Eve Of The War

Anyone remember this 1985 sci-fi/horror film about space vampires?

A joint US/British exploration team is on its way to intercept Halley's Comet (using a modified ESA/NASA shuttlecraft, the HMS Winston Churchill) when they discover a 150-mile long alien derelict near the comet. With communications to Earth blocked out by the comet's coma & tail, the mission commander elects to investigate the craft up close, citing that it'll be another 76 years before the opportunity will arise again. A four-person crew conducts an EVA search inside the enormous vessel, discovering dessicated corpses of human-sized bat-like creatures.
While the EVA crew explores inside, the remaining shuttle crew notices that part of the alien craft has become active, opening like a huge umbrella. This energy collector powers up the inside of the craft enough to open up a huge chamber full of crystaline sarcophogi; the EVA team enters, and discovers three perfectly preserved nude humanoids, two male and one female. They bring the 'human' aliens & one bat-corpse back to the shuttle and head off for Earth to report their amazing discovery.
A month later, the Churchill returns to Earth orbit, but on an automatic course that doesn't adjust for final re-entry. Communications to the Churchill aren't returned, and the worst is feard at ground control. The US launches shuttlecraft Columbia to rescue the Churchill's crew.
What the rescue crew finds aboard is ghastly: the Churchill has been completely gutted by fire, its crew killed. While part of the rescue crew tries to salvage the flight recordings, one of them discovers something amazing in the hold: the alien sarcophogi containing the three nude humanoids, still intact. They also discover that the Churchill's escape pod is missing, indicating that at least one crewperson may have survived.
The aliens are brought to the Space Research Centre in London to undergo analysis, including autopsy, while the search for the missing escape pod continues around the world. Startlingly, late at night, a guard discovers that the female alien is quite alive when she arises from the examining room table and walks over to him, her gaze hypnotising him into submission. She kisses him, and slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity, drains the very life energy from his body. A shrivelled corpse is all that remains once she's finished with him.
She nearly does the same thing to the SRC director who tries (too late) to come to the guard's aid, but she flees the scene as others rush in to stop her. Using energy blasts to overcome other guards in the building, she escapes into the night...
The male humanoids are placed under armed guard in case they, too, awaken, while an autopsy is immediately prepped for the drained guard. About two hours after the draining incident, just as the medical examiner is about to slice into the guard's corpse, the 'corpse' opens his eyes and sits up. Horrified, the medical examiner himself is lulled by the gaze of the guard, who drains the examiner's lifeforce just the way the female alien had drained his. This rejuvinates the guard's body, but not his mind; he his quickly sedated and quarantined, and the medical examiner's body is also put under quarantine. Apparently, if left unchecked, the cycle of draining could increase geometrically as one 'corpse' seeks out the lifeforce of another human, then two 'corpses' seek out two more victims, and so on.
The alien female is still at large as the males awaken & try to escape...

Any of this sound familiar? I'd seen this film in the late 1980's when it was heavily edited for American tv, and was instantly reminded of the old Hammer horror films I'd grown up with. It really felt like a British film, even though it was an American production & had an American lead (the Halley's Comet mission commander). It was also a bit confusing, as a lot of violence & nudity had to be edited out for the 'fair sensiblitilies' of the American audience. (We're such prudes over here!)
I longed for years to see an uncut version, and finally got around to buying it on DVD a month ago, merely 20+ years later. I get around to stuff, eventually!
Anyway, the version I have is not only uncut and letterboxed (so I get to see all the SFX & sets in their big-screen glory), it's got an extra 15 minutes or so not seen in US cinemas. Cool!
The film was enjoyable, and many of the plot gaps I'd guessed about over the years indeed were filled in by seeing the complete film. There are still a few plot holes; it isn't a perfect film and could have been written a little better, but overall I enjoyed it. Plus, this version has the original film score in it, by--of all people--Henry Mancini. A very molodic & sometimes quite stirring score it is. (The theme alone made me recently purchase the expanded-edition soundtrack CD).

Anyway, over the years, there have been two things that constantly stood out in my memory of this film: the female space vampire, portrayed by the luscious Mathilda May, and the shuttlecraft Churchill. Oh, I guess a third thing, too: the 'walking shriveled' zombies. I'm sure most men only remember the vampire, since she was naked for almost every scene in the film.
Ah, yes...
long pause
Oh, um, where was I? The vampire babe? Just before she tries to drain the SRC director, she tells him to "use my body." I actually said aloud while watching this scene "OK! You can drain my lifeforce any day!" I slept alone on the couch that night, since my wife wasn't too thrilled with my comment. (Just kidding, actually. I made sure she was in bed before I watched the film. )
It's not a great film, but it's a fun film that takes me back to those early-cable/pre-satellite days of midnight movies. And after all these years, I've finally got enough research material (ah, love the pause function of a DVD player) to build my own model Churchill. I'm kitbashing two NASA shuttle models in 1/144 scale to do it, and it's rather a fun project. I first had to figure out just how to fit the Churchill sets into a shuttle body, noting that the studio miniature was a bit longer than a real shuttle. Fortunately, the set designers had done that, too, so for me, I just had watch the Churchill scenes over and over to get the layout right. I'm making a partial interior (visible through the cockpit windows), so the research was fairly important.
I'll post some pics as progress continues.

Oh, and much as I'd love to sculpt a 1/1 scale Mathilda May space vampire babe, I'd probably be facing a divorce if I tried to do so! So no, that won't be forthcoming from me.

I also found the pause button very useful for this film, but strangely enough not for the 'Churchill' scenes.
I liked the idea and the special effects and of course Mathilda May (space vampire babe) but I think some of the acting was appalling and the story appeared to jump from a few infected people to the whole of London covered with Zombies, I know that that was the point but the transition was not done smoothly enough for my liking, they always shoved a commercial break on between those two scenes and it left you thinking "Did I miss something?!".
But yes a very enjoyable film and I look forward to seeing your model.

Got some work-in-progress pics off my camera, but my photo software seems to be dead. My computer's old & needs an upgrade, which might be causing the problem. (Been having lots of computer probs lately, as I've mentioned before. Sigh.)
I'll try to sort something out soon-ish & get some pics posted.

Meanwhile, I agree that some of the acting in Lifeforce is, to be charitable, flat. And the zombie-overrun London sequence at the end does seems to just come out of nowhere (it was far worse in the American TV edit, though). But for some reason, I still like this movie. Could have been better; like a diamond in the rough, I guess. Might have made for an excellent mini-series, with more room to develop details, background stories (the vampire legends) & characters, but without getting stretched out over an entire normal-length season.
Of course, I doubt that Ms May would have been shown in such... um... detail on TV.

Which just goes to show you're not familiar with British TV
But yes it would have made a good TV series, there are several points where they could have left an episode with a cliffhanger ending.

Oh, I should have specified American tv. We're slowly allowing more stuff to get shown, but we've a long way to go. I find it ironic (in a disturbing way) that on American tv, graphic violence is OK, but sex (or even nudity, sexual or non-sexual) is not. One can see graphic depictions of murders (including someone getting an icepick shoved into her ear and someone else coughing up blood from multiple bullets to the lungs), yet if a naked boob gets shown, OH MY GOD TURN IT OFF AND FINE THE PRODUCTION COMPANY!
As I said, we're prudes over here. Well, I don't include myself in that, but collectively we are...

*********

I shall try to upload those Churchill WIP pics tonight. The program crashed last time I tried.

The next few posts of mine are going to be a step-by-step log of my construction of the Churchill. But don't let that stop anyone from discussing the movie itself, nor elements thereof (the score, the sfx, what have you).

The website Cloudster has a great collection of movie & tv spacecraft (as well as real space), and there are many screen grabs of the Churchill there. http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/ ... illTop.htm This'll provide you with a good overview of the shuttle, but for my model building purposes, I found the DVD to be more helpful.

Anyway, to start things off, I submit photos of the many sketches I made prior to construction...








It's hard to read my notes on the sketches due to the reduced size of the images. Some of them are a little amusing, like "Make it fit!" or my pondering why a 12 person crew only has one escape pod. Oh, well.

Next, a series of pics showing the conversion of two space shuttle model kits into one Churchill.

On with the wings...



























And at this point, that's as far as construction has gotten. It hasn't taken long overall to work on this; it's just been strectched out over several days while waiting for glue to dry, and with work and family commitments interrupting. Oh, yeah, and I sleep on occasion, too!

I'll post more photos as I get more work done, and of course, I'll post pics of the completed & painted model.

Wow, this is looking good, you obviously spend a lot of time over the detail, I like the extending of the wings, had I been doing this, rather than filling the gaps in the wings with styrene card I would have probably just used something like an epoxy putty and sanded it smooth after, but I know that would not have lasted very long before cracks start appearing because the materials are not compatible, your way is better.

I also like the way you had to draw the Churchill diagonally across the page just to get it to fit. didn't you have a larger piece of paper?

Keep on posting I'm eager to see the final model but don't miss out any of the construction process, it's very interesting.

Oddly enough, I grabbed what I had on hand at the time to draw my sketches, which in this case was school notebook paper from one of my kids. I plan on making a clean set of drawings on larger paper after the construction process.

As for the wings, I was originally going to simply use the strip styrene along the top & bottom, but I figured that just wasn't enough surface area for the wing to hold; one bump knocks the model over, and crack goes the wing! Hopefully, my solution will keep the wings in place. Sure did add a bit of weight to the model, though!

I plan on doing some putty work to fill seams, but that'll be after the main construction is done, prior to painting on a primer coat. Then it'll be sanding and other minor 'tweaks' to the model before the 'real' painting goes on.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tonight, I added the canards to the nose section. They need a little refining after the glue dries overnight. I'll try to get pics up in a day.

Thanks for the compliments! I have fun building models, but I also like to share what I'm doing. In this case, I thought it'd be fun to document the construction process in case anyone else wants to see how I got what I got, and maybe inspire them to try it on their own. It's already had one interesting effect: you learned an alternative to all-putty extensions!
I love sharing/exchanging ideas, and possibly inspiring people in the process. That's one reason I go to model contests: not to win trophies, but to learn something new and to possibly teach something new.

I'd really like to do a WotW diorama or two using a tripod--er, I mean war machine--design of my own, but I have a lot of other projects to finish first. Plus, I keep having problems settling on a machine design I like...
Should the body go this way, or that way? Cages hang off the back in the first version, but could sort of wrap around the sides a bit too in the other. Oooo, wait, if I invert the whole thing, the 'tentacles' could come out from here, and the hood could be where the legs joined originally. Dang! Now that's a third variation!

OK, here are the next batch of pics...

Very good I see you use hand files do you use a rotary file as well?
As a Dental Technician I've used a rotary hand-piece for almost 30 years now and it has become an essential part of my model making too.

Yes, I use both. I tend to use the rotary tool for stuff that would just take too long by hand, but in the case of this particular model, I've only been using hand files & sandpaper. We'll see, though, about using the rotary tool once I start doing putty work in the seams/gaps. I may also use 'gap-filling super glue,' or cyanoacrylate (CA glue) instead of putty for some parts. Depends upon how bad the gaps are!

Just remembered that the bottom of the wings will require a bit of putty and a lot of sanding, so the rotary tool will definitely come into play there. I wanted to make sure that the tops of the wings required as little puttying & sanding as possible along the extensions, so the bottoms suffered a bit as a result. The good news is that the bottom of this particular kit has no surface detail to worry about sanding off; it's a 'clean slate' that I can just grind into shape!

I see the model of the 'Columbia' is an old, previously made kit, is this something from your youth or do you buy them from car-boot-sales? or yard sales I believe you call them.

Yard sales or rummage sales we call them. Sometimes garage sales, as they are often held in people's garages during rainy weather. But I'm also familiar with boot sales, having spent a lot of time online at British websites & forums. (Or is that fora?)

Anyway, the little Columbia kit is rather junky & more like a toy than a model. I got it on sale who-knows-where with no real intent of building it. I think it was in a clearance bin at a hobby store or else a freebie from an online order ("buy this and we'll throw in a free space shuttle kit"). I figured I could use the engines for some other projectbut as it turns out, the wings were close enough to the right size for this Lifeforce project, so I sacrificed it for that.

I occasionally buy cheap kits (both price & quality) for kitbashing or to use as the basis for made-up spacecraft. It's really helpful when a store is getting rid of aircraft kits or the like at ridiculously low prices, but it's very hit-or-miss to actually find a store that's doing so, and have the cash on hand to take advantage of it!

Earlier you said,
"That's one reason I go to model contests: not to win trophies,"
Have you won any trophies? and do you have photos of your winning entries? if you do can we see them please.
Maybe start a new thread, so as not to clutter up this one with none-related pictures.

Oh, jeez, I never meant to brag about anything. Yes, I've won stuff in the past: a few trophies & plaques. But most of that was for things I made when I was much younger, and before I had a digital camera.
Some of my models have gotten damaged over the years, what with many moves and in one case, a destructive cat. (I had made a diorama of a tornado destroying a typical American town, using train layout buildings and scenery. The cat decided to knock it from its shelf. Now, there's even more destruction on all the buildings!)

I'll see what I can scrounge together in the way of photos and start up a new thread. Remind me about it if I haven't done so in a week or so!

OK no problem, but I will just keep on nagging until you give-in.

only kidding, I've had the same sort of distractions myself, you're half way through something when some one steers you off in a totally different, unrelated direction.

Sorry I won't do it again

And as for not bragging, that's what forums are for, My comic is one big ego trip for me we have a long disused thread here called 'Our Horror Show' where members could post their art works and models, it's so long since I visited it, I can't even remember which category it's in.

Just a quick note/update: I've been without Internet for nearly two weeks due to server problems, and was told that I would at least not have to pay for the time I had no service. Good news is that I finally have service back; bad news is the company's trying to say 'too bad, you still have to pay.' We'll see about getting that sorted out.

I've only a minor update to the Churchill, so I'll wait til I make a little more progress before posting more pics. Work, illness and a big snowstorm have all kept me too bust nad/or incapacitated to work on the model, plus the holidays are fast approaching, but I hope to do a bit every few days.

I did find my old Thunder Child diorama (I think mentioned it in one of my earlier posts on some thread), though it's pretty broken. I'll see if I can repair it enough to snap some photos & post them, say in a week or two.

Sorry to hear you've had so many problems. The trouble with Internet services is, it's probably in the the agreement you signed when you first joined them, you get pages and pages of legal stuff and a little box at the bottom that says "If you agree to all these terms and conditions please put a check in the box and press OK" and nobody reads it all, life's too short.
My server is supposed to proved 5Mbps, I get 2.3Mbps that's less than half of what I should get. when I complained I was told "Your agreement says you would get UP TO 5Mbps" when I suggested I pay them UP TO £18 per month they didn't want to play ball and I was told "That was not what I had agreed to".


No snow storms here but we did get a lot of rain that froze to a nice glassy surface the next morning, our local casualty department had a busy day that day.


Great, look forward to seeing them.

Model aside for a moment. I remember the film and badly wanted to see it but it has always managed to avoid me. i was thinking of getting it about 2 days ago. I will bite the bullet now. I'm impressed with the model.

By 'model,' are you referring to my model of the Churchill? If so, thanks!
If instead you're referring to the space babe--er, vampire--played by Mathilda May, I, too, was very impressed!

Hey, long time, no update. Part of the problem was that my old computer finally died, another part is that I've not gotten much further on this model of the Churchill. Work & other projects, plus personal/family life, take up a lot of my time. But wow, I never expected it to take this long!

I plan to pick up this project in the coming weeks and at least try to get the general construction finished. Painting & detailing may take some time, though. (It will be easier to detail thanks to someone who made up a set of Churchill decals specifically for this scale, though! )

No promises on a specific timeframe, but I'll try to do something soon...

I haven't been on this site for a few months either, but I've got the site set to send me an email whenever there's activity on any of my favoured threads.
So if you do get The Churchill finished please do post it here, I'll be watching this space.