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MJBivouac — The Derelict- Early Concept for Lost In Space
Published: 2014-02-14 02:40:32 +0000 UTC; Views: 2493; Favourites: 39; Downloads: 0
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This is a drawing done for a soon to be published fan produced book on the 60s TV series LOST IN SPACE.This "space craft" appeared in the second episode of the TV series. But it looked somewhat different than this. My drawing is based on some early rough sketches as to what the ship might have looked like prior to the final less organic design created for the show. The original rough sketches show the ship with very organic tentacle-like arms. This organic, squid-like style pre-dated designer H.R. Giger's bio-mechanical design work for Ridley Scott's groundbreaking science fiction film "ALIEN" by more than a decade. The final design of the DERELICT was much more hard-edged and mechanical looking, and probably much more acceptable to 60s TV audiences.
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Comments: 54
Thank you. It was a fun assignment.
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Well it was indeed an early concept of what the Derelict might look like. Sketches of it exist. I hope my drawing has made it a bit more tangible for some people.
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I loved LIS. I wish it had lasted into the fourth season. The tentacles would have been very eerie indeed, much more so than the cone\flower hatch that they ended up using. The first season had some incredible storytelling. The season season was good, but uneven with the "goofy" factor being brought in. The third season had some very good stories as well, but also some silly. It saddens me that "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" was the final episode.
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Too bad they couldn't have continued the first season stories of survival. So many possibilities with the lost civilization that was suggested in the first few episodes. And it never looked better in black and white. Too bad too bad.
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Yes, it is. They tried to recapture that a bit in the 3ed season, but then the silliness creeped back from the second season as well.
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Sadly by that time the show was considered nothing but a kids show. They vould never get back to the original premise.
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Sadly, it's true. Even if they had a fourth season, it would have still been goofy, or viewed as such. Had they tried the more serious tone, it wouldn't have worked.
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Hind-sight is 20/20. What if, what if, what if...
Maybe one of these days I will write my LOST IN SPACE novel and set things right.
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Well, lets see if I live long enough to actually do it.
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I hope you do! I hope you live a long life anyway!
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Although it might be easier to just drop dead tomorrow.
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Well, I hope that doesn't happen.
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Considering the level of SPFX technology that L.B. Abbott had available at that time, he would've had a hard time doing the Derelict ship as planned.
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I have to disagree strongly with you. I have no doubt this design could have been pulled off successfully. L.B.Abbott and his crew were long time MOVIE effects men. They had many an Oscar nomination and win under their belts. I suspect the design was changed more for budget, ease of construction and execution reasons than because they couldn't do it. While LIS was the most expensive TV show produced at the time, it still had a much tighter budget than most films did, and at some point they just had to go with what was faster and easier. Another consideration was that these organic tentacles may have been deemed just too weird for 60's TV audiences. TV at that time was all cowboys and cops. Outer space was a complete mystery to many people.
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I'm not downing L.B. and his crew. I respect his work as much as I do that of Eiji Tsuburaya or Ray Harryhausen, especially his work in "Fantastic Voyage" (The Proteus, if ever there was a sci fi ship that needed to be made into a plastic model kit...). I'm just taking in consideration many of the factors that you've stated above.
I guess I should have worded it better.
By the way, when's the book coming out?
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Book should be out later this year...LINK:
www.alphacontrolpress.biz/site…
The funny thing is, some key people on the Abbott crew were drawn out of retirement to pull duty on the 1960s Irwin Allen shows! They had originally created some excellent model work for the movie serials in the 30s and 40s.
As amazing as CG has become. I still get more excited about that great old model work by the L.B. Abbott crews.
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I think you're talking about Howard and Theodore Lydecker. They did the Jupiter crash landing for the pilot and the flying sub effects for 'VBS'. Better than any of the effects on 'Star Trek'.
Think about it, the only way I can think of making the Derelict more squid-like would be stop motion animation, which would run into the money and time thingies.
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Actually it's NOT 1950s at all. That's what was so unique about it. The 50s were all about long silver cigar-shaped craft with fins. Lost In Space never gets much design credit, but the show really did break away from the that old fashioned spaceship style that had dominated science fiction TV for so long. The Jupiter 2 was like nothing anyone had seen on TV before. Despite suffering from the "Tardis Effect", being larger on the inside than it was on the outside it was actually a very interesting design. BUT a year later Star Trek would come along and really blow everyone away with the now classic look of the ENTERPRISE, and Lost In Space became kind of the Anti-Star Trek and seemed to only deserve to be made fun of and was constantly and unfairly compared to Star Trek from then on.
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I do not know much about Lost in Space for the truth, the first science fiction movie I've ever seen is Star Wars, and from what I remember is perhaps the first film I ever saw at the cinema (at least the first of which has memory) . While in the first TV episodes of Star Trek (original series) shared the throne with the robot Go Nagai. Lost in space I think I met with that terrible movie of 1990 or thereabouts.
For me, the classic ship is the Star Destroyer
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Thanks VERY Much! Especially coming from you!!!
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????? I AM serious...love your stuff!
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Looks like it might have been influenced by Lovecraft.
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While not impossible, I have a feeling it owes more to squid or octopi.
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I will buy this book when it becomes available at retail.
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Well it will be available through Amazon and direct from the publisher. But won't actually be in any brick and mortar stores.
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www.alphacontrolpress.biz/site…
If this is your cup of tea, you'll find several other uninteresting books on all the Irwin Allen TV series'.
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Perhaps it will make all those lonely hours in the Ranger Lodge go by a bit faster.
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Shoot, man. ain't no free time at the Lodge. We are too busy in the bush. Our boys like being outside as much as possible. When we go indoors, we have to do boring stuff, like file report papers into the computer, etc. But at home, this will be a fine pastime, indeed, my friend. I thank you for the link.
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