• The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldOPM
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      22 hours ago

      They used real human skeletons because it was cheaper to pick them up from medical suppliers.

      The actors, including JoBeth Williams (pictured) weren’t informed that they were interacting with genuine human remains until filming wrapped.

      • Ariselas@piefed.ca
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        9 hours ago

        Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland also used medical skeletons. It wasn’t that long ago that they were really easy to purchase, a couple instructors at my university had full skeletons and would bring them in for class. I wanted to buy one just to keep in my closet as a joke, but beer came first.

        • ZeldaFreak@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          In Germany a school recently held a funeral for their school skeleton, which was an actual human. They suspected that this was a young Indian man. Up to the 20th century, you could easily buy a dead person from India. There are still schools with actual human remains.

            • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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              24 minutes ago

              It may have been a donation. Donating your body to science can result in you becoming a classroom skeleton, or blown up in the sky with a rocket. If you’re lucky enough, they put you in a field and let your body rot, while observing the process. You don’t really get a say in it, but cadavers are used for all sorts of things.

      • CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        19 hours ago

        The crazy thing is that this isn’t limited to human remains.

        Fake cameras often cost more than actual cameras. Fake food is more expensive than real food, which is then wasted.

      • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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        18 hours ago

        The more interesting tidbit is that this is actually pretty common. The prop house using real skeletons was actually pretty common and not unique to this production. The notable thing about this film was the sheer number of skeletons that they used, so they basically scooped up everything that was out there, and how much the live actors actually interacted with the skeletons. It wasn’t particularly unusual for skeletons to be used as props.

        Really, just about any time you saw a skeleton on screen before the 90s or so, it was probably real. A lot of real world props and decorations also used real skeletons, sometimes to the surprise of the people using them. For example, if you rode the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land, you saw real human skeletons.

        • tmyakal@infosec.pub
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          20 hours ago

          Don’t leave it all on Tobe. Depending on how recently you’ve asked him, Spielberg directed none, some, most, or all of this movie.