ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Ever wonder what a sequel to Tarantula would be about? Well, wonder no more, because I came up with Jim doozy one!

Ever wonder if IMDB had some interesting trivia items about the movie Lifeforce? They do, and I picked out some good ones.

Ever wonder what kind of spaceship were designed were designed for the game Star Citizen? Gord Green posted a gallery of images to a YouTube promo.



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Tarantula (1955)

Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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Gord Green, Phantom, and I have plans to watch Tarantula this evening in All Sci-Fi's Chatzy room, I got to thinking about a sequel.

I looked up info on the manner in which tarantulas reproduce and found this.
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Females deposit 50 to 2,000 eggs, depending on the species, in a silken egg sac and guard it for six to eight weeks. During this time, the females stay very close to the egg sacs and become more aggressive. Within most species, the females turn the egg sac often, which is called brooding.

This keeps the eggs from deforming due to sitting in one position too long. The young spiderlings remain in the nest for some time after hatching, where they live off the remains of their yolk sacs before dispersing.
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So, what does that have to do with this fine old 1955 movie?

Good question.

The tarantula escaped from Leo G. Carroll's lab during the fire and continue to grow, long after it had been fed the miraculous "nutrient" that Carroll had developed. Therefore, the nutrient didn't just nourish the lab specimens, it altered they're metabolism so that they grew much faster and larger than normal.

We don't know if the tarantula was male or female, but if Carroll wanted to find out if the offspring of his specimens would be born with altered metabolisms, he would have used females (at least in some cases) and artificially inseminated them to see if the offspring grew faster, like their parents did.





If that's true, then the tarantula might have been gestating at least 50 eggs — and possible 2,000! She may have walked out the door of the burning lab and then laid them in an egg sack out in the desert.

Notice in the picture below that she's trailing strands of webbing as she walks, indicating that she's ready, willing, and able to spin an egg sack when she lays the eggs!





Then again, she may have laid them in her cage before the fire, and Carroll removed the egg sack to store it in the lab somewhere. If that's the case, Momma Tarantula is headed out the door in search of those missing eggs she placed in an egg sack before Carroll kidnapped them!

The other lab animals in the wire cages were killed in the fire, but the egg sack would have been kept in a sealed container to prevent them from hatching and escaping — which meant they might have been protected from the heat and smoke.

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. If the baby spiders were still somewhere in the fire-damaged lab, that would explain why Momma came back to the house and started tearing it apart!






Throughout the movie she roamed around the countryside, gobbling up the cattle and the farmers while she desperately searched for her kids. When she finally managed to find her way back to the house, she somehow sensed that her young'uns were there, so she ripped up the joint, determined to rescue her brood.

Perhaps she actually found the container and ripped it open. Or she may have just broken it open accidentally during her destructive rampage, thus releasing the ghastly horde of crawling creatures.

Then again, maybe they'd already hatched and started growing rapidly, eating each other to survive until they they got big enough to break open the container and escape!

Either way, we now have a great situation for a sequel! An army of oversized, rapidly growing tarantulas, all hungry as hell and not picky about what (or who) they eat!

And this unmade, imaginary sequel could start just minutes after the first film ends. When Clint "Maverick" Eastwood finished frying the tarantula, he'd head back out across the desert.





Flying low (just because it's fun and he's "Maverick") he sees a strange site. At the edge of a herd of cattle, he spots several steers almost engulfed in black shapes while the poor animals desperately flee from hundreds more of the dog-size monsters, hot on their heels!

Maverick circles around to give the situation a closer look . . . and he quickly realizes what this might mean. He immediately calls his base.





"Red Dog 9 to base . . . I think we've got a new problem."

So, guys, where would this story go from here? Red Dog 9 is plum out of napalm, and the herds of both spiders and cattle are scattering fast.

I think this would make a great Golden Age sc-fi movie.

By the way, I found this ironic trivia item on IMDB.
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Mara Corday (Stephanie "Steve" Clayton) was the lead female in this movie, with Clint Eastwood appearing briefly at the end as Jet Squadron Leader. But in her last four movies, Clint Eastwood was the star and she had small brief roles.
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The four movies — and the roles Miss Corday played — are these.

The Rookie (1990)
Interrogator #2

Pink Cadillac (1989)
Stick Lady

Sudden Impact (1983)
Loretta - Coffee Shop Waitress

The Gauntlet (1977)
Jail Matron
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Another reason why this is interesting is that Miss Corday's 44 screen appearances included 40 movies and TV shows which occurred while she was still young and beautiful (1951 to 1961). Then she gave up acting for sixteen years and devoted herself to her husband (actor Richard Long from The Big Valley) and their children.

Mr. Long passed away in 1977.

Between 1977 and 1990 she got four small roles in movies that starred Clint Eastwood, because (according to her IMDB bio) he was her friend.
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Lifeforce (1985)

IMDB has 125 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text.
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~ Mathilda May had rubber soles glued to the bottom of her feet, in order to avoid cutting them, during the scene in which she walks out of the building, after breaking the glass windows.

Note from me: Gee, and all this time I thought she was totally naked!

~ Tobe Hooper's Director's Cut was two hours and eight minutes, then the movie was cut down to one hour and fifty-six minutes, the cuts being mostly scenes set on the spaceship Churchill.

The original unedited European version contains more violent and erotic footage, which Tri-Star Pictures cut from the domestic U.S. version. It also contains the full Henry Mancini score, in place of the occasional Michael Kamen music cues placed at the last minute for U.S. prints.

This version is now available on video, and runs one hour and fifty-six minutes.

Note from me: It's been my experience, when viewing "directors cuts" with deleted scenes reinserted, that skilled directors do not include much that isn't worth watching. I'd like to see the version that's two hours and eight minutes.

~ Editor John Grover said in the Blu-Ray feature that when they delivered Tobe Hooper's original version to Golan and Globus, it was a little bit long, but it was a picture that worked. But the distributor said the picture was too long and they wanted it shorter. But Tobe didn't want it shorter. Grover left to work on Labyrinth (1986) and Golan and Globus called somebody else in to edit and they just slashed it.

Note from me: Like I said, if the director doesn't want it shorter, the studio execs should probably butt the hell out!

~ The filmmakers briefly considered waxing Mathilda May, in order to make her appear less nude. This idea was ultimately rejected, because it had the opposite result of its initial intention.

Note from me: I'm not sure what this means, but I'd sure like the mental image of a few guys applying the wax and then buffing it to high gloss!

~ Tobe Hooper came up with the idea of using Halley's Comet in the screenplay, rather than the asteroid belt, as originally used in the novel, as the comet was going to pass by Earth one year following this movie's release.

Note from me: Three cheers for Mr. Hooper! The idea that Halley's Comet has a hidden spacecraft in the tail and comes back around every 76 years is an added bit of elegance to this imaginative movie. (The next item is related.)

~ Tobe Hooper came up with the idea of incorporating Halley's Comet into the screenplay. Dan O'Bannon was displeased with the end result, as he disliked the addition.

Note from me: Wait a minutes . . . the author thought the alien ship should have been way out in the boring old asteroid belt , where you can't actually see one asteroid from another because they're so far aparts — despite Hollywood's flamboyant way of positioning them so close together they collide with each other every thirty seconds?

The film's change to the tail of Halley's Comet was brilliant, for multiple reasons! Dan O'Bannon is nuts!

~ The dummies used as dissected corpses were used in The Mummy (1999).

Note from me: And yet they say it's hard for dummy mummies to find work!

~ For the shot of Space Girl walking up the stairs naked, shadows were added in post-production to censor Mathilda May's body to avoid getting an X rating.

Note from me: I completely agree with our societies nudity taboo when is comes to average people who aren't real attractive when they pad around in the buff.

On that note, remember when you were 13 years old and thought that being invisible would be fun because you could sneak into the girls rest room and see sexy females!

Later, when you grew up, you realized that watching the most beautiful girl in world sitting on a toilet, pooping and peeing, would be about as erotic as watching your sister vomit into a bucket!

However, watching Mathilda May walk slowly down a flight of starts is poetry in motion. So why should that scene earn this movie an X-rating?

~ Olivia Hussey left the movie, because she mistakenly thought that she was playing the role of Space Girl, which required too much nudity. She was then replaced by Nancy Paul.

Note from me: "Olivia, sweetheart, buttercup! You're leaving that movie because you think you have appear naked? Trust me, Baby, you got nothin' to worry about! Those zoomers of yours are definitely NOT what got you the part!"

~ First movie in Director Tobe Hooper's three-movie deal with The Cannon Group, Inc. and Golan-Globus Productions. The others being Invaders from Mars (1986) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986).

Note from me: I like this movie, along with Mr. Hooper's Invaders from Mars! But movies with "chainsaw" in the title are own my No Fly List, without exception . . .

~ Over one thousand actresses were considered, or interviewed for the role of Space Girl. Tobe Hooper said it was incredibly difficult to find an actress willing to play the role because it was basically just walking around totally naked most the time and then having sex.

He said in a Blu-ray feature that many of the other auditioning actresses refused to fully disrobe for the part, even conspiring against him at one casting session.

Associate producer Michael Kagan said the reason they met with French actress Mathilda May, who couldn't even speak English, was because they couldn't find an English actress that was willing to strip completely.

Note from me: Several thoughts:

~ Was it really such a chore to interview 1,000 gorgeous girls who had to show their knockers to qualify for the role?

~ Since Mathilda didn't speak English, did she really understand that she'd have to waltz around in her birthday suit?

~ Did Mr. Hooper and company address the assembled women before the individual interviews and make this announcement?

"Ladies, this role will require total nudity and a few sex scenes. If that bothers you, please go home now."

If they didn't do that, I can't help wondering if perhaps they had . . . ulterior movies.

~ This was promoted and filmed under the title "The Space Vampires" (the title of Colin Wilson's novel).

However, Producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus' Cannon Films reportedly spent nearly twenty-five million dollars, in hopes of creating a full blown blockbuster. They felt that this title made it sound like a typical Cannon low-budget exploitation movie.

The title was changed to "Lifeforce", and it was released in the United States in an edited version — which brought in less than half of its production cost!

Note from me: Wait a second, does anybody really think the movie would have done better with a hokey title like "Space Vampires"?

Seriously?

~ The Churchill scenes at first took up the first thirty-five minutes of the movie.

Approximately twelve minutes of these were cut, plus some scenes were moved to later in the movie and turned into flashbacks. All this was done against Director Tobe Hooper's wishes.

Note from me: When I saw this movie after it was first released at the theaters, I remember being frustrated by the confusion caused by the story elements we had to wait for in the flashbacks.

In a way, it works, because we eventually learn the answers to puzzling questions posed by the first part of the movie. But with such a complex concept, we don't really need MORE confusion caused of the rearranged scenes.

I'd have enjoyed the story more if they hadn't juggled around the events the way they did.

~ Based on behind the scenes photos of a very naked Mathilda May chatting with cast and crew while waiting to film, she was very comfortable with the nudity and didn't bother wearing a robe. In fact, some people joked it was more awkward for them because they had to force themselves to keep looking at her eyes the entire time, and that wasn't easy.

Note from me: Well . . . uh . . . like, duh, guys! What did Miss May expect? (She expected exactly what she got, I'm sure.)
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New ships from STAR CITIZEN! a Gord Green post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XVVGkWyBLI



You just have to check out the new trailers for new ships from STAR CITIZEN?





Bud, why do I think these would fit right in with the Candlelight and the Wishbone Express!?









Here's a longer video. Some of the BEST sci-fi spaceship videos today!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)