ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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gort

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Start your day with the rigorous physical check up by a ver Good Doctor to make sure you're in good health.

This take your droids to the maintenance section and have them get their routine maintenance as well.

Have the tec guys make sure the old droids are checked out, like R2D2 and C3PO — as well the Grand Old Man of the group . . . TB the GRT.


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The Good Doctor (2017 - ?)




I started watching the current episodes of this show recently and got hooked. It's an insanely cool series!

I decided to start over from the beginning, so I got the firsts three DVDs of season 1 from Netflix, and I've been watching them for the last few days. One thing I noticed about the first season episodes are the special effects which show Dr. Sean Murphy surrounded by floating graphics which illustrate the activity in his genius brain.

Both the movie and TV series called Limitless did this too . . . and I love it! We also see this in the BBC series Sherlock to demonstrate the unique mental abilities of the master detective.

Sadly, I don't remember seeing any of that stuff in the episodes of the current season, and I suspect the show runners got lazy and decided to save money by cutting out all those expensive graphics.

Damn . . .

Well, at least I'm aware of the fact that as the series progresses I won't be seeing those snazzy FX that would be just perfect for a Star Trek series that used them to give us a peek into the minds of the Vulcan characters.
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Tobor the Great (1954)
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IMDB has 7 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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~ The film inspired a Tobor the Great comic book story series, written by Denis Gifford and with artwork by James Bleach; it appeared in Star Comics #1-2 (1954), from D Publications.

Note from me: I wonder if we could find copies of the cover and the artwork inside.

~ The original Tobor prop and remote control device is still in existence, having been stored away safely in a private collection for more than 50 years.

Note from me: I was wondering what ever happened to Tobor, and this is terrific news. I think Bob Burns is the owner now.

~ Tobor's design was the brainchild of Robert Kinoshita, the television and film effects man and prop designer. The designer would go on to design Robby the Robot for the classic 1956 film Forbidden Planet, as well as the B-9 Environmental Control Robot for the mid-1960s hit sci-fi television series Lost In Space.

Note from me: Wait a minute! This is incorrect!

I found a site called SCIFIST with an article by on-line blogger Janne Wass which actually mentions ME and the production sketch I enhanced using Butch's original photo!

Here's what the author of a very well-written article about Tobor says. (The words in boldface are done that way in the article as well.)
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Contrary to popular belief, the robot was not designed by Robert Kinoshita.

The only real evidence I have been able to find regarding the design of Tobor is a design sketch of the robot auctioned off after the death of the film’s art director Gabriel Scognamillo.

I present it to you below, courtesy of Bud Brewster on the brilliant Monster Kid Classic Horror Forum — he has received a crappy photo of it and enhanced it. The interesting bit here is that it is signed ”G. Scognamillo. 9/6/53”.





The robot in the film does differ from the sketch in a number of ways, but there’s no doubt that Scognamillo’s drawing is the blueprint for the robot that was actually built.

One of the reasons it was changed was probably that the sketch looks more like a suit than a robot, and the filmmakers probably wanted it bigger and clunkier, so that it wouldn’t immediately be recognized as a man in a suit. But the basic design is there: from the bucket-head and the carrot eyes to the front grill, the slanted shoulder joints and the platform shoes.

One possibility would be that Scognamillo made the design and turned it over to an uncredited Kinoshita to build. And this would be a great explanation if it wasn’t for the fact that we know who put the robot together as a practical suit; it was Mel Arnold, who also worked on Gort for The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Fred Barton, who has spent over three decades replicating old movie robots, including B9, Robby the Robot and Tobor, should know. And on his site he states that Tobor was indeed designed by Scognamillo and built by Arnold. I thought I’d put the question directly to him in an e-mail, and to my surprise, he replied the next day. And he confirms my suspicions:

“Kinoshita had ZERO involvement with Tobor. I knew Bob for many years. /…/ He had no involvement with Tobor in any capacity. I know he didn’t design it, and he never claimed he did.”

Barton also kindly provided me with yet another concept art photo by Scognamillo, and from this picture (featured below), it is instantly clear that Scognamillo’s design was what was put on screen. With some minor differences, this later concept art for Tobor is basically the robot that we see in the film.

A big thanks to Fred Barton!





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The article also says this:
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As a note regarding Tobor: please do not believe anything you read on the Wikipedia pages of Tobor or Here Comes Tobor, the authors of these articles have Tobor the Great and Captain Video mixed up.
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The incorrect claim in the IMDB item above was taken directly from the Production section of the Tobor the Great Wikipedia article.

So by God, I fixed it by replacing the false claim with the one below! I also submitted the same message to IMDB's trivia section.
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~ Contrary to popular belief, the robot was not designed by Robert Kinoshita, creator of Robby the Robot. According to both production sketches and "movie robot" authority Fred Barton, Tobor was designed by Gabriel Scognamillo and built by Mel Arnold, who also worked on Gort for The Day the Earth Stood Still._______________________________________________

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

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I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me that poor Mark Hammil's face was changed dramatically by his accident, despite all the articles quoted above which claim the injuries weren't all that extensive.

In a word . . . bullshit.


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