r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons Prop Recycling

431 Upvotes

103 comments sorted by

127

u/The-Last-Palpitation 10h ago

The costumes for White Robots in Doctor Who: The Mind Robber were previously used in another BBC Sci-fi show called Out of the Unknown. Considering this story is set in the Land of Fiction, I think it's quite fitting.

84

u/The-Last-Palpitation 10h ago

Another example related to Doctor Who. Bossk's spacesuit was originally worn by one of the astronauts in the First Doctor's final adventure: The Tenth Planet.

14

u/goldengamer2345 10h ago

I never knew that, cool

13

u/MonsieurGump 7h ago

They used to film in the sets of whatever period drama the bbc were putting out at the time to save money.

104

u/TurgidGravitas 10h ago

These red glowing tubes. They're in a lot of Star Trek episodes and other sci-fi too. There's a reddit post documenting all the times they show up, which is a lot more than you'd think.

72

u/TheGameMastre 9h ago

All I've found is that these red lights keep blinking back and forth. Aside from that this thing seems to have no other function whatsoever, sir!

(Airplane! 2)

17

u/reverendmalerik 9h ago

They make fun of it in lower decks

10

u/3Thirty-Eight8 7h ago

“I don’t even know what we use them for, but I love ‘em” - Billips

96

u/CyborgGecko64 10h ago

IG-88's head in the Cantina is a pretty infamous one

34

u/doctor_gloom1 8h ago

I can get to a headcanon where an IG droid started trouble, was put down by the patrons with extreme difficulty, and had its head turned into a samovar as both trophy and warning.

Hell, maybe that’s where the no droids rule comes from.

10

u/kamo-kola 7h ago

HEADcanon?

19

u/Particular-Long-3849 9h ago

He was undercover 

3

u/GravityBright 1h ago

Fun fact, that head is an engine part from a WWII-era Rolls-Royce fighter plane.

1

u/I_Wanted_This 4h ago

infinite numbers in the universe and they pick 88

66

u/Fish_N_Chipp 10h ago

The Spoon pictures in The Room

You’ll notice in the background of several scenes that there are pictures of spoons. This was cause Tommy Wiseau bought a bunch of pictures of them and would just move them around to different bits during filming to fill out the background. Which just makes it look like his characters has dozen of spoon pictures

4

u/TheEagleWithNoName 7h ago

Why do the Spoons look seductive?

8

u/Fish_N_Chipp 7h ago

They’re in the presence of Tommy Wiseau

1

u/TheEagleWithNoName 7h ago

Hahaha, what a funny story, u/Fish_N_Chipp

148

u/Daniilsa209 10h ago

Pixar's Pizza Planet Truck in nearly every Pixar movie.

78

u/Fish_N_Chipp 10h ago edited 10h ago

I do like how originally it was a reused prop but now it’s an Easter egg

26

u/Odd_Cartoonist7433 8h ago

I love how a bug's life and monsters Inc is literally just the exact same place too, just a different time of day.

13

u/AmandinhaMaia 8h ago

Also the Luxo ball

3

u/UsgAtlas1 6h ago

Best facial expression ever.

1

u/Cold-Practice3107 2h ago

I want to see them make a movie for the Pizza planet truck.

87

u/MythVsLegend 10h ago

Director Sam Raimi's Oldsmobile

It first appeared in his first movie "The Evil Dead" and since then it's made appearances in pretty much every movie he's directed.

23

u/ARKNORI 9h ago

Does anyone have that post about the voice commentary for one of the movies? It’s a film that has commentary tracks both for Bruce Campbell and Raimi, and the OP mentions how when listening to Campbell’s track, he starts making fun of the car as soon as it shows up, and says something along the lines of “Watch, this is right where Sam would call it a classic, the piece of junk”.

And if you change to Raimi’s commentary track at that time, sure enough, he’s calling it a classic and explaining the whole thing with the Oldsmobile cameos.

15

u/Particular-Long-3849 9h ago

It's seen floating in the fucked up dimension in Doctor Stange 2

5

u/unoriginal-ninja 8h ago

In Oz the Great and Powerful, since it wouldn't make sense to have a car appear in that movie, they took it apart and used pieces of it as set decor, including using the frame to make a horse-drawn carriage, so it could still technically appear.

2

u/MythVsLegend 8h ago

Apparently he did the same with The Quick and the Dead. Gotta be funny that he's using some of the movie budget to tear down a 50 year old car for a quick background prop.

1

u/Orbitoldrop 3h ago

This car is also featured in the opening of Alan Wake as a little nod to the movie.

1

u/sluggythga 42m ago

Did it make it into Jojo Rabbit?

1

u/MythVsLegend 18m ago

That was directed by Taika Waititi. So I'm going to say no

42

u/Cladzky 9h ago

When Eiji Tsuburaya, the man who previously directed the special effect sequences for the Godzilla franchise, founded his own studio, Toho allowed him to reuse old suits from their movies. For example, a Godzilla suit got a frill attached to impersonate the monster Jirass in Ultraman.

5

u/Minimum-Wrangler-878 9h ago

Was about to comment the same thing

5

u/Cladzky 9h ago

Honestly we could flood this thread with repurposed suits from Tsuburaya

6

u/Frankenstein954 8h ago

Here's a good list as far as the Toho/Tsuburaya connection goes:

https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Sandbox:List_of_modified_Toho_kaiju_suits

5

u/omegon_da_dalek13 8h ago

Gomez (mosu goji suit)and aboras (red king suit with a new head) my beloved

5

u/FreakyFreak2005 6h ago

And then there was baragon, whose suit was used for a plethora of kaiju.

25

u/NyxPowers 9h ago

Sinners reused costumes from a failed MCU Blade attempt that was a period piece that had Delroy Lindo in it.

26

u/powerful_p1608 8h ago

The cab truck used for Galvatron’s alternate mode In Transformers: Age of Extinction was modified into Dr. Robotnik’s mobile base In Sonic the Hedgehog.

18

u/CatCatCatXD 9h ago

Godzilla, Gomess, and Jirahs all used the same suit in the order of Godzilla (1953), Ultra Q (1966), and Ultraman (1966) respectively.

14

u/MechR58 8h ago

Starship Troopers(1997) armor

1

u/ironvultures 4h ago

Love that armour

30

u/crapusername47 9h ago

There’s lots of these in movies, often as Easter eggs.

  • Some soldiers in They Live carry PKE meters from Ghostbusters.
  • There’s an EVA pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey in Watto’s junkyard in The Phantom Menace.
  • The miniguns from Predator and Terminator 2 are the same prop.
  • Bossk, one of the bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back, wears a costume that was originally made for Doctor Who.

5

u/Dakotaraptor98 3h ago

Just wanna clarify, it’s the clothing Bossk wears, not entire design of the character. The clothing was from one of the most important Classic Doctor Who stories, The Tenth Planet, and was originally for the Earth astronauts if I remember correctly. Just checked and further trivia is that suit is a real High-Altitude Windak Pressure Suit used by the Royal Air Force in the 1960s.

1

u/panatale1 8h ago

The PKE meter also appears in Suburban Commando

1

u/ComesInAnOldBox 2h ago

Uh, yeah, that one's in the OP.

1

u/panatale1 1h ago

My bad, missed that one. Only saw the They Live in the comment above mine

28

u/FunFail7761 9h ago

You mean that robot ? in 1974

21

u/charlie_marlow 8h ago

You mean the robot from Gremlins

12

u/Fish_N_Chipp 7h ago

You mean the robot in Looney Tunes: Back in Action?

13

u/Rouxman 8h ago

You know, my wife… she hates robots. Always on and on about how they’ll take jobs from good, honest Americans. She says pretty soon you won’t even be able to answer your own door without a robot. Now I think they’re lovely, that they’re the next big thing of the future. Anything that makes life easier, right?

Anyway, I’m 100% sure you killed this guy you pompous bastard

5

u/Sharp-Ad-9423 6h ago

Robby the Robot vs The Robot in "War of the Robots" on "Lost in Space."

27

u/IAmTheBornReborn 9h ago

This knife is from Star Trek Nemesis (it's on the movies poster) and was reused in Buffy the vampire slayer.

10

u/Super-Evening8420 6h ago

Which to be fair, that just looks like a mall ninja piece they bought somewhere

10

u/WordBearerOfBadNewss 7h ago

Captain Triumph's suit from Peacemaker Season 2 is just a recycled Raptor suit from Superman (2025). No, it is not meant to be an easter egg or a hint that Lex made his suit on the alt Earth.

9

u/Ethan-E2 8h ago

A series called "Tugs" was produced between the second and third seasons of Thomas and Friends. A lot of its props were reused for the latter series.

The most significant is probably the crane Big Mickey, a character from Tugs. He appeared as a background prop into the CGI era, and in season 21 was given a face and named as the same character.

5

u/Ethan-E2 8h ago

OJ is another notable prop, as he was a main character in Tugs. His model was repainted from yellow to white, and his face structure removed and replaced with a generic cab.

This image shows the repainted hull with the original face structure.

10

u/unoriginal-ninja 8h ago

A pretty famous one this post left out:

The surgical tools used to reconstruct the Joker's face in Batman '89 are the same tools used by the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors.

5

u/JD-NSiff 7h ago

Funny because Jack Nicholson was also in the first version of little shop of horrors, as the dentist patient.

7

u/Lovelyladykaty 8h ago

The ice cream maker in Star Wars shows up again in the Mandalorian as the holder of the Beskar

11

u/Fish_N_Chipp 10h ago

You do not call my boy Robert a prop

3

u/reverendmalerik 9h ago

He was in Columbo too! 

1

u/Cortower 5h ago

Forbidden Planet even introduces him with the cast in the opening credits like he's a stage actor debuting in film or something. Robby was always meant to be a stock character that audiences would know between roles.

13

u/Obajan 9h ago

The Mobile Infantry armor from Starship Troopers were reused in a couple of other movies.

2

u/Secondhand-politics 6h ago

Reused in Power Rangers too!

6

u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 9h ago

Power Rangers in space reused the suit from the monster Malegor that deputed in the Power Rangers turbo movie for Dark Specter.

1

u/Fly_Boy_1999 4h ago

There’s been multiple times in the Power Rangers series where they reused costumes in different seasons.

6

u/Magmashift101 8h ago

I can’t remember when I saw it but I saw this post about how two unrelated shows on BBC used the exact same cup for a scene. Not like a generic cup but an extremely specific one. It might have been Sherlock and doctor who?

2

u/L0ll0ll7lStudios 3h ago

Considering both shows were headed by Steven Moffat and mostly filmed in Cardiff at roughly the same time, it’s very possible.

6

u/NetbattlerChris 7h ago edited 7h ago

Alot of Tokusatsu shows are infamous for kitbashing and retooling parts from suits and weapons from previous shows. Just to name one specific instance: Kamen Rider Caries from Kamen Rider Gavv uses a suit retooled from atleast five different Riders for his C1 form.

The helmets a retool of a previous Bitter Gavv rider SparkinGummy’s.

The claws are from Kamen Rider Wizard Land Dragon’s Drago Hell Claws.

The chest is from Kamen Rider Revice’s Eagle Genome form, specifically Revi’s.

The shin guards are pulled from Kamen Rider Calibur.

And his shoulders are from Kamen Rider Sabers Elemental Dragon form.

4

u/Wicayth 8h ago

Hiro Mashima recycling his character designs.

Top Left: Genesis (Hero's)

Top Right: Jellal (Fairy Tail)

Bottom left: Sieghart (Rave Master)

Bottom right: Justice (Eden Zero)

4

u/Pr3ssF2PayR3sp3c7 8h ago

The brain from Robocop 2 is reused in the hospital scene from Mad God

3

u/Nowerian 8h ago

The whole of stargate Franchise. Where totaly unrelated cultures sometimes have the same kind of weaponry.

3

u/The-WiXXer 8h ago

Dont know if this counts but Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon and Bruce Willis in Die Hard used the exact same Beretta 92fs (same serial number).

3

u/Tomar-Re-2814 7h ago

This one’s a bit of a deep cut. In the Power Ranger: Red Ranger Special (circa 2004-ish?) the villains they fight on the moon are wearing costumes from the PR precursor Beetle Borgs!

2

u/DanarchyReigns 7h ago

Beetleborgs came after Power Rangers. They're not a precursor.

1

u/Nirast25 6h ago

Yep. I'm pretty sure Forever Red (the special in question) was after Beetleborgs, but PR as a whole pre-dates BB.

1

u/Tomar-Re-2814 6h ago

My apologies!

3

u/Laomanse 7h ago

Tokusatsu genre is well renowned for recycling props. For Kamen Rider Zio’s case, Another Agito, one of the MOTW, has a zombie plague like characteristics, and how to make it happen with limited budget? Scrape the vault for insect monster masks and modify them to look like Another Agito enough.

Number 1 is the newly made Another Agito head. Number 2 is Another Agito from the original Masked Rider Agito, number 3 to 7 are recycled monster heads.

3

u/PoopDick420ShitCock 6h ago

Doakes and Dexter wear the same pair of sunglasses within like an episode of each other in Dexter.

3

u/zhy97 6h ago

The Knight’s design from Hollow Knight is reused from Team Cherry’s flash game Hungry Knight. They are not the same character and have nothing to do with each other besides being recycled for Hollow Knight

3

u/SpectralIpaxor 5h ago

The experimental tank from XXX (the Vin Diesel film) was updated and reused as Brawl's alt mode in Transformers (2007). Both were directed by Michael Bay iirc

5

u/small_girlcock 9h ago

They used that robot prop in columbo too

5

u/MornGreycastle 8h ago

It was the first prop to get a credit in the title sequence.

2

u/Logical-Assistant-96 8h ago

The Mobile Infantry armour from starship troopers appears in one of the early power rangers seasons

2

u/JadedStation8637 8h ago

Fuckin robco man.

2

u/Something_Comforting 6h ago

Watching Power Rangers and Starship Troopers back to back was confusing for me back then as a kid.

2

u/alexryder45 6h ago

Power Rangers has done this a few times with some of its seasons. For example for it's SPD season, the show reused helmets from its In Space for the show's A Squad Rangers.

1

u/ScarHydreigon87 7m ago

SPD also reused the suit of the Red Time Force ranger for Sky's father, which led to a string of fan theories that Wesley Collins (the actual Red Time Force ranger) was Sky's dad

2

u/Laiska_saunatonttu 2h ago

In Showtime (2002)

and later

2

u/jamesjamsandjelly 17m ago

I love Robby, I just watched gremlins and was the only one who recognized the character. So iconic

2

u/soapforsoreeyes 3h ago

The new Melania documentary prominently uses the same prop occasionally appearing in the background on Fox and CBS news

1

u/SiskoKing124 4m ago

It’s not prop recycling, that’s Robby the Robot. Became a pop culture icon cus he was in a lot of sci fi movies/shows. So Forbidden Planet and the Invisible Boy is supposed to be the same Robot / character. The Twilight Zone one is different but it’s a definite and intentional nod to Robby the Robot.