Aliens Smartgun secrets...

[Xhiwar]

Hi Smartgunners!

I am having a rare day off without anything to do, so I wanted to do a deep dive into a detail of the Smartgun that is currently driving me nuts.
There has been a recent post on whether the "yellow" marked part in the image of the Kawasaki struts needs to be cut off or not. That was originally a question I posted here several years ago (I made the image with the colored parts from my own AR125 hangers), but I never got a definitive answer. Well, the red parts definitely need to be cut off, but it seems that both options have merit with the yellow parts...

First off, on the screen-used Smartgun that was recently auctioned off by Propstore, the yellow part was not cut off. However, it is a known fact that this Smartgun has been restored in the past, and the Kawasaki struts are not original, so that unfortunately does not provide a solution to my question - except that it is generally possible to leave the yellow part on and attach the struts.

Deep dive:
These screenshots show the "Vasquez" Smartgun, where the yellow part seems to have been cut off, and the "Drake" Smartgun, where the yellow part seems to have been left untouched.

However:

1. The two Smartguns were definitely used by both actors: the writing on the Propstore Smartgun shows both the "ADIOS" writing of the Vasquez Smartgun and the "My B****" writing of the Drake gun on top of each other.

2. The Smartguns seem to switch from scene to scene when you go through the movies, so it's very hard to confirm this.

3. Furthermore, the positioning of the Kawasaki struts changes on the Smartguns during the movies. My guess is that the Kawasaki struts started shifting and had to be reattached during filming.


The last item above can be especially seen in this image: An image of Vasquez holding her Smartun, a rare shot from the left hand side.

Do you see the silver screw nut with washer on the AR125 struts? And now, look at any screenshot of the Smartgun and you will see a corresponding hole on the right-hand strut, but only a hole (no screw, no screw nut). Also, these holes are in a different place on each Smartgun.

I think there's no 100% correct way of attaching the AR125 struts, and no definitive answer whether the yellow part needs to be cut down or not.

Cheers!
Roman

 

[DamnYankee123]

Agree with your suggestion about the part in yellow. Specifically, “The two Smartguns were definitely used by both actors: the writing on the Propstore Smartgun shows both the "ADIOS" writing of the Vasquez Smartgun and the "My B****" writing of the Drake gun on top of each other.” I think Brandon Ellinger suggests the same in the prop store video with Adam Savage that they did a couple years ago. I think I also read somewhere that those props were used somewhat interchangeably as filming progressed due to availability. i.e. one was being “repaired” due to some mishap during filming, and they would paint the other word on the other gun and use it instead.

I’ve been in part collection mode for this prop for a while now, and I’m still not quite ready to pull the trigger on building, but I think I’ve decided that I’m only going to cut off the part in red and leave the part in yellow.

 

[Xhiwar]

That's what I heard too. You can also see the Smartguns "fall apart" in some scenes, and when watching closely, in certain scenes parts are missing that were there in earlier scenes (for example: the tube of the front grip with the added foam grip had an end cap in earlier scenes, later on it's gone).


Next item: I believe I have seen this replicated only on one Smartgun replica: Some sort of bolt on the right hand side of the AR125 struts holding the top section together.

The funny thing is that it seems to be essential for the attachment of the AR125 struts. In the documentary "The risk always lives", the first thing Simon Atherton does while explaining the Smartgun is instinctively tightening the bolt.

But what is it? I've been going over images of nuts and bolts, and the closest thing I found was a "knurled hollow nut" like this:

However, assuming that the struts are most likely held together by an M8 bolt at the top, the diameter of this nut would be much too large.
Looking at the following image again, it seems to me that the inside of the bolt is not flat but conical (and also note: she's tightening that nut too!):

It hit me that it actually looks like the charging handle of a Thompson M1A1:

Sadly, the diameter of the M1A1 charging handle is too small. The search continues...

Cheers!
Roman