Oldschool Mecha PUPPETS !!! Starfleet / Dai-X / X-Bomber

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Hey folks,

As a "Queen"-fan at one point of fandom I came across Brian May´s "Starfleet project". I knew that he made the title track for the UK version of a Japanese Mecha series, but until now I hadn´t seen anything except a few pics of the album sleeve (you gotta love vinyl for the huge sleeves that leave room for stuff like photos!).

The Brian May Starfleet video (bad sound quality)

Just the song in okay quality

Remembering Starfleet after seeing a fellow member´s avatar, I of course hit google to find out more about "starfleet" (last time I looked into that Altavista was the cream of the crop of search engines )

A site just dedicated to X-Bomber, I had no idea that the following in the UK was that large!

About Star Fleet X-Bomber

The japanese intro:

YouTube - X

First I thought "wow, Gerry Anderson and anime designs?! In the 80ies ?!" But the FAQ of the site explains that GA was not involved but actually worried that Starfleet would steal Terrahawk´s thunder because it looked very similar.

I love the mecha and set designs so far, at one point I´ll have to get the DVD box, I guess.

So, who of you Baby boomers was and is a fan? Who even knew that show ?

Gah, I remember that Goldorak wasn´t shown on German TV because it was deemed to be too violent! Man, I was so angry! I tell ya, we had NOTHING in the 1980ies!!!

 

[Wes R]

Wow i never even heard of this. Well you had communism but i guess you meant good things lol. I'm going to have to ask my buddy about this as he loves this kind of stuff but I don't remember ever hearing of it so maybe it didn't hit the US.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Wow i never even heard of this. Well you had communism but i guess you meant good things lol. I'm going to have to ask my buddy about this as he loves this kind of stuff but I don't remember ever hearing of it so maybe it didn't hit the US.

Wes, no, we even didn´t have communism !!! At least not the part of Germany that I grew up in, West-Germany that is. And you know that Germany was divided, right?

We didn´t have Thunderbirds, too, except for the "Thunderbirds are Go!" movie that premiered in the late 1960ies, before I was born. I had old comic books from my sister and saw the ads for Lady Penelope´s car and the Thunderbird vehicles and fantasized what that series or movie might be about. Very inspiring when you have nothing

 

[Wes R]

Lol. I wasn't sure which half of Germany you were in. I'm old enough to remember that, just barely though. I vaguely remember Thunderbirds being on sunday afternoons after the muppet show when I was little. They never really showed them in order though. They'd just show whatever they could get the rights to cheap so it was often alot of Planet of the apes movies.

 

[Jet Beetle]

May being British probably loved Thunderbirds and Supercar - not that you have to be from England to love that stuff, but I'll bet cha he's always had a burning desire to make a puppet video.

They actually used to play this video onscreen before Brian played on his short solo tour he did (right before Queen released A Kind of Magic) - I saw a pic in Circus of Brian on stage and the mecha was onscreen behind him and I was like - WTF??

 

[Treadwell]

Wow, this is great! Never come across this before.
What awesomely creepy, hideous character designs. :lol

Launch and transformation sequences very belabored...pacing guys, pacing! Look at the comparative animated stuff. :lol

But very fun stuff!! :thumbsup

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

...

They actually used to play this video onscreen before Brian played on his short solo tour he did (right before Queen released A Kind of Magic) - I saw a pic in Circus of Brian on stage and the mecha was onscreen behind him and I was like - WTF??

About ten years ago he was on tour again, but there weren´t enough hardcore fans knowing what I meant when I was vigorously shouting "STARFLEET!!!" again and again during the show :$

Wow, this is great! Never come across this before.
What awesomely creepy, hideous character designs. :lol

But awesome mechanical designs and the sets!!!

Launch and transformation sequences very belabored...pacing guys, pacing! Look at the comparative animated stuff. :lol

But very fun stuff!! :thumbsup

Duuude, it was the late 70ies/early 80ies, everyone was going with da flow

 

[Treadwell]

^the comparative 70s mecha shows had much faster-paced launches and transformations.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

^the comparative 70s mecha shows had much faster-paced launches and transformations.

Then I guess it must have been the production value of the models that made them show them extensively. Maybe they were inspired by Robert Wise´s Star Trek TMP?

 

[MFP 2020]

This is so weird. I just wandered over to that SFXB site for the first time last night after reading about GA's "Doppelganger." (ooooWEEEEoooo...)

 

[cpltony]

Raising an old thread here but this is one of my first memories of life is watching this show in the UK on Saturdays

Only 24 episodes but a few years ago I was lucky enough to get a copy of it on VCD.
It was released on DVD in 2009 in the UK so if you have a multi-region player you can buy and enjoy it.

That being said I watched it this weekend and hope to begin work on some Star Fleet (as it was known in the UK) props before the prop party next year.
Plenty of things to finish first of course....but this was truly an awesome show.

I'd love to get my hands on the ships they used. I wonder which warehouse they're sat in roting away?

 

[mutronics]

This is a fantastic series and had some of the best ships and robots ever. Unfortunately i heard that all the sets and models were lost in a fire at the studio. Apparently they were going to make a second series but this put the a stop to it ever happening.

Gonna have a go at making an X-bomber sometime as it looks so cool!