Re-used props

[Metryq]

I think there is another thread on re-used props, but I was unable to locate it. So please forgive a re-used thread.

I was reading a thread on another site where a member was trying to identify a giant poster on a wall, which turned out to be one of Andreas Cellarius's illustrations for Harmonia Macrocosmica. The armillary sphere at the center of the illustration (plate 11) focussed my attention on George Pal's The Time Machine, which—believe it or not—I was running in the background.

The Time Traveler stops to look at something like an armillary sphere in the museum before Weena pulls him on to the talking rings. I've seen the movie a hundred times, and the prop never caught my attention, but the forum discussion made me really notice it this time...

...and I knew I had seen it before, same studio just four years earlier:

I read that Stanley Kubrick destroyed all props, models and blueprints after 2001: A Space Odyssey completed production because he did not want it all appearing in dozens of other movies, as happened with the gear from Forbidden Planet.

[Anne Lyle]

He evidently forgot about the costumes, though - IIRC, one of the 2001 spacesuits was used in Babylon 5...

[Boneman]

Good one... I saw a piece of film used twice in two different movies. In 633 squadron a mosquito (I think) strafes a german ack ack gun, and the guy claps his hands over his eyes and then falls down. Even when I first saw it, I remember thinking it was ridiculous - the bullet would have blown his head off (There's an interesting point: if a plane is doing 450mph and fires a bullet, does the bullet do its own speed, plus the 450mph?). Then, damn me, he recovers from his wounds and gets killed in exactly the same way in exactly the same situation in Mosquito Squadron five years later!!!. It was a clip lifted from 633 squadron. Either that or he was malingering and got caught at it by the germans, because he turned up as camp guard in The Great Escape - the tall streak who always locks Steve McQueen up... I wonder if he got two fees...?

[Foxbat]

Can't remember where but I've definitely seen the robots from Crash Corrigan's Undersea Kingdom used before.

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

He evidently forgot about the costumes, though - IIRC, one of the 2001 spacesuits was used in Babylon 5...

Probably one of the re-creations made for the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). Since all the blueprints had been destroyed, too, set designers for the sequel had to reverse engineer new blueprints out of the original film (Cinefex #20, pg. 15).

The Cinefex article mentions Kubrick destroying all the props, models and sets, but lends more credence to another story that the studio simply didn't want to pay to store them anymore. (Bull—the first story makes more sense to me, or we'd have seen those models everywhere, like Robby the Robot.)

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by Boneman

There's an interesting point: if a plane is doing 450mph and fires a bullet, does the bullet do its own speed, plus the 450mph?

Yes, at first. After that, it would be affected by air resistance and the pull of gravity (as it would be if the bullet had been fired from a stationary gun).


(I would not have thought that the mechanism that prevents accumulated velocity exceeding the speed of light plays much part in things at these... er... relatively low velocities.)

[Starbeast]

I always thought it was interesting (cost cutting of course) and sometimes cool that the original tv series Lost in Space would recycle their props.

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by Starbeast

I always thought it was interesting (cost cutting of course) and sometimes cool that the original tv series Lost in Space would recycle their props.

They not only recycled their own props, they shared with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Star Trek recycled some of its props, too. Today's production budgets tend to be much higher, and rapid prototyping techniques make props much easier to turn out.

[Starbeast]

Originally Posted by Metryq

They not only recycled their own props, they shared with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Star Trek recycled some of its props, too. Today's production budgets tend to be much higher, and rapid prototyping techniques make props much easier to turn out.

Oh-man, I haven't seen Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in ages, but you are absolutely right. I remember one monster in Lost in Space which was human size, then seeing it in Voyage as a giant creature attacking the Seaview submarine.

I think Irwin Allen's team also used the same props in his other shows like, Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel.

[Metryq]

I think the TV series Buck Rogers and the original Battlestar Galactica also shared some props, just like the Irwin Allen shows before them. Sci-fi shows are always cheaper by the dozen. The starship Searcher from the second season of Buck started life as a cruise ship in the first season episode "Cruise Ship To The Stars." And I'm suddenly reminded of "Happy Birthday, Buck," an episode which filled air time by recycling clips from a dozen previous episodes.

[Toby Frost]

If I remember rightly, the government soldiers in Firefly wear a mixture of German helmets and body armour from a Starship Troopers spinoff that was being filmed in the studio next door.

[clovis-man]

Originally Posted by Metryq

I read that Stanley Kubrick destroyed all props, models and blueprints after 2001: A Space Odyssey completed production because he did not want it all appearing in dozens of other movies, as happened with the gear from Forbidden Planet.

Rod Serling must have had a pass key to the Forbidden Planet storage shed. The stuff from the movie kept appearing in Twilight Zone episodes.

[TheTomG]

It was being environmentally friendly before such a thing was fashionable! Hurrah SF for leading the way in recycling; "waste not, want not!"

[Starbeast]

Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, also appeared in the movies The Invisible Boy, Gremlins, three episodes of The Twilight Zone, an episode of Lost in Space and as funny robot in the 1960's kid show The Banana Splits, Futurama, commercials and much more.

See the full list on Wikipedia

[steve12553]

The starship from Forbidden Planet also appear in the Twilight Zone at least once, also. Recycling attractive props happened a lot. Within the Star Trek universe many props (and sets) were reused, some after some doctoring, some as is. I think it was all fair game.