Thanks to the publicity generated by the 2013 Oscars Ceremony, I recently watched ARGO, the excellent historical drama thriller about the rescue of six American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary IRAN.

To my surprise, this movie features a LED prop, a robot costume briefly seen at a launch party for a fake movie project. ARGO, released in 2012, relates to events which took place in 1980. Is it a coincidence to find LEDs in the eyes of a robot costume for this era? Surely not. Part of the job definition of the prop master is to research and make sure the technology used in props is appropriate for the era in which the movie is set to take place.

In ARGO, the use of LEDs was an excellent choice for a SCI-FI movie of the early 1980s. The only detail they might have missed is the color choice of the LEDs, as I believe they made them blue. Blue LEDs were only introduced years later.