Bad props for a movie, that'll be $1,000,000 please!

paulj13

Here’s an interesting discuss we’ve just had in the office. What is the worst special effects/props you seen in the movies.

The best ones and the ones I thinks are really shameless, are the things that turn up in the big budget films. For example, in the blockbuster summer mindless movie of last year, XXX, Vin Diesel plays a secret agent. At one stage near the end he take a rocket launcher up and opens a small LCD screen and proceeds to use it to hone in on his target. All very James Bond yes? NO, the so called futuristic rocket launcher is a Sony camcorder stuck to what can only be described as a Waven pipe and sprayed grey. It really is bad considering the money that goes into these movies. If you have the DVD have a look and see.

Another example is a fairly descent action movie “Behind Enemy Lines” The film focuses on our hero trying to escape after his plane is knocked down but he must return to the crash site to recover a hard drive with images on it. He hands this card over to Gene Hackman at one stage and it is clearly a network card with a Minidisk stuck to the front of it

Can anyone else think of things they have seen in the movies that the props or special effects department more then likely charged 20k for that cost the price of a spray can and some super glue to produces???

Enjoy the movies!

patch

Speaking of which, that's a job I'd love to do..... I think it's the 'best boy' who is responsible for solving the little problems and making things happen.

On 'The Thing' dvd, the special features mention how they made the sequence where the title appears..... they cut the words out of a bin, wrapped the bin in black plastic, then set fire to it! Now THAT'S hi-tec......:)

Karl Hungus

They also used a fishtank for that, Patch.

Serious inventiveness altogether when you're on a low budget, and that shines through in films like The Thing, where the special effects were so seamless. I guess the bigger the budget the lazier the crew?

Tusky

The Thing has my favourite special effects of any movie , They were really inventive , It goes into them in detail on the dvd!

ixoy

And yet they all suck when compared to "Doctor Who" and it's SFX budget of 10p

SweetBirdOfTruth

Space 1999 and Blake's 7 set the standard fro crap sfx.

The bigger problem today isn't really bad props, it's crap cgi - look partic at Buffalo Soldiers.

dazberry

Don't know if this fits in, but I think it needs a mention..

Many moons ago I saw a film called "Battle Beyond the Stars" which was a cheesy sci-fi is the vain of Star Wars with a take on the The Seven Samurai. Now regardless how bad that was, I saw a film a while later called "Space Raiders", which used all the same effects from BBTS.

After a bit of a googling, I came across these

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue211/screen2.html

On Battle Beyond the Stars
The film includes an enormous number of special effects, and it's amazing what Corman's crew managed to create. Sure, some effects look a bit cheesy, but most are surprisingly good even without grading on a curve for the low budget. Of course, Corman maximized his investment by gleefully reusing Battle's effects shots and spaceships in countless films that followed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086345/#comment

On Space Raiders
A Roger Corman rip-off assembled for what appears to be virtually zero budget. All of the special effects were originally used in "Battle Beyond the Stars", and I suspect a fair amount of the props, costumes and sets were re-used from other sources as well. The story seems to have been written around these elements, so this isn't really a movie as much as it's a recycling project.

D.

dazberry

Originally posted by paulj13

He hands this card over to Gene Hackman at one stage and it is clearly a network card with a Minidisk stuck to the front of it

Actually what p1sses me off is films when they have some secret data, and if you get to look at it before it's copied, it looks about 40mb worth (i.e. plans, schematics, pictures, media rich text etc.) and they copy it onto a 1.44mb floppy disk - FFS. But I suspose the suspense would be ruined if a message appeared on the screen like, insert disk 1 of 3000 and press any key to begin archive .

I noticed a few ppl mentioned TV series, like Space 1999 (I've 2 episodes on VHS, must route them out and have a look, I don't remember the effects being all that bad, it was just the bell-bottom trousers), but if we're going down that road I think the Vic20 in Red Dwarf is class .

BlitzKrieg

Wasnt the milleniam falcon inspired by a half eaten hamburger and a talt shaker?


and the alien queen wasnt she a forklift with the model put over it and the forklift hidden by black plastic bags? with two guys sitting on the forklift controlling the arms??

dunno might be wrong.



On why bad props with high budget films =budgets go to the over paid actors...


which begs the question are they paid too much?

i say yes...

SweetBirdOfTruth

roger corman made his name making movies for ten cents a go. that's why you have to love him.

didn't he make a few of them over here, over west somewhere?

mike65

Roger Cormans studio is in Comamara its called
Concorde his company is Concord Pictures I think.

Space 1999 and Blake's 7 set the standard fro crap sfx.

Space 1999 set the standard for good set design and sfx on the small screen until Battlestar Galactica while Blakes 7 had a zero budget but some good stories.





www.space1999.uk.com/pics/gallery/800/EAGLE800.jpg

I can't think of any particularly poor sets but if you have an eagle eye Star Wars, which looks good, has hardboard X-Wing fighters in one shot (in the hanger).

Mike.

SweetBirdOfTruth

re star wars. the only reason whatshisface got the gig as han solo was so he could double-job as a carpenter on the wooden sets. for all you know, he may have even made those hardboard x-wings

nb: satire

Ajos

And the best boy is actually the assistant to the Gaffer, or chief electrician. Nothing to do with props. I have nothing else to add to this discussion. I'm sorry.