New Elstree Studio documentary with discarded Graflex.

[Gregatron]

I disagree! They are too perfectly located near the D-ring and perfectly left and right of the T-track.

Exactly.

No one in their right mind would add those rivets for aesthetic reasons, and the positioning of the rivets (on the side of the prop which wouldn’t be seen on camera) is too calculated.

Also, I’m sure they would have removed the spring so that there would be no obstruction when adding the d-ring rivets on the endcap.

 

[Gregatron]

They didn’t do that with the DV6? the tracks are all over the place and you can see the holes from where they were previously

View attachment 1060965

We have to put our selfs in the prop makers mind. They don’t give a damn, throw it together and get it out the door.

I can’t seem them drilling the rivets out, just throw some grips on there

Nothing has to be straight, rush, get it out, get paid, move to the next project

Remember, thought, that the Vader stunt was a STUNT—quickly thrown together from a leftover ESB Graflex stunt to resemble an MPP. That’s not the same thing as a hero prop built for the lead actor/character of the film. The hero Graflex had beauty shots taken for publicity, after all. And, for nearly half a century, we never knew about the side rivets, because they were placed on the usually-unseen side of the prop. Whereas we wouldn’t even know about the Vader stunt and its bottom half holes, but for the archive reference photos. It BARELY appears in the movie, and you won’t find any publicity photos which feature it.

 

[Halliwax]

Remember, thought, that the Vader stunt was a STUNT—quickly thrown together from a leftover ESB Graflex stunt to resemble an MPP. That’s not the same thing as a hero prop built for the lead actor/character of the film. The hero Graflex had beauty shots taken for publicity, after all. And, for nearly half a century, we never knew about the side rivets, because they were placed on the usually-unseen side of the prop. Whereas we wouldn’t even know about the Vader stunt and its bottom half holes, but for the archive reference photos. It BARELY appears in the movie, and you won’t find any publicity photos which feature it.

I bet to differ, those grips on the hero are pretty shabby..

Classic example is looking at the pic with Luke looking down the hilt like it would ignite through his head

Those grips are just thrown on there, ends are literally hacked, not even cut straight and randomly spaced through out

I’ll never believe any prop was made “fancy” or “pristine” for this film...

Low budget, throw it together, get it out the door

But to each is own

I totally get what your saying, we’re those rivets purposely hidden? Or just coincidence?

I don’t know, but this is a great topic love on the theories

 

[teecrooz]

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care why they are there. It would be great to know if they secured some sort of plug to better secure the d-ring mount but that’s not something we’ll likely ever learn due to the prop disappearing. They are there so to replicate the external of prop accurately, they should be added.

 

[Gregatron]

I bet to differ, those grips on the hero are pretty shabby..

Classic example is looking at the pic with Luke looking down the hilt like it would ignite through his head

Those grips are just thrown on there, ends are literally hacked, not even cut straight and randomly spaced through out

I’ll never believe any prop was made “fancy” or “pristine” for this film...

Low budget, throw it together, get it out the door

But to each is own

I totally get what your saying, we’re those rivets purposely hidden? Or just coincidence?

I don’t know, but this is a great topic love on the theories

I didn’t say it was pristine. I merely said that more thought went into its construction than a quick a dirty stunt. And only obsessive like us would even notice the uneven grip spacing and asymmetrical angles on the ends of the tracks. It looks perfectly fine on camera.

 

[R5D4]

Well even the Graflex used for the hero itself was not totally pristine. In the photos you can see little dings and scratches on it. It was still almost 40 years old in 1976 when they first got it and built it out.

 

[Gregatron]

But it wasn't a stunt. It was a hero. Minor blemishes didn't read on camera. And they put the rivets on the side which wouldn't face the camera. No way that wasn't intentional.

 

[Kylash]

Can we agree the rivets on the side only make sense if they’re going into some kind of piece inside? Something like a wooden shovel handle hacked off or something? It would also balance out the weight of the entire thing. Unless it was for a motor, I can’t think of any other reason.

 

[Gregatron]

Can we agree the rivets on the side only make sense if they’re going into some kind of piece inside? Something like a wooden shovel handle hacked off or something? It would also balance out the weight of the entire thing. Unless it was for a motor, I can’t think of any other reason.

Exactly. And I think people are too fixated on this idea of the rivets securing a motor. This is the HERO prop. If anything, the Elstree was a failed attempt at a stunt. And there’s no evidence of the actual FX stunt using rivets to hold the motor assembly in place. More likely set screws.

 

[Gerard2567]

Can we agree the rivets on the side only make sense if they’re going into some kind of piece inside? Something like a wooden shovel handle hacked off or something? It would also balance out the weight of the entire thing. Unless it was for a motor, I can’t think of any other reason.

I can think of one.

They measured the circumference of the Graflex tube and compared it to the width of the grips. They then tried to make even spacings for the grips and decided to use rivets as a principle, expecting the whole butt area around the tube to be covered by it.

Then they started to run out of rivets, explaining the two weird sizes and gave up on the rivet idea. xD

In all seriousness, I don't think we can really agree on anything until we see the inside of the tube. At the moment, we just know there are rivets. It's just fun to speculate.

 

[IronDestinyProps]

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care why they are there. It would be great to know if they secured some sort of plug to better secure the d-ring mount but that’s not something we’ll likely ever learn due to the prop disappearing. They are there so to replicate the external of prop accurately, they should be added.

Couldn't agree more with this sentiment. It would be nice to know the purpose of the rivets on the hilt but our hypotheses are simply that--hypotheses. We will only weary ourselves continuing down the bottomless "rabbit hole."

The main things we can take away from the observations of the hero hilt are:

1) Four, varyingly sized rivets were used in between the grips for what purpose we likely will never know.
2) Two rivets were used in the D-ring clip verbally confirmed but not with photo evidence to back it up (apart from Roy's excellent reverse engineering).

 

[dcarty]

I bet to differ, those grips on the hero are pretty shabby..

Classic example is looking at the pic with Luke looking down the hilt like it would ignite through his head

Those grips are just thrown on there, ends are literally hacked, not even cut straight and randomly spaced through out

I’ll never believe any prop was made “fancy” or “pristine” for this film...

Low budget, throw it together, get it out the door

But to each is own

I totally get what your saying, we’re those rivets purposely hidden? Or just coincidence?

I don’t know, but this is a great topic love on the theories

I'm sorry but I completely disagree that Star Wars was low budget and "throw it out the door". I think it was a question of allocation of resources. Star Wars was budgeted at $11 million (according to IMDB) and filmed with the resources of 20th Century Fox at Shepperton Studios. An online calculator I googled estimates that's in the neighborhood of over $46.5 million today. Even with this kind of money at their disposal they were still under the gun but this notion that everything on Star Wars was a hack job to be rushed out the door is nonsense -- it isn't true and I wish people would stop repeating it. Look at how much work was done to create all of the R2-D2 props, build full scale Sandcrawlers on location (even though the top half was a matte painting), Landspeeders, Death Star sets, the Millennium Falcon (!); design, arm, and costume an army of Stormtroopers, Rebels, Aliens, not to mention founding and building ILM up from nothing.

They spent weeks trying to figure out the Lightsabers because the knew the look of the prop had to be convincing and stumbled accidentally into what just happened to be a budget friendly solution. I strongly disagree that the grips are hacked off and randomly spaced; slightly uneven to be sure but IMO not even close to a hack job (we may have to agree to disagree on this point). As it is none of these inconsistencies on the Skywalker 'saber can be seen on screen. You have to enlarge a still frame to begin to notice (unlike some of the Stormtroopers sporting gaffer tape, etc). It's unquestionably astonishing to see how rough some things looks once you get past the veneer of film grain and the suspension of disbelief but this is typical.

 

[dcarty]

Couldn't agree more with this sentiment. It would be nice to know the purpose of the rivets on the hilt but our hypotheses are simply that--hypotheses. We will only weary ourselves continuing down the bottomless "rabbit hole."

The main things we can take away from the observations of the hero hilt are:

1) Four, varyingly sized rivets were used in between the grips for what purpose we likely will never know.
2) Two rivets were used in the D-ring clip verbally confirmed but not with photo evidence to back it up (apart from Roy's excellent reverse engineering).

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Gregatron]

I'm sorry but I completely disagree that Star Wars was low budget and "throw it out the door". I think it was a question of allocation of resources. Star Wars was budgeted at $11 million (according to IMDB) and filmed with the resources of 20th Century Fox at Shepperton Studios. An online calculator I googled estimates that's in the neighborhood of over $46.5 million today. Even with this kind of money at their disposal they were still under the gun but this notion that everything on Star Wars was a hack job to be rushed out the door is nonsense -- it isn't true and I wish people would stop repeating it. Look at how much work was done to create all of the R2-D2 props, build full scale Sandcrawlers on location (even though the top half was a matte painting), Landspeeders, Death Star sets, the Millennium Falcon (!); design, arm, and costume an army of Stormtroopers, Rebels, Aliens, not to mention founding and building ILM up from nothing.

They spent weeks trying to figure out the Lightsabers because the knew the look of the prop had to be convincing and stumbled accidentally into what just happened to be a budget friendly solution. I strongly disagree that the grips are hacked off and randomly spaced; slightly uneven to be sure but IMO not even close to a hack job (we may have to agree to disagree on this point). As it is none of these inconsistencies on the Skywalker 'saber can be seen on screen. You have to enlarge a still frame to begin to notice (unlike some of the Stormtroopers sporting gaffer tape, etc). It's unquestionably astonishing to see how rough some things looks once you get past the veneer of film grain and the suspension of disbelief but this is typical.

Exactly. And this is where we start approaching that gray area of "in-universe object vs. real-world prop". Where is the line drawn? Certain items, like the side rivets, were clearly added for a production reason, hidden as well as possible, and would not appear on the "real", in-universe lightsaber. Same as with gaffer tape on Stormtrooper suits, rivets on the front of R2-D2, or the Perspex cheeks on Vader's stunt helmets. These were quick and dirty solutions to get the props to work and/or photograph properly on-camera, and ou minds fill in the blanks. These are the details we don't notice unless we're looking and using freeze-frame.

For my ANH build, I'm going as close to the real prop as possible, simply because that's what was built and photographed, warts and all. It tells a story all on its own, one apart from the fictional story we saw onscreen.

The proper way to build an in-universe Graflex lightsaber replica would be to get a blank/non-stamped flashgun from TGS, add the bubblestrip, grips, and d-ring, and call it a day. No stamping, no side rivets, no 114/A63 stamped sidebar.

 

[thd9791]

The only reason I would like to know would be to properly build the structure of the prop. The Vader MoM saber has bolts that secure a solid metal core in the saber. For a long time, we just knew the bolts were there and people used nuts on the inside of the flash, or a PVC tube slid into place. Some folks were okay with that, I waited for more detail to get the real-world prop accuracy wise.

These rivets.. we don't have enough information to draw out why they're there. I want them on my saber, but I'm waiting until we get another clue as to if they're just in the wall of the flash or are holding something in there.

I know this thread is about the Elstree saber, and I'm so happy it led us to finding the right D ring set-up!

 

[R5D4]

Does anyone think that at least the bottom tube of the ANH hero Graflex still exists to this day?

 

[Gregatron]

Does anyone think that at least the bottom tube of the ANH hero Graflex still exists to this day?

If it does, it’s probably in a landfill or a private collection. Remember, they needed to create the HOLIDAY SPECIAL saber because the original prop was unavailable for the Seidemann photo shoot (and then the TV special, after that). I know it’s been theorized that the hero ANH prop was converted for use in ESB, but I find that unlikely. Seems to me that they just bought more Graflexes and used the available photos to recreate the prop—with a few tweaks, of course. Two red buttons instead of one, the circuit card instead of the bubbles, and a more interesting d-ring bracket. Remember, they did initially go for the seven ANH-style grips, which would have made the two props more closely resemble each other. The six notched and screwed grips were a production necessity due to the intense cold of location filming.

 

[R5D4]

Yeah that’s true.

 

[Gregatron]

Coming back to Roger Christian...he also claims that he used superglue/CA glue to adhere the grips. Does the glue residue on the Elstree prop look like superglue? Not to my eye.

 

[R5D4]

Coming back to Roger Christian...he also claims that he used superglue/CA glue to adhere the grips. Does the glue residue on the Elstree prop look like superglue? Not to my eye.

Well that E6000 wasn’t around back then so what else would he use? I’m sure it was glue lol