Lost & Abandoned Movie Props and Iconic Film Memorabilia - Part 2

this episode of yester world is sponsored by surf shark make sure to stay to the end to learn why surf shark is the VPN service I'm currently using and go to surf shark deal / yester world for 85% off a two-year plan and three additional months for free evolve the episodes of yester world one of my absolute favorites was her deep dive into lost and abandoned movie props and judging by the response I think it was one of yours too so I figured it was about time to explore five more stories of lost and abandoned movie props the ones with happy endings sad endings and those that fall somewhere in between [Music] the origins of the Loch Ness monster or Nessie can be traced all the way back to the early 6th century but the urban legend wouldn't take hold of the general public until 1930 with possibly the first published account by some fishermen of a weird lake monster in Scotland after years of eyewitness descriptions and blurry photos the mysterious creature became world famous with the widely circulated surgeons photograph of course this and many others would eventually be proven to be a fake but that doesn't stop the legend from captivating both skeptics and believers ever since so it made perfect sense to feature the urban legend as a plot device in the 1970 film the private life of Sherlock Holmes [Music] for the movie a massive and very expensive Loch Ness monster movie prop was constructed and taken to Scotland for filming the movie monster was so realistic that it actually caused residents and tourists to think it was the real deal that is until they saw the film crew pulling it along the water however problems arose when the film's director Billy Wilder for artistic reasons insisted that Nessie's two humps be removed unfortunately it soon became clear that the two humps were essential in keeping the movie monster flow as after the removal the massive props sunk to the bottom of the lake during a test run so I guess you could say two humps are better than none come on it was funny the Loch Ness monster movie prop was made once again only without the hums but this time they were taken into account in achieving its buoyancy they also decided to instead film the scene in a water tank within a soundstage instead of the actual Loch Ness just to be on the safe side gargoyle merely a decoy man the private life of Sherlock Holmes was a modest success but the tale of the sunken movie monster was mostly lost a time that is until April 2016 in which a Norwegian Maritime company was investigating the real Loch Ness monster and stumbled upon something peculiar almost 50 years later the giant Loch Ness monster movie prop had somehow managed to survive almost completely intact in the exact same location and its sound half a century earlier and was to why there hasn't been a single recovery effort to retrieve this fascinating piece of movie prop history is beyond me but as it stands today the movie props still lies below the depths of the lake untouched which adds yet another fascinating aspect to the infamous Loch Ness monster lore Oh labyrinth the source of so many of my childhood nightmares from an irrational fear of being kidnapped caressed by those horrifying hands being visited by the film's disturbing creatures and David Bowie's package but it turns out labyrinth had another terrifying visual up its sleeve it would just take a decade or so after the film's release Huggle is certainly the most complicated puppet creature we've ever built it's the most technically elaborate face because we've put about 18 motors in there to control all the different portions of the face with these 18 motors and for people operating that from outside by radio control you see of all of the puppets created for labyrinth by far the most advanced and expensive was the character of hoggle and it was thanks to the impressive blend of technology and the talented puppeteers that Huggle was just as much of a star of the movie as Jennifer Connelly or David Bowie's bandmates but the story now takes a very dark turn I'm not totally sure I'm believing what I'm seeing at them to be quite serious it is a brilliant as the story goes once filming wrapped in September of 1985 hoggle along with the other puppets were used for various photoshoots and public appearances leading up to the premiere they were then sent with the crew back to Jim Henson's workshop in the US however despite being one of the most advanced and expensive puppets ever put on film it was carried overseas in a very ordinary piece of luggage unfortunately the unknown airline responsible for the safe arrival of this piece of film history quite simply lost it during transit now if I were to take a stab in the dark I'd say that the film's dismal box-office performance combined with its mixed to poor reception led to a far from thorough search for the puppet and was simply written off as an insurance claim but I could be wrong regardless ultimately the puppet was left to be abandoned as just another one of the other 25 million pieces of luggage lost annually but fast forward 11 years later to 1997 or Morris civically Alabama of all places to a store by the name of Unclaimed Baggage welcome to side roads which brings us the Scottsboro Alabama where there are thousands of pieces of luggage that are unclaimed each and every day and after a lengthy process they are brought here available for you at the Unclaimed Baggage center to put it simply this particular store has contracts with all domestic airlines to sell as the name implies unclaimed baggage so one afternoon an employee was going through just another delivery and opened a random suitcase to make a horrifying discovery yeah I told you this was nightmare fuel in what I can only imagine being played out like a CSI like medical examination by a coroner the grotesque remains of poor hoggle were carefully recovered from the suitcase seriously imagine the smell of latex rotting away in a hot and humid piece of luggage unopened for over 10 years look however it would take almost another 10 years before the owners of unclaimed baggage saved up enough cash to have poor abandoned hoggle restored now the images of this restoration process are on the same level of graphic plastic surgery but while the results are in my opinion a bit iffy the passion put into bringing hoggle back to life is admirable today hoggle can be seen by anyone visiting unclaimed baggage in Scottsboro Alabama and as a site you've really can't unsee just like David Bowie's baggage in the first entry of the series we explored the history of the original Death Star how it was thrown away after filming used as a garbage can at a country-western show ironically called Star world and thankfully rescued years later from the backyard of an antique shop in this instance the iconic Space Station had a happy ending but others haven't been as lucky 2001 a Space Odyssey reveals the strangeness beauty and wonder that may be waiting for us on the moon and planets in the year 2001 when Stanley Kubrick's 2001 a Space Odyssey was released in theaters in 1968 to some it was a brilliant masterpiece to others not so much but one thing everyone could agree upon was the film stunning ahead of their time visual effects particularly its use of incredibly realistic models and miniatures they were so impressive in fact that this is what led to the whole Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landing conspiracy over five decades later the film is revered as a science fiction masterpiece and thankfully many of the props did survive and have since been featured in multiple displays and exhibits but one of the film's most iconic movie props Space Station 5 has yet to see the light of day and there's a good although tragic reason why the year was 1974 in Hertfordshire England when a college student was studying graphic art at a studio near a corporate junkyard as it turns out this was about 20 miles south of MGM Studios Boreham wood or MGM British where 2001 a Space Odyssey was filmed six years earlier one afternoon according to this college student a truck rolled up to the junkyard and dropped off some wooden crates the curious student made his way over to the mysterious drop-off and to his surprise within the crates was one of the most iconic movie props in science fiction history space station 5 now I wish this story had a happy ending like the Death Star I really do but unfortunately while he was able to take some pictures due to his vehicle size and living situation he wasn't able to take it with him a few days later the iconic Space Station was quote smashed up by kids and destroyed forever but let's talk about another iconic spaceship that does have a happy ending attention to the crew of the commercial vessel Nostromo a word of warning while Star Wars took place in a galaxy far far away the 1979 science fiction horror film alien took place in space where no one can hear you scream now in case you're one of the few people on earth who hasn't seen it virtually the entire film takes place on the cargo starship Nostromo the outside of the ship was captured on film by way of an incredibly detailed miniature and thanks to the talented visual effects team made the Nostromo appear on screen with stunning realism so much like Star Wars once the movie released a critical praise and box-office success it too became an iconic science fiction spaceship also like Star Wars alien was produced by 20th Century Fox but this time instead of throwing away props after filming like the Death Star most were held onto by the studio or in the case of the original egg props they were put on display at the Egyptian theater only to be vandalized and destroyed it's movie history this time I mean these are made by artisans there's such great talent it's as important to me as a Rembrandt painting some of this work I mean look at these guys back here the work that's in these things was brilliant and I can't see him just being junked somewhere just put something they've got to be seen people have to know about these things and so I feel like I'm just the caretaker of this stuff I'm the guy showing off all these brilliant people's work enter movie prop collector Bob Burns who long story short wound up receiving virtually every single prop and set piece from alien on permanent loan from the studio which included the Nostromo but evidently he didn't have enough storage space indoors for the massive movie prop so the iconic ship was left outdoors on his driveway for 20 years by the late 90s Nostromo had seen far better days so at Bob burns personal request was taken in by special effects company knb with the full intent of restoring the worse for wear ship but while finally out of the harsh California Sun still sat on a storage locker for almost another decade it wasn't until around 2010 when a team of passionate movie prop enthusiasts offered to restore the Nostromo to a science fiction horror film glory the entire restoration process is incredibly fascinating so I'll put a link to the full video in the description but suffice it to say the painstaking work resulted in a beautifully restored Nostromo and at least as of 2017 remains as a glorious display at the prop store of London in Los Angeles so if you were a fan of my first abandoned movie sets episode and yes yes I will do a third one the country of Malta might ring a bell as its home to the abandoned movie set built from scratch but now a tourist destination of Popeyes village but there's actually another abandoned movie set in Malta but is technically more of a prop the Titanic [Music] whoops wrong version now I'm not ashamed to admit that James Cameron's Titanic is one of my favorite movies of all time even though Jack could have totally fit on the board if they tried a little harder but this was far from the first adaptation of the tragic sinking and our story focuses on one that actually has ties to Star Wars raise the Titanic what a lovely thing she was standing as high in the waters one of your skyscrapers and God Himself they said couldn't sink her then in two hours she was gone and 1500 souls with her so I'll just be blunt despite good intentions the movie is not very good with a premise revolving around the raising of the Titanic in order to obtain highly valuable cargo hence the title however what makes this one especially unique is that prior to the James Cameron version it had the biggest budget of any of the other retellings at 40 million dollars or 125 million dollars today and just for comparison Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back which came out the same year cost 33 million dollars were just under one hundred and four million dollars today so why did raise the Titanic have such a crazy high production cost well part of this was due to the cost of building a massive replica of the RMS Titanic as the 55 foot 10-ton big ature cost a whopping five million dollars were 15 million dollars today the replica of the ill-fated ship was so large that it then required even more money to be spent on a massive water tank in Malta what's truly ironic is that before his version of Titanic James Cameron faced the very same issue for his earlier movie the abyss in which he simply used a freakin abandoned nuclear reactor to save costs now on the plus side the sequence of raising the Titanic was actually pretty darn impressive for the time period though a few shots do give away its true scale but unfortunately the high production costs ultimately doomed the film financially as the movie as a whole was a critical and box-office flop to make matters worse studio executives had demanded the entire sequence featuring the sinking of the Titanic which was part of why they built the darn thing in the first place be cut from the film before its wide release although it was repurposed a few years later for a television show called voyagers [Music] or you have my favorite scene [Music] [Music] the reception of raise the Titanic was so bad that some believed it was truly the end of big-budget movies which is obviously incredibly ironic given the financial predictions of James Cameron's version so despite almost a third of the movies entire budget going towards the Titanic prop who is left abandoned at the Malta film studio and when I say abandoned I mean really abandoned as 40 years later the gigantic multi-million dollar movie prop has been left to rot away rust and decay and unlike previous stories it said that the damage is far beyond repair so any restorative efforts would essentially be pointless as virtually every single piece of material would have to be replaced so it no longer really be the original which you could say about many other restored movie props but that's a whole other subject for another time when it comes to iconic movie finales it's hard to get much better than the original Planet of the Apes spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen the 1968 film basically for the whole movie our main protagonist assumes their ship crash landed on another planet ruled by Apes however by the end it's revealed that they've been on earth the entire time with the partially buried Statue of Liberty the original film is considered a science fiction masterpiece and would spawn many sequels remakes and reboots so it should be no surprise that anything from the original is highly prized among collectors enter movie prop enthusiasts loose hem stock who in 2007 was featured within an article for sci-fi Now magazine of his many pieces of movie memorabilia from Planet of the Apes one of his most prized possessions was the Statue of Liberty head from the breathtaking finale by his own account and verified by documents he'd purchased the piece of film history from a company called Hollywood prop supply who officially certified the statue as used in the 1968 film but Lady Liberty had seen far better days so he took it upon himself to restore the priceless piece of cinema history and by priceless I mean putting it up for auction in 2007 with in the prestigious profiles in history which was used to promote the auction itself and with a bidding estimate of 30 to $40,000 was nothing to sneeze at but it failed to sell there so then went to the also very prestigious heritage auctions for a new estimated price of $15,000 but that's where the story takes a very bizarre turn now if this whole time you've been thinking boy that sure doesn't look like the Statue of Liberty I remember from the original Planet of the Apes neither did others within the movie prop community as thoroughly investigated by jason de bird of the original prop blog or de Bourgh done horrible pronunciation he noticed more than a few major differences between what was seen in the film and the piece up for auction even more damning was a simple examination of an on-set photo as it seems the production only built part of the torch the crown the back of her head and that's it the white shot is a matte painting so very little the statue was actually physically built what it entailed is building the head and the torch one-half full-scale I had the grips build a tower 70 feet high to get the right perspective long story short it turned out that while this was an abandoned movie prop it wasn't from the original Planet of the Apes it was from Steven Spielberg's 2004 dramedy the terminal starring Tom Hanks you see this Statue of Liberty was built for an unused scene where Tom Hanks enters in I Love New York store and has an encounter with the massive display in fact the reason for the Crown's deformity was to house a CCTV as part of an ongoing gag in the film so once this information came to light Heritage Auctions pulled the piece along with many others certified by Hollywood prop Supply and actually filed a lawsuit against them the owner of the Statue of Liberty had continued to try to sell the iconic but not really movie prop in various capacities to no avail he even continued to take it on the road where lucky fans could pay for a photo opportunity but let's just hope they were actually big fans of the terminal starring Tom Hanks but honestly who doesn't love Tom Hanks you'd have to be crazy that'd be like not caring about keeping your data secure with a VPN which is precisely where Cerf shark comes in come on you know you love these amazing sponsor segways okay so for full transparency in the past I have been sponsored by North VPN and I stand by everything I said but when it comes to personal security you need the that's right for you so when surf shark reached out to me a few months ago to give them a try and after using their services on my personal and work devices I've honestly become a huge fan of what they offer and think you will too to put it simply they provide an affordable safe fast and very easy to use VPN service full fantastic features and I know the free ones out there are tempting but they're free for a reason and are often 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channel as always thank you all so much for watching make sure to LIKE subscribe and do all that fun stuff and we'll see you next time on yester world [Music]

Channel: Yesterworld Entertainment

Views: 875,521

Keywords: yesterworld, Yesterworld: 5 Stories of Lost & Abandoned Movie Props and Iconic Film Memorabilia - Part 2, lost and abandoned movie props, lost movie props, prop culture movie prop history, abandoned movie props, jim henson labyrinth hoggle puppet, alien nostromo prop, titanic movie prop, planet of the apes statue of liberty, yester world, yesterworld entertainment, film history, james camerson titanic, titanic, 5 Stories of Lost and Rediscovered Iconic Movie Props and Memorabilia

Id: VMaxQJ-khOI

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020