<\/p>\n
There has to be a truly exceptional reason to get anyone, including anyone on the IndieWire staff, to walk into the Times Square Planet Hollywood at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. In fairness, Planet Hollywoods do tend to have fun movie memorabilia or replica props as part of their decor; the restaurant\u2019s themed focus on filmmaking from the \u201890s onwards has, in its own way, raised an awareness of production design<\/a> and costumes as items of value and not just souvenirs for cast and crew.<\/p>\n But on this particular Tuesday at 10 a.m., the third floor of New York\u2019s Planet Hollywood had millions of dollars worth of film rarities displayed under museum-grade glass, with glossy catalogues authenticating the provenance of an original stormtrooper helmet, a belt and bullwhip used in \u201cThe Last Crusade,\u201d Picard\u2019s Ressikan Flute from \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation<\/a>\u201d episode \u201cThe Inner Light,\u201d and the lightsaber used in Darth Vader\u2019s dueling sequences (and therefore wielded by the late, legendary fight coordinator Bob Anderson) in \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back\u201d and \u201cThe Return of the Jedi.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard certainly constitute a \u201creturn to office\u201d exception.<\/p>\n The Planet Hollywood display was presented by Prop Store which, since 1998, has been an auction house specifically for film and television memorabilia; the company runs live auctions of over 1,000 lots three times a year. They\u2019re always trying to spread the word beyond their coterie of regular collectors, but it says something for them to be so hyped that they\u2019re willing to hand-carry lightsabers and stick \u201cMen in Black\u201d neuralyzers in an overhead compartment on the flight from LA to New York to market their September 4-6 live auction.<\/p>\n What\u2019s striking about Prop Store\u2019s work \u2014 at least to this civilian IndieWire staffer who has never won a live auction bid on eBay \u2014 is just how methodically each item is documented and vetted, even sometimes restored. Staff do what COO Brandon Alinger called \u201cscreen matches,\u201d where they go through films frame-by-frame in 4K (or even higher resolutions) in order to spot individual scratches and characteristics of props, and separate the genuine articles from inauthentic replicas (and the odd Halloween mask).<\/p>\n The Darth Vader combat lightsaber, for instance, was X-rayed in order to determine that the steel rod, which was used for fight sequences (the sinister red \u201clight\u201d and sound effects were added in after the fact, of course) was indeed assembled in the correct way. The catalogues detailing all of Prop Store\u2019s work are full of pull quotes from the filmmakers, stills from the films, references to other props and inspirations, in addition to meticulous photos of each prop available to bid on. It all looks identical to the material one would find in a fine art auction.<\/p>\n Just like the art world, Alinger told IndieWire that the company does have a lot of \u201cregulars\u201d who are consistently interested in film memorabilia as a whole, or in specific genres\/franchises. Occasionally, museums will work with benefactors to put up bids for their collections. But they\u2019re always trying to reach more fans.<\/p>\n The allure of movies and the consolidation of Internet fandoms had deepened the value of the marquee franchise and blockbuster items Prop Store tends to auction. While Alinger would expect items from the original \u201cStar Wars\u201d and \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d films to be highly prized \u2014 they\u2019ve had 40-50 years to appreciate \u2014\u00a0newer franchise items are just as sought-after, \u201cespecially Marvel,\u201d Alinger said.<\/p>\n No doubt there is a cinema and cultural studies thesis to be written about why that is; but it is sufficient for this article\u2019s purposes to say that it\u2019s a mindfuck to stare at a weathered, metal cylinder with a rod sticking out, its black paint slightly peeling, and know that you\u2019re looking at something someone is about to spend possibly millions of dollars to own.<\/p>\n But one also thinks of Ralph McQuarrie, who did the original concept work on the lightsabers, or \u201cStar Wars\u201d set designer and prop maker Roger Christian, and how they must feel, knowing their work has gone on to become, as Alinger put it, \u201cthe Ruby Slippers\u201d of their generation of cinema.<\/p>\n George Lucas is probably fine. But Alinger has never seen fans so excited for something.<\/p>\n \u201cOut of anything we\u2019ve handled here at Prop Store, I would say that lightsaber has the potential to reach the highest sale price. But it\u2019s also generated the most response, the most interest from fans,\u201d Alinger said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had so many people reaching out to us and saying, \u2018I can\u2019t believe you have this,\u2019 or people want to come and attend these in-person previews like the one we\u2019re at now. It\u2019s just something that people have gotten very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n It will likely be later in the first day of the live auction, sometime on September 4, when Darth Vader\u2019s dueling lightsaber will go up onto the virtual block. Anyone can sign up to bid or simply to watch Prop Store\u2019s live auctions<\/a>, which take place at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Best of IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There has to be a truly exceptional reason to get anyone, including anyone on the IndieWire staff, to walk into the Times Square Planet Hollywood at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. In fairness, Planet Hollywoods do tend to have fun movie memorabilia or replica props as part of their decor; the restaurant\u2019s themed focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1993867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[360847,360849,321790,352432,157636,360848,360846,360845,360851,360850],"class_list":["post-1993866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-brandon-alinger","tag-captain-jean-luc-picard","tag-darth-vader","tag-indiana-jones","tag-indiewire","tag-movie-memorabilia","tag-planet-hollywood","tag-prop-store","tag-star-trek-the-next-generation","tag-the-inner-light"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Force-Can-Be-with-You-\u2014-for-1-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1993866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1993867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1993866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1993866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1993866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}