General Sci-fi designs across various media

[tekering]

4 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

The late great Stan Winston was a design and engineering genius, and his Terminator design has long stood as one of my all-time favorite sci-fi robots.

Credit where credit's due: Stan Winston's team was responsible for the engineering and fabrication of the puppets, but he'd always maintained that the design was entirely James Cameron's work.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

Credit where credit's due: Stan Winston's team was responsible for the engineering and fabrication of the puppets, but he'd always maintained that the design was entirely James Cameron's work.

 

Looks like me trying to get to the last piece of frozen chocolate cream pie....

...those brussell sprouts in the freezer can be deadly! O.o

Edited Sunday at 02:51 AM by pengbuzz

[F-ZeroOne]

Couple toylines spring to mind here when it comes to SF designs, but not the ones everyone probably knows - "StarCom" and "MegaForce". I never had any of them but they stand out as having a relatively "realistic" (by I guess "Action Forc - ", excuse me, I mean "G.I. Joe" standards of "realistic") aesthetic for the time. Early "Britains Space" also arguably had a more "grounded", "2001" style look compared to the likes of say "Star Wars" or "Micronauts" - if you ignore the yellow/orange paint of the original "hero" vehicles (Britains normally made military, farm and construction vehicle toys so I wonder if they used what they had in stock... ).

And while I'm getting lyrical about old, obscure British toylines - "Action Man Space Ranger"!

Edited Sunday at 02:27 PM by F-ZeroOne

[F-ZeroOne]

ZOIDS! Piloted mecha dinosaurs! How have we not mentioned "Zoids" yet?!

[Big s]

7 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

"MegaForce"

I barely remember Megaforce other than being a joke on Southpark and the recent model kit. Surprised it’s actually popular in Japan, must be the flying bikes

[M'Kyuun]

18 hours ago, tekering said:

Credit where credit's due: Stan Winston's team was responsible for the engineering and fabrication of the puppets, but he'd always maintained that the design was entirely James Cameron's work.

I stand corrected with appreciation. I'd forgotten that Cameron, like Ridley Scott, was a talented artist in his own right (he actually drew Jack's portrait of Rose in Titanic), and based the Terminator on a dream he'd had. I wish I could dream so grandly or draw...at all. I'll amend my comments to say that Stan Winston and his talented team were geniuses at translating directors' ideas into two- or three-dimensional reality and often times animating them. More often than not, they provided the magic behind 'movie magic' and film history is the better for their work.

5 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

Couple toylines spring to mind here when it comes to SF designs, but not the ones everyone probably knows - "StarCom" and "MegaForce". I never had any of them but they stand out as having a relatively "realistic" (by I guess "Action Forc - ", excuse me, I mean "G.I. Joe" standards of "realistic") aesthetic for the time. Early "Britains Space" also arguably had a more "grounded", "2001" style look compared to the likes of say "Star Wars" or "Micronauts" - if you ignore the yellow/orange paint of the original "hero" vehicles (Britains normally made military, farm and construction vehicle toys so I wonder if they used what they had in stock... ).

And while I'm getting lyrical about old, obscure British toylines - "Action Man Space Ranger"!

 I was completely unaware of Kenner's MegaForce but Coleco's StarCom was an impressive toy line even by today's standards. Like you, I never owned toys from either line, although I did have a handful of Micro Machines, the toy line Kenner was competing with (poorly IMHO) with MegaForce. Galoob had them outclassed from the get-go. Touching back on StarCom, I think, Like MASK and some other retro properties being revived, I think StarCom would be an excellent contender for resuscitation. Moreover, as a LEGO Classic Space fan (we'll have to talk about those designs in a moment), as LEGO is moving to incorporate more tech into their sets, and with their recent move towards sci-fi in their City Space sets, I'd love to see them create sets in the spirit of StarCom with friction motors and such powering little elevators, platforms, and doors, as well as extendible wings and other features. I think something like that would add an additional dimension of playability, as well as function, to the extremely successful play pattern they enjoy through the construction medium.

Returning to LEGO Classic Space, and just LEGO Space thereafter, LEGO delivered a plethora of futuristic and sometimes outlandish sci-fi vehicles and playsets from 1978 with the initial batch of sets including the iconic Galaxy Explorer until 2013 with the loosely Starship Troopers inspired Galaxy Squad line, the last of the independent original sci-fi Space themes. Two distinct features set these sets apart from previous LEGO sets and set them on their path to immediate success: the introduction of specialized elements (often designed for cross-compatability with their other two intial themes, Town and Castle) and the iconic Minifigure. Although he had some heavily supervised help from his small team, Jens Nygaard Knudsen almost singlehandedly developed the first wave of 1978's Space line as well as inventing the Minifigure that would impart a much greater level of interactivity and playability with the sets. As sci-fi designs go, there are thirty-five years' worth of original designs to unpack, and the recent 2024 City Space sets which have fully leaned into sci-fi designs as well as the inclusion of aliens, two firsts in Town/City's long history of grounded Space sets. 

A quick snapshot : 1978's Galaxy Explorer, 1981 Starfleet Voyager, 1982 Mobile Rocket Transport, 1983 Galaxy Commander, 1986 Alien Moon Stalker, 1987 Futuron Star Defender 200, 1987 Blacktron Battrax, 1987 Blacktron Renegade, 1987 Polaris I Space Lab, 1987 Futuron Monorail transport System (the holy grail of many a Space fan), 1989 Space Police Spy Trak I, 1990 M-Tron Mega Core Magnetizer, 1991 Blacktron II Spectral Starguider, 1991 Aerial Intruder, 1992 Space Police II Solar Snooper, 1993 Ice planet 2002 Deep Freeze Defender, 1994 Spyrius Lunar launch Site, 1994 Unitron Monorail Transport Base, 1996 Explorien Starship, 1997 Robo Force Robo Raptor, 1997 UFO Alien Avenger, 1998 Insectoids Sonic Stinger, 2001 Life on Mars Recon Mech RP (notably LEGO's first true humanoid mecha sets and first non-minifig aliens), 2007 Mars Mission ETX Alien Mothership Assault (notable for the awful alien figs), 2007 MX-71 Recon Dropship, MT-61 Crystal Reaper, MT-201 Ultra-Drill Walker, 2009 Space Police 3 Container Heist, Hyper Speed Pursuit, Galactic Enforcer, Raid VPR (a Vic Viper inspired build, inspired by the ships in Gradius made popular by the late great NNENN), Undercover Cruiser, Lunar Limo  ( featuring LEGO's first and only pimp-inspired minifig😄), 2011 Alien Conquest Tripod Walker, Alien Mothership, Earth Defense HQ, 2013 Galaxy Squad Hive Crawler, Space Swarmer, CLS-89 Eradicator Mech, Vermin Vaporizer, 2022 10497 Galaxy Explorer (LEGO's 90th anniversary), 2024 City Space sets, all featuring sci-fi or futuristic designs akin to the old Space sets of yore, and finally, Friends Space, also leaning into sci-fi design. I hope this trend continues with City Space, or that the sci-fi element splits off once again into its own subtheme.

7 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

ZOIDS! Piloted mecha dinosaurs! How have we not mentioned "Zoids" yet?!

Holy cow, how could I forget Zoids?!!! I have a small army of those kits that I've accumulated and built over the decades, starting in the 80s when they first premiered. My Kotobukiya Shadow Fox still stands guard on my desk, and I have an unbuilt Kotobukiya Blade Liger that I bought about a decade ago sitting under my desk that I need to put together. Definitely one of the coolest robot lines, especially given the ability to swap weapons and accessories. The early kits were notable for their motorized movements, although I prefer the non-motorized highly articulated kits that emphasize posing and display. Great mention, @F-ZeroOne!

I'll note, too, the old Mego Microman toys circa 1979. One in particular that I owned was the Hornetroid, which had a manual flapping-wing mechanism, closing front jaws (using a fig to push in the tongue- brilliant!) an opening cockpit that could seat a Microman figure, folding landing gear, and removable weapons. It was such a unique and playable toy that it still holds a fond place in my memory.

[JB0]

Man, I remember StarCom. I never had any of the toys, but they were right up my alley, as was the cartoon(what little I remember of it).

Zoids is one of those franchises that for years I was just completely unsure how it failed to land on me. Learning more of the history in the last couple of years, I know how I missed it entirely... and it turns out I actually didn't, but only barely.
For a very brief time, the line was available in the US under the name RoboStrux. And I lusted after the RoboStrux toys, but never owned any(few in America did). But I definitely SAW them, and they stuck in the back of my mind for years and years. Every so often I'd see these toys in my head again and I would try to find out what they were, but "robot dinosaur toy" is NOT a useful search term.
When I started seeing Zoids stuff it looked weirdly familiar for some reason I couldn't place. This ALSO bugged me until I was looking at the series history for some unrelated reason and saw the variety of attempts made to sell it internationally and when I saw the RoboStrux name it pulled some truly ancient memories back out of the mental coffin they'd been consigned to in a huge "holy crap" moment. 

[Big s]

38 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Man, I remember StarCom. I never had any of the toys, but they were right up my alley, as was the cartoon(what little I remember of it).

I had a couple, but really wish I had more. It was a super cool concept almost more realistic ships and fighters with pilots that had magnetic feet to kinda give more of a zero g kinda feel. Also was just watching the intro for the show on YouTube about a month ago and that was actually pretty cool

[tekering]

We never had ZOIDS or StarCom where I grew up, but I remember being quite taken with ROBOTIX:

Despite sharing much of the writing and production staff (not the mention the voice cast) of Transformers and GI Joe, the short-lived Robotix cartoon was lackluster and all-but forgotten today. 😅

Edited yesterday at 04:09 AM by tekering

[Big s]

28 minutes ago, tekering said:

We never had ZOIDS or StarCom where I grew up, but I remember being quite taken with ROBOTIX:

Despite sharing much of the writing and production staff (not the mention the voice cast) of Transformers and GI Joe, the short-lived Robotix cartoon was lackluster and all-but forgotten today. 😅

Definitely a cool toy for the imagination. I only had a few as a kid, but a friend of mine would find less than complete sets at  cheap goodwill type places and would use the motors and stuff to make odd mechanical creations. I always wondered why he never got into the whole battling robot thing. He seemed to have had the concept long before that battle bots show aired

[F-ZeroOne]

8 hours ago, Big s said:

I barely remember Megaforce other than being a joke on Southpark and the recent model kit. Surprised it’s actually popular in Japan, must be the flying bikes

Hi, to the best of my knowledge the film called “MegaForce”and the toyline called “MegaForce” are completely unrelated. Presumably a trademark lapsed at some point, or given the state of toy licensing at the time, the toy producers were completely unaware.

Lego Space and Robotix are good shouts!

I always got the impression “Zoids” was more popular in the UK than the US. We got a pretty good comic book (I think it merged with “Spider-Man” in the UK eventually; it may just have ran as a back up strip there and I’m misremembering) with art by Steve Yeowell (possibly best known for his work at “2000AD” with “Zenith”) and I think one of the “big” comics writers also did scripts for it, I want to say Grant Morrison? The UK comic book continuity was more or less separate from the Japanese background material.

When I first started travelling to Japan, I used to see “Zoids” kits all the time (the original Tony releases, not the later even more detailed toys and model kits), really wish I’d picked up a few. I’ve frequented a few local toy fairs recently and they seem to be fairly scarce as “classic” toys go, I’ve only seen one out of half a dozen shows I’ve been to.

Edited yesterday at 06:53 AM by F-ZeroOne

[Big s]

1 hour ago, F-ZeroOne said:

I always got the impression “Zoids” was more popular in the UK than the US.

It was a fairly popular thing more so at hobby shops since the old zoids were more like wind up kits. I think robotix kinda took off a bit due to a cartoon and more options as far as what the machines could actually do, but price made them more rare unfortunately. 

[Scyla]

Thanks to this thread I remember some of the sci-fi media I consumed as a kid.

One thing that came to mind were the Yoko Tsuno comics by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup which might not be that well known by North-American sci-fi fans.

Especially the mechanical design of the vessels are memorable to me. With their large windscreens, small cockpit- and large propulsion-section is distinctly scientific fiction and their design really speaks to me:

[M'Kyuun]

12 hours ago, tekering said:

We never had ZOIDS or StarCom where I grew up, but I remember being quite taken with ROBOTIX:

Despite sharing much of the writing and production staff (not the mention the voice cast) of Transformers and GI Joe, the short-lived Robotix cartoon was lackluster and all-but forgotten today. 😅

I remember Robotix, both the show and the kits. I couldn't get into the former and never had any of the latter. That said, the toys looked cool, and back then anything involving robots or robotics was cool to me. Except the show, ironically. 

I had Zoids under both the Zoids and Robostrux brand names. I know I found some in stores throughout the 80s, 90s, and into the millennium, but I think I probably got one or two, especially my copy of Radox, from Sears or JC Penny catalogs. We didn't have TRU near us, but we did have a few dept stores which carried toys, but my mom didn't drive, so the catalogs were her go-tos for a lot of my toys at Christmas and birthdays. I still have this guy packed away in a box somewhere. I probably have 20-30 Zoids/Robostrux kits, mostly the small to medium ones, with Radox, IIRC, being the only large one I own. Well, my Kotobukiya Blade Liger will be on the larger side if I ever get around to building it. This toyline definitely struck a chord with me for both the engineering involved, but also all the mechanical details. How can you say no to robotic dinosaurs and insects, especially when they're done this well?

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

Thanks to this thread I remember some of the sci-fi media I consumed as a kid.

One thing that came to mind were the Yoko Tsuno comics by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup which might not be that well known by North-American sci-fi fans.

Especially the mechanical design of the vessels are memorable to me. With their large windscreens, small cockpit- and large propulsion-section is distinctly scientific fiction and their design really speaks to me:

This is definitely new to me, an American. Despite being slightly more cosmopolitan than the vast majority of my countrymen due to my military travels, there are always new things to learn which is why forums like this are such a fantastic medium. Those are some interesting designs, and the artist appears to have taken inspiration from 1950s and 60s aerospace designs like the XB-70 Valkyrie and perhaps some of the Gemini/Apollo stuff, with some artistic flare, of course. Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing!

Love that ship in the center, a nice precursor to the NASA orbiter. The spherical tanks, the opening cargo bay, and the long extended forward fuselage impart a sleek yet utilitarian aesthetic that makes for a believable craft. I'm not crazy about the yellow color (b/c yellow is a horrible, horrible color), but everything else is groovy.

Edited yesterday at 04:37 PM by M'Kyuun

[Mog]

One thing I’ve enjoyed with more recent sci-fi is how they’ve incorporated Newtonian motion into space battles.

The BSG Vipers with their herky-jerky moves when they suddenly change directions with RCS thrusters.

Or the ships in The Expanse flipping around halfway on their route to slow down.

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I remember Robotix, both the show and the kits. I couldn't get into the former and never had any of the latter. That said, the toys looked cool, and back then anything involving robots or robotics was cool to me. Except the show, ironically. 

I had Zoids under both the Zoids and Robostrux brand names. I know I found some in stores throughout the 80s, 90s, and into the millennium, but I think I probably got one or two, especially my copy of Radox, from Sears or JC Penny catalogs. We didn't have TRU near us, but we did have a few dept stores which carried toys, but my mom didn't drive, so the catalogs were her go-tos for a lot of my toys at Christmas and birthdays. I still have this guy packed away in a box somewhere. I probably have 20-30 Zoids/Robostrux kits, mostly the small to medium ones, with Radox, IIRC, being the only large one I own. Well, my Kotobukiya Blade Liger will be on the larger side if I ever get around to building it. This toyline definitely struck a chord with me for both the engineering involved, but also all the mechanical details. How can you say no to robotic dinosaurs and insects, especially when they're done this well?

This is definitely new to me, an American. Despite being slightly more cosmopolitan than the vast majority of my countrymen due to my military travels, there are always new things to learn which is why forums like this are such a fantastic medium. Those are some interesting designs, and the artist appears to have taken inspiration from 1950s and 60s aerospace designs like the XB-70 Valkyrie and perhaps some of the Gemini/Apollo stuff, with some artistic flare, of course. Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing!

Love that ship in the center, a nice precursor to the NASA orbiter. The spherical tanks, the opening cargo bay, and the long extended forward fuselage impart a sleek yet utilitarian aesthetic that makes for a believable craft. I'm not crazy about the yellow color (b/c yellow is a horrible, horrible color), but everything else is groovy.

According to Wikipedia the artist did build models of some of the designs to create credible drawings from all angles of the various ships in the comic. He is similar to Kawamori in this regard.

The designs with the elongated clear cockpit sections and beefy rear fuselages clearly speak to me (which is why I adore the VF-25 Armored Messiah) so there is a clear through line between the comic, the shmup ship designs to my love for the mecha design in Macross.

Speaking of shmups, my favorite ship is probably the one from the cover of the PAL version of Super R-Type (and the GameBoy version of R-Type); the NES Gradius cover art being a close second:

 

[Big s]

As far as side scrolling spaceship shooters, my favorite ended up being Einhander