FESTIVE GREETINGS TO YOU ALL

BEST WISHES TO ALL OUR READERS and have a truly excellent scale time over the festive break. And of course, we also wish you a prosperous and productive 2020.

BIG 1:6 SCALE ROBOT B9 FROM THE ‘LOST IN SPACE’ TV SERIES

THE ROBOT B9 FROM THE 1960s TV series 'Lost in Space' is one of the best-known screen robots, though its role often seemed to consist mainly of flailing its arms around, while intoning the warning, “Danger, danger, Will Robinson.” However, Robot B9 is an iconic design and one that’s welcome as a 1:6 scale kit from Moebius Models.

SPRING IS HERE AND SO IS THE TOURIST SEASON: SO HOWZABOUT A MODEL-SPOTTING TRIP TO LONDON’S COVENT GARDEN?

A recent visit to the famed Covent Garden Piazza in London revealed that there are miniatures to be found in the unlikeliest places.

SAUCER SIGHTING: C-57D SPACE CRUISER FROM ‘FORBIDDEN PLANET’ ZOOMS IN FROM POLAR LIGHTS

Forbidden Planet, ‘the’ classic 1950s science-fiction movie, memorably gave us not only Robby the Robot, but also the C-57D Space Cruiser. Polar Lights has already issued a larger kit of this flying saucer, but has now come up with a brand new, half-size version to 1:144 scale.

ROBBY THE ROBOT FROM POLAR LIGHTS: HUMANOID MACHINE CARRIES ALTAIRA, THE LUSCIOUS SPACE-GIRL

Mat Irvine: Robby the Robot, mechanoid star of the classic movie ‘Forbidden Planet’ is now available as a 1:12 scale ‘Movie Poster Edition’ kit that depicts the space-girl Altaira in its arms.

ROBBY THE ROBOT KIT FROM THE MOVIE ‘FORBIDDEN PLANET’

Mat Irvine reflects
“Welcome to Altair IV gentlemen…” were the words of one of science fiction’s best-known robots, Robby, from the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, which had its first US screening on this day 54 years ago.

Forbidden Planet was a very loose reworking of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and if you feel inclined, you can find a movie parallel to all the play’s characters, not least the spirit Ariel, which takes on a more solid movie form as Robby the Robot.

In the scale model world, Robby is one of the classic kits that the original Aurora model company never made. Aurora had already produced the robot from the TV series 'Lost in Space', so Robby would have made a natural follow-on, especially as ‘he’ came first and the LiS design was influenced by Robby - not surprising, as it was created by Bob Kinoshita, one of Robby’s original designers.

Robby may not have appeared as an original Aurora kit, but this situation was rectified when the Polar Lights kit company came on the scene. One of its kits was a Robby the Robot to the same scale as the Aurora LiS robot, which Polar Lights had already recreated.

But a somewhat misleading aspect of the movie’s publicity was the poster, echoed on the box-art. Although voted ‘Fifth Best-Ever Movie Poster’ in a ‘Premier’ magazine poll, it shows Robby carrying Altaira, the daughter of scientist Dr Edward Morbius, in his arms. She wears a skimpy gold costume, and despite spending much of the movie changing from one costume to another, none of them were this shade of gold, and - also to the point - Robby never carried her like this at all!

However, this didn’t stop the doyen of figure modellers, Jimmy Flintstone, producing a simple resin kit representation of spacegirl Altaira, to the correct size and shape to be carried by the Polar Lights Robby. She is clad in a costume seen briefly, (which is both the scene length and nature of the costume), near the end of the movie. This costume is in pale blue metallic fabrics, not gold, and in a shade more used to being painted onto model cars. So it almost represents the movie poster - but not quite.

Robby has since been reissued by Round 2 Models, a US company that owns a family of brands, including the Polar Lights name. The kit comes without Altaira though - the Jimmy Flintstone figure I used here came from CultTVMan’s on-line shop.

My model shows Robby carrying Altaira on a simple scratchbuilt base I made, to represent the alien planet Altair IV, where the movie's events take place.

And Finally...
Forbidden Planet is one of those movies often quoted as being ‘down for a re-make’. Latest rumours are for a James Cameron project slated for 2011, though one has to wonder, ‘why?’

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1, 2 My builtup model of Robby carrying Altaira, and a closeup.
3 The Forbidden Planet poster.
4 Old Polar Lights box.
5 New version from Round 2 Models.

Visit Robby the robot at Round 2 Models here.

Visit Jimmy Flintstone Studios here.

Altaira is available from CultTVMan here.

UNIQUE HALLMARK CHRISTMAS KEEPSAKE ORNAMENTS OFFER SOUND AND LIGHT

Christmas is coming, and for those living in the US at least, it’s also time for the Hallmark Corporation’s annual Keepsake Ornaments to decorate the tree. Hallmark’s early Keepsake offerings (the line started in 1973) included Santas, fairies, elves, polar bears and the like. But today Keepsake subjects range across the spectrum.

Still, that’s good for us model fans, as Hallmark includes items that are much more interesting than a bunch of mere elves. 2009 includes sci-fi offerings such as the speaking Robby the Robot from the movie Forbidden Planet as featured by Mat Irvine in our video above. The picture shows another movie tie-in, the Ecto-1 Cadillac from Ghostbusters, to roughly 1:50 scale. It too has a good quality sound chip, this time with an excellent rendering of the Ghostbusters musical theme.

Earlier Hallmarks have included spacecraft and characters from Star Trek and Star Wars. You knew Christmas was changing forever when you were presented, not with a festive Santa, but a laser-firing Klingon Cruiser! Hallmark's earthbound styles of transportation currently include both American pickup trucks and classic American cars. Although the scales are not stated, they are pretty detailed representations.

Robby the Robot is in the ‘Nostalgia and Fun’ section of Hallmark’s Keepsake Ornaments site here.

To give you a feel for prices on older items, there’s a collectible Star Trek shuttlecraft on eBay here.

There are other collectible Forbidden Planet items to look at here, and Ghostbusters stuff here.

IRON MAN KITS FROM MOEBIUS MODELS

There are quite a few collectibles around for Iron Man, of Marvel comic and recent movie renown, but kits are not so common. However, Moebius Models has a nice pair of Iron Man figures to build.

The first Iron Man kit (top picture) is available now and stands some 230 mm (9 in) tall, on a rather tasty steampunk-style cogs-n-bits circular base. The Iron Man Mk II has a plated finish, and includes decals for the rivets. According to Moebius Models, the moulds for the kit are, “...engineered and cut directly from digital animation data used to make the Iron Man movie”, which sounds good to me.

If you haven’t seen it already, the movie is well worth seeing. I viewed it again recently on DVD and it’s a tightly-edited production, deserving of the near-$100 million USD taken on its premier box office weekend. The drop-dead gorgeous suit itself sums up many of my wish-fulfillment fantasies; ho hum, what a shame it’s not for real. Scriptwise, I reckon the movie (starring Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges) is somewhat deeper than the bangs ’n’ bullets trailer (above) indicates - or maybe that’s just me.

You can buy the DVD from Amazon here, view the Moebius kit at the Forbidden Planet store here, or directly at Moebius Models here.