THE SENTINEL from ‘Space Sentinels’ (1977)

‘The Space Sentinels’ is an animated Fantasy / Sci-Fi TV series from the 1970s produced by Filmation who had previously produced ‘Star Trek Animated Series’ and would go on to make the ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ and ‘She Ra Princess of Power’ TV shows.

The three main characters - Astria, Mercury and Hercules - live in this spaceship which spent most of the time in a secluded volcano crater - or caldera. The ship had a sentient computer called Sentinel.1 who would provide information and set mission parameters and there was a small R2D2-like robot called MO.

This ship always appealed to me. It didn’t do much and maybe this added to its allure. It did occasionally take flight  into space and once it went underground. This picture shows it flying forwards - the green parts are at the front. Maybe it is because of ‘The Liberator’ (from Blakes 7) that was a similar colour and the glowing green part was at the back, that makes me think it should go the other way. The uprights on either side that point backwards look like they could fold down and become flush with the main hull shape. But this is never shown or mentioned in the show and it has the same configuartion whether in flight ot on the ground.

I chose AMT as the kit manufacturer as AMT did the famous ‘Star Trek’ kits based on the classic 1960s TV show… so maybe in some parallel universe they would have done a re-issue of the USS Enterprise kit based on the Filmation Animated Star Trek Series. And as such ‘Space Sentinels’ might follow suit as an AMT kit. Maybe.

As far as I know the ship was never named. I have called it ‘The Sentinel’.

I am not sure who designed this. Alberto DeMello, Jim Fletcher and Herb Hazelton are credited as Art Directors for the series.

You can see more about this kit in ‘What If Fantasy Model Kits #22 on my YouTube channel.