The Catacombs Episode Guide

Alien Attack

Film Compilations
Film 2 (1979)

Compiled From
Breakaway
War Games

Additional Scenes Directed by
Bill Lenny

Additional Scenes Written by
Dennis Spooner
Portugal Ataque Alienígena
Italy Attacco Alieno
Germany Die Außerirdischen schlagen zu

Background

  • There are additional shots in the title sequence from The Bringers Of Wonder part 1 (Koenig's swooping Eagle), Missing Link and Black Sun, and, at the end, Space Brain.
  • ITC promoted the film with the tags "The ultimate space age disaster was just the beginning..." and "The ultimate space-age disaster...and a desperate struggle for survival"
  • Although designed with a cinema release in mind (and film posters and trailers to support it), the main target was cable and satellite TV, and home video. There does not seem to have been a theatrical release.
Alien Attack
Alien Attack card (293k) Alien Attack front

Additional Cast

Narrator Mark Smith
Chairman Patrick Allen
Deputy chairman Weston Gavin
Commander Nardin Marc Smith
Alien Attack

Additional Sets

Int. International Lunar Finance Commission Boardroom
Ext. City at night (establishing shots)

Ext. Building Entrance (establishing shot)

The boardroom decoration includes unpainted Airfix models including a Saturn V rocket, two space shuttles and, on the desk, Starcruiser (an aborted Gerry Anderson project that spawned an Airfix kit). The consoles are old props from Gerry Anderson's 1969 series UFO. Strangely there is an American stars and stripes flag, although this is an "International" organisation with British chairman and deputy.

SFX

Scenes of the Eagle training crash were reversed (left for right) shots from elsewhere in the episode, especially Koenig's crash. (The scenes of Main Mission glimpsed in this segment are also reversed).

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Music

The title music for the "Alien Attack" film is called "Giants Causeway" by British composer Nick Ingman, composed for the Bruton music library and on the 1978 Bruton LP "The Will to Win" (BRG 9). Thanks to Oliver Lomax

The end title score is an unidentified library track.

Changes

  1. An introductory narration. This is reworked from the narration for the film Destination Moonbase Alpha. The narration is spoken by Mark Smith (the voice of the Cloud in Beta Cloud).
  2. Title sequence is made from the "This Episode" clips from Breakaway and War Games, plus a few shots from The Bringers Of Wonder part 1, Missing Link and Black Sun.
  3. An opening sequence in the International Lunar Finance meeting monitoring a Meta Probe pilot training flight. Their Eagle passes Navigation Beacon Delta, then crashes (reversed footage from Koenig's crash plus clips of War Games pilots and pilots during the dispersal of the waste). This is supposedly Warren and Sparkman.
  4. Interval with the lunar finance boardroom where the deputy chairman argues that the Meta Probe should be launched immediately but the chairman asserts Koenig will take the decision.
  5. Interval (after the breakaway and the news cast finishes). The Chairman announces that during the last transmission from Alpha they learned Simmonds had died. They cannot mount a rescue mission but must instead devote their resources to the state of emergency on Earth.

There are no cuts in the episodes.

The Lunar Commission scenes, filmed especially for this film.
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Continuity

Errors

Narration: "From the very first moment in time when man looked out into the Universe, our galaxy has been dominated by the Moon, the Earth's great natural satellite." Our galaxy contains billions of stars, none of which are dominated by the Moon. It should probably read "our sky has been dominated". It is still far better than the nonsense narration in Destination Moonbase Alpha.

Narration: "The Command Centre, Moon Base Alpha, is a well established colonised space station, regularly monitored and smoothly functioning, its very existence made possible by a specially developed support system fed by nuclear waste from Earth." This is a confusing sentence, probably as it is adapted from the narration in Destination Moonbase Alpha. Command Centre is the control room that replaces Main Mission in Year Two (and not seen in these episodes). According to the rest of the film, nuclear waste is just dumped on the far side of the Moon, not recycled.

Why is a training flight on the dark side of the Moon being monitored from Earth in an otherwise ordinary office board room? By looking out the curtains the deputy determines they are passing over navigation beacon delta.

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Monitoring equipment.

Observations

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Airfix Eagle 		Alien Attack
Note the Starcruiser model on the table and Saturn V rocket beyond.

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Contents copyright Martin Willey