Originally published at: Stormtrooper helmet and blaster used in 1977's Star Wars up for auction | Boing Boing
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I’d buy 'em, but I’m a little short for a Stormtrooper.
[ETA: also, you know. . . money.]
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Starts going through my couch cushions for loose change…
Oh well, not in my budget, but super cool. Hope they go to someone who’ll really appreciate them and share them with the public.
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Aww man, so cool. Anyone wanna give me ~$50k for the blaster?
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Finally someone will be able to settle the debate whether the poor accuracy of a bog-standard Stormtrooper is the gun’s fault or the helmet’s fault.
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Dang it! I’m all tapped out after bidding my last $50K on that Batman nipple-suit.
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It was a ruse devised by Moff Tarkin. They released the prisoners, but they made the soldiers play incompetence to give more credibility to the farse. Stormtroopers are extremely skilled professional soldiers. When our heroes find the Jawas’ truck all destroyed in Tattoine, old Obi Wan deduces that it wasn’t those sand nomads who charred the space seven dwarfs, as the shooting marks on the vehicle were too accurate to have been made by the Raiders.
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It’s really interesting how cheap looking that helmet looks in those auction photos compared to how convincing and futuristic it appears on film. It looks like a certain amount of weathering or dirt has been removed from the prop.
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I once won, but was unable to collect, a Boba Fett helmet from one of the prequels. Well, it was made for the prequels, but never used. Well, that’s what the claim was, but the organization running the raffle didn’t have any provenance paperwork or anything other than their word that it was almost genuine. Sadly, I had already left the event when they called me to let me know that I had won, and after I had turned around and gotten halfway back, they called again to say it had been stolen, sat on, and the pieces thrown away. I doubt it would have ever been worth anything anyway, but reading stuff like this makes me wonder.
I saw a collection of the helmets when the Star Wars tour last came through Munich. The 1977 movie helmets are the roughest of the bunch, with more painted-on details than later movies had. You can see differences in paint strokes, for example.
It was fun to see the different spaceship models, and how the star destroyers evolved over time until they actually got guns on them. A lot of the early ones are clear cases of kit bashing and gluing on greebles.
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my first thought was, “i want that blaster!” but then after reading the provenance of the trooper helmet, now i want them BOTH. now i just need to find the money…
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Same. However, when I see the closeup picture of the actual items:
(I just saved $400,000.)
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Bravo on that pluralization
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For the legal wonks here:
https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2011/39.html
ETA since it’s not one-boxing:
Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v. Ainsworth & Another, [2011] UKSC 39
Litigation over whether one of the guys who made the helmets for the film was allowed to make replicas using his original moulds.
That’s the power of lighting and colour correction! Most film props and sets are surprisingly crappy when you see them up close and in normal lighting conditions. So-called “hero” props which are held by someone important and/or seen close-up on camera have a lot more attention paid to them, but this helmet is just a normal grade prop so it’s, once again, surprisingly crappy in real life. 
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I saw an exhibit of original Star Wars props once and it was remarkable how terrible they looked. It seemed impossible at first, but I guess a little distance from the camera can do wonders. Makes me wonder if all the extremely fancy Lord of the Rings props are actually made of foam and cardboard spray-painted in metallic tones.
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LOTR might actually be the exception to that particular rule…WETA workshop actually forged blades, made armor, sewed clothing, as though they were making real objects and artifacts. Bernard Hill (King Theodin) tells a story of putting on his gear and seeing a detail on the inside of a costume, that no one would ever see but him; other actors have similar stories about their particular swords or other items.
That was LOTR; as I understand it, by the time The Hobbit lumbered around, the craftsmanship had been replaced by deadline-driven assembly line manufacture, cheaper materials, and CGI. 
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If you’re ever around Leeds, England, check out the Royal Armouries. There’s a small exhibit on arms and armour in the movies, including some donations from LOTR. A lot of the chainmail in LOTR was plastic, but looks better than most LARP-grade plastic-mail I’ve seen.
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