Prop Recycling / Live-Action Films

• Robby the Robot. Originally created for the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, Robby continued to be reused in many movie and TV productions up to the present day (although since the 1960s a lightweight replica has been used). Its two appearances in Lost in Space are particularly ironic in that Robby and Robot B-9 were both designed by Robert Kinoshita. Robby is so memorable that it is less a prop and more of an actual character. Along with all the sci-fi shows he turns up in, Robby also appears in, of all things, on a couple of NBC shows. In the family sitcom Hazel, Robby appears in a dream sequence as Hazel's robotic replacement. Robby would later appear on one of the NBC era Columbo episodes as a robot built by a child genius at a think tank and even as a hotdog vendor in the animated feature Heavy Metal. He's even listed on IMDb as an actual actor.
• The uniforms from Forbidden Planet were used in the sci-fi B-Movie Queen of Outer Space.
• The Queen Anne's Revenge in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was built atop the ship used for the Black Pearl in the previous films.
• The Matrix used several sets from Dark City (filmed at the same Sydney studio a few months before, and exploring some similar themes), most notably the roof-case from the teaser chase scene and the spiral staircase in the Lafayette Hotel.
• Airplane II: The Sequel had the thing with lights that go back and forth. Seen in the background in some Sci-Fi series. Was also in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. There is a site detailing its numerous appearances.
• Star Wars:
  • A Tatooine prop, the krayt dragon skeleton, while not re-used in filming was left there; the winds periodically bury and uncover the thing. Rumor has it that a scientist at one point mistakenly reported the thing as a newly discovered dinosaur. One can only imagine his reaction when he learned what it actually was. The prop was reportedly a repurpose of a dinosaur skeleton originally made for the Disney movie One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing.
  • IG-88's head was originally used as a drink dispenser in Ep. IV.
  • Bossk's suit in The Empire Strikes Back was originally created for a human pilot in the Doctor Who story "The Tenth Planet".
  • Darth Vader's lightsaber in Return of the Jedi is a repainted prop of Luke's saber from the previous two movies (the two props were similar, but not identical, in shape). Apparently the original prop of Vader's lightsaber was stolen.
  • Palpatine's Xyston-class Star Destroyers in The Rise of Skywalker are a very obvious re-use of Rogue One's CGI model for the Imperial-I-class. The only differences are the size (the Xyston is scaled up, proportionally, by fifty percent), a few red stripes, and a planet-killing Wave-Motion Gun added to the belly^note This actually makes sense in-universe as well, as A. Star Destroyers have long been the traditional symbol of the Empire's power, and B.it makes sense to use a pre-existing schematic that you can work off of to get started designing a ship from, instead of designing it from scratch.
• Mel Brooks reused Kenneth Strickfaden's original electrical equipment from the 1931 version of Frankenstein in his Affectionate Parody, Young Frankenstein. This was done not to save money but as an homage to the original film.
  • In History of the World Part I, the background behind the tailgunners in the "Jews in Space" sequence came from the V'ger set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
• The multiwheeled Landmaster vehicle from Damnation Alley reappeared in various movies and TV episodes. (It almost had a better career than the human star Jan-Michael Vincent.)
• The gate featured in the original King Kong saw multiple uses in other movies, starting with Merian C. Cooper's next movie She, ultimately being used as kindling in burning of Atlanta scene in Gone with the Wind. (It was the burning wall that narrowly avoided crushing Rhett and Scarlett in a passing wagon.)
• Alien:
  • The sets to Axis chemical factory in Batman (1989) were from Aliens.
  • Another reused prop from Alien is a console in the Doctor Who episode "Earthshock".
  • The griddle-like corridor panels, which were originally shipping pallets, have shown up in Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), Blake's 7 and Red Dwarf at least, and probably in various other productions. They are heavily used in the original Star Wars movies, as floors and ceilings aboard the Death Star, the Millennium Falcon, Vader's Star Destroyer, Cloud City, the Endor Bunker and many other places.
  • During a scene at the start of Alien³ (in which there is a facehugger on Ripley's face), a prosthetic of Meryl Streep, recycled from Death Becomes Her, is used to represent Ripley. This was because Sigourney Weaver was unavailable, so a prosthetic couldn't be made using her likeness. The use of Meryl Streep's face instead is ironic given that she was originally considered for the role of Ripley.
• Defied by 2001: A Space Odyssey: all the original props were unavailable for the sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact because Stanley Kubrick deliberately destroyed them all, along with any design notes, after filming was completed specifically to avert this trope. The prop department for 2010 had no choice but to make replicas of everything from scratch based on examining what was visible in the film. In spite of which, the audio commentary for The Phantom Menace claims that one of the original Discovery EVA pods can be seen in Watto's scrapyard on Tatooine. More likely it's the EVA pod built for 2010.
• Roger Corman's The St. Valentine's Day Massacre re-used sets from Hello, Dolly! and The Sound of Music. Corman actually had the resources of a studio behind him, and probably could have built new sets, but stuck to cost-saving measures out of habit.
• The Minigun in Predator was reused in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. While all guns are prone to reuse in film, miniguns in particular are very prone to it due to their rarity in the civilian market. Every single one in the civilian market has made a movie or TV appearance at some point.
• The exact same Type 69 RPG used by the T-850 in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines went on to be used in The Dark Knight by The Joker to disable The Tumbler during the highway battle.
• Back to the Future Part II reused several cars from other "futuristic" movies in its 2015 set.
• The Phantom of the Opera:
  • The chase scene at the end of the silent film version uses sets from Lon Chaney's previous film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (most notably the cathedral facade).
  • The opera stage set built for the film was reused in several pictures, including the 1943 Phantom film, the Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), and, get this, The Muppets (2011).
• Just Imagine, a sci-fi musical from the 1930s, had a lavish set costing a quarter million Depression-era dollars, but flopped in the theaters. Producers recouped some of their money by reusing Stock Footage of the cityscape in the Universal film serials Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, while Z-4's Rocket Plane was recycled as Zarkov's rocketship.
• The colored "Michelin Man" spacesuits from Destination Moon were later used in cheaper sci-fi efforts like Flight to Mars, the TV series Space Patrol, and the spoof Amazon Women on the Moon. The last film also re-used the Loch Ness Monster puppet from The Loch Ness Horror in one of its sketches.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The original Marvin the Paranoid Android from the TV series was reused in a crowd scene in the 2005 movie as a Mythology Gag. Movie!Arthur notices and does a clearly visible double-take.
• The Hudsucker Proxy: The vast, intricate and detailed cityscape of tall skyscrapers has been utilized and repurposed in other '90s films such as Baby's Day Out, The Shadow, The Fifth Element and Godzilla (1998).
• Miho's swords from Sin City were the Crazy 88's from Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino, who special guest directed a segment in the film, had them in his garage and loaned them to the production.
• Ghostbusters:
  • The PKE meters are used as...
    • ... walkie-talkies by the alien security guards in They Live!.
    • ... a tracking device in Suburban Commando.
    • ... and so does an episode of Family Guy. Yes, an animated series used this trope.
  • Ghostbusters II features a device colloquially known as the "Tripod Trap". It appears in a few other things, including an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
    • Another one that falls into Ghostbusters II is the River of Slime sequences. For the model mininature effect of the subway and river, the model effects company went out and bought large quantities of the The Real Ghostbusters toy slime produced by Kenner to use for the effect.
• In Mulholland Dr., when Betty Elms arrives at the movie studio for her audition, the car from Sunset Boulevard is parked at the entrance.
• Steve Martin's dentist instruments from Little Shop of Horrors were reused as gynecological tools in Dead Ringers, then surgical instruments for the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (1989).
• The monster penis from Tromeo and Juliet is reused in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.
• The armor from Starship Troopers gets around a lot...
  • Worn by the soldiers in Impostor.
  • The Gundam movie G-Saviour also recycled the uniforms from Starship Troopers.
  • A few other examples below in TV series.
  • ...before finally being purchased off the used-props market to be used in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder. And no-doubt being sold-off again. Such is the Circle of Props.
  • Several helmets from the film were worn by the gorilla SWAT team in the final scene of Planet of the Apes (2001).
  • They were also used in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy by soldiers boarding the ship Terra Venture at the beginning of the series.
• Harry Potter:
  • The Room of Requirement in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows recycles every set and prop from the previous movies (for instance, the giant chess pieces from the first, Snape's storage from the fourth, and the wedding decorations from part 1 of the seventh).
  • CGI example: Buckbeak's wings are re-used as the wings of the flying horses pulling the Beauxbatons carriage.
  • Speaking of Harry Potter, sections of the Diagon Alley set were redressed and rearranged for the barricade scenes in Les Misérables (2012).
• The teddy bear Jack Ryan gets for his daughter at the end of The Hunt for Red October (credited as Stanley) is the same teddy bear John McClane was bringing for his kids in the first Die Hard film. Both films were directed by John McTiernan.
• Galaxina features the Batmobile from the Adam West TV series.
• The Burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind was actually the Burning of Many Old Set Pieces on The Backlot That Were Due to Be Demolished Anyway.
• Similar to the above, Lords of Chaos built the churches burnt by the Black Metal bands using the dismantled sets of Blade Runner 2049, which was filming in the same city.
• After Gone with the Wind almost bankrupted the studios where it was filmed, the costumes and props were re-used for Pride and Prejudice (1940). Never mind the fact that the two novels are set about 70 years apart (one circa 1790s, one in the 1860s and 70s), and on different continents, with radically different fashions, it was all the olden days, wasn't it?
• The external and interior sets from Das Boot have been reused:
  • Steven Spielberg rented the exterior set for Raiders of the Lost Ark; someone forgot to tell the German production crew, leading to a bit of panic when they found it was missing.
  • The interior set was used for the World War I submarine U-20 in the TV movie Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic. Interestingly, in real life, the Type VIIC of World War II and Type U-19 of World War I had similar internal dimensions.
• In the Doris Day film Its A Great Feeling, Patricia Neal has a cameo As Herself, and she is wearing the ermine-trimmed Little Black Dress from the film of The Fountainhead (as she just came from the set of that movie to film this scene).
• Kathy's car in Singin' in the Rain was previously Andy Hardy's car. Don Lockwood's mansion is filled with furniture from Flesh and the Devil.
• The alien slavers' ships in Robinson Crusoe on Mars are clearly the Martian tripods from the better-known 1953 film The War of the Worlds with a Palette Swap (silver body with blue and red lights instead of dark metal with green lights) and the eyestalk removed.
• A rather forgettable 1963 Arthurian flick, Siege of the Saxons recycled props, costumes and footage from 1954 film The Black Knight and 1963 film Lancelot and Guineviere (a.k.a. Sword of Lancelot).
• The yellow Oldsmobile Delta 88 used in most films directed by Sam Raimi.
• The Golden Hinde II, the 1973 replica of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, was used in Swashbuckler, Shogun (film and TV series), Drake's Venture and St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold.
• Slightly-modified North American AT-6 trainer aircraft (different cockpit canopies) standing as Mitsubishi A6M "Zeros"/"Zekes" quite got around. They were originally rebuilt to impersonate A6M2 "Zekes" for the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora! Despite being noticeably larger and somewhat differently-shaped aircraft than a Zero, those T-6s were later used in the series Black Sheep Squadron. They later showed up in the 1980 time-travel movie The Final Countdown, which had the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz warped back to the late afternoon of December 6, 1941, just west of Hawaii...
• The USMC Harrier II fiberglass replica used to film the climax of True Lies was later reused by The Avengers, for the fight scene between the Hulk and Thor, where the Hulk rips a wing off to hurl at the God of Thunder. Afterward, the prop was purchased and restored by the Volo Auto Museum in Illinois.
• It was extremely common in earlier giant monster movies for the monster props to be recycled for sequels or related productions (since it's a lot cheaper than coming up with new puppets or costumes).
  • All of the dinosaur models used in King Kong (1933) were originally made for the (ultimately unreleased) film Creation, while the armature for one of Kong's models was reused for his son in the sequel Son of Kong (and several of the other creature props, such as the Brontosaurus, were also reused due to the extreme time restraints).
  • Often Godzilla would have the same suits reused in sequels until they fell apart, resulting in some rather shoddy-looking damage to the kaiju costumes in later Showa Era films. And as detailed in the live-action tv folder, the early Ultra Series often borrowed and modified Godzilla kaiju costumes and props for its own kaiju. In one case, this recycling went even further; the Rodan puppet from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was used for the Ultra Q bird monster Litra, and was then returned to Toho and again modified for Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, this time into the condor monster Ookondoru.
  • A very egregious example occurs in Gamera vs. Guiron with "Space Gyaos", which is clearly just the same Gyaos props painted silver. Originally Space Gyaos was going to be a flying squirrel kaiju called Monga, but budgetary restraints resulted in the lazy Palette Swap.
• The Crow (1994): The elaborate rapier that Top Dollar selects from a cabinet of lesser swords is also the Six-Fingered Sword wielded by Inigo in The Princess Bride.
• Cecil B. DeMille actively prevented anyone from reusing his The Ten Commandments (1923) set after he was done filming by literally burying it in the California desert where the film was shot. In recent years, it's been rediscovered and subject to excavation as if it really was a lost Ancient Egyptian city.
• The prisoners in Face/Off wear the Goomba boots from Super Mario Bros. (1993).
• In an example of Approval of God, Saw III used the bathroom set made for the Saw parody in Scary Movie 4.
• The final battle of Undefeatable appears to use the iconic knife from Cobra.
• In a unique example of this trope, Cyborg (1989) used production assets like sets and costumes from an unmade sequel to Masters of the Universe and a Spider-Man film that never got off the ground, due to those assets already being made before those films got cancelled, and the production crew deciding to make a new project around them so that they'd still get something out of them. Also, the chain mail and forearm guards worn by Fender were part of the costume for Blade in Masters of the Universe.
• In On the Buses, the same pair of knickers turns up on Betty's washing line and in a housewife's laundry bag.
• In Up Pompeii, a bust of John Gielgud taken from Julius Caesar (1970) can be seen in the steam baths set.

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