Here's a few photos I took a while back showing my Spacex Lunar Transporter or LT 10. I've been meaning to put these up since Woodsy created his excellent scratch-built version last week. It does have a couple of altered or missing parts, the top sticker is missing, the chrome ring and the rear exhaust aren't original, but I don't have a problem with that and it's nice have an example.
As is well known the design is taken from the cult film, The Green Slime, a MGM/ Toei co-production made in 1968. It starred Robert Horton, probably best known for his starring roles in the western TV series, Wagon Train and A Man called Shenandoah. Another point worth noting is one of the screenplay writers was none other than Bill Finger, who co-created Batman.
In the film, the curiously shaped spacecraft, which wouldn't look out of place in a Gerry Anderson series , is used to land on the asteroid, Flora, which is on a collision course with Earth. It's mission is to plant explosive charges in an attempt to destroy it. However, one of the crew unwittingly brings a strange green substance back to the ship...
The film was used in the pilot episode of the TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
The Japanese kit maker, Midori also made a model of the Asteroid Lander.
Lovely work as ever, Mike. Green Slime is a bit of a hidden gem, although I really can't take to the idea of the LT10 flying, as such! It looks very much like a heavyweight ground transport.
ReplyDeleteYes,I tend to agree Bill, it's an ungainly shape, but uniquely Japanese in design if you know what I mean. I suppose technically in a weightless environment its shape and actual weight wouldn't really matter.
DeleteThis is embarrassing, but I never connected the LT10 toy with the Asteroid Lander from Battle Beyond the Stars (aka The Green Slime). Out of context, I guess. But I have always wanted to track down the Midori KSN model kit. I did see a copy on Yahoo Japan a few years back - let us just say it was WAAAYYYY out of my budget! And as for its scientific implausibility, that is the beautiful thing about Japan SF - the designs (for the first wave at least) were created for aesthetic purposes only, with practicality a distant second. That's what makes Japan SF vehicle design so special, to me anyways. They are "impossible" in the best sense of the word.
ReplyDeleteThe Midori kit is on my wish list but like you it is way out of my price range, Ziggurat. I'm not sure about the alternative title for the Green Slime. You might be confusing the title Battle Beyond the Stars with the Italian film War Between the Planets which does have some small connection with The Green Slime.
DeleteBattle Beyond the Stars is a completely different film, Zig! A remake of Magnificent Seven in space!
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