6 Movies That Went Through Insane Hoops To Remake Props

The Last Jedi also had an iconic character pop on by. Since they're likely saving the cantina wolfman for Episode IX, Yoda's blue ghost shows up to hang out with Luke Skywalker and blow up the Keebler Elf Tree like a vengeful Pepperidge Farm employee.

Given how endearingly crappy he looks, you've probably guessed that they didn't use CGI for this one. Because there were no scenes calling for Yoda to jump around like Super Mario on bath salts this time around, they decided to go with the puppet version. This meant delving into the Lucasfilm archives to get the original molds.

Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm

LucasfilmThey also found the guy who played Anakin at the end of Return Of The Jedi living in a cage.

To add to the authenticity, they even tracked down the woman who originally painted Yoda's eyes for The Empire Strikes Back and had her work her magic again. A good call, because Star Wars fans will absolutely notice and bitch if someone's eyes aren't exactly right.

LucasfilmShe in turn had to track down the stoner roommate she based these on.

Unlike the prequels, in which he literally phoned in his performance, Frank Oz schlepped down to the set to perform Yoda's voice in person. All of this leading to a tender scene between Yoda, Luke, and Yoda's godlike powers of arboreal vandalism.

In their quest to find an Easter egg that will give them control over this virtual world, the gang has to travel inside a VR recreation of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining -- and it looks exactly like it does in the film. Which is kind of weird, because this is basically a kid's movie marketed using Voltron and the Iron Giant, not the fursuit blowjob monster.

This undertaking first required scanning a "high-quality telecine transfer" of The Shining and creating a digital version of the Overlook Hotel sets, presumably overwriting a file containing a virtual native burial ground. These digital sets were then combined with shots from the movie itself to make it seem like the Ready Player One gang was interacting with that world. But any time there was a human being in the shot and they weren't able to use the angle from the movie, they had to cast a double, do some set decoration, and try to match the exact lighting of an almost 40-year-old movie.

Warner Bros. PicturesLuckily, it turned out the twins haven't aged a day and require no food or payment.

Then, all of the new footage was rendered using a grainier lens to better match the vintage film stock. Overall, it was a shitload of work that makes you wonder why they didn't just have them play Pac-Man or something for 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, the original bridge set had been thrown out out long ago, which meant that building a new one would be a rather costly job. Initially, they thought of simply using the set from Star Trek VI which was still lying around, but scrapped that idea because Scotty had "no sentimental attachment" to it. Yeah, not even he remembered that one.

Instead, the producers used a bunch of tricks to get around shelling out the dough for a full bridge. That moment when Scotty enters the Holodeck? They green-screened him into a shot from the original series episode "This Side Of Paradise," in which the bridge is empty after space spores cause everyone to trip balls. For the rest of the scene, they merely built a portion of the bridge -- the parts they needed for the shots of Scotty and Captain Picard getting sloshed, and nothing more. The only problem was that they still needed a Captain's chair and console. Which they couldn't afford to pay for.

So they didn't. Well, sort of. At the last moment, one of the producers reached out to a Trekkie who built prop replicas, and he only charged them for the materials.

CBS Studios

CBS StudiosHe offered to clone a 100 percent accurate William Shatner for them, but they were like "Nah, pass."

Feeling bad, the producers agreed to the deal, but added that the fan could have the props back after the shoot -- with the bonus that they'd been touched by two legendary Trek actors' butts.

The reason? The real diner, Twede's Cafe, was burglarized and set on fire during the intervening 25 years. So the owners were forced to renovate, and for some reason decided to try to make the diner look nice, removing the brown walls that weren't so much brown as they were colored from "60 years" of cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, this is Twin Peaks we're talking about, so this clearly wouldn't do. Rather than build a set or relocate the show in Bayside, the production went in and essentially un-renovated the restaurant back to the way it was, complete with tobacco-stained walls.

CBS StudiosHow is that old guy on the counter still alive?

Who was charged with remaking the titular crammed domicile? Production designer Jerry Dunn, who took the gig after being told that it would be the "easiest job you're ever going to have." Why? All Dunn had to do was recreate the set based off of the original blueprints, which were safely tucked away in the Warner Bros. archives.

But after taking the job, Dunn discovered that the plans were in fact missing -- or possibly stolen by someone trying to make sure that the world would never have to endure more Full House. So instead of a "slam dunk" job, Dunn had to recreate the set from scratch. Which meant going "frame by frame" through "over 100 hours of Full House," and somehow emerging on the other side with his sanity and will to live intact.

Warner Bros. TelevisionEven worse, this meant he had to watch a handful of scenes featuring Urkel.

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For more, check out 23 Props And Sets That Hollywood Won't Stop Re-Using and 7 Famous Movie Props You'll Never Believe Were Abandoned.

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