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kelloggs2066 — USS Quasar - Request Emergency Beam Out
#alienplanet #battle #battledamage #catgirl #eggs #flyingsaucer #greenskin #martians #orion #phaserrifle #spacebattle #startrek #tas #tos #waroftheworlds #catian #harryhausen #heatray #ivasion #mortax #martianwarmachine #georgepal #earthvstheflyingsaucers
Published: 2017-03-12 12:31:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 2209; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 10
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Sophontologist’s Log Stardate 4317.2 Lt. Birdsong recording.
Arrived on the twin sunned planet Mor-Tax for a routine visit, and a chance to meet a friendly non-humanoid species.
The Mor-Taxans are a technologically advanced but poorly understood, species at the border of Federation space. I hoped to try out my psycho-tricorder to gain more insight into their mental processes. Lt. Moggie and Lt. Whittle accompanied me to the surface, and contact proceeded without incident as the Mor-Taxans agreed to give us a tour, including their power generation plant.
Our tour guide, Ullar accompanied us to the plant when we got a call from the Quasar that multiple unidentified spacecraft had dropped out of warp and were headed to our location.
It wasn’t long before the unknown spacecraft dropped down to the surface of the planet and attacked.
An unknown race with unidentified technology.
We evacuated the area with Ullar her 2 children and a couple of her eggs.
Mor-Taxan forces are working to repel the invasion, while the landing party is caught in the crossfire.
Artist's note:
One liberty I've taken here with George Pal's martian design is the legs. The original Martian had no legs at all, so artists have been trying to imagine them for all these years. I've seen them with 2 legs, I've seen them with six legs and suction cupped toes... But to me, the unique shoulder design of the Martians was too unusual to ignore. It's almost a crustacean sort of joint, with heavy muscles set in a bone or chitin sort of dome moving the arm around rather like a joy stick in a pit. I had to mirror that for their legs, making them somewhat spider-like. With, of course, three legs to move around on, because it fits in with Martian Tripods and would give them enough mobility to move as fast as they did in the original movie.
(Okay, so that was the martian being pulled out of shot on a dolly, much to the shock of the guy in the suit, but they sure moved fast as far as the movie was concerned!)
Edit: The amazing Bill Redfern added this followup:
www.deviantart.com/art/Well-it…
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Comments: 16
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War of the worlds meet Earth vs the flying saucers
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Gotta watch out for those shrivelled humanoid turtles!
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"a chance to meet a friendly non-humanoid species."
Didn't they invade Earth though?
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I think the Star Trek universe missed the 1953 invasion.
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I'd have gone with six legs, twice two.
And I see the fight is between Pal's Martians and the Flying Saucers (from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers).
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Six legs would be superfluous if they're from a low gravity planet like Mars.
Yeah, the Wizened Green Turtles in black armor (that isn't very good armor.)
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Especially considering it's described as "solidified electricity".
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There was a TV series in the 1980s. It was more of a horror TV show than a Science Fiction one, but it was supposed to be a sequel to the 1953 War of the Worlds. They named the aliens "Mor-Tax" because by the 1980s, it was evident that there was no advanced civilization on Mars.
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I remember that show, it was sort of a follow-up to the 1950's "War Of The Worlds" movie.
The aliens could "inhabit" humans' bodies.
It did kind of "jump the shark" later.
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Yeah, the two don't really match up.
- 1953 had Aliens that were very weak, but more than made up for it with their machines.
- 1980 had Aliens that were physically powerful, could take over humans and had all sorts of special powers and didn't need their machines.
I never really could get past the idea that the world had seen massacre after massacre, until the aliens were just 6 days from wiping humanity out and nobody remembered it only 30 years later.
That's like people having forgotten WWII.
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That series was muddled in so many ways. But my chief objection was the same as yours, the worldwide, collective amnesia/denial that anything unusual took place in 1953. I mean, the closing shots of the movie showed Paris razed to the ground far more thoroughly than the Nazis managed with the Eiffel Tower crumpled as though by Godzilla! The Taj Mahal's central dome was cracked open like an eggshell! Consider the time and resources needed to have rebuilt all those major cities. Some place would astill be rebuilding by the time 1988 rolled around, the time of the series. There would have been too many records (photographs, motion picture film footage, kine-scope recorded broadcasts, military transcripts, personal letters) noting what actually to simply "bury" and blaming it upon things like termites or swamp gas.
To make it even more confusing, when the second season started, we suddenly have the dystopian, post war environment and society we should have seen from the beginning. But because some of the characters carry into that second year and events from the first second are referenced, the audience can't simply "write off" the first year as though it never happened. Plus, the series killed off two of the more interesting characters, Norton Drake, the computer guru, and Paul Ironhorse, their military expert.
When one stops to consider the concept of the first season, the aliens (Martians/Mor-Tax/whatever) taking over humans to infiltrate society and disrupt it, with few people beyond Blackwood's team believing Harrison's claims, you'll realize it's much closer to an updating of Quinn Martin's production, "The Invaders". I'd like to know what really took place during those development meetings. Did the notion of a "follow-up" to George Pal's "war of the Worlds" come first? We know George Pal himself explored this notion in the mid 70s, but the notion would have been a "space opera" with the idea that humans travel into space to strike back at the aliens, discovering that Mars was really just a staging site for the final assault; the aliens coming from another solar system. But what did Greg Strangis propose? Did he try to sell the backers on the idea of a "post war" Earth? If so, did the bean counters deem that too expensive? Is it possible that after much compromise, Strangis "relented" to a concept that could be filmed with contemporary sets, wardrobes and backdrops, the "alien" aspect usually limited to radiation burns on "human hosts", melting effects and the occasional 3 fingered Martian arm. Or, did Strangis propose a "clandestine invasion" theme, one involving "original" aliens? Did Paramount marketing experts think it might have better odds of selling if a known property, one which the studio alreadyt owned, were "tagged" onto it? The whole thing just reeks of "studio interference" resulting in a jumbled mess.
The one thing I liked about the series was the opening credits score from season one, preferably without Jared Martin's narration. It just "fit" the war machine sequences so well, sounding a bit like an homage to Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War", but still its own thing.
Sincerely,
Bill
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I really would have loved to see the George Pal space opera version! In it, the three eyed aliens were not the ultimate bad guys, but were being manipulated or forced to fight the Earthlings. Somehow the idea of having those aliens as friends or allies really appeals to me.
As for the 1980s series, I couldn't get into it, and only watched a few episodes from the first season. It just didn't seem to make any sense. I read the entry in Wikipedia, and it sounds like someone came in in the second season, tossed out everything except a couple of the characters, and wrote a new show, based on The Invaders. I even believe they tossed out the Martians too and brought in an entirely new alien race. (I could be wrong, that's from memory.)
Glad you enjoyed it, Bill!
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Nice picture and situation. Good way to make friendly Martians.
But consider the political implications of their name.
When the unknown bad guys are against More-Taxes.
I'm not going to go there, but some people might.
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There was a TV series in the 1980s. It was more of a horror TV show than a Science Fiction one, but it was supposed to be a sequel to the 1953 War of the Worlds. They named the aliens "Mor-Tax" because by the 1980s, it was evident that there was no advanced civilization on Mars.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0