ALL SCI-FI

[Maurice]

As to the saucer design: All art is not just about what it is but when it was made.

Maybe discussed above, but The Invaders ship is clearly based on the Venusian "scout ship" popularized by the George Adamski hoax photos detailed here.


Photo also here.

The top of it was almost certainly the top of a Sears gasoline lantern as seen on page 11 of this document, possibly grafted onto parts of a chicken brooder lamp.

As well-known as that photo was at the time it almost certainly chosen as the basis for the show's craft because it would fit public conception of what such a vehicle ought to look like and "smell right".

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Great post, Maurice!

Yep, that silly contraption that was coobled together for the fake photo is definitely the "inspiration" (and I used the term loosely) for The Invaders saucer.







However, I must admit that I greatly admire the clever "landing gear" assembly which folds down from saucer's underside. And it looks great on my modified version, too!



A larger version of the saucer than the one I proposed could have a landing gear assembly that's smaller in relation to the saucer (as shown below), which still allowed room for crewmen to walk around beneath the ship, the way the crewmen of the C-57-D did.





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

[mach7]

I actually prefer the original TV version. It's clean and simple.

As Maurice points out it was heavily based on the Adamski hoax saucer.

The landing gear works 2 ways. It supports the ship on the ground but it also provides a degree of thermal protection on the underside of the ship while retracted.

The heavy landing gear could act like a heat shield in an none normal re-entry. Say a partial power or unpowered re-entry.
It also could act as a sort of blast shield in battle, protecting the exposed drive sections of the saucer.

Here is my build of the old Aurora kit along with some of my prop replicas I've built over the years.

[Pow]

Bruce & I are currently enjoying watching The Invaders episodes every Wednesday at 4:00pm. If you're wondering what noted television critic Cleveland Amory thought about the series, wonder no more.

TV Guide review for The Invaders, February 18, 1967, by Cleveland Amory.

Ever since Halloween of 1938, when Orson Welle's Martians invaded Grover's Mill, New Jersey, by radio — at which time an appreciable part of the population of New Jersey took to the hills — it has been only a matter of time before we would be invaded by television. And now that we have been, we think it's only fair to tell what these people are like.

In the first place they're "just like us" — which is bad news to begin with. In the second place, since their own planet "in a distant galaxy" is apparently doomed, they are studying us with the idea of making our planet theirs. You know the type — they think they own the earth. Finally, with their uncanny sense of timing, they have landed, it seems, just in time for the "Second Season" — not realizing, obviously, that it's been a tough TV year down here too.

The only one who stands between us and Them is architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), who was "lost one night on a lonely country road, looking for a shortcut he never found. . ." Does that remind you of anything? Well, you guessed it — The Invaders is executively produced by Quinn Martin, who gave us The Fugitive.

Anyway, Vincent not only has to contend with Them, he also has to contend with our people who are in the power of Them. Furthermore, you can't tell whether one of Them is one of Them or just in the power of Them unless they get headaches and take pills and things; and, even after you do get it all straight, our guess is that you're not even going to trust the commercials.

In our favorite Invaders episode so far, literally everything happened to Vincent. First, he was hit over the head by a couple of Mexicans. Then he met a strip teaser named Vikki (Suzanne Pleshette), who had actually seen Them. "All of a sudden," she said, "I saw the Thing. Lights flashing, like 20,000 jet engines, it was some kind of frantic!" Well, a girl like that, as you can imagine, is some kind of helpful! Anyway, it turns out she actually is one of Them. "You wanted to help me," he says. "Why? Why?" "You're living," she says. "Why don't you let it go at that? Just trust me." "I can't trust you," he says, "you're one of Them!" "All right," she says, "I'm an alien. But I am to Them too. Ever since I was little I had this difference. My father had it too."

Well, it's differences like that, we always say, that prove the need for better communication. But don't worry, there is hope. The only trouble is, once you shoot Them, they just disintegrate and leave no trace. So, afterwords, there is no evidence for poor Vincent that they were ever there in the first place. All in all, a great show for the kids, but for the rest of you, our advice is to join New Jersey and take to the hills.

[Pow]

Even when I disagree with Cleveland Amory, which can be often, he's entertaining with his reviews. His review for the Invaders takes a swipe at it when he concludes that the kids will enjoy the series, but the adults should flee to the hills.

The Invaders was a thoughtful and well written series. Kids may well have liked seeing the alien starship, weapons, and immolations. However, the rest of it was more sophisticated and adult than they would have comprehended and appreciated.

And he repeats the urban myth about how the Orson Welle's radio version of H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds frightened much of the American public who listened to the radio dramatization and totally bought into it. That has been perpetuated for decades. The reality is that while some folks thought we really were being invaded by creatures for Mars, many more realized it was merely a dramatic presentation. Probably even more weren't even listening to the show that night. The media, as it usually does, blew it all out of proportion regarding how large numbers of the populace were losing their minds over the fictional invasion and shooting at everything in sight. Sells newspapers better that way. The truth and news reports often don't go together. After all, the old saying still hold true today, bad news sells.

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Wow, Mike . . . thanks for transcribing Cleveland Amory's blantantly anti-science fiction review of this enjoyable series

I was appalled by the way he used bad writing to ridicule scenes in an episodes that we recently watched, just by making the script and the acting sound ridiculous. You and I know from our Wednesday chats that this isn't true.

Instead of making intelligent comments which criticized aspects of the series (the way you and I do during out Invaders chats), he just jumbled together portions of the dialog and made the scene sound witless and confusing!

Armory passed away in 1998. Too bad. You and I could have given the poor man writing lessons.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)