Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Captain's Library: MOONTRAP Conclusion

Discovering a huge derelict alien spacecraft orbiting Earth, astronauts Jason Grant and Ray Tanner bring back to NASA the corpse of a humanoid alien and an inert pod/egg...which doesn't stay inert!
It opens, unleashing a cybernetic life-form which cannibalizes surrounding technology to rebuild itself into a death-dealing robot.
Narrowly-defeating the automaton, scientists deduce from particles on the pod and corpse that they had previously been on the Moon, specifically Prometheus Crater.
Grant and Tanner lead a hastily-assembled mission to the lunar site, where they find a half-buried alien base...and a female alien in suspended animation, whom they revive.
Unfortunately, more of the hostile robots are also re-activated.
The astronauts and alien head for the NASA lunar lander to escape, only to find the spacecraft gone and tracks showing the direction it was dragged...
 To date, there's been no MoonTrap II.
In fact, it's not even available on commercial DVD!
Pity...
Here's the credits page for the adaptation...
The movie's writer, Tex Ragsdale also penned the comic adaptation.
Tomorrow we'll present the background info on this amazing little flick, including the trailer.
In the meantime, here's a sketch to pique your interest...

or have a look at these MoonTrap collectibles from Amazon...

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Captain's Library: MOONTRAP Part One

With Apollo 18, about a secret trip to the Moon to investigate aliens, opening this week...
...I thought we'd look at another movie with a similar theme that has been all-but-forgotten...
Stranded on the Moon with a beautiful alien and killer robots!
If this was how the last couple of Apollo flights had gone, we'd still have a space program!
Tomorrow, the astounding conclusion along with some kool trivia about this "lost" flick, such as "why do the two lead characters look like Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig?"!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Captain's Library: MOON ZERO TWO Conclusion

Clementine Taplin arrives on the Moon and hires down-on-his-luck, former hot-shot space pilot Bill Kemp to find her space-miner brother, Wally.
Kemp considers doing it while he completes another job: diverting an asteroid composed primarily of sapphire to crash on an unoccupied area of the moon so it can be mined.
He succeeds, barely surviving the perilous task.
Returning to the Moon, the pilot is warned not to help Clementine.
Not the sort to bow to threats, Kemp takes the job and he and Taplin go in search of her brother. They find him at his remote mining location...dead!
It's actually a pretty good film with a lot of kool elements including...
A real differentiation between "old style" 1970s-1999 tech used by the poor hero and 2020 tech used by rich villains!
Set and costume design motifs that proved so popular that they popped up for more than a decade on shows from UFO to Space:1999 to Starlost to Star Maidens to Blake's 7.
A nice snarky action-hero performance by extremely-underrated actor James Olsen, whose main fault seems to be having a receding hairline at a time when a full head of hair was more important than acting ability in film.
For lots more background and pix from the film, there's an absolutely amazing site covering all things MZ2 HERE!  Check it out!
and a special bonus...
Moon Zero Two: the Music Video!

Classic Comix and Movie Collectibles Store 
and these HTF Moon Zero Two items on Amazon...

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Captain's Library: MOON ZERO TWO Part 1

Cowboys & Aliens wasn't the first "Space Western"...
...though this psychedelic 1969 flick is more "Space" than "Western"!
Damn claim jumpers!
As you can see, life in 2021 (just ten years from now) is going to be rough!

Classic Comix and Movie Collectibles Store 
and these HTF Moon Zero Two items on Amazon...

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Captain's Library: CAPTAIN VIDEO "Time When Men Could Not Walk"

When a mysterious unknown force paralyzes the legs of everyone in the world...
..., only Captain Video can solve the mystery...we hope!
But, Dr Pauli won't stay incarcerated for long.
He never did much time behind bars either in the comic or the tv series.
Another comic story that reads like an actual tv show script with a minimum of sfx and lots of movie-serial style action.
George Evans both penciled and inked this story, still maintaining the "generic hero" look.

and the kool Captain Video stuff from Amazon, available below!