Revisiting the old ESB screws vs rivets grips question :)

tomleech

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As I understand it we've reached the conclusion that while filming on location the super glued grips popped off in the cold and were reattached with small black screws of unknown origin that we see on the Ranch saber. The publicity photos (presumably shot after the movie? Can anyone clarify this?) have rivets in the grips but are not 'screen accurate' because it wasn't seen on screen. Looking through the movie for good reference pics I find this when Luke is knocked to the ground by the Wampa:

vlcsnap-2016-06-17-01h16m15s20.png

Almost out of shot, but theres silver in those grips... Thoughts?
 
The screws on the Ranch saber are not black. They have rusted to a dark brown.
If they had been black-oxidized then that would have protected them from rusting.
 
So they were silver screws in this one shot and then painted black for the rest of the movie?

The screws on the Ranch saber are not black. They have rusted to a dark brown.
If they had been black-oxidized then that would have protected them from rusting.
 
That could very well be, although I've only seen silver or rusted screws. It could be they wanted the screws to blend in with the grips for Cloud city or Dagobah

I've never actually seen rivets in saber grips on screen or behind the scenes to this day.
 
Far as I can tell they're black in every shot but this one, Hoth included (wampa cave), although they could be silver in a couple of Luke reaching shots :)

That could very well be, although I've only seen silver or rusted screws. It could be they wanted the screws to blend in with the grips for Cloud city or Dagobah

I've never actually seen rivets in saber grips on screen or behind the scenes to this day.
 
Here we go again!

I don't think the screws were ever actually black in the film. There are a couple shots where they look black (blending in with the grips), but I think that's just the lighting. Maybe.
 
I'm pretty sure it's just lighting too.
Lukethinking.jpgLukeesbsideshot.jpg
You may be thinking of the stunt sold at a christie's auction, which does have black screws, and trimmed T track among other things.

flex1-vi copy.jpg
 
I know, I know, this whole thing again :)

Even lightened up to where you can see the 'reflection' from the protruding grip parts the screws here have no silver to them:

vlcsnap-2016-06-17-12h49m24s93.png

They look black to me in that Bespin shot, but interestingly the only place I could find them looking silver in the movie is obviously when that Hoth part is being filmed in that pic as Luke has the bloody face...
 
never saw that still from snow speeder!! never thought of looking at that scene! boy those look like they are painted black


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Just been going through the blu ray looking for any Luke scenes and stepping through frames. I wanted to find evidence of rivets because they look less like something from Earth, but other than that shot from my first post and maybe this shot of him reaching where you can see silver they look very much like black screws...

vlcsnap-2016-06-17-13h18m28s157.png

never saw that still from snow speeder!! never thought of looking at that scene! boy those look like they are painted black


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From what I've been able to tell, the Bespin scenes seem to be where they really wanted to graflex to look it's best - so thats a good area to look. A couple years ago someone blew up the scene with R2 bumping into his leg and you can clearly see an "X" there. As for color, they were bright enough to show the socket so they most likely weren't painted black there.


though I have to admit, that cockpit scene is definitely questionable.
 
Just went to that point, they definitely look black to me here. Black screws tend to be glossy (as well as not actually pure black) which would cause some reflections, definitely enough to see the cross head, especially when you mess with shadows/highlights in photoshop, but if those screws were silver there'd be a lot more contrast between them and the grips. Even the most shadowed silver parts on Luke's belt are much lighter than those screws :)

vlcsnap-2016-06-17-13h45m05s36.png
 
The problem of course is this publicity photo here:

esbluke22-vi.jpg


Where it's pretty clear that the screws/rivets aren't painted...
 
The problem of course is this publicity photo here:

Where it's pretty clear that the screws/rivets aren't painted...

Yeah, they're definitely silver in all the publicity pics but IMO definitely black in the majority of screen time. Does anyone know if those promo photos were taken before, after or during filming? I'd imagine after but you never know... The publicity pics could of course be a whole separate saber that is never seen on screen.
 

Yeah, they're definitely silver in all the publicity pics but IMO definitely black in the majority of screen time. Does anyone know if those promo photos were taken before, after or during filming? I'd imagine after but you never know... The publicity pics could of course be a whole separate saber that is never seen on screen.

I don't think so... as in the previous post, black screws wouldn't reflect like that...
 
I know that has been debated before but this is a great thread. Reference photos are deceiving. I've always thought silver but man I can almost say 50/50 at this point.
 
I don't think so... as in the previous post, black screws wouldn't reflect like that...

I know, they're definitely silver there, that was my first post ;)

I know that has been debated before but this is a great thread. Reference photos are deceiving. I've always thought silver but man I can almost say 50/50 at this point.

They've gotta have changed them at some point, they're definitely silver in that shot where Luke gets knocked off his tauntaun (and in the promo pics), but definitely black in that clear snow speeder cockpit shot and, I believe, every other shot in the movie (aside from maybe that reaching shot i posted earlier)

We know they put the screws (or whatever) in during filming (from behind the scenes screw less grip stills) so its not a stretch at all to imagine they put some screws in for a quick fix and changed them later for whatever reason (aesthetics, type of screw wasn't secure and was falling out etc.)
 
In the copper vrs brass hero thread, there is a link to a ton of photos of the original props. The ESB graflex shows round top Philips head screws at the base of the grips and flat head screws on the sides of the grips on top. Again, we all know this could just be another version or one that hasn't been showed in the movie.
 
I know, they're definitely silver there, that was my first post ;)



They've gotta have changed them at some point, they're definitely silver in that shot where Luke gets knocked off his tauntaun (and in the promo pics), but definitely black in that clear snow speeder cockpit shot and, I believe, every other shot in the movie (aside from maybe that reaching shot i posted earlier)

We know they put the screws (or whatever) in during filming (from behind the scenes screw less grip stills) so its not a stretch at all to imagine they put some screws in for a quick fix and changed them later for whatever reason (aesthetics, type of screw wasn't secure and was falling out etc.)

True. I'm guessing the prop masters didn't imagine there work would be analyzed so much at the time haha.
 
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