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Starcruiser (1977)

 
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:25 am    Post subject: Starcruiser (1977) Reply with quote



Created in 1977 by Gerry Anderson and Fred Freiberger, "Starcruiser" was to be a live-action television series for the CBS network.

Premise } Representatives of a group of planets that are engaged in intergalactic trading have created the Interstellar Command which is to act as both an exploration group as well as law enforcement.

The IG is based in the Capricorn~Antilles Space Habitat.

The Starcruiser 1 is the organization's spearhead space vessel. The ship is a small multi~unit spacecraft built for faster-than-light travel.

Starcruiser is composed of 3 separate sections.






The Main Unit is able to be piloted in outer space as well as in a planet's atmosphere from a one-person cockpit.

The Command Module is a detachable nose-cone with seats for a pilot and co-pilot. and is capable of flight in a planet's atmosphere as well as short trips in outer space.
The CM module can be operated manually, by computer or remote control.

The Command Base is a centrally mounted pod module capable of independent operations. It functions as both a laboratory and equipment bay. It holds a crawler survey buggy and a one-man skycar for aerial reconnaissance.

The CB has caterpillar tracks for crossing all types of terrain.

Yet another potentially interesting concept from the desks of Gerry & Fred.

Although the insistence of blending space exploration with law enforcement seems to be prevalent in Anderson's and Freiberger's thinking process with these projects that failed to be picked up.

I suppose they felt that adding law enforcement operations gave their projects more story lines. I feel that such a plot device would be unrealistic.

To expect people trained as explorers to also be police seems to be an awful lot to throw in together.

My guess would be that explorers would willingly also want to be the police.

Interestingly, a fundamental aspect to Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's "Thunderbirds" TV series was that the Tracy family's International Rescue was to eschew becoming involved in politics or law enforcement issues.

IR was strictly a rescue operation and nothing else.

I believe that having the Starcruiser crew perform both space exploration as well as rescue operations would have been the way to go for the space craft's mission statement.

Not law enforcement.



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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I couldn't find a darn thing about Starcruiser on IMDB, and I even struck out with a Google search! Shocked

But I stumbled across this video, in which two gentlemen discuss the unsold series and offered a few images connected with it.


_Starcruiser & Rescue 4: The Lost Live Action Series


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Gerry & Sylvia Anderson television productions had so many terrific designs for the various crafts on Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet & the Mysterons, UFO and Space:1999 and so forth and so on.

When I saw this for the potential Starcruiser I was taken aback at how inferior looking this spaceship was and couldn't believe it came from Gerry and his production staff.

I realize that the brilliant special effects model maker Derek Meddings who worked with Gerry on numerous TV shows as well as the film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun had parted company after the UFO show.
So they no longer had the tremendous artistic advantage of Derek.

However, Brian Johnson took over the same role as Meddings for Space: 1999 and did a fine job.

I'm unsure if Brian or any of his crew were involved with the conception for the look of the Starcruiser but clearly it is a big step down from the awesome looking models on the previous Anderson shows.
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some More Starcruiser Stuff

Gerry Anderson authorized a comic strip in Look~In magazine based upon his Starcruiser idea in the hopes it would also help promote turning the idea into a live action TV series.

The comic strip ran from 1977 to 1979 for 75 issues and was written and illustrated by David Jefferies.

Main propulsion system } 7 nuclear fusion engines uses small frozen deuterium pellets as fuel.

The fusion reaction would be ignited by bombarding pellets by laser beams, powered by Starcruiser's Kryten reactor.

The "Kryten Reactor" acts as faster-than-light "jumpdrive" to enable superluminal space travel across interstellar distances.

Interceptor Module } This concept was added by the Airfix Model Company for their Starcruiser model kit and was not part of the original design for the TV show.

The I.M. is a small one-person space fighter capable of short trips in outer space using monatomic hydrogen engines.

The main purpose of the I.M. is to defend the other modules against any attacks by an enemy using 4 disposable "neutropedo" rocket pods.

The Airfix model kit was first issued in England in 1978; in the U.S. in 1982.

The crew of the Starcruiser consisted of : Captain Christopher Stevens, navigator & astrophysicist.

Andrea Dehner: IT specialist.

Dr. Brian Moore: Medical officer.

Professor Melita Alterrie: Technical officer and ship designer.

For such a complex vessel with numerous functions, I'm thinking it is way understaffed to be realistic at all for performing their various operations.

The comic strip even made this idea worse by having only two crew members on the ship. Pilot Dave Starr and System controller Venus Brown.

The comic strip did include educational material in its stories along with the action-adventure aspects.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Designs for the series' star vehicle were developed by Martin Bower, who also constructed a model of the craft to form part of a presentation to CBS executives, but they ultimately rejected the concept for their 1976 season.

Comment: Bower designed & built the stunning looking Altares spacecraft for Gerry Anderson's TV-movie/pilot "The Day After Tomorrow." It amazes me that he did such a poor job with the Starcruiser when we know he is a very talented designer based on his Altares model. In fairness, we don't know if his designs were in any way compromised by alterations that the producers insisted upon?
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Checking out the 1976 fall television schedule, I see that CBS had no science fiction shows on at all that year.

ABC had The Six Million Dollar Man & Bionic Woman. NBC gave us Gemini Man which was a short-lived SF show about an invisible secret agent.

Sadly, it shows you the utter lack of imagination by the networks regarding exciting and original SF concepts.

Lee Majors (Steve Austin) said that his Six Million Dollar Man show was a combination of Superman & James Bond. Not exactly innovative.

Bionic Woman (Jamie Sommers) spun-off from Six Million Dollar Man. Here we have more bionic hijinks in case one one-hour TV show about bionics wasn't enough for us. Continuing to show no originality whatsoever; Six Million Dollar Man did an episode about a bionic boy, while Bionic Woman did a couple episodes about Max, a bionic dog. Both were pilots for their own respective series. Really pushing the envelop there ABC.

Meanwhile, NBC had their non-bionic secret agent. This guy could become invisible and do the exact same kind of missions as Steve Austin & Jamie Sommers. TV executives have no shame in continuing to grind out the same junk food SF year in & year out.

CBS had zero SF on their schedule. Wouldn't Starcruiser be entertaining and exciting for the network? It also would not be quite like anything on TV at that time. TV networks is where imagination & innovation goes to die.

Look, I get CBS being hesitant. Doing a SF series is always expensive. Special FX=$$$! Certainly Starcruiser would have been with its demands for futuristic sets, models, wardrobe, props. And SF has a limited audience. Not as limited as in 1977, but still not the audience numbers that networks can get with their endless tsunami of police shows, medical shows, lawyer shows, and reality shows.

The beauty of it nowadays is that SF audiences are wider
and bigger than ever before. Add in the multitude of cable stations and streaming services and you get an enormous array of channels where SF TV shows can go and thrive. Hey, even the disappointing SyFy Channel comes up with some intriguing original programming once in a while. Even if its not often enough, or good enough.

I believe that the Starcruiser concept by Gerry Anderson could be revived today. Maybe a network would take a chance on it. After all, they're quite desperate these days with all of the competition they're getting from all zillion & one cable channels available to everyone. Pressure like that can result in taking risks.

Starcruiser would still be costly. With today's state of the art visual effects they could do a much better looking series than they could have 45 years ago. When I look at the visuals, sets, and the myriad production values of something like Star Trek: Discovery, which has feature film visuals to it, Starcruiser would be marvelous. If someone took the chance and had the imagination.

Please, no more invisible agents or bionic people.
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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Comment: Bower designed & built the stunning looking Altares spacecraft for Gerry Anderson's TV-movie/pilot "The Day After Tomorrow." It amazes me that he did such a poor job with the Starcruiser when we know he is a very talented designer based on his Altares model. In fairness, we don't know if his designs were in any way compromised by alterations that the producers insisted upon?


I would imagine it was for budgetary reasons for the full-sized pieces; model shot of the ship dropping off the pod, then the live action takes over with the full-sized pod. All of those flat sides and (what I assume would be) corrugated sheets so frequently used on SF sets would have been cheaper to build than something actually awesome-looking.

Somewhat related; check out this Youtube channel to see some of the thinking behind miniature work for TV and film.


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