Could it have been a custom machined piece? What's to say that it was a found article? I'm not trying to dredge up old arguments again, but considering there aren't any good pics of it, it literally could be anything.
ANH Obi Wan Kenobi saber defined
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Obi1Kenobi
Member
For this filming timeline, I've used the following website as my reference: The Making of Star Wars TimeLine
I'll just give one or two representative photos per day. They are not necessarily the best photos from each day; they are just intended to help you recognize the shooting location or scene from the movie. Most of these photos came from the RPF years ago - probably before 4K. Apologies if anyone here did any digital manipulation and compositing that I have not properly referenced. I originally just snagged these from various threads here and kept them on my computer for my own reference.
26 March 1976 <Tunisia>
In the canyon
29 March 1976 <Tunisia>
Overlooking Mos Eisley
30 March 1976 <Tunisia>
Ben and Luke discover the dead Jawas
02 April 1976 <Tunisia>
Mos Eisley exterior and birthday party for Sir Alec Guinness
13 April 1976 <England>
Cantina interior
26 April 1976 <England>
Death Star hall
27 May 1976 to 01 June 1976 <England>
Obi-Wan's death scene ( Oops. Spoiler Alert.
)
02 June 1976 to 08 June 1976 <England>
Shutting off the Death Star tractor beam
16 June 1976 <England>
On the Millennium Falcon
I'll just give one or two representative photos per day. They are not necessarily the best photos from each day; they are just intended to help you recognize the shooting location or scene from the movie. Most of these photos came from the RPF years ago - probably before 4K. Apologies if anyone here did any digital manipulation and compositing that I have not properly referenced. I originally just snagged these from various threads here and kept them on my computer for my own reference.
26 March 1976 <Tunisia>
In the canyon
29 March 1976 <Tunisia>
Overlooking Mos Eisley
30 March 1976 <Tunisia>
Ben and Luke discover the dead Jawas
02 April 1976 <Tunisia>
Mos Eisley exterior and birthday party for Sir Alec Guinness
13 April 1976 <England>
Cantina interior
26 April 1976 <England>
Death Star hall
27 May 1976 to 01 June 1976 <England>
Obi-Wan's death scene ( Oops. Spoiler Alert.
)02 June 1976 to 08 June 1976 <England>
Shutting off the Death Star tractor beam
16 June 1976 <England>
On the Millennium Falcon
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Obi1Kenobi
Member
Notice that Sir Alec Guinness nearly always has at least one hand on his belt. My replica is all correct materials (except for the emitter) and it is quite heavy. For you old-timers here, I'm stating the obvious, but I just want to point out to any newcomers that this saber feels like a fairly solid chunk of metal (even though each of the parts has a hollow core).
Yes to it being heavy! I've seen the belt and saber being handed around set on behind the scenes videos. I bet Alec didn't enjoy wearing that part of the costume.
We can say pretty confidently by the death star scenes that the item in the emitter is flat and has some recess near the center. Can't tell if it's a cone or flat bore or something.
Thank you so much for the filming schedules. Interestingly the Tunisia saber seems to be its first incarnation and then filming in England after. Huh.
Edit: And the windvane is ****** and bent before they shot the "drop"
We can say pretty confidently by the death star scenes that the item in the emitter is flat and has some recess near the center. Can't tell if it's a cone or flat bore or something.
Thank you so much for the filming schedules. Interestingly the Tunisia saber seems to be its first incarnation and then filming in England after. Huh.
Edit: And the windvane is ****** and bent before they shot the "drop"
We all want it to be some obscure tchotchke, but as you say it could very well be a custom machined piece. By all means dredge away on the old debates, it’s kinda why I started this thread, to get the old debates in front of new eyes and have some picture links that might stick around for posterity.
It would be nice to have input from some of the old guard like gavidoc, Serafino, M-Pire etc. but it seems they have moved on.
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You know, these are good things for a later discussion but
#1 wow I didn't realize how nasty the chronicles transition was. Is the brass neck carved down, making it squashed looking?
#2 I'm seeing cloth or something similar underneath the clamp around the grenade bottom.
#1 wow I didn't realize how nasty the chronicles transition was. Is the brass neck carved down, making it squashed looking?
#2 I'm seeing cloth or something similar underneath the clamp around the grenade bottom.
And likely heaps of it. I've always figured that's how the emitter was fastened to whatever's inside it securing it to the neck. They used epoxy on pretty much everything. A real slap-shot way of holding the whole thing together if it was a long carriage bolt running through the hilt would to just cap the grenade neck with a nut and then glue the balance pipe over that.
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I've always liked the glue/epoxy/whatever theory - I doubt they went to the time to make a machined piece with threaded rod like we do on replicas. It would also explain the "bent" version we see too. It likely broke from the death scene falls and they re-glued it up later. All speculation of course, but it works in my brain.
scottjua
Master Member
I think this is being wayyyy over thought. Wait... Oh look mine has a line... No tape. Just a manufacturing or life mark.
The point I'm making is I just showed 100% proof that it's possible and likely to be a manufacture or machine artifact that is catching the light or color/dirt whatever.
It's just as, if not more plausible than scotch tape.
The point I'm making is I just showed 100% proof that it's possible and likely to be a manufacture or machine artifact that is catching the light or color/dirt whatever.
It's just as, if not more plausible than scotch tape.
Attachments
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I’d also like to point out to the newer folks that we’re not all working from the same reference material. There are a few members that have access to much higher resolution pics (Chronicles & Mechanismo) that are not publicly available. What has been posted publicly, is much better resolution than we‘ve had earlier, and should be enough for anyone to build a stellar replica.
Keeping these better resolution pics private used to frustrate me no end, but I recognize the legalities of non disclosure agreements and trust among friends.
We’re not missing out on much I assure you all, members with access have been very generous with their observations and have skirted decorum as much as possible to bring out good information.
I don’t have the goods, so please don’t bother flooding my inbox,
Keeping these better resolution pics private used to frustrate me no end, but I recognize the legalities of non disclosure agreements and trust among friends.
We’re not missing out on much I assure you all, members with access have been very generous with their observations and have skirted decorum as much as possible to bring out good information.
I don’t have the goods, so please don’t bother flooding my inbox,
Obi1Kenobi
Member
I never noticed that before about the sidebar not being properly seated on the end closest to the grenade, so thanks for pointing that out.
What are you calling the "lever hinge hole"? You can see that the end of the hinge pin is the "hammered" style that is commonly found on "early Folmer" models of Graflex flashes. I suspect that is what you are seeing.
One other small detail of note here is that the "square washer" that is normally found behind the lever on Graflex flashes is missing on this prop.
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Oh, yea sorry, the hole in the sidebar where the lever is inserted. It’s a little chewed up. We also see this on the V3. (And no, there are too many holes in this tarnished clamp for it to be the tarnished v3 clamp lol I ran to me image folders when I noticed the levers are damaged the same way)
Quoted from @DaveP’s Obi parts run thread.
The Bapty connection gained a bit of traction when a photo was published in a book about George Lucas which showed a rifle grenade with a tag bearing the letters BAP plus some numbers.
This has been discussed in the Tunisia thread and I believe the ultimate guide to sabers thread.
Sorry for continuing to try to shift the discussion over to this thread, it’s not anything to do with vanity. I’d like to consolidate the info to make it easier to find, and make things easier on DaveP not having to sift through questions non specific to his run.
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So to be clear, this is the only thing we are going on for the Barty-Ben Kenobi connection? So I don't think that that's definative enough to say that every part to the saber had to come from Bapty, and that they couldn't have modified some parts like the gentleman in the other thread implied.
Obi1Kenobi
Member
I think the Bapty theory also comes up when people begin to wonder why this saber apparently disappeared after production for ANH, never to be seen again. I don’t think people are saying that every part came from Bapty - just that some of the parts were rented from somewhere and needed to be returned after production, so the saber needed to be disassembled. Seems like a theory based on not a lot of hard evidence. Why would they (apparently) braze or glue parts together that needed to be disassembled later? Privately, I fantasize that this saber is still out there in someone’s private collection, but there is absolutely no evidence to support that fantasy.
Honestly, I would tend to agree with you. At least that there seems to be an awful lot of modifying going on for all the parts to have come from Bapty.
There‘s also the fact that Bapty would have nothing to do with aircraft scrap (emitter) or tap handwheels (pommel). The booster comes from a variant of the machine gun flown on aircraft, possibly picked up at the same military scrap yard as the balance pipe interconnect (emitter). These are the directions that my logic leads.
The only connection that Bapty may have to the Ben Hero hilt was the grenade, and maybe the Browning booster, but everything else came from the scrapyard in odd bulks, if Roger Christian is to be believed.
At the time of Star Wars' production, these things were far from collectible and there wasn't any indication that this movie would go on to be a hit, so it's not that far-fetched that after production wrapped, these junk pieces were binned. These things were literally garbage before use in what became the biggest movie ever. The cast stunt pieces for Ben's stunt hilts managed to be salvaged only because they were binned and someone fished it out to keep. This was common practice for films until fairly recently where items were destroyed after production wrapped rather than stored or bothered to be auctioned. I think that also because 20th Century Fox produced Star Wars, the film was technically theirs (there was a hullabaloo about it when Disney bought Star Wars and ANH's rights were tied up with Fox) and they saw no reason to keep anything from this dumb space movie.
I personally think that's why a lot of the ANH stuff is missing from the Archives, and what's kept was only what they managed to hang on to when ESB rolled around. Vader's only helmet made for ANH is in private hands, the Death Star model in private hands; now, a filming model of an X-wing is in private hands...There just wasn't reason for any of this stuff to be kept back then.
At the time of Star Wars' production, these things were far from collectible and there wasn't any indication that this movie would go on to be a hit, so it's not that far-fetched that after production wrapped, these junk pieces were binned. These things were literally garbage before use in what became the biggest movie ever. The cast stunt pieces for Ben's stunt hilts managed to be salvaged only because they were binned and someone fished it out to keep. This was common practice for films until fairly recently where items were destroyed after production wrapped rather than stored or bothered to be auctioned. I think that also because 20th Century Fox produced Star Wars, the film was technically theirs (there was a hullabaloo about it when Disney bought Star Wars and ANH's rights were tied up with Fox) and they saw no reason to keep anything from this dumb space movie.
I personally think that's why a lot of the ANH stuff is missing from the Archives, and what's kept was only what they managed to hang on to when ESB rolled around. Vader's only helmet made for ANH is in private hands, the Death Star model in private hands; now, a filming model of an X-wing is in private hands...There just wasn't reason for any of this stuff to be kept back then.
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onderon
Sr Member
My friend was asking me the other day that how can it be that they lost the Obi-Wan's lightsaber? My oppinion is that since the character had just died, no one believed that the movie is going to be a hit, and these are ordinary items so I am pretty sure they took it apart and just put/give back the pieces where they came from. And maybe in another movie they became what they really are, a tap, the tip of a machinegun, a flashlight on a camera. Since they were ordinary items no one cared to keep it as a whole, they could redo it anytime by finding the same pieces. Or just remachine them like they did later with Luke's hilts.
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