The Knights of Eden

 

In the wake of the huge success of Star Wars, Disney released the big budget sci-fi film The Black Hole in 1979. The movie had a modest box office and mixed reviews, but it appears Disney was looking at another big budget sci-fi film in the early 80’s The Knights of Eden.

The first mention comes in Starlog Issue 32 (March 1980):

“The Knights of Eden, an SF adventure set in 40th-century Earth, is budgeted at $12 million.”

Next it is mentioned in Starlog Issue 36 (July 1980):

“Another Disney release, Knights of Eden, will not go into production until next year. The story is reportedly Disney's most ambitious special-effects picture since Black Hole. In this science-fantasy epic, the hero is summoned by an alien wizard to help battle a powerful and sinister alien king. Based on the book by Westbrook Claridge, the screenplay was written by Robert Malcolm Young and will be directed by Jerry Courthand. “

The final mention in Starlog is in Issue 44 (March 1981):

“Status: Pre-production. Still some preliminary work to be done on the script. No other information available.”

There is also a mention of this film in Ares Magazine Issue 4 (September 1980):

“Knights of Eden will begin work in 1981. Directed by Jerry Courthand with the screenplay by Robert Malcolm Young, the film is based on Westbrook Claridge's book about a hero summoned by an alien wizard to battle an evil alien king. The special effects will be given heavy priority.”

The book that Westbrook (Wes) Claridge wrote was not something that was ever published but there was a copyright registration in 1969 according to the Copyright Encyclopedia. He did not have any writing credits at this point, but did go on to write for Airwolf and TekWar.

Robert Malcolm Young was primarily a TV writer but he did write the screenplay for another Disney Sci-Fi file, Escape from Witch Mountain as well as the made for TV sequel Beyond Witch Mountain.

The director on the project is referred to as Jerry Courthand in the articles, but I believe the correct name is actually Jerome Courtland who directed a lot of TV episodes around that time including some episodes of Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

I cannot find any mention of this movie after the March 1981 issues of Starlog so it appears that it died in development.

Beyond Westworld

 

In 1973 the movie Westworld was released on the big screen. Written and directed by Michael Crichton it deals with a theme common to a lot of his books and movies, technology run amok. In this case it is a western themed amusement park populated by life-like robots. You can guess where this goes. This is quite a good movie, especially Yul Brynner’s robot gunslinger character. In 1976 the movie was followed up with the much weaker sequel, Futureworld.

In the November 1979 (Issue 28) or Starlog there is an article about the just completed pilot for a TV spinoff of these movies called Beyond Westworld. The series would follow the story of the Security Chief of the company who created the robots as he peruses an evil scientist who want to use the robots to take over the world. This project actually made it to the screen, but didn’t last long, it ended after only five episodes had been produced. For anyone who is interested you can watch four of the episodes on Youtube.

Episode 1: Westworld Destroyed

Episode2: My Brother’s Keeper

Episode 3: Sound of Terror

Episode 5: Takeover

The Primevals

 

Normally when I run across a movie in Starlog that never made it to the screen, there is very little information to be found on it, but this is not the case with The Primevals.

In the early issues of Starlog there was a series of columns about special effects. The article in the April 1979 (Number 21) issue talked about stop motion animation and featured an interview with animator David Allen. Inspired by stop motion animation great Ray Harryhausen, David started doing work for commercials and then worked on movies like When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and Flesh Gordon in the early 70’s. In 1967, with the help of SFX greats Dennis Muren and Jim Danforth, David conceived the fantasy epic Raiders of the Stone Ring. The movie was eventually pitched the Hammer Films but the project didn’t go anywhere.

David interest in this pet project persisted and he continued to refine the script and it eventually turned into The Primevals. He kept trying to get the film made while continuing his stop motion animation career on movies such as Willow, Ghostbusters II and the Puppetmaster movies. In the early 1990’s he finally got backing to produce the film and did live action filming between 1994 and 1999. Sadly he passed away in August of 1999 at the age of 54, his film never having been completed.

Since the film did get pretty far in it’s development there is a good bit of information on the net about it. First there is a page on the site for David Mosher FX about the film that has pictures of some of the stop motion animation models produced for the film. There is also some good information including concept posters on the Tomb of the Unproduced Horror Movie blog. On YouTube you can find some early footage of the film, the live action portion appear to be of questionable quality, but the stop motion work is quite impressive. Finally, there is even a Facebook Page for the film.

NASA to Salvage Skylab?

 

In Issue #14 (June 1978) of Starlog there was an article about the possibility of salvaging the NASA Skylab Space Station.

“NASA, however, may step in and save the day. The organization is currently studying plans to return to this "Flying Dutchman" of space and attach a rocket stage to the craft for propulsion. The hundred-ton satellite will either be deliberately plunged, kamikaze-like, into the empty south Indian Ocean, or will be boosted back up into a more stable orbit for ultimate repair and re-use. The idea of salvaging Skylab is an exciting prospect for NASA. Coupled with the upcoming Space Shuttle program, Skylab offers the opportunity for long duration space exploration; as well, it could become a valuable space resource which NASA's tight budget could otherwise ill afford. “

“Current plans call for the fifth Space Shuttle flight, early in 1980, to rendezvous with the Skylab. Holding a position several hundred yards away from the derelict craft, the  astronauts will guide a self-propelled robot stage up to the main docking port. Once fastened to the docking area, the rocket stage can be fired either forwards or backwards, depending on the planned fate of the satellite. “

NASA did study the possibility of re-using Skylab and developed a plan that would have used several shuttle flights to re-furbish that station. Unfortunately the 1980 date for the fifth shuttle flight proved to be overly optimistic. The first shuttle didn’t launch until April of 1981 and the 5th flight didn’t happen until November of 1982. The un-controlled re-entry of the station happened on July 11, 1979. Pieces of the station impacted land in western Australia.

Empire Strikes Back: What’s in a Name

In Issue 18 (December 1978) of Starlog there is an interview with Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz that talks about The Empire Strikes Back. I thought this section of the article was rather amusing:

Going along with this long-range concept, the producer refuses to taint the new production with the usual Hollywood sequel slang. The film, for instance, is never referred to in Lucas-Kurtz circles as Star Wars II. "I would never call it that," Kurtz winces. "Our working title is The Empire Strikes Back. And as I said, it's part of a plan that George and I had from the inception of the original film. What we wanted to do was to relate every subsequent Star Wars adventure as an episode of a continuing story, like the old movie serials used to do. We were going to call this movie Star Wars Episode Two: The Empire Strikes Back, but we ran into some problems. You see, although this story is a direct sequel to the first movie, we have three more stories that we eventually want to film that actually occur before the point where the first Star Wars begins.

"So we've been toying with the idea of ignoring the numbers completely. Instead, we'll give each movie episode a unique title. I mean, if we had to give each film its true number in the series, this movie would be called Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back. The first film would be called Episode Four! Can you imagine how complicated it would get? If we released a story like that publicly through a press release,  thousands of people would be totally con-  fused. Everyone would want to know what happened to the other three movies."

The Post Star Wars Sci-Fi Invasion

 

In Issue 9 (October 1977) of Starlog there was an article about the invasion of Sci-fi films touched off by the release of Star Wars. The article mentions quite a few movies and TV shows, some made it, some didn’t. All release dates are for the US.

A sequel to Star Wars – Empire Strikes Back (May 1980)

When World Collide – As I discussed in this article a number of writers and directors were attached to this over the years but it never materialized.

H.G. Wells’ In the Days of the Comet – Never made

The Return of the Time Machine – Never made

Return From Witch Mountain – Released March 1978

The Cat From Outer Space – Released June 1978

Space Probe – Released December 1979 as The Black Hole

The Thing From Another World – Released in June 1982 as The Thing

Buck Rogers TV Series – Premiered September 1979

Comedy remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man – Although this didn’t get made, it might have become the 1981 comedy The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

The Predictor – Not made

Childhood’s End – A couple attempts were made to bring the Arthur C. Clarke classic to the screen, but it still hasn’t happened.

Magna I – I did find a mention of this, with the full title Magna I – Beyond the Barrier Reef, in the May 30th, 1974 issue of The Wilmington Star News but it appears this was never made.

Meteor – Released October 1979

Timescape – Not Made. You can read more about this one in my blog post about it.

Capricorn One – Released June 1978

The Late Great Plant Earth – Released January 1979

End of the World – Release August 1977. You can actually watch this one over at Archive.org.

Spawn Of the Slithis –  Released July 1978

Alien Encounter – Released October 1977 as Starship Invasions in the US.

Gift From a Red Planet – Released May 1978 as The Alpha Incident in the US.

The Incredible Adventure - Unknown

Rocket Ship X Flies Again - Unknown

Skywatch - Unknown

The Thing

In issue 14 (June 1978) of Starlog is this article about a remake of The Thing:

William F. Nolan, co-author of Logan's Run, award winning script writer of Burnt Offerings, has been signed by Universal to script a "remake" of the old Howard Hawkes horror-classic, The Thing. "This won't be just a rehash," Nolan said. "I'm going back to the original story, Who Goes There? by Campbell to utilize many values which were ignored the first time around." Nolan's thing won't be a walking talking carrot!

The Things remake eventually did happen, but not until 1982 under the direction of John Carpenter. The William F. Nolan screenplay was not used, instead it was written by Bill Lancaster, the son of actor Burt Lancaster. It interesting to note that his only other writing credits are for the Bad News Bears movies and TV show.

If you are interested in reading the Nolan screenplay it has been published in a book along with John W. Campell’s novella “Who Goes There?” which is the basis for both the original The Thing and the 1982 remake. According to this message board post from the publisher, the Nolan version of the screenplay emphasized the paranoia elements of the story and downplayed the creature/horror elements. I could definitely see a movie like this being very compelling, but I also think the bizarre and sometimes disturbing creature effects used in the remake really make it a great movie.