Rebuilt Set

A set has to be rebuilt. Sometimes this is due to it having been taken down between movies, and the designers take the opportunity to revamp the set in the meantime. Other times it's because they want to do something nostalgic, and this often involves rebuilding a set from an earlier version of the franchise.

Common to film sequels, as well as when productions enter reshoots. In the case of sets that have been changed, sometimes the producers choose to Trash the Set to explain in-universe why they've been changed. This is also a guaranteed part of the process in Video Game Remakes that adhere closely to the original, since all the assets have to be remade (the issue is that source files are often poorly archived, meaning many of them have to be done on reference material).

Recycled Set is an aversion.

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Examples:

Films — Animation

• After a fire at their warehouse, almost every Aardman Animations model was destroyed, forcing them to remake pretty much every character and set used in Wallace & Gromit before making A Matter of Loaf and Death.

Films — Live-Action

• Serenity was rebuilt for the movie of the same name. The crew had planned to put the original set in storage just in case but it was accidentally destroyed instead and no floor plans for the original set were known to still exist. The production team on the movie laboriously recreated the ship by eye, from rewatching the television episodes over and over.
• They had to recreate the miniatures from 2001: A Space Odyssey for 2010: The Year We Make Contact because the originals were destroyed after filming 2001 to make sure they wouldn't be reused in other movies. (Ironically, the rebuilt 2010 versions did get reused - the Pod turned up as an Easter Egg in The Phantom Menace, and the spacesuits in Babylon 5). On a related problem, they had tremendous difficulty recreating the 'old man' makeup for the old man version of Dave, as the only surviving images of the makeup were the ones in the original film. Success was confirmed when a passerby on the lot recognized the makeup.
• Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein rebuilt sets from the classic 1930s movies, often using original props.
• Star Wars:
  • The prequels had to do this for the movie's Tatooine sets, since they were actually built in real-life deserts and had been swallowed up by sand over the decades.
  • An example of the "revamp the set" version: The Millennium Falcon interior sets were outfitted with more flashing lights and other detailing between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
  • And then, someone thought it would be a good idea to set fire to the Falcon set after filming Return of the Jedi, so they had to rebuild it again for The Force Awakens.
  • The Death Star and Yavin IV Base from A New Hope are rebuilt for Rogue One.
  • The scene for Ahch-To, the planet where Rey finds Luke in The Force Awakens, was originally filmed on location on an island called Skellig Michael. However, due to filming being harmful for local, rare wildlife, sets built to look like the island were used for The Last Jedi instead.
• The Harry Potter filmmakers were smart. After Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic set was taken apart and put into storage so that they could easily put it back together again for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
  • Some places originally shot on location were later reproduced as sets at Leavesden Studios. For example, Privet Drive was a real street in the first movie, but a backlot reproduction was used from the second movie onwards. The Gringotts lobby was filmed in the Australia House in the first film, but a custom set was built for Deathly Hallows Part 2. The hospital wing was Oxford Divinity School in the first movie, but it became a set in the second film. Amusingly, Oxford Divinity School later appeared as a different room in the fourth movie. In a weird example, Snape's classroom was filmed in the Lacock Abbey sacristy in the first film, but later his classroom became a set which did not even remotely look like the same room. It appears they took the Snape's office set from the second movie and revamped it into his classroom for the fifth movie (the classroom does not appear onscreen between the first and fifth movies).
  • A grassy courtyard in Hogwarts was filmed in the cloister of Durham Cathedral for the first two movies. Then in the fourth film, a courtyard at Oxford's Magdalen College was used to depict the same location. Finally, the sixth movie reproduced the courtyard as a Leavesden set.
  • The Chamber of Secrets set was not saved after the filming of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. When the Chamber had to reappear in Hallows: Part 2, they filmed the actors in front of a green screen and recreated the Chamber as a CGI set rather than rebuilding it for real. This makes a certain amount of sense, seeing how the Chamber was a very large set and the scene featuring it in Hallows was pretty brief.
  • The CGI spiders in the second film were created by a visual effect house which had closed down by the time the last film was in production. Since the spiders were due to reappear and the original CGI models were lost, they had to be recreated using footage from the second film as reference.
  • The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was rebuilt for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald based on the original floor plans, as the original set had fallen apart since the Harry Potter films.
• In The Dark Knight Trilogy, Wayne Manor was burnt to the ground by Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins. Wayne Manor did not appear in The Dark Knight due to only a year passing between Begins and The Dark Knight in-universe, but Wayne Manor was rebuilt for The Dark Knight Rises (which takes place nine years later from Begins).
• LazyTown: The Movie had the set rebuilt to look a little different than the show because of being filmed at a different studio.
• Scenes originally shot on location during the first Back to the Future film were recreated on studio sets for the sequels, including the Lyon Estates Bilboard in 1955 in Back to the Future Part II and the interior of Doc's mansion in Back to the Future Part III. They also had to rebuild the 1955 Courthouse Square sets for Part II, although only one side of the Square was needed for the sequel.
• The Hobbit films went to extremes, because The Lord of the Rings was a huge boon to New Zealand tourism, and visitors in particular wanted to visit the Hobbiton location. Originally, this was built entirely of polystyrene, but for the prequels it was rebuilt out of permanent materials so that people could have a look after the films were done. Rivendell set, which originally was on location, was rebuild inside the studio along with other returning sets such as Bag End and The Prancing Pony.
  • The pickup reshoots for The Lord of the Rings was an interesting case. All three films were in production back-to-back, however post-production was done film-by-film as they came out. This meant that sets from each movie had been deconstructed long before they had to be used again, and needed to be recreated for the reshoots based on photos, existing footage and sometimes the memories of the crew!
• They did this to The Beverly Hillbillies's truck for the movie.
• The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show was filmed in the actual ballroom in the Oakley Court castle they filmed in but the ballroom from the floorshow at the end was built in the studio so they could put in a swimming pool.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Sunnydale High 2.0.
  • A variation in the fourth season episode "Doomed", the gang revisit the ruins of the original Sunnydale High, and although they are shown in a state of disrepair, the floor plan is recognisably the same as that from seasons 1 to 3. So, the set needed to be rebuilt... but in a trashed state.
  • The Bronze underwent a major renovation following the rampage of Olaf the Troll, including a new sign.
  • Giles renovates The Magic Box to accommodate the gang's exploits, including a gym in the back room.
• The later Star Trek series have rebuilt or partially rebuilt sets from the original Star Trek from time to time ("Relics" of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Trials and Tribble-ations" of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and "In a Mirror, Darkly" of Star Trek: Enterprise).
  • The TOS bridge set in "Relics" was built partly from original props and on the original stage, but they rented a replica of the captain's chair from a fan. Kirk's original chair went missing at some point, apparently.
  • Some of the original set resides in the Smithsonian.
  • An "they took the opportunity to revamp the set" example occurs in Star Trek: Generations, where during the short hiatus between the TNG television series and the movie, the designers significantly altered the 1701-D bridge, adding new workstations and placing steps beneath the Captain's chair (symbolically raising him above the two chairs either side of him).
  • Not to mention the movie version of the original Enterprise. The movie Enterprise is actually supposed to be an extensive refit of the original — so extensive that it's practically a new ship on the same framework. Also, apparently, an Alternate Timeline makes your alternate Enterprise far less Zeerust-prone.
  • Between films, both Enterprises got tweaks, though not as noticeable as the show-to-film jumps. Though it's most noticeable with the Enterprise-A, as the bridge set for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is mostly new, due to most of the TMP set (the parts not being regularly used by TNG) being left in outside storage and getting exposed to the elements.
  • Some Next Generation sets were rebuilt for the Enterprise finale "These Are the Voyages..." Only a small part of Ten Forward was rebuilt with Stock Footage being used for an Establishing Shot of the room. The only set which did not have to be rebuilt from scratch was the observation lounge, which had since been modified to become the observation lounge of the Enterprise-E, so they just had to modify it back.
  • The Excelsior bridge from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was rebuilt for the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Flashback". The original was built in twelve weeks and the Voyager crew had to replicate it in two, resulting in the design being subtly simplified.
  • The Klingon Bird of Prey set was completely altered for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when it was the main ship of the film making look far more hero like instead of the antagonist it was in III. Kruge's thronelike command chair was turned into a more modest looking one for Kirk and the control stations were rearranged in a more traditional Enterprise like configuration of Sulu and Chekov towards the front of the command chair (though notably reversed, Sulu on the right and Chekov on the left, when it's usually the opposite) and Spock and Uhura in the back. The lighting was also changed, removing the darkened room with ominous red lighting to a more traditional lighting scheme making everything easier to see.
  • The producers of Star Trek: Picard went to great lengths and great expense to rebuild the set of the Enterprise-D bridge.
• All in the Family: They decided to end the series, so they donated Archie's chair to the Smithsonian; when they decided to continue, they had to recreate the chair. The chair originally cost $2 from the Salvation Army, and the recreation cost thousands.
• The original sets from Babylon 5 were kept in storage for many years in case of a sequel movie, revival, or in case Crusade got picked up by another network. Wouldn't ya know, shortly after they finally got rid of some of the sets due to storage costs, they get greenlighted for direct-to-DVD sequels?
• When The Goodies moved from The BBC to ITV their new set was an almost identical copy of the original.
• For Stargate SG-1, the sets from the Stargate movie of the missile silo used as Stargate Command and the Abydonian gate room were rebuilt. The producers did find the gate prop used in the film, but it had decayed and was only good for getting a mold to work from.
  • The SGC looks very much the same (though note just how dark it was in the original.) The Abydos gate room, though, is noticeably smaller than the film version, and the DHD ("Dial Home Device," the SGC's nickname for the gate's control panel) is so front-and-center there's no way to say there was one in the film and we just didn't see it. However, the series is very much a Broad Strokes sequel of the movie.
• The sitcom 8 Simple Rules once did a Actor Allusion involving John Ritter's character, where he had a nightmare that he was in an episode of Three's Company, complete with a rebuilt version of the apartment set from that show.
  • The Three's Company set was also rebuilt for a gag in Ritter's 1992 film Stay Tuned.
• For the All Just a Dream ending to the last episode of Newhart, the bedroom set from The Bob Newhart Show was rebuilt. The show's producers made a point of keeping the set hidden from the studio audience until the last possible moment while filming the episode, so as not to ruin the impact of The Reveal.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "Remembrance of the Daleks", the entrance of Foreman's Yard (which was a set in 1963) is reconstructed on location. "Foreman" is misspelt as "Forman", but otherwise it's a good match for the original.
    • "Attack of the Cybermen" also featured the entrance, but just for a visual gag.
  • For the one-off docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, the 1963 version of the TARDIS set was recreated, along with Foreman's Yard, the Dalek city, World's End, Antarctica...
  • The TARDIS console room set has undergone several redesigns.
    • The iconic original Peter Brachacki design from "An Unearthly Child" (with the famous white roundelled walls) remained more or less the same (with some simplifications and replacements) for most of the original 1963-89 series. An attempt to replace it in "The Time Monster" was so unpopular with the cast and crew that it was quickly replaced for the next season by a new set that simply modernized the original (among other things, it was actually white this time instead of the monochrome-oriented greenish-gray).
    • "The Masque of Mandragora" introduced a Victorian-style "secondary control room" based around wooden panelling and copper metalwork, which managed to be totally Steampunk a good twenty years before the first stirrings of the movement. This tied into the "Hammer Horror" theme of the period. It was used for the whole of that season, but was unfortunately damaged beyond repair in storage afterwards, leading to a return to the old set.
    • "The Five Doctors" introduced an updated central console, which included more electronic components (which unfortunately backfired, with improvements in electronic equipment meaning that this set suffers much more badly from Zeerust than the original).
    • A few eighties stories (in particular "Planet of Fire" and "The Ultimate Foe") featured scenes in the console room of the Master's TARDIS, which was created simply by covering many of the surfaces of the usual set with black vinyl wrap to give a more villainous look.
    • The TV Movie redesigned the whole console room in a very Steampunk style.
    • The beginning of the revived series introduced the "coral" console room that lasted for the whole of the Davies era. The Moffat seasons, however, have seen three different console room sets in four seasons, with new ones introduced in "The Eleventh Hour", "The Snowmen", and "Deep Breath" (though the latest set is a relatively minor redress of the previous one, with changes to the time rotor's colour scheme and additions like bookshelves around the edge of the room).
    • "The Day of the Doctor" rebuilt the pre-1989 white console room (not identically, but recognisably) for the console room of the War Doctor's TARDIS. Obviously the Eighth Doctor's Steampunk stylings didn't impress his next self.
    • The much more detailed version of the original TARDIS console room created, as mentioned above, for An Adventure in Space and Time, was then used in the series itself for the console room of Ashildr's and Clara's TARDIS in "Hell Bent", and for the TARDISes used by the fam to return home and the Doctor to get back to her own TARDIS at the end of "The Timeless Children".
    • An all-new console room was introduced for the Thirteenth Doctor at the end of "The Ghost Monument", with an almost Neolithic look.
• For the final seasons of LazyTown, the town set was rebuilt to make the buildings more straight instead of curved.
• The Clansman pub from Still Game was real. However it closed after the filming of the first series and a replica interior was built. The exterior continued to be used until the building was demolished a few years later. Again, a replica was built for exterior shots, in the same studio lot where soap drama River City is filmed.
• Pee-wee's Playhouse: The playhouse set was rebuilt when the show moved from New York to Los Angeles. It was the same set, but subtly different in many ways. The show acknowledged the changes in the beginning of Season 2 with a specially-filmed opening: Pee-Wee bursts through the door as normal, but finds everything draped in plastic sheets! The theme tune starts and immediately winds down, and he says, "I completely forgot! We're redecorating the playhouse!"
• The sets that Coronation Street has been filmed on have changed several times since its inception in 1960.
  • Most recently and most notably, in late 2013. The facilities were moved from the long-standing Quay Street site to a new one in Trafford Wharf. Doing this meant that they could make the street life-sized (as opposed to the three quarters size that it had been before). It also meant they could add new interiors to some of the buildings which had been previously been filmed in studio sets, such as Carla's factory and Streetcars. The new set was first seen in the episode airing on 10 March 2014.
• The original bunkroom set from the first series of Red Dwarf in 1988 was recreated twice: first for "Back in the Red" in 1999, because the conceit of that series was that the original ship had been reconstructed by nanobots and the new crew kicked Lister back in his old quarters, and again in 2017 for "Skipper", a Series Fauxnale which heavily leant on nostalgia and recreated several other sets and costumes from the first series.

Video Games

• The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remade all the levels from the original greymesh models provided by Naughty Dog. Only a handful of levels had to be remade completely from scratch.
• The Spyro Reignited Trilogy rebuilt the levels using a sort of "Spyro Radar" that scanned all the data streamed by the game, including object placement and enemy behaviour patterns, so that they could be reconstructed faithfully in the new, more modern game engine.
• For Fallout Tactics, everything had to be remodeled from scratch.
• For Ratchet & Clank (2016), all of the returning levels were rebuilt from scratch directly on top of the models from Ratchet & Clank (2002), which is why their layouts are exactly the same. This was made possible thanks to the work Idol Studios did for the PS3 HD Remasters, as Insomniac didn't archive the source files.

Webcomics

• Irregular Webcomic!: Being a Photo Comic made with Lego bricks, old Lego sets that have been taken apart need to be rebuilt occasionally. Sometimes 8 years later.

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