Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Outland (1981)

John Mollo, Costume Designer, gave propmaker; Andrew Ainsworth a free hand to produce the helmets and backpacks for this futuristic feature.  Like the whole of the film, the look is functional and lived-in with a dirty realism.   After all the story takes place on a mining colony on Io, Jupiter’s moon, where the men are extracting titanium from the airless vacuum of the planet’s surface so anything too swish or shinny is going to break the tone.  It’s not really sci-fi we’re selling here.
This is High Noon in Space with Sean Connery as the heal-digging-in sheriff who's going to make a stand and a difference.  And that star-casting is perhaps one of the reasons that there are a lot of little lights inside the helmet.  If you’re paying for Connery then you need to be able to see Connery behind the visor!
Watching this when it first came out bored me to distraction but you get a little older, tastes mature and now I happen to think it’s a minor classic with a timeless plot that translates through any genre.
The suits are not the most stunning ever designed but they went on to appear in a few other films and a British Airways TV commercial.

Steve

1 comment:

  1. I`ve found one of the last appearances [so far] of the Outland suits,its from the 1995[!] movie Project Shadowchaser III.
    Incredibly it features at least 6 of these suits!,which look to be rather complete,ie not just helmets.Tho it is funny that the suits external helmet lights dont appear to work as we see the actors carrying good old flashlights in their scenes,still the suits were about 14-15 years old at that point,so not that surprising.
    The movie looks like low budget garbage,basically the terminator in space.
    It stars Ricco Ross who played Frost ["I guess she dont like the cornbread,either."] in Aliens
    https://www.cinema.de/sites/default/files/styles/cin_landscape_650/public/sync/cms3.cinema.de/imgdb/import/dreams2/1000/766/6/1000766688.jpg?h=2e3693f5&itok=kZzfhmre
    https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjExZjM3MjgtNGQ3MC00NTBkLTg1ODctNDlmZTgyODc0YTc2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc0NjY1ODk@._V1_.jpg
    https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYzQwMDE1NGItNWFlNS00MWEyLTk0ZjYtMTExZGEzZDRmZjZhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc0NjY1ODk@._V1_.jpg

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