La Navicella Spaziale Anyone?

 

This Italian space toy looks so familiar. What is it I'm thinking of? Space Precinct?

Anyone got this toy?

And the sticker at the top left says Kidco! Are they the importers?

Tron Ares

Ever since I first saw Tron way back when I've been hooked.

The geometry, the costumes, the grid, Flynns, the bikes, the whole techno world: I loved it all, which looking back, is odd, as I'm not a gamer at all. In fact I've never played a single computer game in my life.

A few years back I saw the superb Tron sequel, Legacy and just this week I caught the new Tron Ares.

I was blown away, I loved it as well. 

No spoilers here. Needless to say the whole Tron architecture is still there, all the sights, all the lines, all the sounds.

Wunderbar!

Is it something you would see readers? 

NATIONAL LUNAGRAPHIC

                               

One of the great benefits of working in a University library is that there are sometimes large donations of books coming in. Nine time out often, they will be text books or out of date volumes, but now and then we get other materials that donors have brought in, with the intention of being distributed again to students. This week we had 7 crates delivered of books, presumably from a staff member who was having a clear out and amongst the volumes of Shakespeare and linguistics texts, I spotted the unmistakable gold cover of a National Geographic. Even more exciting was the cover feature and the free gift! The July 2019 issue was a Moon Landing commemorative issue and included a facsimile edition of the July 1969 edition too. National Geographic is renowned for its editorials and award winning photography and both the early edition and the new one do not disappoint on either front.

The 69 edition covers the planning and execution of the landmark Apollo 11 mission and includes some wonderful shots of the period. The articles are laid out with large splash pages of glorious colour imagery to compliment the reportage.

 Besides recording the historic event, the article also capture the zeitgeist of the era in classic form

Interspersed with actual photography are some artist renderings of the manoeuvres and landing, as well as flight plans and maps.

The mission photography is glorious and shows all the salient points of the flight, especially interesting are the telescopic shots of the Saturn V separation and the spent stages burning up in the atmosphere.

The final part of the article looks at future ambitions for the space race, with a view towards visiting Mars and the development of the Skylab research station.

The 2019 edition is equally - if not more impressive, making use of modern graphical techniques and a wealth of data from the previous decade.

The article is heavily illustrated with images of Russian rocket launches, as the Soyuz capsule was in frequent use to supply the International Space Station at the time and NASA did not have a regular rocket based service in operation, relying more heavily on the Shuttle.

The main thrust of the edition is the move towards a return to the Moon and ultimately Mars, with a discussion on the projected direction of plans for NASA and commercial vehicles, such as SPACEX. It also looks back at the enthusiasm and wonder of the space age and how it was reflected in the culture of the sixties, from automotive design to toys.

One of the main spreads even includes a nod to Mattel's Man in Space, Major Matt Mason, with an image of the man himself on a fold out insert.

As expected with the National Geographic, the photography is backed up by sumptuous infographics and diagrams, showing the developments of the spacesuit and projected exploration of the Solar System.

Possibly my favourite part of the graphics is the map of the lunar surface, which clearly makes full use of current lunar photographic records as the basis, obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, just as information from the Lunar Orbiter series of probes in 1967 was used as the basis of maps for the Apollo mission.

Imai MoonBase Vehicles

It's been a while since we've seen Imai's gorgeous miniature vehicles from their MoonBase sets but here are a few snaps from an old buyee listing sent in by long-time reader Terry.

The line-up of four are three UFO craft and the Project SWORD Moon Crawler.

Have you anything like this?

Caption Comp!

 This made me chuckle. Any decent captions out there?

Universal Horrors - The Phantom of the Opera

Classic Horror – The Universal Phantom of the Opera Movie

Hi

The last one, this time we have something a little different from the other films in the Universal Legacy Collection. Instead of a set of classic horror movies, there is just a single movie; along with the usual collection of extras such as a documentary, film commentary, still photographs, and the theatrical trailer.

Universal actually made two versions of the Phantom of the Opera. The first, a black and white silent film from 1925, starred Lon Chaney Sr.

The second – which is the film on the Legacy Collection disc - is the 1943 sound version with Claude Rains (previously the first Invisible Man) as the Phantom, and singer Nelson Eddy as the hero. It was filmed in colour, on sets made for the 1925 original.

This is the only one of the Legacy Collection films to be a solo release, and the only one in colour. Just a pity they did not include the 1925 silent version as well

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Silver Shamrock! Just Click!

 🎃

Halloween Caption Comp!

Drac needs a caption! C'mon! He's count-ing on you!