Original Golden Idol from Raiders here...

I believe the idol handed over to Belloq had the gold eyes, not the "real" eyes. It also looks like it was gold leafed.

The screenshot in the description is from a scene shot at Elstree, not on location in Hawaii. The sculpt is not the same anyway.

Treadwell said:

I believe the idol handed over to Belloq had the gold eyes, not the "real" eyes. It also looks like it was gold leafed.

The screenshot in the description is from a scene shot at Elstree, not on location in Hawaii. The sculpt is not the same anyway.

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I know that this has been common consensus for some time, but based on my research I believe that all of the Idols used in Raiders had glass eyes- none had the eyes plated over.

Additionally, there is only one sculpt of Idol seen in the film, the "no-frown" version. This was created by the UK Art Department.

I cannot say where the "Frown" version of the Idol pictured in the Archives book originated. I know that a mold of this Idol existed at ILM for many years, which is why there are so many castings around. I do not believe the "Frown" Idol appears anywhere in Raiders, and ILM was not involved in any of the scenes where the Idol featured, so if it originated at ILM it may have been for some kind of promo purposes.

The eyes of the Idol are very tricky as the whole thing is highly reflective and was bathed in a lot of light to appear even brighter. Because of this the whites of the eyes are frequently lost, including the close up of Belloq holding the Idol. There is a production still of Freeman holding an Idol with fixed glass eyes on Kauai. There is also a newly-released production still of Ford holding an Idol with fixed glass eyes on the Raiders SE DVD.

-Brandon
The Prop Store of London

That's great info, Brandon, thanks!

As for the sculpt, the FG idol in the description isn't "frowning" as much as the one in the screenshot, at least to my eye. The bottom lip of the Propstore idol looks almost straight across, whereas the in the screenshot the corners of the mouth droop down more. Perhaps an illusion.

Also if there were only 2 props with real glass eyes made and this is one of them, then what are these?

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You also can't tell from the poor quality of that photo, but one of those idols has solid, plated eyes, not the glass as you can see on the idol on the right. There were several different types of materials used to make the idols. Some were even foam and some rubber, if I remember correctly. They had that scene where they had to throw it and also the stuntmen had to run with it. It had to be light, which is most likely why the one in this thread was hollow.

BAlinger15 said:

I know that this has been common consensus for some time, but based on my research I believe that all of the Idols used in Raiders had glass eyes- none had the eyes plated over.

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They look gold to me...

Again, heavy light reflections from the eyes are throwing everything off. This is from a 720p version, though it is compressed. Look closely at the color of the eyes compared to the color of the gold surface on the face.



And see this still ofFord with a fixed glass eye Idol.



-Brandon
The Prop Store of London

Jedifyfe said:

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Hakuhna Matata!

It must have been difficult to install the glass eyes in those casts. The base of the idol is very small, too small for a hand to fit inside even in the thinnest wall thickness cast.
I suppose they could have had some kind of tool (like long narrow pliers) to hold onto the glass eyes with adhesive already applied and then carefully (i.e. the operation board game) stuck them into place.
I saw the pic of the removable back section, in which installing them would be simple, but it didn't seem like all the glass eye versions came apart like that?
Thoughts?

Of all the photos I've seen of idols with glass eyes, the photos have fit under two distinct categories:

1. Clearly evident there IS a removable back
2. Indeterminate if there is a removable back

The third potential category doesn't seem to be supported by photos as of yet.

3. Clearly evident there is NOT a removable back

Does the propstore idol come apart?

GINO said:

Does the propstore idol come apart?

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Personally - I'm not sure. My own post has me looking back at the photos. It is clearly hollow, but I suppose there is no clear, well defined seam where the removable back would be.

Similarly, Brandon's B&W photo looks like glass eyes with no clear seam. Though the photo is not the greatest clarity, it is still good.

Hmmm...

The upper two red circles show what may be a seam.

The lower two circles show colors in the eye that could represent either gold plating or the blue-grey of a glass eye "white".

There is a pupil in there. Would they have colored that onto a plated eye? Also, why is the forhead so convoluted?

I'm thinking the idol could be rotocast somewhat thin, have the eyes dremeled out, then plated, and the eyes could then be hot glued in from the bottom with long forceps like Gino suggested. You'd want to test fit the eyes first and mark them with a water based, fine tip pen, put your hot glue above and below the marks, then get the eyes in there before the glue cooled. Once you knew the glue was cooled, you could seal the eyes with some water based clay and back fill the entire thing with resin or plaster for weight. After that, rinse out the clay, put some felt on the base, and kazot! Finished idol w/ glass or acrylic eyes!

-Sarge

PHArchivist said:

Also, why is the forhead so convoluted?

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Could that particular idol be simply gold leafed? That would account for the sort of blotchiness of the surface...

-Sarge

Could that particular idol be simply gold leafed? That would account for the sort of blotchiness of the surface...

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They used a dulling spray to prevent glare from the lights and possibly seeing the camera and crew in the reflections. The same as they did for C-3PO.



Over the years I've seen many production idols and one thing I think that has been finally put to rest is the theory that the eyes had holes drilled in them as we see on so many repros.

As far as the ones with the real eyes, I think one was used for the pedestal that showed the eyes obviosuly not plated, the one we see with the eyes moving back and forth on screen as Indy approaches. Since that one had obvious pupils they needed consistancy so they had to add pupils to the rest. A real idol would not have glass eyes and since the 3 second scene it was used for was a wide shot where you couldn't really see the eyes too well, it worked just fine. However, I'd think that any other scenes would have the eyes covered in gold.

What I think they did was take several castings of the same idol Brandon has and plated one, interting the eyes in later, and then did one or more with the eyes, but plated it after the eyes were inserted and so we see the shape of the surface of the eye as it would be on a real eye. The cornea is slightly raised from the rest of the eye and I think this is what other idols eyes looked like. They were shaped like real eyes just as ancient sculptures used to look like. They would sculpt in the cornea and maybe even a small circle for the pupil. I believe they then painted the pupil area in as we see in the pic of Ford above and when it's held up in the air before the Hovitos. Remember, this painted eye version was only on screen for a matter of seconds so I'm sure they weren't too concerned over how the paint would look since it was flashed by so quickly. After all, much of the Star Wars stuff was poorly painted but looked fabulous on screen.

When I look at the enhanced pic above of it being held up by Belloq I see gold on the eyes. I can't see the glass off the eye in any of the frames or photos I've looked at. I only see gold on the eyes.

I did this pic below in a quick minute. Just thought it would be fun to see how it would look in one piece.

Sith Sheriff Brody said:

Raiders DVD Idol:

-Mike

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These photos are definitely not the idol used in the movie. The seam is too close to the ear. The seam is much farther away from the ear in the movie still provided on the first post.

Jeff

Maybe each idol's seam is different because perhaps they were each cut individually.

GINO said:

Maybe each idol's seam is different because perhaps they were each cut individually.

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Thats possible. But it is certainly not the idol used during that closeup shot.

Sweet

Another way to insert eyes into a casting would be to cut the eye into a wedge shape, dig out holes in the sockets and cram it in, puttying up the eyelids to get overlap.

I've spoken with the man who did the vacuum-metalizing for the original Hawaiian idol scenes. The Elstrie idols were different from the location shoot. They had several solid idols for closeups and some that were foam for throwing. Non of the location idols had glass eyes. I have seen and held a real screen used idol it was solid and all gold.

Cheers,
Jeff