Max Needs Thermal Curtain Failure

As the crew of Discovery work to complete the International Space Station, and we approach the end of the Space Shuttle programme, I was reminded of some of the Shuttle's most memorable on-screen appearances.

Disney's SpaceCamp - classic, innocent pre-Challenger film in which a somewhat literal-minded robot sends a group of children into orbit after overhearing a wish. Also a brilliant piece of three-layered propaganda: it's about the Space Shuttle itself which is portrayed as easy and safe enough to be flown by schoolchildren; because it's about the Shuttle this is also a pro-Western technology and civilization message; and thirdly it's an advert for the real Space Camp summer programme at Kennedy - presumably there are now hundreds of Americans who are devastated at not being accidentally blasted into space themselves.

Armageddon - you know, actually the propaganda in Space Camp wasn't too bad. Michael Bay's film on the other hand is an utterly jingoistic and physics-defying caper in which two secret military shuttles are sent to deflect an asteroid.

Moonraker - one of the most ridiculous Bond movies but also one of my favourites - villain Drax is stealing space shuttles and using them to build a space station where he can hide away while the rest of the Earth is destroyed. NASA fights back with it's own shuttles - converted to carry marines in their cargo bays! - while Roger Moore and Lois Chiles get it on in zero gravity.

Species II - opens with a Mars shot that is clearly a political stunt, with a space shuttle crudely welded to an additional engine rig and plastered with sponsorship logos. The senator's son leading the sample-return mission gets only a few minutes on the surface. Naturally this is enough to pick up a taste of the local alien nymphomaniac predator.

Space Cowboys - following John Glenn's return to space this film featured four "mature" but well-liked male actors led by Clint and Tommy Lee as they try to break NASA's ageist recruitment policy... a science fiction film with heart and a lot of gentle humour.

Spiders - where else would you send a secret biological weapon but on a space shuttle flight? And when it kills the crew, what else would you do but bring the Shuttle down into a secret military base and allow it to escape?

Eight-legged films

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Asylum version) started me thinking about this: For no reason at all, a quick round up of some of my favourite creature flicks over the years:

Spiders (2000): This is what happens when special effects technicians get to direct films. What you get is conspiracy theorists, genetic experimentation, secretive government agencies, a couple claiming to be alien immigrants, creepy crawlies, and the Space Shuttle - all in the first ten minutes. The heroine is a feisty college rag journalist who would rather interview the said immigrants than cover any serious science stories; while Mother-in-Law and her offspring are worthy additions to the Hall of Fame of cinematic monsters. As far as I can tell the whole spectrum of special effects are employed here, from costume and puppetry through stop-motion to CGI, as each generation of spiders, larger than the last, presents new cinematic challenges.

There is a sequel - Spiders 2 (2001) - linked to the first film only in that it is another film featuring large numbers of giant spiders, this time running amok on a container ship.

Other notable arachnid-inspired films: Arachnid (2001): jungle survival film commits the cardinal sin of taking itself too seriously, particularly given the silly ending; yet at its best contains echoes of Predator.

Arachnaphobia (1990): unusually focus is on small, or at least normal-range spiders. As you might expect from a Spielberg production this is very effective visual cinema, and I remember this film as being extremely creepy.

Eight-Legged Freaks (2002): does exactly what it says on the tin (as I may have read in a review at the time). Hilarious from the outset, with a Mars Attacks attitude to body count and superb cgi - I read somewhere that first they tried to scale up realistic spiders but these were too cute and not scary enough. Everything's there - radiation, the small boy who sees everything but whom no-one believes, etc. Curiously the Achilles heel of the spiders (every B-movie monster needs an idiosyncratic weakness - see Evolution for more details) turns out to be that they are vulnerable to gunfire.

Tarantula (1955): the original giant spider, still a highly enjoyable film.

In searching for the illustration I discovered I haven't covered even half of this topic - will need to further research the titles "Earth Vs The Spider" and "Kingdom of the Spiders" amongst others...

Real life sci-fi

I read here that astronauts on the International Space Station are currently searching for a spider that escaped from an on-board experiment. Once again life imitates art, in this case one of my favourite fx films Spiders (2000) which begins with Mother-In-Law running amok on board the space shuttle.