Red Dwarf S2 Episode 3 - Thanks for the Memory (1988)

The crew wake up after celebrating the anniversary of Rimmer's death, only to find four whole days have passed and they've got no memories of the previous four days. But when they find the ship's black box on a moon, they slowly learn what happened over the past four days.


Steve

Red Dwarf S1 Episode 5 - Confidence and Paranoia (1988)

Lister contracts a mutated pneumonia virus. The hallucinations of his fevered brain materialise in solid form, and suddenly the ship is beset by herring rain and exploding 16th century Mayor of Warsaw. When his fever breaks, Lister wakes up to find he has created personifications of his confidence and paranoia.

Steve

Murder on the Moon (1989)

Murder on the Moon is a crime/sci-fi TV movie from 1989, the plot of which is that after a nuclear war on Earth, the Soviet Union and the U.S. both establish outposts on the moon. When a murder occurs, both U.S. and Soviet investigators are forced to work on the case together.     Now if that's familiar but the name is not then you may have seen it in the US under the titles: Murder by Moonlight or  Murder in Space.  Not to be confused with Murder In Space (1985) of which I might blog later. Thanks to a reminder by faithful blog follower Tim, I now remember having watched this back in the day.  I don't remember it being all that good but then I don't actually remember too much about it at all. It's a little bit more interesting to me now as I can see that those are the suits from Outland that have gone on to have quite a long career for a post 70's spacesuit.   Steve

Radio WM (1982)

Chris Phipps as a Radio WM DJ in 1982, wearing a spacesuit from the Sean Connery film Outland.
.....I'm not quite sure why but its a nice picture

Red Dwarf (1988)

The cult TV show from the BBC ran from 1988 to 1999 and was then briefly resurrected for the Easter weekend of 2009.  In total then that all adds up to eight and bit series worth of comedy sci-fi which in its self is quite impressive.

I don’t know how I feel about the show any more.  I was there from the start and although the production values got better and better as it went along I’m not sure the jokes did.  Or maybe it just kept telling the same jokes but with more sophisticated delivery, either way it out-stayed its welcome in my house and I never bothered to watch the 09 specials.  And with all that said I do feel the urge to acknowledge that it had a great original premise, a good cast of characters and riffed off its sit com roots as much as its sci-fi.

Anyway we’ll be back round this way more than once as the show chucked up a number of different space suits over the years.  We’ll start with this one though seen briefly but repeatedly in the show’s opening credits.

On closer inspection; yes it is an Outland helmet and possibly an Outland backpack (worn at the front in order make room for the paint cylinders on Lister’s back).

 

Steve

Morons from Outer Space (1985)

Morons from Outer Space is a comedy/sci-fi film directed by Mike Hodges and starring amongst others, BBC television's humorous double act of Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith.  There’s nothing especially interesting or noteworthy about it....  You may chuckle a bit but you’ll never get the hour 'n' half of your life back!

And that's about it really except to say; that yes, those are indeed the Outland backpacks and space helmets making a return to the big screen.  But do note that those; lots-of-glittery-little-tiny-lights at the front, ideal for illuminating the moviestar features of Sean Connery, have all been replaced with some kind of unflattering overhead lamp more in keeping with the less bankable features of a television personality.

It seems that film, much like life, is unfair and maybe that is one of the reasons that this man soon took up work on the other side of the camera.

Steve

Concord Ad (1989)

I found this while looking for something else. It's a British Airways television advert for Concord.  It's funny how some futures so quickly become the past.

R.I.P. Concord

What I was actually trying to track down was the use of the Outland helmets which were apparently also featured in a TV ad for British Airways... but not this one

I've got this so far:

which reveals little visually although it did jog the memory and I now recall seeing it at time; it had a sort of 2001 vibe.  I'll keep searching

Steve

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