Hiding in plain sight

I talk a lot on this blog about the idea of ‘reenactorisms’ – inaccuracies that get unknowingly (or knowingly!) perpetuated because someone didn’t do their research. Usually when discussing these blunders we’re talking about individuals making them, but I wanted to point out two examples to day that prove the big players are not immune to making sloppy mistakes either!
Following the release of Episode III in 2005, LA’s FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) hosted the exhibit Dressing a Galaxy, which featured 100 screen-used costumes from Episodes I through VI. From the pictures I’ve seen online it was an absolutely incredible presentation.
However, one tableau of costumes held a glaring mistake for all to see:

If you can’t spot it, maybe we’d better check the references:

That’s right, the Jedi youngling mannequins are wearing their helmets Backwards! It seems whoever was setting up the exhibit just received a shipment of costumes, saw these were labelled ‘kid Jedi hats’, and plopped ’em down onto the child mannequins however they felt looked right.
I wish I knew how many visitors came through the exhibit while they were in that state. Luckily, this mistake seems to have been corrected, because I also found pictures from the same exhibit with the helmets in the correct orientation!:

Unfortunately, not all reenactorisms can be so easily remedied. When the Galaxy’s Edge shopping mall first opened, I was pleased to see that ‘Dok-Ondar’ appeared to have an Episode III Wookiee battle shield on his wall. But as I looked at it, I noticed that it too looked…off.

In addition to the overall…chunkiness…of the shield, its triangular pencil point is just wrong. It looks like the set-dressers realized they weren’t going to have room for a properly-shaped shield because of the taxidermy on the wall above it, so they just truncated it with an ugly, ungraceful triangle. Why they couldn’t pull a Wookiee shield from the Lucasfilm Archives (which is apparently what DK did for the Episode 3 Visual Dictionary) and either a) hang it up, or b) use it to make a faithful copy, I don’t know. I saw the shield myself in person back in 2005 and it definitely looked like the one on the left.
Sadly, since the vast majority of Galaxy’s Edge visitors won’t recognize this artifact, let alone know it’s been replicated poorly, we probably won’t ever see it fixed. Which is too bad, because this would be the perfect opportunity to employ an ‘artist-in-residence’ to occupy that supposed craftsman’s alcove and carve out some Wookiee shields:

Seriously, if there’s one thing Galaxy’s Edge needs, it’s interpreters to enliven the place…it’d be one thing for this area to be covered in unswept woodchips (as if the craftsman had just stepped out a moment before), but how much cooler would it be if someone were actually behind the workbench with chisel and mallet in hand? As it is currently, it just adds to the soulless-but-meticulously-set-dressed feeling of GE. 😦

What other unintentional mistakes have you noticed in officially-licensed arenas? Drop a comment below and let me know!

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