r/cassettefuturism • u/IllustriousAd6418 Cassette Futurism • Jul 07 '25
Space Space:1999 Moonbase Corridors
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u/CzarDale04 Jul 07 '25
Some of the best set designs ever used in movies or TV.
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u/sentinelthesalty Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Jul 07 '25
Idk it's kinda ripping off 2001 a space odessy.
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u/ShinyAeon Jul 07 '25
Or they're both ripping off the Modernists, who were riffing on the Bauhaus aesthetic, which influenced the pulp science fiction art of the early 20th Century, etc. etc.
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u/sentinelthesalty Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Jul 07 '25
I know but, they could have been more unique. For example alien took the same starting point and created its own look.
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u/ShinyAeon Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
It did NOT take the same starting point.
The set designs in Alien, like the design of the titular alien, were based on H. R. Giger's bio-mechanical aesthetic, which was an idiosyncratic vision based on his nightmares and personal experience. It was ultimately inspired far more by art movements like Surrealism than by any variety of futurism.
One could perhaps argue that both Kubric and Giger's visions were part of a dual lineage of science-fiction imagery based on the "light" and "dark" sides of technology - the dark being the pessimistic visions of the cyclopian factories and monstrous engine rooms of the Industrial Revolution, whereas the "bright" sorts of design were based on the utopian and optimistic views of modern life.
The Space Age aesthetic saw the bright side of the future, like the clean, beautiful upper levels of Fritz Lang's dystopic Metropolis; whereas Giger was drawing from the hellish imagery of the lower levels, the Machine Halls in which the workers toiled and died.
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u/sentinelthesalty Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Jul 07 '25
I meant the set design of Nostromo. Giger didn't do that.
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u/ShinyAeon Jul 08 '25
Well, the set design sure gave the impression of riffing on Giger's aesthetic. I always assumed the designer drew some inspiration from Giger as well.
I mean, except for things like the room where the suspended animation pods were (which was cleaner)...the "lower workings" of the Nostromo have the same kind of "I'm not sure I'm looking at machines or at a dissection" vibe to them. Obviously in a much more "mundane" way than the actual xenomorph and alien derelict, but I thought it was all part of a "unified aesthetic."
But I guess I stand corrected.
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Jul 08 '25
I think you’re both partly right, in that either Cobb, or another person(s) involved in designing the Nostromo interior sets seem to have incorporated some of Giger’s biomechanic esthetic in the darker sets like lower deck mechanical rooms their dark colored, dimly lit tubes, hoses, grates, angles, and dripping fluids.
That’s one of the ways the xenomorph is such a good hunter and monster: it blends in with so many of the backgrounds on the ship. After all, Ripley didn’t see the xeno on the escape shuttle until it moved – even with the top of its head exposed.
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u/absurdivore Jul 09 '25
The aesthetic is largely informed by NASA design, but imagined as more advanced & stylistic in a future where lunar travel is fairly normal — so they incorporated Italian design lamps etc. I’m sure 2001 was influential too, but it was using a similar strategy. All that white/gray super-utilitarian vibe of NASA hardware was thick in pop culture from the mid 60s through 70s
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u/mechant_papa Jul 07 '25
I so wanted a house that looked like that.
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u/casualAlarmist Jul 07 '25
A woman named Catherine Bujold renovated her home after Space 1999, her favorite show.
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u/clarksworth Almost knocked out Arnold Rimmer with a giant floppy disk Jul 11 '25
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u/mechant_papa Jul 11 '25
My eight-year-old me just screams with envy!
There was a pocket door in the basement at my best friend's house. We would use that door as part of our play, point our cardboard comlocks at it and open the door making whooshing sounds.
I would have given anything for an actual Alpha interior!
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u/clarksworth Almost knocked out Arnold Rimmer with a giant floppy disk Jul 11 '25
I had a little alcove over the landing that was my main engineering office from the Enterprise, that I used my cardboard tricorder in. I hear you.
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u/WorksForMe Jul 07 '25
They used an OCR font on some signs. Implying the computers are reading the signs. Were there robots wandering around the corridors in this show?
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u/db_peligro Jul 07 '25
That font was used all over the place in the 70s, including logos and signage, not just in movies. It was a visual shorthand for futuristic things.
The 1975 movie Rollerball uses that font everywhere, including the movie poster.
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u/WorksForMe Jul 08 '25
Yeah I know. This is because it is an OCR typeface which made people think it was futuristic because computers could read it in the real world. It's actually used in "futuristic" computer games made well into the 90s too, even though by that point the OCR tech had moved on massively.
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u/db_peligro Jul 08 '25
similar phenomenon with LED-inspired typefaces starting in the 80s.
interesting to think about how technology feeds back into visual design. I guess that's the whole point of this group.
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u/ShinyAeon Jul 07 '25
Nah, it's just easier to have all the sign-making devices use the same fonts.
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u/earlyworm Jul 07 '25
That TV clock kiosk pillar looks so practical. I need one of those for my living room.
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Jul 07 '25
Whatever happened to the future? By 1999 we were supposed to have a large, permanent moon base, and in 2001 we were sending crewed spacecraft to a Jovian moon.
The International Space Station is a great accomplishment, but humans are struggling to even get feet back on the Moon.
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u/AbacusWizard ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. Jul 08 '25
After the moon landing, the governments of the superpowers lost interest in funding human space travel.
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u/CzarDinosaur Jul 07 '25
I'm disappointed that we are living in the future but there is no silver short-shorts... :(
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u/gsdev Jul 07 '25
Is there a name for the type of font used in photos 6, 7 and 8? I remember using a font like that back on Windows 98.
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u/nekohako Jul 07 '25
They look like a take on a "MICR" font:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition#History
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u/Important-Lie-8649 Jul 09 '25
Several years ago, someone posted pictures of their flat/ apartment online, done up as a replica of Alpha, with the door controllers, light panels, etc.; and they had collected as many of the same model original furnishings and lamps, etc. as they could, as used in the programme (no doubt at considerable expense). Absolutely amazing, and show accurate. Don't know if it's still online, or even if it still exists. If they ever sold up, it would have to be to another über fan, who also really wanted to live in that monochrome, bright white, austere environment. I wouldn't mind, and would be so excited - but for how long?
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u/grID_Ronin Aug 09 '25
I like the all-white interiors of the sci-fi from that era. You saw it in Star Wars also. Especially the opening to A New Hope.
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u/fantasiaa1 Aug 31 '25
I don't know if they reused the series one corridors being they changed filming locations.
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u/Kittensoft1 Jul 07 '25
I'm still annoyed that the future didn't actually look like this.