SCALE MODEL NEWS

  A TOTAL OF MORE THAN 500 PARTS distinguishes this 1:144 scale Moebius kit. The subject is the  Discovery , spacecraft star of the classic science fiction movie  2001: A Space Odyssey . Mat Irvine:  On opening the box, the kit does look rather daunting - after all, there are over 500 parts. However, laying them all out logically makes things become clearer. Many are duplicate runners, to deal with the many containers along the fuselage spine, the three main engines, and trio of cargo-bay doors. There are also various parts for the antenna assembly. The kit was designed for Moebius by Adam Johnson, who has compiled books on designs from the movie. Click here to read the SMN review of Adam’s first title  2001: The Lost Science . The kit instructions follow a logical assembly path, with the main fore and aft sub-assemblies being dealt with first. These are followed by the containers, spine, and antenna assembly. Actually, I found that putting the kit together fall...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS Ask any film enthusiast, and probably many non-enthusiasts, to name the best science-fiction movie of all time, and you will probably get 9 out of 10 voting for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey . For all those fans - and for space modellers too - comes the new book,  2001: The Lost Science by Adam K. Johnson. About the book Adam Johnson - also the driving force behind specialist model outfit AJA Models - has compiled and written the most detailed reference book on the movie so far, full title 2001: The Lost Science - the Frederick I. Ordway III Collection . With much material supplied by Dr Fred Ordway ( more on him below ), a great deal of the content has never been published before. Its 112 pages are full of detailed original plans (of which there were originally 2,400!), many of them painstakingly digitally enhanced, as the original blueprints have long-since faded. Examples of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ process are shown in the introduction. Other 2001...

SMN report Here’s a mouthwatering taste of things to come for science-fiction enthusiasts - Douglas Trumbull, the special-effects supervisor for the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey is working on a ‘making of’ docu-movie 2001: Beyond the Infinite , which will include heaps of never-seen-before material, plus dozens of star interviews. His interesting video seems to have been pulled from the internet, perhaps for copyright reasons, but Trumbull's own site is packed with interesting stuff that anyone with an interest in the genre should have a look at. The address is shown below. Orion spacecraft kits In the model world, the movie has been served less well, especially by the mainstream kit manufacturers. About the only injection kits to be freely available have been of the elegant Orion passenger shuttle, with models from both Airfix and Aurora. Neither kit is perfect, but each will assemble into a reasonably handsome spacecraft model. Orion Cargoship from Stargazer Models Still, th...