SCALE MODEL NEWS

FOR THOSE WHO don’t know their science-fiction, this kit from Polar Lights represents one of the ‘flying hubcap’ UFOs that featured in a 1959 B-movie called  Plan 9 from Outer Space . Mat Irvine:  The ‘Worst Movie – Ever’ as The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy might have said.  Plan 9 from Outer Space  continues to intrigue, and for science-fiction fans here is a new release of one of its flying saucers. Although it used to be quoted that Plan 9 ’s invading saucers were ‘hubcaps from a Chevy’ (a myth perpetuated in the movie  Ed Wood ) there were also the Lindberg flying saucer kits. And Round 2, which owns the Lindberg name and tooling, has reissued the kit literally ‘as seen in the movie.’ The kit is issued under Round 2’s Polar Lights brand, though it has at various times been been released by Atlantis, Glencoe, and Lindberg. So in effect, this kit is a Polar Lights reproduction of a Lindberg kit, even if it really is the Lindberg kit. Frankly, most of the kit’s app...

The 1959 movie Plan 9 From Outer Space is often described as the worst science-fiction movie ever made, or even the worst movie - period. However, it has gained a certain cachet of its own, witness this Skyhook Models 1:48 scale diorama base, designed to be used with the Lindberg Flying Saucer, as used in the movie. Mat Irvine makes the model: As the diorama has just two parts - base and transparent saucer support rod - it’s a paint-and-finish job, rather than an assembly issue. For all that, Skyhook has provided a decent product - sculpted by Dave Bengel - that comes complete with built-in nameplate and ghoul figure. The diorama depicts one of the scenes in the film, in which a dead policeman, Inspector Dan Clay, played by Tor Johnson, rises from the grave - as by that point in the plot, he has become a ghoul. As modelled here, the Skyhook figure look ‘a bit’ like Clay, but certainly looks ghoulish, and it’s your painting skills that will turn the plain resin moulding into a believa...