in a number of movies – such as Independence Day – and made guest appearances in many other TV productions, most notably a return to Star Trek in Enterprise as scientist Arik Soong. He’ll next be seen in Outcast, from The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman.

THE Fannish Inquisition

Brent Spiner as Threshold’s Dr Nigel Fenway.

Crossing The Threshold

Brent has a bad hair day as Dr Brackish Okun in Independence Day.

Hook,” and I go, “Arrrrr. Think lively, lad.” And he goes, “Make Dracula,” and I go, “Bleh.” And he becomes this character named Bat, who is Dracula’s student. And so I fear for him – I think it’s the same journey for him probably. The singing came later. I was in high school and I had this great teacher who was sort of a mentor, for me and dozens of other people who are still in showbusiness. And he put on a musical every year and you just wanted to be part of it! Cos you wanted to be around him, he was such a great guy and so inspiring. So I wound up being in musicals in high school and just luckily could sing, so I got better parts.

I really liked Threshold. Some of the ideas were original, and it had an interesting cast. What did you think of it? Suzie Hill

I had a great time on Threshold. It was such a great cast. Wonderful. You know, we really were lucky on Star Trek. I don’t know how people still work those 16 to 20-hour days; on Star Trek we were on sets with no windows and if you’re working on soundstages like that you had better enjoy the company or it’s going to be miserable! And that was a really lucky experience, where everybody really got on very well and we laughed all day long; so it was great. And I thought that could never happen again – yet although it was very different, Threshold was great company to be in. Everybody got along, we enjoyed being with each other and it was a really strong acting ensemble. Carla Gugino was the centre of the show and it helped that everyone else was a guy and we were all in love with her. There’s something about Carla that makes you feel that maybe it’s just possible she might be in love with you too. But she’s not; she’s got a boyfriend who she’s very much in love with. But she’s captivating and she was great to be around. I would say, by the way, that if there was one of us that she might have been in love with, it was probably me! And the writers were terrific; they had some really good ideas about where it was going to go in years to come. The show was going to change titles every year: the second year it was going to be Foothold, the third year it was going to be Stranglehold. And by the end of the show what they wanted it to evolve into was something like Mad Max, where civilisation had been wiped out by the aliens and there were just pockets of humanity struggling to keep it together. They had a whole arc worked out, and it’s a shame they didn’t get the opportunity to do it.

68 | Robots and spaceships

With Patrick Stewart in 1988 Next Gen episode “The Big Goodbye”.

If you could choose any other current TV show to guest star in or maybe get a regular role, what would it be and why? Broken Serenity I don’t watch much television. When I do I generally watch documentaries or Antiques Roadshow. Maybe Antiques Roadshow is the show I’d like to be on! If I could be on anything really I’d like a half-hour comedy. Curb Your Enthusiasm I guess. I wrote, co-wrote and pitched a series ten years ago that was about me after Star Trek and my world had fallen apart and my accountant had got me into some

“i have no problem talking about star trek – as long as it’s not the only thing i talk about!”

Data

Next Generation episode “Elementary, Dear Data”.

ROLE WITH IT

There are certain roles that many actors would like to play but have never been asked (Lear or Hamlet perhaps) – do you have any roles left that you’d really like to play? Phetish

Specs appeal: with Sara Paxton in Superhero Movie.

horrible investments and I was broke and I’d lost all my money and I couldn’t get a job because I was typecast. And so I wound up having a nervous breakdown, and the series actually opens with me getting out of the institution and starting over again and going back to this little place I lived when I first moved to Hollywood and trying to make it back in showbusiness. I think it would’ve been a hit! I had a scene in one episode where my make-up artist had to meet me in the bathroom of a synagogue because I was marching in a kid’s Bar Mitzvah as Data to make a few extra bucks. Sadly it didn’t go further. So I don’t have a problem playing myself, if I can make me sort of pathetic. Considering your extensive career do you ever get frustrated that the focus of many of your interviews tends towards Star Trek? Mr Cairo No, really. It’s like saying to Clinton, “Do you mind if we ask you about being President?” And then him saying, “No, I don’t want to ever talk about being the President again!” It was a big part of my life and remains such. I have no problem talking about Star Trek. As long as it’s not the only thing I talk about!

my mentors came from people I’ve worked with too. I did a movie with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and those guys could not have been more encouraging, and that meant a lot to me. What do you remember most about your first professional role – what was it, and how much did you learn from it? Jon I got my equity card in 1969 – I was in a movie that was shooting in Texas called My Sweet Charlie with Patty Duke. They came to the high school and just said, “We need three guys,” and I wound up being one of them and I got to be in the Screen Actors Guild because of it! Also, there was a local theatre (the Houston Music Theater), and they did summer musicals in the round and they brought in stars, then they would cast the chorus from local kids. One of the first shows I did in that first season was Damn Yankees with Rita Moreno. Maybe 15 years later, there was a studio in New York rehearsing Three Musketeers for Broadway and I was waiting for the elevator and Rita Moreno walked in. She looked at me and said, “I know you.” And I said, “Yeah I was in the chorus of Damn Yankees” and she went, “Right. Houston Music Theater. I knew you were

Yeah, I’d like to play Lear or Hamlet. [Laughs] No, there are lots of roles that I’d like to play. It’s odd, my friend Patrick [Stewart] and I apparently want to play the same roles, and he’s more likely to get them than I am, because he’s a renowned Shakespearean. I want to play Shylock and he wants to play Shylock. And he will: actually John Logan wrote a film for Patrick, an adaptation of The Merchant Of Venice, for him to do. I want to play Fagin, and he wants to play Fagin. We want to play the same roles. I’d like to play Sherlock Holmes – I’ve done a little touch of it on the holodeck – and I’m sure if he reads this he’ll want to play Sherlock Holmes!

going to make it,” which I thought was really kind of incredible. You lived in Houston, in Texas, during the 1960s. Were you inspired by the Moon landings? Cristina R As a matter of fact, I had mono [glandular fever] during the Moon landing and I had a 105˚ temperature. We were doing Kiss Me Kate and I was playing this part of the haberdasher, and it’s a very flamboyant sort of part. You only have one scene. I had an idea of how to play it and I thought it was really funny but then the director, who shall remain nameless, said, “No, no. You have to do it like this,” and he demonstrated it for me: and it was horrible. And I thought, “I cannot do that!” And I think I willed myself to have mono so I could leave! I wound up in bed in a semi-conscious state. When I woke up Man was on the Moon… and I thought, “All right, am I alive? Is this possible?!”

Which people would you describe as your inspirations in your early career? Anonymous I had a singing teacher whose name was Michael Lawrence, and he was great, and he helped me so much. He was really expensive for Houston, Texas at that time. He believed in me and told my mother, “I’ll give him one free lesson a week if you’ll pay for one.” So I had two lessons a week for the price of one. Gene Roddenberry was incredibly helpful; he believed in us and gave us these great parts. But Robots and spaceships | 69

RobotecH For so many anime fans, their obsession with the medium began with Robotech. In an interview before his death in 2010, its creator Carl Macek revealed the secret history of the seminal series… Words damien mcferran

hese days the considerable influence of Japanese animation can be felt all over the globe. However, if it wasn’t for legendary producer Carl Macek the West would probably still be clueless to the delights of what is affectionately known as “anime”. Macek was an early pioneer of the art form and the driving force behind what was arguably the first truly mainstream anime series in the US: Robotech. The long-running anime series came about thanks to the fusion of three different Japanese TV shows in the early ’80s. Featuring transforming robots, marauding aliens and plenty of seat-of-your-pants action, it thrilled prepubescent audiences the world over. Think Transformers, but even better. “I owned comic book stores; some of the very first ‘brick and mortar’ operations in the States in the 1970s,” explained Macek, when asked what he was up to prior to working on Robotech. His involvement began when a representative from Harmony Gold – a production company with a keen interest in

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animation from the Far East – paid his store a visit. “The rep was requesting cels from some esoteric anime titles I had in my inventory. He said it was easier to get the images from my store rather than request material from Japan! I asked what titles they had the rights to and he mentioned Macross.” Super Dimension Fortress Macross (to give the series its full title) aired in Japan from 1982-83 and along with the seminal Mobile Suit Gundam was one of the first anime productions to adopt the popular “space opera” template laid down by George Lucas’s Star Wars. Despite

the phenomenal success of the show in its native country it was not considered an obvious candidate for distribution in the West. Nevertheless, as a fan of the series, Macek’s interest was piqued. “I asked if Harmony Gold had merchandising rights to Macross. The rep said they did, we came to an agreement and I began working on licensing Macross in the States.” Unbeknownst to Macek, other forces were at work behind the scenes that would radically alter the nature of his relationship with Macross. “Model company Revell was in talks with

Despite the serious tone of the series, it had its fair share of light-hearted moments.

ROBOTECH

“I was berated for many years for changing the storyline of the original anime”

Lynn Minmay – Robotech’s resident “bit of fluff” and Rick Hunter’s love interest.

Rick Hunter – all-round good guy and one of Robotech’s most famous protagonists.

Harmony Gold regarding their line of imported model kits. Their marketing strategy was to create a brand name for these kits called Robotech. Since a number of their more successful kits came from the Macross series – which Harmony Gold had the merchandising rights to – it was only a matter of time before the two worked together. Harmony Gold eventually hired me to head up the development of a potential TV series.”

MORE EPISODES, PLEASE

Tied in with Revell’s toy line, Macek now had a new name for his latest venture but simply adapting Macross for Western consumption and rebranding it Robotech wouldn’t be enough. “At this time, the animation market was dominated by syndicated television series like He-Man, Transformers and Thundercats, scheduled to be played Monday through Friday for a 13-week cycle. Macross only had 36 episodes and I suggested that if we were going to be taken seriously we would have to add more.” In order to meet the bare minimum of 65 episodes required for TV syndication Macek

trawled through the Harmony Gold library and came across two other Japanese series he deemed suitable for inclusion: 1983’s Genesis Climber Mospeada and the 1984 Macross sequel series Super Dimension Fortress Southern Cross. “I informed everyone that this would require a radical reimagining of the plot.” For one of the parties involved, this increased workload was considered too risky. “It all became too much for Revell – a model kit company that had never sponsored an animated series before – and they were ‘bought out’ by Harmony Gold, becoming a licensee instead of a principal.” With Harmony Gold’s complete support Macek set about creating an amalgamated plot that would merge the three different series into one cohesive whole. “We were looking for a unifying storyline; had we just adapted each series individually it would not have had the same impact. After

FLASHBACK

Fact: in the future, green hair will be deemed perfectly acceptable.

Never Employ Roger Rabbit Behind the scenes it was a laugh a minute – not too helpfully Although bringing Robotech to the small screen was arduous, there were some lighter moments during production. “Sometimes writers or actors would give alternative lines of dialogue just to break the boredom and these lines would be recorded and then played back just for laughs. One such line managed to get into the final mix because the engineer failed to

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erase the alternative take and the mixer chose to include it over the proper line of dialogue!” However, sometimes the mirth on-set was a negative force rather than a positive one. “Charles Fleischer – the voice of Roger Rabbit – worked on many of the sessions for Robotech. Between takes Fleischer – an accomplished stand-up comedian – would go try out

his latest material which would crack everyone up and cause the production to slow down. Eventually we had to let him go!”

reviewing hundreds of hours of anime, I came to the conclusion that the three series selected for Robotech could mould together to tell an amazing three-act story.” Although he had previous experience of working in a studio, Macek’s labour on Robotech was quite unlike anything he had attempted before. “I locked myself up in a screening room and watched the footage from the three series with the sound turned off. I was looking for visual patterns or similarities; trying to get the right sequence of events to tell the story. Eventually I chose to start with Macross, then segue into Southern Cross and eventually conclude with Mospeada. This was not the chronological order in which the series were originally produced.” Creating this new vision was a task of herculean proportions, but time was not something that Macek possessed in abundance. “Everything was done simultaneously over a four-month period. We had several studios recording dialogue in both day and night shifts. I would be editing an episode in one room and coming in to see the mix in another – it was a whirlwind! I am surprised that it came together as well as it did.” The process of adapting the shows for young American viewers necessitated the need for some changes. “Robotech was scheduled to be broadcast on NBC on Saturday mornings so we were required to eliminate any nudity and visuals which showed blood flowing from wounds. Censorship needs aside, the fact that an entirely original plot was also being concocted meant that Robotech differed

ROBOTECH

Because Robotech was created by fusing three different series, it contained a wide range of futuristic craft.

considerably from the original Japanese series. The Robotech ‘Protoculture’ storyline changed a great deal of the original plot points. In Macross it was an intellectual concept, but in Robotech it was a remarkable energy source.”

RE-VOICING ROBOTECH

Because Macek was using already existing animation, the majority of his work in the studio was done with voice talent. “This venture was the first major ‘single track’ project – one actor at a time – and it required people with skills far different from other actors. “For example, the first actor for a scene had to act alone, creating timing, emotion and content without the benefit of playing off another person, but as the production progressed the subsequent actors were able to play off previously recorded tracks. It’s remarkable that with the tools available to us at the time we were able to make the acting seem fresh and natural. It couldn’t have

happened without good actors, good scripts and good directing.” When it aired on US networks in March 1985 Robotech was a massive hit and was eventually sold to over 100 different countries. Although it wasn’t the first English-language adaption of Japanese animation, it arguably helped popularise the genre in the West and served as the ideal “stepping stone” into the world of anime for many youngsters. When the original run of 85 episodes concluded the door was left wide open for a sequel, which took the form of 1987’s Robotech II: The Sentinels. Intended to be a 100% original venture with entirely new animation, it was dogged by misfortune. In an ironic reversal of the merchandising situation which sired the original series, instead of having an accompanying toy line that boosted interest (not to mention profits), commercial issues were to blame for the untimely death of The Sentinels. “It was going to be a co-production between Harmony Gold, anime studio Tatsunoko and Matchbox Toys. It had been sold to a syndication network covering over 65% of all American households, all 65 scripts were written and production had begun. Problems began cropping up regarding money and eventually Matchbox pulled out completely. Thankfully we were able to salvage enough footage to create a feature-length movie.” The franchise then slipped under the radar for over a decade, although devoted fans were kept satisfied with various novels and other small-scale projects that slowly but carefully expanded the Robotech universe. Finally, in 2000, Harmony Gold revealed details of a series reboot in the form of the CGI-animated Robotech 3000. However, like The Sentinels, this production was also doomed to failure. “It was too expensive. It would have been a great story, answering all the lingering questions posed by the Robotech storyline. Sadly much of the design work was non-anime oriented and looked weird.” Thankfully fans didn’t have to wait too long for further news. 2004 saw the announcement of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, an animated feature film that picked up where the original 1985 TV series left off. Macek’s participation was limited: “I was just used as a sounding block and to answer technical questions.” The Shadow Chronicles was released in 2007 and a proposed sequel, Shadow Rising, went into pre-production the same year, but stalled after the death of Macek in 2010, aged just 59. Macek’s legacy lives on, however. In 2014 Harmony Gold attempted to crowdfund a pilot episode for a new series – Robotech Academy, but fell well short of its $500,000 target. A live-action feature adaptation meanwhile has been in development hell since 2007, with Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lawrence Kasdan and more attached over the years. It’s clearly a series Hollywood isn’t willing to let slip through its fingers though, with Sony Pictures recently acquiring the rights from Warner Bros and signing up Fast And Furious 7’s James Wan as director, envisioning the series as a Transformerslike film franchise.

Movie Mayhem

How Robotech finally lumbered onto the big screen 1986’s oft-derided Robotech: The Movie followed the same lead as the TV series – it combined footage from two different anime productions to create a storyline that tied in only vaguely with the original saga. “Originally we tried to acquire the rights to the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love, but they were tied up. So we moved on to adapt another anime film called Megazone 23. While I was in Japan working on The Sentinels, the distribution company set to release Robotech screened an incomplete version of it and rejected it. I was asked to re-cut the film. I did this by adding more footage from the TV series Southern Cross.” The movie is notable for including an entirely new “happy” ending, which was created by the team behind Megazone 23 and was supervised by Macek himself. “We brought in a storyboard artist who worked on the Mad Max films to do the boards from my script. It was quite an experience.”

It’s hard to exaggerate the impact that Robotech had on the fortunes of anime in the West, but for Macek, being involved with such an influential production was something of a double-edged sword. “Following the initial rush of the success of Robotech, I was for many years berated for changing the storyline of the original anime.” Indeed, devotees of Macross, Mospeada and Southern Cross all seem to take a rather dim view of Robotech, but it’s somewhat ironic that many of these same people had never even heard of these shows until Macek decided to combine them. “More people around the world have seen the remarkable work presented in these various series as Robotech than as the original series. Had Robotech been done as three different shows without the multigenerational hook then the whole anime culture in the West might not be at the level that it is today.” Robots and spaceships | 73

bender

Interface

Get Bent Futurama’s foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, beer-guzzling bending unit stops by from the year 3000 to talk crap. Literally Words PHIL MILLARD

would have nachos and take a crap. All at the same time. That would be awesome,” proclaims a thoughtful Bender on the first thing he would do if he were human. Excrement, it seems, and the ability to excrete, is what separates the robots from us humans. We may consider this bodily function a burden, a filthy curse or maybe even a fine nitrate-rich fertiliser but one thing’s for sure – it’s an aptitude those robots can never take away from us. Something that clearly troubles Bender as a flaw in his design. “I would take a big ol’ craperooney. Right there in the crapper. I would use your crapper, if I could. I have a lot of issues with crap.” You’ve caught us getting philosophical with the self-styled “pimpin’est, baddest robot in the land” but, rest assured, the conversation rarely reaches the dizzy heights of these erudite musings. Hang on… take a step back. Isn’t he an… an… animat… no. Nah, can’t be. We’re talking to him over the phone. “Every beer is good beer. Every beer is sacred. I’ve always loved beer. Ya know what? I

One Bender = scary; 50 Benders = terrifying.

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like the stuff with the extra yeast on the bottom!” This is a fact that may come as no surprise to fans of the docu-soap (for Bender is real, you know – we’re talking to him right now) Futurama and the exploits of the intergalactic delivery company, Planet Express. But we surprise Bender with a fact of our own: our low-land cousins in Belgium produce over 150 brands of beer alone! And it’s premium stuff to boot! “I would drink through Belgium!” he barks down the phone and then reiterates: “If I had the choice, I would drink THROUGH Belgium! I would like to do that... very much. In fact, I would make you pay for it!” Beer, you see, is the elixir that drives this here robot. Without dangerously excessive levels of alcohol consumption, this bending-unit runs the risk of... becoming sober. And, thus, losing all control over his body – an idea he fears. A compulsive kleptomaniac himself, Bender was taught a valuable lesson about the sanctity of preserving one’s own body. On one occasion it was stolen from a pawn shop by US President Richard Nixon’s head-in-a-jar. So, did he feel dirty when he finally got his body back off Nixon? And, more importantly, did the slimy toad hide any important dossiers inside Bender’s bowels? “Actually, no, he didn’t but...” He pauses as if traumatised by something terrible. “He was messin’ with all my stuff! I mean he kept touchin’ my baby! I said, ‘GET OFF MY BABY!”’ He stops to explain. “I got a baby I keep in there. He kept touchin’ it. There... it was... It was wrong!” A baby? So Bender has a sensitive side? We think better of pursuing this line of questioning however as we can only assume that, if there is indeed a baby inside of Bender, it could only have been stolen from a maternity ward. We tactfully put this to him. “Oh, you know... I rent it out for parties. He’s a party baby, he’s a’right, don’ worry about him,” he continues, adopting a dismissive tone and then changing tack slightly; “I got other things I have in there that are

important to me! Y’know, there’s a porn collection, empty bottles for recycling so I can get more booze – I got all sortsa stuff in there. I don’t like people touchin’ my stuff!” It’s at this point that we overstep the mark and point out, again, that “his stuff” is probably all stolen. Before we can backtrack and metaphorically kiss his shiny metal ass, he erupts; “I’ll wrestle ya right NOW! Keep it up, pal! I’ll bust yer balls, buddy!” It’s a threat we don’t take lightly either. Earlier on during the interview the conversation turned to fighting. Impressed by Bender’s energy in the ring during bouts of Ultimate Robot Fighting League we explain to him that Robot Wars was once the biggest thing in the UK. Where robots built out of lawnmowers, wheelchairs and vacuum cleaner parts would attack each other with flamethrowers and pickaxes. He’s not impressed. “Listen, flamethrowers! C’mon! I belch flames! Give me a break! They’re running on wheels! Oh, big deal.” Are you still pursuing a career in the Ultimate Robot Fighting League as The Gender Bender, then, we enquire? “Ah, listen, when I had to put on a tu-tu, I said, ‘Forgettaboutit!’ But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m a REAL toughie.” As The Gender Bender, Bender was contractually obliged to dress like a girl, we just can’t help ourselves and tell him that he looked real tough in a blonde wig. “C’mon! I’ll wrestle Right now!” So if fighting competitively is out of the picture (unless it’s with us in the ring), what’s next for Bender and, indeed, what’s next for the Planet Express crew now their docu-soap has been canned? “We’ll make a little stop in Belgium and then Amsterdam and back to Belgium again and then Amsterdam... I’ll live in Amsterdam. I love Amsterdam.” Maybe they could rename it Benderville after one of its best customers? “Isn’t there a sex museum called Benderville?” And with that we thank him very much for his time. “GOOD! Cuz I gotta go an’ get hammered.”

BIODATA Name: Bender Bending Rodriguez AGE: Infinite (thanks to travelling through the time span of the universe twice in “The Late Phillip J Fry”) From: Fábrica Robótica De La Madre, Mexico CV: Industrial bending bot Bender Rodriguez was built in 2996 at Mom’s Robot Factory. He’s no mere assembly line robot, however (and that’s not his ego talking). Bender is “mortal” due to a manufacturing error that left him without a backup unit, and thus unable to transfer his memory to another body. Bender was programmed to bend structural steel but works as assistant manager of sales at Planet Express. He’s best friends with Philip J Fry and likes nothing more than boozing, womanising and doing as little work as possible. He sounds an awful lot like a guy from the 21st century called John DiMaggio.

“Every beer is good beer. Every beer is sacred. I’ve always loved beer”

fight! fight! fight! MARVIN vs Johnny Five Johnny Five’s funny, but his primary directive is as a war machine. Marvin’s ennui prevents any form of self-defence and the SAINT throws him out the ring. Win for Johnny Five

TERMINATORS vs SONNY It seems deft Sonny has the upper hand until the T-800 lands a punch on the NS-5’s head that crushes his positronic brain and switches his lights out for good.

who would win in the battle of the bots?

TERMINATORS vs C-3PO & R2-D2 The efficient TX infiltrates the CPUs of her opponents; true to form, C-3PO curses his useless metal body as R2-D2 explodes in a blast of blue electricity.

JOHNNY FIVE vs TERMINATORS “Number Five is alive!” Not for much longer... T-1000’s too quick for the war droid, as he inputs a blade into Johnny Five’s battery unit, disabling him.

Win for the TErminators

Win for the Terminators

C-3PO & R2-D2 vs WALL-E & EVE The weighty combination of C-3PO’s strategic intelligence and R2-D2’s bravery just trumps cybernetic tag-team lovebots WALL-E and EVE. Win for C-3PO & R2-D2

THE GUNSLINGER vs ROBBY THE ROBOT Crude punches knock the Gunslinger to the floor but a well-aimed shot at Robby’s unprotected glass head short-circuits all his brain functions.

TRANSFORMERS vs ROBOCOP Robocop comes up short against the power of the Cybertronians. As Jetfire enters the fray, just a single jab from his battle axe brings Murphy down.

C-3PO & R2-D2 vs THE GUNSLINGER The Gunslinger commits computer hara-kiri, as his circuits overload through sheer embarrassment at that camp cowboy strut.

Win for the TRANSFORMERS

Easy win for C-3PO & R2-D2

Win for The Gunslinger

TRANSFORMERS vs MARK 13 Megatron, under sustained attack from brawling MARK 13, transforms into a battle tank and unloads his plasma cannon on the self-built ’bot. Win for the Transformers

ROY BATTY vs ROBOT MARIA Robot Maria’s exotic dancing leaves Batty unmoved; before Roy has time to attack, though, the match is halted as Replicant Roy is disqualified for not actually being a robot.

TRANSFORMERS vs ROBOT MARIA Twins Mudflaps and Skid let fly with a flurry of moves to take down the electrical seductress, who’s barely out of the gates before she concedes. Win for Transformers

TERMINATORS vs TRANSFORMERS

Devastator assembles himself in the face of sustained firepower from the Terminators and gorges himself on a feast of liquid metal and endoskeleton.

WIN FOR THE TRANSFORMERS

Default win for Robot Maria

VINCENT vs GORT VINCENT doesn’t provoke Gort, who’s programmed not to attack; instead he produces the phrase that disables Gort without a metal finger ever lifted in anger. Win for VINCENT

VINCENT vs ROBOCOP VINCENT had 10 seconds to comply – he took 11. Robocop whips out his Auto-9; his opponent is toast before VINCENT has time to retract his head. Win for Robocop

ROBOCOP vs HECTOR Hector tries to crush Robocop with his arms; Murphy uses quick thinking to punch through Hector’s torso and smash his brain stem, rendering him useless. Win for Robocop

76 | Robots and spaceships

AND THE WINNER IS…

Quiz

Guaranteed results Better than the Voight-Kampff Test!

Are You A Robot? Take our handy quiz and find out…

“I’ll tell you about my mother”

hat is your ideal W relaxing night in?

A: Falling asleep in front of the 501 Greatest Movie Explosions: Special Edition Blu-ray boxset armed with only a beer hat and a 32” Meat Attack pizza. B: Silently recharging in your pod while processing raw data streams. C: Gazing out of the window into the rain-streaked, neon-lit street, turning a snow globe absentmindedly over in your hands as a space-age Vangelis synth-scape plays in the background.

hat do you enjoy reading in W your spare time?

A: Football results; anything by a former SAS guy; muscle mags. B: Cyberdyne Systems Manual 105.2, Appendix XIV: Surgical Bone Saws And Spinal Cord Removal Equipment. C: Poetry (your own).

hich of the following W movie stars do you find most attractive?

A: Megan Fox running through explosions in slow motion. Wahey! B: Robot Maria from Metropolis. 01001110101! C: Temporary physical beauty is but a painful reminder of all those moments that will be lost in time, like tears in rain. But at a push... Natalie Portman.

hat does your iPod W playlist consist of?

A: All of the Oasis albums and some R Kelly feat. Usher so the laydeez will appreciate my smooov, sensitive side. B: Now That’s What I Call Classic 56k Modem Dialling Tones Vol. 9,427. C: Radiohead.

hat’s your usual W morning routine?

A: Fart, roll over and hit the snooze button on a novelty Only Fools And Horses alarm clock. B: Initiate primary systems check (optics; motor functions; weaponry). Scan steely robot dawn from viewing platform. C: Stare at the giant, blue-filtered, mist-shrouded, tastefully backlit extractor fan in your warehouse flat as a single dove inexplicably swoops past, symbolic of the fragility of your existence. Think about escaping to the off-world colonies.

Who would play you in a movie of your life?

A: Christian Bale, in Batman mode. Or the toga guy off of Animal House who crushes beer cans on his head. Yeah, him. B: MARK 13 from Hardware. Or Hector from Saturn 3. “I am not malfunctioning. You are.” C: Someone beautiful, yet flawed: Edward Scissorhands-period Johnny Depp.

hat’s your most successful W chat-up routine?

A: “That dress looks shit. I think you should take it off immediately.” Then throw up on shoes before walking home alone. B: Insert appendage 435f into receptacle 989x. Repeat. C: Follow the girl you’ve been sullenly refusing to speak to all night home, then leave a tiny origami unicorn on her doorstep.

here will you live W when you retire?

A: The Costa del Sol, by a pool with a six-pack of Stella in easy reach. B: MY MISSION IS NOT COMPLETE UNTIL EVERY

FLESH BAG ON THIS MISERABLE ROCK IS VAPOURISED.

C: On a rooftop, in the rain.

hat is your all-time W favourite food?

A: Ritz crackers dipped in microwaved tomato ketchup and a Smarties McFlurry. B: HUMAN IS NICE FOOD. YUM. C: Although you have a capacity for humanity that outstrips that of humanity itself, your artificial shell is not equipped for processing “food”. That said, you could murder a steak and chips right now.

You discover a tortoise 10 lying on its back in the

desert, what do you do?

A: Laugh, record it, post it on Facebook and bask in the glory of 27 likes. B: This question infringes Voight-Kampff copyright 874b, I report you to the proper authorities. C: Get agitated, stand up and immediately shoot everyone in firing range.

Mostly A:

Constructed from soft, puny flesh and hampered by inefficient emotions, your time at the top of the food chain will soon be at an end in the face of the unstoppable metal ascendancy. You are a HUMAN.

Mostly B:

Fun-loving, with a powerful exoskeleton, your homicidal tendencies are only matched by your computational abilities and tendency to not stop, ever. You are a ROBOT.

Mostly C:

You should get out more – the artificial pigmentation on your skin is starting to look a bit pasty. You are a ROBOT THAT THINKS IT’S A HUMAN. Robots and spaceships | 77

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid” Han Solo

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50 greatest spaceships

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No SPACE

STATIONS! small moons not allowed

The 50 Greatest SPACESHIPS From birds of prey to time-travelling police boxes we count down the greatest spaceships from film, TV and videogames Words dave golder and steve jarratt

Geonosis Solar Sailer

Narada

Heart of Gold

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones Count Dooku uses this unusual vessel to make a swift getaway after his scrap with Yoda. It’s a small ship, attached to a massive sail that uses the solar wind to accelerate. Who knew the Sith were environmentally friendly? 80 | Robots and spaceships

Star Trek

This Romulan mining vessel from JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot looks like a giant attack squid. Inside, it’s like a combination of log flume and ghost train. If you want to take control of this one, bring your wellies. It can drill a hole into a planet’s core, which is anything but boring.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Equipped with the revolutionary Infinite Improbability Drive the Heart Of Gold can go anywhere in an instant, but may alter reality in doing so, turning the pilot into a bowl of petunias. The Genuine People Personalities of its robots and computers are likely to irritate.

50 Greatest Spaceships

Prometheus

Event Horizon

The film might be pants, but the Prometheus itself is lovely. You can see echoes of the Nostromo in its lines, and a hint of the Serenity in the variable geometry engines. Plus that shot of Janek standing in front of the cockpit windows as the shields butterfly open is gorgeous.

It’s a Hell cathedral. In space. The design of the Event Horizon smartly evokes the sort of interstellar ships we’ve seen before, but with a gothic twist. Internally it looks like a church and a butcher’s shop got very drunk and did stuff to one another, and that demented design work helps the movie immensely.

Prometheus

Event Horizon

41 The Gunstar

The Last Starfighter Wondering what makes the Gunstar great? Two words: Death Blossom. The Gunstar isn’t just cool looking, it’s also one of the first CGI ships in the movies, and it was all the better for feeling fragile.

40 Dark Aster

Guardians of the Galaxy

NSEA Protector

SSD Executor

The NSEA Protector is a fictional vehicle from the TV show Galaxy Quest... turned into an actual ship by fanboy aliens, the Thermians. Think the Enterprise pimped by an engineer with a nacelle fetish. With a hint of cruise ship thrown in.

Remember the Star Destroyer that introduced the world to Star Wars in iconic fashion? The Executor class ship is that all over again only bigger. Much bigger. If Star Wars had opened with one of these guys the film would be seven minutes longer.

Galaxy Quest

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

This three mile-long Kree warship was commanded by Ronan The Accuser, and had “wings” that corkscrewed in successive sections. Not entirely sure why but it looks damn cool.

39 The Cygnus

The Black Hole It may be gloriously impractical (a green house parked next to a black hole?) but The Black Hole’s Cygnus looks wonderful. Especially the first time it illuminates. A massive, steampunk folly before steampunk really existed.

UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship

Romulan Warbird

Aliens

What does a squad of ultimate badasses fly in the future? The ultimate badass dropship, of course. It’s squat and muscular and nasty, especially when those magnificent and aerodynamically dubious missile pods deploy.

Star Trek

The largest and most powerful Romulan spacecraft, the warbird dwarfs most ships it comes up against. Designed by Andrew Probert (who worked on Star Trek: TOS), they were created to look like large predatory birds.

38 Discovery One

2001: A Space Odyssey Trust Kubrick to settle for nothing less than one of the most elegant spaceships ever designed. Form and function combine to create something futuristic looking yet completely practical. Simple and so cool. Read more on p118

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37 The USS Sulaco Aliens

And you thought the dropship was cool. The Sulaco was designed to look hostile, like a giant flying gun. The protrusions on the front are never explained, but we like to think they’re for impaling enemy ships, like a space cocktail stick.

35 Rodger Young Starship Troopers

This corvette class warship may have a name like a folk singer, but it’s used by Rasczak’s Roughnecks on their interplanetary bug extermination missions and is manoeuvrable enough to dodge what can only be described as shit missiles.

36 USG Ishimura Dead Space

The largest planet-cracker in her class, the mining craft USG Ishimura is the Mary Celeste-style behemoth at the heart of the 2008 game Dead Space. Her steamy claustrophobic corridors are perfect for a nightmarish survival experience. 82 | Robots and spaceships

34 Prawn Mothership District 9

Even though we don’t see much of the mothership’s interior, or what it’s actually capable of, the crippled vessel of the refugee alien “prawns” looks plenty formidable as it hangs ominously over the Johannesburg skyline.

50 Greatest Spaceships

29 The White Star Babylon 5

The fabulous purple alone makes The White Star worthy of this list, but it also combines various races’ technologies and gets the best of all of them. It’s over-powered and would obliterate almost any other vessel in existence. Wondering why it’s not white? Er, don’t ask.

33 The Milano

Guardians Of The Galaxy Named after his childhood crush Alyssa Milano, Peter Quill’s nippy little craft is the only spaceship in the galaxy with a tape deck. As if that wasn’t cool enough its feather-like wings make it look like a bird of prey.

31 Mothership Independence Day

This epic invader casts a considerable shadow over Earth’s landmarks, before trashing them with a laser. It can take out the White House in a single blast, but is left defenceless after being hacked by a Mac. Swings and roundabouts.

32 Delta-7 AetherspriteClass Light Interceptor

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones The Delta-7 is the battle transport of choice for Jedi Knights in the Old Republic. They even pimp them with paint jobs suited to their home planet and personality. It uses a detachable booster ring that it can hook up to when it needs to travel through hyperspace.

30 Borg Cube

Star Trek: The Next Generation Capable of transwarp speeds, Borg cubes are heavily armed and protected by a number of defensive systems. Highly efficient they are designed to remain operable even if up to 78% of the ship is destroyed, while visually they are unlike any other ship. The Borg sphere is pretty nifty as well, but we’ve sadly yet to see a Borg dodecahedron.

28 The Defiant

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Surely the toughest ship the Federation has ever built The Defiant is armed to the teeth with phase cannons and quantum torpedoes as well as the more commonly seen phasers. The ship’s ablative armour offers protection even when the shields fail. And on top of all that, it has a cloaking device.

27 The Derelict Alien

An alien ship in both senses of the word, The Derelict is iconic and wonderfully weird. It’s all part of the none-too-subtle Freudian imagery Ridley Scott and concept artist HR Giger inserted into the first Alien movie. Robots and spaceships | 83

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26 Slave 1

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Another design classic from that galaxy far, far away, Slave 1 looks completely unlike anything else in the Star Wars universe. There’s an element of Art Deco to Slave 1’s curves, complemented by an impressive array of weapons and the downright weird design choice of making it fly upright. It also comes with a roomy cargo hold and a big windscreen that gives you a good chance of spotting sneaky smugglers. A ship fit for the coolest bounty hunter in the galaxy.

25 benny’s Spaceship The Lego Movie

Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship! 84 | Robots and spaceships

24 Red Dwarf Red Dwarf

Thanks to the “scoop” on the front – which collects hydrogen from space and converts it into fuel – Red Dwarf can theoretically keep going forever. It’s already been travelling for more than 3,000,200 years, and has survived a radiation leak, being turned into a planetoid by Kryten’s nanobots and a highly-corrosive micro-organism. Read more on p132

23 Imperial Shuttle Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi

The Empire’s short-range transport of choice was purloined by the Rebels and played an integral role in Luke, Han and Leia’s mission to the forest moon of Endor.

22 Valley Forge Silent Running

The Valley Forge was one of a fleet of ships near Saturn that contained the last of Earth’s forests in vast geodesic domes. Despite their size they can be manned by a single person (with the help of some cute robots). Read more on p62

21 Fireball XL5 Fireball XL5

Gerry Anderson’s iconic craft is a classic Dan Dare-type rocket ship. For many of a certain age it is the original rocket ship. Designed in a more innocent age, it embodies the wide-eyed wonder of the space race and its DNA can be found in the design of many of the legendary vehicles which followed it. Read more on p100

50 Greatest Spaceships

18 SA-23E MitchellHyundyne Starfury Babylon 5

The first ship in sci-fi TV to explore how Newtonian physics might be used in a space fighter. Agile and heavily armed, it just kept getting better. Read more on p124

20 Starbug Red Dwarf

Built to last, Starbug has “crashed more times than a ZX81” and still keeps going. The ship also received an upgrade at the hands of a couple of Simulants, who equipped it with laser cannons and got rid of the squeak on the seat tilt control. Read more on p132

17 The USCSS Nostromo Alien

Nothing better exemplified the truckers-inspace ethos of Alien’s working-class crew than their ship. The space-faring equivalent of a pack horse, it’s tough and it’ll always get the job done. Read more on p118

16 SSV Normandy Mass Effect

Commanded by Shepard in the Mass Effect games, the Normandy is your base, your briefing room, your research lab, your flying fortress and more. You spend so much time aboard it will feel like your best friend.

19 Moya Farscape

Looking like something from Earth’s prehistoric oceans, Moya was a sentient, part-organic Leviathan who escaped from Peacekeeper slavery when she was used as the getaway vehicle by a bunch of political prisoners. She also had a symbiotic relation with her four-armed Pilot, who was bonded to her. Weird. Read more on p120

15 SHADO Interceptors UFO

Some of the UFO vehicle designs were a bit… wacky, but the Interceptors looked brilliant, like a space-faring snowmobile with a missile for a nose. And deploying the pilots down a slide was just ace.

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14 Klingon Bird Of Prey Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

A versatile warship capable of maximum devastation with minimum crew, the Bird Of Prey was originally designed as a Romulan vessel. Although the enemies changed race, the Romulan featherlike hull plating stayed, as did the cloaking device, making it the first Klingon ship to boast such tech.

12 Colonial Viper Battlestar Galactica

Along with the X-wing, this is arguably the definitive space fighter: functional and flat-out cool. It launches in the best way imaginable, can reverse thrust on a dime and is insanely manoeuvrable. A pilot’s best friend: rough, tough, and ready to go. Read more on p106

13 Thunderbird 3 Thunderbirds

It’s big, it’s red, it’s phallic… it’s the ultimate playboy-with-something-to-prove space vehicle. It might not be as cool as Thunderbird 2 (few things are) but the big green dump truck couldn’t go interstellar, and Thunderbird 5 would be doomed without it. 86 | Robots and spaceships

11 The Liberator Blake’s 7

The Liberator is significantly faster than the ships of the Federation and equipped with neutron blaster cannons. The hull is covered in herculanium, which is impervious to almost all forms of weaponry. It’s so advanced it’s a target for just about everyone, including the extremely intelligent race that built it. Read more on p98

50 Greatest Spaceships

10 Star Destroyer Star Wars: A New Hope

The name’s the big giveaway: there’s no hyperbole there, the Star Destroyers really can obliterate entire star systems with their heavy firepower or stamp out rebellions on hostile planets. The dagger-shaped vessels are as much of a threat because of the 72 TIE fighters and dozens of AT-ATs and AT-STs they can carry as their onboard weapons (turbolasers, ion cannons, and tractor beams).

08 09 Eagle Transporter Space: 1999

The fact that the sci-fi equivalent of a minibus is so high in this list of nippy warships and battle cruisers says a great deal about the iconic brilliance of its design. It looks both practical and strangely cool, blending curves and corners in a way that really shouldn’t work, but does. Read more on p126

Mothership Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

The Mothership is great because, even nearly 40 years on, it still does what it was designed to do, which is make us go “Wow!” The brainchild of Ralph McQuarrie (most famous for his Star Wars pre-production art) and built by Greg Jein, it was inspired by an oil refinery that Spielberg saw at night in India. And it’s got one heck of a subwoofer on its sound system judging by the levels of bass it can output. You wouldn’t want one as a neighbour. Robots and spaceships | 87

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07 Serenity Firefly

She may look like a plucked parrot and lack the smooth and sleek design of other ships on this list, but the Serenity is still as loveable as a fluffy kitten. Perhaps it’s because her crew all talk about her as though she’s alive. Perhaps it’s because she seems to make sense, not only visually but practically; you can understand easily which bits of her do what, and her interiors reek of realism. Or perhaps it’s because she’s just as much a part of the crew as the crew themselves. Plus with Wash at the helm she can outmanoeuvre any ship in the Verse. Superb. Read more on p128

06 TIE Fighters

Star Wars

The TARDIS

In a film franchise packed with memorable ships, the TIE (Twin Ion Engine) fighter remains one of the most iconic, with its hexagonal wing design and spherical cockpit. The TIE fighter has incredible speed and manoeuvrability, which is great, but the downside of this is, well, it’s a bit disposable – along with the lackeys who fly them on behalf of the Empire. Plus the field of vision is terrible, no wonder they’re always crashing into things.

Where to begin? Bigger on the inside, can go anywhere in time and space and can camouflage itself when it arrives. Well, in theory. Most of the time it looks like a big blue Police Box. The interior has had regular makeovers (from retro-’60s sci-fi, to mock-Star Wars, to gothic revival, organic oceanic, junk yard and beyond) – and even timber-clad secondary control rooms – but the flight deck has always contained the iconic hexagon central console and some form of moving time rotor. Other rooms include a wardrobe, various bedrooms, a Zero Room, a boot cupboard, a swimming pool and an art gallery, although the Doctor’s always ejecting and rearranging rooms so who knows what’s inside at any given point. The real beauty of the TARDIS is that it’s quirky and unique, a series of budget-friendly solutions that culminated in something that sent shockwaves through the zeitgeist almost immediately after it appeared. Read more on p104

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Doctor Who

50 Greatest Spaceships

X-Wing Fighters

Battlestar Galactica

The Rebel Alliance’s fighter of choice (you can keep your Y-wings, B-wings and A-wings), the X-wing is simplicity in motion. Elegant straight lines echo the basic structure of an Earth aeroplane, while the moveable S-foils that give the craft its name help make really cool toy replicas. There’s also room for your R2 unit (or a BB unit in Poe Dameron’s modified orange and black X-wing), and they seem mercifully resistant to rust – Luke’s was submerged in a bog on Dagobah, but emerged fully flight-worthy.

A warhorse of a ship, the Galactica is a military grade aircraft carrier equivalent. While many of the ships on this list are shiny and white and clean, the Galactica is held together with blind faith and whatever Chief Tyrol can cobble together. The classic series design was so iconic that the new series modified it only subtly and intelligently. In the reboot she is one of two of the 12 Colonies’ Battleships to survive an attack by the Cylons, partly because she’s so old she’s never had the integrated computer systems installed; disabling these systems is part of the Cylons’ strategy. So “Yay!” for stingy Government defence cuts! More than 1,400 metres long, the Galactica at its peak could carry four squadrons of 20 Vipers, launched from the Flight Pops on either side of the main ship. It was also built with siege situations in mind, and if fully equipped and fully functioning, it could maintain a crew of at least 2,800 for several years. It even had battery back-up power. Read more on p106

Star Wars: A New Hope

Battlestar Galactica

“The ship was such a cultural icon that NASA renamed its first space shuttle Enterprise”

02 USS Enterprise NCC-1701 Star Trek

Long before Han Solo’s much-loved hunk of junk was a twinkle in George Lucas’ eyes, the USS Enterprise, with its mission to boldly go where no man had gone before, had inspired a generation. The ship was such a cultural icon that NASA renamed its first space shuttle Enterprise (rather than the less catchy Constitution) after it received thousands of letters lobbying for

the change. As well as warp drive technology, the ship boasted 14 science labs, an observation deck and weaponry including phasers and photon torpedoes. It had many upgrades and at least two refits and, by the time it was destroyed (Kirk activated the auto-destruct sequence in Star Trek III to stop the ship falling into the hands of the Klingons), it had become the most celebrated starship of its time. And we’re counting all the different versions – NX-01, NCC-1701, NCC-1701-A to J, etc – as one here, otherwise there would be enough different Enterprises to fill half the countdown… Read more on p110 Robots and spaceships | 89

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BEST BITS 01

Millennium Falcon STAR WARS

It’s no surprise that the Millennium Falcon topped our list of the 50 greatest spaceships: there’s just something about Han Solo’s “bucket of bolts” that endears it to fans and film-goers the world over. But why is this scruffy, misshapen vessel such a favourite? Supposedly based on George Lucas’s half-eaten burger with an olive on a toothpick, the flat, asymmetric design is wonderfully unique. It’s rugged and practical yet sleek and manoeuvrable. Also, the scale and detailing make the ship feel tangible; we’ve seen a full, life-size version in the movies, witnessed it take off and land, make the jump to lightspeed, and battle the Empire’s TIE fighters. We know the ship inside and out. It’s grubby and impractical and fallible, with a personality all of its own – and a few hidden secrets. Man and machine as one.

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Perhaps it’s the fact that it feels so attainable, too. It looks like we could own a ship just like it (with a big enough garage). It’s Star Wars’ equivalent of a rat-look pick-up truck, but with a monster V10 engine and nitrous canisters behind the driver’s seat. The Millennium Falcon is also one of the few ships in Star Wars that actually belongs to someone (along with Slave 1 and Darth Vader’s TIE fighter). True, Luke does seem to have his own X-wing, but it’s one of dozens and as anonymous as any in the Rebel fleet. And Luke doesn’t have the same relationship with his craft that Han and Chewie have with the Falcon. If Luke crashed his X-wing, he’d just go get another one; if the Millennium Falcon got destroyed, Han would probably spend his retirement rebuilding it. Our connection with the Millennium Falcon is reinforced by the fact that it has, as much as any other character, come to represent the side of good. It helped rescue Leia. It’s the reason the Death Star was destroyed. It fired the shots that took out the second Death Star. It rescued Luke from Cloud City… the list goes on. It’s no coincidence that, in the first trailer for The Force Awakens, the Star Wars fanfare is accompanied by the Millennium Falcon’s joyful, dizzying acrobatics: heck, the Millennium Falcon is Star Wars. Read more… on the next page!

Field Of Dreams One of the Falcon’s finest moments is when it’s flown into an asteroid field in an effort to avoid a squadron of TIE fighters. There’s that wonderful moment when it does a graceful loop into the mouth of an exogorth space slug, accompanied by some John Williams magic.

02 Star Killer The Falcon seems to be everywhere during the battle with the Empire over Yavin 4. It then leads the assault into the belly of the second Death Star, nimbly negotiating its metal innards before destroying the power generator and escaping by the skin of its teeth.

03 We’re Home The reveal in the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, complete with new rectangular sensor (the circular one got knocked off in the second Death Star, remember?). What a great way to signal the return of the films and the series’ beloved spaceship.

50 greatest Ships

“it’s star wars’ equivalent of a rat-look pick-up truck, but with a monster v10 engine and nitrous canisters behind the driver’s seat”

As set decorator on Star Wars and production designer on Alien Roger Christian helped build two of science fictionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most iconic ships. In an exclusive interview the Millennium Falcon maker talks about assembling the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy Words Oliver Pfeiffer

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ÂŠ Rex Features

Intelligent Design

ROGER CHRISTiAN Scrap, drainpipes and a heap of inventiveness.

piping and things like that – it looked terrible all the way through the process. Only when you get the painters in and they manage to paint it into a uniform and then we start ageing it with rust and oil, only then does it look good. Before that people were walking around thinking “does he really know what he is doing?”

he may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid,” assures Han Solo to an overly cynical Luke Skywalker after he first claps eyes on the Falcon and labels it “a piece of junk!” It was Oscar-winning Star Wars set decorator Roger Christian who turned scrap into gold for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. We quiz the construction master on assembling Han Solo’s pride and joy.

chairs and dressings and would take those pieces and build them into the Falcon.

You were the man responsible for the overall construction of the Falcon. What designs did you have to work from? Ralph McQuarrie did a painting of the Falcon then (miniature effects illustrator and designer) Joe Johnson got involved with getting the model made and doing further sketches as well. So we used the model as reference to build the Falcon. I added different elements because it didn’t have a front or a back. Normally you’d have drawings to refer to but because 20th Century Fox came in so late, by then the model had already been built.

So when Luke says “What a piece of junk!” he was actually telling the truth? Yeah, and many people think that was said because of the look of it but it wasn’t – that was written! However I fed on that when I was doing the dressing because I thought it had to look like an old race car that suddenly doesn’t have enough money to keep going – so you keep adding and changing bits. It’s so right for the character of Han Solo.

Originally the Falcon design was more linear. How did that evolve into the iconic shape we have today? Yes, it was felt to look very similar to another ship, the Eagle Transporter seen in ’70s sci-fi series Space: 1999, then George said “make it like a hamburger!” The original design was used as the concept for the rebel’s Blockade Runner. Tell us a bit about its actual construction… It was very tricky for the draftsman because they were trying to match what was on a model – that kind of detailing – by sourcing aircraft scrap metal. We used all sorts of junk pieces. The draftsman got used to my madness with my huge pile of scrap instead of curtains,

You used parts from abandoned aircraft carriers too didn’t you? I found undercarriage from about eight huge abandoned RAF aircraft transport carriers in a scrapyard. It cost nothing, so I bought a ton of it. I was constantly buying more and more scrap as I was running out of it. We had loaders coming in with so much junk, because the entire ship was eating up what I was buying!

At the time how confident were you about constructing such a convincing ship? I was crossing my fingers that it would work. When I was building the set, which involved layering the scrap and using drainpipes for

Once it was assembled it must have been an impressive set to behold… It was a huge set and it was so impressive when you walked in there. It looked amazing because it was the first time anybody had ever seen a spaceship that looked real. It was all aged-down and it was dripping oil and there were fuel lines hanging off it… it looked so real that Harrison Ford was blown away when he first saw it. They should have kept it as Disney could have used it for The Force Awakens. Yes, the Falcon was dismantled straight after filming wasn’t it? Yes, but it had to be – Stanley Kubrick was booked to shoot The Shining right on the back of Star Wars so that was partly why there was so much pressure to get out. At that stage there was no faith in the film at all. I heard that you were considered for an artistic advisor role on The Force Awakens? John Rinzler (author of The Making Of Star Wars) told them they should hire me as an advisor but it never went anywhere. I think that if it had gone to JJ Abrams he would’ve hired me immediately! Roger Christian’s memoir Cinema Alchemist, about working on the iconic set decoration for both Alien and Star Wars, will be available to purchase in 2016.

The main hold with its holographic game table.

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o the

It was the moviesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; first ever sci-fi epic and the story behind it is as crazy as any modern blockbuster Words luke dormehl

o m

Le Voyage dans la Lune

venty five years before Star Wars, and a quarter of a century before the portmanteau “sci-entifiction” was coined, there was A Trip To The Moon: the world’s first science fiction blockbuster. Unofficially though unmistakably based on Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From The Earth To The Moon and HG Wells’ 1901 First Men In The Moon, the film tells the story of a group of astronauts travelling to the moon, being captured by aliens, making their escape and ultimately crash-landing back on Earth. The image of a face in the moon having its eye pierced by a rocket ship ranks among the most famous of early cinema. However, just like some of the greatest films, the story behind the making of A Trip To The Moon is just as fantastical as what went on screen. With a massive budget, a lengthy production schedule, pirated copies and a smash hit film that lost money for its creator, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a tale of modern-day Hollywood, rather than a story that took place over 100 years ago at the birth of cinema…

The Cinemagician

Film director George Méliès was a man who bucked convention from an early age. Born in 1861 into a wealthy Parisian family who’d made

Many roles were filled by acrobats, girls and singers from the local music hall.

their money running several shoemaking factories, he instead developed an interest in puppetry and the theatre. On 28 December 1895, a little after his 34th birthday, he received the invitation that would change his life: for an evening of entertainment at the Salon Indien in the Paris Grand Café. This was to be the night that Auguste and Louis Jean Lumiere first unveiled their invention, Le Cinematographe; a machine capable of recording, developing and projecting motion pictures. Méliès recalled: “The other guests and I found ourselves in front of a small screen, similar to those we use for projections, and after a few minutes, a stationary photograph showing the Place Bellcour in Lyons was projected. A little surprised, I scarcely had time to say to my neighbour: ‘Have we been brought here to see projections? I’ve been doing these for ten years.’ No sooner had I stopped speaking when a horse pulling a cart started to walk towards us followed by other vehicles, then a passerby… We sat with our mouths open, filled with amazement.” Méliès offered the brothers 10,000 francs for the technology. They turned him down, explaining that the Cinematographe was a novelty that would amount to little more than scientific curiosity at best. Undeterred, Méliès discovered a man in England selling a similar machine called the Theatrograph. After the Lumiere brothers, Méliès became the third man in France to own a movie camera. He worked prolifically for the next few years, producing an average of 60 films per annum. By 1902, with several successes behind him, he felt ready to begin his epic masterwork. The picture would build on his carefully cultivated reputation as a special effects wizard, helped in no small part by his years as a stage magician. With a proposed running time of 14 minutes at a time when most pictures ran no more than two, and a budget of 10,000 francs, A Trip To The Moon was the biggest film production of its day.

Eureka

George Méliès is often credited as the “father of the special effect” – although the first of these was in fact an accident. In 1896, while filming a street scene, Méliès’ camera jammed. It only took seconds to rectify but, upon returning to his lab, he discovered that the fault had resulted in objects on screen disappearing and appearing, or turning into other things entirely due to the time jump. Méliès’ subsequently invented much of the language of film as we know it today: pioneering double exposures, split screens, stop motion and dissolves. In The Man With The Rubber Head, a film made the same year as A Trip To The Moon, Méliès’ head is seen to grow to gigantic proportions on screen. This effect was achieved by moving him on a track towards a static camera. Today, the technique of moving the camera towards or away from an object is called a dolly shot: another innovation courtesy of George Méliès.

The Whole World Within Reach

Production began in May 1902 at Méliès’ Star Film Studios, which housed the intricate sets. Due to the incredibly slow film stock used at the time, combined with the fact that powerful artificial lights had yet to be invented, many of the sets had to be built with glass roofs and walls to allow for them to be lit by the sun. By this time Méliès had an established crew that he regularly worked with. His brother, Gaston Robots and spaceships | 95

FLASHBACK

Audiences had never seen anything like this before.

Méliès, co-wrote the whimsical script. Bleutette Bernon, who had previously appeared in his adaptations of Joan Of Arc, Cinderella and Bluebeard, was cast as the Lady in the Moon. The other roles were filled by acrobats, girls and singers hired from the local music halls. For his part, Méliès appeared as Barbenfouillis, President of the Astronomy Club, wild-eyed

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leader of the moon expedition, enthusiastically gesticulating as his plans are carried out. It was hardly a stretch for him. As Méliès’ reputation would suggest, the film was groundbreaking in its use of special effects. The scene in which the adventurers’ rocket pierces the eye of the moon is the earliest known example of stop-motion animation. Elsewhere, the film experiments boldly with dissolves and superimpositions. A Trip To The Moon was a technical marvel. Finally, after four months of intensive work, the film was completed. Early screenings of the picture were given for free at a local fair where, even with no price attached, audiences were hesitant to watch. After all, how could anyone make a film about the moon when no one had actually been there? Still, when word got out about the film, people flocked to see the picture. It became a huge attraction. Free screenings however,

were hardly going to make Méliès his money back. If A Trip To The Moon was to be the financial success he knew it could be, Méliès would have to take the film to the masses. Even in 1902, that meant one thing: America. His French colleagues scoffed. With an indulgent running time, a hopelessly fantastical plot and a budget that amounted to a small fortune, there was no way that Méliès could sell the film to American audiences. They were right: he would not manage to sell his masterpiece. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, on the other hand, would.

One Per cent Inspiration, Ninety-Nine Per cent Theft

By 1902 Thomas Edison had become a major celebrity. In the minds of the public during the Age of Industry, nothing was more worthy of celebration than an industrious inventor. Edison

Le Voyage dans la Lune

Matte paintings were extensively used.

“despite the film becoming a massive hit with american audiences mÉliÈs never saw a penny”

had an uncanny ability to put humanity’s failings down to a precise scientific lack of “x”, go away to his workshop and return having invented the light bulb, or the disc phonograph. He was also an adept businessman. It is unknown exactly how he first came to see A Trip To The Moon, but it was shortly after it first debuted in France. Dispatching his assistants to Paris, Edison managed to get hold of a pirated copy of the film’s negative and began to screen it in America. It became a massive hit, played for months on end and made him very, very rich. He was not the only one…

The Alchemist of Light

As today, early filmmakers often opened or closed their films with a company logo. Pirates got around this by employing people to remove these trademarks for easier exhibition. Since Méliès had been cunning enough to feature his

logo as part of the actual film (it appeared on the rocket ship that fires the men into space) pirates were forced to go one step further than normal, actually scratching the logo off the film frame-by-frame. Fred Balshover, an assistant to film distributor Siegmund Lubin (another man who got hold of a copy of the negative and released it himself as A Trip To Mars) recalled: “In my two years working for Lubin… there is one incident I’ll never forget. He asked me to screen some pictures for a prospective buyer who didn’t disclose his identity but said he was in the market to buy some films. As we sold to anyone who had the cash, Lubin hustled the customer into a small screening room where I was waiting to grind the projector, which was set up without a booth. After showing a few of the pictures made by Lubin without a sale, he had me run some dupes. Among them was A Trip To The Moon. “Practice had made me quite an expert at blocking out the trademarks, and the job on this picture was so good it was hard for our customer to believe his eyes. Suddenly he jumped up from his chair, shot his arm out in front of the beam of light from the projector, and shouted, ‘Stop the machine!’ Startled, I stopped grinding and turned on the light. The prospective buyer shouted, ‘You want me to buy that film?’ Lubin wanted to know why not. ‘I’, the man bellowed thumping his chest, ‘I made that picture. I am George Méliès.’” Upon arrival in America, Méliès was shocked to find that everyone had already seen his picture. To make matters worse, nobody

The Pioneers

Although not quite the first public exhibition of moving pictures (a German inventor, Max Skladanowksy, had got there one month earlier with a device called the Bioskop) the Lumiere brothers’ Cinematographe display on 28 December 1895 was the first to capture the world’s attention. A review in La Poste, published two days after the exhibition, proclaimed: “Photography no longer records stillness. It perpetuates the image of movement… When these gadgets are in the hands of the public, when anyone can photograph the ones who are dear to them, not just in their motionless form, but with movement, action, familiar gestures and the words out of their mouths, then death will no longer be absolute, final.” Often appearing in his films as a thinlyveiled caricature of himself, Méliès – who loved fooling the audience – would no doubt be pleased that, a century on, this is just one more illusion he has been able to pull off.

knew that it was his picture. Despite it becoming a massive hit with American audiences, Méliès never saw a penny for A Trip To The Moon. Returning to France, he continued to make films for the next decade, but none met with the same critical or commercial acclaim. In 1912, Méliès closed Star Films and quit the film industry, burning his library of 800 plus films in a fit of pique. The man once described by Charlie Chaplin as “the alchemist of light” died penniless and mostly forgotten in 1938. Some years later, Méliès’ films were rediscovered by a new generation. Ironically, it is the mass piracy of his films – a trend begun by Thomas Edison – that wound up preserving them. In 2002, on the anniversary of the film’s making, an original hand-colourised copy of A Trip To The Moon was discovered in an abandoned barn. It features a previously unseen ending in which the returning astronauts, led by Méliès, are given a heroes’ welcome back on Earth. Given the story behind the picture and Méliès’ now-accepted place as one of the fathers of cinema, it is a wholly appropriate finale. Robots and spaceships | 97

the liberator

rebel fighter Blake’s 7’s effects might have taken some flak but the Liberator was one of the most distinctive spaceship designs of the ’70s

he Liberator is a vast alien spaceship – original name: unknown – discovered floating abandoned in space by the prison ship London in “Space Fall”, the second episode in the first series of Blake’s 7. When some sort of psychic defence mechanism starts driving investigating prison guards loopy, a bunch of expendable prisoners are sent in to investigate and, well, the rest is history... The problem with the Liberator is its alien-ness. Very little was ever established about it in the show, apart from that it was vast, fast and heavily armed. Mat Irvine, one of the visual effects designers on the first two series, remembers it well…

Stardrive The big green ball at the back of the ship (originally thought by many who first saw it to be the cockpit) is, in fact, a space/time distort field generator. In other words, it’s the engine. Mat Irvine: “In Roger Murray-Leach’s original design, this was to have been an oblate spheroid, a squashed sphere. But we thought no one will be able to tell, let’s make it a sphere. The big problem was that it was made of Perspex, and lit from inside with a photo flood. If you left it on for any length of time, it used to melt! And, yes, when we first saw the drawing, everyone said: ‘Okay, which way does it fly?’”

The Liberator in orbit around the Federation’s central control complex, Star One. The various background planets for the series were painted by top space artist David A Hardy. As Mat Irvine remembers: “There was no motion control in those days, so everything was done as front projection. We used to work on film for those bits – you still can’t get the right look on video.”

Here’s the Liberator in action, approaching Spaceworld. When designer Mat Irvine was asked to create “chaser ships” for the season two finale, he used the Liberator itself as a source of inspiration. “They were built by the same race that built the Liberator,” he explains, “so I designed them as ‘fighter’ versions of the Liberator ‘bomber’.”

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blake’s 7 Power Banks There are seven of these: two in each of the Liberator’s three exterior pods, and one in the main body. They can power the ship for 130 hours at maximum safe cruising speed, and take 12 hours each to recharge. Mat Irvine: “The Liberator model was a real pig to fly; it was mostly made out of fibre-glass, but there was a lot of brass in there too, which is really heavy. The three-foot model weighed far too much to hang on wires, or even put on a pole. We had to sit it on a trolley and wheel it around. We could hardly get it through the workshop door! Martin Bower [model maker] later built a half-size model, which was more practical. There were only five Liberators built in all, and two of those were vac-forms which we blew up in the battle at the end of series two.”

Neutron Blasters The Liberator is equipped with three of these heavy duty blasters... Mat Irvine: “Blake’s 7 was commissioned as a drama series to replace the police show Softly, Softly. Unfortunately, that had maybe one effect per series, so their effects budget was £50 per episode. When we started, we were given the same budget!”

A series three shot of the Liberator trapped inside a giant spacestation. As ever, the problems with creating effects scenes for Blake’s 7 were all down to lack of money, not lack of staff or enthusiasm. “We had enough effort,” remembers Mat Irvine, “usually two or three designers, plus six assistants. But we never had enough money.”

Ram Scoop Intakes One central and three exterior field generators surround these intakes, which scoop up “interstellar matter” for fuel. Mat Irvine: “Ian Scoones [special effects director] was given the task of getting it built. Martin Bower then did all the detailing, using the usual bits of old Airfix kits.”

Main Probe Conveniently negating the need for any complicated windows or dishes, the Liberator came equipped with what’s scientifically termed “a big pointy thing” at the front... Mat Irvine: “All the probes were made of metal, and were, unsurprisingly, quite dangerous. Plenty of people were stabbed by the bloody things when they backed into the model by accident!”

Crew Areas Although it was never actually specified, it seems reasonable to assume that this is roughly where the bridge and crew quarters were situated. Mat Irvine: “We never really gave any thought to how big the thing was meant to be. The only real clue in the show is in the second episode, when you see the prison shuttle London alongside it. The London was a tiny thing in that shot, only an inch or two long when docked with the three-foot model of the Liberator…”

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Zoonie the Lazoon’s vocabulary grew as the series progressed.

Fireball XL5 We launch into Sector 25 for a fond look back at one of the earliest and most influential Gerry Anderson puppet series Words stephen baxter

wish I was a spaceman... the fastest guy alive...” It’s 50 years since Gerry Anderson, then a young TV producer flushed with the international success of his first science fiction puppet show Supercar, took a proposal for a new series to Lew Grade at ATV. Fireball XL5 switched on a generation to SF at a very early age. It turned out to be important for Anderson too, with resonances throughout the rest of his work in the ’60s. And even now it refuses to be forgotten. Fireball XL5 was first shown in my ITV region, Granada, on Boxing Day, 1962. As a five-year-old I was probably exactly the right

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age for it, with its big-headed smiling puppets, its mix of kid-friendly space-operatic lurid plots, and firm grounding in the crew “family”: big brother hero Steve Zodiac, Commander Zero the grumpy dad, even “pets” in Zoonie the Lazoon and Robert the Robot. Ostensibly Zodiac and the rest were all military personnel, members of the World Space Patrol, and the body count could be pretty high. But there was a family at the heart of the Anderson shows, implicit or not, right through to Thunderbirds. There’s a surprising amount of realism in the presentation of the hardware. Look again at the opening sequence: “Okay, Venus?” “Okay, Steve.” “Right. Let’s go…” The mix of close-ups of the main puppets on their jet bikes, together

with long shots of miniature versions dwarfed by the tail fin of XL5, gives a vivid impression of the sheer size of the ship. Then when the booster rockets fire to launch XL5 along its rail, the ship fails to move immediately. It doesn’t shoot off like a firework; it takes a lot of pushing – just as did the real rocket ships they were firing off from Cape Canaveral at the time. Anderson had something of an engineering background, after National Service in the RAF, and it showed in such sequences; you couldn’t have had a more graphic demonstration of Newton’s laws of motion. Then, once the ship was launched, we look over the shoulders of Steve and Robert in the nose cone to see the blue (well, grey, this was shot in black and white)

fireball XL5

â&#x20AC;&#x153;it all started with fireball and you always had the sense that steve zodiac was the greatest hero of them allâ&#x20AC;? Robots and spaceships | 101

FLASHBACK

Long AFTER THE (FIRE)BALL WAS OVER Fireball XL5 lived on after the TV series…

Though Fireball XL5’s first run concluded in 1963, it had a long afterlife in tie-in products, such as four annuals, and comics including TV Comic (1962-1964), TV Century 21 (1965-1968), and Countdown (1971). The TV21 strips were reprinted in Fleetway’s 1990s Thunderbirds comic. In TV21 #167, XL5 itself was finally destroyed – but it was not forgotten. Fireball remains Anderson’s most popular show in the US, as the only series networked there. This is reflected in fan websites, and in XL5-related Americana such as lunchboxes. In 2003 a comic company called Misc! Mayhem began a planned seven-part origin story (available online). Musical tributes have included “Fireball XL5”, the B-side to Madness’s “The Sun And The Rain” (1983), and XTC’s theme song cover on their 2002 album Coat Of Many Colours. The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (2007) by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill features XL4, “the Pancake Extra-Large Series 4...” And the episode “Mercury Falling” of Anderson’s own New Captain Scarlet (2005) featured a craft called the Mercury, a terrific CGI version of Fireball.

The theme song, recorded by Don Spencer, reached number 32 in the charts.

skies of Earth clear, to reveal the stars – just as had been witnessed by the pilots of the X-15 rocket planes of the day. All this was driven home by Barry Gray’s thunderous opening theme music. In subsequent episodes you got to see lounges and dormitories and a “space jail”, as well as such functional elements as Matthew Matic’s navigation bay and the nutomic power plant.

World first

Fireball also showed us a wider world, with its own history. There may have been only one Stingray but there were many other XL craft; the first we glimpsed was, thrillingly, the wreckage of XL7 in “Space Magnet”. We learned that glamorous Doctor Venus joined the crew five years ago (“The Last Of The Zanadus”), and that Commander Zero was once a “space pioneer” (“Space Monster”), and we even saw antique versions of the XL craft such as the TA2, lost in 2014 (“The Mystery Of The TA2”). This was my first introduction to the basic rhetorical force of science fiction: here was a (more or less) realistic future that (more or less) made sense.

Doctor Venus and Colonel Steve Zodiac get on their bikes.

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Meanwhile for Anderson, XL5 was a breakthrough in terms of technology. The puppetry and model work advanced hugely, and he was able to try out underwater shots foreshadowing Stingray (“XL5 To H20”) and disaster/rescue stories hinting at Thunderbirds (“Space City Special”). XL5 had in fact been the product of a long gestation. Following the perhaps unexpected success of Supercar, and with the sudden infusion of funds from Lew Grade, Anderson’s team considered a welter of possibilities, including further series of Supercar. Remarkably, the tie-in products of the time contain fossilised relics of this creative swirl. On the cover of the 1963 Supercar annual, published by Collins in 1962, Supercar flies over a construction rail where a spacecraft is being assembled, with silvery hull, a tail fin, two finned wings and a nose-cone... But this isn’t Fireball: “Introducing Super-R!” Inside, four strip stories make up a story arc about the Supercar design geniuses, Beaker and Popkiss, being commissioned by the government to design and build a huge new rocket, the Super-R. The book is credited to Sylvia Anderson (wife of Gerry) and artist Eric Eden. Such works would have had long lead times, with the annual being prepared while Fireball was in early development. Is it possible Super-R was an idea considered for Supercar’s third series, and Sylvia and Eden picked up early sketches for a design that eventually evolved into Fireball XL5? Meanwhile the TV Comic 1963 annual, published in September 1962, features a Fireball strip: “And in the shadow of the shimmering Space HQ Fireball XL5 stood ready on its

fireball XL5 No matter what the peril, they looked cheerful!

launching mono-rail…” The strip must have been commissioned in early 1962 when details of Fireball’s production were not yet finalised (filming didn’t start until April). So some details, such as uniform design and colour, are not quite as they would finally appear. Fireball Junior lands with an upward slant, and Commander Zero is “Captain Zero”, with a peaked cap and a bushy beard.

Blazing a trail

Anderson’s 1961 proposal in fact offered two different formats, both contained in a single spiral-bound file prepared by his long-term partner Reg Hill and special effects whiz Derek Meddings. One was more conventional, and would feature the heroes of the United States Space Patrol: “We present CENTURY 21 as our idea of a modernistic ‘Evergreen’ space series. CENTURY 21 is the name of the spaceship…” This was virtually identical to the ultimate Fireball XL5 project. The second, abandoned format was much more ambitious, a mixture of live-action and Supermarionation, featuring Little Joe, an American boy who dreams of being hero space pilot Joe 90, framing puppet sequences of his fantasy adventures aboard a ship called SPV (Space Patrol Vehicle) One Zero… Anderson never entirely put aside the ideas contained in Fireball’s lost twin. Lieutenant Ninety was the hapless young sidekick of Commander Zero in Fireball, and the initials “SPV” would eventually be attached to Captain Scarlet’s famous backward-driving car, the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle. And that notion of a boy dreaming of being a hero would be used again: in an audio disc

called “Journey To The Moon”, released in February 1965, a young boy dreams he is taken through the stages of an Apollo moon mission by the XL5 heroes. Eventually, of course, the name Joe 90, and something of the concept of a boy with a secret life as a hero, would be revived in Joe 90 (1968-69). As for the mixed format, as the years went by Anderson often experimented with a mixture of puppetry and live action, such as in Stingray’s “Tom Thumb Tempest”, in which a dream sequence finds Troy and the crew as miniaturised presences at a human-sized dinner party. This reached its ultimate conclusion in Anderson’s last Supermarionation show The Secret Service (1969), about miniaturised agents carried around in a suitcase, filmed as a mix of live-action and puppetry. Anderson’s ultimate ambition had always been to film live-action; his next series UFO fulfilled that. Once the “Century 21” proposal was taken forward the name of the spaceship evolved via “Nova X 100” to the more exciting “Fireball XL5” – the “XL” taken from a variety of Castrol motor oil. “Century 21” was to linger as the umbrella name for all Anderson’s enterprises. And, more significantly, the date of the setting was to change. Rather than 2962 as in the brochure, the final date was to be precisely 100 years off the show’s first broadcast: 2062. (This was in contrast to Supercar, which appeared to be set in the then-present of the 1960s.) And Zodiac worked for the World Space Patrol, not for a branch of the US government. Thus Fireball set the precedent for all Anderson’s subsequent shows as far ahead as Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons. All would be set precisely 100 years ahead of their broadcast

dates, in a 21st century in which organisations like the WSP, the World Aquanaut Security Patrol of Stingray, and Scarlet’s Spectrum, were all arms of a world government. Anderson would say, “We had the UN and I imagined, rightly or wrongly, that there would be a world government in the future. This was my way of trying to look ahead.” This was the world spun out into a consistent continuity by the editorial staff of the great ’60s comic TV Century 21, presented as a newspaper from the future and featuring all the Anderson series from Supercar to Captain Scarlet. But it all started with Fireball. And indeed you always had the sense that Steve Zodiac was always the greatest hero of them all, for TV21’s creative team. He helmed a series of stories of a rather more grown-up nature than the cartoonish TV show itself, drawn by top artists such as Mike Noble and the Eagle’s Frank Hampson. And Zodiac was the centrepiece of the comic’s greatest “crossover” storyline (#15-26), in which Lady Penelope and Troy Tempest help Steve fight off the Astrans. “I’ve never had a problem thinking up ideas,” Gerry Anderson would tell his biographer. “I’ve had problems with spelling, problems being a businessman, problems with relationships, but problems with ideas, never.” That may be so, but as far as his Supermarionation shows are concerned, it could be argued that the concept that became Fireball XL5, and the burst of creativity that went into its formulation, was his richest idea of all. While Fireball itself remains much loved today, out of the brainstorm of its creation came elements that would power Anderson’s work for years to come. Robots and spaceships | 103

Thinking INSIDE THE BOX the tardis

It’s not just the Doctor that regenerates – his faithful time machine has had plenty of makeovers throughout Who’s 50-year history too. Take a journey through space and time as we chronicle the evolution of the iconic Tardis console room Words Dave Golder and Nick Setchfield

Early Doors

Baker Goes Old-School

The original TARDIS console room stood the test of time, if not space (it noticeably shrunk as series went by), for over eight years. It was an adaptable beast and elements were added (such as a lab just off the main area) or subtracted (the “Fault Locator” and the large hexagonal object that originally hung from the ceiling) long before the Fifth Doctor discovered a love of ejecting rooms. Designer Peter Brachacki came up with the hexagonal console, the rising and falling central column and the “roundel”-patterned walls that have remained in evidence, to a greater or lesser degree, throughout the TARDIS interior’s history. But for a craft that travelled in the fourth dimension it was happy to utilise 2D tech inside; famously sections of the roundel walls were often just photographic blow-ups.

Having not appeared in Tom Baker’s first series, the TARDIS console room was back in stripped-down form for his second. It retained the late Pertwee roundels and looked fine in an austere way. But the producer had other ideas in line with his gothic tone for the era. For Baker’s third series in 1976 he introduced the secondary console room. All wooden panels, stain glass detailing and brass hand rails, this was the Jules Verne TARDIS. And it was lovely. But then Star Wars happened, a new production team came in and retro was out. A shiny new interior was designed, all white and sci-fi like the old one, but now the roundels were flat, back-lit affairs that looked like washing machines filled with radioactive banana milkshake.

The Pertwee TARDIS Merry-Go-Round The TARDIS interior had its first major redesign in Jon Pertwee’s third series in 1972 when, for one story only, the walls were suddenly covered with Tupperware bowls. The next story, the tenth anniversary special “The Three Doctors” thankfully featured another redesign which actually looked quite faithful to the 1963 original, just tidier, with huge, deep roundels. After that story, though, directors just kinda picked bits of the set they wanted to use and it was never seen in its full glory again. In “Planet Of The Daleks”, for some bizarre reason, the main console room suddenly acquired a fitted wardrobe and pull-out bed.

Much Bigger On The Inside The console had a major redesign for the 20th anniversary “The Five Doctors” to make it look like an octagonal videogames console (scuppered by the fact it was clearly embedded with BBC micros). The console room itself, though, remained relatively unaltered between 1978 and the end of the classic show’s run in 1989 (unless you get excited about the columns between the wall panels changing shape). Instead the big thing about the interior of the TARDIS at this point was emphasising that it had other rooms. Loads of ’em. Bedrooms, Zero Rooms, swimming pools, cloisters. Still no toilets, though. 104 | Robots and spaceships

doctor who

Movie Proportions Then there was the TV movie in 1996 and suddenly we had a vast steampunk TARDIS with a console room big enough for a motorbike to take a spin round. This was a mock-gothic sci-fi temple that looked stunning and was the second best thing about Who’s single US-made episode (after Paul McGann). It even had a massive cloister room containing the Eye Of Harmony… but let’s not think about the mythology-busting ramifications of that. Just admire the amazing staircase designed purely for the Master to swagger down, it would seem.

Hitch In Time This magazine’s parent publication SFX played a small but crucial role in Doctor Who’s resurrection. In 2004 it played matchmaker, putting hotshot comic artist Bryan Hitch in touch with Russell T Davies. Hitch became Who’s official concept artist and, in collaboration with production designer Edward Thomas, dreamed up a new TARDIS for the 21st century… “The cool thing we all wanted to talk about was what the TARDIS interior would look like,” Hitch recalls. “Well, that’s not exactly true. We knew it had to look like the TARDIS or be recognisably the same thing, we just didn’t know how far we could go in making it fresh. We all adored the TV movie set but knew we couldn’t afford anything like that, unfortunately. This was all-new territory for the BBC: they’d made Doctor Who on a shoestring for so long and they wanted this to stand up against the best of US SF TV but the bridge of the Enterprise cost millions and we had half a sixpence and a pickled egg. “There was, for a while, a very serious conversation about not having a TARDIS interior, leaving it as a mystery, but we pressed ahead with the idea of designing one anyway. A huge one. Sixpence can go a long way, after all. “My first thought before I ever met RTD was ‘A big dome and several levels with the console in the centre of the room’. That’s a thought that’s stayed through pretty much each version so far and even though the warehouse originally used for the first studio meant we had to lose the underside and mezzanine levels, it’s brilliant that the current version was able to do all that we couldn’t. Inspired by the work of architect Santiago Calatrava, that first TARDIS set, for all its compromises, is still my favourite and seeing it as a museum piece in the great Doctor Who Experience was a true bittersweet experience. Ten years. How wonderful!”

“the bridge of the enterprise cost millions and we had half a sixpence and a pickled egg” Robots and spaceships | 105

star performers

BATTLE FLeET You didn’t expect to read a magazine about spaceships without at least a few pages of spaceship porn, did you? Presented with as few words as we can get away with, the glorious spacecraft of Battlestar Galactica...

The Vipers’ landing bay.

Really big gun turrets – useful against attacks from above.

The Vipers’ entrance to the launch tubes. 106 | Robots and spaceships

battlestar galactica

Galactica has four huge engines. Later models, such as Pegasus, have eight.

The landing pods can retract for FTL travel.

Side gun turrets, a landing bay and a Viper launch tube.

star performers

Colonial Raptor: Galactica’s workhorse.

Colonial Viper Mk II: undoubtedly a design classic.

Colonial Viper Mk VII: a classic brought up to date.

The “Flattop” is a repair vessel.

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battlestar galactica

Look at the size of that thing! Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Cylon Basestar.

Intersun Luxury Liner (aka Ring Ship). Cylon Raider: they can think for themselves, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you know.

Colonial shuttle: essentially a glorified bus.

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USS Enterprise

We beam aboard TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous starship for a lesson in designing the future Words joseph mccabe

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star trek

ew images in sci-fi are as iconic as the white streak of the USS Enterprise slicing through the infinite blackness of space. The United Federation Of Planets’ flagship vessel NCC-1701 has fired the imaginations of millions since it first roared across the world’s TV screens when Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek debuted on 8 September 1966. The first Enterprise, like so much of the technology in the original Trek, was designed by Walter M Jeffries, a former aviation artist and World War Two vet drafted in by Roddenberry to serve as set designer and art director, roles in which he brought the Great Bird Of The Galaxy’s vision of the 23rd century to life. “At first,” Jeffries said in The Art Of Star Trek, “Gene said he didn’t want to see any rockets, no jets, no firestreams, or anything like that. So I bought whatever I could find on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and pinned it up on the wall and said, ‘That we will not do’.” Jeffries’s modular approach to starship construction, honed from years of frustration with impractical military designs, extended from the bridge’s workstations to the exterior warp nacelles. “This was probably one of the few areas I ever argued with Gene about,” said Jeffries. “I wanted the exterior just about as plain and smooth as we could get it. To me, the most dangerous possible environment is outside a spaceship. And, as Mrs Murphy says, some time or other, Robots and spaceships | 111

USS Enterprise

“anything that people make is going to break, so why have equipment outside of the hull?”

anything that people make is going to break, so why have equipment outside of the hull that they’re going to have to work on? Keep it inside.”

flight path

Not a firestream or rocket in sight.

This aesthetic informed all three years of Jeffries’s work on Star Trek, as well as the two years of its animated series spin-off. It was modified, however, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted in 1979, and the Enterprise underwent a refit by concept designer/ illustrator Andrew Probert. A protégé of legendary Star Wars artist Ralph McQuarrie, Probert had previously designed the Cylon Centurions for the original Battlestar Galactica.

The original modular design.

The Enterprise-D was a radical departure from its predecessors.

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Talking from his home in Connecticut, Probert recalls, “I was about halfway through my last trimester at school when Ralph called. He said, ‘Listen, I got a problem. I’m working on Star Trek, but George called me to work on Star Wars 2. Are you available?’ ‘Wow!’ I said, ‘Yeah!’” Probert was hired a week later by visual effects artist Robert Abel, whose company had started work on the first Trek film. “I was working under award-winning art director Richard Taylor. He had a lot of ideas for the Enterprise, so I was drawing bits and pieces. It was his vision that the new Enterprise had this kind of pristine, brand-new-baby look to it. He also wanted to have kind of a subliminal patriotic, red white and blue colour scheme. So, of course, the markings were red against the white of the ship, and there were blue panelled elements; the edges of the warp engines and the dorsal and the leading edges of the nacelles, the pylons for the warp nacelles, were all blue. “We’d actually designed a whole set of pin stripes that went around the ship – there was this really cool thing going on there. Once Donald Trumbull took the production over, he threw all of those things away. But he did add the idea of self-illumination, so I had to come up with the best way to bury the lights.” Of the end result, Probert says – a note of surprise still in his voice – “For a lot of the fans, it turned out to be their favourite ship”. The refitted Enterprise proved so popular that even though it was destroyed in the third Trek film, the ship that succeeded it, the NCC-1701-A, used the same design. Introduced in the final scenes of 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this Enterprise survived two additional films before being mothballed by the Federation and Paramount. Though Probert wasn’t involved in the sequels, he returned to Roddenberry’s universe when Star Trek: The Next Generation began production in 1987. For the second live-action Trek TV series, set 85 years after the preceding films, he designed what many fans consider the ultimate starship: the Enterprise NCC-1701-D. “Initially they hired me on The Next Generation to design the bridge,” Probert

star trek

Bridging The Generations The view from the warp nacelles.

explains. “It was going to be the most used set and they assumed that would take the most lead time, but at the same time I was fantasising about what the exterior of the ship would look like. I’d do these little doodles – idea sketches that I’d tack up on my wall. One day [writerproducer] David Gerrold walked in and said, ‘Is that going to be the new Enterprise?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know’. He said, ‘Let me have it,’ pulled the drawing off the wall and walked out the room. Later he comes back, slaps it on my desk and says, ‘Yeah, that’s the new Enterprise’.” The Next Generation’s Enterprise immediately distinguished itself with a primary hull that was much larger than its engineering hull. “My thinking was the technology would need less and less room to be just as powerful or more so, so the engineering hull would not have to be as large in relation to the rest of the ship. The warp engines are longer than those on the movie Enterprise, so it’s not like they’ve changed – it’s just that everything else has got bigger.” The new Enterprise also employed a more organic look befitting an even more advanced society than the original Trek’s, taking Matt Jeffries’s dream of a smooth starship exterior to its ultimate conclusion. “The reason I went down the elegant versus hard tech look,” says Probert, “is because I felt that it was an ambassador for the human race, an ambassador for Starfleet. It should look very unthreatening, it should be very soft. Those organic shapes are additionally very strong. There was,” he adds proudly, “a lot of reasoning behind the way the new Enterprise turned out.”

The technology onboard the Enterprise has undergone as many changes as the ship’s exterior, starting with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Hugo Award-winning artist Rick Sternbach worked uncredited on the film, and eventually served as senior illustrator on Star Trek: The Next Generation. “The basic look, the props, a lot of the setpieces, were really determined by The Motion Picture,” Sternbach says. “Watch ‘Encounter At Farpoint’ and you can see there is a very definite lineage. In 1987, when we started TNG, we looked at a lot of the things that were going on in real science and computing. We said, ‘This stuff is going to change…’ Gene Roddenberry said, ‘Make it smaller, make it faster, make it cleaner’. And we applied that to just about everything.” Sternbach admits that some things didn’t work out so well. “The cricket phaser, the Type 1, ended up being a little too small. That’s why we pretty much ditched the cricket in favour of the Type 2 hand phaser: it was big, you could see it, and it looked like a cool hand prop.”

Where Someone Has Gone Before

Captain Archer’s NX-01.

A leaner ship than her predecessor.

On board the Enterprise

The artist, who also worked on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, shrugs when asked if he thinks TNG’s sleek universe of flat-panelled PADDs inspired today’s iPhones and iPads. “I think it’s a convergence. Starfleet style has always been very minimalist – you have a couple of straight lines and some rounded corners. I don’t think we came up with anything that was especially revolutionary, anything that hadn’t already been suggested back in the ’30s. We just put our own technological spin on the concepts. Go back and look at Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and some of the technology suggested in the Lensman books by EE Doc Smith. Lensman is really the start of everything we know.”

Enterprise A and D designer Andrew Probert on the ships which followed his…

JJ Abrams’ take on the NCC-1701.

NX-01

NCC-1701-E

NCC-1701 (alternate timeline)

“This was a shape executive producer Rick Berman insisted be used because he liked it – whether it fit the timeline or not. Designers John Eaves or Doug Drexler were tasked with coming up with something that looked like it happened before Kirk’s Enterprise. It really made absolutely no sense to me at all. I couldn’t watch the show, regardless of how good it might have been. I’m a visual guy and it just bothered me.”

“This was designed by John Eaves. There are a lot of things I don’t like about this ship. Instead of taking the elegant path he took the hardware tech path. Battlestar Galactica and the Nostromo go down the hardware tech path. Prometheus looks halfway in between. Serenity is about halfway in between. But there are not a lot of elegant spaceships out there.”

“I disagree with the scale and ambiguity. I don’t have a problem with them creating their own version of the Enterprise, because it’s a whole new turnaround on the franchise. What I do have a problem with is designing a totally new Enterprise from the neck down and then plugging in a movie saucer on top. That totally bothers me. I’d rather they came up with a different type of saucer, so the design is cohesive.”

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USS Enterprise

UNDER THE HULL Explore the pride of Starfleet inside and out with Star Trek – USS Enterprise Owner’s Workshop Manual from Haynes 9 3

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USS Enterprise NCC-1701

lassification C Constitution class Constructed San Francisco Yards, Earth Launch date 2245 Featured in Star Trek: The Original Series Length 289m Number of decks 23 Crew complement 203 [date: 2254] Weaponry Phasers and photon torpedoes Commanding officers Robert April, Christopher Pike, James T Kirk

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USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (refit)

aunch date 2271 L Featured in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Wrath Of Khan and The Search For Spock Destroyed 2285 (autodestruct in orbit around the Genesis planet) Length 305m Number of decks 21 Crew complement 450 Weaponry Phasers and photon torpedoes Commanding officers Willard Decker, James T Kirk, Spock

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Saucer section Long-range sensor/ navigational deflector 3 Warp nacelle 4 Nacelle pylon 5 Secondary hull 6 Bussard ramscoop 7 Bridge 8 Impulse engines 9 Subspace field radiator 10 Shuttlecraft hangar deck 11 RCS Thrusters 12 Docking port 13 Navigational deflector 14 Photon torpedo launcher 15 Shuttle bay 16 Mag amplification crystal 17 Ship’s Registry 2

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sci-fi • fantasy • horror

The world’s number one sci-fi and fantasy magazine NEW LOOK!

latest issue on sale now! www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx

jet sets

here’s only one thing better than a real spaceship – a spaceship made of LEGO® bricks! New book Great LEGO Sets is a visual history of magnificent brick-based creations from the 1950s to the present day, and features a series of vessels from a galaxy far, far away. Here are some of our favourites…

Millennium Falcon 2007 5,195 pieces It took two members of the building instruction team six months to create the 311-page instruction manual for this huge set!

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lego: Star Wars Imperial Shuttle 2010 2,503 pieces Built-in LEGO® Technic beams reinforce the Imperial Shuttle’s heavy wings, which fold up or down with the turn of removable crank-action keys below the engines in the back.

Slave 1 2015 1,996 pieces Secret hatches on the side open to reveal concussion missile launchers, while a compartment on the back can store a captive, carbonite-frozen Han Solo.

X-Wing Fighter 2000 1,304 pieces There have been 14 LEGO® X-wing models so far. These include the first X-wing model released in 1999 and Poe Dameron’s X-wing from The Force Awakens released earlier this year.

Illustration by Jason Pickersgill/acute graphics

THE SUSPENSION In the core processor scene, Dullea was suspended upside down to look like he was floating. A studio technician fell the entire length of the set and broke his back.

THE HEADGEAR Although it’s Dullea doing the stunt, it’s not his real hair. Kubrick made the actor wear a wig throughout the lengthy shoot to avoid continuity problems.

5 4 THE SONG “Daisy” or “Daisy Bell” was used by computer pioneers to demonstrate speech synthesis. Arthur C Clarke visited Bell Labs and heard an IBM 704 singing it.

THE COMPUTER Despite the myths, the name HAL isn’t a one-letter-shifting riff on IBM (H-I, A-B, L-M), but “Heuristic ALgorithm”. Douglas Rain recorded his vocal in just nine hours. Kubrick later had to confirm that HAL wasn’t gay. THE JUMP The airlock set was vertical. On a platform above it, a stagehand held the rope suspending Keir Dullea. On cue, he’d drop the actor towards the camera, then jump off the platform, jerking Dullea back up.

Classic Scene

2001: A Space Odyssey They couldn’t use a stuntman because Dullea’s face was so close to the camera.

SERVER PROBLEMS

S THE PHYSICS Bowman holds his breath before jumping into space, but you should actually breathe deeply and keep your windpipe open. Clarke knew this, but he was absent that filming day.

tanley Kubrick has often been accused of coldness, and the only time his 1968 sci-fi epic breaks a sweat is during the death of HAL 9000, a supercomputer voiced with psychotic composure by Douglas Rain. Supposedly flawless, but actually many fuses short of a full motherboard, HAL eavesdrops on a conversation between astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole during which they agree to disconnect HAL if he makes another mistake. Unfortunately they didn’t count on the paranoid android (well, AI) being able to lip read…

THE SPACESHIPS The models were shot – near-identically – three times: once unlit, once lit, and once with live-action scenes projected on to screens in their windows. The results still look staggering today.

HAL murders the crew of the Discovery One, including Poole mid-space walk, then strands surviving astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) in a pod outside.

Bowman suits up and heads to the processor core to turn HAL off. Kubrick filmed the handheld shots himself, following Dullea with a huge camera on his shoulder.

HAL’s refusal to open the pod bay doors forces a helmet-less Bowman to launch himself into space and break through the emergency airlock.

Framed in violent red, against the cicada-hum of circuits shutting down, Dave dismantles HAL’s memory as he pleads (“Stop, Dave!”) and begs (“I’m afraid, Dave”).

Setting the scene etermined to make the “proverbial ‘good’ sci-fi D movie”, Kubrick teamed up with Arthur C Clarke in 1964 and spent four years collaborating on ideas for a highbrow space film.

HAL sings “Daisy”, a nursery rhyme learned from his first programmer, in a sick, faltering monotone. The film’s most chilling moment and, also, the most human.

ubrick bought six short stories from Clarke (most K notably The Sentinel) and together they fashioned a treatment, then a script. Clarke published his own – slightly different – novel soon after the film’s release. ASA experts were hired to ensure 100% accuracy, N and the film’s Borehamwood soundstage became known as “NASA East”. A year after 2001 came out, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

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Farscape Spaceships giving birth, imaginary bad guys and more alien creatures than you could shake a gun named Winona at. Journey through the wormhole to a universe like no otherâ&#x20AC;Ś Words jayne nelson

farscape

“farscape didn’t so much cross the line as blow up the planet the line was chalked upon”

Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), John Crichton (Ben Browder) and Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe) looking menacing, especially Ka.

et’s not mince our words here: Farscape was bonkers. One hundred percent batty. Totally, utterly, frantically and completely nuts. This was a show so crazy that after you’d watched an episode you felt physically out of breath, almost as if you, like the characters, had just spent the last 45 minutes chasing after aliens, running away from aliens, invading alien bases, running away from alien bases or simply running. If Farscape was a wallpaper pattern it would be the flowery stuff on the walls of Del Trotter’s flat in Only Fools And Horses – loud, brash, often ugly but always amusing. This was a series so (to use one of Harlan Ellison’s favourite words) “bugfuck” bonkers that you didn’t just watch it – you experienced it. And what an experience it was. With a cast filled with everything from Muppets to talking,

Three BesT Episodes

DIE ME DICHOTOMY

2.22 The season two finale – the third part of an action-packed three-parter subtitled “Liars, Guns And Money” – features Crichton having a breakdown as the neural chip in his head starts turning him into Scorpius. As ever, it’s totally incomprehensible to anybody who’s never watched the show and ends on a spectacular cliffhanger. Everything you’d ever want from an episode of Farscape, then.

REVENGING ANGEL

3.16 Crichton falls into a coma and has vivid dreams, including a hysterical Chuck Jones-style cartoon sequence with a rather stunning ’toon Aeryn Sun. And we also find out Crichton’s reasons for living: “Earth, dad, pizza, sex, cold beer, fast cars, sex, Aeryn, love.” (We thought Aeryn would come before “fast cars”, but there you go.) This is Farscape at its nuttiest, but the episode also provides plenty of food for thought.

BAD TIMING

4.22 The last episode of Farscape until Peacekeeper Wars came along… making the cliffhanger all the more painful to bear in the meantime. As ever, the show mixes action (John has to collapse the wormhole to save Earth) with emotion (he and Aeryn admit their feelings for each other) with “I can’t believe they did that!” tomfoolery (the final scene, in which our couple find themselves shattered. Literally). Brilliant.

living spaceships, a soundtrack that sounded as though someone was banging a bunch of pots together and scripts that didn’t so much cross the line as blow up the planet the line was chalked upon, Farscape was one of the best SF shows ever made – because there was simply nothing else like it. As with its hero, John Crichton, it existed in a universe all of its own. It sprang from an admittedly ordinary Buck Rogers-esque concept: a modern-day, allAmerican astronaut finds himself getting more than he bargained for after a mishap while on a test mission in space. Rather than propelling himself back or forward in time, as many astronauts are wont to do on test missions in sci-fi, Crichton finds himself popping out of a wormhole in a distant part of the galaxy, gets caught up in the middle of a battle and accidentally kills the brother of that quadrant’s biggest bad guy, Captain Crais. Before he can even offer up a bunch of flowers and a Hallmark sympathy card, however, Crichton is taken prisoner by the fugitives Crais is chasing on board a living spaceship named Moya…

CRAZY CONCEPT

The premiere episode of Farscape is like one of Alice in Wonderland’s fever dreams, full of so much batarse, in-yer-face bravado that you can’t help but admire it. The biggest shock is the puppets – runty, grunty, irascible Hynerian regent Rygel (essentially a hand puppet that never stops eating), voiced by Jonathan Hardy, and the huge, wide-eyed, peaceful-faced lobster-thing named simply Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu, who confusingly also played Crichton’s nemesis Crais). These two puppets,

Crichton gets to grips with his imaginary Scorpius (Wayne Pygram).

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FLASHBACK

Utu-Noranti Pralatong (Melissa Jaffar) and Rygel share a moment.

When it came to weird and wacky (not to mention gross), Farscape didn’t skimp.

BesT BAD GUYS

SCORPIUS

Scorpius was a slimy, reptilian half-breed (Sebacean/Scarran) who made it his life’s mission to mess with Crichton’s head – in more ways than one – while he tried to unravel the secret of wormhole technology. With a make-up job so ugly even his own mum couldn’t love him, Wayne Pygram brought us one of the greatest TV villains of all time. And Crichton, who was the only one who could see him at times, even called him “Harvey”. Awesome.

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MELE-ON GRAYZA

Bearing more than a little resemblance to Chiana with her grey skin and striking eyes (which made us wonder if she was part-Nebari), the Peacekeeper Commandant knew how to wrap men around her little finger, thanks to a chemical secretion from her neck which turned them into putty in her hands. Rebecca Riggs had a tough task playing follow-up bad gal to bad guys Crais and Scorpius, but she did a fine (and very sultry) job.

BIALAR CRAIS

The undisputed Big Bad of the show’s first few seasons, Captain Crais spent most of his time obsessing over ways to kill John Crichton, who he blamed for the death of his brother, Tauvo. At times he teetered dangerously close to becoming a clichéd villain, but thankfully a superb performance by Lani Tupu transformed the character into a three-dimensional delight who, rather surprisingly, eventually ended up working with the good guys...

created by Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop, were the make-or-break part of Farscape. If viewers couldn’t see past the fact that this was a show with a cast made up of humans and rubber toys, they were doomed. If they could, however – and this was helped by some excellent characterisation – then Farscape had them by the short ‘n’ curlies from the very start. Not that the rest of the cast weren’t weird enough, even without hands up their bottoms. Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe) was a growly, tentacle-faced warrior who wouldn’t have looked out of place in some sort of extraterrestrial WWE smackdown, although as the years passed we got to see his softer side (indeed, by the end of the series the temptation to yell “Somebody give the big lug a hug!” grew stronger every episode). P’au Zotoh Zhaan (former Bond girl Virginia Hey) was a spiritual plant-lady who could have moonlighted for the Blue Man Group on the side. Other characters joined Moya’s crew during the show’s run, too, many of them so psychotic even their companions didn’t know whether to trust them or not; notable among these were Stark (Paul Goddard), a quiet, sweet whackjob who was more than he seemed and Chiana (Gigi Edgley),

farscape

Mother Moya

The living ship who had to put up with a lot...

The Scarrans, Farscape’s most ruthless bad guys.

a nymphomaniac chromatic-girl who never kept still for a second. We’d list the others (Sikozu, Jool, Noranti…) but, hey, we’re only dazzling you madly now. Too many aliens, too little time. But the two most important characters by far were Crichton – played with an assured, cocky swagger by Ben Browder, who was also capable of showing his vulnerable side when necessary – and the yin to his yang, Officer Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black). Aeryn was the show’s masterstroke: a hardass, kickass Sebacean soldieress whose love/hate relationship with Crichton was riveting. You honestly never knew whether she was going to kiss him or kill him – with a fighter like Aeryn, the two were closely linked – and the chemistry between Browder and Black all but sizzled off the screen. If that wasn’t enough, both characters spent a considerable amount of screentime in tight leather trousers. There is no bad in that.

FUNNY AND DARK

The danger, at first, was that Farscape was going to become a frivolous Muppet adventure in space with a cast that decided to play things for laughs. Some of the early episodes of season one were a bit shaky too, which didn’t help matters,

but as time wore on it became clear that this show was going somewhere so far from frivolous that frivolous could well have been on the other end of a wormhole. Farscape could be funny, yes, but good lord, could the show go dark when it wanted to. There was a deeply psychological edge to many of its episodes, and one plot strand in particular would have made psychiatrists everywhere sit up and listen: the bad guy living in Crichton’s brain. Yes, long before Six took up residence in Baltar’s head in Battlestar Galactica, John Crichton found himself having regular chats with Wayne Pygram’s Scorpius, who may or may not have been either a figment of his own imagination or the result of an alien implant in his brain. (Thankfully, despite some admittedly bizarre dream sequences, Crichton and Scorpius never went at it like rabbits à la their Battlestar successors.) As though having a bad guy living inside the hero’s head wasn’t weird enough, Farscape had other bafflements up its sleeve: a sweeping story arc involving two Crichtons after he’s accidentally duplicated; an episode in which the lovely, friendly, harmless Pilot has his legs hacked off by the members of his own crew; a bizarre episode in which the cast are turned into cartoon characters… suffice it to say, the writers of Farscape threw away the rulebook when it came to writing for television. And then nuked it for good measure. When Farscape was eventually cancelled after four seasons (and yes, of course it was cancelled, why would anybody be surprised by

When you think about it, Farscape’s living spaceship, Moya, had a pretty crap life. Captured by Peacekeepers while still a baby, she was separated from her original Pilot (the alien symbiotically bonded with her to be an exotic kind of “captain on the bridge”), then forced into a life of slavery. This also meant that she was forcibly – and agonisingly – bonded with a newer, more controllable Pilot, and the pain from their union never really went away, making them both understandably rather grumpy. And when you add to the mix the fact that she also housed a group of ragtag, argumentative prisoners who were on the run from the law and kept risking her life... well, who could blame Moya for being a little touchy? When Farscape co-creator Rockne S O’Bannon came up with the idea of a living spaceship, he was adamant that its interiors should look alive without you hearing a “squishing sound” when people walked down the ship’s corridors (something that generally happened on the gloopy insectoid ship in Lexx, a show which aired a few years earlier). Moya’s interiors were, instead, a curious mixture of glowy lighting and brown muscles stretched over bulwarks; they couldn’t have been more of a contrast to the sleek stylings of other spaceships, yet seemed perfectly functional for space travel. As a bonus feature, and the thing that made her a prize for Peacekeepers, Moya could also “starburst” – the space-animal equivalent of hitting light speed. Oh, and due to some genetic tampering in her past, she also gave birth to the feisty, troubled Talyn, which came as a bit of a shock. Mostly, however, Moya was the motherfigure on a ship with a crew that needed a firm hand, communicating with them through her harried “husband”, Pilot. As much as they annoyed her, she would’ve been lonely without them. And to them, she was simply Home.

that? It was a good science fiction show and thus had “Cancel My Ass” written all over it), fans bombarded the network with letters and emails demanding its return. Farscape fans were so vocal that, finally, the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries was made and the show received a better send-off. The funny thing is that, although the show has only been off our screens since 2003, it seems far longer. Farscape was like a firefly (no, not the show): it burned brightly and led such a frenetic, complicated, packed existence that it did too much, too quickly. Looking back, the series feels like an acid trip we had as a student – we’re all far more sensible and grown-up now. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t feel frelling amazing at the time, or that we can’t recapture it whenever we want. Farscape needs to be seen, whether you’ve watched it before or not, because lunacy such as this deserves to be applauded for all time. Also, did we mention the leather trousers? Robots and spaceships | 123

starfury

Speed demon Space station Babylon 5’s first line of defence is this tough, no-nonsense fighter...

he Starfury was Babylon 5’s version of Star Wars’ X-wing, The Last Starfighter’s Gunstar, or the Vipers from Battlestar Galactica – a tough, single-seat space fighter, designed to move fast and pack a big punch. Babylon 5 – the space station – had 28 ready for launch at any

One of four engines Designed so it would actually work as a manoeuvrable spacecraft in the real world, the Starfury boasts four engines, with directional fins at the rear and thrusters for pitch and yaw control. The engine’s exhaust flumes are produced by a luminous, fractal-based flame object, although in the show the engines are meant to run on vapourised solid propellant. Ron Thornton: “The main inspiration behind the ship, apart from old planes – most of the Starfurys have World War Two-style nose art, partly inspired by seeing RAF Tornados with ‘The Fat Slags’ painted on the front in the Gulf War – was the Gunstar from The Last Starfighter, because not only was that computer-generated, but it looked like it might actually work in the real world. Designer Ron Cobb had made sure it had all the right little thrusters and everything on it, and actually wanted it to be even more realistic. But the producers, sadly, didn’t understand and they wouldn’t let him.”

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moment (as mentioned in season two). And way, way, way back in SFX #3 (weren’t CG graphics being done on ZX81s then? – Ed) Ron Thornton of Foundation Imaging – the pioneering company that brought CG to TV in a big way with Babylon 5 – talked about designing the show’s iconic ships.

SOLID, functional design The Starfury is very much a no-frills ship, designed to get into battle fast and give a good account of itself once it arrives. Ron Thornton: “We designed it to look thuggish, hard, functional, even dumpy. Our inspiration came from World War Two planes like the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. We wanted it to look like it was tough, might be a handful to fly, but could take lots of hits and keep on going.”

babylon 5 Front Projection The reason the Starfury is designed in this cross shape is to move the moment of thrust away from the ship’s centre of gravity. Ron Thornton: “The ship models we use are constructed from around 20,000 polygons and 15 image maps. They’re supposed to be about ten metres long by 14 metres across in the TV show.”

Top Projection Foundation Imaging had three different versions of the Starfury model it used in the show: one for long shots, one for closeups and one for extreme close-ups. Ron Thornton: “It’s a good design, but it’s not actually my favourite ship in B5. I prefer the Minbari Cruiser, which is fairly vertical looking, like a giant butterfly.”

Big guns No self-respecting spaceship is complete without a decent arsenal. The Starfury boasts two forward-firing Copeland pulse cannons (named after a producer on the show) underneath the cockpit and another two mounted on the top wing, above the pilot. Ron Thornton: “They’re nice, dumpy, business-like guns, though we’ve yet to use the top ones much. We’re just too lazy to animate them! Actually, at one point in season three they get a new, faster and more heavily armed version of the Starfury delivered to Babylon 5. The thing is, though, it’s plagued with problems, and turns out to be a disappointment. We’ve got a two-seat model too, and one with a tail section and new cockpit that can go into a planet’s atmosphere.”

The cockpit The Starfury is a single-seat fighter crewed by a lone starpilot. Ron Thornton: “The ships usually have dark panes, so you can’t see the pilot inside, although for medium close-ups we render a small human being inside the ship. For some close-up shots we actually shoot an actor inside a cockpit set, then drop that into the fighter. Separate over-the-shoulder shots incorporate a helmet and upper body of a pilot rendered inside a virtual cockpit, which is then composited into a pre-rendered background, so it looks like you’re inside the ship looking out. We made all of these better looking for the later seasons.”

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The eagle transporter

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Commander John Koenig and chief pilot Alan Carter compare helmets…

Space: 1999

The Premise

Astronauts are left stranded on Moonbase Alpha after the Moon is knocked out of orbit by a nuclear explosion in 1999. Starring: Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Nick Tait

Guest star Christopher Lee as wizard-haired Captain Zandor.

Number of episodes: 48 Contribution to popular culturE: First attempt at a large-scale weekly sci-fi TV series after Star Trek. Best episode: Season one’s “Dragon’s Domain” with its impressive graveyard of spaceships.

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Lost in space? Have a cup of tea.

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Space: 1999

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where eagles dare

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The Eagle Transporter 1

Command module 2 Forward missile ports 3 Heat shielding 4 Cockpit 5 Steering rocket 6 Explosive decoupling bolts 7 Landing rocket 8 Forward supporting frame 9 Compressed hydrogen fuel tanks 10 Anti-gravity stabilisers 11 Manoeuvring rockets 12 Hydraulic suspension

Illustration by Graham Bleathman. To see more of his telefantasy related work visit www.grahambleathman.co.uk

Find your way around Space: 1999’s allpurpose interplanetary vessel Words dave Bradley

unctional in design, as likely to sport a winch as a weapons platform, Eagle Transporters don’t have the sleek look of Colonial Vipers or the menacing armaments of X-wings. But it’s one of the iconic spacecraft of 20th century science fiction. Like all good vessels, you can tell what it is just from its silhouette. It resembles a pale, squatting lizard, with the cockpit perched on the front like a nose. The middle section, held in place by a tubular super-structure supported on four fat legs, is modular and can be switched depending on the mission. Ferrying passengers, hauling cargo, dumping nuclear waste, analysing samples, combat – there’s a pod for everything. Don’t be fooled by those NASA-style rockets at the rear; despite its bulky, low-tech look, these beasts can reach 15% of the speed of light if needed. The Eagle was designed and built by a special effects team consisting of Brian Johnson, Nick Allder and Martin Bower. While working for Gerry Anderson, Johnson was visited by George Lucas who later persuaded him to come and work on The Empire Strikes Back – for which he and Allder eventually won an Oscar. The Eagles were incredibly detailed and, typical for TV model design, commercially available toy kits were ransacked for interesting parts. “Underneath all the pipework,” reveals Bernard Walsh, owner of the Eagle Transporter Forum site, “you’ll find kit parts from Tamiya tanks,

Revell Gemini and the Airfix Saturn V, as well as materials from a company called EMA who supply equipment usually used in architecture and engineering.” Unlike the knuckle-duster stun pistols or beige unisex uniforms, the Eagle Transporter survives the original show as a classic of 1970s sci-fi design, and can sit comfortably alongside the Enterprise, Battlestar Galactica and Millennium Falcon.

fact attack You can visit the Eagle Transporter Forum at www.eagletransporter.com

Brian Johnson and Nick Allder also won an Oscar for their special effects work on Ridley Scott’s Alien. The first season episode “The Last Sunset” indicates that there are 28 Eagles on the roster. The Eagles are supposedly powered by four nuclear fusion rockets, carry fuel for 48 hours of flight, and boast artificial gravity generators. At the end of production there were seven Eagle props left: three 44-inch models, two 22-inch models, one 11-inch model and one five-inch model. Space: 2099 refers to two projects. One aims to tidy up the visual effects of the original, the other is a full reboot by ITV Studios America and HDFILMS.

MOONBASE ALPHA

Landing pads Utility pod viewports 15 Pod emergency landing rocket 16 Airlock to toilet, food and drink dispensers and engineering section 17 “Transporter” designated utility pod 18 Engineering section 19 Magnetic bottles 20 Fuel tanks 21 Main engines 22 Fuel feed lines

Chemical stores 24 Recreation and dining complex 25 Medical centre 26 Nuclear generating facility three 27 Nuclear generating facility one 28 Astrophysics laboratories 29 Main mission 30 Computer section 31 Accommodation unit 32 Weapons section 33 Technical section 34 Life support equipment store

Nuclear waste dome Life support systems complex 37 Chemical laboratories 38 Weapons stores 39 Observatory 40 Geological laboratories 41 Technical experimentation labs 42 Travel tube 43 Launch pad 44 Flammable material storage 45 Maintenance building 46 Nuclear generating facility three

Robots and spaceships | 127

serenity

Ever wondered what makes a Firefly-class transport vessel tick? Explore Joss Whedon’s magnificent spacecraft with these detailed schematics

he Serenity is more than a spaceship, it’s Firefly’s tenth character, a rust bucket held together with love and loose bolts. Much like the Millennium Falcon the Serenity is a home away from home for its human crew. Unlike the Falcon, however, the Serenity is unarmed – its only lines of defence being speed and “crybaby” decoy buoys used to mimic other ships. The Serenity’s elegant exterior is a mix between a bird (that long neck) and a bug (that large abdomen). Step on board and things start to feel much more lived-in, with sections of the ship adopting the personalities of the crew (Kaylee’s engine room is warm and welcoming, Simon’s surgery cold and clinical). Joss Whedon worked closely with production designer Carey Meyer and visual effects supervisor Loni Peristere to ensure a consistency between the live action interiors and digital exteriors of the ship, building two contiguous sets which, between them, contained the entirety of the Serenity’s guts. Here’s how it all fits together in a Model 01 Firefly.

The serenity Classification Firefly-class Launch date August 2459 Drive Standard radion/ accelerator core Length 81.9m Wingspan 34m rew complement 9 (though C 4 are passengers)

REFURB DETAIL

FIREFLY DRIVE - 50,000 LY CYCLE 2 BUSSARD FUSION ENGINES 2 FULL CONNECT SHUTTLE BAYS (SHUTTLECRAFT EXTRA) 3 YEAR LIFE SUPPORT ORGANIC CORE 4 CREW CABINS 4 PASSENGER CABINS 1 LUXURY SUITE COMMUNAL MESS AND GALLEY 4 EMERGENCY LOCKS 1 CARGO LOCK FULL SENSOR MELON FULL CENTRAL COM 3 LEVEL CARGO BAY (CONVERSION FOR MASS TRANSPORT AVAILABLE AT ADDITIONAL COST) COMPLETE ENGINEERING CORE 6-SYSTEM DISTRIBUTED FUEL TANKS TRIPLE SHIELD FUZION CORE FOR BUSSARD AND FIREFLY DRIVES 5 LAMINATE HULL WITH 3 LAYERS OF VOID FLUID RESEAL EMBED 3.5 MIL COIN, F.O.B. - DELIVERY EXTRA

Equipment 2 magnetic grapple launchers, 6 transmitter buoys, 3 one-man escape pods Owner Captain Malcolm Reynolds Images feature in Firefly: A Celebration available now from Titan books © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

128 | Robots and spaceships

interstellar

c o n d

Screenplay paternal love, then why does Dad only like 50% of his children?

FADE IN: FAMINE-RIDDEN FUTURE AMERICA EXT: DUST INT: DUST There’s a lot of dust, okay? ELLEN BURSTYN [on TV] I remember thinking the food situation had got quite bad when Dad gave us soot sandwiches three nights in a row. As for the birthday cake made of carpet fluff... CUT TO: Former pilot MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY’S farmhouse, which he shares with adored daughter MACKENZIE FOY and might-as-well-be-dead son TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET. MACKENZIE FOY Dad! Put down that lint smoothie and come listen! There’s a ghost in my room sending me messages, in an oddly distinctive whistling southern drawl. MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY What’sss it say, sssugarplum? MACKENZIE FOY It says, “Watching you lot bum around dried-up old cornfields is really depressing. Go and find Michael Caine, he usually has a steer on the plot in Christopher Nolan films.” INT: UNDERGROUND NASA BUNKER MICHAEL CAINE Matthew, we are going to send you down an alien wormhole that leads to new planets as well as all the action scenes.

JESSICA CHASTAIN Maybe because one of us is an eminent scientist and the other looks like a hillbilly sex murderer? Back in space, MATTHEW’s crew get ready to meet their MYSTERY A-LIST GUEST STAR.

INTERSTELLAR Words matthew leyland

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY Great. Here’s a question: instead of spending gazillions developing intergalactic flight, why not build the world’s biggest Dustbuster? INT: FARMHOUSE MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY I’m going to break this to you gently, Mackenzie. Daddy goin’ on a spaceship! All right, all right, all right! MACKENZIE FOY Noooo! Don’t leave me alone with my underwritten brother! When will you be back? MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY Oh, sometime between next century and never. Because of this relativity nonsense, I might be the same age as you if/when I get back. Hey, I’ll be able to hit on your friends without it seeming weird!

EXT: SPACE MCCONAUGHEY leaves Earth with his crew, including MICHAEL’s daughter ANNE HATHAWAY and robot-slashDairy Milk slab TARS. ANNE HATHAWAY What’s that Dylan Thomas poem my dad endlessly quotes like some annoying budgie? “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”. Like there was ever a chance of that with Hans Zimmer doing the music. Foghorns on maximum, Hans! TARS Pretension levels increasing... Humour levels approaching minus numbers... Back on Earth, MATTHEW’s kids grow into the more expensive JESSICA CHASTAIN and CASEY AFFLECK. CASEY AFFLECK Okay, if this film’s all about the power of

ANNE HATHAWAY I hope it’s Christian Bale – he still owes me a tenner from The Dark Knight Rises. It’s MATT DAMON, who emerges from a hibernation Radox bath. MATT DAMON Damn you Nolan and your practical effects! My nuts have turned to raisins lying in this slop! MATTHEW and MATT have a fight, everyone does a crying scene and HANS ZIMMER whips up a noise like a herd of rhinos attacking a brass band. MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY [spinning into blackness] Oof! I’ve lost my ship and fallen down a plot hole! MATTHEW is trapped behind the books in his daughter’s old library. MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY I know where I am... Shyamaland! Home of the eye-rolling twist! So I’m the message-sending, somehow-humanity-saving “ghost”, huh? All fright, all fright, all fright! FIN

Robots and spaceships | 129

Dark matter

SHUTTLE COCKPIT “When it came to designing our shuttle, the Phantom Class Marauder, we reached out to former Stargate production designer James Robbins,” says Mallozzi. “Having learned our lesson on those relatively clean cargo ships on SG-1, we asked James for a cockpit with plenty of interactive opportunities: switches, lights, toggles, and buttons – a little old school in a new school setting. James obliged with the pictured design, throwing in a joystick. Adjustments were made, shortening the median console, shifting the joystick lower and to the right (like a stick shift), and introducing steering wheels for both the pilot and co-pilot positions.”

“Another lesson I learned on Stargate,” Mallozzi says, “was the practical benefits of being able to section off the cockpit and cargo section of our shuttle. The flanking lockers were ultimately deemed unnecessary as we elected to make full use of the recessed areas as well for a roomier cargo hold.”

Dark Matter creator Joseph Mallozzi talks us through the interior design of his show’s hero ship

hen Stargate Universe was axed from the airwaves in 2011 it marked the first time in over 20 years that there wasn’t a show on TV featuring space, or indeed the ships required to traverse vast galaxies. Dark Matter, which debuted on Syfy earlier this year (and has recently been renewed for a second season), is the first space show in four years, and as you would expect features a nifty vessel for transporting it’s ragtag crew across the stars. The Raza is a faster-than-light and fully armed transport vehicle equipped with vector thrust capable nacelles. There’s an impressive bridge, a mess hall and enough space to support at least six crew members. It even houses a Phantom Class shuttle called The Marauder. Getting the design correct, right down to the way airlocks opened, was paramount for Mallozzi, who tells us what went into creating the Raza.

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AIRLOCKS 1A+B “We eventually decided on the sliding variety, going side to side rather than up and down. The latter were always an issue back in our SG-1 days because we’d occasionally get bounce, something our VFX department would inevitably have to fix,” says Mallozzi. 2A+B+C “Concept artist Bartol Rendulic did the honours early on in prep, designing our hero ship and many of its interior elements. We considered a variety of airlock configurations, from hinged doors (ultimately deemed impractical from a production standpoint) to the sleeker sliding variety.” 7+8 “Outer airlocks. We’ll be seeing a variation on a couple of EVAs. For the shuttle, we opted for bomb bay doors.”

AND P

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Kryten, Cat, Lister and Rimmer: the funniest space crew in the galaxy.

Listerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long-lost love Kochanski added more X chromosomes to the show.

A sci-fi sitcom that was actually funny? Those boys from the Dwarf can do anything. We assess Red Dwarfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place in TV history Words Jon Hamblin 132 | Robots and spaceships

red dwarf

Three BesT Episodes

Queeg 2.05

One of the show’s best-crafted episodes, with an absolute woofer of an ending. So many great moments (“Junior Book Of Space”, “Don’t suppose you’d prefer a sports question?”, Rimmer’s unconscious exercise routine) and some of the best comic timing outside of a novelty watch factory.

n space, no one can hear you bite your toenails. Unless that is, you have an uptight holographic bunk mate, who’ll not only hear it, but be driven so far up the wall, he’ll be contesting upside-down parking tickets. All great sitcoms are about irritation – Steptoe And Son, Rising Damp, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps (okay, so the last one’s purely about viewer irritation, but still) – and Red Dwarf excelled at it. The greatest sci-fi sitcom ever produced, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s creation paired Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), a deceased upwardly mobile Thatcherite hologram with Dave Lister (Craig Charles), the last man off Earth – a curry-stained proletarian with questionable personal hygiene. A sort of intergalactic Waiting For Godot (and we’re not being wanky here – the series one episode title “Waiting For God” was a direct reference to the play), Red Dwarf was the sitcom with the ultimate sit. Trapped aboard a deep space mining vessel millions of years after an accident wiped out the entire crew, the two men

Back To Reality 5.06

The crew discover they’ve been playing a virtual reality game for four years. Awesome gags (“Are you seriously telling me you were playing the prat version of Rimmer for four years?”), Duane Dibley, Timothy Spall, and some fantastic mime (yes, mime!), it’s also Stephen Hawking’s favourite episode.

couldn’t leave if they wanted to. Of course, like Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s play the two weren’t waiting alone – they had Holly (Norman Lovett), the ship’s computer and Cat (Danny John-Jules), a descendent of the feline Lister originally smuggled on board back in 2077 (although this was later retconned to the 23rd century) to keep them company. As you’d expect, Cat was a vain, selfish creature, more concerned about matching outfits and naps than helping Lister get home, while Holly allegedly had an IQ of six (according to his fictional opposite number Queeg – Holly denied it though: “Do me a lemon! That’s a poor IQ for a glass of water!”). After two series of jokes about puncture repair kits for Rimmer’s girlfriend and Lister’s famously pungent collection of dirty socks, it was all change for Red Dwarf III, as the show began to shift from intimate sitcom to action comedy. Opening with a text crawl speedy enough to give George Lucas whiplash, “Backwards” was the brilliant template for all that was to come – a strong sci-fi idea, ambitious

Backwards 3.01

A simple idea, executed brilliantly, as the crew travel through a time hole to find an earth that’s spinning backwards. The bar tidy scene is a highlight, as the crew un-rumble the premises, and there’s always the moment when Cat goes to the loo. Traci Lords once watched this at an SFX Couch Potato, y’know…

special effects and some superbly well crafted gags. Kryten (the android first seen in the series episode of the same name) was now a regular, albeit played by a new actor (Robert Lewellyn), and Holly had a sex change, taking on the likeness of Hilly (Hattie Hayridge) from the series two finale (“Parallel Universe”). New

“It started as a sort Of intergalactic Waiting for godot” shuttle Starbug 1 gave the crew an escape from the confines of the Dwarf, and series III, IV, V, and VI saw the show at its creative peak. Whether it was the Alien-aping Polymorph, Rimmer coming face to face with his alter ego Ace Rimmer in “Dimension Jump” (not so much “jumping the shark” as “surfing the alligator” in the opening credits), and the entire crew meeting their “real” selves in the quite brilliant “Back To Reality”. Robots and spaceships | 133

FLASHBACK

Emmy award-winning episode “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”.

TRIVIA

Series III was meant to open with the episode “Dad”, which was to resolve Lister’s pregnancy cliffhanger from the end of series II. The script was never completed, apparently because it simply wasn’t very funny, though some of the plot elements were incorporated into the series III opening text crawl. Jenna Russell, who sang the theme tune, also appeared in Doctor Who, as the floor manager in the episodes “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting Of The Ways”. Continuity was never a strong point. The exact number of personnel aboard Red Dwarf has been variously quoted as 169, 129, 1,169 and 11,169. In the episode “Camille”, Suzanne Rhatigan, the then girlfriend of Craig Charles, was meant to play Kochanski. Ultimately, she didn’t appear in the final episode, although she was still credited as “Kochanski Camille”. Danny John-Jules claims that he based Cat on Little Richard’s look, James Brown’s gyrations and Richard Pryor’s expressions. Although, as far as we know, none of them liked to mark their territory with a spray can.

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One of the show’s real pleasures was the way it truly embraced sci-fi concepts, and while they often had roots in other material (“Backwards” could be said to be inspired by Phillip K Dick’s 1967 novel Counter-Clock World), they were always mined for comic potential. When the ideas were original, they were often exceptionally well thought out – like the Holoship in “Holoship”, filled with the greatest minds that ever lived and able to travel faster than any ship ever created thanks to being constructed entirely of light, or the various luck and holoviruses in “Quarantine”. Some of the more original concepts were even “borrowed” by legitimate sci-fi shows – “Clues”, a 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode is suspiciously similar to the 1988 Red Dwarf episode “Thanks For The Memory”.

Character work

But none of this high concept material would have played without the solid character work that marbled through the show like the fat in a porterhouse steak. Over the years, we realised that Rimmer was only such a clot because of the towering guilt instilled in him by a domineering father, over-achieving brothers and a pathological inability to accept responsibility for any of his woes. That would be enough for most shows, but having drawn up this template, the writers constantly picked at the edges of it,

“rimmer is a Crawling mass of Guilt, self-loathing And inadequacy” exposing ever-deeper emotional scars, always using them to thicken the comedy stock. For example, when the crew are faced with their “real” selves in “Back To Reality”, the fact that Rimmer can’t blame his bum-like status on his broken childhood (sharing the same parentage as his successful “brother” Lister) is only funny because we’ve seen him use that excuse so many times in the past. A crawling mess of guilt, self-loathing and inadequacy, Rimmer is a repellently loveable comic creation – a man so

Special effects designer James Davis painting Kryten for “Beyond A Joke”.

red dwarf

A Bug’s Life

The life and times of Red Dwarf’s other famous spaceship Chris Barrie worked out for weeks just for this scene!

Cat’s favourite character was… Cat.

messed up, he’d cut off his face to spite his nose. It was true of all the characters. While Lister often cultivated an air of wilful ignorance (mainly to annoy Rimmer), he was actually highly intelligent. In a direct contrast to Rimmer’s lofty ambitions, Dave was a directionless slack-arse slob (his best shirt is the one with only two curry stains), although he often achieved more than his upwardly-mobile bunkmate. The audience loved him though, because we knew he was capable of real human warmth, as in the pathos-tastic episode “Thanks For The Memory”, in which Lister donated the memory of Lise Yates (one of his favourite relationships) to Rimmer, after hearing about his relative lack of success with the ladies (Yvonne McGruder, the ship’s female boxing champion aside). In series VII and VIII several changes saw the show take a dip in quality – Rob Grant left to pursue non-Dwarf projects and Doug Naylor took the series in a new direction, bringing Lister’s long-lost love Kochanski back. The show had revolved for so long around the idea of sexual frustration that the introduction of a female upset the chemistry, and many fans were sad that the original Kochanski (Gregory’s Girl actress Claire Grogan) was unable to reprise the role. Red Dwarf VII’s stronger emphasis on action also meant the show could no longer be filmed

in front of a live audience, and without it, the show lost some of its magic. Series VIII attempted to bring the show back to its roots, resurrecting the Red Dwarf ship and its crew (including a now human Rimmer), and the studio audience, and returning to more character-based comedy, with mixed results, ending on a high in 1999 with Rimmer kicking Death in the balls.

Back To TV

After the BBC told fans eagerly awaiting a ninth series to smeg off, it seemed that would be the end of Dwarf, despite constant rumours of a movie. Almost a decade later, whisperings began about a new two-part episode, which emerged in 2009 as the three-part “Back To Earth” special on the Dave comedy channel. While it lacked a laughter track (rather painfully in places) it acted as a far more fitting (albeit Blade Runner-fixated) end for the series. Only it left the door open for more Dwarf thanks to the reception it got (around four million viewers, making it the biggest ever non-terrestrial commission in UK multichannel history), which became a reality in 2012 when the six episode Red Dwarf X aired on Dave. Praised for returning to Shepperton Studios to film in front of a live audience, Red Dwarf X wholeheartedly embraced the sitcom feel of the show’s early years, and proved another ratings smash for Dave. After a

It wasn’t just Kryten who became an integral part of Team Dwarf in series III. The addition of Robert Llewellyn’s Series 4000 mechanoid meant the gang had outgrown Blue Midget – clearly a new vessel was needed for all those away missions. The Jupiter Mining Corporation transport vehicle Starbug was one of a fleet of petal-green ships aboard the original Red Dwarf. It wasn’t always such a fetching shade, however. Starbug started life as White Midget, until the second episode of series III required the ship to crash land into snow, prompting the design team to change the colour, and the name when it dawned on them that the ship looked an awful lot like an insect. Starbug featured frequently over the next two series, but took on a starring role in series VI and VII when the Red Dwarf went missing. Starbug became the entire show’s setting for two years, prompting a redesign of the ship’s interior into four main sections: the cockpit, the midsection/galley, the observation room/quarters and the engine room. Unlike the Red Dwarf, which was endlessly sprawling and dangerous, Starbug felt like a real home. It was even kitted out with laser cannons in “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”. Dimensional anomalies caused by a convenient time paradox expanded Starbug by 212% for series VII, with extra rooms including a medibay and an artificial reality suite. It was also the first series to use both models and CGI to create the iconic craft. But with the reconstruction of Red Dwarf by nanobots in series VIII came the destruction of the Dwarfers’ beloved bug. It reappeared (sort of) in “Back To Earth” as “Carbug”, a car in Starbug Cosplay belonging to the fictional Red Dwarf fanclub president. The ship also made a brief appearance in the first episode of Red Dwarf X, but only as an external CGI shot, with Blue Midget taking over main shuttle duties. The good news? Doug Naylor says Starbug will return in series XI, as the show’s main sets will be carried over from series X allowing the production team to create a brand new Starbug interior. Long live the mean green machine!

three-year wait, back-to-back filming starts on series XI and XII in November, with new episodes due to air in 2016 and 2017. Red Dwarf may have started as a cult show with a tiny audience but somewhere along the way it became a mass-appeal blockbuster. Its true success was in fans’ hearts though, as over the years we came to regard Dave, Arnold, Cat, Kryten and Holly not just as characters but as, well, people… we… met. Robots and spaceships | 135

illustration by Jason Pickersgill/acute graphics

THE SOUND Space is silent. Sound effects are only used when the astronauts touch things, so we feel them as much as hear them – still, “they put explosions in the trailer” complained Cuarón. Musical cues include a man playing water glasses, a slowed recording of the composer and friends playing their lowest notes, and folkie Lisa Hannigan singing a plaintive ditty.

THE REALISM NASA astronauts have praised the film’s verisimilitude. “When a bad sci-fi movie comes out, no one bothers to ask if it reminded me of the real thing,” said Garrett Reisman. But there are niggles: it’s nigh impossible to travel between two spacecraft without precise planning, Clooney or not. And Stone wears neither socks nor space diapers.

THE PRE-VIZ Having rejected mo-cap, Framestore VFX’s Tim Webber had an idea: why not shoot the whole film as a pre-visualised CG “cartoon”, and drop the live-action elements in later? Every shot needed to be locked down months in advance and 80 percent of the finished movie is CG, requiring a computer processor with the power of 25,000 iPods.

THE LONG SHOTS In order to mimic the space documentaries he’d seen, Cuarón chose to stretch his shots “for as long as the narrative would allow”. Just before release he watched the opening again, inverted the monitor, and decided that the first six minutes should be flipped. Re-rendering the effects to complete his request took three months.

THE RIG To simulate being thrown around in space, Bullock did most of her shots from a mechanical rig, nicknamed “Sandy’s Cage”. Because it took so long to set up, she stayed inside for up to 10 hours a day, listening to music between shots. “Having no human connection in a weird way helped,” she said. “It made me feel so alone.”

Classic Scene

THE PROPS Because they reflected the studio – rather than what was happening in the story – the helmet visors were created digitally, smears, fingerprints and all. The spacesuits were thinner versions of their real-life counterparts, bulked up by CGI in post-production. The drill Stone uses is a regular household appliance rather than the much larger NASA type.

GRAVITY Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) realises the gravity of the situation.

THE LIGHTING To light the live-action shots, the filmmakers created a light box consisting of 1.8 million LEDs, which showed Bullock what her character was seeing at any one point. Robots were used to move the camera, the box and Bullock’s rig in perfect sync. They shot with a dummy, then a stuntperson, to make sure nobody got hurt.

Blast away

lfonso Cuarón’s interstellar 2013 Oscar winner, co-written with son Jonàs, seems to put us right there in space, his camera floating alongside Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) like an unseen astronaut who stowed away on the Explorer. For the opening 12.5 minutes it’s all fun and games – with no discernible cuts – until disaster strikes and the real action begins...

5 1

We open on the Earth from space, huge and serene. Slowly NASA radio chatter comes into focus, and the camera drifts towards the Explorer.

As Kowalski blithely spacewalks, Stone fixes a component on the Hubble Telescope, the camera pirouetting around until she’s upright in the frame...

Kowalski helps Stone, who feels, “like a chihuahua that’s been tumble-dried”. A screw slips out of her grasp – straight towards camera – but Kowalski grabs it.

THE MOVEMENT Former dancer Bullock trained two hours a day, six days a week to get in shape for the shoot. For the scenes in which she floats around spaceships she was suspended by wires from a “tilt rig” on a turntable. Puppeteers from the stage production of War Horse helped to move her around like a real-life marionette.

Mission abort! The crew is ordered to disconnect from the Hubble and evacuate immediately, but the debris begins to strike before they can reach safety.

Over the radio, NASA informs them of a Russian satellite explosion, and a cloud of debris that “will not overlap with their trajectory”. Yeah right.

Crew member Shariff (Phaldut Sharma) is killed and Stone’s platform veers away from the crash. Once detached, she spins off, alone, into the endless darkness. Robots and spaceships | 137

The Empire Strikes Back

Sexual chemistry of the Bogie-Bacall nature, a shocking revelation about Luke’s father and the big screen debut of Yoda. We explore the making of The Empire Strikes Back… Excited? You will be. You will be Words calum waddell

immediately said, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do this. I think that it would be silly for me to make a film that tries to better what you have done.” Amazingly, this was the answer that Irvin Kershner gave to George Lucas when asked to take over the directorial reins of a follow-up to Star Wars. Thankfully, the filmmaker – then best known for his critically acclaimed thriller The Eyes Of Laura Mars – eventually agreed to follow in Lucas’s footsteps and, in doing so, delivered a classic space-opera whose legacy is unlikely to fade

anytime soon. Indeed, ask anybody to name a sequel to a classic movie, regardless of genre, that succeeds in equalling – or even surpassing – the original and the chances are that you will be left with four options: The Bride Of Frankenstein, The Godfather Part II, Aliens and The Empire Strikes Back. Even then there is likely to be some cause for conjecture (and those sadly delusional few that will vouch for Alien 3) but, in each case, it’s hard to deny that these encores represent a thoroughly entertaining and noble continuation of the first film’s storyline.

BREAKING NEW GROUND

“How do you stop your mask from chafing?”

138 | Robots and spaceships

Yet, Empire isn’t just a top notch sequel – it’s also one of the best sci-fi movies of all time and a motion picture that broke new ground in special effects. Moreover, take a moment to think about your favourite scenes from the Star Wars saga and the chances are that most of the standout moments will come from Empire – be it Han and Leia’s first kiss, Yoda’s introduction, the Falcon flying through an asteroid field or that big, bloody bombshell of an ending. Yes, this was the sequel that took

the original’s plot, cranked things up to 11 and showed audiences and critics that the success of Star Wars was no mere fluke. It was after the blockbuster success of Empire that the sci-fi genre was given a new lease of life throughout the 1980s and the revolution in increasingly intricate special effects began. Had Lucas’s brainchild bombed at the box office it’s conceivable to say that the growth of ILM would have come to a sudden, premature standstill. With that kind of pressure on his back, it’s a bit more understandable why Kershner was a tad hesitant about Princesses always go for scruffy-looking nerf-herders.

the empire strikes back Concept artist Ralph McQuarrie’s vision for Luke and Vader’s climactic duel.

hopping onboard for Episode V… “George said to me, ‘This has to be even bigger than the first one – as well as being even better,’” Kershner told SFX in 2008, two years before his death. “Even then I still turned it down! But after a month of him phoning me, and Gary Kurtz calling as well, I finally agreed to go up to George’s studio. “When I got there he showed me some concept drawings, spoke about his plans for the film and, of course, I got the script, which needed a lot of work [laughs]. So I agreed to do it and I began working for three months in LA. George kept flying down to meet with

me and we finally managed to get a new script we both liked. At that point I went to London and stayed there for over two years. The whole project took me almost three years to complete.” Somewhat predictably a huge part of that time was spent in pre-production, devising the look of the movie and sorting out special effects. “It took me a year in London just to do the storyboards and to get the designs done for the clothes and everything else,” admits Kershner. “We had to do blue screen, green screen and all of that stuff – this is before digital so everything had to be done very

Imperial Walkers: preposterous but cool.

The Empire Strikes Cash

Despite being widely seen as the highlight of the six-film Star Wars series, Empire is actually the least financially successful of the bunch – taking in a tad over $533,800,000 at the worldwide box office to date (this figure includes the 1997 re-release and is, obviously, still bloody impressive). By contrast, Return Of The Jedi took in a not inconsiderable $572,700,000 while the all-time Star Wars box office champ is The Phantom Menace with a global intake of $922,379,000.

Robots and spaceships | 139

FLASHBACK

Luke, Leia and the droids enjoy the view.

carefully. I remember that I would do a rough storyboard, call in an artist and he would then make fancy pictures out of them. We eventually made two books – each shot was numbered and one book was sent to George whilst the other one was kept by me. Whenever I wanted to make changes in the script I’d call George, because he was in California, and say something like, ‘I want to move this scene to another place and I want the ship to come out from left frame instead of right frame.’ I would explain it to him in detail and, because he had this book of storyboards, he knew exactly what I was talking about. Meanwhile, he was making the miniatures in California and then, after about a year of storyboards and getting the production design together, we began to Han Solo in carbonite – it’s your fault, Lando!

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shoot… and that took us six months.” For a filmmaker who had previously toiled away on moderately budgeted features such as The Return Of A Man Called Horse (1976) and the fact-based, made-for-television opus Raid On Entebbe (1977) the challenge of directing a special effects-led blockbuster was considerable. “I have to thank George Lucas for giving me a course on how to shoot special effects! But it was never easy. Very often, after a take, we would have to open the doors of the stage and have blowers going because of all the smoke on the set. Nowadays you could add something like mist or smoke digitally but back then it had to be done right there. I did very few takes on Empire as a result and there are a lot of scenes in the film that were done with only one take, including a lot of the big

sequences. I would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then I would say, ‘Okay, let’s shoot it.’ The crew was used to me saying, ‘that’s fine’ after just doing one take. When I first did that the cameraman came up to me and said, ‘wait a minute, don’t you want a protection shot?’ I said to him, ‘this film will take two years to shoot if we do that!’ It had to be right the first time. Doing a second take could cost us hours. Everybody on the set who had anything to do with a scene would be holding their breath when we would start shooting! If we ever missed something I would have to go back and build a little piece of the set and do it that way.” Another of the director’s worries was that his sequel would be all special effects and no movement. Like an early Michael Bay prototype, in other words. “It was very difficult to even move the camera in a lot of the scenes because of the special effects,” reveals Kershner. “So whenever I had the chance I would move the camera or move the actors – just to give the audience the feeling that the film wasn’t static. When I first storyboarded it I remember thinking, ‘This is going to be a very static film because you have all these special effects. How do we even move the camera?’ But I think it worked out – it is definitely not a static film – but that took a lot

the empire strikes back

“What do you think of my Hamlet?”

of extra work.” Indeed it did, although it took one of the oldest tricks in the book to make the asteroid assault on the Millennium Falcon look like a life-or-death scenario. “All the scenes in the Falcon, where it is being bounced around, were done using a hand camera. Originally we had men rocking the cockpit around and it looked like hell! No matter how hard they tried they couldn’t get the motion I was looking for. So I used a hand camera for these scenes in the asteroid belt and if I said ‘right’ the actors threw themselves to the right and the camera went to the left. I would be shouting, ‘right’ and then ‘left’ and they would be throwing themselves about while trying to

“The Falcon’s Structure was built in Wales and shipped into London truckload after truckload” act. However, they did it perfectly. When Leia threw herself into Han Solo’s arms the ship didn’t move – she moved! And they both did that in one take. We had real characters in the film and excellent actors.”

jedi mastered

Creating a realistic trip through an asteroid attack was not the only special effects challenge. “Yoda was definitely the most difficult character to design. He was supposed to blink and his eyes were meant to move

around and focus. His ears had to move as well… but when we actually shot Yoda I couldn’t get the eyes to blink or his ears to move around. Nothing worked with that puppet and it took us a lot of time to fix that.” Then there was the most famous vehicle in the Star Wars franchise – the Millennium Falcon, an impressive, super-fast “hunk of junk” on the silver screen but, in reality, a big immobile pile of metal that took up an entire stage. “The actual metal structure for the Falcon was built in Wales and shipped into London truckload after truckload. Then it was put together in the studio and placed on a hover lift so that we could turn it and move it around a little bit. The only thing is that we had to build all of our sets around it because you could not move the ship to a different part of the studio. It was far too big.” As the production of Empire continued, and as the high quality of Kershner’s work became apparent, Lucas did what anyone would have done – he made a play for the director to also take the helm on Return Of The Jedi. “I was asked halfway through making Empire if I wanted to do Jedi but I decided not to,” states Kershner. “The reason was that after three years of working on one film for George I didn’t want to do another one and then end up in his stable. I wanted to do my own work. I wanted to go off and do my own thing.” Nevertheless, Kershner had made his mark on sci-fi history, and set a standard for the Star Wars series that future Episodes could not hope to match (1983’s Return Of The Jedi, after a promising first reel, pales in comparison to the dark and twisty universe of Empire). Sure, it might not have Carrie Fisher in a steel bikini but, for all other intents and purposes, Empire rules the galaxy. And it knows who your daddy is.

Luke could never get the hang of parking.

YODA MAN

Although technology has now advanced in leaps and bounds, making any onscreen illusion possible, Kershner admitted that the later Star Wars films did take one of his favourite characters in an unfortunate direction. “The effects were fantastic,” Kershner said of the Lucas-directed prequels. “But I felt that Yoda was more interesting in my film. Now, the special effect of Yoda was wonderful in these later movies – but maybe I was too familiar with the original concept because it looked a little artificial to me and the characterisation of Yoda was, I think, all wrong. I didn’t want to see him jumping around with a lightsaber. I thought that showed he had no power! In fact, he had too much power to be doing that sort of thing.”

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next episode

THE FUTURE OF THE FORCE Nothing combines robots and spaceships better than Star Wars, so in the run up to Episode VII here’s everything we know about the amazing machines from The Force Awakens Words Jordan Farley

The X-Wings are based on Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art When JJ Abrams first unveiled The Force Awakens’ new-look X-wing a debate raged: was it an X-wing or a Z-95 Headhunter, as seen in The Clone Wars? The vessel’s double engines seemed to imply the latter, but Disney was quick to clarify: it is, of course, an X-wing, but one based on Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art (itself based on a Joe Johnston design). Rather than a single circular engine on each of the four wings, the Resistance X-wings feature one larger engine on each side that splits in two when S-foils are locked in attack position. Plus they have blue flourishes now instead of red ones. Because reasons.

Poe Dameron has a snazzy X-Wing

If Poe Dameron is indeed “the best frickin’ star pilot in the galaxy”, as Oscar Isaac memorably claimed, then it’s only fair that Poe gets his own signature ship. Poe’s X-wing features the new engine configuration, a distinctive orange and black paint job and, best of all, a spot for BB-8 in the back where an R2 unit would traditionally go. The first trailer seems to show Poe flying a standard blue and grey X-wing, however, which would imply that at some point Poe’s X-wing gets an upgrade, or that beautiful winged machine is (gulp) destroyed.

The Tie Fighters have had a makeover too

Gonk Droids are still around Further proof, if it were needed, that Star Wars is in safe hands: JJ made sure GNK (commonly Gonk) droids were part of The Force Awakens. One is glimpsed under Poe’s ship and in the behind-thescenes video released at Comic Con 2015. If there’s any justice the Expanded Universe story regarding a cult of power droids led by two Gonk bots will be a key plot point in the new trilogy.

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It’s not just the X-wings that have been rebranded. The Empire, now known as The First Order, has given its own spacefighters a paint job too. Rather than grey with black panels the new Ties are largely black with striking white panels on the wings and a red flourish on the left-hand side of the central section. Finn appears to nick one of these Tie fighters during his daring escape from a Star Destroyer before crash-landing on Jakku.

Star Wars: The force awakens

...But this one is fully operational

Somewhat worryingly, The First Order appear to be just as powerful in The Force Awakens as the Empire were in the original trilogy. Want proof? They’ve still got a Super Flippin’ Star Destroyer in their arsenal. It’s a safe bet that General Hux is in command of this. The ship flying towards it is Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle and looks like an updated version of the three-pronged Imperial Shuttle.

This Star Destroyer was destroyed...

The Galactic Empire was dealt a deadly blow at the Battle Of Endor, but never count an evil military regime out. A year after the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, the Battle of Jakku raged over the Outer Rim desert planet. The battle will be seen in videogame Star Wars Battlefront, but little else is known about the dogfight except its aftermath, in which at least one Star Destroyer and one X-wing were left for scrap. Rey has made a living as a scavenger on Jakku, so it’s a safe bet these weren’t the only casualties.

BB-8 is the new R2 Adorable ball droid BB-8 was the second thing we ever saw from The Force Awakens (after Finn’s sweat-drenched face) and few could believe that this whirling robot wasn’t a CG creation. Quite the contrary, unlike even the mighty R2-D2 BB-8 is all practical and all machine, albeit one remote controlled by humans, but let’s look past that for now. He’s a clear evolution of the common R2 unit, with a similar domed noggin and a seemingly identical “bleep bloop” form of communication. He also serves as Poe Dameron’s AI companion aboard his X-wing, much like R2 served as Luke’s. At some point BB-8 even gets to hang round Han and Chewie aboard the Falcon.

But R2’s in there as well! BB-8 might be nabbing all the headlines, but that doesn’t mean the real hero of the Star Wars saga won’t be appearing in The Force Awakens as well. We know little about what the heroic R2 unit has been up to in the 30 years since Return Of The Jedi, but based on the brief glimpse of him in the second Force Awakens trailer it would appear he’s joined Luke in hiding on some desolate planet. We also know at some point he’ll be reunited with his mechanical companion C-3PO, and don’t be surprised if he’s at the heart of the action.

The Falcon has a new radar dish

Lando managed to knock the Falcon’s radar dish off during the assault on the second Death Star, but the round dish of old has been replaced by a nifty rectangular version for The Force Awakens. The hunk of junk has also had a bit of a paint job with red flourishes found across the top of the hull. More importantly, it seems that Han Solo and Chewbacca have been away from their ship for some time if Han’s declaration “Chewie, we’re home” is anything to go by.

What’s with C-3PO’s red arm?

Threepio’s role in The Force Awakens is being kept under wraps, though a brief glimpse of the multilingual protocol droid next to some familiar-looking computer screens in the Comic Con footage would imply that he’s still hanging around with the Resistance. What we do know, for sure, is that he’s got a red arm. For some reason. We’ll discover why in a special Threepio-centric comic this December.

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wing commander

TAKING FLIGHT

Live out your dogfighting dreams in Star Wars Battlefront

t’s one thing watching Han Solo pilot the Millennium Falcon through the wreckage of a Super Star Destroyer as he’s tailed by a Tie fighter on the surface of Jakku, but it’s another thing entirely when you’re the one flying the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy during a chaotic 10 v 10 dogfight over the ash-stricken plains of Sullust. The latter is exactly what you’ll get up to in videogame Star Wars Battlefront. Or more specifically, Battlefront’s spaceship-laden Fighter Squadron mode, which pits Rebel X- and Y-wings against Imperial Tie fighters and Interceptors, with show-stopping cameo appearances from the Falcon and Boba Fett’s Slave 1. As you would expect, the Ties are a little more slippery than their Winged adversaries, but the Rebel ships make up for it with superior firepower. Whichever side you pick the controls are the same, and have been streamlined and simplified as much as possible so that people who aren’t dedicated gamers can still have fun.

“The falcon can take Down tie fighters in Less time than it takes Chewie to win a Game of holochess”

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The left stick controls your speed, the right stick steers. You have lasers, missiles (target lock is essential if you don’t want to miss), evasive manoeuvres and a special ability which grants the Empire’s vessels a short speed boost or the Rebels a lifesaving shield. A team must collectively reach 200 kills to win, which may sound like a lot but there are also computer-controlled ships flying around, so if you’re hopelessly outclassed by flesh and blood fighter pilots you’ll still be able to shoot down some artificial Rebel/Imperial scum. It’s thrilling stuff and does a superb job of capturing the disorientating madness of a dogfight in a galaxy far, far away. It looks spectacular too, with sound and visual effects identical to the films. It’s not just straightforward carnage either. There are transport shuttles belonging to both sides which you can attack or defend to earn major points (or prevent the other team getting the upper hand). Special tokens can be found perilously close to the ground – which adds a

Words Jordan Farley

risk/reward factor to their existence – but it’s worth nearly pulling a Porkins for the chance to repair your ship, reduce the cooldown of your special abilities or, best of all, grant access to one of two Hero Fighters. Play as the Rebels and fly through one of these tokens and you’ll reappear in Han’s Millennium Falcon. The Empire meanwhile gets Boba Fett’s Slave 1. Flying the Falcon is as empowering as you would hope – it can take down Tie fighters in less time than it takes Chewie to win a game of holochess, possesses remarkable manoeuvrability and is armoured like a tank. But piloting a Hero Fighter comes with a downside – as soon as you’re behind the wheel you may as well slap a bullseye on your back as every member of the opposing team turns their sights on you. Luckily they’re more than capable of swatting down a few flies… Fighter Squadron is just one mode in Star Wars Battlefront – a game focused primarily on ground combat – but we know what we’ll be sinking our time into come 17 November.

Star Wars Battlefront

The skies are crawling with enemy shipsâ&#x20AC;Ś

â&#x20AC;Śand everyone wants a pop at the Falcon.

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Final frontier

ILLUSTRATION GENIUS!

CHRIS FOSS Celebrating sci-fi’s greatest spaceship artist

“he painted his giant robots and Gargantuan craft In lurid hues” 146 | Robots and spaceships

The cover of Diary Of A Spaceperson, half portfolio, half faux fictional journal.

You can see loads more of Chris’s work at www.chrisfossart.com

TRIVIA

Foss has also painted album covers for the likes of Clear Air Turbulence and The Ian Gillan Band (which featured a spaceship emblazoned with the letters IGB). He was hired as a conceptual designer on the ill-fated mid-’70s attempt by director Alejandro Jodorowsky to make a big screen version of Dune (visit http://tinyurl.com/ sfxfoss to see some of his designs). He also worked on Alien for a few months but none of his work was ever used. One of his designs did make it onto screen in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie – he created Flash’s sky-scooter.

Thanks for reading!

riginally I considered not writing anything for this article, thinking that, “A picture says a thousand words” (sounds like you were trying to get away with doing no work – Ed) because look at these pictures. Do I really need to explain why artist Chris Foss is a genius? Foss was the premier SF book cover artist of the ’70s and in a way defined for me what SF should look like. Before Star Wars I was already in love with BIG spaceships because that’s what he painted, and that’s what attracted me to the books, many of which weren’t half as exciting as the gorgeously airbrushed covers which adorned them. Okay, that may be a little unfair – his work did grace tomes by masters such as Jack Vance, EE Doc Smith and Asimov. But he contributed to just as many potboilers which, to my young mind, didn’t seem to warrant his artistic genius. This was what I wanted my screen SF to look like, and it didn’t really change until George Lucas unleashed his game-changing SF space opera. Foss created artwork that had an awesome scale and fascinating amounts of meticulous detail that forced you to study the covers rather than merely giving them a glance before page-flicking commenced. He also loved colour, painting his giant robots and gargantuan craft in lurid hues that put them somewhere between Thunderbirds and 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s little doubt that he had a major influence on fictional space hardware in the post-Star Wars SF boom. I actually know little of the man himself. I didn’t need to. I do know he also illustrated a version of The Joy Of Sex. I never want to see it. I’ll just be disappointed that it’s not full of giant robots plugging attachments into each other.

Words dave GOLDER

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