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Props lost or destroyed

Sith Sheriff Brody said:
I also heard the Kong gate was burned down as part of the 'burning city' scene in Gone with the Wind.

And Bob Burns owns the original Kong armature, and occasionally takes it out on tours. He brought it to Wonderfest one year. Bob also owns one of the original motion trackers from Alien. He collects and preserves a lot of stuff for 'us.'


-MJ
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Bob's got a LOT of stuff! He's SO great at keeping, protecting, and SHARING his stuff.

He's got the original Kong armature. Part of a second one (a foot) as the rest was re-used

AND, Peter Jackson has a larger scale Kong armature. He took it over to Bob's (they're buds) and compared it. It's the same as Bob's but larger. The two then had legendary Ray Harryhausen (who learned under Willis O'Brien - animator of the original Kong) and Harryhausen confirmed it to be another Kong puppet. So both Burns and Jackson have original, 1933 Kong armatures!

Ironically, Peter's was found in a box in an old warehouse somewhere and it's "identity" was completely unknown.
 
Don't want to derail this thread any further, but not finding the picture I clearly remember makes me crazy - guess you know what I mean!

Treadwell, thanks for the picture, but that was not the one I am looking for...

Jaws, thanks for the link - the hint at the Anubis statue was a good one - because the head of that thing (facing to the viewer) was on the left side of the picture too!
 
TK1625 said:
Every Star Trek Series has had the original captain's chair taken. In the cast shot from the Enterprise series, Archer's feet do not reach the ground; this is because the chair was stolen before the photo was taken and the stunt chair was used instead.
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It sucks but really can you really blame them??? i know id love to get my hands on a captain's chair but im not rich so i'll be content with making a replica of one.
 
Treadwell said:
According to RPF threads I've followed, the first few park sharks were made from the original Bruce mold (as was the one that is currently displayed atop a junkyard sign), but when that mold gave out a new sculpt was made, and thus there is no longer any lineage to the film sharks in the Universal attractions.

I forget what happened to the film sharks--remember, they were only finished on one side to allow for armature attachments on the side opposite the camera, so they wouldn't have been displayed or used in the parks.
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They had a Jaws there once, but I think it was from Jaws 2. It was right next to these vehicles from the Flintstones and Jurassic park 2 in this boneyard exhibit.
 
Nearly everything was destroyed from 2001. The sets props wardrobe Etc.. Kubrick did want a sequel to ever be made so it was all destroyed. Except for a few small pieces
 
A reference to the story about the 2001 pod and the space station being left at the gates of a dump:
Tracking HAL's Odyssey - Page 3 - Los Angeles Times

And two thruster packs survived long enough to be used as set dressing in a 1972 Doctor Who:
2001-thruster-packs-doctor-who-dw_themutants_ep2.jpeg-59514d1311014056
 
I cringe reading some of these stories. I remember how sad I was when I saw some of the Sony backlot pictures of Ecto -1 and 1A. Thank god for the restoration on Ecto-1.
 
Another Goonies item: The treasure map. I read an interview with Sean Astin, who played Mikey in the film. He stated he owned the original map prop and that his mom accidentally mistaken it for some old papers and threw it away.
 
Treadwell said:
I've seen 70s-era pics of it decaying in the Fox backlot.
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I've always been crazy about the Proteus sub used in Fantastic Voyage. After the Cleopatra disaster, FOX got particularly anal about re-using props to keep costs down. So when Irwin Allen -- himself no slouch at re-using stuff -- needed a rescue sub for the climax of The Poseidon Adventure, they painted the Proteus yellow. But in the end, there wasn't budget enough for those scenes and given that they'd trashed the sub anyway, went ahead and scrapped it.

There's a great story somewhere* on the interwebs about a couple of fans gaining access to the FOX backlot and being able to climb around and photograph full-scale pieces like the Spindrift from Land of the Giants, the Lost in Space Jupiter II (which was already effectively scrap at that point), and more. Among the things they found was the Apes ship, which by then was also in pretty sad shape. They went on to write that on a return trip hoping to get some better shots, they were informed that everything had by then been cut-up and hauled off.

This is one of the last known pics of the "icarus":**

rusting%20studio%20model.jpg


*Can't find the article; likely it was on AOL HomeTown or Geocities; I do find posts from other asking where it went.

**Turns out the ship never actually had a name; the guys who found the rusted prop are the one who dubbed it Icarus!
 
CB2001 said:
Another Goonies item: The treasure map. I read an interview with Sean Astin, who played Mikey in the film. He stated he owned the original map prop and that his mom accidentally mistaken it for some old papers and threw it away.
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That's horrible.
 
What about the 8 foot TESB Star Destroyer and the large scale X-Wing that first got lost, then were found damaged and then got repaired by ILM?

Tim
 
Davlin said:
What about the DeLoreans from BTTF ? Aren't these a sad story too ?
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I think a controversial member in the BTTF circles gained access to these in order to try and restore one, and salvage parts from the other. This is my vague recollection; someone else is sure to remember more than I.
 
Vito said:
I love the Nostromo restoration video. It really inspired me to create art/props. I found it fascinating.
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Yes, seeing the nostromo getting restored was nice. I hope Bob Burns can get his stuff more organized and possibly getting more of it restored.
 
Some very interesting stories here, I hadn't seen the falcon photos before now. To think kids were playing around with their toy falcon ship while the original was lying torn apart in the rain. Theme parks spend a lot making replica film environments around their rides, I'd go all the time if they saved original sci-fi film sets to walk around. Classic cars get preserved in collections but movie history gets rusty and scorched.
The story I get tired of hearing about is the Predator clan suits from P2 being scrapped, and in recent years many of the pieces have been resurfacing in collections. Though, one of the Pred actors said that they were incredibly sweaty and some could have been cut up so fans couldn't get trophies. A stuntman got a full suit and many other bits were kept mixed together in storage which have made up some of the Profiles lots.
I don't like hearing about Star Wars prop like original Yoda pieces being cut up, that's like me being rich enough to buy the Mona Lisa and then eating it like Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon.
 
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