Steve
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Titan Find (1985)
Titan Find (AKA Creature) is, as far as I can remember, a big old rip-off of Alien. Klaus Kinski is about the only thing that sticks in my mind from seeing this back in the day but then Klaus is that kind of actor. On reflection the spacesuits seem rather nice. They're a little bit 2001 for the most part but there ain't nothing wrong with that. Here are a lot of pretty pictures.
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In the same way that I can picture outland taking place in the same universe as alien,I picture this one taking place in the same universe as galaxy of terror aka mindwarp,they both have that sort of low budget tho` still quite well done feel to them,personally I like william malones works I quite liked fear.com,but I think his best is the made for tv beware the fair haired child
ReplyDeleteNot had the pleasure of galaxy of terror so can't comment, however agree totally that Outland is set in the same universe as Alien. I'll watch out for William Malones other work, Thanks
ReplyDeletegalaxy of terror isnt too bad its by roger corman and was made at a time when he had some real talent working for him,it and battle beyond the stars were made in a deal with orion pictures and because of their backing the films had big budgets by corman standards.James cameron worked on this and even directed a couple of scenes,one of which got him his first short lived directing gig on piranha 2 the flying killers,the story goes that the scene that involved "maggots" actually meal worms crawling on a severed arm was having some problems,the meal worms just werent acting they just lay there doing nothing,so in desperation they added an electric current to the arm and it worked beautifully,cameron yelled action and the meal worms started wriggling he yelled cut and they stopped,all this was being observed by a couple of producers who naturally thought if this guy can get that sort of a performance out of worms imagine what he can do with people, cameron had hardly shot a scene on piranha 2 when sadly or perhaps luckily he was fired over "creative differences" he went back to hollywood and made the terminator and the rest is history.Some of the actors are interesting,you have erin moran joanie from happy days,robert englund of freddy kruger fame and the late zalman king known for his soft porn productions like wild orchard or the made for tv red shoe diaries which david duchovny starred in just before the x-files
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty terrible movie, but kind of fun if in the right frame of mind. Kinski is always fun to watch even when phoning in for a paycheck as he did here. He's an astonishing force of nature when given the opportunity--see Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre the Wrath of God if you want to be blown away by the man's talent and intensity. Unfortunately he was completely mad and virtually impossible to control (only Werner Herzog ever managed that, sometimes by pulling a gun on him) so he frittered away much of his talent on walk-on roles in b movies.
ReplyDeleteI've had the pleasure of the greater Kinski performances....as well as the cameos. As I say he's all I remember about Titan Find. except that I watched it at a free press screening and so it cost nothing but the time.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Herzog's documentary about Kinski "My Best Fiend?" It's a wonderful and illuminating film--it shows in equal measure the turbulence of their working relationship and the tremendous respect and affection they had for each other. I'm a huge Herzog fan--even love his most bizarre and inaccessible works like "Fata Morgana" and "Even Dwarfs Started Small." Interestingly, for someone with a reputation of a madman Herzog comes across as a very warm, tolerant teddy bear of a man. I also love his speaking voice.
ReplyDeleteI've not. It sounds good. I've a friend who's the big Herzog fan who feeds me stuff to watch as and when. I'll ask him if he's got it for a viewing.
ReplyDeleteI own one of the NTI suits from this movie, worn by Annette McCarthy as Dr. Wendy H. Oliver. It was just too cool to not get. I don't have the helmet or back pack just the soft parts and shoulder bells.
ReplyDeleteThe movie itself is pretty bad but very watchable, as I remember William did this as a college project or something like that. I could be wrong, seeing that there is a lot of actors that I recognize in it.
Galaxy Of Terror doesn't really have any spacesuits in it and neither does Forbidden World it's follow up per say. Forbidden World has the lead in one of the outfits from Galaxy Of Terror with a respirator and a cloth wrapped around his head. When watching this movie I tend to like the birthday suits of the two females since they do like to show those off.
I quick look on Google-image would confirm that fact. Now I want to see both of these films.
DeleteOn the subject of Titan Find, any thoughts on if the helmets were original or recycled. Also intrigued as to why one of them is very different to the others. Must confess I've not seen this other than on first release back in 1985.
From what I've read the NTI helmets were actually generated from a 2001 helmet and then the 2010 helmets were generated from a Titan Find AKA Creature NTI helmet. NTI comes from the patch located on the left arm, it's a little stylized but it reads NTI. Also to note is the cassette tape carrier seen in a few of those shots, it's the same type used in Star Trek TNG.
DeleteKlaus Kinski is from a German ship as I remember, it's been a little while maybe I should pull out the movie?
Watched it again the other night, you know it's not that bad of a movie. The helmets, there are three different styles The one in the first picture the one in the eighth and the 2001 style. The West German one the one in the first picture is the one Klaus Kinski wears. Their really is no explanation for the one pictured in the eighth photo.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly an official release of this movie on bluray was planned for earlier this year and was pulled just before the day it was to hit the shelfs.
Cheers for the comments. I could imagine them making a set of helmets for the film but not with variants. This makes me think the odd ones are recycled from somewhere else. Interesting...
DeleteWilliam is a collector so he might have had one or both of the other two helmets in his collection. Klaus's helmet looks familiar, I'll do some digging.
DeleteSteve said: "Well spotted Sir. I'll update both blogs at some point very soon. I knew I knew it but not from where. There appears to be at least 3 space helmet designs in Titan Find and its too cheap a film to have made any of them. Come on everyone; lets play find the Space helmet."
ReplyDeleteIn reference to my comment about the Titan Find Klaus Kinski helmet being from The Andromeda Strain, posted in the Andromeda Strain post.
The spacesuits are fairly well made, I was surprised when I looked mine over. The quality of the workmanship surpasses some of the Star Trek stuff I own. Some of the things that really say low budget is the creature costume and the flat floor planet surface.
ReplyDeleteso what do you think, they blew all the budget on the suits or they got lucky at the costume hire store?
DeleteDo you think Klaus brought his own helmet...he strikes me as that kind of eccentric actor
Even the sets are fairly good, First time director, I don't think they expected the other little bits not to show. Problem is harsh lighting always shows seams and bumps.
DeleteKlaus's suit is also different it's just meant to be the West German version of a spacesuit. I believe the Helmet was probably in William Mallone's collection since he owned all the stuff from Forbidden Planet, some has been filtering through Auctions here the past 15 or so years. The door lock pedestal, neon circuits are from F.P. and the big computer board from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea are his.
really getting an urge to watch this again
ReplyDeleteThat other helmet, the one with the smashed in faceplate, is bugging me. First where did you get that still? Second that things been bugging me because I've seen that before.....Kind of..... It's built off a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet , probably a replica. Another movie with Stormtrooper suit armor is Forbidden World, the robot is wearing an almost complete suit with helmet, heavy modified suit and helmet but still..
ReplyDeleteStill was a blow up from off the back of a DVD cover, however I've found a better image since which I'll be blogging this weekend hopefully, This is the one that bugs me because it's so unique a look I feel I know it as well.. We'll get to the bottom of it eventually, I'm sure
DeleteI now own the matching screen used helmet to my suit, #6. It's vacuformed with foam padding,The faceplate is yellowing. There is two electrical box fittings on the left jaw. There is also a small toggle switch that controlled the lights mounted in the lower right of the recess. The helmet has stage goo, AKA blood residue all over it. Overall it's pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteHad the chance to meet William Malone yesterday, brought my helmet and had him sign it. Talked for a little bit and confirmed that the Klaus helmet was in fact one from Andromeda Strain, he had regrets of repainting it. Picked up a new transfer of the movie from him as well.
ReplyDeleteVery cool, well done
DeleteAnother thing I`ve noticed is that the neck piece part of the storm trooper based helmet looks to be exactly the same as the one that kinski is wearing,if you compare the 12th pic in this post with the 4th pic in the 29th march post,then apart from the air hose being on the other side,which could just be because the pic is flipped,then its a dead ringer,not to mention that in a low budget pic like this recycling props for different scenes would be pretty standard.
ReplyDelete