Interesting. Instead talk about the 70s-80s tire screech effect they used in every single car scene, for small cars as well as trucks or even 30 ton APCs
The power station is in Acton. Not Ealing. They are near each other but Acton is Acton and Ealing is Ealing. They are totally separate areas of London.
The APC inspired car manufacturers to come up with large sports rims and thin tyres. Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Testarossa had only 15" rims in 1984. Robocop animated toys patrol car came up with similar thin tyres and large rim design. Decades after this movie, rims in 1994 extended to 17" then just before 2000 grew to 19" rims.
It is a royal shame that it was left outside in the weather to rot. It was even more of a dishonor to the vehicle (and the movie) to refuse to sell it to someone that would have more than likely gave it a home in a climate controlled facility for future fans to appreciate. The final slap in the face was to scrap it.
Definitely.......although.....I can't help wondering if the vehicle was actually scrapped or if some of the people running that scrapyard might've quietly moved it to a warehouse to try and protect it from the studio and now it's just gathering dust.
@@Spitsz01 It was a "control of valuable resources" thing. That rig was iconic, too famous to be allowed to be seen in ANYTHING other than it's owners films. What if it had been sold on in a useable state? It could have made money for a rival studio.... Nope! Can't have that! A similar thing happened to Concord, and almost all of Kubrics props from his films... Ironicly a 2001 EVA pod wound up in a scrapyard in a galaxy far, far away! (Episode 1 in Wattos scrap yard)
@@Sejen77 You're looking at it from a retrospective perspective it's not about "control of valuable resources" and more cost. The rig is iconic now, not at the time, as it would have been scrapped long before the movie was released. They would have never known that 30/40 years later, people would want to buy it. In reality, what likely happened, and still happens to this day, is that it was too expensive to store. If studios kept everything from movies, they would run out of space, and it would cost a fortune. At the time, props and saving film props especially wasn't really a sought after thing. Studios just scrapped things because why store something that would cost them money, instead of make them money.
@@pm8rsh233 If you watched the video to the end you'd have learned that the vehicle was left in a Pinewood Studios parking lot for a decade. People made attempts to buy it before it was scrapped.
I'm really surprised after all these years that no one has made a custom replica of this which wouldn't be hard to do because it's all angles it could be made from angle iron and Sheet Metal and would weigh nowhere near the original.I even found the company that makes the the original tires and they run about $10,000 a piece, all I need is to hit the lottery and I would build it.
I agree. I would've kept it for measurements and dimensions and then built one from the ground up. Sooo much lighter and usable. Have all of the exterior armourment, especially the roof canon. Stretched 1to2 ft, if nessessary, for interior room. No complex 4 wheel steering(maybe). Big semi turbo diesel. You get the picture. When I first saw it, I thought the M577 APC was a special vehicle.
After so many years since I first watched Aliens, the M577 APC is still one of the most memorable part of the movie, and I also think it's one of the coolest AFV design in Hollywood history.
It is utter trash from a practicality point of view. It is far too low to the ground, it's like an armored sports car. You want military vehicles to be able to traverse rough terrain, whereas this abomination can barely drive on slightly uneven roads.
@@ParaSpite The turret mounted miniguns only can fire horizontally, the infantry has to dismount on the side of the vehicle in the line of fire / like in the russian BTR-80 /, the driver has a tunnel view only if the camera system fails to work if there is. I can't see any periscopes in case. But I have to agree the vehicle is iconic and the movie is great.
@@6steveo9 Why he should ease down? Everything he said is correct. Having glasses does not make you a teacher nor it gives you the ability to tell others to ease...
Supposedly when the Batman film crew arrived at the power plant, they found the old Aliens set dressings still in there, including the resin sets for the xenomorph hive.
I wouldn't be surprised if that really was the case. There's so many examples of film crews leaving behind whole sets ( Star Wars Lars Moisture Farm, The Abyss Station, Big Fish village, etc.) so it's entirely plausible.
A rare sequel up there with T2 that could be argued to be better than the original, and in both cases they went horror sci-fi into action. That kind of makes sense if you think about it, since the initial shock form the monster can never be replicated but the characters can still master the situation.
Odd, because I prefer the originals of both franchises. In Aliens case, I didn't care for how much of the unpredictable/patient cosmic horror element of the original creature was given more animalistic/aggressive qualities and utilized mainly as canon fodder. That and I prefer the eggmorphing concept. Guess it's swings and roundabouts really.
Aliens is a totally different genre from Alien. I don't really find them comparable. Terminator and T2 were both action movies, the latter just had a massive budget for more and better effects.
@@nodak81 I can agree with you that Alien and Aliens were a different genre...pretty sure I said that; but The Terminator is as much Horror as any slasher film.
I saw the thumbnail for this and thought 'why would I be interested in a push back?' - pushback being the name we used for these tugs at the handling company I used to work for. I spent a considerable amount of time hanging around these - being the driver on a push-back crew being seen as one of the plumb jobs on the airport - you don't spend much time exposed to the elements. I didn't think about them much at the time - it appeared to be a massive chassis, made from welded 1/2" plate, and a massive diesel. Obviously there'd be traction issues - pushing/towing a fully laden wide-body on wet concrete, from a standstill, was going to need plenty traction - but there was so much plate that I never considered it'd be ballasted. From such a 'barn door' mentality the next development was to use a much cleverer approach - a much smaller vehicle that grabbed the nosewheel and used the weight of the aircraft to provide downforce. If you've never seen one in action it's quite interesting - the pushback being an unusual Y shape - apparently sometimes nicknamed 'the Batmobile'. th-cam.com/video/vR97Vj4iBJg/w-d-xo.html
@@armouredarchives8867 The downside is you're limited to planes with a single nose gear and enough ground clearance, while the old school tug can push pretty much anything, all you need is the right towbar. So airports usually have both types of tug at their disposal.
I’d really like to know more about the drop ship. It has nukes, sonic-electronic ball-busters, phased particle arrays that can fry half a city, sharp sticks, and harsh language. Unfortunately it also has doors that can’t be closed and locked while on the ground, and absolutely no intrusion detection.
Always bothered me how low the ground clearance is. And them not leaving any crew on the ship. And, and, and... Suspension of disbelief is a challenge for engineers. Still loved the film!
Before setting off for extraction the pilots of the UD4 - Cheyenne were still on standby on the Sulaco. However you are right it seems like Lt Gorman should have stayed on the Sulaco with Sgt Apone leading the ground mission. There also should have another couple of squad still onboard the Sulaco and definitely more synthetic crew members as well. The Sulaco was definitely large enough to carry a larger troop contingent as it had two UD4s and could apparently carry 8 and could support up to 90 living crew members. The reason the force was so miniscule was to allow Weyland Yutani to kill off the crew post mission (with less hassle) to cover up the mission and acquisition of the xeno.
Also, the pilot and copilot should have landed in a secure place, or at the very least secured the landing zone. If this is not possible, have a backup synthetic on the Sulaco
@@Serby665 yep, they could have set up auto turrets around the landing zone. It was always weird to me that they had auto turrets and on a mission in which they knew they were dealing with xenomorphs they didn't set them up before they kicked the ant's nest by entering the atmosphere processing plant.
@@blockstacker5614 I guess it was a recon team and of low value. Expendable. Not hard to believe really, especially since the ship would just stay in orbit, perfectly safe if the crew died. No loss for the company ultimately!
Just watched the film again (after some years) and was amazed at how awesome the APC design has remained. It's a boxy '80s future war-machine that was slammed, but still somehow looked legit. ALIENS overall still has some of the best sci-fi vehicle designs to date. Wish someone would release some new model kits of all these things - Thanks for the excellent vid.
This was such an iconic sci-fi film vehicle, it really LOOKED like it could have been a genuine heavily armoured military troop transporter from somewhere. The only qualm I ever had about seeing the thing on screen was how blatantly obvious it was that the "interior" set was significantly longer than the entire exterior of the vehicle. It's funny though, that in a film with Aliens, faster than light travel, hyper sleep pods, totally lifelike androids, and terraforming, my biggest point of disbelief is one of simple dimensional continuity. :D
@@therealsnow They DO have FTL, they just barely ever mention it. The biggest proof is that it takes the marines just 3 weeks to travel from Earth to LV-426 onboard the Sulaco. Zeta Reticuli is about 39 light years away from our solar system, so clearly some type of FTL travel is involved. What type of FTL travel is a mystery within the strict Alien canon, and various off-shoot novels, comic books, games and other media sometimes give different answers. The FTL drive that can be considered canon (used by Nostromo, Sulaco, Prometheus, etc.) is called a Gravity Drive, but how it actually works, nobody cares to explain in any noteworthy detail. Most sources just say it bends the space around the ship, so in that sense it could be similar to the Alcubierre drive, or a warp-drive. All we know is that the technology was improved considerably between the events of Prometheus and Aliens, cutting the travel time between Earth and Zeta Reticuli from years to just weeks. With that in mind, there's also no real explanation for the pods in Aliens. Perhaps they are just a legacy tech that was left over from a time it took years to travel between stars, but among the fans the most widely accepted reason is actually resource management. Why take large amounts of food and water onboard if you can just put the crew in suspended animation and reclaim some space for additional cargo. Very corporate thinking there, which is why I think it holds up for many people.
Ripley's rescue with the APC is by far my favorite scene. I remember the first time I saw it in the mid '80s when I was in 2nd grade and the impression it left on me. I consider Aliens the special edition/director's cut to be the best motion picture mankind has ever made.
Very cool of you to hve covered this vehicle!! Thanks a bunch! Always wondered all of this stuff, including it's final disposition! It would've been worth a fortune by now! What a shame to scrap it..
Nice image of a Scammell double cab ballast tractor and an interesting view into the weird world of film props. The story of the Russian tank supposedly driven around St Petersburg by James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is also entertaining.
@@pave64 It was actually: ""Ripley! You've blown the transaxle, you're just grinding metal! Come on ease down."" But anyway, She blew it ! Below is a link to Alien Theories - "USCM Tech: M577 Armored Personnel Carrier APC - Explained" th-cam.com/video/vLJDlaaB1H8/w-d-xo.html
Fantastic stuff, well done on the 2k subs! I've cycled past that power station on the adjacent towpath and had no idea it was used for filming Aliens, and the use of an aircraft tug for the APC is fascinating. Your videos are excellent, looking forward to the next fun one at 3k!
having been the driver and commander in real APC's (the M113 and real M577) i can see a lot of beneficial design elements in it and most APC roles are supported by tanks normally anyway. the one in the movie is also more along the lines of the real M577 in that it is more of a command post than a personnel carrier but still had the ability to do so. what they should have done in the movie is fire up the guns on it as they never used them. it was what i was waiting for was for them fire up the guns and have a real blast.
Thanks for this, I haven't seen Alien (yet), but knew the M577 from a Ravenfield mod of all things. I've always wondered where it came from, so thanks for clearing that up for me.
Love that this was given the same treatment as a real one would and would love to see another as a fun diversion at the next milestone. Some interesting detail, took me back to when I 1st found out they had built the full size working prop from a aircraft tug, great to hear details of the orginial manufacturers.
I remember as a kid seeing this moving and thinking about all the cool military stuff like the drop ship and the automatic machine guns. Then thinking, are they planning on fighting on a table top? That thing has zero ground clearance and no tracks.
It's not so much the lack of tracks, but the lack of any useful suspension height. The large wheel diameter would aid in crossing terrain, but the minimal suspension travel would negate any benefit of the large wheels; ...naturally the tug with 35t of lead wouldn't be able to have much if any suspension not provided by the tyres alone - as towing a 430t Jumbo, suspension travel would absorb some towing torque/power and risk unwanted fore-to-aft rocking resonances upon the tug &. its driver/crew.
@@Orinslayer They are actually flatter than most table tops. In some airports the total deviation from one end of the runway to the other is 1cm in every km.
Articulated or hydraulic suspension to alter ground clearance would make it viable for a lot more ground types, but this thing is never going to be an off road vehicle. Then again it looks like it was designed for industrial/urban deployment and it was selected because they knew that the colony had built all the roads required.
Whilst this didn't get much screen time in the film it did have quite a bit in the Grenada Studio Tours Alien 4D cinema experience (that I loved so much I went on 9 times in a day) where the premise was you were on board escaping the Xeno Queen who was chasing you. Seats moved, it was loud, it was intense...so so good. I loved that vehicle so much I tried to draw it on some grid paper from memory when I got home but ended up with with more of a over sized box on wheels...not too dissimilar to its original form tbh. Great video, thanks for the memories.
I feel like if there was any vehicle that I wanted to reproduce from a movie this would be the one. I love the interceptor from mad max but this APC would be the one thing I would sell body parts to own.
I don't know what you do otherwise with your channel but this was very interestingly presented with all the little details and i would imagine that this format/content might be intersting to others too :)
One of the sexiest fiction armoured vehicles even if with that ground clearance it would be lucky if it could function as an armoured car. Now, maybe Alien's future Earth has been paved several times over as rival conglomerates build shopping malls over each other's rubble, making clearance not so much of an issue.
It would still be an issue for a military vehicle because wars tend to make the streets dirty. Rubble from bombed buildings, fallen lampposts, and all that. It's also quite ridiculous the xenomorph could break the window, which ought to be some future super glass able to stop 20mm autocannon rounds, at the very least. As cool as the vehicle is and as good as the movie is, it's kind of a pity they didn't ask anyone with military experience about it. But in the end it doesn't matter in a fictional movie.
@@herrakaarme That is quite true, especially given that in that universe forklifts need the land clearance of having legs. One can only come to the conclusion that the loading docks of the future will be a lot more hazardous than the battlefields. But joking aside. They later retconned pneumatic suspension into the craft. That would give it actual cross country abilities. But I love the idea that Weyland-Yutani is so blinded for profit that their private army has all-around inferior kit with glaring flaws, just to save a few astro-bucks.
I believe it was intentionally chosen because it was low so it could fit through doors and down corridors. Sure I've read that somewhere. Not just an urban vehicle but an indoor vehicle for the urban areas of the future or something like that.
@@jdmjesus6103 Naw. They bought it at auction after realizing the design they had would be too expensive to scratch-build, then it sat around until they needed to film with the full-size vehicle. James Cameron took some napkin drawings to a fab shop and said, "I need you to put a skin over this vehicle...We need it for filming in two weeks." The fab shop threw a bunch of plywood and metal sheets together and finished just in time.
Fascinating video. Another classic movie,Full Metal Jacket,was filmed in an old gas works in England,which was used to represent Hue in Vietnam. It's amazing what movie makers can achieve with imagination and a lot of hard work. Sadly these days, creativity like this is too often replaced by CGI.Interestingly some of the weapons used by the Space Marines are clearly based on German Mg 42 machine guns. This was a great sci-fi action movie. You don't see many films as good as this these days.
This Tank is so iconic. I loved that scene and the pilot scene either! In the beginning when they are approaching the facility and passing by turbulence.
I do remember seeing the APC in Leicester Square. They also had a bunch of "extras" dressed up as Colonial Marines! I first saw Aliens at the Odeon, Marble Arch, which at the time was the largest screen in Europe (before being hacked up to form a multiplex.). Arguably still my favourite film of all time.
I think it was intended as a riot vehicle rather than a tank. The worst they were expecting was a handful of the colonists rebelling. It was a "show the flag and bust a couple heads to remind them who's in charge" kind of mission. Nobody thought it might be aliens except Burke, because he's the one that sent people to see if there really was an alien ship.
Without a doubt the best of the Alien films. So many times I've used lines from this film and so many iconic scenes. The scene I really love is the robot sentry scene, it amazed me that James Cameron had the full scene cut but later on the directors cut had it put back. Bring back Alien War that used to be in London. That was superb when I went in the 90s
I remember when I first saw this futuristic armored vehicle. I remember thinking how the ground clearance was so low. It was just practical for going into extraterrestrial industrial plants to kill aliens with acid for blood.
I've actually been building a body for one of my R/C vehicles and it's slow work, been working on it for several years. The chassis (roughly a Meter in length) is a one off 6WD/4WS that I built from aluminum and uses the gearboxes and some suspension bits from a Monster truck kit (plus spare parts). My body hides the center tires (which do not steer). I took many screen shots from the movie and I have a stack of pics for reference. After seeing this vid I'm inspired to make a YT vid of the build. It may be some time before I can do that...
That wasa really strange vehicle to see, having recently gotten out of the army and being around solid steel M60s. That was a great movie, with hilarious military parallels.
Aliens is what propelled the franchise into the popularity that it's known today. If memory serves me correct. When they were filming the crash they had originally wanted to film it head on with the camera crew. The idea I believe was for the APC to stop right in front of the camera crew or something like that. Anyway, at the last minute they decided not to have the crew present, but leave the cameras there. That was fortunate, because the brakes failed on the APC and crashed right through the cameras and the damaged the wall. The camera crew narrowly avoided certain death!
I think i can tell the difference between the model & the full vehicle... the full vehicle you can see the circular spotlights through the square holes at the bottom, where the model they look like completely square lights. Doesn't detract from an awesome scene, though
@@Colin_ I once seen it in a cinema, years after it came out. They ran 'old' movies during the day for a period. I went there with a friend, we where the only ones there. Whole cinema to ourselves. Awesome experience!
That was a hard choice...drop ship or APC..I thought APC as I had loads of aircraft but had very little tanks so I got the APC then a lepard 2 to go on top of my huge CRT monitor...nva did get round to the Dship. Worth a lot now the original halcyon kits.
Love the special, awesome job on this and a wonderful vehicle to cover! Since you asked, one of my other personal classic sci-fi favorites would be the Scrambler from Spacehunter Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, tho it's likely there is not as much data as this one.
So I'm a big fan of this movie. The 50th anniversary is coming up, wouldn't it be cool for someone, and by someone I mean someone with a lot of money, to recreate this vehicle and show up to Comic Con with it!
When I was a teenager I always thought it was a mining vehicle, near my town is the largest subterranean copper mine in the world, "El Teniente" in Chile, so I knew the kind of vehicle they used within the tunnels. I am surprised it was an airplane tug, it has a very similar low profile but you are right, to customize it would have been more difficult because important design issues with that mining ones, like having the controls in the middle of a side of the vehicle and not the front. Very interesting video, subscribed!
I remember seeing Aliens at the Roxy Theatre, Parramatta with my friend in 1986. Great Movie. One of the few sequels that is better than the original (IMO)
A time when movie makers weren’t trying to say anything but worked very hard to do just one thing; immerse and entertain as many movie goers as possible. No agenda except that. Robocop, Predator, Aliens, Terminator… sigh. There are some great movies made these days for sure but this was a great time for sci-fi action.
Such an awesome take on an apc, even if it is essentially road only (no offroad with that ground clearance) with a 'questionable' main turret. Can't believe they just scrapped it. Then again, at 30+ tons you're probably better off with a replica.
Fact check: Ealing is indeed West London and not North London, my bad.
Interesting. Instead talk about the 70s-80s tire screech effect they used in every single car scene, for small cars as well as trucks or even 30 ton APCs
I used to live there.
The power station is in Acton. Not Ealing. They are near each other but Acton is Acton and Ealing is Ealing. They are totally separate areas of London.
I would have loved to know more about the fictionally possible combat applications of this vehicle.
The APC inspired car manufacturers to come up with large sports rims and thin tyres. Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Testarossa had only 15" rims in 1984. Robocop animated toys patrol car came up with similar thin tyres and large rim design. Decades after this movie, rims in 1994 extended to 17" then just before 2000 grew to 19" rims.
It is a royal shame that it was left outside in the weather to rot. It was even more of a dishonor to the vehicle (and the movie) to refuse to sell it to someone that would have more than likely gave it a home in a climate controlled facility for future fans to appreciate. The final slap in the face was to scrap it.
Definitely.......although.....I can't help wondering if the vehicle was actually scrapped or if some of the people running that scrapyard might've quietly moved it to a warehouse to try and protect it from the studio and now it's just gathering dust.
Why scrap it! What a shame.
@@Spitsz01 It was a "control of valuable resources" thing. That rig was iconic, too famous to be allowed to be seen in ANYTHING other than it's owners films.
What if it had been sold on in a useable state? It could have made money for a rival studio.... Nope! Can't have that!
A similar thing happened to Concord, and almost all of Kubrics props from his films... Ironicly a 2001 EVA pod wound up in a scrapyard in a galaxy far, far away! (Episode 1 in Wattos scrap yard)
@@Sejen77 You're looking at it from a retrospective perspective it's not about "control of valuable resources" and more cost. The rig is iconic now, not at the time, as it would have been scrapped long before the movie was released. They would have never known that 30/40 years later, people would want to buy it. In reality, what likely happened, and still happens to this day, is that it was too expensive to store. If studios kept everything from movies, they would run out of space, and it would cost a fortune. At the time, props and saving film props especially wasn't really a sought after thing. Studios just scrapped things because why store something that would cost them money, instead of make them money.
@@pm8rsh233 If you watched the video to the end you'd have learned that the vehicle was left in a Pinewood Studios parking lot for a decade. People made attempts to buy it before it was scrapped.
I'm really surprised after all these years that no one has made a custom replica of this which wouldn't be hard to do because it's all angles it could be made from angle iron and Sheet Metal and would weigh nowhere near the original.I even found the company that makes the the original tires and they run about $10,000 a piece, all I need is to hit the lottery and I would build it.
Elon Musk did. It's called a Cyber Truck now.
Ask Colin Furze... 🤷♂️🤔
Cooler than a Bentley!
I agree. I would've kept it for measurements and dimensions and then built one from the ground up. Sooo much lighter and usable. Have all of the exterior armourment, especially the roof canon. Stretched 1to2 ft, if nessessary, for interior room. No complex 4 wheel steering(maybe). Big semi turbo diesel. You get the picture.
When I first saw it, I thought the M577 APC was a special vehicle.
Just use some used dump truck tires, you could get those cheap. I think those Swiveling Volvos use this size.
After so many years since I first watched Aliens, the M577 APC is still one of the most memorable part of the movie, and I also think it's one of the coolest AFV design in Hollywood history.
It is utter trash from a practicality point of view. It is far too low to the ground, it's like an armored sports car. You want military vehicles to be able to traverse rough terrain, whereas this abomination can barely drive on slightly uneven roads.
@@ParaSpite The turret mounted miniguns only can fire horizontally, the infantry has to dismount on the side of the vehicle in the line of fire / like in the russian BTR-80 /, the driver has a tunnel view only if the camera system fails to work if there is. I can't see any periscopes in case. But I have to agree the vehicle is iconic and the movie is great.
@@ParaSpite ease down
@@6steveo9 Why he should ease down? Everything he said is correct. Having glasses does not make you a teacher nor it gives you the ability to tell others to ease...
@@milanmali5366 The genre is called "science fiction", look up the word fiction.
I can tell you what happened to it: Ripley broke the transaxle and it was nuked from orbit, just to be safe
Damn right. I was flipping out there for a second already. Chickenshit outfit.
@@jakobfromthefence After the nuke, for anything on the Planet. 'Game over man. Game over.'
Hey, it was the only way to be sure.
@@christopher9000p True, but one of the Xenomorphs was still unaccounted for. But then again, Ripley took care of that with the Exo-Suit Loader
@@beauxr.benoit1374 We could try to build a fire, sing a couple of songs...
This iconic masterpiece should have been put in a museum for all to admire for decades to come. What a shame that it was not.
Supposedly when the Batman film crew arrived at the power plant, they found the old Aliens set dressings still in there, including the resin sets for the xenomorph hive.
I wouldn't be surprised if that really was the case. There's so many examples of film crews leaving behind whole sets ( Star Wars Lars Moisture Farm, The Abyss Station, Big Fish village, etc.) so it's entirely plausible.
Which in turn led to the Batman vs Alien vs Predator movie th-cam.com/video/x4diVpNtrnM/w-d-xo.html
Harrison Ford voice : That belongs in a museum!
A rare sequel up there with T2 that could be argued to be better than the original, and in both cases they went horror sci-fi into action. That kind of makes sense if you think about it, since the initial shock form the monster can never be replicated but the characters can still master the situation.
Alien: rape, birth trauma, corporate betrayal
Aliens: the power of motherhood
Same director too
Odd, because I prefer the originals of both franchises.
In Aliens case, I didn't care for how much of the unpredictable/patient cosmic horror element of the original creature was given more animalistic/aggressive qualities and utilized mainly as canon fodder.
That and I prefer the eggmorphing concept.
Guess it's swings and roundabouts really.
Aliens is a totally different genre from Alien. I don't really find them comparable. Terminator and T2 were both action movies, the latter just had a massive budget for more and better effects.
@@nodak81 I can agree with you that Alien and Aliens were a different genre...pretty sure I said that; but The Terminator is as much Horror as any slasher film.
I saw the thumbnail for this and thought 'why would I be interested in a push back?' - pushback being the name we used for these tugs at the handling company I used to work for.
I spent a considerable amount of time hanging around these - being the driver on a push-back crew being seen as one of the plumb jobs on the airport - you don't spend much time exposed to the elements.
I didn't think about them much at the time - it appeared to be a massive chassis, made from welded 1/2" plate, and a massive diesel. Obviously there'd be traction issues - pushing/towing a fully laden wide-body on wet concrete, from a standstill, was going to need plenty traction - but there was so much plate that I never considered it'd be ballasted.
From such a 'barn door' mentality the next development was to use a much cleverer approach - a much smaller vehicle that grabbed the nosewheel and used the weight of the aircraft to provide downforce. If you've never seen one in action it's quite interesting - the pushback being an unusual Y shape - apparently sometimes nicknamed 'the Batmobile'.
th-cam.com/video/vR97Vj4iBJg/w-d-xo.html
good lil vid, ty, makes a lot more sense to use the planes weight than try to lumber up 70+ tons.
@@armouredarchives8867 The downside is you're limited to planes with a single nose gear and enough ground clearance, while the old school tug can push pretty much anything, all you need is the right towbar. So airports usually have both types of tug at their disposal.
Very cool video- thanx!
I’d really like to know more about the drop ship. It has nukes, sonic-electronic ball-busters, phased particle arrays that can fry half a city, sharp sticks, and harsh language. Unfortunately it also has doors that can’t be closed and locked while on the ground, and absolutely no intrusion detection.
Oh, he DID cover the drop ship! Sweet!
comment of the day - genuine lol. ty
Always bothered me how low the ground clearance is. And them not leaving any crew on the ship. And, and, and... Suspension of disbelief is a challenge for engineers. Still loved the film!
Before setting off for extraction the pilots of the UD4 - Cheyenne were still on standby on the Sulaco. However you are right it seems like Lt Gorman should have stayed on the Sulaco with Sgt Apone leading the ground mission. There also should have another couple of squad still onboard the Sulaco and definitely more synthetic crew members as well. The Sulaco was definitely large enough to carry a larger troop contingent as it had two UD4s and could apparently carry 8 and could support up to 90 living crew members.
The reason the force was so miniscule was to allow Weyland Yutani to kill off the crew post mission (with less hassle) to cover up the mission and acquisition of the xeno.
Also, the pilot and copilot should have landed in a secure place, or at the very least secured the landing zone. If this is not possible, have a backup synthetic on the Sulaco
@@Serby665 yep, they could have set up auto turrets around the landing zone. It was always weird to me that they had auto turrets and on a mission in which they knew they were dealing with xenomorphs they didn't set them up before they kicked the ant's nest by entering the atmosphere processing plant.
yeh, using that massive ass spaceship to carry all of 15 people seemed silly to me
@@blockstacker5614 I guess it was a recon team and of low value. Expendable. Not hard to believe really, especially since the ship would just stay in orbit, perfectly safe if the crew died. No loss for the company ultimately!
Just watched the film again (after some years) and was amazed at how awesome the APC design has remained. It's a boxy '80s future war-machine that was slammed, but still somehow looked legit. ALIENS overall still has some of the best sci-fi vehicle designs to date. Wish someone would release some new model kits of all these things - Thanks for the excellent vid.
GREAT research, with photos to match. Great work, I half expected to see just a bunch of movie screenshots but you've got the goods!
Each time I'm taking off with some airliner I imagine the scene when the reactor goes critical.
Would've loved a bit more pewpew scenes from the APC using the turret.
More? Were there *any?*
This was actually a very interesting diversion from the norm - would be great to see more of these in the future - great work, and thanks! 👍
Not only have you given us how the vehicle came to be, but you ALSO gave us a treat by showing scenes inside the facility.
This was such an iconic sci-fi film vehicle, it really LOOKED like it could have been a genuine heavily armoured military troop transporter from somewhere. The only qualm I ever had about seeing the thing on screen was how blatantly obvious it was that the "interior" set was significantly longer than the entire exterior of the vehicle.
It's funny though, that in a film with Aliens, faster than light travel, hyper sleep pods, totally lifelike androids, and terraforming, my biggest point of disbelief is one of simple dimensional continuity. :D
It's the TARDIS doing some side work. Being Sexy doesn't come cheap.
It is obvious, this vehicule is a Tardis. So a time lord is lost in alien universe with no vehicule. :)
Um, they DON'T have faster than light travel, that's why they need sleep pods, duh.
That's a common issue for TARDIS Motors Co.
@@therealsnow They DO have FTL, they just barely ever mention it. The biggest proof is that it takes the marines just 3 weeks to travel from Earth to LV-426 onboard the Sulaco. Zeta Reticuli is about 39 light years away from our solar system, so clearly some type of FTL travel is involved. What type of FTL travel is a mystery within the strict Alien canon, and various off-shoot novels, comic books, games and other media sometimes give different answers. The FTL drive that can be considered canon (used by Nostromo, Sulaco, Prometheus, etc.) is called a Gravity Drive, but how it actually works, nobody cares to explain in any noteworthy detail. Most sources just say it bends the space around the ship, so in that sense it could be similar to the Alcubierre drive, or a warp-drive. All we know is that the technology was improved considerably between the events of Prometheus and Aliens, cutting the travel time between Earth and Zeta Reticuli from years to just weeks. With that in mind, there's also no real explanation for the pods in Aliens. Perhaps they are just a legacy tech that was left over from a time it took years to travel between stars, but among the fans the most widely accepted reason is actually resource management. Why take large amounts of food and water onboard if you can just put the crew in suspended animation and reclaim some space for additional cargo. Very corporate thinking there, which is why I think it holds up for many people.
Ripley's rescue with the APC is by far my favorite scene. I remember the first time I saw it in the mid '80s when I was in 2nd grade and the impression it left on me. I consider Aliens the special edition/director's cut to be the best motion picture mankind has ever made.
My Dad drove the ATT77 for a living at Heathrow, never got to have a go, though he did tow me out on a plane I was on once which was cool :D
Nice touch, adding the actual scene at the end of the video. Much appreciated!
Very cool of you to hve covered this vehicle!! Thanks a bunch! Always wondered all of this stuff, including it's final disposition! It would've been worth a fortune by now! What a shame to scrap it..
Nice image of a Scammell double cab ballast tractor and an interesting view into the weird world of film props. The story of the Russian tank supposedly driven around St Petersburg by James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is also entertaining.
Congratulations on 2k subscribers, I always loved the look of this vehicle, it actually looks like a Sci-Fi APC should look.
Brilliant! Thanks for that. I built the plastic model kit of this subject years ago. Made by Halcyon Models. Great Stuff!
". . . . . .Ripley , slow down! You've blown the trans-axle!"
This bothered me to no end! Is it the trans-axle from Lada NIva, or a military-grade utility vehicle? Why was it so fragile?
@@pave64 It was actually: ""Ripley! You've blown the transaxle, you're just grinding metal! Come on ease down.""
But anyway, She blew it !
Below is a link to Alien Theories - "USCM Tech: M577 Armored Personnel Carrier APC - Explained"
th-cam.com/video/vLJDlaaB1H8/w-d-xo.html
@Dirpitz not thats not all that means dip shart
@@fritzdaddy-135mmgetstagger4 Guess how I know you've never served in the military
Congratulations on 2k subs! Glad to see this channel is growing so fast, and attracting more and more viewers. Thanks for all these great videos!
Thank you very much!
Fantastic stuff, well done on the 2k subs! I've cycled past that power station on the adjacent towpath and had no idea it was used for filming Aliens, and the use of an aircraft tug for the APC is fascinating. Your videos are excellent, looking forward to the next fun one at 3k!
Hicks : ''Ripley, you've blown the trans-axel, your'e just grinding metal''
- aliens, 1986.
Many thanks, congratulations on achieving your subscriber count.
having been the driver and commander in real APC's (the M113 and real M577) i can see a lot of beneficial design elements in it and most APC roles are supported by tanks normally anyway. the one in the movie is also more along the lines of the real M577 in that it is more of a command post than a personnel carrier but still had the ability to do so. what they should have done in the movie is fire up the guns on it as they never used them. it was what i was waiting for was for them fire up the guns and have a real blast.
nice one, ed - enjoyed the "behind-the-scenes" look at this vehicle
God, I just love that thing so much. And that whole movie, to be honest.
Thanks for this, I haven't seen Alien (yet), but knew the M577 from a Ravenfield mod of all things. I've always wondered where it came from, so thanks for clearing that up for me.
See it asap! It's fantastic. Less action, more suspense & classic sci-fi. Still great.
@@NinjaRunningWild Will do
Love that this was given the same treatment as a real one would and would love to see another as a fun diversion at the next milestone.
Some interesting detail, took me back to when I 1st found out they had built the full size working prop from a aircraft tug, great to hear details of the orginial manufacturers.
Brilliant. Loved the film. Hearing about how the APC came about was really great!
I remember as a kid seeing this moving and thinking about all the cool military stuff like the drop ship and the automatic machine guns. Then thinking, are they planning on fighting on a table top? That thing has zero ground clearance and no tracks.
It's not so much the lack of tracks, but the lack of any useful suspension height.
The large wheel diameter would aid in crossing terrain, but the minimal suspension travel would negate any benefit of the large wheels;
...naturally the tug with 35t of lead wouldn't be able to have much if any suspension not provided by the tyres alone - as towing a 430t Jumbo, suspension travel would absorb some towing torque/power and risk unwanted fore-to-aft rocking resonances upon the tug &. its driver/crew.
Now that you mention it, an airport runway is basically a tabletop. 😆
@@Orinslayer They are actually flatter than most table tops. In some airports the total deviation from one end of the runway to the other is 1cm in every km.
@@gordonlawrence1448 O_O the only thing flatter than that is the true level room at NASA...
Articulated or hydraulic suspension to alter ground clearance would make it viable for a lot more ground types, but this thing is never going to be an off road vehicle. Then again it looks like it was designed for industrial/urban deployment and it was selected because they knew that the colony had built all the roads required.
Thank you for the "APC" history, I remember seeing it parked up in Leicester Square...so cool.
Whilst this didn't get much screen time in the film it did have quite a bit in the Grenada Studio Tours Alien 4D cinema experience (that I loved so much I went on 9 times in a day) where the premise was you were on board escaping the Xeno Queen who was chasing you. Seats moved, it was loud, it was intense...so so good. I loved that vehicle so much I tried to draw it on some grid paper from memory when I got home but ended up with with more of a over sized box on wheels...not too dissimilar to its original form tbh. Great video, thanks for the memories.
Aliens has been one of my favourite flicks ever since I saw it at the theatre. Couldn't get enough of Ripley!
Excellent video, thanks.
I feel like if there was any vehicle that I wanted to reproduce from a movie this would be the one. I love the interceptor from mad max but this APC would be the one thing I would sell body parts to own.
I don't know what you do otherwise with your channel but this was very interestingly presented with all the little details and i would imagine that this format/content might be intersting to others too :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
One of the sexiest fiction armoured vehicles even if with that ground clearance it would be lucky if it could function as an armoured car. Now, maybe Alien's future Earth has been paved several times over as rival conglomerates build shopping malls over each other's rubble, making clearance not so much of an issue.
It would still be an issue for a military vehicle because wars tend to make the streets dirty. Rubble from bombed buildings, fallen lampposts, and all that. It's also quite ridiculous the xenomorph could break the window, which ought to be some future super glass able to stop 20mm autocannon rounds, at the very least. As cool as the vehicle is and as good as the movie is, it's kind of a pity they didn't ask anyone with military experience about it. But in the end it doesn't matter in a fictional movie.
@@herrakaarme That is quite true, especially given that in that universe forklifts need the land clearance of having legs. One can only come to the conclusion that the loading docks of the future will be a lot more hazardous than the battlefields.
But joking aside. They later retconned pneumatic suspension into the craft. That would give it actual cross country abilities. But I love the idea that Weyland-Yutani is so blinded for profit that their private army has all-around inferior kit with glaring flaws, just to save a few astro-bucks.
@@CanalTremocos Haha, your last point is exceedingly believable!
I believe it was intentionally chosen because it was low so it could fit through doors and down corridors. Sure I've read that somewhere. Not just an urban vehicle but an indoor vehicle for the urban areas of the future or something like that.
@@jdmjesus6103 Naw. They bought it at auction after realizing the design they had would be too expensive to scratch-build, then it sat around until they needed to film with the full-size vehicle. James Cameron took some napkin drawings to a fab shop and said, "I need you to put a skin over this vehicle...We need it for filming in two weeks." The fab shop threw a bunch of plywood and metal sheets together and finished just in time.
Aliens just gets cooler and cooler the more I learn about it
Fascinating video. Another classic movie,Full Metal Jacket,was filmed in an old gas works in England,which was used to represent Hue in Vietnam. It's amazing what movie makers can achieve with imagination and a lot of hard work. Sadly these days, creativity like this is too often replaced by CGI.Interestingly some of the weapons used by the Space Marines are clearly based on German Mg 42 machine guns. This was a great sci-fi action movie. You don't see many films as good as this these days.
they were indeed, with added parts from a motor cycle if i recall
I never really bought into the Full Metal Jacket set.
creativity has room on every art.. .being it digital or physical doesnt change this.
Excellent movie and a great prop. Thanks for that video!
Glad you enjoyed it
APC designed to go inside installations; best (and badass) APC ever
This Tank is so iconic. I loved that scene and the pilot scene either! In the beginning when they are approaching the facility and passing by turbulence.
Fun! A feature not mentioned is the stowable turret, that slides to the back of vehicle for tight fits on drop ship
I do remember seeing the APC in Leicester Square. They also had a bunch of "extras" dressed up as Colonial Marines! I first saw Aliens at the Odeon, Marble Arch, which at the time was the largest screen in Europe (before being hacked up to form a multiplex.). Arguably still my favourite film of all time.
I think it was intended as a riot vehicle rather than a tank. The worst they were expecting was a handful of the colonists rebelling. It was a "show the flag and bust a couple heads to remind them who's in charge" kind of mission.
Nobody thought it might be aliens except Burke, because he's the one that sent people to see if there really was an alien ship.
All right, we waste him. No offense. :p
And Ripley who had a bit of "local knowledge".
It’s awesome to see a Armored personnel transport. One that looks like a beast.
As a pilot I always thought this vehicle looked like a converted airport tug, this video confirms it, cool!
They scraped IT!!!!! What fools....it is such an iconic vehicle. 😾
Awesome! Thanks! Always wondered about this.
Without a doubt the best of the Alien films.
So many times I've used lines from this film and so many iconic scenes.
The scene I really love is the robot sentry scene, it amazed me that James Cameron had the full scene cut but later on the directors cut had it put back.
Bring back Alien War that used to be in London. That was superb when I went in the 90s
congrats, nice video!
The coolest ground vehicle in sci-fi ( / horror) movie history
Dude, that airport tug weighs more than a King Tiger. Holy cow
That's why they didnt use it on set - so the upstairs did not become the downstairs.
@@gordonlawrence1448 complete with skylights on all levels
@@gordonlawrence1448 Or the basement.
You got to make sure that torque gets put into the ground and the easiest way to do that is add weight.
The older you get and the more TV and Movies you watch you start to recognise outside sets and locations that you've seen in before in other 'shows'.
Glad to see the channel growing! TOG knows you deserve it!
Warhammer World's Rhino for 5000? :P
funny u should say that ;p
Rhino. Pah!! Baneblade all the way😊.
Scrap yard ? You gotta be kidding ! What a great vehicle to have it would have been !
One of the best looking and bad-ass vehicles ever conceived.
My Dad worked for BA. We once went to a dinner party and the rear/top turret was in the back garden.
I remember when I first saw this futuristic armored vehicle. I remember thinking how the ground clearance was so low. It was just practical for going into extraterrestrial industrial plants to kill aliens with acid for blood.
Nearly 10K subs now. Good progress.
My favourite sci-fi vehicle is the amphibious apc from Damnation Alley.
Ditto... Although the Moon Bus from 2001: A Space Oddessy has a special place in my heart.
As immortalised in this Hawkwind song:
th-cam.com/video/-aHR0JAro8w/w-d-xo.html
This video was for 2000 subs. And in only another 9 months you added another 10,000 subs !
That's pretty amazing !
getting there slowly
I've actually been building a body for one of my R/C vehicles and it's slow work, been working on it for several years. The chassis (roughly a Meter in length) is a one off 6WD/4WS that I built from aluminum and uses the gearboxes and some suspension bits from a Monster truck kit (plus spare parts). My body hides the center tires (which do not steer). I took many screen shots from the movie and I have a stack of pics for reference. After seeing this vid I'm inspired to make a YT vid of the build. It may be some time before I can do that...
It would have been awesome to see both of its guns be used in combat! That was a missed opportunity!
That wasa really strange vehicle to see, having recently gotten out of the army and being around solid steel M60s. That was a great movie, with hilarious military parallels.
Cannot tell the difference between the real vehicle and the model during the footage shown. good job SFX team!
the trick is the fire which is very hard to scale, but for a film nearly 40 years ago, its very well done
It’s amazing something so iconic ends up in a scrap heap.
Aliens is what propelled the franchise into the popularity that it's known today. If memory serves me correct. When they were filming the crash they had originally wanted to film it head on with the camera crew. The idea I believe was for the APC to stop right in front of the camera crew or something like that. Anyway, at the last minute they decided not to have the crew present, but leave the cameras there. That was fortunate, because the brakes failed on the APC and crashed right through the cameras and the damaged the wall. The camera crew narrowly avoided certain death!
Awesome looking machine, come on musk you know you want to build one, would prob make a good army vehicle.
I think i can tell the difference between the model & the full vehicle... the full vehicle you can see the circular spotlights through the square holes at the bottom, where the model they look like completely square lights.
Doesn't detract from an awesome scene, though
cant wait for my son the be old enough to watch this movie together. I've seen it over 20 times, still my favorite movie of all times.
Amen to that
Id love to see Aliens on a big cinema screen.
@@Colin_ I once seen it in a cinema, years after it came out. They ran 'old' movies during the day for a period. I went there with a friend, we where the only ones there. Whole cinema to ourselves. Awesome experience!
@@slappezever 😊
1st viewer
Thanks for showing love to the APC.
Congratulations on 2k subscribers
video excelente!!!! muy agradecido por su trabajo!
Love the look of the M577 - pity its lack of ground clearance would make it pretty useless anywhere else.
Gotta love an all terrain vehicle with the ground clearance of a skateboard
If that front wheel was closer to the nose, the addition of hydraulic/articulated suspension might make it feasible.
I have the Hiya apc, some marines and I bought 9 M41A pulse rifles at 1/18 scale to put in the APC armoury
I loved to draw this armored car in childhood. ) Thanks for reminding! )
Amazing.I remember building a 1/35th scale kit of this beast
That was a hard choice...drop ship or APC..I thought APC as I had loads of aircraft but had very little tanks so I got the APC then a lepard 2 to go on top of my huge CRT monitor...nva did get round to the Dship. Worth a lot now the original halcyon kits.
Very cool, thank you for this!
Love the special, awesome job on this and a wonderful vehicle to cover! Since you asked, one of my other personal classic sci-fi favorites would be the Scrambler from Spacehunter Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, tho it's likely there is not as much data as this one.
Wow, the level of research you must have done, exceeds the weight of the tow vehicle involved.
Very nice movie. Thank you very much from an Alien franchise fan.
Glad you enjoyed it
"..sent to a scrapyard."
Those monsters!!!!
Now you have to make a video of the Landmaster from the movie Damnation Alley.
Oh boy this would make my commute through the B1M@ntifa so much smoother.
So I'm a big fan of this movie. The 50th anniversary is coming up, wouldn't it be cool for someone, and by someone I mean someone with a lot of money, to recreate this vehicle and show up to Comic Con with it!
When I was a teenager I always thought it was a mining vehicle, near my town is the largest subterranean copper mine in the world, "El Teniente" in Chile, so I knew the kind of vehicle they used within the tunnels. I am surprised it was an airplane tug, it has a very similar low profile but you are right, to customize it would have been more difficult because important design issues with that mining ones, like having the controls in the middle of a side of the vehicle and not the front. Very interesting video, subscribed!
I loved this vehicle! i even build a LEGO replica of this when i was little :)
I remember seeing Aliens at the Roxy Theatre, Parramatta with my friend in 1986. Great Movie. One of the few sequels that is better than the original (IMO)
My father used these vehicles when he worked for British Airways.
A time when movie makers weren’t trying to say anything but worked very hard to do just one thing; immerse and entertain as many movie goers as possible. No agenda except that. Robocop, Predator, Aliens, Terminator… sigh.
There are some great movies made these days for sure but this was a great time for sci-fi action.
Such an awesome take on an apc, even if it is essentially road only (no offroad with that ground clearance) with a 'questionable' main turret. Can't believe they just scrapped it. Then again, at 30+ tons you're probably better off with a replica.