ALL SCI-FI

[Gord Green]

POW WROTE:

[Bud Brewster]

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When I hosted an "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" night in the 1980, my friend Larry Hanson created the plaster helmet for the suit which was worn by fellow artists Jim Peavy — who surprised me and the other guests by walking into my living room, dressed as a "saucer man"!

That's Larry on the right, holding his "saucer man" helmet. Jim even attempted to imitate the face of the alien.


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Larry was an avid convention attendee, and he actually met Harryhausen at one, a few years after the event shown above. Larry told Ray about our "movie night" and the costume he'd helped create.

When Larry mentioned that his plaster helmet developed a crack on the side very similar to the one used in the movie, Ray insisted it was just a "casting seam", not a crack.









[size=22 ]Larry elected not to argue the point — but Mr. Harryhausen was mistaken . . . and Mr. Hanson was right! [/size]
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

I found this interesting passage about the Guardian of Forever in author James Blish's adaptation of the teleplay to Star Trek #2 book.

"It was a large, octagonal mirror---or was it a mirror? It's framed, cloudy surface was nebulous, shifting. Whatever it was, it gleamed, untarnished, agelessly new. A cube, also untarnished but half-buried in dust and rubble, sat beside it."

Sidebar: I had forgotten about the cube object until I reread this book. Blish never does explain its purpose even though it is noted in his description of the Guardian.

Harlan Ellison never mentions any cube at all in his various drafts and final teleplay of the script.

The closest item I can find in Ellison's script is the setting he depicts where the Guardian resides. "The stones are a peculiar silvery material, with buried shimmers of light in them." It doesn't mention any cube at all, but I wonder if Blish found inspiration in all that and then came up with the cube concept?

So this must be Jim's creation. Perhaps it was meant to be left a mystery? I assume it has something to do with the Guardian because Jim writes about it and places it right beside the octagonal relic.

Whatever it does, if it does anything at all, is never revealed to us for some reason.

[Pow]

"I wanted to shoot the skeleton sequence in Jason at twilight, but we couldn't --- we would have received an X certificate from the censors, who felt a night-time attack would be too fearsome for audiences." Ray Harryhausen: The Lost Movies, by John Walsh.

Sidebar: A battle by twilight. Man, that would have been sensational. But I can sympathize with Ray's wishing to avoid an X certificate.

Medea was going to lead Jason into the dark regions of hell to keep him from the deadly Hydra. Ray wanted the skeleton battle to start here, with them rising from their graves from Hades. They were to be rotting corpses coming out of the ground. Once again, the possibility of getting an X certificate for the movie made Ray have the dead warriors be clean-cut skeletons.

Sidebar: I'm with the censors on this one. Having the deceased warriors appear as zombies in various states of decomposition would have been too horrific for a 1963 audience. Even though I'm a fan of AMC's The Walking Dead TV series, it doesn't mean what works for that show
in this day & age would have benefitted Jason by having a zombie-like fight with Jason & his crew. BTW, I have to look away at some of those Walking Dead episodes. I never want to have to look away from any of Ray's awesome animation.

Ray intended to have a stop-motion animated two-headed dog in the movie. However, making a two-headed dog was going to be an issue, so the idea was dropped. Ray would resurrect this idea with in his 1981 feature film Clash of the Titans.

Sidebar: I was never terribly taken with Dioskilos in Clash, he just wasn't that frightening or inspired looking as a mythological creature.

[Bud Brewster]

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The noble Mr. Harryhausen missed a "golden" opportunity in the early 1960s when he didn't make a sequel to Jason and the Argonauts. The final scene in Jason practically promised us a sequel!

Watch the last 30 seconds of the movie and you'll hear Zues say, "For Jason, there are other adventures. I have not yet finished with Jason. Let us continue the game . . . another day."

___________ Jason & The Argonauts | Full Movie


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The basic premise for the sequel is well established. Jason and his men must return to Thessaly and take it away from the evil King Pilias. Their journey back could be most of the story, and their battle to defeat Pilias would be the climax.

As for Zues and Hera, we see Honor Blackman looking distinctly displeased at the end of Jason when she sees Todd and Nancy kissing. The Greek gods were notorious for carrying on with mortals, so Hera could make trouble for the couple during the sequel.

The website called greeka.com has a detailed account of the Jason and the Argonauts mythology. It's long, but even skimming it (like I did) you'll find the inspirations for all of the movie's story elements.

The portions pertaining to the story after Jason gets the fleece has plenty of material that could be used for a sequel to Jason.

Hera is an important character in the story — in fact, Jason's entire quest to get the Golden Fleece was part of a plot by Hera to revengef King Pilias for profaning her temple, something we see in the early scenes from Jason and the Argonauts!

Gee, maybe I should make a poster for the sequel. I better buzz my secretary on the intercom.

"Miss Longlegs?"



"Hold all my calls!"
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Charles & Ray never produced any direct sequels from any of their collaborations together. A Jason & the Argonauts sequel would have been perfect, and with the source material website that you posted, Bruce. The primary problem was that sequels are rarely made if the original movie did not perform strongly at the box office. While Jason was a top moneymaker in Britain in 1963, it wasn't in America. Ray blamed it on the fact that the Italian musclemen movies had saturated the U.S. market, and that audiences thought that Jason was just another one of those types of movies, instead of the epic classic that it is.

[Bud Brewster]

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I'm sure the people who saw this trailer — beautifully narrated by Marvin "Robby" Miller — didn't think this was just another Italian beefcake fest with English-dubbed dialog.

It's a beautiful promotion for this epic movie, one that should have had folks lining up at theaters across the nation.

But we can't go back in time and change the way American ignored this classic movie. All we can do it use our fertile imaginations (and the magic of All Sci-Fimation) to create "The Sequel That Should Have Been Made"!

So, lets get busy.

_______ Jason and the Argonauts - official trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Here's some of the images I found for the poster I'm creating to promote an imaginary sequel to Jason and the Argonauts!

These are my suggestions for the creatures Ray Harryhausen could animate in this imaginary sequel to his best film ever. Let's pretend he made this movie — with most the same cast from Jason!
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The Stymphalian Birds ~ While nearing the deserted island of Ares, the Argonauts were attacked by the Stymphalian Birds. These creatures had lethal, bronze-tipped feathers! They were the sacred birds of the God of War, and they could only be driven away, not killed!





The Gegenees ~ These were Earth-born monsters with six arms who attempted to destroy the Argo and kill the crew when they stopped at an island to gather supplies.





Scylla ~ This multi-headed sea monster who once was a maiden threatened the Argo during the voyage home.





I found this fine painting of a Greek warship and realized it was a good image to represent the Argo.





Now all I have to do is put these images together to create a great poster for a movie we wish they'd made after Jason and the Argonauts.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Your creature selections for Ray to animate for the sequel are all splendid, Bruce. Hercules also faced the Stymphalian Birds as one of his 12 Labors. He used poison arrows, courtesy of the slain Hydra's heads, on 'em.

What's also nifty about your selection is they vary as to their respective environments. A creature that flies; one that exists on land; and a monster of the sea. That gives different settings for the audience to enjoy.

[Bud Brewster]

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Gentlemen, during the research I've done in the last few days while pondering an imaginary sequel to Jason and the Argonauts. I discovered some surprising differences between the Greek myth and the Hollywood movie.

The movie is an epic tale of a young prince whose entire family is slaughtered by a man who steals the crown and rules the kingdom in a cruel and ruthless manner! Jason is the rightful king, and he's aided by Zeus and Hera when he sets out to acquire the fable Golden Fleece. He knows that the Fleece will bring peace and prosperity to his land, and heal the wounds which the cruel King Pelias has inflicted.

Admittedly the Greek myth has elements similar to this — but there's a huge difference!

According to the myth, King Pelias tells Jason that if he'll sail to the distant land of Colchis and bring back the Fleece, Pelias will step down and give Jason the thrown.

Jason buys this bull hokey and rounds up his buddies for what he thinks will be a fun little sea cruise. He and his friends are convinced it will only take a year or so — during which they'll have a literal boat-load of fun and enjoy a great adventure!

But things don't go quite as smoothly as planned. These sea-going frat boys end up stopping at friendly islands for a year or so before they continue their journey. However, they also have to battle horrible creatures which deplete their ranks.

Amazingly enough, they finally make it to the distant land, snatch the Golden Fleece, and battle their way back home through more harrowing situations and hideous monsters.

Equally amazing is the fact that when Jason returns to his homeland and foolishly hands over Fleece to Pilias, the bastard reneges on his promise!

Guys, the story we enjoy so much in Jason and the Argonauts — compared to the mythological tale of Jason — is like the difference between watching Prince Valiant and Smokey and the Bandit.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Guys, I promised I'd create a poster for the movie which ends with the promise of a sequel.

TA-DAAA! Here it is.





Click on the above image and see a larger version with better detail. Below is the poster for Jason and the Argonauts I used as inspiration and source material for some of the text.





I pondered the problem of what to name the sequel, and I finally decided on the name above. I hope you like the poster, foiks. Frankly it came out much better than I expected.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

I like the poster, but perhaps The Argonauts' Quest for the Golden Fleece is a bit unwieldy. Might I suggest shortening it to Quest for the Golden Fleece with a faux-Greek typeface?

[Bud Brewster]

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It is a bit unwieldy, Scot. I like your suggestion.

Actually, I added the apostrophe at the last minute because I thought it sounded better grammatically as "The Argonaut's Quest for the Golden Fleece" — instead of "The Argonauts: Quest for the Golden Fleece"

I figured "The Argonauts" was needed to tie it in with "Jason and the Argonauts". It's like "Star Wars - Return of the Jedi". (Sort of like an "Argonauts" franchise.)

I figured that most folks would just refer to the movie as "The Argonauts" or "Quest for the Golden Fleece".

So, here's the poster without the apostrophe. Does it work better if the two phrases are independent?





Concerning the "Greek character" font, I chose the block letters because all of the Jason posters I found use those. But the comic book has the Greek font, so your suggestion is very interesting.


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And we know that movies back then always had several versions of the posters — like this one for Jason.





With that in mind, I made this version with the Greek characters for Quest.





I think it turned out well. Thanks, Scot!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[orzel-w]

Bud, your concern over the use of an apostrophe struck me as amusing. Most people in this day and age have no inkling of the function of an apostrophe. From my observations they seem to think it's a means of hanging an "s" on the end of any word without regard to intended purpose. Then when you used one after the "s" to indicate a plural possessive, I could imagine the puzzled expressions on faces everywhere, were the poster to attain public exposure.

I'm pretty sure you're better off dispensing with said punctuation.
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...or not...

WayneO
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