20 Quatloos on the Glowing Tubes!

March 14, 2016 4:28 AM

Prop Reuse in the Star Trek Universe I can upcycle this mad computer as a cloaking device! Just put a bird (of prey) on it!
posted by plinth (52 comments total)

If you liked it then you shoulda put a bird (of prey) on it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:37 AM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

They reused matte paintings, too.

Darwin Genetic Research Station
Arkaria Base
Ohniaka III Research Station
posted by ryanrs at 4:41 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Star Trek used to put out 26 episode a year from September to April, they didn't have the luxury of having enough time to build new stuff from scratch for each show.
posted by octothorpe at 4:59 AM on March 14, 2016

Not really the same, but I still gleefully recall twenty years ago recognizing a "Medkit" the holographic doctor was using on "Voyager" as the audio cassette carrying case I owned (with the addition of some Starfleet-y stickers on the front).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:59 AM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I recall from the Plinkett reviews that there was a Very Special Artifact maguffin that a TNG episode was based around that was later literally cast aside as junk in a movie.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:04 AM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

If I were going to nitpick, I'd question the classification of this page under "Inconsistencies" rather than "The Amazing Frugality of the Prop Department." It wasn't just a matter of time, it was a matter of how they simply didn't have the luxury of lovingly crafting a complete set of bespoke props for every single dinky-ass planet that they stopped on.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:05 AM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

The tubes also appeared in Airplane II during the Lunar Base sequence, along with a few other Star Trek II props.
posted by SansPoint at 5:17 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Uhura's earpiece was the only prop from the original series included in the first Star Trek movie. The production team forgot to design one, so on her first day on set she looked around and was like, "hey, where's my earpiece?"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:27 AM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I recall from the Plinkett reviews that there was a Very Special Artifact maguffin that a TNG episode was based around that was later literally cast aside as junk in a movie.

IIRC that'd be the Kurlan nyskos (sp?) from the season 6 episode "The Chase," one of the really solid eps.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:33 AM on March 14, 2016

On the topic of prop reuse, I thoroughly enjoyed the History of the Batmobile Parachute Pickup Service Van. via @batlabels, naturally.
posted by zamboni at 5:41 AM on March 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

IIRC that'd be the Kurlan nyskos (sp?) from the season 6 episode "The Chase"

It was, as you say, the Kurlan naiskos
posted by timdiggerm at 5:54 AM on March 14, 2016

That was the beauty of only being able to watch one episode per week; you could only have so much working memory, as a viewer, and everything was so cool.
posted by allthinky at 6:18 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd add that the reuse of a wheelchair should be given. Even though it is way into the future, there is very little evidence that people with disabilities have to have a chair that was from 'Pimp My Ride'. I mean, one can assume that there are some differences between chairs, but there is no way that there aren't some standardized pieces of medical equipment.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:27 AM on March 14, 2016

Uhura's earpiece was the only prop from the original series included in the first Star Trek movie. The production team forgot to design one, so on her first day on set she looked around and was like, "hey, where's my earpiece?"

There is a fairly well known story about how the design of the transporter set for TNG used the same style of lenses in the ceiling that had been on the transporter set floor in TOS. Memory Alpha reports that Michael Okuda suggested some of the original lenses from TOS might have been used in Voyager but it sounds pretty tenuous to me. Scroll down to 'Sets and Props'.
posted by biffa at 6:28 AM on March 14, 2016

I assume anyone dropping by in here is already familiar with Ex Astris Scientia, the site this is drawn from, but if not, it is well worth your nerdly and otaku perusal.

Here, for example, is the "Investigations" category, to which the props page belongs.
posted by mwhybark at 6:48 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Star Trek: TNG used to have these decorative plates on the walls that I loved, and then I worked in a gallery that sold the same plates, which were made out of hand-made paper. The artist said they only bought four of them, they'd just light them differently and they looked like they were different colors.
posted by xingcat at 6:48 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

for every single dinky-ass planet that they stopped on.

Zinda, his face black, his eyes red!!
posted by Fizz at 7:03 AM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I still gleefully recall twenty years ago recognizing a "Medkit" the holographic doctor was using on "Voyager" as the audio cassette carrying case I owned (with the addition of some Starfleet-y stickers on the front).

Oh sure, they were famous for re-purposing ordinary random stuff into different "future things." The best known example is probably from the salt vampire episode on TOS. They had a scene in the mess hall where someone is salting their lunch (probably brightly colored cubes since that's mostly what people ate in TOS) and the salt vampire gets all worked up about it.

So they're sitting around going, what the hell do salt shakers look like in the future? And they sent a PA off to buy the most futuristic looking salt shakers they could find, and the PA came back with some gleaming pointy salt shakers, and all was well until they dressed the set and realized nobody was going to get that they were salt shakers. So they just used a regular salt shaker, and the futurey ones became McCoy's surgical instruments. Because why not?
posted by Naberius at 7:45 AM on March 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

I have a bunch of scraps of cutting-room-floor footage from the original series. Around 1973 Roddenberry sold bags of the stuff very inexpensively. There are lots of what are obvious test shots, many of props. It's fun to see the actors, out of character, posing with various all-too-familiar objects, several of which are included in this piece. Fun! Thanks for posting!
posted by kinnakeet at 8:01 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh sure, they were famous for re-purposing ordinary random stuff into different "future things."

At the other extreme, we have Babylon 5 where they often decorated sets with Ikea stuff. As in, this Ikea lamp is... a lamp! And this Ikea bookshelf is... a bookshelf!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:05 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

And people drink... Zima!
posted by Naberius at 9:07 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Uhura's earpiece was the only prop from the original series included in the first Star Trek movie. The production team forgot to design one, so on her first day on set she looked around and was like, "hey, where's my earpiece?"

Look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it's *stupid*, but I'm gonna do it!
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:22 AM on March 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

brb, looking up the rental price of dual generators with rotating neon lights inside an acrylic tube; light-controlled panel with knobs and buttons
posted by ckape at 9:25 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

At the other extreme, we have Babylon 5 where they often decorated sets with Ikea stuff.

Battlestar Galactica too. I remember seeing our exact Ikea bed in one episode.
posted by octothorpe at 9:28 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Qui-Gon's communicator in Phantom Menace gave me a sense of deja vu - until I realized where i had seen it before. It was the oval-handled razor my mom used and keep in the bathroom.
posted by thecjm at 10:00 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

And the joystick Riker used when he called for the "MANUAL STEERING COLUMN" in Insurrection was the same joystick I had at home on my computer.
posted by thecjm at 10:03 AM on March 14, 2016

This thing, which for some reason Worf used as a chair.

It was everywhere in the 90s. I even saw it last week in an episode of Friends!
posted by Glibpaxman at 10:04 AM on March 14, 2016

$775, I guess I'll have to limit my rentals to special occasions.
posted by ckape at 10:06 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I guess this wasn't Trek, but I've seen those Thule roof rack bins used in Firefly and Lady Gaga videos...
posted by Chuffy at 10:33 AM on March 14, 2016

I was excited to see the same barcode scanners I have on the library circulation desk on the bridge of the rebooted Enterprise. Checkin' out summer reading, warp speed!
posted by steef at 10:36 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm pretty sure The Egg uses the same frame as the containment module designed to hold plasma plague specimens.
posted by growli at 11:22 AM on March 14, 2016

And the joystick Riker used when he called for the "MANUAL STEERING COLUMN" in Insurrection was the same joystick I had at home on my computer.

Technically, that wasn't so much prop-reuse as much as craven product placement for ThrustMaster, who are directly thanked in the credits. But to borrow a couple of phrases from the Flop House, in a mostly Bad-Bad Trek movie, it was a Moment I Kinda Liked. This is because I could never figure out how Enterprise-D (and later) helm officers could pull off certain maneuvers using a poky, unresponsive touch-screen interface (which at the time were mostly on crappy ATMs and info kiosks instead of hi-tech phones and game systems), and always assumed that there must be a yoke or stick or something that they could use instead.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:59 AM on March 14, 2016

Was happy to see "Blinking tubes without function" in there. Spotting the frequent re-use of that prop is a Trek tradition.
posted by xedrik at 12:02 PM on March 14, 2016

I figured a couple of Starfleet engineers early on were tasked with reconciling "Complex 3D tactical maneuvers" and "Control panel of lots of poorly-labeled context-sensitive buttons" and came up with "Computer automatically flies pre-programmed evasive patterns that the captain shouts for heroically."

I never did figure out why standardized patterns for evasion seemed like a good idea. I guess the Romulans never thought of "Attack Pattern blow up the ship flying Evasive Pattern Delta"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:42 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I always assumed they were preprogrammed evasion programs customised by each officer, with random variation and external feedback, not recorded instructions. You don't run a fancy spaceship with LOGO.
posted by zamboni at 2:03 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, when watching Star Trek, be sure to keep an eye peeled for pipes and power conduits and the like labeled "GNDN," for Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing.
posted by Naberius at 2:04 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

For some reason, this is one of my favorite "made from something else" Trek props.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:27 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I very clearly remember noticing the camcorder case that my parents had being used as luggage on a TNG episode. It was probably my first time noticing anything about production design and was a really strange moment for a kid who would get totally immersed in fictional universes.
posted by flaterik at 2:42 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

There was an episode where Kirk is packing up to leave the enterprise and he puts everything in an ordinary Samsonite suitcase and carries it to the transporter room. I don't know if Samsonite looked super futuristic in in 1967 or they just couldn't come up with anything better. They could have at least painted it green or something.
posted by octothorpe at 3:29 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

On the other hand, Kirk is absolutely the type who'd have a retro suitcase because he thinks it looks cool even though it wouldn't store easily with other Starfleet luggage.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:26 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Back in the olden days of 640 by 480 NTSC video you could get away with some pretty crappy props. Years ago I saw a Star Trek show at the Smithsonian in DC. Communicators were gray painted pieces of wood with a plastic thing screwed to the front. On a TV you couldn't tell. My favorite though was seeing a 16mm print of the Tribbles episode where I saw that the stripes on the sleeves of the uniforms was that zig zaggy Ric-Rac ribbon stuff my grandmother would sew onto things.
posted by njohnson23 at 4:50 PM on March 14, 2016

I saw that Trek show at a museum too and I remember how bad the communicators and phasers looked up close.
posted by octothorpe at 5:09 PM on March 14, 2016

Horta egg should be the sphere section.
posted by clavdivs at 6:07 PM on March 14, 2016

I recall from the Plinkett reviews that there was a Very Special Artifact maguffin that a TNG episode was based around that was later literally cast aside as junk in a movie.

This?
posted by grippycat at 6:34 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Communicators were gray painted pieces of wood with a plastic thing screwed to the front. On a TV you couldn't tell.

You could tell in a close-up, which is why the propmasters typically divide the props into two categories, the "hero" props--the ones with finer detail and working lights and such--and the others, used for group shots at a distance. Those are probably the ones that you saw. (The hero props tended to disappear after the show ended.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 PM on March 14, 2016

I can't help but enjoy Toronto's cameo in TNG.
posted by tummy_rub at 10:10 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

The movies of other sci fi flavors, too. SIGG bottles in Fifth Element, and Starship Trooper uniforms used on the purple bellies in Firefly. They even had a bit on Firefly about how all the tchotchkes on every planet were the same.
posted by tilde at 3:50 AM on March 15, 2016

Battlestar Galactica too. I remember seeing our exact Ikea bed in one episode

They also drank scotch (or some brown liquor) out of the same bodum glasses that I do.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 7:56 AM on March 15, 2016

I'm sure that the use of IKEA furniture as Future Furniture is never going to end. Just this last year, one unexpected moment of being taken out of the story in The Expanse was the moment in one episode where they panned past some debris left after a riot on a space station, and I was like "wait, I own two of those chairs!" (IKEA, of course)
posted by tocts at 10:17 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's always going to be tough to decorate sets for science fiction dramas on a TV budget. It's got to be a total headache to figure out how to fill a scene with objects that look futuristic enough to not kill the viewers suspension of belief but don't cost millions of dollars. Heck, Battlestar Galactica was reduced to using '70s Citroëns as future cars and just tried to disguise them with lighting.
posted by octothorpe at 11:24 AM on March 15, 2016

I'm pretty sure The Egg uses the same frame as the containment module designed to hold plasma plague specimens.

Memory Alpha says you're right.
posted by webmutant at 10:02 PM on March 15, 2016

Mr.Encyclopedia: "I never did figure out why standardized patterns for evasion seemed like a good idea. I guess the Romulans never thought of "Attack Pattern blow up the ship flying Evasive Pattern Delta""

Inigo: You are using Bonetti's defense against me, uh?
Man In Black: I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.
Inigo: Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro.
Man In Black: Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro, don't you?
Inigo: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa...which I have!
posted by Chrysostom at 7:27 AM on March 24, 2016