Some of us thought that about Lemmy…
I thought it was a good laugh when Johnny Depp mentioned he had based his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards, so in “at World’s End” Richards was cast as Jack’s Dad…
Jack: “How’s Mum?”
Captain Teague: Holds up gnarly shrunken head
Jack: “She looks great!”
Cheers,
M
The Starfleet uniforms in Star Trek The Motion Picture? Disco collar jumpsuits? In The Wrath of Khan Starfleet got much more sensible. Although the female uniforms in the original series were hard to beat with their minidresses, knee high boots, and black tights.
Even the cast hated those!
The TWOK uniforms were a classic. Definitely looked more like a uniform should look.
I remember a TV interview where Nimoy said that those, the script, and Horner’s score were one of the reasons why he started to regret having insisted his character be “killed off” when he agreed to do the movie, so he worked with the behind-the-cameras team to insert an innocuous “get out” item which would allow him to be in a sequel, but wouldn’t be out of place if Spock stayed dead… “Remember…”
Cheers,
M
TWOK was the movie that resuscitated the Star Trek franchise. Another STTM like movie and you could have stuck a fork in the franchise.
I think a reboot fusing the UFO material as basis for the first season and Space 1999 together as basis for second season would rock. The second season should be built around “Dragon’s Domain” and similar material with a hard sci-fi edge. Third season built aroun breakaway. Probably 8 to 13 episodes as needed to tell the stories.
Given how much worthless trash Hollywood has produced over the last five years a reboot would make sense. Probably shouldn’t wish for that too hard, Disney’s probably hungry for a new franchise and more source material to ruin and disrespect.
Today is the 24th anniversary of the moon being blown out of Earth’s orbit.
…
I played through X-COM: UFO Defense when it came out in the early 1990s. My first viewing of the UFO series occurred two or three years ago. The series definitely inspired the game but the game makes much more sense than the series.
A few weeks ago I started watching UFO a second time, then launched into a play through of X-COM on super human difficulty. Playing in the dead of night with all the lights off, I still occasionally startle when an alien surprises and kills one of my soldiers.
I am not a fan of most of the vehicles seen in UFO. Interceptors and Sky are particularly ugly. I far prefer the work of Brian Johnson to Reg Hill.
The chutes on Moonbase and SkyDiver were carry overs from Anderson’s puppet shows. It proved impossible to make a puppet believable climb into a cockpit so chutes were used to convey movement of puppet pilot characters to vehicles.
Sylvia Anderson did all the costume design for UFO and was very much a child of her times. She got it into her head that in a decade or two, everyone would be wearing wigs. A fair number of male UFO cast members also wore wigs.
When I was building models from 2006 to 2010, I started a number of projects based on the premise of X-COM (and thus also UFO). I have yet to finish any of them. 
Despite it’s flaws, for which it has many, I’ve always had a soft spot for TMP. I admire the bravery to do something different than a phasors blazing action movie. That’s also it’s chief problem, being based on a script for the unfilmed pilot for Phase II. It’s just too slow and not what the audience wanted after the action of Star Wars.
The planned series wouldn’t have had the budget to do what they did in the movie. Certainly the sheer awesome size of V’ger would have been difficult to do on the small screen. Goldsmiths score definitely helped here too. His work on TMP was phenomenal. Klingon Battle and The Enterprise theme are favourites of mine. The little matter of the refit being my favourite Enterprise also has a little to do with my love for the film. I can totally forgive that slow fly around scene. It’s eye candy, especially when you have a couple of kits of it to build! And look out for the several non-human members of the crew in the briefing scene. We got that little hint of the many Federation members in Starfleet. Something we don’t really see again until Voyage Home and the TNG era. There was Saavik, but that was all. Somehow, TMP seemed a little more imaginative in that respect. Too bad they were just background characters, but maybe the costumes and prosthetics didn’t stand up to closer scrutiny.
But yes, it definitely needed the follow up trilogy to bring Star Trek back. They’re all round better films in every respect. Had they ended it there, or gone with the Phase II series, it would have been the nail in the coffin for the franchise.
Anyway, back to UFO.
Recently cropped up on the Hannants site:
Cheers,
M
The Konami stuff is excellent Tom, though getting a tad expensive. Here’s a few of my collection…
The detail is excellent, given the small size, 
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G, 
Finished the entire series. True, the last few episodes are odd. Sure, any guy would have dinner with and then invite to his place some shady woman who breaks a lamp or vase over his head and knocks him out. Uh huh. Could happen…
When I was 12, probably got annoyed by the “love stuff” as I called it then. I wanted You-Foes exploding. Although, that was some real eye candy there with the knockout girl (pun intended) I notice now.
Maybe it’s just me, but the last episode is it? Straker has metal taps on his shoes? Constant clack, clack, clack. Another bizarre episode. Girl is a still a teen after a 10 year coma.
Can’t quite figure how old he’s supposed to be in 1980, given that he has UN Korean War ribbons.
Kind of funny the SHADO paramilitaries / security run around in a forest in sky blue jumpsuits and white go-go boots.
I vaguely remember from when I was 12 the episode where they go into the underwater dome with the mazes that have the Ed Van Halen stripes.
Maybe they kinda sorta got right the blue eyeliner on Straker and Foster — presaged 1980s Hair Metal.
And poor Lt. Ford — Sad Sack guy always getting yelled at.
Going through space 1999, why do all the woman, seem to screaming when things happen.
In almost all science fiction fare, we are informed that the crew was hand picked from a pool of the most intelligent men and women on Earth, and then, when confronted with a situation of obvious danger, instead of doing the very most obvious things to survive, like running, they scream, cower, and otherwise behave like babbling idiots for slow moving monster suit men to throttle and kill.
Directors, producers, and writers of horror, science fiction, and war are responsible. They have almost no knowledge of how people really behave in situations of mortal danger and cannot write a sensible plot.
Monster. Scream. Freeze. Die.
I put a lot of the blame on writers like H. P. Lovecraft. “In that moment, as the insubstantial being entered the chamber, a looming hulk from the vastness of space, wrought in a halo of tentacles and horror, a mortal dread overwhelmed me, robbing me of control of my own body and filling me with such palpable terror that I could not react in any way other than to shutter and cower with involuntary fear.” Right. Any normal person with two brain cells would say, “Oh fudge”, and run. H. P. Lovecraft went to an aquarium, saw an octopus and sea cucumber, and was so insulted by the strangeness of the beasts that a whole genre of horror was born.
These future crews were obviously conditioned & indoctrinated to stick their heads in the sand and say “safe space” three times while waiting for their participation trophies 
.
Unfortunately, no one sent the “nice play” memo to the monsters. So the monsters go full “rough & tumble” mode.
In the future everything revolves around woke selection criteria, training programs based on acheiving high CSI corprate scores and peak critical ESG ratings.
Results, skills & competence became irrelevant due red tape so natural selection takes its harsh course among the wrongly indoctrinated and conditioned. However, the herd is thinned of its idiots by said monsters.
(End of joke)
Started the series over again from Episode One. Despite my minor criticisms, still love this series so much that I just have to. 
Also humorous: the massive spring reverb on the SID voice computer.
First episode has the craggy cad Col. Freeman acting, shall we say, a bit unprofessional with three different women. The show doesn’t seem to have anticipated modern day HR departments at all. Each situation would make a decent online skit of the sort I have to watch annually at work, and yeah, actually laugh at the unintentional humor and goofy exaggerated portrayal.
And I would say the women’s outfits would be decried as “sexist,” except that today’s leggings and yoga pants are basically the same thing, so point for UFO having that correct.
In fact, at my job just today, one young woman actually had a partially exposed bare midriff and tight black slacks that read “baby” on the seat with rhinestones, no kidding. You might think that would be unprofessional attire, but what do I know? Such things weren’t specifically addressed in those finger-wagging skit videos.
Found this the other night: gives you a great sense of scale and detail of the Moon Base and the enormous surrounding terrain.
I’m sure there’s a joke in that caption M70, but I don’t want to get banned, 
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G,
A few things on my mind:
There seem to be no mechanics nor recreational facilities on Moon Base. Off duty, no one seems to do much except sit in that one room. No storage, no one collecting trash, etc.
Just how did Col. Foster board the speeding runaway Russian moon vehicle that rolls on egg beaters? Looks just about impossible and extremely dangerous. This was never shown nor explained.
The actor who played the commander of the Russian base really needed help with faking a Russian accent. Which, shouldn’t have been too difficult as the two crewmen actors are genuine Russian speakers.
Did I hear right? Was it Foster who made a date with a lass to take her to a lunar Italian restaurant with a real Italian mama cook? That just sounded funny.
I thought Moon Base was to be super secret, right? But above are two examples of security leaks and I guess it’s just, oh well… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
About the Interceptors: are they also capable of faster-than-light travel? This isn’t very clear to me as they actually seem to move about as fast as a World War I biplane.
I also can’t figure out how SHADO can precisely ascertain the trajectory of YouFoes out 75 million miles or so to the degree they know exactly where it will land. It seems YouFoes are incapable of maneuver. And their death rays are really inaccurate. Don’t actually hit very much.
I like that color organ thing behind Straker in his office. Every office should have one!
Do the earth SHADO staff ride the bus to work in those uniforms? Or do they change on the way down like Batman and Robin?
So many questions!
Maybe they bought their targeting systems from Star Wars stormtroopers? 
Haha! No kidding!
Whenever you’re dealing with anything from the Andersonverse, it’s best not to think about it. The usual laws of common sense, physics and especially aerodynamics don’t apply.
Just enjoy the ride.
Just poking fun. My 12 year old son says the show is “cheesy” and I try to explain to him, that is what makes it even MORE fun. 
