Starship troopers screen-used costume question

eethan

Master Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Hi there,

looking at the current Propstore auction, I'm seeing that Starship Troopers costume that looks cool, but I'm not very well versed into some subtilities and I have a couple questions about it.
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I see nothing special explaining it in the Propstore description. I have looked around a bit because I thought the shoulder armor looked different. The front of the shoulder armor only has two raised details in height instead of 3 on most others I have seen, and the lower back armour has 4 raised details instead of 5.
I have searched through all previous Propstore sales and found only that armour matching, it is described as a female version armour:
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Is that just it? the new armour for auction is a female uniform?

Now, regarding the fabric parts, they are a lot more purple than the others i have seen that are more of a lighter blue grey and they have those different colors on the back of the sleeves. Is that normal?
and is that whole uniform a female version as well then?

Sorry, I have researched this a bit but am not familiar with all details of those uniforms and would like to get an opinion on details and authenticity of that whole costume as the description of the lot is a bit short in details.

thank you all for your help, much appreciated :)
 
eethan

It is female armor but I would not call it a female uniform. This costume originated with Tanner Gill, credited stuntman from SST. If you look at the lot that includes his helmet, you will see "Tanner - DBL Rascak" written inside. What is also interesting is armor doesn't have the normal lemon cake pouch at the shoulder, but instead has a horizontally-oriented pouch, which is reminiscent of Leatherman Wave pouch Lt. Rasczak wears. I don't have a good answer for why Tanner had female armor. There are photos of him in male armor as well.

Regarding the clothing, that is pretty standard and may be partially due to the lighting. The cotton-based back of the arms bleed badly when washed and are often varying colors.

It is worth also mentioning that while they use the same base boot, the boots in this lot are "Camp Currie" style shoes, not the taller boots you would normally see with the fully=armored costume.

Also, in case you don't know, I work for Propstore, and brought this particular item in (I am not the consignor). The authenticity is unquestioned, but as you have pointed out, and I am pointing out above, there are some differences in this costume and what one might consider the most standard version of it.

Happy to answer any more questions you might have on this, or any other lot.

PS, that Tanner Gill helmet is killer and a great example of a non-repainted helmet from the first film.
 
eethan

It is female armor but I would not call it a female uniform. This costume originated with Tanner Gill, credited stuntman from SST. If you look at the lot that includes his helmet, you will see "Tanner - DBL Rascak" written inside. What is also interesting is armor doesn't have the normal lemon cake pouch at the shoulder, but instead has a horizontally-oriented pouch, which is reminiscent of Leatherman Wave pouch Lt. Rasczak wears. I don't have a good answer for why Tanner had female armor. There are photos of him in male armor as well.

Regarding the clothing, that is pretty standard and may be partially due to the lighting. The cotton-based back of the arms bleed badly when washed and are often varying colors.

It is worth also mentioning that while they use the same base boot, the boots in this lot are "Camp Currie" style shoes, not the taller boots you would normally see with the fully=armored costume.

Also, in case you don't know, I work for Propstore, and brought this particular item in (I am not the consignor). The authenticity is unquestioned, but as you have pointed out, and I am pointing out above, there are some differences in this costume and what one might consider the most standard version of it.

Happy to answer any more questions you might have on this, or any other lot.

PS, that Tanner Gill helmet is killer and a great example of a non-repainted helmet from the first film.
thank you so much for your detailled answer, much appreciated!
so I guess this is just a regular case of random variations from screen-used props and costumes! they just randomly put a female armour for a male actor I guess.
thank you for the color of the clothing. I compared with all the other from previous auction, and they were very purple looking. That being said, I have seen other clothing from that same auction that look a bit purple too, so maybe the lighting on that particular photo shooting day was making fabric look more purple.
thank you for your reassurances, much appreciated :)
the helmets on that auction do look killer indeed!
cheers
 
I am purely speculating, but my guess is, the female (smaller) armor looked better on Tanner... or, maybe they just grabbed whatever they had. The good thing is, all three parts are female-sized. I have seen many examples of mixed-and-(mis)matched sets with a female yoke, but a male ab. Those are kind of terrible, but this one is nice because it is uniformly smaller.

I also think this is a good example of most productions. Everything starts out labeled and intended one way, but in the heat of production it quickly to switches to a "whatever works/whatever looks best/whatever we can get our hands on the fastest" approach which injects a lot of continuity issues, but is the nature of film. I suspect, but don't know that the shoes are another example of this. The boots, without the flaps over them are surely easier for a stunt actor to maneuver in. DId they just have them wear these for convenience? Maybe.
 
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yes, I completely agree! I honestly had no idea before yesterday that there were different armour versions in SST, and with the very large amount of armour and helmets they had, it absolutely makes sense that they mixed up things after a while!

I have a final question if you have the time, you specifically mentioned how nice the Tanner Gill helmet is and I saw that it was estimated higher than the other (screen-matched) helmet. Is there a specific reason for this? I see it says "hero grade" in the desctiption, but I don't see any visual difference with the other helmet. And it seems people have been bidding more on the other helmet for now. So I'm wondering what differentiate both helmets.
thank you very much for your input, very much appreciated :)
 
I am purely speculating, but my guess is, the female (smaller) armor looked better on Tanner... or, maybe they just grabbed whatever they had. The good thing is, all three parts are female-sized. I have seen many examples of mixed-and-(mis)matched sets with a female yoke, but a male ab. Those are kind of terrible, but this one is nice because it is uniformly smaller.

I also think this is a good example of most productions. Everything starts out labeled and intended one way, but in the heat of production it quickly to switches to a "whatever works/whatever looks best/whatever we can get our hands on the fastest" approach which injects a lot of continuity issues, but is the nature of film. I suspect, but don't know that the shoes are another example of this. The boots, without the flaps over them are surely easier for a stunt actor to maneuver in. DId they just have them wear these for convenience? Maybe.
to complement my previous message (and reply to your message as well as I forgot in my first reply), I did see one difference between both helmets, the Tanner Gill one seems to have slightly thicker sets of 4 lines scribed in the back of the head. I don't know why this is different and if they indeed come from different mould grades.
 
Estimates often come down to the consignor. I suspect the other one is getting more bids because 1) it is screen-matched and 2) it belongs to a named character. Both of those helmets are exceptionally nice. I like the slightly more beat-up look of the Gill helmet, as that always feels very SST to me, but that is purely personal preference. I always loved that the damage is real damage and that it shows the creation process. Dark gelcoat, then grey primer then the dark grey outer coat. When the paint chips, it always leaves the light grey ring of the primer around the edges which I find very cool. You can also see some of the wood putty filler they loved to use on these around some of the edges. I don't know. That Gill helmet just speaks to me.
 
Estimates often come down to the consignor. I suspect the other one is getting more bids because 1) it is screen-matched and 2) it belongs to a named character. Both of those helmets are exceptionally nice. I like the slightly more beat-up look of the Gill helmet, as that always feels very SST to me, but that is purely personal preference. I always loved that the damage is real damage and that it shows the creation process. Dark gelcoat, then grey primer then the dark grey outer coat. When the paint chips, it always leaves the light grey ring of the primer around the edges which I find very cool. You can also see some of the wood putty filler they loved to use on these around some of the edges. I don't know. That Gill helmet just speaks to me.
thank you very much for your answer :) love the additional intel on those, thank you very much for your time :)
 
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