icons of darkness

[riveting]

 

Hi all,

A quick q: is there anyone from our American based contingent on the forum that know any more background on this item pictured and its history?, I was just wanting to clarify... is the kit a copy?, as the good gentleman in frame indicates the kit in this museum are all screen used pieces. the segment starts with "its all the real stuff, its all studio stuff!"

 

 the ANH tk is about the 10 minute mark

[Imperial_juggernaut[501st]]

On 7/30/2023 at 2:43 PM, riveting said:

 

Hi all,

A quick q: is there anyone from our American based contingent on the forum that know any more background on this item pictured and its history?, I was just wanting to clarify... is the kit a copy?, as the good gentleman in frame indicates the kit in this museum are all screen used pieces. the segment starts with "its all the real stuff, its all studio stuff!"

 

 the ANH tk is about the 10 minute mark

i don't know if its really straight from anh or not. but for a real prop, i'm surprised its in good condition with no major damage. because the og anh suits were made out of cheap fragile plastic during the original shootings for the movie, so they didn't last very long, even the one at lucasfilm archives has visible age.  

Edited August 4, 2023 by Imperial_juggernaut

[Morgi[Staff]]

As @Imperial_juggernaut said, this is in surprisingly good condition for a supposedly screen-used set of armor. Additionally, a few details look to be off.

 

 

For a Hero TK this is missing the four rivets and tan straps for the holster. The rivets on the side aren't visible either. The fit of the backplate looks a bit awkward with the overlap. This might be explained if it were Luke's armor (which would also explain the short cut-off chest plate), but for that some cracks and signs of usage are missing and the shoulderbridges are moved backwards. As seen in the screencaps, they usually had a few more ridges glued to the chestplate. The forearm also has a bit of a weird shape compared to what I'm used to seeing. 

 

 

All in all, I suspect this isn't a screen-used armor, but I'm not willing to confirm either way. Maybe someone could find a screencap of the TK in the video. After all, the TKs in the movies had some very different builds with details, form and and shape changing with every armor. 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

There has be several sets of armor from 501st members who appeared on The Mandalorian which have been actioned and this could be one of those. It's a grey area, although they were "screen used" armor they weren't actually made specifically for the show, it's a case of buyer beware. 

[TheRascalKing[TK]]

19 hours ago, Morgi said:

As @Imperial_juggernaut said, this is in surprisingly good condition for a supposedly screen-used set of armor. Additionally, a few details look to be off.

 

For a Hero TK this is missing the four rivets and tan straps for the holster. The rivets on the side aren't visible either. The fit of the backplate looks a bit awkward with the overlap. This might be explained if it were Luke's armor (which would also explain the short cut-off chest plate), but for that some cracks and signs of usage are missing and the shoulder bridges are moved backwards. As seen in the screencaps, they usually had a few more ridges glued to the chestplate. The forearm also has a bit of a weird shape compared to what I'm used to seeing. 

 

All in all, I suspect this isn't a screen-used armor, but I'm not willing to confirm either way. Maybe someone could find a screencap of the TK in the video. After all, the TKs in the movies had some very different builds with details, form and and shape changing with every armor. 

 

Remember that there was an incredible amount of variation among the actual screen-used suits back in the day. Our guidelines about rivets, placement of pieces, Hero vs Stunt and everything are based in truth, but absolutely not hard fact. I doubt it is 'real' ANH armor as well, but one of them looks like possibly ROTJ style, and there were touring and exhibition suits that might have remained in better condition too.

 

 

18 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

There has be several sets of armor from 501st members who appeared on The Mandalorian which have been actioned and this could be one of those. It's a grey area, although they were "screen used" armor they weren't actually made specifically for the show, it's a case of buyer beware. 

 

I would say with a high degree of confidence that this is not the case.

 

I live about an hour south of the exhibit and have been meaning to make it up to LA again, so I'll try to go and take some pics and get answers for y'all next time I'm in the area.

 

In the meantime, some extra photos from the internet. There seams to be two suits - an ROTJ style as below, and an ANH Hero style. I'd doubt the authenticity of both, but especially the Hero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plaque seems to read "Luke Skywalker Storm Trooper" and reference A New Hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like they have a Sandy too? Pretty sure the "Look, sir - droids!" Helmet is in the LFL Archives, so the whole things stinks to me...

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by TheRascalKing

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I'm very confident it's not a suit from back in 1977, too many things on the suit which doesn't align with screen used armor.

 

No curve on the shoulder bells. Communicator is on the wrong side. The list goes on.

 

Anyway no matter who made it they didn't do a very good job on the large abdomen

[Imperial_juggernaut[501st]]

On 8/3/2023 at 3:44 PM, Morgi said:

As @Imperial_juggernaut said, this is in surprisingly good condition for a supposedly screen-used set of armor. Additionally, a few details look to be off.

 

 

For a Hero TK this is missing the four rivets and tan straps for the holster. The rivets on the side aren't visible either. The fit of the backplate looks a bit awkward with the overlap. This might be explained if it were Luke's armor (which would also explain the short cut-off chest plate), but for that some cracks and signs of usage are missing and the shoulderbridges are moved backwards. As seen in the screencaps, they usually had a few more ridges glued to the chestplate. The forearm also has a bit of a weird shape compared to what I'm used to seeing. 

 

 

All in all, I suspect this isn't a screen-used armor, but I'm not willing to confirm either way. Maybe someone could find a screencap of the TK in the video. After all, the TKs in the movies had some very different builds with details, form and and shape changing with every armor. 

another important detail that gives away real anh props from fakes ones are the boots and eyebrows. anh suits were made from hand, not digitally, so all of them had inconsistencies from one another, most if not all of the og anh boots were spray painted white and had different colored cracks and paint chips while the eyebrows got bended and posed too up or too down on the helmet.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Imperial_juggernaut

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Glen hammered the nail in with the shoulder bells. That one has a set that's nowhere near the neighborhood of screen accurate. They're far too petite.

 

The armor is also incredibly evenly white. Since it would be white paint over that green fish pond poly material, I really REALLY don't think it would look as evenly white. Even if repainted periodically (shudder), it would look different shades of white.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Furthermore, he goes onto say that the Vader bucket in the glass case is from ANH *and* ESB.

 

I'm not the king of Vader trivia, but I know the two buckets have many differences, not least among them being the actual finish on the plastic. I don't believe the ANH bucket was ever used on screen in ESB, though I could be mistaken. I would think an ANH Vader scene would stick out like a sore thumb.

[Sly11[Admin]]

46 year old ABS with zero yellowing, for a start you would have to call bullshit!.

To note the sign does say Replica, so either this dude cant read or it is indeed BS lol.

Think about it, if it was an original piece it would be left as is with little repair done to it.

As a comparison consider  the state of the RotJ armour kits when they bring one out to show on the rare occasion, not in great shape, and the Hero buckets that LFL have shown are very yellow as they were not painted like the Stunt helmets puled in khaki HDPE.

Check out our gallery for LFL archive photos of several suits and you can see they all suffer the same discoloration and degradation.

Standouts for Luke's armour, the forearm shape and build is way off, this is a replica build and an average one at best.

Also take note of the Ab section, the ANH armour have a center line that does not line up top to bottom, on the cod it is offset to one side (the nature of a true hand sculpt.

By RotJ they had cleaned these up as the molds were in poor condition so the center line was straight top to bottom.

This is pulled from a RotJ maker so newer modified buck, not an ANH original so they didn't get that right either.

Most ANH armour was trimmed leaving almost no return edges to the bulk of the suits specifically on the forearms, some of the thighs and shoulder bells, even biceps.

 

Straight vs real off set center line/ridge.

 

Easier to see and becomes very apparent from a slight side angle, this one from the LFL archives ANH and not central.

If we could see the underside of the helmet, the S trim shape also changed, ANH had a very flat lets call it square edge trim which I believe changed to the S shaped edge trim on later helmets.

Also the items already pointed out all show this as a replica as the sign does say, but sadly for the obsessed like us, we can point out all the floors in this build

[Imperial_juggernaut[501st]]

these might be from other archives but this is what its suppose to look like yellowing and damage all around

[FN1313[TK]]

Another thing I’m noticing that has me questioning actual screen suits is the amount of return edge in spaces we know the original suits didn’t have them. Such as the forearms and shoulder bells. Looks more like a replica kit put together for show and tell without exactly the same accuracy. Still look like great replica props, but yeah I doubt the authenticity.


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