Where is Galileo?

[ZapBrannigan]

Also, the filming prop for Apes has never been raised from Lake Powell. The old Utah hotel sign was a reproduction. Sadly, it is also now gone.

And this reproduction was then used in Beneath the POTA, Escape from the POTA, and the 1974 TV series, so it was still very much a screen-used prop?

I didn't know the original was dispatched in such deep water, I'm seeing 490 feet. No wonder they abandoned it.

 

[Jim Payne]

And this reproduction was then used in Beneath the POTA, Escape from the POTA, and the 1974 TV series, so it was still very much a screen-used prop?

I didn't know the original was dispatched in such deep water, I'm seeing 490 feet. No wonder they abandoned it.

Good point! I was only keying off of the implied Planet of the Apes reference - sorry! I have a friend who was there when they filmed it in Lake Powell and sent me a bunch of photos. I'm shocked that they even rigged up to work in such deep waters. Either they weren't honest with their underwriters or the insurance was crazy.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Good point! I was only keying off of the implied Planet of the Apes reference - sorry! I have a friend who was there when they filmed it in Lake Powell and sent me a bunch of photos. I'm shocked that they even rigged up to work in such deep waters. Either they weren't honest with their underwriters or the insurance was crazy.

Yeah. And now learning about this, especially the depth of water, has got me wondering if the actor (star? stuntman?) was nervous about being inside the floating mock-up so he could climb out the top hatch and abandon ship.

Either the spacecraft was reliably stabilized somehow, or they shot the stunt in a shallow area before moving to deep water to scuttle the thing (and what a fantastic scene). I say that because imagine being inside the prop when it might very well flood and sink, and maybe you just twisted your ankle and can't get out. In 490 feet of water, nobody can save you in time.

And things do go wrong in water scenes:

• Jaws: I think I saw this in a DVD featurette. Roy Scheider was inside Quint's boat when it sank unexpectedly, and Spielberg was worried about the mechanical shark. Scheider shouted "The ACTOR is fine!"

• The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: A 30-foot Loch Ness monster prop sank during filming and was lost to the depths, until it was rediscovered in 2016 by a team searching for the real creature. That must have been such a great moment.

• Star Trek IV: To portray the Pacific Ocean, they flooded a parking lot at Paramount that can double as a giant water tank. I doubt there was any danger of the Klingon ship sinking; it looked awful steady there, like it wasn't even floating. But I had to bring this back to Star Trek somehow.

 

[Maurice]

I don't know about these specific examples, but typically when you're shooting on water it's best to keep any floating craft near the shore unless you're doing shots that require the craft to be seen with a lot of water in the foreground, so in many cases the thing might only be 50–100 feet offshore for many setups and moved farther out when needed.

The problem with ST4's water scenes is that the camera is so rock-steady it gives away that the "ship" is not floating.

 

[scotpens]

And this reproduction was then used in Beneath the POTA, Escape from the POTA, and the 1974 TV series, so it was still very much a screen-used prop?

It also showed up briefly in "The Long Rain" segment of The Illustrated Man (1969).