# 10 foot Jupiter 2 - size comparison



## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

much has been written about the 10 foot Jupiter 2 hull, only seen in "City Beneath the Sea" as it pertains to the Trona crash sequence. To understand the real size of the 10 footer I put together a Lunar Models "Popular Jupiter 2" resin model with the John Robinson from an Aurora Cyclops & Chariot kit, and the Moebius B9 from the Chariot kit.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

Very interesting! Too bad they never used it, or at least repaired after the "crash". I read somewhere years ago that someone who saw it said most of the interior workings were still intact.

Mike over at the old Jup2 site had been in contact with the guy that keeps it in his barn, but couldn't get anything more than that one picture out of him.

I'm surprised that you or Starseeker haven't been able to dig up more about it!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

It was supposed to be just for a few scenes where the cyclops 'visits' the camp site and throws a few rocks before being lazered. 300 pounds for the estimated weight of the 10 footer makes supporting it by 2 wires for about 1600 feet or so means thick wires. enough to make them visible on the SPFX shots. a 40-80 pound model would be easier to support, and with smaller diameter wire that would make hiding it with shutter speed easier.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

Does anyone know what the inner workings were? landing gear, lights..ect. If it did, then they at must originally at least had some further plans for it's use. If not, it would seem unlikely budget-wise for anything more than the top hull shell to be built for the one giant scene.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

It was the scame scale as the chariot miniature and had a working ramp, so one could assume that the deployment of the chariot could've been filmed at some point if it had remained usable.

That would've been pretty cool!


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## woof359 (Apr 27, 2003)

Im asuming kevin Burns has some footage of the cyclops at the camp, I was hoping back when they released LIS of DVD they might include never seen stuff as part of the specials features but nope. There's a Lybeckers book out but I have never heard any reviews of the book.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

I have the book and it's very interesting, there were so many movies and serials that they contributed to over the years. And they did much more than just flying FX, pretty much everything like pyrotechnics, sea battles, underwater photography, etc; You name it and they probably did it, in miniature of course!

They submitted scenes from the movie "The Flying Tigers" to the Oscar committee and no one believed that they were looking at FX footage, one of the members went so far as to call the them liars. They left and never went back, which was too bad as they should have gotten some recognition for their work.

I would definitely recommend it!


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## liskorea317 (Mar 27, 2009)

Y3a said:


> It was supposed to be just for a few scenes where the cyclops 'visits' the camp site and throws a few rocks before being lazered. 300 pounds for the estimated weight of the 10 footer makes supporting it by 2 wires for about 1600 feet or so means thick wires. enough to make them visible on the SPFX shots. a 40-80 pound model would be easier to support, and with smaller diameter wire that would make hiding it with shutter speed easier.


It could have been mounted like the Enterprise was and used for stock shots, planet orbits, etc. It would have made the show more visually interesting.
The interior from the full sized set could have been matted and composited and we could have had shots of the Robinsons inside the ship flying thru space instead of a close up thru the main viewer. Too bad.
Mike


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

With all the money being paid for for props with profiles in history and other prop auctions, one would think he would want to be pulling the 10 footer out of his barn one of these days and sell it or restore it. Considering what the 88 inch C57D went for after coming out of a garage after all those years it must be tempting.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

The restorations to the two four-footers were pretty poorly done, so maybe it's just as well!

Like I said, Mike from Jup2 was actually in contact with the guy, but for whatever reasons he seemed to have no interest in doing anything with it...


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## woof359 (Apr 27, 2003)

to me the folks that get interviewed on PIH are content with keeping there props to them selves, few share, and maybe I can see why, with there value maybe you dont want to advertise I got this in my house up on the wall.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

What the heck do you do with a 10' Jupiter 2?! I would hope he'd at least take it to his local autobody guy and get the fiberglass hull fixed!


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## woof359 (Apr 27, 2003)

the ten footer suplied by Mike a long time ago


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## woof359 (Apr 27, 2003)

this looks like a Gemini to me ...from the crash scene seson 1


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

Chuck Eds said:


> What the heck do you do with a 10' Jupiter 2?! I would hope he'd at least take it to his local autobody guy and get the fiberglass hull fixed!


He could mount it on a pole outside his living room window and pretend he's living in a city under the sea!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

liskorea317 said:


> It could have been mounted like the Enterprise was and used for stock shots, planet orbits, etc. It would have made the show more visually interesting.
> The interior from the full sized set could have been matted and composited and we could have had shots of the Robinsons inside the ship flying thru space instead of a close up thru the main viewer. Too bad.
> Mike


As the Horrid A. Anderson Company found out, matte lines were really big in the 1950's and 1960's. High speed photography looked much better than the "Sharpie Marker Outline" the TOS Enterprise had. MAtte lines also suggest lots of post production work, whereas the Fox SPFX were on-set effects and were done after developing. The matte work we did see from Fox sucked! Look at the meteor 'swarm' clips and watch the fusion core vanish...or at least become transparent.


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## JAT (Jan 15, 2008)

Um, probably an ignorant question, but was the ten foot Jupiter in actuality built as a ten foot Gemini? If it was intended to be abandoned after the first few episodes then that sounds like the shows original premise. I cant tell from the photo what the undercarriage looks like, but the viewports look like they could be close to the larger ones of the Gemini.


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## JAT (Jan 15, 2008)

JAT said:


> Um, probably an ignorant question, but was the ten foot Jupiter in actuality built as a ten foot Gemini? If it was intended to be abandoned after the first few episodes then that sounds like the shows original premise. I cant tell from the photo what the undercarriage looks like, but the viewports look like they could be close to the larger ones of the Gemini.


 No, went back and looked and those are not the Gemini windows, but would still love to get a closer look underneath. How much would it cost to repair the damage done over so many years? Is it even doable? Is there some way in which we (those of us who might be interested) might chip in to a general fund to facilitate repairs, and then put the ship on a proper, permanent display somewhere? Maybe the Sci-fi museum in Seattle? To have her still in existence and yet not to do something seems like an awful waste of an incredible artifact of television history. And she's not going to get any better with further neglect.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

From what I've read previously that doesn't seem to interest the current owner. He has allowed apparently only one photograph to be taken of it that I've seen and unfortunately since he owns it...he can make a bird feeder out of it if he wants..sad but true! 
I'm sure there would have to be a whole lot of money involved just to purchase it.. that is if money is even a factor to him. I'm sure he could get a very substantial amount for it on the auction market from wealthy prop collectors (with really big display rooms!) like the previously mentioned Paul Allen if he chose to sell it.
I'd be just happy to see a detailed photo record of the ship published and of course the owner can still remain anonymous.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

m jamieson said:


> He could mount it on a pole outside his living room window and pretend he's living in a city under the sea!


That would involve actually doing something with it other than dragging it out so one picture could be taken!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

More photos to drive home the point about which model was used at Trona Pinnicals.



and


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

All the blueprints of the miniatures show that the 10' was originally intended as the hero, with all the working features, and the 4' was supposed to be for flying only.

That obviously changed at some point, but all the Red Rock Canyon footage is the 4' Gemini from the pilot anyway, right? All the Jupiter 2 footage from the rest of the series looks like it was done inside on a soundstage.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Ya know, all the discussion of the 10-footer has made me wonder something, and I'm sure some will just kneejerk that I can't be right instead of thinking about it...

I can't help but wonder, if the 10-foot ship was meant to be the hero effects model, if that so damn impressive shot of the JII landing inside the Derelict, that amazing beautiful series of shots, were done with the 10-foot model.

I'm just thinking of how close the camera got, and the re-used set bits from Fantastic Voyage, and the seeming mass of the ship (partially created by the overcranking of the frame rate of course), the lighting... If I was the head of effects that's a place I'd use the 10-foot, and that's where I would figure out it was a king bitch and decide that all further effects would be shot with the 4-footer.

Because we never saw a shot quite like that ever again, right? 

Well, seems logical to me at least.


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

I've wondered that too because those shots look so good. They probably had more time because they were still working with lots of footage from the pilot. They didn't have film whole episodes, except for the Derelict, until after the Hungry Sea. 

Use of the 10 footer has been debated here in the past, let's hope that doesn't get started up again! There were some pretty strong opinions as I remember...


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Chuck Eds said:


> I've wondered that too because those shots look so good. They probably had more time because they were still working with lots of footage from the pilot. They didn't have film whole episodes, except for the Derelict, until after the Hungry Sea.
> 
> Use of the 10 footer has been debated here in the past, let's hope that doesn't get started up again! There were some pretty strong opinions as I remember...


Well, we're fanboys, of course there will be strong opinions! 

I seem to recall footage of the 10-footer being 'flown' for the crash landing, and the effects folk doing a couple of takes. Seems they just couldn't get it to look right I guess. I would *suspect* that was caused by not being able to really smash the thing into the dirt as they anticipated using it for other shots. 

It must have looked really bad when they looked at the rushes, because given the way IA seemed to work if the shot had been at ALL usable he would have used it. I recall everything looked just fine until the slide-out.

I guess another thing that may have helped kill the 10-footer would have been the cost of making more, for different functions such as the crash. Altho aren't there indications of there being at least 2 hulls, per the background scenery in City Beneath the Sea?


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

After looking at Y3a's size comparison shots, I'm thinking studio economics probably had a lot to do with it's not getting camera time. 
Even though Fox obviously had already invested a considerable amount in it's construction, the logistics and cost increases of swinging a 10 foot, 400 pound behemoth around a sound stage would have been challenging to say the least. 
The support wires would be large and difficult to hide, and any physical sets it interacted with would also need to be increased in relative size! (more cost) 
Also, since the Jupiter 2 had so little hull detail and lacked a miniature interior inside the view port... the benefit of the added scale effect and depth of field (the usual pluses of filming such a large model) probably didn't offer enough gains over filming the 4 footer. 
Unfortunately, the opportunity to actually see the scale matching chariot roll down from the ships ramp was replaced with two seconds of dialog "Don and I will assemble the chariot!" thus saving Irwin some expensive effects shots and creating a 45 year mystery for us!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

The 4 footer WAS USED FOR THE DERELICT SHOTS. Size comparisons between Derelict shots and Fantastic Voyage will bear that out. The 10 footer is just too big and impractical to move on a 50 foot mike boom. The reason I posted the photos has to do with the Trona Pinnicals shot where WE KNOW they used 2 WIRES through the Gemini 12 model for the crash. The two wires required for a 10 foot, 300 lbs model will be 6 times thicker, and easy to see in SPFX shots.


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## Captain Han Solo (Apr 5, 2002)

Good heavens!!not again?!?!?!?:freak:

The 10' Jupiter 2 was never used on Lost In Space. As to all the why not's and such, I am not a hollywood Special Effects pro, and without their expert knowledge, I won't waste anyone's time speculating how it couldn't be done.I don't think it has ever been weighed by anyone here(I could be wrong),Who knows how much it weighed???

It simply was never used.(The only time it was used on screen is as a Building in City beneath the Sea..but you guys knew that already!).The 10' Miniature was NOT even made when the original pilot was filmed(In regards to the crash sequence).

The 4' Gemini 12 was used in the crash sequence and the 4' Jupiter 2 was used to film inside the Derelict Spaceship.(EXCELLENT, work done by very, very, talented craftsmen!!)

The thing(ten footer) is very crude looking...the models done here are better..Just my humble two cents.

Does this thread have anything to do with a Moebius Model??LOL!!


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

I was hoping this thing wouldn't get started again! At any rate it's a shame the 10 footer didn't get used in some capacity, either in conjunction with the cyclops or the chariot.

It would be cool to get more info about just the same...


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

It is jus funny that people can not accept the fact that a model of a 10 foot Jupiter 2 that was built 4-5 months AFTER the crash scenes for the pilot were filmed with a 4 foot Gemini XII model, are not the same. Don't even get me started on "The Derelict". The Derelict miniature was 10 feet long and the Jupiter 2 was 12.5 inches for exterior shots and the 4 foot "Hero" miniature for the interior shots. 

None of them were Moebius kits, so lets get back to that!!


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

RSN said:


> It is jus funny that people can not accept the fact that a model of a 10 foot Jupiter 2 that was built 4-5 months AFTER the crash scenes for the pilot were filmed with a 4 foot Gemini XII model, are not the same. Don't even get me started on "The Derelict". The Derelict miniature was 10 feet long and the Jupiter 2 was 12.5 inches for exterior shots and the 4 foot "Hero" miniature for the interior shots.
> 
> None of them were Moebius kits, so lets get back to that!!


Well, for me at least it's not 'having a problem accepting', it's the honest quest to do the archeology of trying to fully grasp the effects, which were done at a time when 'behind the scenes' accurate documentation was rare at best and for the most part completely absent.

We have shards of pots and some carved art and we're trying to reconstruct an entire civilization, right? 

And there are some assumptions made that just don't hold. It's been said that the 10 foot JII would have been too heavy for a 50 foot mike boom. Yep, I don't doubt that whatsoever. So IF it was desired to use the model they would have found some other way to 'fly' it. Of course it could be done, there's been plenty of times large models have been 'flown' on a filming stage. I'm pretty sure the MADE FROM SHEET COPPER Martian War Machines weighed a good amount. The solution was lots of wires and a 'marionette'-like trapeze that could swing and sway and move the model over the set.

Matter of fact, I seem to recall some voices shouting very loudly that the 10 foot model was never made (forgetting the appearance in City Beneath the Sea) until some pics showed up.

We just need to be civil and keep an open mind, that's all. Who knows what data might appear in the future? Who knew that somebody had a fully preserved Sleestak suit from Land of the Lost? It exists. Maybe at one of these Hollywood auctions the complete and accurate innards of a hero 4 foot JII will appear and all the questions resolved!

So, anyway, Moebius is full of surprises, greenlighting that 8-window Seaview. Maybe there's hope for a Gemini XII kit after all!


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## Captain Han Solo (Apr 5, 2002)

Nevermind


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## Gemini1999 (Sep 25, 2008)

I don't think that I could ever believe that an extremely heavy 10 foot model of the J2 was flown on wires for the crash sequences. It's not that it matters what I think as opposed to what happened, documented or not.

The 10 foot model is just one of those production anomalies where they may have built it, decided that the size was unnecessary and ungainly for regular use, which relegated it to being stored and then discarded. I think that the 4 foot model works wonderfully in the scenes where it was utilized.

Bryan


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

One last time:

NO Jupiter 2 model, of ANY size, was used in the crash scene for the pilot and for the run of the show. This was a 4 foot Gemini XII miniature. ALL Jupiter 2 models were produced months after the pilot was completed, shown to CBS and picked up as a series. At that time the 10 foot model was to incorporate ALL the working parts of the "Hero" model and was built to scale with the existing Chariot model from the pilot. For whatever reason, the 10 foot model was abandoned as the "Hero" and the 4 footer became the main filming model.

As for the movie Seaview, I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't hold my breath on the Gemini XII. Moebius has admitted that if they knew the final sales number before the Jupiter 2 was announced, they never would have gone ahead with it. The Gemini XII would sell even less. The Seaview on the other hand was very popular with a wide range of builders, be they fans of the show/movie, sub builders or R/C modelers. That is a BIG reason, I suspect, for this wonderful gift of a kit!


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## woof359 (Apr 27, 2003)

*sales*

are you saying the Moebius j2 isnt a huge seller ? I am surprised.


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## kimba32003 (Dec 17, 2008)

woof359 said:


> are you saying the Moebius j2 isnt a huge seller ? I am surprised.


Well, I did my bit for the economy, I bought 3 of them. 1x built so far, 2 more to go !! :wave:


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

woof359 said:


> are you saying the Moebius j2 isnt a huge seller ? I am surprised.


I am not saying it, Frank at Moebius has said it himself, in this forum and others and to me personally.


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## teslabe (Oct 20, 2007)

kimba32003 said:


> Well, I did my bit for the economy, I bought 3 of them. 1x built so far, 2 more to go !!  :wave:


I know I helped, I bought 4......:thumbsup:


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## teslabe (Oct 20, 2007)

kimba32003 said:


> Well, I did my bit for the economy, I bought 3 of them. 1x built so far, 2 more to go !! :wave:


It's is too bad for such a fine kit that it didn't do well, I'm sure that's why we aren't seeing the small Chariot or Space Pod.....


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

teslabe said:


> It's is too bad for such a fine kit that it didn't do well, I'm sure that's why we aren't seeing the small Chariot or Space Pod.....


I was under the impression the delay is more caused by technical issues, maybe some back-and-forth on just what parts would be plastic, what would be PE, what would be resin or something.

I never really understood why the desire to produce a mixed media kit, it doesn't seem to be cheaper (development money-wise) than a straight-up styrene plastic kit, not knowing what parts would be resin means it's hard to guess how much tooling for the plastic there would be (I mean, the clear canopy is obvious but that could just as well be vac form, right?), blah blah blah.

Too darn many unknowns and there's been so many changes in the world since it was announced, the entire rational for doing it that way may have gone away, whatever that rational was.

(PE parts, that's easy. all the grips and ladders and frames and stuff that would be just too damn thin and fragile in plastic, or would have to be WAY out of scale)


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

A while back in another thread someone suggested they put some pix of the interior on the box. I just looked at mine and there's not even a mention of it.

Given the price it would make sense to show it off, especially as they put so much care into designing it. Ron's artwork is beautiful, but a look at the interior detailing might sway the potential buyer to part with a few extra bucks for this great kit!


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## Larva (Jun 8, 2005)

That is an excellent point. When I bought mine at a local hobby store, the shop owner seemed so delighted to impart the information as I checked out: "and I think it comes with a full interior." I acted as if it were the first time I'd heard it.


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