In space, no one can hear you blog. No examination of spaceships can overlook the singular designs which came about from the 1979 science fiction epic Alien. Star Wars may have introduced the dirty, weatherbeaten look to space films, but the Alien saga took it a step further into the gritty, filthy realism of industrial spacetravel. Besides introducing one of the most scary and unusual creature designs ever seen, H.R Giger, the artist behind the concept, also managed to load the film with powerful psychosexual imagery both in the alien and in the ship designs.
The Alien saga is mainly an adult series with lots of blood and gore and genuinely unsettling moments, so its odd to find that it spawned a toy line. Besides Kenners large scale Alien action figure and a similar MPC construction kit, there wasnt much to be had in the way of toys until the Micromachine brand from Lewis Galoob began to introduce a larger scale model for Star Wars in the nineties, called 'Action Fleet'. As this series was quite successful, they added a sub series based on the Alien movies. Halcyon, the troubled kit manufacturer had already had limited success with its expensive large format model kits of the APC, Powerloader and Narcissus (see first photograph), but the 'play value' was nonexistant. Galoobs Action Fleet picked up the classic 'bug hunt' element from Aliens and added small figures of the Marines, Aliens and heroine Ripley together with cool action features such as opening hatches, interior detail and features such as the cryopod inside the Narcissus and moving weapons on the Marine vehicles.
During the production of the first film, Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott drew heavily on the work of Joseph Conrad, naming the main ship from one of Conrads books 'Nostromo' and taking the name of the shuttle 'Narcissus' from another. James Cameron continued this them in Aliens, naming th Marine Cruiser 'Sulaco' after a mining town in the book Nostromo. Production designer Ron Cobb provided most of the design work for Alien, while Giger came up with the creatures and the derelict alien ship and Space Jockey. Design chores were passed on to Syd Mead for Aliens, giving rise to the 'gun-like' Sulaco, Dropship and APC.
The Aliens models from Galoob are equally well featured and besides being very accurate models in themselves, also had the playability to enable kids to recreate some of the pivotal scenes in the film such as the Dropship attack and the aliens swarming around the armoured personnel carrier int he depths of the factory.
The APC and the Dropship come with Marines and Aliens figures and the APC has a nice touch which shows a squashed alien embossed on the bottom of the model.
The series was much more limited in its range than the Star Wars brand, although there was still scope to include other vehicles from the (then three) films, the line was not expanded apart from the inclusion of the rare Predator Shuttle. Predator would ultimately be crossed over in two dedicated films, but at the time, the connection was merely alluded to by the presence of an alien skull on board the Predator ship in Predator 2.
The toy was loosely based on the ships glimpsed in the two Predator films and is possibly the rarest of the four models.
In space, no one can hear you blog. No examination of spaceships can overlook the singular designs which came about from the 1979 science fiction epic Alien. Star Wars may have introduced the dirty, weatherbeaten look to space films, but the Alien saga took it a step further into the gritty, filthy realism of industrial spacetravel. Besides introducing one of the most scary and unusual creature designs ever seen, H.R Giger, the artist behind the concept, also managed to load the film with powerful psychosexual imagery both in the alien and in the ship designs.
The Alien saga is mainly an adult series with lots of blood and gore and genuinely unsettling moments, so its odd to find that it spawned a toy line. Besides Kenners large scale Alien action figure and a similar MPC construction kit, there wasnt much to be had in the way of toys until the Micromachine brand from Lewis Galoob began to introduce a larger scale model for Star Wars in the nineties, called 'Action Fleet'. As this series was quite successful, they added a sub series based on the Alien movies. Halcyon, the troubled kit manufacturer had already had limited success with its expensive large format model kits of the APC, Powerloader and Narcissus (see first photograph), but the 'play value' was nonexistant. Galoobs Action Fleet picked up the classic 'bug hunt' element from Aliens and added small figures of the Marines, Aliens and heroine Ripley together with cool action features such as opening hatches, interior detail and features such as the cryopod inside the Narcissus and moving weapons on the Marine vehicles.
During the production of the first film, Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott drew heavily on the work of Joseph Conrad, naming the main ship from one of Conrads books 'Nostromo' and taking the name of the shuttle 'Narcissus' from another. James Cameron continued this them in Aliens, naming th Marine Cruiser 'Sulaco' after a mining town in the book Nostromo. Production designer Ron Cobb provided most of the design work for Alien, while Giger came up with the creatures and the derelict alien ship and Space Jockey. Design chores were passed on to Syd Mead for Aliens, giving rise to the 'gun-like' Sulaco, Dropship and APC.
The Aliens models from Galoob are equally well featured and besides being very accurate models in themselves, also had the playability to enable kids to recreate some of the pivotal scenes in the film such as the Dropship attack and the aliens swarming around the armoured personnel carrier int he depths of the factory.
The APC and the Dropship come with Marines and Aliens figures and the APC has a nice touch which shows a squashed alien embossed on the bottom of the model.
The series was much more limited in its range than the Star Wars brand, although there was still scope to include other vehicles from the (then three) films, the line was not expanded apart from the inclusion of the rare Predator Shuttle. Predator would ultimately be crossed over in two dedicated films, but at the time, the connection was merely alluded to by the presence of an alien skull on board the Predator ship in Predator 2. 
The toy was loosely based on the ships glimpsed in the two Predator films and is possibly the rarest of the four models.
the Halcyon Narcissus is unpainted at the moment, I got the APC and made an utter hash of it at the time, so I held off completing the Narcissus till I had more time. Anyone got any tips on weathering the white surface ?
ReplyDeleteI never knew about the Galoob toys. They're pretty cool -- lots of detail in such a small piece.
ReplyDeleteTheres a Predator Shuttle on Ebay US - a cool £200 mib.
ReplyDeleteThey (Galoob) did Starship Troopers in both 'Action Fleet' and Micromachine sizes, as well as James Bond and Super-hero sets, American footballers and others...
ReplyDeleteWOTAN, have you looked at Starship Modeler for SF weathering techniques? Try here, at about a third of the way down the page:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/techmain.htm