- Straight out of the ANH production Mold - even though evidence confirms otherwise (cast tabs to name one).
I never said that. Show me where on RPF or TPD I actually said that. I made it clear it wasn't from THE ORIGINAL MOLD..the one used to make the three or four production castings. Come on.
- Father of the screen used ANH helmets - even though evidence confirms otherwise (cast tabs to name one).
The early details suggested that, along with the paint cracks. I can show more of what I mean. But I no longer think that, which is my perogative if I've studied it more, Carsten.
- Direct single cast from a single molding off the original ANH earlier than anything else - even though evidence confirms otherwise (filler detail matching other fan owned helmets).
So? What does that prove? I show details that predate the SL. And that don't even exist on the TM or VP or 20th C.
- Direct cast from the third ANH helmet - even though evidence confirms otherwise (Tantive IV screen used details).
Wrong again. It was Brian Muir that insisted it was a casting taken off the FOURTH pull. And I disagreed with him again and again on TPD Carsten. Please go back and read that thread. I said to Brian that it couldn't be from the fourth pull because the grill is the same as the original ANH.
- Father of the screen used ESB helmets - even though evidence confirms otherwise (broken tab and cut tubes to name a few).
Please not again. Sorry for caps but.....THE BROKEN TAB IS REAL, AND NOT IN THE CASTING. THE TAB BROKE ON ACCOUNT OF A BUBBLE IN THE RESIN UNDERNEATH. IT IS A REAL BROKEN TAB. THEREFORE THE BROKEN TAB WASN'T FROM THE MOLD.
The tubes on the original were clearly reworked. If you can't see that, if you cannot see the deviations in tapering along the tube convergence toward the tip then you haven't studied authentic castings. And I still don't know if the tube ends were cut on the TD or in the casting. And YET you bring it up again *sigh*.
But yes there is some indication I have that the TD might have led to the ESB masks (I know...shoot me). The 20th Century actually shows some indication of that as well, along with the VP. It is of course very unlikely, but it is still something I am studying. There is a difference between suggesting something and saying it is fact, Carsten, something you consistently misinterpret about what I say. I offer images and comparisons and my interpretations...interpretations in science are not conclusions. So I don't know why you don't understand that, and neither obviously does Mac. Or Pete.
- Father of the TM and all other fan made helmets - even though evidence confirms otherwise (broken tab and cut tubes to name a few).
Actually the bondo patches and paint drips support it, along with the side cracks, but I presented that on TPD as a possibility. I don't think it is the case but those things sure are strange. And please again get it straight about the broken tab and cut tubes!
All this can be read on several long threads at The Den.
Yes. And I encourage people to go there and read the threads. Because how I present my findings is fairly straightforward (at least from my own point of view).
The trend is ongoing. It's all "earlier". If Thomas finds a detail, then it is earlier, even though he cannot make that conclusion.
No, it INDICATES that it is earlier. That doesn't mean IT IS EARLIER. You don't seem to understand what I write. I make it pretty clear that the details I examine suggest or indicate the TD is earlier than the SL. I maintain that until something comes along to suggest otherwise, such as the father of the TM. Ok? That should be clear to you by now but obviously you think I think it is fact. But please read everything I've written here and on the Prop Den and show me where I state it as fact.
Just means it wasn't removed or sanded away on his particular cast.
Oh? And it was removed and sanded away on:
The TM.
The VP.
The 20th Century.
And everything else that is out there.
Funny that. I suppose they just forgot NOT to sand it off the TD. :lol
All these fan owned helmets are reworked and altered from their original state right out of the mold. ALL OF THEM.
So? I can show how similar they are to each other, how the details evolve down the lineage. Just because the TD has cut tube ends or the TM has extended eyebrows doesn't mean they don't share a lot in common, or have subtle differences which I focused on here. It would be an oversimplification to say they are just all different and reworked.
The thing that just keeps annoying and saddening me is that we always speak past each other and for some reason it creates these heated discussions between Thomas and myself – cannot speak for others.
Well sometimes we agree and sometimes we don't. If we don't then I don't mind discussing it with you or arguing as the case may be because at least you are reasonable, don't throw a fit, or don't insult me personally like Pete and Mac do. For that reason I respect your point of view even if I will be stubborn about presenting mine.
The TD was cast at the end or just after ANH according to the attached history. I'm not seeing ANYONE contest that. That alone is a pretty good pedigree. We are not contesting that the TM was made around the time of ESB. That’s simply not what I’m arguing.
But I think the TM was and that is the highest praise it could have seeing as that is where/when it was supposed to come from.
It’s the claims based on details that just doesn't hold water. If the TD has a detail the TM doesn't have, then all that means is that the TD wasn't cleaned up or sanded in that particular area.
Of course there is that possibility, and that is why I said at the end of my long TD description as to why I thought it was earlier that if the father of the TM ended up having all those details I listed AND the neck extension then I am WRONG WRONG WRONG. You must have seen that in my post?
These are all reworked casts from the same mold lineage.
That oversimplifies it. Then people will think they just come from one mold, the UK mold, and that isn't the case. You know this, Carsten.
I’m arguing his claims and his conclusions based on details, which he then adds some sort of importance to that to me is scientifically unsound just to prove his was "earlier". He doesn't HAVE to prove that his was earlier... DUH... it was cast earlier than the TM... that's what the histories of these helmets are... and we all know that.
It doesn't come across that way. What I was initially trying to do was show in relation ONLY TO THE SL ANH why I thought the TD was earlier...I never brought up the TM, until one of the TM owners brought it up the neck extension idea. Clearly they are related somehow and I'm still in the process of trying to understand how exactly. I've even said that the TM has some detail in areas that surpasses the TD because the TD was painted. The TM is damn sharp. And I love it. And I've tried to study its detail and find out just how good it is. It is terrific. But maybe because I focus on very fine differences, and then go back to my reference of the original ANH mask, I focus on those and that then makes it seem like I am putting down the TM. Maybe I should do the reverse and show what on the TM is better than the TD or SL, hehe.
But his claims about details being earlier is just a weird way of arguing that it is more accurate in that area. Maybe I’m just getting rubbed the wrong way with the “earlier” labeling.
Detail: deeper, or richer, or sharper, or more rounded out, or more defined. Those qualities give some hint as to a detail being earlier. If enough details are earlier in some way, some quality, that suggests...suggests that the casting is also from an earlier mold...that's all it means.
To me it isn’t proof of anything being earlier... just that it is more accurate to the screen used ANH in that specific area or detail. Again... maybe that’s where we are speaking past each other.
But what is accurate Carsten? What defines accuracy? What defines it is how close that detail gets to the original ANH mask we see onscreen. Now, that has always been my standard, but then how could that indentation on the inner lower eyelid of the left TD eye be deeper than on the screen mask? The SL ANH tube ends are IDENTICAL to those on the screen ANH mask including the break point pattern (yes there is one). And so if that is the case, then the SL is just like the original in that area...the tube ends. So what the heck is the TD having deeper and sharper detail there on the top of the tubes, right before the cut point? How can that be? I can't understand that in any other light other than the TD represents the original ANH mask in a state earlier in the production, perhaps when it was being modified for the costume, who knows? I don't know! I just don't have enough reference to be sure. So I try to examine other castings and see if there is a tread, I try to find other castings with earlier or sharper details than the TD. The TM does have some, but then again it has other things that we've discussed and I think agree on that make it more likely an ESB mask that yes, could have come from a UK mold that itself originated around the time of ANH.
To me, it's the style that determines whether I’m calling a cast ANH or ESB or RotJ in these discussions – the movie specific details that distinguishes the looks – not the production.
I understand that point of view, as I know you know why I use the production as the basis.
But for example, Brian Muir showed his ROTJ helmet as a ROTJ helmet. It has the filled chin vent and neck extension. Yet he calls it ROTJ, and it came from the ROTJ production. So? According to your scheme it would have to be called the BM ANH. And it simply is not.
That would be like calling the ESB TK helmets in ESB...the ones that were refurbished ANH helmets....ANH helmets. They are from ANH but they ARE ESB helmets. One can say they are both, but as we see them, they are ESB, not ANH.
At least not in my view... but that of course depends on whether we are talking about pieces confirmed made for the production or we are just talking about fan owned helmets and the TM facemask just simply wasn't converted fully into ESB, hence the overabundance of retained ANH specific features.
That's why I don't mind calling the VP ANH an ANH. It isn't tied to a production.
Yes of course the TM ESB has those ANH features galore. But to me it just generates confusion if we don't recognize pedigree as foremost and failing that, we have to resort to what it looks like. That's what evolutionary biologists do. If they don't have a time point for the fossil to assign it to a group they then go strictly by the structure, or say for a single tooth found of a primate.
The ESB stunt has these ANH specific details, but also has the ESB specific details such as larger chin vent, sanding and filling and dome mount to make it ESB. The Hoth facemask is ANH style because it had the small chin vent, but sure, it is an ESB helmet as it was seen and made for ESB. Confusing anyone?
Well, the hoth ANH mask is ESB since it appears in ESB but it is an anomaly. The ESB stunt has so much in common with the TD you would be surprised, much more so than the TM. So to with the 20th Century. The 20th Century is essentially a smaller smoother TD.
There is extra length at the eye sockets and at the bottom of the neck on the TD... but Thomas absolutely refutes it being extensions - and yes, Thomas, I was open to the possibility of the extension not being in the original mold, but added to a cast from that mold. I’ve said that both in private and in public in this thread.
And I am willing to accept the possibility that the TD came from something that had a neck extension, but I just don't see at this point how that is possible based on what I've studied of the TD neck. All well and good.
I also state both privately and publicly that I’m not fully convinced that the TD didn’t have these extensions, but that doesn’t mean I don’t currently take your word for it that it didn’t. These two areas are so easy to trim away and no one seeing the mask afterwards would know they’d ever been there. That’s what I’m arguing Thomas.
I know. But the neck extension of the TM, as I've mentioned, has sanding to smooth it out so it mates with the neck precisely. In so doing, the person who sanded it encroached on the neck itself, and there are sanded portions of the neck. For the TD, or SL for that matter, there is no evidence of that, and just the continuity of details where the sanding areas are on the TM neck bottom. That really convinced me that the extension was later. How it related to the filled chin vent I do not know and that is perplexing.
All masks have excess material that is trimmed away... and these extensions are so easily trimmed away and you wouldn’t know they’d been there. We didn’t know the VP came with a neck extension – you owned one. Were you able to determine that the VP came with a neck extension right out of the mold on the cast you owned, before learning of the uncleaned up VP having one? I’m just asking.
No of course not. All I saw was that the VP neck was trimmed shorter than the TD.
The back corner of the neck on the TD looks so deteriorated and badly cast – I simply didn’t expect that. Thomas, you claimed the TD and SL was nearly identical in that area, but the pictures showed they were miles apart. To me, they aren't really as similar in that area.
Well you are only seeing a perfect side view, which gives no indication of curvature in that area, for example. You have to realize that at that corner of the TD, there is bondo work that is actually underneath the fiberglass (!!!) to make that corner curved. Also there are the paint drips...the mask was laid down facing up and then sprayed with black paint...there were clearly two episodes of painting because in the rear you have a thin layer of paint that is more matt, then you have the drips coming down to the rear but not all the way and they are more shiny.
I would just like to remind you, Thomas, that you didn’t even know that the Elstree carpet ANH mask picture was showing a two-toned helmet and it wasn’t until I mentioned it and that the grills matched those in the Corbis pictures, that you suddenly saw it and promptly proclaimed that YOU confirmed it was the screen used ANH. You had been hard on the heels claiming it wasn’t and couldn’t be the real ANH up until that point. I can see you are also taking credit for identifying a Hero RotJ helmet that was seen on tour – again, after I mentioned that it had similar paint details as a certain screen RotJ helmet.
Hmmm, I recall that you mentioned the two-toned....and yes that I think made me look at the grill, but I don't recall you saying the grills matched....perhaps you did and I just was able to confirm it. But alright it was a team effort then.
But I don't recall you mentioning about the paint on the ROTJ as that was during the big discussion of the theory about ESB becoming ROTJ helmets. I wanted to use that ROTJ as a reference so I wanted to see if it appeared onscreen so I just compared the grills. So I don't specifically recall being inspired by what you said. But if you did mention the paint then credit where credit is due. You also I think identified the original ANH as a ROTJ mask, which I'm still finding hard to accept just emotionally. :lol
I’m digressing. With all the arguments we’ve had over the years it is very hard to keep track of what you are saying about your masks. It’s not easy to follow you all the time and with all being said and things contradicting, can you really fault people for remembering things you said before and confronting you about it when you are suddenly saying something new? This is not just a comment about your differing comments about the grill imprint being there or not. In the picture you posted it sure is very faint and the possibility that it isn’t just a happy accident is interesting. I can certainly make out the grill pattern, more than the one X you drew onto the picture:
But knowing how filler is applied it can create very deceptive shapes, but I can accept it as a grill imprint. I will definitely amend my tree with this new info.
Thanks, I know it is hard to see, and I will try to get a photo with better lighting but I tried different light angles and the SL has such a weird kind of rough surface there that it is hard to bring it out. The filler goes right to the top surface of the grill mesh so it is almost completely buried in it, something you don't see on the VP/TD and probably TM father.
And yes, Pete had permission to post TM pictures. Did you?
No. Funny how that works as TM asked me not to post photos not on his account, but because you guys always get upset if I do. Yet he lets you post photos.
I stated previously that I was done, so really shouldn't go back on my word and post more, so if you would like me to seize my participation in your thread, let me know and I will do so. I don't see the need to close or delete this thread. We are grown people, so should be able to find ways to bring things back on track.
I asked Mac to leave the thread, but I don't mind you asking questions or debating things like a gentleman, which you always do.
