The movie Batteries Not Included featured a "family" of spaceships coming to help the residents of a tenement save their homes. The design for the cute little ships named Ma and Pa and the babies, Flotsom, Jetsom, and Weems fell to Oscar-winning concept illustrator Ralph McQuarrie.
McQuarrie had worked with Spielberg to design the mothership in E.T: The Extraterrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So he lent his magic to Spielberg's film. Originally the story was going to be featured on Spielberg's anthology series Amazing Stories. But he decided to adapt it into a feature film.
Ralph McQuarrie is a professional concept artist who's worked on cinema movies like Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Cocoon (1985), and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). The spaceship artwork is hand-drawn and rendered in watercolours and pencil on drawing paper.
Click on the images to enlarge
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| Batteries Not Included (1987) concept art by Ralph McQuarrie |
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| Batteries Not Included (1987) concept art by Ralph McQuarrie |
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| Batteries Not Included (1987) concept art by Ralph McQuarrie |
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| Batteries Not Included (1987) concept art by Ralph McQuarrie |
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| Batteries Not Included (1987) concept art by Ralph McQuarrie |
Here's what the ships look like in the film.
See more of Ralph McQuarrie's portfolio at http://www.dreamsandvisionspress.com/. Click on the links if you want to see more of Ralph McQuarrie's work or Batteries Not Included artwork on my blog.
About Batteries Not Included (1987)
Official synopsis: "From Academy Award® winner Steven Spielberg comes this delightful fantasy about never giving up on your dreams. When a real estate developer tries to get rid of the last five tenants of a derelict tenement building, they need nothing short of a miracle to stay off the streets. But hope does arrive, in the form of tiny extraterrestrial beings that glide in through an open window. These intergalactic visitors may not speak the same language as the humans who find them, but they may be the solution to keeping everyone in their homes. Starring Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and Elizabeth Peña, it’s a whimsical, funny, and heartwarming journey the whole family can enjoy."Directed by Matthew Robbins
Cinematography by John McPherson
Production Design by Ted Haworth
"Batteries Not Included" stars Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Frank McRae, Elizabeth Peña, Michael Carmine, Dennis Boutsikaris, Tom Aldredge, Jane Hoffman, John DiSanti, John Pankow, MacIntyre Dixon, Michael Greene, Doris Belack, Wendy Schaal, José Angel Santana.
"Batteries Not Included" was released on December 18, 1987 (United States)
What do you think of the concept art? If you've seen Batteries Not Included what do you think of the look?
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