I was sent an article the other day that posed the question, “What is your personal Holy grail of movie props?”. I can’t find the article anymore or I’d link it, but they went on to do a top ten list of their favourite movie props. Some of the author’s favourites included Indy’s fedora, the crystal ball that David Bowie used in Labyrinth, the rug from The Big Lebowski, the umbrella gun from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Vader’s lightsaber. Quite a few people added their own favourites in the comments. It was a rather interesting and eclectic mix of the old, the new, the obscure and the familiar. There were cult favourites and one hit wonders. All in all an interesting little list. So interesting in fact that I started thinking about it myself and came up with my own list of my favourites. Here they are in reverse order.
- V.I.N.CENT, the little robot from The Black Hole. I haven’t seen this movie in ages, and if I saw it again I’m sure it would be badly dated and corny but from the hazy memories of my childhood this movie was cooler than sliced bread.
- Bubo, the clockwork owl from Clash of the Titans. Again, I haven’t seen this movie in ages, though have seen it semi-recently so I know how dated this is. Still, it’s a Ray Harryhausen created critter so that’s all sorts of cool in my books.
- V’s Guy Fawkes mask, from V for Vendetta. Okay so the movie kind of sucked ass in comparision to the coolness that was the comic but it was still cool enough for my tastes and Guy Fawkes masks are all the rage this season didn’t you know.
- Excalibur, from Excalibur. Pointy stabby things of mytho-historical significance? Hell yeah I’m there with bells on!
- The Cricket Bat, from Shaun of The Dead. Because no other weapon comes close to cool when fighting zombies.
- Inigo’s Sword, from The Princess Bride. A list without this fine blade is… (wait for it)… INCONCEIVABLE!
- One Eyed Willie’s Map, from The Goonies. A treasure map, secret tunnels and traps, pirates, what else do you want. Goonies Never Say Die!
- The Book of the Dead, from Army of Darkness. Klaatu, Barada, N… Necktie… Nickel… It’s an “N” word, it’s definitely an “N” word!
- The Cross-Country Guide, from Elizabethtown. Everyone needs a cross-country soundtrack in their lives at least once. And when the treasure at the end is a good looking woman, it’s always a trip worth taking.
- Rob’s Record Collection, from High Fidelity. Because you can never go wrong with music as cool as that. (and what top 5 list wouldn’t be the same without a nod to the top-5 listmaker himself. And I know I’m doing a top
51015 list already so it’s not quite the same. Give over already. .!..) - The Last Starfighter Video Game, from The Last Starfighter. Sure, the wireframe graphics are old and dated now but that game was the coolest thing ever. Greetings Starfighter! You have been chosen by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.
- A Proton Pack, from Ghostbusters. Preferrably a working one. Who else wouldn’t want to “Show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown?”
- Mal’s Browncoat and gun, from Serenity/Firefly. I aim to misbehave! With this ensemble I certainly could. (Note: There’s an unofficial tie with this one and that would be Wash’s Dinosaur collection)
- Indy’s Fedora, from the Indiana Jones series. This one is just the epitome of cool. Yes the whip, jacket and pistol are all part of the package deal and it’d be cool to have any of them but come on, the hat is what pulls it all together. Without it, he’s just some guy.
- The One Ring, from The Lord of The Rings trilogy. Yeah, you knew this one would be on my list somewhere. This is a given. I’m too much of a LoTR geek not to have it on here.
Obviously my list is biased heavily towards the sci-fi/fantasy genre and most of the items on it come from 80s movies but I’m not going to make apologies for that. They are and always will be the cool my books. And I know there are numerous things that I could have added, but just didn’t feel right to me. Yes, lightsabers are cool. Yes, so is Bruce the shark from Jaws and so many other things… but to me the list above is my holy grail of cool.
Now my question is, what’s yours?
Actually, only six of your movies are from the eighties. While that’s a fair percentage, it’s definitely not most of your list. Though, it should be noted that only two of your movies predate the 80’s, and one of those by only a year.
As for props, I want… four cars actually: Ashe’s car after its improvements in Army of Darkness, Bond’s submarine Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, the EM-50 from Stripes, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Also, most of the things on your list.
Actually it’s seven. Excalibur is from 1981. The only pre-80s movie on the list is The Black Hole. As for the vehicles, none of them really jump out at me, sure they’d be cool but they’re just not my style. If we’re speaking of Bond cars I’d personally prefer either Bond’s Aston Martin Vanquish from Die Another Day or his classic 1963 Aston Martin DB5.
My mistake. I knew that Excalibur was from the 80s, but I was under the impression that Clash of the Titans was also a 70s movie.
C’mon, who doesn’t want the EM-50? A heavily armed RV capable of invading Soviet Czechoslovakia solo? Everyone should want that. And it probably gets better MPG than either of those Aston Martins.