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Cinefantastique double issue — Forbidden Planet
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
In the novel, there were no DC stations, you strapped yourself in to your bunk.

Ooh... That's gonna leave a mark!
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

_________________________________________

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 11

~ The double-page picture on page 22 (image number 20) of a BTS shot showing the landing site set has an interesting caption at the bottom. It’s hard to read because the text is on top of the picture’s lower section, creating a medium gray background for the black text.

I don’t know whose bright idea THAT was, but he’s fired! Sad

However, I managed to pull out some great facts about the set and the cyclorama.

The backdrop painting for the landing site was 40’ X 350’, and along the bottom edge the artist included a field of rocks which diminish in size the further they’re supposed to be from the viewer. But the clever set designers also placed real rocks along the bottom edge, extending out way from the paintings base.

But the really clever touch was the way they painted the rocks to match the color and lighting of the ones “right behind them” (visually speaking) in the painting. So, the rock field actually begins on the floor of the set in the far background and virtually extends right into the painting itself!

Ya gotta love it, guys! Very Happy

I was also impressed by the fact that the two moons we see in the night scenes are NOT part of the cyclorama. They’re disks made of “plexilite” and hung in front of the backdrop painting. George Gibson of the MGM scenic department told the authors of the article that “for night scenes, we just hit them with a light from below and they glowed.”

Special lights also softly illuminated the horizon at night to suggest that the moons were shining down on the landscape.

Although I’m not quite as eager as Gord to have the deleted scene restored which shows Adams and Ostrow discussing the unicorn myth, I’d gladly vote yes to include it just so we could see the two men enjoying the warm evening, a pleasant conversation, and this amazing vista.



]


~ The caption on page 26 (picture #24) states that the mountains in the background on the miniature set are neither painted onto the backdrop NOR part of the sculpted landscape!

They were actually “profiled cut-outs up to 30’ high and 50’ in length, set up in different planes which could be moved in relation to one another to change perspective for varying camera angles.”






The caption mentions the shot of the “dust cloud” moving across the landscape when Robby approaches and again when he leaves, stating that two shots were made for Robby’s arrival and for his departure with the three crewmen.

A third shot was made for Robby’s departure, using the miniature jeep, but it was deleted because it looked unconvincing.

The article doesn't mention, however, that both of the shots of the dust cloud moving across the landscape were filmed with the dust cloud moving left-to-right — which is the correct direction for Robby's arrival, but the opposite direction for his departure with the three men.

To fix this, the second shot (which was filmed with the camera further back on the miniature set, and therefor showing more of the forground than the first shot) was "flipped" to make the dust cloud move right-to-left.

Here's the shot of Robby's arrival.






And here's the shot of Robby's departure.





Notice the big moon behind the mountains is on the right during Robby’s approach in the first picture, but it’s on the left when he’s departing with the three crewmen in the second picture.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A very large moon, like the one shown above, in a close orbit to the primary would move very quickly across the sky. Even the Martian moons, which are smaller but close to the planet, move quite swiftly. It would be very possible that the positions as shown could be correct.

By the way, I don't think that ALL the deleted scenes would make for a greater enhanced version of the film. Certainly those that are of poor quality or are inconsistent with the overall story (Like the scene on the transport or any marriage shots.) would not be included. The added dialogues during the opening sequence, comments on "Giant spiders or Angels" and the unicorn comments at the residence and on Adam's and Ostrow's "moonlight stroll" would be the ones that I'd like to see added back in.

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
A very large moon, like the one shown above, in a close orbit to the primary would move very quickly across the sky. Even the Martian moons, which are smaller but close to the planet, move quite swiftly. It would be very possible that the positions as shown could be correct.

Maybe, but the rock formations are also reversed.

What bothers me about this shot...



...is the way the sunlight falls on the two moons. The moon on the far right indicates Altair (the sun) is down to the right and beyond the horizon. The larger moon on the left is practically a full moon, pointing to Altair being low, but almost directly behind the viewer.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

My goodness, Professor Green, you keep putting me in the uncomfortable position of having to respectfully correct your faulty statements! Embarassed

First of all, big moons don't have fast orbits, only small ones in very close orbits. Altair 4's big moon is obviously much closer than our moon, but I seriously doubt that it orbits so rapidly that it could move as far as you suggested in a mere five minutes!

Second, moons (fast or slow) don't zip around the horizon unless your watching them from the north or south pole. They come over the horizon, travel overhead, and set on the other horizon.

So, both the speed and direction of the moon's "movement" are clearly not possible.

But if the moon did move from the right to the left in five minutes . . . it somehow switched places with the smaller moon, which was on the left during the landing —






— but on the right when Robby departed.





However, I'm pretty sure the mountains on the horizon did NOT reverse positions somehow. The mountains that the big moon is behind on the right when Robby arrives —





— are the same ones it's behind on the left (in the reversed image they used in the movie) when Robby leaves the ship. And the tall sharp rocks on the right in this shot of Robby's departure are on the left (along with the small moon) in the landing scene shown in the first picture above. (Please scroll up and compare.)





But heck fire, I'm doing this the hard way! Here's Robby's arrival shot again.





And here's the screen shot showing his departure . . . after I flipped it horizontally!





Notice that in my flipped "departure shot" above, not only is the big moon and sharp mountains in the same places as the are in the "arrival shot" . . . . and Robby is also traveling left-to-right like he did when he arrived! Very Happy

I rest my case. Very Happy

But wait a minute! I just thought of something! Shocked

What if a Higgs-Boson sub particle created a null gravity effect which made those moons and mountains switch places? I'll bet the ship's quanto-gravitetic hyperdrive did that!
Shocked
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
What bothers me about this shot...



...is the way the sunlight falls on the two moons. The moon on the far right indicates Altair (the sun) is down to the right and beyond the horizon. The larger moon on the left is practically a full moon, pointing to Altair being low, but almost directly behind the viewer.

Well crap, I just KNEW this would come back to bit me in the ass. Rolling Eyes

Wayne, I apologize for abusing my "artistic license". Years ago I modified that screen shot to extend it out to the left a little because I didn't like the way it cut off the big moon on the left.

Here's the original screen shot.



Notice that this is the screen shot which has the badly rendered "back stairway" that you and I both took a crack at improving. The one with the full moon has the corrected stairway on the right.

You're right, however, that the moon should NOT be full. I goofed!

If I had to offer some explanation for my faulty science in making the moon full, I guess I'd just say that . . . a Higgs-Boson sub particle created a null gravity effect which made the moon seem full to me at the time I doctored the picture!

It's not my fault! Embarassed

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The moons are not necessarily in the same ecliptic, that is their orbits are not necessarily in the same plane like some of the Jovian moons that are basicly captured asteroids.

I never said that the pictures you showed were accurate as far as being "photographicly" correct...only that the concept was correct. The Earth's Moon's velocity in orbit has been slowing down as it's moved further from the Earth over millions of years.

Orzel….In Bud's recreation picture the moons could be accurate IF the larger moon was eclipsing the smaller one. That would account for the shadow as shown.

But then again it could be the Higgs field doing it!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

More bad science, Gord. Sorry, but your comments aren't very convincing. Sad

If a moon's orbit causes it to roll around the planet's horizon every day, it can't end up high in the sky later that night!

Any orbiting moon would follow the same path across the sky every day. It wouldn't wander all over the place — sometimes skirting around the horizon for a few hours, and then wander up into the sky after nightfall!

Like this. Rolling Eyes






And your statement —

"The Earth's Moon's velocity in orbit has been slowing down as it's moved further from the Earth over millions of years. "

— is totally irrelevant. What the heck does our Moon's slow deceleration over millions of years have to do with what Altair's larger moon would be doing in a 24 hour period? Shocked

Besides, Gord, this discussion is about the very OBVIOUS fact that the scene of Robby approaching the C-57-D and the scene shortly thereafter of him departing use two separate shots of the miniature makings a dust cloud on the same set, moving in the same direction.

One of the two shots was clearly flipped horizontally to make it look like Robby was going in the other direction! I've proven that beyond any doubt, sir.

Give it up, Gord. Your initial suggestion that the big moon zipped over to the other side of the frame when Robby headed back home is both cinematically wrong and scientifically absurd.

But we do appreciate your efforts to stimulate this enjoyable discussion! Very Happy

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's NOT the path of the moon's orbit that's relevant, it's the relation of that to the planet's ROTATION! If the moons orbit is skewed from the ecliptic of the planet's rotation the visual appearance from the planet's surface would be even more irregular!

By God man! You've never seen Earth's Moon low on the horizon and later higher in the sky? You've looked but not seen! It's the planet's rotation more than the velocity of the moon in it's orbit that gives it the appearance of movement!

Besides, large moons like those shown would not revolve around the planet per se....They'd all revolve around a common center of gravity!

In any case it's obvious that the position of moons etc on the panoramic background was not designed by "science" but by artistic considerations!


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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
The Earth's Moon's velocity in orbit has been slowing down as it's moved further from the Earth over millions of years.

That's mutually contradictory. If an object in orbit slows down, its orbital radius decreases. That's how you drop out of orbit--fire your braking rockets. Moving farther away would increase the moon's orbital period and would require an increase in its velocity.

Gord Green wrote:
Orzel….In Bud's recreation picture the moons could be accurate IF the larger moon was eclipsing the smaller one. That would account for the shadow as shown.

The alignment isn't right, however, for the nearly full moon to eclipse the smaller one. Since Bud's depiction shows left and right sides of the larger moon lit equally, with a little shadow on top, the sun/Altair would be directly to the rear of our viewpoint and slightly below Altair IV. For the larger moon to cast its shadow on the smaller one, the smaller one would need to be nearly behind (slightly to the right of) the larger moon from our viewpoint.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wrong Orzel….As this report from the BBC explains :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12311119

"The Moon is kept in orbit by the gravitational force that the Earth exerts on it, but the Moon also exerts a gravitational force on our planet and this causes the movement of the Earth's oceans to form a tidal bulge.

Due to the rotation of the Earth, this tidal bulge actually sits slightly ahead of the Moon. Some of the energy of the spinning Earth gets transferred to the tidal bulge via friction.

This drives the bulge forward, keeping it ahead of the Moon. The tidal bulge feeds a small amount of energy into the Moon, pushing it into a higher orbit like the faster, outside lanes of a test track.

This phenomenon is similar to the experience one feels on a children's roundabout. The faster the roundabout spins the stronger the feeling of being slung outwards.

But the energy gained as the Moon is pushed higher is balanced by a reduction in the energy of its motion - so an acceleration provided by the Earth's tides is actually slowing the Moon down."

The location of the moons in Bud's composition is completely arbitrary and done for best artistic appearance. The shadows are actually wrong for both of them as shown, but what I said is they may be ok IF the larger one was eclipsing part of the smaller...NOT that that was the case.

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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Both of these statements were made by Bud on page 2 of this thread:

Bud Brewster wrote:
Concerning the evolution of the Id monster's design, Ken Hultgren, an artist who was not employed by either M-G-M or Disney, was called in by Josh Meador to come up with an Id monster that would satisfiy Nicholas Nayfack, who didn’t like any of the designs suggested thus far. It was Hultgren who designed the two-legged “lion head” that was eventually used.

It's not Ken Hultgren but Kent Hultgren. His work was so remarkable that Walt hired him at twice the salary of other verteran animators. While at the "House of Mouse" he wrote an instruction manual that was later published for the masses. I have that book.:



Unlike the advert above, the cover (which is almost identical) it does state his first name as Ken, and this is found only on 3 of the 68 pages. All others along with the illustrations list him as Kent. To see the inspiration of the Id monster go to http://www.wizardofmgm.com/search?q=Forbidden+Planet between 2/3 and 3/4 of the way down the page.


Bud Brewster wrote:
The section of the article which deals with the FX done by the Disney animators concludes by mentioning a young Disney artist name Joe Alven who was 18 years old and started working for Disney when he joined Josh Meador's team to work on Forbidden Planet.

Again a misspelling. His name is Joe ALVES. Here is his business card:



You must have been very tired when you made your notes.

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
"But the energy gained as the Moon is pushed higher is balanced by a reduction in the energy of its motion - so an acceleration provided by the Earth's tides is actually slowing the Moon down."

I find the article's reference to the moon's orbital speed highly suspect, seeing that there were two analogies earlier in the article to a higher orbit being tied to faster speeds. Furthermore, a footnote at the bottom of the article reads as follows:

"Update 19 July 2011: This story has been amended to clarify that previous references to the Moon 'speeding up' actually refer to it moving into a higher orbit."

Previous references to the Moon speeding up??? The writer had previously written that the moon was speeding up? That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the writer's ability to clarify, since references (analogies) to a higher orbit being tied to higher velocity remain in the article. The writer herself doesn't seem to be that clear on the subject.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Robert (Butch) Day wrote:
It's not Ken Hultgren but Kent Hultgren.

Again a misspelling. His name is Joe ALVES. Here is his business card:

You must have been very tired when you made your notes.

For the record, I checked the post that included the names Kent Hultgren and Joe Alves. I did misspell Joe's name, so I fixed it.

Thanks, Butch.

Oddly enough, though, I did NOT misspell Kent Hultgren's name. The quoted paragraph in my post does say Kent rather than Ken when I checked it this morning after seeing your message.

I can only assume that I caught the error myself and fixed it at some point after you'd read it.

I tend to go back and edit my posts after submitting them, looking for typos. (I wish more of us did that . . . hint hint . . . Wink)

However, here's something odd I also noticed. In the sentence which has Kent Hultren's name, I type "MGM" — and yet in your quote it says "M-G-M", which is not how I type the studio's name. I even checked my original Word document to see if I'd typed MGM.

I had.


Butch wrote:
Concerning the evolution of the Id monster's design, Ken Hultgren, an artist who was not employed by either M-G-M or Disney . . .

Butch, for some reason did you transcribe my paragraph instead of just doing a copy-and-paste? If so you might have misspelled Kent's name yourself, along with putting the hyphens in MGM! Laughing

That seems odd, of course, because why would you mention the paragraph at all except to call my attention to a misspelling you spotted in my post?

Wow. What a mystery! Perhaps you were tired when you read my post! Cool

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

This is one statement we ALL agree on.


Gord wrote:
In any case it's obvious that the position of moons etc on the panoramic background was not designed by "science" but by artistic considerations!

And this is a very good point.

Gord wrote:
The moons are not necessarily in the same ecliptic, that is their orbits are not necessarily in the same plane like some of the Jovian moons that are basicly captured asteroids.

It's quite true that if a moon's orbit is well outside the planet's equatorial plane, it will not move across the sky in the same manner our Moon does.

If one or both of Altair 4's two moons are well outside the planet's equatorial plane, that would explain a certain discrepancy that has always bothered me.

The two moons are obviously NOT in the same orbital plane because they're both so close to the horizon and yet widely separated, both in the daytime shots and the nighttime shots!








That's a difference of about twelve hours, and yet they're still near the horizon! How could both moons still be near that same horizon twelve hours later! Shocked

And if that's not crazy enough, they really have switched places between the time the ship landed and later that night!

As Gord pointed out, they're obviously not in the same orbital plane. If they were in the same plane, they would rise and set like our Sun and Moon do — first one of them would rise, and then the other, both appearing on the horizon at the same point.

We all know, of course, that the Sun and Moon vary annually in their daily paths across the sky because of the Earth's axial tilt, which is 23°. But the Moon is only 1.5° from the plane of the ecliptic, and if the Earth had no tilt at all, both the Moon and the Sun would cross the sky along the same path all year long, with both being closer to the horizon the nearer to the poles they're viewed from.

In view of all the discrepancies we've noticed, I created a new version of the ship at night which addresses the problems concerning the widely varied orbital planes and the inconsistent shadows (even on the original screen shot before I turned the big one into a full moon with a shadow down the middle! Embarassed

Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, guys.

Anyway, if the two moons were in the same plane and if Altair 4 had an axial tilt about the same as Earth's, the moons would be positioned as shown below whenever they were close to being aligned in the sky, with the nearer of the two (whichever one that is) close to eclipsing the other.

If the small moon is fast and close, it would eclipse the larger. But if the small moon is actually larger than the "big moon" but in a higher orbit, it would be eclipsed by the one that looks larger, even though it actually might not be.

Jeez, ain't cosmology weird? Confused

I'll present this new version for discussion and constructive criticism. (Click to see a bigger version.)




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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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