Once upon a time all you needed to promote a movie was a poster, but now, for better or worse, marketers have extended their claws into the design of physical products. Thus you have objects like the skateboard above, by Jeremy and Claire Weiss, commissioned as part of "The Enterprise Project," which invited artists around the world to re-interpet the U.S.S. Starship Enterprise to promote the upcoming movie. (Our favorite of the bunch is the UPS Starship Enterprise, below, by Mr. Brainwash.)

Then there are those sci-fi objects that were created as props, like the full-scale Raptor, below, used in the shooting of Battlestar Galactica. What happens to them after their shows are canceled? Ater all, a squad of designers spent a fair amount of time rigging the thing up both inside and out--do they just trash it?

Not in this case! NBC/Universal is looking to make a buck off the thing by selling it at auction on May 9th. They tried eBay at first, but the high bid of $28,100 fell short of the reserve price. Meaning a Raptor costs more than, like, a Toyota Camry.

via neatorama and gizmodo