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ALL SCI-FI
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Krel
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 Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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We've had this discussion before.
I stand by my assertion that, if the saucer had a conveyor belt, it was on the unseen third gangplank. Walking up and down a conveyor belt is neither easy nor safe. I can speak from experience. Although the tumbling was fun, I was eight years old at the time, I'd probably feel a bit differently now. 
I also still think that rollers with a winch at the top is better than a conveyor belt because they are less prone to failure. If the belt fails, then the gangplank is useless. But if a roller, or rollers fail the gangplank can still be used, and is easier to fix. Granted you aren't going to be walking up or down a ramp of rollers, but being pulled up by the winch, and riding down it could be a fun off-duty activity. It would also be easy enough to have plates that cover the rollers to make a ramp.
BUT! To shoot my own argument down, you have a set of rollers under the conveyor belt incase of belt failure. Still more complicated than a set of rollers.
It occurs to me that the second gangplank didn't have the pipe handrail. Using a special pallet with wheels, combined with a winch, the pallet could ride on the solid gangplank railings.
David.
Last edited by Krel on Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gord Green
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Joined: 06 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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Actually, I think both you gentlemen are off the mark.
First of all, Bob, your' pictures both illustrate the forced perspective you were talking about above. The tractor is NOT as huge as you purport. The tractor is in the foreground and the ship is clearly further back in the background.
Secondly....Just look at the tractor! All straight lines in construction and eminently conducive to "flat packing" in smaller crates.
Thirdly, we clearly hear Adams tell the Bosun to "assemble the tractor".
Last point....There is lots of room in the hull for there to be a hoist/winch located at the front of the landing legs opening which could lower heavier, bulkier items right to the surface.
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Gord Green
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps our only hope for the future!
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Eadie
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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And Maria [Metropolis (1927)] will be the 1st Lady, General.Utility.Non.Theorizing.Environmental.Robot. Model B-9 [Lost In Space (CBS 1965 - 1969) will be Vice President, And Gort will be head of the Secret Service!
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Gord Green
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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Eadie, I like the way you think!
All would be an improvement.
Unless, of course they start SKYNET!
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Bob Tarmac
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Joined: 30 Aug 2015
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:04 am Post subject: |
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| Gord Green wrote: | Thirdly, we clearly hear Adams tell the Bosun to "assemble the tractor".
Last point....There is lots of room in the hull for there to be a hoist/winch located at the front of the landing legs opening which could lower heavier, bulkier items right to the surface. |
Well DARN... RATS-POTATOES and other impolite curse words! You’re right Gord, he did indeed say that!
BUUUUUT....., the tractor could also have been assembled from re-enlarged parts from The GIZMO just as well. 
They had all sorts of technology that we couldn’t even begin to engineer today. For example; the inertia tubes used when the crew came out of lightspeed. What sort of futuristic technology is that? It appears that the crew was first dematerialized and then reassembled afterwards after coming out of light speed. Not too dissimilar to having cargo dematerialized both up and down in size.
On that note, I rest my case on The GIZMO solution.
| Gord Green wrote: | | Perhaps our only hope for the future! |
Regarding Roby For President. I absolutely agree! It put a Big Smile on my face this evening Gord! Thank you!
Some other of mine are here.
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Last edited by Bob Tarmac on Mon Jun 15, 2020 5:08 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:18 am Post subject: |
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| Krel wrote: | | I stand by my assertion that, if the saucer had a conveyor belt, it was on the unseen third gangplank. Walking up and down a conveyor belt is neither easy nor safe. I can speak from experience. Although the tumbling was fun, I was eight years old at the time, I'd probably feel a bit differently now. |
There's no doubt that walking down an incline that steep without any steps can be tricky. However, there's no question as to which ramps had stairs and which had conveyor belts.
The ONE with the handrails has the stairs. The TWO without handrails had conveyor belts.
Therefore, the ramp to the left in scenes like this one did not have stairs or handrails.
The two non-stairway ramps were supposed to have conveyor belts, but no scenes were filmed which showed them, so they simply weren't built into the two non-stairway ramps.
At the 1:30 mark in the video below we see two men come down the left-side ramp, and they're walking much slower than all the other men who rush down the stairs. Their legs seem to be moving differently than the men on the stairs, as if they're taking bigger steps than the men on the steps.
__________ Forbidden Planet (1956) the landing
__________ 
The two men on the conveyor ramp seem to be walking carefully — possibly because of the very thing you pointed out concerning the difficulty of walking down a steep incline.
And as I mentioned in the previous discussion earlier in this thread, the first man takes a last big step to the ground, because of the way the conveyor ramps are constructed at the bottom.
I'm assuming, of course, that the conveyor ramp they built is similar to the one on the miniature, except for the lack of the actual belt.
It would definitely be extremely difficult to walk down an incline as steep as the conveyors ramp.
We can assume that the ramp had no actual belt on it, so the set builders may have included "foot stops" down the incline — 2" high strips of wood across the ramp, positioned at 24" intervals to prevent the feet of the men from sliding forward.
By the way, your suggestion to use rollers-with-winches would be fine . . . as long as the objects placed on them had reasonably flat bottoms. But laying something irregular on the rollers might damage the object or cause any projections on it to get caught between the rollers.
And I cringe at the thought of getting poor Robby aboard the ship by laying him onto rollers! All those rounded surfaces would make him bounce up and down like a old pickup truck on a rough dirt road! :shock.
I still favor my "freight elevator" concept, using a detachable rectangular section of the hull which is raised and lowered by cables attached to the corners.
Here's what I mean. 
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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Krel
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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Bud, the problem with these points is that they are comparing a miniature, a model rigged for special effects to a full size set. So unless a photo of the second gangplank appears showing a conveyor belt, I will stand by my statement that the second gangplank had stairs. Given how MGM documented their sets, such a photo may very well exist. I would dearly love to see a photo looking down the gangplank at the ground.
I believe I may have made the point in the earlier discussion that you would use pallets to move items down the rollers. The pallets could even be made to fold-up to save space.
Gord Green, I never said that the tractor and cannon were stored fully assembled. Just that a cargo hatch would make it easier to unload such bulky items, rather than trying to maneuver them through a curved corridor, then move them down a steep gangplank.
David. |
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Bob Tarmac
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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Great graphics and explanation Bud. But I agree with Krell. We are comparing Apples and Oranges, Miniatures and Models vs. Set Designs and Movie Stills. I also stand by my GIZMO solution as the best method for getting heavy bulky loads on and off the ship, as well as for ship storage. For special effects film and budgeting, it also affords a much better WoW-Gee-Wiz factor for a science fiction audience oriented on new solutions to old problems than dusty old pulleys, wenches, rollers, conveyor belts, or hatches.
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Bud Brewster
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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________________________________
Gentlemen, please, let's stick to basics!
With all due respect, this isn't Honey, I Shrunk the Equipment or "Let's ignore the miniature saucer and redesign the full-sized version!"
Bob, your concepts are brilliant and I love 'em. Speculation is fun, and nobody loves to do that more than me. Admittedly, yours went a bit beyond what I can accept in Forbidden Planet — but I'm glad you shared them! Good thinking, Dude! 
My ideas, on the other hand, didn't change what we know is true, I just added a few ideas that might also have been true! Like this highly practically and admittedly low-tech concept.
But hey . . . All Sci-Fi welcomes all ideas!
| Krel wrote: | | Bud, the problem with these points is that they are comparing a miniature, a model rigged for special effects to a full size set. So unless a photo of the second gangplank appears showing a conveyor belt, I will stand by my statement that the second gangplank had stairs. |
David, I am indeed making the assumption that the full-sized set was constructed to match the model . . . which only had one set of stairs.
That would seem to be a valid assumption in view of the fact that the movie never includes any scenes which show crewmen using the second ramp . . . except for the two men in the background who come down it slowly in the first scene on Altair 4's surface.
One stairway and two conveyor belts is the established design of the ship, so if MGM had built stairs onto the second ramp, it would have been inconsistent with that design.
My question is: why would they do that? 
As I said, only two crewmen use that ramp as a way to come down from the ship throughout the entire movie! 
David, I think we'd both agree that MGM probably provided something for those two actors to walk on which was better than a steep incline with a smooth surface — such as the "step stops" I described above, since they didn't need to construct working conveyor belts for scenes that wouldn't be filmed.
But my concern is that MGM really had no reason to make the non-stairway ramp include steps just for the convenience of two actors who walked down them, shown briefly in the background of a single shot!
All the other scenes involving access and egress to the C-57-D show the stairway ramp being used.
Please watch the scene when Robby arrives with the stack of shielding, and Quinn shows the captain the Klystron Frequency Modulator. You'll see several crewmen go into the ship in the background, and they use the ramp that has stairs. The second ramp is located well towards the back of the ship in these scenes and isn't even visible!
Other than the Id monster entering the ship, we rarely see anybody going in or coming out of the ship at all.
So, David, I just don't think is logical to assume that MGM built a stairway on that ramp — which was designed to be a conveyor belt — just for two crewmen in one brief scene!
The fact that those two men came down more slowly than the other men who walked quickly down the stairs seems to indicate that they were walking down an incline . . . not on a stairway.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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Gord Green
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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Bud wrote:
| Quote: | | One stairway and two conveyor belts is the established design of the ship, so if MGM had built stairs onto the second ramp, it would have been inconsistent with that design. |
Actually Bud, from the models and original prop there was one stairs, one conveyer, and one solid landing leg.
Your "hatch and hoist" concept is quite a logical extrapolation even though it doesn't show on any plans or blueprints of the ship in the saucer section.
The only hatch and winch shown and referred to is the one by the bunk area that the ID Monster used to enter the ship the first time. This hoist is located in an area just above the lower cupola, not in the saucer section, and looks like it is situated to load items onto the conveyer leg. It could have been swiviled around to lower the "core" to the ground.
This is not to say there may have been such a hatch as you suggest, just that it was never shown or even referred to! Just like the bathrooms on the C-57-D and in Morbius's house!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.
Last edited by Gord Green on Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Krel
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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You are not going to see a view looking straight at the second gangplank, because to do so would show both the limits of the set and end of the backdrop painting.
It makes no sense for MGM to go to the expense of biding a conveyor belt into the set if they couldn't show it. And they couldn't because of how the set was built.
I haven't watched the movie for a few years (I know, disgraceful), so I don't remember how many they showed using the second gangplank. But I'm pretty sure they showed more than two crew using it after they first landed.
Of course they are going to show people use the main gangplank more than the second. The set was designed to be shot from the angle showing the main gangplank.
Miniatures have different needs than a full set does, so while a model might have two conveyor belts, it doesn't mean that the set would.
So yes, I'm sticking to my two staircase belief. So I'm nothig if not consistent...and stubborn. There's a good reason that at one job, my name tag read: Obstinate.
David. |
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Gord Green
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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Good observation David. The one point we all must remember is that this is all extrapolation and opinion. None of it is absolutely provable by physical evidence.
Good discusion though!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child. |
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Bob Tarmac
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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Well! I’m sure glad that problem is finally settled once and for all.
So who will be the first to find the Secret Image in this screen frame? Anyone?
I will of course explain the meaning of what you’ve found after you found it and why it’s there.
Unlike the Secret Image in the promotion poster, something that could be easily explained away as the whimsy of single MGM artist, playing a joke. This Secret Image is a cooperated effort between the mural artist, the set designer, the art director, the director and the cameraman to setup the shot. Walter Pidgeon is most likely in on it too.
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Krel
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| Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Bob Tarmac wrote: | Well! I’m sure glad that problem is finally settled once and for all.
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Unless some drawings, photographs, blueprints or rumors surface. Then it's off to the races again! TALLY-HO!
David. |
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