ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Pow created impressive posts for The Invaders, SeaQuest, and [i]War Eagles[/i[ the unmade project of Willis O'Brien's that would have been spectacular, as shown by the behind-the-scenes photos and preproduction artwork I posted in the comment above Pow's[/color], like the one below.

If only . . . well, you know.




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War Eagles (1938-1939)

Thanks so much for posting these terrific pre~production storyboard renderings along with photos of test footage for what would have been a magnificent film, Bud.

I strongly agree with the comments posted here that the film world took an enormous loss when "War Eagles" collapsed in its pre~production stages.

I don't know if it would have been as highly revered a movie by fans and critics as "King Kong" is; but I have no doubt that it would have left a lasting mark in film history and forged its own impact upon audiences and critics.

Sadly, the demise of the production had a number of obstacles going against it from the get-go.

Pre-war studio politics was one such issue. At the time most of the studios were unwilling to produce a film such as "War Eagles" where the plot established Nazis as a vicious enemy.

The reason being that the studios feared alienating the lucrative European market for their movies...and Germany in particular prior to the outbreak of WW II.

So studio interest in "War Eagles" was minimal at best.

It was during the pre~production that producer Merian C.Cooper decided to abandon the project. He joined the Flying Tigers air group based in China.

Cooper's leaving sealed the film's fate even though he & stop~motion animator legend Willis O'Brien had gotten quite far along with scripts written by Cyril Hume (MGM's Tarzan films, Forbidden Planet), storyboards as seen here thanks to Bud, and special effects test footage that also has posted photos here thanks to Bud once more.

Our other stop~motion animator legend, Ray Harryhausen, first met his future mentor, Willis O'Brien, during the pre~production of "War Eagle."

According to Ray, writer Cyril Hume had to rewrite large portions of his script for "War Eagles" three time altering the hero from a professor to a young pilot.

Synopsis for War Eagles.

Slim is a young pilot who, while flying over Antarctica, encounters a severe fog bank which causes Slim to crash land into a valley enclosed by mountains and warmed by volcanic activity.

Slim is discovered by a native girl, Naru, who introduces him to her tribe.

Naru's tribe are descendants of a Viking called Einar who came to this hidden valley many thousands of years before.

The Viking warriors have managed to tame and ride upon giant eagles, which they call Erns.

Slim is able to capture and master his own Ern which impresses the Vikings and they adopt Slim into their tribe.

Now a full-fledged member, Slim helps the tribe to destroy a herd of allosaurus that have terrorized the tribe for centuries.

Working for months to repair his plane's radio, Slim is finally able to get it to function.

What he then hears over the radio astounds him: a fleet of Nazi Zeppelins is attacking New York City. And what's more, they have a powerful electromagnetic pulse weapon that has disabled all electricity, including military plane engines.

Slim, along with his Viking tribesmen, heads for NYC where they encounter a particularly massive German airship that has the powerful electric neutralizing weapon.

A fierce dogfight then takes place between the war birds & their masters against the Nazi Zeppelins over Manhattan.

Slim and his new found friends defeat the enemy, and the retreating airships are now pursued out over the Atlantic Ocean by the U.S. military planes with their now revived aircraft.

The final scene is of Slim, Naru, and a white eagle on the Statue of Liberty watching the fleeing Zeppelins.

Over the years Ray Harryhausen would bring up Obies "War Eagles" whenever he was having a meeting with movie studio executives to discuss future projects.

Ray's longtime producer, Charles Schneer, who was very interested in producing "War Eagles,'' was able to obtain the original three scripts for "War Eagles" from the MGM library.

After reading the scripts, MGM told Ray & Charles that the concept was too old-fashioned.

In one sense I can see MGM's point regarding "War Eagles."

Shooting the film in the 1970s & early 1980s simply would not have had the same power and meaning compared to making the film pre-WW II when Germany's threat was all too real.

Now with World War II decades behind us, Adolph Hitler's Third Reich was long buried in the dust.

Hitler and his regime were done often in film and on television so as to almost become a cliche.

"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Magnum P.I." and other TV series over the years had episodes about Nazi officers who had escaped and gone underground at the end of WW II.

Heck, we even had the sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" which was about a German P.O.W.Camp.

So, Nazis as a ruthless foe became oft used fodder for film & TV script writers.

In the "Star Trek" episode "Patterns of Force," Kirk and his Enterprise crew encounter a Nazi culture on the alien planet of Ekos. The evil political system was recreated by a Federation of Planets historian who was sent to the planet in order to secretly observe but not interfere with the population.

On "Mission:Impossible" we had the episode "The Legacy" from January 7, 1967. The IMF team are out to stop the sons of Hitler's most trusted officers from locating a vast treasure which they intend to utilize in order to create a Fourth Reich.

In another "M:I" episode we have an episode where Hitler's former top Nazis are gathering in South America where they plan to revive Nazism.

If "War Eagles" had been resurrected by Ray & Charles years after the concept was first proposed, it would have most certainly been an entertaining and exciting film.

It just would not have had the same impact with the Nazis as the ''heavy'' as it would have when the idea was first originated.

Now, you could have made it a period piece in the '70s or '80s by having the events take place in 1939-40 exactly as they were in Cyril Hume's scripts.

Worked for Indiana Jones just fine.

It's just that if the movie was produced pre-WW II it would have had a profound resonance and historical propaganda that could only have been found in that era.
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The Invaders (1967 - 1968)

More Invaders Stuff.

The music by composer Dominic Frontiere created for "The Outer Limits" episode "The Form of Things Unknown" was also used on TI TV series.

BTW, That episode of TOL also served as a backdoor pilot for a weekly TV show. The producers of TOL wanted to also do another anthology TV series. Unlike TOL, this new show would have been fantasy-based instead of sci~fi based like TOL.

On "Lost In Space," actress Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson) tells how all the female cast members staged a silent protest over the fact that they felt the women were not given enough to do on that show.

June Lockhart (Maureen Robinson), Marta Kristen (Judy Robinson), and Angela did a scene where they were standing lined up and all of 'em extended their pinky finger just like the aliens on TI.

Angela said that it went unnoticed by the director but did not indicate which episode they did this on.

The crooked finger concept that was created for TI rarely would show up on the series second season.

TI creators Larry Cohen said that "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Invaders from Mars" were his inspirations when he came up with TI.

Alfred Hitchcock was also an inspiration for LC.

Larry always liked the lone man in jeopardy theme that was present in such AH films as "The 39 Steps" (1939), "Saboteur'' (1942), and "North by Northwest'' (1959).

The plot where an innocent man sees or discovers something dangerous but no one else is present when it happens, nor believes the man, was always intriguing to Larry.

During the run of TI we never learned about life on the aliens' world. We never learned the name of their planet or even their species.

Even though we do learn in the opening narration that the invaders home world is dying, we still don't know exactly why that is happening to their planet.

TI creator Larry Cohen also had created the TV western "Branded" starring Chuck Connors.

Cohen said the "Branded" was an allegory for the Hollywood Blacklist that took place in the 1950's.

TI was his allegory for the Communist paranoia that infused America at one time.

The Quinn Martin TV shows always were of high production values which QM insisted upon at all times.

QM would pay higher salaries to writers, directors, and actors compared to most other TV shows on at that time.

Such salaries would attract performers who rarely did television.

QM was somewhat uncomfortable with TI as it really wasn't his thing. QM shows were largely about detectives & law enforcement and not sci~fi.

QM produced TI because he had a contract with the ABC network who told him that if he would accept producing the show, then ABC would guarantee they'd place it on their mid-season TV schedule.

QM shows were pretty black & white regarding content. Doing a quirky, paranoid, and covertly political fantasy was most certainly not QM's style.

TI producers Alan Armer & Anthony Spinner did seek out established science-fiction writers to script TI.

According to them they said that oddly enough the sci~fi authors they talked to just did not know how to write for TV.

I've always wondered about that fact. I have read that because someone is a sensational sci~fi book author that their talent doesn't always translate well to writing scripted TV.

I've also read that such authors also have such vivid imaginations that the scripts they submit are so full of incredible ideas that it cannot possibly be produced on a TV budget.

Some of their concepts can also be so wild that the producers of a TV series just can't grasp these ideas, or feels the audience won't catch on.

Larry Cohen wanted to keep the alien's gadgetry off-screen as much as possible and create an aura of mystery about them for the series.

Larry Cohen had nothing to do with his creation once QM Productions took over the show.

Cohen would offer up advice---largely ignored by the producers---for the show.

Cohen felt that there were too many aliens in each episode and they became jokes as they were easily killed every week.

Other than the pilot episode where we see the alien's space ship, QM had no plans to have the ships appear anymore on the series.

"The Trial" which is considered one of the more sophisticated episodes was born of desperation.

A writer did not deliver his promised script to the production.

The producers had to quickly crank out a script for that week and it was one of the best ever done.

On the thirty-first episode, "The Believers," we see that David Vincent no longer faces the alien threat alone.

He meets with a group of wealthy & powerful individuals who are now working with Vincent against the invaders.

The idea behind that was not from the producers. ABC insisted that Vincent receive help. The group would explain where Vincent would get financial backing and resources in order to wage war against the aliens.

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SeaQuest DSV (1993-1996)

[ Yet another aspect of SQ DSV's production I like are the submariners uniforms.

On so many sci~fi TV series we see the cast wearing outfits that appear to be uncomfortable & thus unrealistic to be working in every day. Even if the uniform design is a sharp looking one, if you have to pour a person into it, it appears as impractical to have to wear.

The uniforms in the early years of ST:TNG were these one-piece tight spandex form fitting clothes.

Came off more like a superhero costume.

They looked awkward and stiff and like something I just could not buy into as what humans would actually wear, even centuries from now.

The SQ uniforms are like a military jet pilot's flight suit.

It's a one-piece uniform but relaxed enough in its fit to look like you could work in 'em on a shift each day.

The turtleneck color indicated what section of the sub that individual was associated with on the boat.

White was command, red was technical for example.

Patch on the right shoulder indicated rank, patch on the left was the cool symbol for the UEO. On the left side of the upper chest was the name of the rank, name of the individual & number for the SQ which was 4600.
On the right side of the upper chest was the nifty looking patch for the submarine which was a triangle with a hammerhead shark inside it and the letters SeaQuest written across the middle of the triangle.

All-and-all, they were very believable uniforms.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)