Screen and Screen Again

As it was Half Term last week I had a bit of a TV and Film Fest at Moonbase. It kicked off with a modern Viking flick called Valhalla Rising starring a mute one-eyed Mads Mikkelson [Le Chiffe in recent 007 movies]. A strange film. Very atmospheric and gorgeous scenery, which, along with last week's brilliant Outlander, has inspired me to rent more Viking fare with one Berserker next on the list. Similarly Scandinavian but not Viking is Trollhunter, which can be viewed pay per view on You Tube no less. I shall save that one for when I'm back at work next week and, like most people, in need of total mental relaxation at night!

The second genre I've dabbled into this week has been a slew of old space TV shows. This particular voyage of discovery commenced when a friend sent me two episodes of Star Maidens on VHS. More strange fare with a very distinct premise. Rather than spoil it for you I recommend that you sample it on You Tube for yourself! Of equal interest was Salvage 1 recommended by Toad, which concerns a lunar salvage crew replete with spaceships and vehicles worthy of SWORD and well worth a tracking down! Next on the list will be the Martian Chronicles!

What would you recommend, either Viking or Space?

Space Trump Game: Spaceships

Some time ago WOTE began a classic series of posts showing his designs for a  Top Trump SWORD game. Inspired by his cosmic spark I'm kicking off a simple game of Space Trump. All you need to do is trump the current post.

To do this you need to send me a picture and explanation why it out-trumps the current post. We'll agree or disagree in the comments. We will have two space genres, spaceships [from films, TV. toy ranges, comics etc] and space creatures [from similar media as spaceships]. Don't know how this will go yet but I'll start the ball rolling with the spaceships genre and post the first ship, the

EVENT HORIZON

Powers:

Massive

Gravity Drive that can make Black Holes.

Direct link to Hell and it's occupants.

Interstellar starship

My suggested overall Score Out of 10: a 9 [agree?]

Email me your pics and powers lists to out trump this ship. I also need a space creature to start that genre going. Email me here. Please comment on my list of suggested powers and score for the Event Horizon too. Get trumping!

Riders On the Cheap

Like many baby boomers and space race babies I've been a fan of comics and comic heroes all my life. In particular I always loved those characters who dwelled in that grey area between good and evil. Were they hero or villain? A rogues' gallery would include Morbius, Silver Surfer, Swamp Thing, Werewolf By Night, Man Thing and Moon Knight. But the king of them all was Ghost Rider, he of the flaming skull and hell-fire bike.

Ghost first appeared in the 70's but very few toys came out. The most well-known amongst collectors is the Fleetwood plastic action figure pictured below, which I was lucky enough to get hold of a few years back.

Ghost Rider had a welcome come-back with Nicholas Cage's first film a couple of years ago, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So you can imagine how excited I was last night when I went to see the second Rider film, Spirit of Vengeance. I needn't have been. It was absolutely awful!

[This next bit contains Spoilers!] What's wrong with it? Were can I start! Doesn't really matter so I'll kick off with Nic Cage's acting. Well it's really the lack of it that's the issue. He's as wooden as a milk-stool and he desperately needs his thinning hair styling. He's meagre dialogue is seemingly dragged out of him by an outside force to reveal itself in a tedious drawl. It matters not as no-one else around him could act either as they'd all been rounded up from a Budapest boxing club. Which segways neatly to location. Ghost Rider is an all-American flaming skull, with his comic roots in the Wild Western past. This new film is set in Eastern Europe!


This fact alone explains many of the film's myriad flaws as the Rider should not be there. Made by a largely Eastern European team, the already paltry budget I suspect was largely blown on the Rider's flaming head, bike and chains, leaving precious little for set design. Located in a quarry, the colour scheme is that God-awful silvery-browny mess seen in countless straight-to-DVD-B-Movies, which occasionally cut to vaseline-smeared shots of zero budget big holes and piles of spoil. Even the main event of the film, a blazing Mining machine, is a big yellow mess. Comparing this shameful Marvel effort to say the recent Iron Man movie is like comparing a fag end with a solar flare. I can't believe that Stan Lee put his name to this garbage. Jonny Blaze should have ridden straight over it to DVD hell.

Dark Marauder

Not so long ago, we were looking at Dinkys forays into the space market with its dedicated series of space vehicles which didn't benefit from a TV series to rely on. One of the ships was the Zygon Marauder, a heavy dieacast craft with firing missiles on the wings. A fellow collector, Adi recently found a rare later variant of the ship in blue and yellow. Apparently, according to Toy Collector, this was a special Marks and Sparks release in 1979. Its in need of a little restoration, but a fine find nonetheless!

SWORD Spares for Sale

The owner of these SWORD spares has let me know that they for sale in Canada. If you are interested please check his classified ad here. Please deal with the seller direct. First come first serve.

Quite Elevating

Woodsy,

Further to Wotan's Fireflash post, attached are a few pics of my Fireflash items which may be of interest. First is the contents of the Aoshima kit which, like far too many of my kits, is sitting in the "to be built one day/year" pile. Then I have some photos of the Konami Fireflash with its attendant Elevator Cars. I've included a pic with my giant finger in shot with the Master Elevator Car, just to give an idea of how small it is!!!

P.S. - I like the way the Konami Elevator Cars are numbered 1, 2 and 4, representing the "team" that brought the Fireflash in safely. Number 3 was, of course, the one that careered off the runway and exploded amongst the parked aeroplanes off to the side. As you probably know, the wayward Number 3 was an unintended accident that occurred during shooting but it looked so good that the producers kept the shot in and wrote in the Number 4 replacement!!!!

For completeness, here's Konami's larger scale Master Elevator car, with the tiny one alongside for comparison. I think Konami also did a mid-scale version to go into their Thunderbird 2 hangar set, but mine's packed away somewhere and not available for photos.

Cheers

Tony Panther

Battersea Flyby

SWORD Dyna Soar Glider.

Battersea Power Station in London

[made famous by the album Animals, Pink Floyd]

Crossing Paths

 I make no secret that im a huge Lego fan and regularly follow whats happening in the Building Community. One of my favourite sites is the Brothers Brick which regularly showcases the work of custom builders. Now and then though, the models manage to gather in so many of my favourite concepts that i'm totally blown away. Among this months offerings is a special deep sea research vessel designed to navigate the depths of the seas on Enceladus, one of Saturns icy moons, Herschel-Lazerev Submarine.

Next up, combining my fascination of the Soviet space race and a Molab type vehicle to boot is this nifty retro style rocket diorama.