Bitbuster
02-10-2014, 02:27 PM
Hi, I'm new to this Forum.
I mainly collect original movie props but I also used to be a big computer and videogame geek back in the 80s and 90s. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled over some original screen used props from the movie "Enemy of the state" starring Will Smith from 1998. One of the items was a "NEC Video Device". I instantly realized that this must be one of the Turbo Express Devices they used in that movie. Since I owned a Turbo Express back in the days I always rembered that they used this in the movie as a prop. When I did some more research on this I realized that the Turbo Express offered showed some slight differences to the ones publicly sold back then: The "Turbo Express"-Logo was missing on the front and instead it shows a different Logo (either a stylized whale or bird) and on the backside the typical Silver sticker was missing and in place there is a huge NEC Logo and again this whale type logo.
As a movieprop collector you always look for so called "screenmatched" props which basically means that you can clearly identify a prop in a certain scene, for example with some scratches or other unique imperfections teh props shows. Screenmatched props are very rare and desirable. So I was more than thrilled when I grabbed some screenshots and found out that this is the exact Turbo Express you can see in all the close-up scenes in the movie! As you can tell fom the photos the logo on the front and the back and the little black spots and the sticker on the back are a 100% match which means that this is the exact Turbo Express used by Will Smith and Jason Lee. It even came with the PCMCIA card that stored the data in the movie.
So I got very interested and did some more research and it even got more interesting. The story goes like this: NEC made a deal with the Enemy of the state production to have their Logo featured in the movie. Since the Turbo Express plays a very important role in the movie they wanted their Logo attached to it. But since the Turbo Express was released and the movie was made some years had passed, NEC had stopped production for the Turbo Express and NEC in the meanwhile had changed their official Logo and added this new whale/bird shape. So when the movies Producers came along and wanted to use the Turbo Express NEC made 2 Turbo Express devices with that new Logo to be used on set by the actors. Additionally two more non-functional stunt Turbo-Express were made of hard rubber for the actors to run around with them and their stuntmen.
So it turns out this is not only the exact Turbo Express seen on screen, it's also one of only two ever made. So needless to say I bought it ;) It still works perfectly except for the sound which is very soft.
Hope you find this as exciting as I did :-)
Ryan
By the way: if anybody is interested in one of the stunt-devices, let me know.
EDIT:Some typos
73377336733573347338
I mainly collect original movie props but I also used to be a big computer and videogame geek back in the 80s and 90s. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled over some original screen used props from the movie "Enemy of the state" starring Will Smith from 1998. One of the items was a "NEC Video Device". I instantly realized that this must be one of the Turbo Express Devices they used in that movie. Since I owned a Turbo Express back in the days I always rembered that they used this in the movie as a prop. When I did some more research on this I realized that the Turbo Express offered showed some slight differences to the ones publicly sold back then: The "Turbo Express"-Logo was missing on the front and instead it shows a different Logo (either a stylized whale or bird) and on the backside the typical Silver sticker was missing and in place there is a huge NEC Logo and again this whale type logo.
As a movieprop collector you always look for so called "screenmatched" props which basically means that you can clearly identify a prop in a certain scene, for example with some scratches or other unique imperfections teh props shows. Screenmatched props are very rare and desirable. So I was more than thrilled when I grabbed some screenshots and found out that this is the exact Turbo Express you can see in all the close-up scenes in the movie! As you can tell fom the photos the logo on the front and the back and the little black spots and the sticker on the back are a 100% match which means that this is the exact Turbo Express used by Will Smith and Jason Lee. It even came with the PCMCIA card that stored the data in the movie.
So I got very interested and did some more research and it even got more interesting. The story goes like this: NEC made a deal with the Enemy of the state production to have their Logo featured in the movie. Since the Turbo Express plays a very important role in the movie they wanted their Logo attached to it. But since the Turbo Express was released and the movie was made some years had passed, NEC had stopped production for the Turbo Express and NEC in the meanwhile had changed their official Logo and added this new whale/bird shape. So when the movies Producers came along and wanted to use the Turbo Express NEC made 2 Turbo Express devices with that new Logo to be used on set by the actors. Additionally two more non-functional stunt Turbo-Express were made of hard rubber for the actors to run around with them and their stuntmen.
So it turns out this is not only the exact Turbo Express seen on screen, it's also one of only two ever made. So needless to say I bought it ;) It still works perfectly except for the sound which is very soft.
Hope you find this as exciting as I did :-)
Ryan
By the way: if anybody is interested in one of the stunt-devices, let me know.
EDIT:Some typos
73377336733573347338