1/35 Sgt. Hulka Defence System from "Stripes Two: That's the Facts Jack!

[Alvis 3.14159]

Sergeant Hulka. We all remember Warren Oates and his great role in the first "Stripes" movie, and Bill Murray was so impressed with his role in making movie history, he had Harold Ramis write him into the sequel, even though Mister Oates had been deceased for many years. Fortunately, they refrained from doing a horrible CGI effect or recasting the character, and memorialised him in the best way possible: A brand new Army weapon system named after that heroic character, Sergeant First Class Hulka.



SFC Hulka had retired at the end of the first stripes movie, to run a chain of burger joints knowns as "Hulka Burger", and when the sequel picks up, we find that the chain had failed in the late 90s. Meanwhile, our protagonists, John Winger (Murray) and Russell Ziskey (Ramis) have remained in the Army, and have made it up into the higher levels of the Pentagon. Now both Lt Colonels, they have been developing a new electronic battlefield weapon system, the Tube-launched, Optically-guided Electronic-jammer, or TOE-Jammer, and have been selected to give the first in field tests. Having named the system the "Sergeant Hulka" after their "Big Toe" from basic training (in a truly emotional speech Winger gives before Congress he tells them how SFC Hulka made them what they are today) Winger and Ziskey are challenged by various incompetent politicians and officers who wish to see their system fail miserably. They are sent to South Korea for the test, not knowing that they have been set up to "accidentally" invade North Korea, setting off a massive diplomatic incident and ruining their careers.

Various escapades and hijinks ensue, and we get to meet a couple of their old compatriots along the way. Stillman (John Larroquette) is now a military contractor lobbyist, "Psycho" Soyer has become an even more deranged survivalist, Elmo Blum is a state governor, and Louise Cooper even appears as shipping company CEO who helps the boys out of a couple tough spots. A nice touch was having Joe Flaherty appear as the Russian ambassador.

The movie really kicks in with a huge military exercise in South Korea, with the Sgt Hulkas wandering into North Korea, where they wreack havoc and wind up driving through Beijing in the films' climactic moments. In all, a good, fun film and some really great footage of military vehicles in action. It's hard to believe that the US Army and the USMC were able to be persuaded to allow such access to their facilities for this film, but it makes it all the more realistic, if that can be said for a Ramis comedy...Although it was never explained why a USMC vehicle was being used by the Army.

                                                                     The kit:

I used the ESCI 1/35 LAV TUA for this model, and built it basically stright out of the box, except for the TOE launcher, which was scratchbuilt using sheet styrene, and the TOE missile, which is a FIMO clay sclupt. Imagine my daughter's dissapointment when she thought I was making frnechfries, and opened the oven door to find a toe baking there.  Painting and weathering was basically green and a dirt colour, airbrushed on as required.


And yes, I made ALL this up!

[nebnoswal]

 

Nice

[lenny100]

i want to see that movie , lot better than a lot of those so called "funny" things we have at the moment

[Maverick]

Brilliant Stuff Alvis, inspired as always.

Regards,

Mav

[Alvis 3.14159]

Okay, actually, the idea for the TOE missile came from a co worker, who does really excellent but always serious models. He suggested I build a Bradley TOE missle vehicle, but that's all he said, but that's usually enough to get the gears going. However, the Stripes tie in came to me today as I was setting this up to shoot it. Bam, out of nowhere, and it stuck me as quite funny, so in it went!

Alvis Pi

[Rheged]

Brilliant Stuff Alvis, inspired as always.

Regards,

Mav

Excellent, but then of course it always is  !        .................and there's a  punch line somewhere here about the vehicle's carbon footprint, if any one would like to find it.

[GTX]

 

[buzzbomb]

what they all said 

great stuff all around

[NARSES2]

 

[Weaver]

Brilliant Stuff Alvis, inspired as always.

Regards,

Mav

Excellent, but then of course it always is  !        .................and there's a  punch line somewhere here about the vehicle's carbon footprint, if any one would like to find it.

There's probably also some sort of electronic counter measure for it too, with a name along the lines of "Toe Jam", but let's not go there, eh? 

Excellent stuff Alvis!

[rickshaw]

Now, thats a TOE!   

[Gondor]

I wonder if the code name for the project was Big Foot ?

Gondor