Model Rockets In Movies and TV.

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

K'Tesh

.....OpenRocket's ..... "Chuck Norris"
TRF Supporter
Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
22,446
Reaction score
14,747
I found this a bit funny... In the movie "Better Off Dead", Lance's little brother, Badger, is working on his laser blaster when Lance asks him about him working on all this kid stuff. I was looking around the kid's room, and noticed the Apollo Command Module model, then spotted the Estes parachute. I wonder what other kid's rooms in movies and TV that have model rockets as props.



I suppose the recent posts about the X-Files and the Mercury Redstone that Mulder launches in the episode primed me for this.

Of course I know about October Skies.
 
Last edited:
[video=youtube;s0NQT4Ey7f0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0NQT4Ey7f0[/video]

15d1609f7fafb2e9ab7c8b7c3b6b8eca.jpg
 
Didn't Better off Dead also have a thing about the kid building a Space Shuttle? Or am I thinking of another John Cusack movie of the era (they all kind of run together)?
 
Didn't Better off Dead also have a thing about the kid building a Space Shuttle? Or am I thinking of another John Cusack movie of the era (they all kind of run together)?

You have it right... It was in Better Off Dead. Badger makes a working space shuttle out of common household materials.

24497424490_6f17c0c807_c.jpg


[video=youtube;a3Q8oM_AnK8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Q8oM_AnK8[/video]
 
Last edited:
I'm curious why the plastic model companies always use the paint pattern with the black band all the way around the lower stage (at the top of the vertical bar roll pattern).

is that the black marking on the intertank that was later painted over for Apollo IV?
https://www.apollosaturn.com/markings/mguide.htm


[video=youtube;s0NQT4Ey7f0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0NQT4Ey7f0[/video]

15d1609f7fafb2e9ab7c8b7c3b6b8eca.jpg
 
Let's not forget the battle scene in "The Fifth Element". And on the motorcycles in "Delta Force"

I was flipping through channels last week and saw a possible model rocket related scene at the end of that crappy 1978 movie called "The Swarm", about killer bees with Michael Caine. There was a scene with some sort of MRLS truck and the rockets looked sort of model-like to me.

Some model rockets in the movie "The Astronaut Farmer".

I seem to recall an older thread on this topic showing up again in here recently....
 
Last edited:
To be fair, I took K'Tesh's intent here was to look for scenes where model rockets where being worked on or launched, in the hobbyist sense. Not movies that used a prop based on a model rocket or something model-like. I mean, that would be almost every sci-fi movie ever...
 
To be fair, I took K'Tesh's intent here was to look for scenes where model rockets where being worked on or launched, in the hobbyist sense. Not movies that used a prop based on a model rocket or something model-like. I mean, that would be almost every sci-fi movie ever...

That was my idea... I was also thinking of set pieces, much like the airplanes hanging from the ceiling in Jim's (Christian Bale's) room in "Empire of the Sun".
 
I'm pretty sure that I saw an AT G-Force and Mirage with non-standard paint schemes in a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory. The G-Force was a "three stage rocket" in Howard's room and the Mirage was in an office. Don't remember what episode the Mirage is in.

[video=youtube;KDFSPPd8HJ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDFSPPd8HJ4[/video]
 
To be fair, I took K'Tesh's intent here was to look for scenes where model rockets where being worked on or launched, in the hobbyist sense. Not movies that used a prop based on a model rocket or something model-like. I mean, that would be almost every sci-fi movie ever...

Not perfectly clear from his first post, but I do like the idea.
 
I dont remember what episode it was but on the TV series I Dream Of Jeannie there was an episode where Major Nelson was building a model rocket

Bobby
 
Really????? Not one mention of "THE" model rocket movie of all time. "October Sky"

[video=youtube;8ZezvNWgi4M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZezvNWgi4M[/video]
 
A few more.

The HBO autobiographical movie "Temple Grandin", when she was in high school (possibly college), she built and flew model rockets (or possibly home-made). In the movie, she had a large Little Joe-II, possibly a Sheri's kit. Google search failed to find an image, not going to try to stream the movie for a screenshot.

In the 1960's "Batman" series, the Batmobile had three angled rocket launcher tubes. I do remember an episode where "something" was fired out of one of those tubes. IIRC, I heard years ago that it used some sort of rocket powered by a Mini-Max motor.

batmobil-588x252.jpg


Homer Simpson's model rocket launch, NASA-style (this is the start of the episode where he becomes and astronaut and flies in the space shuttle. REALLY).

[video=youtube;TDQU_TmNt0o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDQU_TmNt0o[/video]
 
I'm curious why the plastic model companies always use the paint pattern with the black band all the way around the lower stage (at the top of the vertical bar roll pattern).

is that the black marking on the intertank that was later painted over for Apollo IV?
https://www.apollosaturn.com/markings/mguide.htm
They copied the paint configuration for the 500F Support Vehicle that rolled out on May 25thm 1966, exactly 5 years to the day of the Kennedy call to go the moon.
 
Back
Top