What's wrong with this picture?

Post by **Foxtrot X-Ray** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 8:09 pm

No offense to those who like the Monza front on a Monaro (or have one), But UGH! That's Hideous!

Post by **OverheadCam** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:36 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Bronze21-MFP460 on 13 October 2005

Does anyone know what the base/original vehicle was that was used to make the Aliens APC? I'm thinking it was probably a diesel-engined construction chassis of some sort...maybe a mining loader/tug because of the low height, and they added the plating to it. If you notice during the movie, they never show the people running into it from a distance, so they probably built a close-up mock-up that had the interior room to get in. I'm thinking if it is actually a mining tug, the engine would be in front of the rear wheels. The other vehicle I've thought about is airport aircraft tugs from the 60's and 70's. They have about the same shape...just curious...Cheers.

Yeah...it was a heavy aircraft tug.....there's pics of it on an Alien Fansite somewhere...(from the looks of the yard in which it was being fabricated..it looked like it was made in England)

From memory..the site states that the vehicle weighed about 90tonnes...70tonnes of which they cut out....

And you're right..the engine is right in the middle of the vehicle where they show an access door....there's no room in there so they made a mock-up of the inside..there's actually no room inside other than the drivers cockpit....which looks like it was seriously worked...(it's sooo far back...that I actually suspect the Prop-APC driver sat behind the front gun turret and not behind the glass.)

(desiel electric driving electric motors in the wheel hubs (massive torque at low RPM..perfect for towing carefully)and 4 wheel steering)

Post by **jmu2000** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:48 pm

Quote: Originally posted by OverheadCam on 13 October 2005

Yeah...it was a heavy aircraft tug.....there's pics of it on an Alien Fansite somewhere...(from the looks of the yard in which it was being fabricated..it looked like it was made in England)

From memory..the site states that the vehicle weighed about 90tonnes...70tonnes of which they cut out....

Sounds right as Aliens was filmed almost entirely in the UK. I have seen one of these tugs in action and they are seriously impressive.

Does anyone know what happened to the Aliens APC after filming finished, I assume it was probably scrapped but you never know.....

Post by **OverheadCam** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:02 am

I Dunnoh what happened to it...but it would seriously aid me in getting through traffic in the morning!

Post by **OverheadCam** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:12 am

Quote: Originally posted by rockatansky4073 on 13 October 2005

Damn! i go away for a week and everyone (ADE in particular) covers all the commetns for me -

You're lucky they were there Rocka.......hope you had a great Birthday Digger!

Post by **Biker** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:12 am

Well despite all the overwhelming evidence I'm still not convinced.

Do I sound like that Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf? when the invasion was at its height? he came out with quotes like "The Americans are dying by there thousands in the streets of Bahgdad. We are winning!"

I still crack up thinking about that joker. Want to read more about him then look here;

http://welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

Thanks for the very exhaustive replies. Kinda dashed my hopes for the lost footage angle but twas a good read nevertheless.

Y'know, I'd seen those airport tugs before just never made the connection between them and the Aliens APC. What I did notice in the film was the motorcycle headlamp fairing hanging on the wall (top right of screen) as part of the medlab scenery, the motion detectors were in fact Jigsaws (I'm a Carpenter so I clocked those very quickly) but the most impressive observation for me were on those smart gun/cannons remember those? That girl and her partner carried. The guns construction has part of my old Kawasaki GPz550 (unitrak) the footpeg hangers. They must have raided a bike breakers for most of the props in that film. Great film though!

Putting my anorak away now.

Biker

Post by **mfpmax** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:04 am

I thought I read somewhere that the APC from Aliens was 100% fake and only a R/C car. I have an R/C mag where someone made their own replica R/C version and had an interior but the article as one of you mentioned, the real one's scale wouldn't have been correct for their to be an actual interior.

Oh and I think I saw a "behind the scenes" that showed that the APC was like a 1/4 scale R/C vehicle.

Post by **Bronze21-MFP460** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:05 pm

Yes, when Ripley peeled out and ran the gauntlet through the tunnels ending with the ramming of the bulkhead, it WAS an R/C model. Look closely and you'll realize it doesn't behave like a full-scale 30-70 ton vehicle would...it bounces a little and the flames look big. They made a model of the tunnel and ran it through like the Trench Luke flies down in Star Wars. The trench was a scale model with a Ford pickup fitted with a camera in the bed driving by the model with the camera down near the surface at approximately 25mph. Water behaves the same way. In older movies, when shipwrecks or dam breaks happen, the water looks out of scale, denoting a smaller scale model, usually 1:200 or even 1:100 scale. Godzilla/Gojira movies are prime examples. Aliens APC: I'm thinking they moved the steering wheel to the center of the vehicle and the driver sat between the turret and the more recessed glass cutout. There looks to be enough room for a driver to look out the smaller rectangular portion of the glass, with his/her legs in front in the larger bulge. They wouldn't need that much room to just drive it on the set. Look at Knight Rider and how they made the seats thicker so the driver could sit inside the seat and look through the headrest opening to drive it when KITT was driving it himself. I read that they made some of the KITT cars right hand steering for the no-driver look and put the stunt driver on the right, and dressed the stunt driver up like the girl in distress and they were actually driving.

Hollyweird...it's all smoke and mirrors.

Post by **Giro Captain** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 8:17 pm

Yes aerport car like for the plane movement low and powerfol i am likeing the Herbie 53 is have the driver behind too in back seats

Post by **Big Bopper Bart** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:50 pm

Shaddup Giro,you f**kers are still watching movies on a reel to reel in your country.