Part IIc: the Docking Bay Sets

Two docking bays appear in the original 1977 Star Wars movie. There's the scruffy and stained Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley, Tatooine, which is where we, as an audience, get our first look at the Millennium Falcon. And then there's the gleaming black Docking Bay 327 aboard the Death Star, where our heroes' ship is mercilessly held captive by the Empire's sinister agents. These are the only two times in the film that we see a full-sized Falcon set for actors to walk aboard.

What a piece of junk.

So back in 1976 an exterior Millennium Falcon was built on soundstage 3 of England's Elstree studios. Interior sets for the cockpit, the hold, and the gun turrets/ladders were also built, but in a different studio building. (ie: the interior sets weren't physically inside the exterior set or anything like that) The actors ran up the ramp into a hollow plywood shell, and then the movie cut to a separate set.

To avoid moving the ship or building it twice, the Falcon was first constructed at the same time as the Docking Bay 94 set. Once filming of the Jabba scene (unused in 1977; repurposed for the 1997 Special Edition) and Falcon takeoff scene were complete, the Mos Eisley walls were torn down and the Death Star hangar was built around the existing craft. The photo below shows the Falcon under construction.

The ship takes form.

The Falcon

The film was on a famously tight budget, and the sound stage also wasn't as big as the filmmakers would have liked. So the Millennium Falcon was limited to about 85 feet in length; definitely not big enough to enclose the internal sets that were built separately. Despite these restrictions, clever set construction, lighting, and camera framing made the bay and ship look larger than they were. In fact, only half of the circular docking bay was actually constructed. The rear wall was nothing more than a skilfully painted backdrop.

The extraordinarily talented set designer John Barry, who died tragically in the middle of shooting Empire, reviews a set model (a “maquette”) of Docking Bay 94 with the casual style of a chess grandmaster. I love the wooden half-Falcon on the right. I wonder what happened to that. I don't know who the person on the right is.

The ship was made, not from some ultra-tough space alloy, but from ordinary Earth plywood on a timber frame, as seen above. It was built to resemble the five foot shooting miniature constructed shortly before in California, though there are significant differences in the details. Especially where it comes to complex greeblies that were difficult to replicate from scratch. (The Entex engines on the sidewalls being a noticeable example)

The biggest difference compared to the miniature is not only was half the docking bay built, but just half the spaceship! This meant that only the right/starboard half of the ship could ever be shown in the movie. And of course the iconic radar dish is missing altogether, since it would have been on the left/port side upper hull. The designers rightly thought that the vast majority of film viewers would never notice its absence.

The docking bay set, clearly showing how only half the intended bay was built, with a backdrop up against the wall. At this point the Falcon seemed to have some extra pointy bits on the mandible tips; features that were soon dropped.

It's also clear that there were hardly any details on the top of the saucer – just some stuff on the front starboard quarter that would be visible from the ground. No point wasting money on building things that would never be seen!

The plywood reality of the docking bay, and half the Falcon, under construction.

Another problem with building half a Falcon was the stability of its physical design. The 1977 ship had only three landing gear assemblies (two pairs of legs left and right rear, and one in the front, for a total of five legs in three groups). This turned out to be unbalanced, so the Falcon was fastened to the stage wall on the left side, and propped up by an extra steel pole to the middle right. This pole was disguised by sticking some sort of refuelling hose over it in Docking Bay 94, and by stacking a bunch of random barrels and things in front of it in Docking Bay 327.

Hopefully it must have had some sort of remote detach mechanism, or else the Falcon would have been dripping a bunch of spaceship fuel from a torn hose, as Han is never seen detaching the line when the ship makes its hasty escape from Tatooine!

"No. These hoses don't conceal a support rod. Why?"

Despite my extensive research I’ve also never found a complete photo showing what the engine area looked like in the full-sized ANH set. Partial behind the scenes photos, and the Jabba visits the Falcon sequence, seem to show greeblies in the engine area, but coverage is pretty incomplete.

Finally, a fun bit of oft-repeated Star Wars trivia is that set construction had almost started when George Lucas felt that the initial Millennium Falcon spaceship design - a long tube with a mass of rocket engines at the end - was too similar to the Eagles from the TV show Space: 1999. So he decided at the last minute to change ship designs, which led to Joe Johnston designing the saucer-shaped vessel we know today. But this change means that blueprints still exist of the old spacecraft design.

We're so used to the final design of the movie that it's quite weird to see this Ralph McQuarrie production painting. It depicts our heroes marching into a boxy square docking bay, to meet Han Solo and his very linear Millennium Falcon. R2-D2 isn't going backwards - at this point in production the idea was he'd swing his way forward, as if he were on crutches, rather than rolling around.

Docking Bay 94

This bay was supposed to be a cylindrical structure located partially underground, but open to the sky. The idea was that spaceships could descend and park inside the near-buried area. This meant that noise or accidental explosions or whatever would be isolated from the city above. Quite a clever design, really.

This image is from the Attack of the Clones prequel, and shows the city of Mos Espa. But the docking bay concept remains the same - large circular pits with high walls.

Since Tatooine was meant to be a dusty outpost planet with primitive facilities, the studio floor was covered with a layer of sand, and its plywood walls were plastered and painted to resemble stained yellowed concrete. Various props and other set dressings were scattered throughout to give the impression of a working spaceship fuelling and docking facility. Many of the items were placed behind the ship, to break up the join between the floor and the painted backdrop.

England, 1976. The construction phase of Docking Bay 94 nears its end. Note how, with the background lights full on, the flatness of the backdrop painting is quite apparent. Note also the red forklift truck to the right. That makes an appearance again shortly in this narrative.

Some of the props are too generic, small, or difficult to make out. But some of the items are clear enough in either the original footage, or behind the scenes photos, to learn what they were. A lot of objects were simply random pipes and hoses, but many were found objects, in keeping with the Star Wars design philosophy of finding interesting scrap material and repurposing it as props.

Docking Bay 94 Props

Here are some of the known Docking Bay 94 found objects:

Bartow beacons

The squat yellow-painted ground lights were actual runway landing lamps used in WW II. The war had only ended 30 years previously, and artefacts from that time period were still often seen as surplus junk rather than museum pieces.

Specifically they were “Bartow” type D-1 landing beacons, invented by Jack “Red” Bartow and built by the Line Material Company (hence "LM" stickers on the sides) of Pennsylvania. Though US-made, they were deployed in Britain to mark out the runways of US airbases. Apparently they were quite useful in misty British weather.

Commander Marsh, Civil Engineer Corps, US Navy, looks so pleased with his new Bartow (note incorrect spelling on this photo) runway lights. “Doggone it! With these here lamps our boys can land under any weather conditions!"

Want to know more? Well, the "optical system of this unit consists of a 200-watt pre-focussed lamp mounted within a hemispherical metal casing. Over this is mounted a dome-shaped Fresnel-type lens which concentrates the light into a vertical beam approximately 4° high. A large outer dome of pressed glass is fastened over the unit to serve as a cover and also as the horizontal condenser. Vertical flutes on its inner surface redirect the light into a beam approximately 1 1/2° wide. The unit is bidirectional, to mark the runway for landings in either direction, and projects a beam along the runway from either side. The beams are elliptical in cross-section and approximately 4° high by 1 1/2° wide at the 30,000 candlepower isocandle curve, dropping off sharply in candlepower beyond this boundary." This according to the US Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Safety in Air Navigation session of January 1947.

Thirty years later some of these beacons were bought as surplus scrap by Roger Christian and the Star Wars set decorating team, and became a minor footlight, er, footnote, in movie history. They're most easily seen, of course, arranged in a loose ring around the Falcon in Docking Bay 94. Totally unmodified and unrepainted.

Amusingly enough the same props were actually deployed twice before by the thrifty propmasters. You can see one briefly in the Jawa sandcrawler interior, (right after "we're doomed!") and a repurposed beacon was lit up, stuck on a box (I don't think it was either the Treadwell droid or the umbrella droid base - it looks different), and pulled along as a farm droid during the sunset scene.

They were reused again, albeit on top of low cylindrical platforms, in the Hoth ice hangar set 3 years later. Finally the Empire beacons are briefly visible on the ground outside the doomed colony's doors in James Cameron’s Aliens.

Lansing Bangall forklift

Did you notice the ordinary British-made Lansing Bagnall FRER red forklift (technically a "reach truck") in the docking bay? It's hidden in plain sight - just sitting quietly against the back wall, equipped with an enormous claw for lifting rolls of paper and other cylindrical objects.

Since it appears in the making-of photo further up the page, it was probably actually used to build the set in Elstree, England, back in 1976. And then it was just left there once the cameras started rolling.

I'm not sure where this photo came from. Someone selling an old Lansing Bagnall FRER reach truck online, I think. I believe this is basically the same model seen in Star Wars.

When Jabba was from Belfast. The original script called for a confrontation between Han and his erstwhile employer, the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. A scene was duly filmed, with Northern Irish actor Declan Mulholland playing the character as a small-time hood. The scene was dropped, only to be revived for 1997's Special Edition. For this version Mulholland was sadly replaced with a CGI Jabba, in keeping with his sluglike appearance in Return of the Jedi. Anyway. The Lansing Bagnall reach truck can just be seen in the background of this shot.

Hella lights

No, not North American slang – the wall lights in the bay were German-made Hella brand warning lights. These motorized flashing lamps were used on emergency vehicles and the like. Groups of lamps were fastened to the docking bay wall in places, and two red ones were installed atop the blue box.

Mystery box

The identity of the squat blue box under the Falcon is still a mystery. The closest thing I can think of is an old walk-behind floor sweeping or polishing machine, maybe. It has an angular look, a seeming handle on the back, and small rear wheels visible in behind the scenes shot below. Additionally a pair of red Hella lights, with the motors switched off, were placed on the top, and a kind of exhaust assembly or something bolted to the top and back. If anyone has any leads on what this was, or recognizes the small square logo in the upper right-hand corner of the device, please drop me a line!

This awesome behind the scenes shot shows the approximated greebly detailing on the sidewall, a lot of useful detail on the mysterious blue box, the third yellow compressor box in the far background, the floor-mounted fuel pump (the very small cylinder to the left of the blue box), and lots of Mos Eisley low-grade thugs.

Mystery barrels

The origin of the large flattened barrel objects is also not known. They appear to be fibreglass or vacuum-moulded plastic – similar to but different from the round cantina tables. You can see how lightweight they are when one of them topples during the stormtrooper attack sequence. Here's a closeup view of one of them, with its added lights (vintage Arcoelectric panel lights; thank you Wavey!) and presumably the round added greebly.

Aviation fuel pumps

There is a small cylindrical object on the ground by the blue box, and a similar pair of objects on the ground next to the barrel thing in the first archway. These appear to be fuel booster pumps from British fighter jets, such as the SPE BP8 units used on Lightnings. Thanks to Wavey from the RPF for the tip.

Drop tanks

Off to frame left during a couple of brief moments are two surprisingly large cigar-shaped brown objects. These greeblie-encrusted things were a mystery for a long time, but thanks to the RPF’s Wavey we know basically what they are: drop tanks. These are lightweight, external, and often disposable fuel tanks used on military aircraft. The precise make and model is not known, though they do appear to resemble US-made 400 gallon Douglas drop tanks, which have less pointy ends than most.

Some of the greeblies on the tanks were part of the tank assembly (access hatches, pipe fittings, etc) and some appear to have been bolted on by the prop makers. They were mounted vertically inside cylindrical bases of some type. It’s typical of Star Wars cinematography and framing that, although these tanks look quite interesting, they’re only visible for a fraction of a second in the whole movie! The camera just doesn’t linger on stuff.

The left-hand drop tank seems to have the same circle and square greebly seen on the flattened barrels.

Hydrovane compressors

There are two yellow low tank-like structures on the left side of the frame as our heroes board the ship. These are obviously found objects, as they would have been expensive to produce, with their compound curves in yellow-painted fibreglass. Since we only ever see them from one side nobody has ever depicted these things correctly. We’ve all assumed that they were symmetrical, and assumed they were some sort of storage tank. Even the model set built for the Mos Espa docking bay in Attack of the Clones (above) shows them this way.

And now we may finally know what they probably were, thanks to correspondent Gray Sharpling. They appear to have been wheeled trailers containing air compressors, used to power pneumatic drills/jackhammers on British building sites! The ovoid slots, from which accordion silvery hoses are seen to emerge, were actually holes for licence plates. And this means that they weren't symmetrical back and front, but were tapered.

To be specific they look like "Hydrovane" compressors with their wheels and possibly underframes removed. Boxes and hoses were used to hide the open wheel wells. The exact model isn’t known, but it’s probably something like the Hydrovane 180DS shown here on the cover of its repair manual cover. (later 1980s models of these things had rounder back ends than 70s ones) Note that there was a third Hydrovane at the back of the set, to the right of the forklift, but it’s barely visible.

Sloped grey thingies

There are a few grey sloped-sided things, made to a couple of different heights. Were these actual objects? Were they carefully designed and drawn by seasoned set designers then lovingly hand-built, bespoke, by British set craftsmen? Were they a pair of stacked slope-sided rectangular plastic tubs, turned upside-down? Will we ever know?

Shipping Crates

The crates were presumably mostly found items and not constructed for the film. The cubes with the grooved sides and round holes on each face, for example, appear to have been made of vacuformed plastic, but nobody knows what for. A British company called RS Prop Masters, which makes stormtrooper costumes, say they found one but didn't know what they were made for either. Unfortunately they never cast the crate, and it was apparently lost in a fire in 2021.

What appears to be two of these cubes, put together and painted gloss blue, formed the carrying case used by the Death Star scanning crew in Docking Bay 327. However, since the interior of the case appears to be fairly seamless it's quite likely that fibreglass castings were actually used to make the prop. The blue crates also have filled-in holes. At least two were made, since we see two stacked in the Death Star control room.

The cubes are frequently recreated for later Star Wars properties – video games, TV shows – as a kind of prop hallmark. However they often fail to recreate two details seen in the original props correctly. First, they usually get the diameter of the central hole wrong. And second, they usually make square slots for the grooved recesses. The recesses, including the one around the holes, were all curved - sort of like half-recessed cylinders.

A white painted version of the crate appears in the execrable 1980 film Saturn 3, which was partly directed by Star Wars designer John Barry. And a crate or two can be seen in split-second glimpses in the Hoth/Echo Base set in Empire.

The triangular crates, which are open on the large face, also appear in the Tosche Station set in Star Wars and in the hangar bay set in Return of the Jedi.

- There are a couple of additional ground fixtures, mostly behind the Hydrovanes, that appear to be lamps or something similar. 

Docking Bay 94, Special Edition

The set was recreated and extended vertically for the 1997 Special Edition using CGI and a (probably) miniature. This shot shows the Falcon floating out of the bay, past some cranes mounted on the upper wall. This upper section, the outer walls, and the cranes, were never built physically as sets, nor were they designed for the 1977 film.

This brief moment is arguably one of the more successful changes to the Special Edition. It fits fairly well visually (though the stormtroopers do look a bit ropey), and explains to the audience how the saucer-shaped Falcon manages to go from sitting inside an underground cylinder to rocketing off into the sky.

Docking Bay 327

The Death Star hangar bay was a large rectilinear area, supposedly open to the vacuum of space at one end. Inspired by, or copying, one of the designs in 2001: a Space Odyssey, the aperture is outlined by an enormous glowing white frame. This rounded corner rectangle is presumed to be some sort of magic force field which prevents the internal atmosphere from escaping.

The bay set had a shiny black floor, which necessitated regular polishing, marked with white chevrons pointing inward. We’ll get back to those chevrons in a moment. The walls were painted dark grey plywood flats, meant to represent some sort of metal panels. Various subpanels were applied to these walls, including many with lights and greeblies. Taking advantage of a large tank in the floor of the soundstage, a rectangular hole representing a deep open elevator shaft was built. Presumably to demonstrate subliminally to the audience how uncaring the Empire is to life, and to give a general sense of uneasy dread, no handrails were built around any of these openings.

Like the Mos Eisley bay, only half the Falcon was physically present, and the rear wall of the set was a painted backdrop. But the bay was actually supposed to represent an even bigger space. The aforementioned chevrons were painted in forced perspective. They became narrower and more tightly spaced closer to the “airlock”, and were designed to look best from the deepest end of the set. This is view is the one where we first see the bay - the scene where Darth Vader turns up, and some stormtroopers arrive by elevator.

Oddly this information seemingly wasn’t conveyed to matte artist Harrison Ellenshaw, and the matte painting used to represent the hangar bay from overhead did not reflect this false perspective and instead showed the glowing airlock aperture right up against the back of the ship. The original painting looks oddly unfinished, in fact, with rather roughly-sketched lines in the upper right corner of the screen. Perhaps they ran short of time?

Harrison Ellenshaw in front of the Death Star bay painting. You can tell the areas which aren't painted by the milky look in those parts of the image. The top of the Falcon was a photo of the effects miniature.

1977's final Docking Bay 327 matte composite, as seen in the movie.

The 1997 Special Edition replaced this matte, digitally substituting the model shot of the 1977 five foot Falcon model with a shot of either the 32 inch 1980 Falcon model or, more likely, the CGI model constructed for the Special Editions.

This newer composite is much cleaner, but replaces the unfinished right-hand area of the original painting with a wall resembling the Return of the Jedi Death Star II set, which is odd because it has lights running down to the base of the wall - lights which clearly don’t exist in the original painted backdrop still visible in other parts of the movie. Additional continuity errors introduced by this matte are the rear gantry to the left, which doubles in length, and the changed walls to the lower left of the composite shot.

Revised Special Edition bay.

The bay was surrounded by a number of chamfered doorways, some of which were actually openings leading to angled interior blind corridors for the actors, and some of which were dummies. Many set components were also recycled from other Death Star sets.

Docking Bay 327 Props

Oddly, for a working bay used to capture and detain potential miscreants, the set is filled with an assortment of barrels and crates, many of which are out in the open where ships will land. This was probably in part to make the set look busier and real, but also because a cluster of narrow barrels was used to conceal the metal rod used to prop up the Falcon set.

Crate and barrel mania! The poles to the far right are the supports for the gantry prop.

The set also has a pair of wide gantries, topped with crane-like objects, at each end. Or rather, it appears that one gantry was built and then moved to either side as required.

Extras line up for the Vader arrival scene. This shot is usually printed flipped horizontally, so I've corrected it here. The gantry is to the upper right of this photo.

The majority of the crates and barrels were probably regular commercial products in common use at the time. Many seem to be large plastic barrels for shipping industrial products or agricultural supplies or whatever, but painted to make them a bit more interesting.

3D prints

So why all this stupid level of research on the two sets? Well, basically because I decided to make 3D models of some of the props found in both of them. And for the sake of accuracy it made more sense to try and locate the original items used as sources for the props. So there they are!

Docking Bay 327 Crates and Barrels 1:350:

Docking Bay 327 Gantry.

Docking Bay 94 1:43.

Docking Bay 94 1:72.

Docking Bay 94 1:144.

Docking Bay 94 1:350.

Part III: the Lighting (the next bit)

CONTACT

If you have any corrections or comments feel free to drop a line:

millennium-falcon-notes@gmail.com

Copyright notice: This text is freely available to anybody who wants to geek out on their model plastic spaceship. Please link back to it, though.

Creative Commons model 4.