Brace yourself sci-fi fans. Space: 1999 is ready for another takeoff. Thanks to the valiant attempts of one filmmaker, a captivating documentary on the British-produced cult hit, which ran from 1975-1977, will find its way to the screen by 2025, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the show. But filmmaker Jeffrey Morris is putting a fabulous spin on the doc, honing the focus more on one of the stars of the series. Hint: It isn’t an actor. It’s a spaceship. In this case, the intrepid Eagle Transporter, which, like the U.S.S. Enterprise before it in Star Trek, captured viewers’ attention.

Morris’ Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary, called The Eagle Has Landed, is gaining traction. The filmmaker was fascinated by the show when he first saw tuned in as a child back in 1975. Now, as an adult, he realized that he’s one of millions of fans who still hold an affection for the show, the Eagle, and a kind of nostalgia for a future that humans never achieved. The documentary will take viewers back to 1975 and its view of 1999, offering insights from original cast members Barbara Bain, Nick Tate, and others. Jeffrey Morris shared more about the show and his project in this exclusive MovieWeb interview.

The Eagle Has Landed
ITV

Space: 1999 tracked the intrepid crew of Moonbase Alpha, who scramble to survive after a massive explosion sends the Moon spinning off orbit and into deep space. The series, reportedly the most expensive to be made at the time, starred Martin Landau (Ed Wood, North by Northwest), Barbara Bain (TV’s Mission: Impossible), and Nick Tate (Pretty Little Liars, Killer Elite, The Blacklist).

Jeffrey Morris, an active writer, director, and production designer with works like Oceanus and the animated series Parallel Man, has been a lifelong science and science-fiction enthusiast. He was so inspired by Space: 1999, that he wanted to become a filmmaker, and with The Eagle Has Landed, he intends to take a deep dive into the ongoing cultural impact of the spaceship and show. In addition to interviews with Nick Tate and Barbara Bain, who played Captain Alan Carter and Dr. Helen Russell, respectively, The Eagle Has Landed will feature the Eagle’s designer, visual effects titan Brian Johnson (not the AC/DC singer, the special effects artist behind Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Aliens), Jeffrey Morris calls the journey “epic.”

Related: 20 of the Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All Time, Ranked

“I think the show’s popularity had to do with a connection to the Apollo Program,” he said. “Space 1999 came along pre-Star Wars. We’re talking about this really unique window where we had been going to the moon. The last mission ended in 1972. And then there was still a whole generation of people who were fired up and super excited about the moon missions and where it seemed like NASA was going.

“So, when you watch a TV show about a moon base that has this piece of hardware that’s about 25–30 years in the future, it looked very plausible and believable,” Morris added, continuing:

“A lot of us grew up thinking, ‘I want to grow up and fly that thing. I want to be an astronaut. I want to go up there, be on the moon base, be part of that whole thing.’ That’s part of why the show resonated. And I think the fact that when that future didn’t come to pass, for a lot of us, we held on to this subconsciously as this sort of icon of a tomorrow that never existed in a way.”

Launching the Ultimate Kickstarter
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Thus far, Morris’ self-financed project is a roll. His production company, FutureDude Entertainment, headed to Louisville, Kentucky’s Wonderfest, where Morris spoke with lifelong Eagle fans from around the country. He also traveled to Colorado, where he interviewed Kevin J. Anderson, the best-selling author of books set in the iconic Dune, Star Wars, and X-Files worlds. In fact, Morris and Anderson co-authored the novelization of Morris’ new film Persephone. Bill George (Blade Runner, Star Trek, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Planet of The Apes, Galaxy Quest), ILM’s Academy Award-winning visual effects artist, is also interviewed.

Related: The 10 Most Rewatchable Sci-Fi TV Shows of All Time

Other highlights in the doc include speaking to the aforementioned Brian Johnson, the visual effects artist who created the Eagle Transporter. Fun fact: Johnson’s creative work is said to have had an early influence on Star Wars during a Space: 1999 visit from George Lucas.

“Brian is incredibly fascinated and very humbled by the fact that here we are five decades later and there are people still in love with this design he created,” Morris said. “The idea that there’s actually millions of people buying [Eagle] miniatures and building model kits is something that he never could have anticipated.”

The shooting model itself was 44 inches long, a considerably large miniature at the time. Morris noted that the miniature was mounted on cables at times with armatures attached to it for support. “There were lots of versions of it,” Morris says. “One of the great sort of stereotypes of that show is that they crashed a lot of Eagles. They were always crashing Eagles. So, they used different versions of it that would be destroyed and things like that.”

For the Love of Sci-Fi
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When asked why the public still holds such a curious fascination with shows like Space: 1999 and other series like it, Morris quickly points out the program was so unabashedly ’70s. Everything from the costume design and the polyester fabrics. And those bell-bottoms and the big buckles!

“Space: 1999 had almost this artistic European fashion design element to it.” He added, “The sets, the costumes, the furniture, the props. There were a lot of things they did in that show that were innovations. They had this unit called a Commlock, a little personal communication device that had a video screen built into it. There were all kinds of little neat tricks and all kinds of cool futuristic visions that the show had. And it was different than Star Trek. Star Trek was set 300 years in the future and Space: 1999 was right at the end of the century, which felt like something we were all going to be around to see.”

Was the show ahead of its time? “In certain ways, yes, absolutely,” Morris shared. “Jerry Anderson created it with his wife Sylvia Anderson, and I know Jerry, I’ve read interviews with him where he talked a lot about diversity and how he didn’t like how diversity was treated on American programs. So when he created Space; 1999, for example, he wanted to take that on. He wanted to challenge a lot of the stereotypes, and the look and feel of things.”

You know, there are plenty of scenes where you have people of color just filling the screen. And the women on the show, they’re part of the action. They’re not background characters. They have lots of dialogue, lots of involvement. There was the unisex clothing in the first season of the series.

Space: 1999 pushed the proverbial envelope. But it also pushed Morris to become the filmmaker he is today. As The Eagle Has Landed project moves forward, it will be interesting to see the end result, slated for a 2025 release, just in time for the series’ 50th anniversary. “Space: 1999 felt very much like the world I wanted to grow up in at the time, being a child in the 1970s,” Morris says. “I’m excited to keep moving forward.”

Learn more about Jeffrey Morris and FutureDude Entertainment’s Kickstarter for The Eagle Has Landed here.