IDENTIFIED

Ok, I just re-watched "Identified", and my comments are as follows...
Although Gerry Anderson himself says his production of this episode was
slow-paced, I actually thought it went quite well. There was a lot of
information that had to be "disclosed" in a short amount of time to
introduce the viewing audience to the concept of the series, and I thought
it was handled well. There are moments of poor acting, but that's true in
just about any TV series or movie, but overall it was great. I did notice
one thing. When the UFO shot at the Rolls Royce, the "laser" beam was
red. Isn't it green in the rest of the series? Perhaps it was a special
beam just to blow up a Rolls. <grin>

I do have one question...why do the UFO's never attack Sky One or the
Interceptors? Perhaps my memory is failing and there is an episode or two
that will appear on Set 2 that shows this...but in all of Set 1, I don't
recall a single instance where the UFO's attacked SHADO's air/spacebourne
vehicles. I do recall the UFO firing on the mobiles in one or two shows,
but they never fire at the other air craft (except of course for the SST
type plane in Identified that Sky One was protecting). The Interceptors
are totally defenseless after they expend their one rocket each...a UFO
could blow all three interceptors up after they miss. Another question
is...why don't the aliens just send 4 UFO's (or more) at a time. They have
to know moonbase only has 3 Interceptors, as they seem to know everything
else about SHADO, so just send a larger fleet and obliterate all the
Interceptors AND moonbase at the same time. They could also give all the
Sky aircraft (Sky One and however many others there are supposed to be) a
run for their money. Imagine 10 or 20 UFO's coming at the same time.

I also wish they would have explained why it would be advantageous for
people to breath oxygenated "liquid" for deep space travel. Straker and
Foster discuss that "we" (meaning earth scientist) had been experimenting
with that, but that "they" (the aliens) were actually using it. I don't
recall ever hearing anything in science to suggest that breathing liquid
would make faster than light travel easier on a human being, but I'm sure
there is some basis for this.

I've also always wondered why the aliens, who obviously do have some type
of "energy beam weapons" (laser or whatever) in the UFO's don't have some
type of handheld "ray gun" weapon. Perhaps the technology doesn't permit
for an efficient hand held weapon without tremendous size, weight and
bulk. So, the aliens use machine guns that fire some type of metallic
(presumably) projectiles, just like our lowly earth firearms.

Another thing I've always wondered, why are some of the aliens wearing
space suits that have little chain type "accessories" attached, but in
later episodes, this is all replaced with what looks like a sewn on
metallic foil fabric (the fabric looks better though).

Lastly, there is one other question, which the title of this episode helps
to add to the perplexing situation...

Why do they continually call them UFO's? I know that's the name of the
show...but they are not Unidentified Flying Objects. They know exactly
what they are...they are hostile alien space craft. The only unknowns are
exactly where they are from and all the reasons that they are here...only
the speculated reasons. I know that if they called the series IFO
(Identified Flying Objects) it wouldn't have had the impact, so this is a
point that I just have to let go. <grin>

Overall...this is a very good episode and a great introduction to a great
series.

The reason the beam is red in the attack on the UFO and later green in the
rest of the series is its 10 years earlier and they developed a more powerful
green beam. Actually the color of the beam and the differences in color may
be due to the color adjustment of your TV and of the the adjustment of the
equipment the DVD was recorded on. Still of the UFO firing its beam in the
Town Mook book all have a beam that is white in color.
I discussed why the aliens didn't have a hand held beam weapon with
someone else here not too long ago. Basically it boils down to size and
weight and a small powerpack to run one without it weighting around a 100
pounds and not being to fragile to use in the field. A simple projectile
type weapon is easier all around.
As to the reason the aliens use a breathing liquid filled suit is just
been revealed in a bit of information about a new G-suit that is being tested
to cope with the new high G rates of the new aircraft coming out. The old G
suits were good to about 4 Gs then you blacked out. They found that a liquid
coating on the body can let it take a great G force. Possible as much as 10
Gs! The aliens would have to have a way to take the high speed of they craft
particularly in right angle turns.

James K.
(P.S. Marc did you get the articles on my second attempt to send them?)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Town Mook book is a book about UFO that was printed in Japan about 20
years ago. It is about the size of a standard magazine but with a hard paper
cover. It is 104 pages. It has many color photos in the first half of the
book and the rest being in black and white or tinted in the Enclopedia of
UFO section. There is a fold out inside the front cover(the back to us in
the west as the Japanese read books the opposite that we do in the west)of
the SHADO equipment showing the models in side, top, front and back views.
The only thing wrong with the book is most of the text is in Japanese.
Well all I can say is that the still photos in the book show a white
beam. How it got to be red or green tint on TV or Video is anybody's guess.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 10:11 AM 8/13/02 -0400, you wrote:
>The reason the beam is red in the attack on the UFO and later green in the
>rest of the series is its 10 years earlier and they developed a more powerful
>green beam. Actually the color of the beam and the differences in color may
>be due to the color adjustment of your TV and of the the adjustment of the
>equipment the DVD was recorded on. Still of the UFO firing its beam in the
>Town Mook book all have a beam that is white in color.

I'd buy that argument, except that no matter what adjustment the color is
on my TV, it can't shift from red to green from the same source
generation. For one reason...Green is the exact opposite end of the color
spectrum from red. The evolution of their weapons sounds more
plausible. And if you think about it a green laser would have a higher
"frequency" than a red laser (with shorter wavelengths), which would
suggest higher powered. What is the Town Mook book? I've seen a few
photos of the UFO's posted on various net sites firing lasers which all
have a "greenish-white" cast to them. We're not talking about forest green
or hunter green, but more of a "ghostly" green.

> I discussed why the aliens didn't have a hand held beam weapon with
>someone else here not too long ago. Basically it boils down to size and
>weight and a small powerpack to run one without it weighting around a 100
>pounds and not being to fragile to use in the field. A simple projectile
>type weapon is easier all around.

That's basically what I surmised in my prior message.

> As to the reason the aliens use a breathing liquid filled suit is just
>been revealed in a bit of information about a new G-suit that is being tested
>to cope with the new high G rates of the new aircraft coming out. The old G
>suits were good to about 4 Gs then you blacked out. They found that a liquid
>coating on the body can let it take a great G force. Possible as much as 10
>Gs! The aliens would have to have a way to take the high speed of they craft
>particularly in right angle turns.

So UFO's writers were way ahead of their time, envisioning a G-suit of the
future.
Did I not see an episode, though where the aliens took off their gloves,
and their hands were not "green" stained from the liquid?
It's always been my conception that only their helmets had the fluid
inside, not the entire suit.

I believe the episode "Identified"provides a good introduction to the series
but at times, the pace is a bit slow.

If I remember correctly, this is the only episode that Gerry Anderson
directed.

The transition from scenes is handled well; such as the one from Carlin's
sister screaming to the landing of the plane carrying Straker and Henderson.
My guess is if the Foster character had been in this episode, he would have
had many of the scenes that contained Colonel Freeman, e.g. flirting with
Virginia Lake, etc.


Ron

I believe the episode "Identified" provides a good introduction to
the series but at times, the pace is a bit slow.

If I remember correctly, this is the only episode that Gerry Anderson
directed.

The transition from scenes is handled well; such as the one from
Carlin's sister screaming to the landing of the plane carrying
Straker and Henderson.

My guess is if the Foster character had been in this episode, he
would have had many of the scenes that contained Colonel Freeman,
e.g. flirting with Virginia Lake, etc.


Ron

"rj_demedeiros" wrote:

> My guess is if the Foster character had been in this episode, he
> would have had many of the scenes that contained Colonel Freeman,
> e.g. flirting with Virginia Lake, etc.
>

Yes, that's true - thank God Alec's character is toned down a bit
in later episodes. Back in 1994, Bravo (a UK satellite channel)
actually ran clips from Alec's dialogue (the stuff about the
clouds giving "as much cover as a g-string on a belly dancer" and
the line about "I wouldn't let anything interfere with our dinner
date") in light-hearted trailers that actually poked fun at UFO,
treating it as a kind of unintentional comedy sci-fi novelty.