Star Wars WTF?

The city of Wolfsburg—in Germany—is currently hosting what may be the worst Star Wars exhibition ever.

A few years ago I went to see the proper Star Wars exhibition at County Hall in London (see here) and it was pretty damned cool. But this one in Germany - which costs around £8 to get into - looks more like a Louise Tussaud waxwork exhibition (see here and here).

Want to see more wonders like 'filthy Ewok on a mini-bike'? Watch this video (see below). It's in German and the fun stuff starts at 4mins 15scs when the guy visits the exhibit.

Weekend Wonders #4 - Curious History

This week's column from the Sunday People.

When I watched cowboy films as a child it never occurred to me that the ‘Wild West’ happened during the Victorian era. But it did, of course. The most commonly worn hat in America at that time wasn’t the Stetson; it was the Bowler. And Billy the Kid was killed in 1881, the same year that the first Boer War ended and the first ever electric street lights were switched on in Godalming, Surrey.
Interestingly, Pablo Picasso was born the same year that Billy the Kid died (1881), and died in the same year that Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon (1973).

It’s curious how historical events that are unrelated to each other seem ‘wrong’ when placed side by side. For example, we think of the guillotine as something from long ago but the last time it was used to execute someone in France was in the same year that Star Wars came out – 1977. The last public execution by guillotine was in 1939 and was witnessed by movie star Christopher Lee, who was 17 at the time.

The last claimed sighting of a Dodo was reported in 1688, just a year after Newton published his Three Laws of Motion, while the building of the great pyramids of Egypt began when there were still woolly mammoths strolling about Siberia. And, despite many Americans visiting the UK to soak up the history, the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) is actually 11 years older than London’s Tower Bridge (1894).

Perhaps my favourite such fact is that Sir Bruce Forsyth was born in 1928, a whole year before Ann Frank. Oh, and Brucie has the world’s longest TV career; his first appearance was in 1939, the year that WW2 began and Batman first appeared in a comic.

Hasn’t he done well?

I'm so old ... I remember Bleep and Booster

I was sorting through my bookcase yesterday and came across this:

It's a Bleep and Booster annual from Christmas 1967. I can identify the year precisely, as this was a prize I won in Sunday School that year (the plate attesting to this fact is still there, along with the curious and very Cornish message 'Roland Woods is a tuss').

Yes, my real name is Stephen - Stevyn is a writerly affectation that helps me to maintain a pretty unique internet identity. And Stevyn is the Cornish spelling of Stephen. As for 'tuss' ... let me explain:



Now, let's get back to Bleep and Booster.

Are you old enough to remember it? Bleep and Booster was once a regular segment on the long-running BBC children's magazine programme Blue Peter. Created by writer Dorothy Smith and cartoonist William Timym (known as 'Tim') these gentle tales followed the fortunes of the eponymous alien and his human chum. Together they zipped around the galaxy in Space Freighter 9, enjoying a range of five minute long episodic adventures. These were animated for television by liberal used of pans and zooms over static images. Peter Hawkins, then best known as the voice of Captain Pugwash, narrated the stories with enthusiasm. He would later gain greater science fiction immortality as one of the voices of the Daleks throughout the 1960s.

Aside from its TV incarnation, Bleep and Booster also became a regular feature of the yearly Blue Peter Books and had several annuals of their own. Bleep and Booster was discontinued in 1977, I suspect because of Star Wars. Now we had Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, who needed the adventures of a rather twee Harry Potter lookalike and his three-eyed alien chum?

William Timyn, who died in 1990 aged 87, was a fine artist by trade; his wildlife drawings are beautiful and he also sculpted. He created the bronze bust of the first Blue Peter dog - Petra - for the Blue Peter garden and sculpted the statue of Guy the Gorilla for London Zoo.

Although almost forgotten now, Bleep and Booster did generate some early merchandise; apart from the annuals and books, there were jigsaws (see above) and Pelham Puppets made a range of marionettes including the spherical Rotundans and the mischievous Trugs who only behaved if they wore their hats.

I loved Bleep and Booster as a child. Curiously, in my head, I remember it being in shown in vivid colour on TV ... but that's my faulty memory at work, influenced by the annuals. When I was watching the show, it was definitely broadcast in black and white (we didn't get out first colour TV until 1974). I'm delighted to find that some fan has posted part of an episode on Youtube:



The show had a big impact on me (and on comedian Richard Herring if this story is anything to go by) and also inspired a band to adopt the name as theirs - one member of Bleep and Booster used to be in ABC.

It was science fiction from a more innocent age and, for British kids in the 1960s and 70s, essential TV viewing.

The Colganology Podcast - Episode 8 - Deconstructing Thunderbirds

This week - 13 minutes of silliness on the subject of Thunderbirds.



Transcript:

Hello again.

 

My grandchildren have recently discovered the joy of Thunderbirds and I'm so pleased. Thunderbirds was one of my favourite shows as a child. I had the toys and the books (no videos or DVDs back then) and I went to see the two Thunderbirds movies several times. I had several Viewmaster reels (remember them?) where I could see International Rescue at work in glorious 3D. I subscribed to TV21 and Countdown as both comics carried the Anderson shows plus other great stuff like Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People and The Avengers. That's the British Avengers of course; the one with the bowler hats and umbrellas.

But it’s very different watching it through adult eyes. I’m thoroughly enjoying the show all over again but the magic has been stripped away by the logic and knowledge that comes with adulthood. I'm too knowing now. Lift the soft and fluffy blanket of nostalgia that’s draped over the show and what remains is a seething cauldron of inconsistency and contradiction. I’ve been deconstructing Thunderbirds all week.

 

Frankly, I’m amazed I ever fell for any of it, even as a kid.

The trouble with working on TB5 was having to sleep outside on one of the two pole-mounted beds.

The show, as you doubtless know, follows the adventures of International Rescue; an entirely non profit-making, altruistic organisation with amazing technology at its disposal that flies around the world rescuing people from seemingly impossible-to-rescue-people-from situations.

In charge of International Rescue is grizzled, silver-haired, gruff-voiced Jeff Tracy. Well, he would be gruff wouldn’t he? He always has a fag on - the man practically chain-smokes in every episode. Even his radio is disguised as an ashtray. But I digress. Tracy, a retired US astronaut, has bought a small island in the South Pacific and has turned it into a family home … and a secret base. Quite how he did this is a complete mystery. Just look at the logistics involved. Firstly, there’s money.

Somehow, Jeff Tracy has funded the design, development, construction and continued operation of a fleet of amazingly futuristic aircraft, spaceships and highly specialised rescue vehicles. As we hear constantly, these machines are more technologically advanced than just about anything else on the planet. So just how rich is Jeff Tracy? Bear in mind, he’s also had to hollow out a South-Sea island to make the hangars and launch pads for his vehicles. And he’s built and equipped a space station. The real-life International Space Station is rumoured to have cost around $100 billion and that isn’t a patch on Thunderbird 5 which has artificial gravity and everything. Just sending the twin exploration rovers to Mars cost the US taxpayer $800 million. Jeff Tracy must have more dosh than Bill Gates and that bloke who owns IKEA combined.

And there must be ongoing costs too. Presumably, the Thunderbird craft drink fuel like it’s going out of fashion. Or they have atomic power. In which case, where is Jeff buying his Plutonium? He must have invested wisely is all I can say. I don’t suppose Neil Armstrong is doing quite so well.

I notice that there’s no Mrs Tracy … I do know that she was called Lucille and allegedly died due to complications during the birth of Alan, their fifth child. Maybe she was some kind of heiress? Or maybe Jeff had a huge insurance policy set up in her name …

Gordon Tracy in TB4 attempts to make some pocket money by salvaging Megatron from the sea floor.

However it happens, the funds were, and continue to be, obtained from somewhere. Which is just as well as the Tracy Island project must have cost gazillions and taken years to finish. And that raises another issue …

International Rescue is supposedly a top secret organisation. How they can be ‘top secret’ when the boys keep telling people their real names and wear no form of disguise? It’s beyond me. Presumably they went to school somewhere. Some fan sites and old annuals even have full biographies for the lads and, if they are to be believed, the brothers all went to university and some even did a stint in the military. So how can they possibly remain secretive? And you can’t tell me that no one ever asked any questions about the massive amounts of earth-moving equipment, tons of steel, millions of gallons of concrete, electronic components, rocket engines etc. that needed to be built and shipped to a small island? The CIA would have latched onto that like a shot.

There would have been hundreds of workers employed on construction … did none of the workers sell their story to the tabloids? Or did Jeff, like some modern-day pharaoh, have them all buried in the foundations of Thunderbird 1’s hangar, maybe along with his wife?

Thunderbird 3. You entered it through its bottom. While sat on a sofa.

Turning to Brains – or Homer Newton III as he is properly named – we find the man who designed the incredible Thunderbird machines. The man is a genius; a world-class scientist. But he’s no superman. He couldn’t have built the vehicles all by himself, surely? He would have needed an army of technicians, engineers, electricians, metal workers, fabricators, mathematicians... and it’s not just the five Thunderbirds; there’s a multitude of specialist rescue vehicles like the Mole and the Firefly. And there are many others in Thunderbird 2’s enigmatic pods that seem to be purposely designed for single, unique rescue operations – such as the four platform cars that were used in one episode to help an ailing supersonic passenger plane –Fireflash - land safely.

Fireflash. A disaster waiting to happen. Several times.

Which begs the question - How did International Rescue predict that vehicles like this would ever be needed or that such a disaster would occur? It’s almost as if they knew in advance. Can it be true?

Thunderbird 2. Pod 5 contained the Tracy Island septic tank.

International Rescue causing disasters deliberately? I direct you back to the evidence before us … strangely unaccountable fortunes … a missing wife … and what happened to all of the workers who helped Brains bring his designs to life … it must have been carnage on project completion day.

That aside – who maintains, fuels, cleans and fixes the machines now? If it takes a small army to service a regular passenger jet, I don’t see how Brains could do it all alone. Perhaps the Tracy boys help? It would give them something to do.

Alcohol and hard drugs were often the Tracy boys' only available form of recreation. Thankfully, Jeff thought to label all of the launch bays for those confusing 'tired and emotional' mornings after.

Life can’t be easy for five strapping lads stuck on an island with their dad. Sorry, four strapping lads; John Tracy seems to spend most of his life up in orbit on Thunderbird 5. The space station is International Rescue’s way of discovering who needs their help – its technology can monitor every frequency of radio and television transmission. Despite the series being set late in the 21st century, there’s never any mention of the internet but, presuming it exists, John would have access to every porn site on Earth. So at least he wouldn’t get bored.

But what of Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan? What do they do in their spare time? Yes, they have a pool – when it’s not folded away to let Thunderbird 1 take off – and there are sports facilities and a piano. But do they ever get out? Where do they meet ladies? Or men? The question must be asked. Alan seems to have a bit of a relationship with Tin Tin, daughter of the housekeeper Kyrano, but the other guys seem to be pretty celibate. I guess they could always pop over the mainland, wherever that is. I get the impression that it might be within striking distance of places like Bangkok and Hong Kong so maybe that’s where they get their kicks.

Who smells the nicest? Some estimates say that 1 in every 5 people is gay.

By the way, have you noticed how none of the Tracy boys look like each other? Was the late Lucille playing around? Or are they all actually adopted and have yet to find out? Now that would be a great episode. And how did Brains’ family react when he said that 'I'm going to go live on an island with five young single men'?

I’m not sure that Brains is the genius he’s made out to be anyway. They say that genius and madness are kissing cousins but, in Brains’ case, I suspect that they’re full-on penetrative doggy position cousins. He’s gone the long way round with all of his designs. Why all this nonsense of sliding chutes, revolving doors and elevator platforms to get to the vehicles when all he needed to do was install a simple lift? Even my local municipal car park has managed that.

 

And why have separate hangars for Thunderbirds 1 and 3? Why not launch both through the round house and save all the hassle of building hugely expensive and complex sliding swimming pools? Why didn’t he design Thunderbird 2 with a simple cargo bay and door like military transport aircraft? It would have been a lot simpler and certainly less time-consuming to simply load up a rescue vehicle and fly straight off instead of all of that tedious pod selection, loading, unloading and reloading business. This is the rescue business after all! Time is of the essence! Lives are at stake!

 

And while we’re talking Thunderbird 2 … would it really have been so hard to make the runway wide enough for the plane to trundle down? I mean to say … folding palm trees? The man is a loony. I assume it’s meant to be some kind of cunning disguise to stop people thinking, ‘Ooh, that’s a wide runway … I wonder if they keep TB2 in there’? But, as we’ve said already, the whole International Rescue set up is so badly organised that everyone must know who they are anyway. You can’t tell me that no one has ever noticed the number of vehicles coming and going from Tracy Island. There is such a thing as radar you know. And air traffic control. Someone must have seen them from space? There are thousands of satellites up there in orbit. Hasn’t any of them spotted the huge clouds of toxic fumes generated by the Thunderbirds’ frequent launches? Or the contrails? Isn’t Tracy Island on Google Earth?

If I had more time, I’d ask other questions such as where do they shop for food, clothing and cigarettes? Who made their ghastly uniforms? Why doesn’t The Hood – who has the ability to remotely control Kyrano by a form of hypnosis – simply get his half-brother to plant a bomb on the island? And why have an agent in England – the megaposh Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward – but none in any other countries? Particularly the dodgy ones? Why does everyone have enormous eyebrows and oddly non-expressive faces? And why can’t anyone walk through a doorway?

For sale: Small South Pacific Island. Riddled with underground chambers and tunnels. Would suit secret organisation or very large mole. Some rocket damage and radiation issues. Offers?

As I say, I was a huge fan of Thunderbirds as a child. And when my son was a kid in the early 1990s, he got hooked on the re-runs and I could enjoy the toys and comics all over again. I'm now going through my third childhood with my grandchildren. But I relise that I've lost something; I've lost the skill of seeing these programmes through a child’s eyes. And, in many ways, that was a huge shame.

It’s often said that modern child audiences are more sophisticated than we were. They don’t accept things at face value quite like my generation did back in 1960s and 70s. Kids are better informed these days, more worldly … and they can spot a plot-hole like it was painted day-glo pink. So while my childhood peers were happy to watch programmes like Stingray, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Joe 90 and Thunderbirds into our mid-teens, these days the same shows appeal to a much younger audience; the 5-10 year olds who haven’t yet figured out just how daft it all is.

Watching Thunderbirds as an adult is a disappointment … I was one of the first people in Cornwall to see the original Star Wars back in 1977. By sheer fluke, myself and my mates Huw Williams and Phil Gendall had travelled up to London for a week’s holiday staying with Huw’s big brother (a DJ). The trip was based around us visiting the Knebworth Festival to see bands like Brand X, Devo, Jefferson Starship, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and headlining act Genesis on their And then there were three tour. But for the rest of the week we had London to explore and, wandering into Leicester Square one fateful afternoon, we found Star Wars in its opening week and went to see it because it looked by far the most interesting film on offer. We were blown away. Completely gobsmacked. We went back home to Cornwall raving about this 'amazing film we’d seen called Space Battles or something like that'. In those days, films didn’t immediately go on general country-wide release so our schoolfriends didn’t see it for at least a month after we did. It was a magical time. Yet, when I went to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the magic had all gone. There was no excitement (though I’ll admit that the pod race was damned good). The adults sat there stony-faced and hugely disappointed. The kids, meanwhile, loved it. They cheered and laughed and booed. They even loved Jar Jar Binks. In fact, for many kids, Jar Jar was their favourite character.

The Tracy family pay a visit to Lady Penelope at her stately pile in Kent. L to R - Parker, Penny, Alan, Scott, Jeff, Tin Tin, Gordon, Brains, Virgil, John. John! Who's manning the space station?! Ah, must be Kyrano. He never got to go anywhere. Or maybe Lady Creighton-Ward didn't care much for Johnny Foriegner in the house.

It made me realise that, sadly, as we get older, the things we loved as children stay with us purely for sentimental reasons. We love the shows we grew up with because they take us back to our childhoods in a way that re-makes and sequels never can. George Lucas made three Star Wars films for kids. Those kids grew up and took their kids along to the cinema expecting Mr Lucas to thrill them all over again. But he didn’t. Lucas thrilled their kids. I heard something recently and I can't remember who said it - I think it was Ricky Gervais - but he said that 'No one actually wanted The Beatles to get back together; what they wanted was to be young again'. And I absolutely agree with that. Had The Beatles got back together again, the music would never have been as good as the music they created back in the Sixties.

So, yes, I still love Thunderbirds despite the fact that it’s a load of old toot really. It made me happy as a kid. It bolstered my interest in science and, just maybe, the positive role-models provided by the Tracy boys helped to make me a generally law-abiding and caring chap. It may even have pushed me into writing as, just a few years ago, I ended up working for Gerry Anderson himself … but that’s another story.

Watching Thunderbirds is a different experience at the age of 50 than it was when I was a child. I have to remind myself to suspend my disbelief and cynicism. I'd love to be able to see it again as I did years ago; through the eyes of a child. But I can't. I have to see it as a show designed for kids that has a strong moral message and some fantastic – if incredibly silly – machines.

Oop. Must rush. There’s another episode on in five minutes. I think it’s the one with the lost pyramid of Khamandides …

The Relentlessly Cheerful Art of James Hance

I think that if I were ever to meet the fiendishly talented Mr Hance we'd get on very well. He appears to share my sense of humour and my love of subverting genres and mixing and matching beloved characters from films, books and TV. His artwork is witty and delicious and annoyingly good. Look!

Do visit his website here. The man is very prolific and there's something there for almost anyone I reckon. Plus the proceeds from his posters and t-shirts and prints all go towards medical treatment for his daughter. So buy! Buy! Buy!

Jabbagpuss (and Princess Madeleia)

A new painting, just completed. This one was just screaming to be done. One day I happened to notice that Bagpuss, the eponymous hero of Oliver Postgate's lovely old TV series, is about the same shape as Jabba from Star Wars. That made Madeleine the rag doll his slave girl. Professor Yaffle and Gabriel the toad became mercenaries. And the mice on the mouse organ became snacks. It seemed so right. So I doodled it.

It seemed to work! And as there was space on the far left I also added a froglet and Mr Pogle from Pogle's Wood.  So, here's a stage by stage guide to how I painted it (click on pics to see larger versions):

It's my small tribute to the late, great Oliver Postgate who made my childhood - and the childhoods of millions of Brits - so much lovelier.

Five terrible films you should all see before you die ... if you survive them

I love bad music. I love bad poetry. I love bad films. I've featured them all at some time or other on this blog. But let me just qualify what I mean by bad; I mean something made in all seriousness by earnest and genuine people who believed that they were creating something of worth but which turned out to be gut-achingly hilarious. I'm talking about people like Theophile Marzials whose appalling poem 'A Tragedy' appeared on these pages just a few days ago. Or the execrable Mrs Miller who I wrote about back in 2007 (see here and more bad music here, here and here). If it's deliberately tongue-in-cheek, I have no interest.

So, what do I regard as the worst films ever made? That's a toughie. There are some truly terrible films. But if I stick with my original definition of 'bad' I can easily pick five films, all intended to be taken completely seriously, that are so bad they make laugh me so hard that a little bit of wee sometimes comes out. Here they are, in no particular order.

Plan 9 from Outer Space - the grandaddy of all bad films and Ed D Wood's enduring masterpiece. I probably don't need to tell you about star Bela Lugosi dying halfway through filming and all of the interior shots being done using Wood's wife's doctor with a cape over his face. Nor do I need to mention the hubcap flying saucers or the curious shifts between pitch-black night and sunny day. And I certainly won't labour the genius of lines like 'Saucers? You mean the kind from up there?' and 'One thing's for sure, Inspector Clay is dead, murdered, and somebody's responsible'. It's genius from start to finish. Watch it. Watch it now.



The Room - What can I say about Tommy Wiseau's film that hasn't already been said? It's a glorious assemblage of oddly-played scenes, bizarre line deliveries and over-the-top acting that wouldn't look out of place in a Primary School Nativity during a gas leak. Wiseau does everything in this film except write the music. And that's crap. You're tearing me apart Lisa!!!



The Giant Claw - I had to include this as the ambassador for every 1950s ridiculous monster. This giant rubber chicken with its ping-pong ball eyes, variable size and annoying screech is just ahead of the creatures in Robot Monster (ape suit with diving helmet), Creature from the Haunted Sea (Torn bin bags and more ping-pong balls), From Hell it Came (rubbish walking tree costume) and The Creeping Terror (basically three men and a carpet) in the race for crappiest beastie. Everything about this film is perfect. Perfectly bad.



Can't Stop the Music - What were the Village People (and Steve Guttenberg) thinking of when they made this horrible, horrible film? It's a disco-based film released in 1980 just as disco was dead and boasting the campest performances by straight actors since Duncan Norvelle first shouted 'Chase me!' The story is a mess throughout and most of the Village People's hits don't appear - despite the trailer suggesting they do. One high spot of the film is this bizarre performance by the late Glenn 'Leather Man' Hughes. Glorious.



What to choose for my fifth and final bad film? I can't choose modern straight-to-video stuff like Sharktopus or Mega Piranha as they're all a bit too knowing and obvious. Meanwhile there are endless 1950s B movies like They saved Hitler's Brain, Queen of Outer Space, Bride of the Monster, Cat Women of the Moon, It Conquered the World, Donovan's Brain, Nude on the Moon, Santa Claus versus The Martians and Arnold Swarzenegger's mumbling genre debut in Hercules in New York. But in the end I plumped for some 1980s ghastliness with The Ice Pirates.



The Ice Pirates is representative of a whole swathe of terrible 1980s post-Star Wars cash-in films such as Battle Beyond the Stars, Riders to the Stars, America 3000, Forbidden World, Galaxy of Terror and Space Rage. They appear to have been made on a budget of 47p each and some even recycled the same special effects sequences, costumes and spaceships and presumably thought that we wouldn't notice. What sets The Ice Pirates apart is that it's billed as a comedy and yet it's no more funny or awful than all of those other films I just mentioned. I suspect they decided on the comedy angle after seeing the audience reaction to the rushes. It was a toss-up between this and The Humanoid, which is deserving of special mention if only for Richard 'Jaws' Kiel's extraordinarily dull performance, Mrs Ringo Starr's topiary hairstyle, the Darth Vader look-alike made out of an old Samurai costume sprayed black (best line - 'My brother has made his army bloated with peace') and the heroine who, among the Zargons, Gorts and Xebots is reassuringly named Barbara Gibson.



Do check them all out if you ever get the chance. So bad they're good.

I've waited a lifetime for this film

2011 has been a poor year for genre films and what has made it to cinemas has been almost universally not great. So 2012 will see a glut of eagerly awaited films such as the Avengers, Ghostbusters 3, Men in Black 3, Wanted 2, The Amazing Spiderman, The Dark Knight Rises, Dredd, The Hobbit etc. In amongst them all are the two films I'm looking forward to most. They are both scheduled for release in March. The first is Aardman's new feature Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (see here). The second is John Carter. And I can't tell you how long I've waited for this.

Well, I can. And I'm going to.

As you know, I grew up in Cornwall during the 1960s and 70s. This was, of course, pre internet and mobile phones. There were no computer games and only three TV channels. From the age of 11 I went to school in Helston, a smallish town off the tourist trail that boasted one bookshop, a John Menzies and a couple of small tobacconist/newsagents. There are no motorways into Cornwall - the M5 starts and ends in North Devon - and the dual carriageway A30 and A38 are relatively modern. To get to Plymouth (in 'England' as my elders would have it) meant a 70 mile drive along single-lane A roads and windy B roads stuffed with caravans and tractors.

So, it's maybe not too surprising that we were a bit behind the times down there. Punk came and went when I was aged 16-17 and hardly impacted on us at all. Life of Brian was banned by all of our local councils and we had to go to Plymouth to see it. US comics rarely got to our shops and, if they did, they were sporadic and the chances of reading the complete run of a story were slim. Instead, I bought them for the artwork alone. There were no rock concerts (no venues nearer than Plymouth Poly) and more male voice choirs than you can beat away with a stick. Which is why, when I did discover something fantastical and exciting and mind-expanding, I leapt upon it like a starving man on a pasty.

The impact that Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books had on me as a young teenager is beyond enormous. I was immediately sucked into the world of Barsoom with its tall six-limbed green Tharks, multi-legged Thoats and Calots and bloodthirsty predatory Banths. There was an entire dynasty of characters to follow; John Carter and the Princess Dejah Thoris, their children Carthoris and Thuvia, Ulysses Paxton and more. Carter was heroic, chivalrous and brave, Thoris was lovely, noble and wise. The monsters were great, the stories were fabulous and Burroughs create an entire world that - if not very convincing or even biologically practical by modern standards - was coherent and well thought out. The John Carter books became my 'gateway drug' into  more serious sci fi like Frank Herbert's Dune and Asimov's Foundation books.

Being very art-fixated I always loved finding new interpretations of Barsoom. There were Bruce Pennington's and Richard Clifton-Dey's iconic paperback covers. There was Rodney Matthews' interpretation of the massive elephant-like Zitidars. Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben, Michael Whelan and Boris Vallejo all had their goes too (the Frazetta covers were amazing) and so did many others. Some were amazing, many were less so but I loved seeing them. I've peppered this post with some of them.

And, all the time, I waited for Hollywood to catch up and make the John Carter film. The Star Wars franchise came and went and the tall gangly cloners of Kamino reminded me of the tall green martians while the arena scene on Geonosis was so reminiscent of Carter's adventures. Burroughs' books inspired a generation of visionary film makers. Avatar showed just how far the CGI envelope could be pushed. Its floating mountains owed much to Roger Dean and its multi-legged Direhorses were Barsoomian Thoats in all but name. There was one pretty abortive attempt to actually make a Barsoom film in 2009 with a straight-to-video release called Princess of Mars starring ex-porn queen Traci Lords but, otherwise, Hollywood wasn't playing. Until now.



That's the trailer for Disney's John Carter, directed by the guy who directed Wall-E, Andrew Stanton. And music by Peter Gabriel - my favourite singer of all time. That has to be a sign, surely? It looks great. And yes, I understand that changes will need to be made to suit 21st century scientific convention and sexual politics but as long as they keep the adventure and the romance and the thrills intact, I'll be happy. A few stills and some concept art from the film have recently been released including the city of Helium, a 'White Ape' and a green Martian, probably Tars Tarkas:

I said at the start that I'd tell you how long I've waited for this film. It's been 40 years. I was 10 when I got my first copy of A Princess of Mars and I still have it. Some of you weren't even born when I first read it.

So please Mr Hollywood, I've waited this long. Make it worth my wait.

The Retro Art of Steve Thomas

As I was spoofing vintage travel posters yesterday, I really should mention the king of the medium - Steve Thomas. I love his retro Star Wars inspired travel posters. Here are a few of them:

He also does travel posters, T-shirts logo designs and all manner of retro artwork. It's lovely stuff. And there's a great sense of humour throughout it all.

His website is here and his blog is here. He has a shop too at Zazzle.