Part III: the Lighting

This page tries to establish the exact arrangement of lights built into the Millennium Falcon. It's a bit of a fool's errand, of course, because all the different iterations of the Falcon over the years - miniatures, sets, paintings, and CGI models - have had different lighting configurations.

But to summarize, here's my theorized lighting diagram, based on the original full-sized set blueprint of the exterior set used in The Empire Strikes Back (ESB). A popular version of the ship.

Now, it's probably not 100% accurate, and it certainly differs from other people's theorized lighting diagrams. This is in large part because the final set that was constructed in England in 1979 differs in places from the published blueprints. For example, the small red warning lights were not depicted. Because we only have screen shots and low-resolution behind the scenes snaps to go on, there's a lot of guesswork as to where all the lights were actually installed. Making things particularly difficult is the fact that basically none of the photos were shot square-on, as it were. The light positions on the models were also different.

Still, I think this is reasonably close to the filmed reality. Now let's dive down the rabbit hole of all the variants in the different films and Falcon representations!

STAR WARS

The first physical set of the Falcon, constructed for the original Star Wars movie of 1977, (retitled Star Wars: A New Hope or ANH in 1981) actually had no external lights of any kind.

The Death Star hangar set had some yellow-orange lights on the floor which illuminated the underside of the saucer, giving the impression of hull lighting in some scenes, but these lights weren't built into the Falcon itself. Studio lighting was also placed inside the boarding ramp to illuminate it, but the shadows (see below) clearly show the lamps were on the floor; not on the ramp’s ceiling like on Empire’s Falcon set.

The Falcon in Star Wars had no exterior lights built in. The yellowish areas are actually floor lights reflecting off the hull.

The 5 foot shooting miniature had no lamps or spotlights either. Instead it simply had a curved strip of milky white glass for a rear engine. Tungsten halogens behind the glass simulated the energy jets, and a small light bulb in the cockpit was used to backlight the interior wall, and the control panel pods had LEDs in them. That was as far as the miniature went for lighting – more on that later.

EMPIRE’S LIGHTS

However when ESB rolled around, a complex arrangement of lights was installed on the new full-sized set built in England. Most of these lights were located on the underside (the ventral section) of the saucer-shaped hull, but some were put elsewhere.

Of the four special effects miniatures (three were built for ESB, and the five footer built for ANH was reused), the five footer was retrofitted with ventral lights and headlights, the 32" model was built with engine lights and headlights, the 10 inch ship had engine lights, and the tiny 2 incher had no lights at all.

The underside of the Falcon in Empire was covered in lights.

THE FORCE AWAKENS (TFA)

The TFA digital Falcon seems to be based mainly on the ESB 5 foot Falcon model, and blueprints/photo references of the ESB full size set. Accordingly the lighting arrangements reflect the ESB versions, though there are some differences, such as the mandible lights (which are consistently red in TFA).

Incidentally, the TFA scene below, using a CGI model, depicts the landing lights winking out in a semi-random sequence rather than switching off in one go. So that’s another layer of stuff to implement for you completists out there!

THE BLUEPRINTS

Conveniently, ESB’s white ventral (underside) lights are documented in a blueprint reproduced in the book Star Wars: the Blueprints by J. W. Rinzler. The blueprints, drawn on 30 March 1979 by draftsman Richard Dawking, contain these helpful notes:

Lighting: Use 1000 watt quartz floods. 7 3/4 inches diameter. All lighting positions to be separately wired and to have dimmers fitted. Lamps set in 6" from clad face & housed in asbestos pipes. Full lighting under all undercarriage (sic).

The two large lights on either side of the ramp are described as “4 lamp” units, and are marked with large circles in the blueprint. The small ones are “single” units. The small red lights aren’t mentioned on this blueprint, and the mandible tip and prow lights are described as “to be agreed.” Other fun points – the landing gear wells are marked "Full lighting above all undercarriages", and the cockpit is marked, "Lighting inside cockpit."

This blueprint is thus clearly a work in progress, and does not fully reflect the final set used in the movie. One main difference involves the underside of the mandible tips  — no lights were installed in the finished set. And one area of uncertainty is the big boxy section at the back underside of the ship, which wasn’t shown clearly in the movie. Note also that the drawing indicates “repeat lighting opposite,” indicating that it’s intended to be symmetrical.

Some of the smaller light positions correspond to small squarish panels with centrally-located lamps on the 5 foot model. However, the large recessed lights on either side of the docking rings on the full-sized set have no obvious corresponding aperture on either the 5 foot or the 32" models.

The Haynes Millennium Falcon Workshop Owners Manual (2011) also has a possible lighting diagram. It’s similar to the ESB blueprints with some changes.

And there seem to be four notable errors with the underside shot in the Haynes book. It shows the lights on the underside mandible end, it shows a group of four lights between the rear landing gear struts, it includes two extra small lights on the ventral saucer at the aft end, and most bizarrely it shows the landing gear in a down position even though the landing gear doors are firmly closed! Oops.

COCKPIT SIDE LIGHTS

The 5 foot model cockpit, built originally for ANH and used in all three films of the Original Trilogy, has around nine small recessed circular areas or holes underneath the narrow grille (made from a fine window screen material known as “Koolshade”) that extends around the right-hand side. They might have been installed for aesthetic reasons, but it also seems quite probable that they were there for airflow reasons - to cool the hot incandescent internal cockpit light. The 32" model, which simply has an engraved solid strip instead of an actual grille, lacks these holes.

Here’s a view of the 5 footer cockpit with some of the holes around the cockpit neck visible. The holes are distributed evenly around the full length of the grille from top to bottom, but aren't visible from some angles because of the Koolshade bars. They're thus omitted by almost all reproductions of the Falcon model! (the Bandai Perfect Grade 1:72, first edition, is an exception and has both etched metal and plastic parts to simulate this mesh)

Two of those openings were used as red lights on the ESB physical set. Their position can be seen highlighted in the construction photograph below, though note that they are not in precisely the same location on the cockpit tube as the miniature! The full-sized holes are slightly lower. The lights can be seen lit in the second photo in the next section.

HEADLIGHTS

Headlights are a particularly messy subject, since the movies are notoriously inconsistent about the headlights mounted at the tip of the front mandibles. To start, the ANH Falcon set and model lacked headlights – the feature was added to the ESB Falcon. And generally speaking, the physical sets have red lights and the models have white lights, such as this ESB shot of the 5 foot model. But this isn't universal.

In fact, the hangar view of the ESB Falcon exterior set sometimes seems to show a left/port mandible with a white light and a right/starboard mandible with a red light. (as shown below – to which I say, what the hell?) Maybe one of the coloured gels fell off the left side. Or something. Anyway – more about headlights later.

LIGHT COLOURS

The ventral floodlights appear quite blue in ESB. However the blueprints indicate that quartz lighting was actually used, which has a warmish tungsten light – a colour temperature of around 3200K. It’s possible that blue filters were installed on the floods, but it seems more likely that the movie footage was colour-timed (adjusted) in the lab to look bluer and colder, especially the Hoth hangar sequences.

The photos above and below, which were taken during filming and aren't screenshots, have lamps with the slightly warm colour temperature you’d expect from quartz lights. And, unlike the movie, the whole scenes aren't tinted blue, lending credence to the quartz light theory.

THE LIGHTS

4-lamp white floods, near docking rings

There are four large diameter white floodlights on the ventral saucer, located to either side of the docking rings. They’re described in the full-size blueprints as “4 lamp units”, since they contain four 1000 watt quartz lamps. If the blueprint and its notations are correct, they scale out to 19 1/2 inches.

They appear as holes cut into the plywood that represents the hull plates, though the lamps are deeply recessed – the light sources aren’t actually visible from any angle used in filming. They look slightly larger than the blueprint drawing in ESB set photos like the one below, at around 2 feet in diameter, though it’s hard to tell.

In TFA these large spotlights learn a totally wacky new trick when steam or smoke is seen venting from two of them, shortly after the Falcon lands at Maz Kanata’s castle. Which really makes zero sense, given what the lamps look like in other films and scenes. The leaked photos from the Episode VIII set seem to show that the spotlights simply have sheets of material, presumably translucent plastic, inset into the holes. (ie: they’re quite shallow compared to the ESB versions)

Despite being quite big, these lights have no equivalent representation on any of the physical models. It’s like the holes magically disappear when the ship is in motion.

1-lamp units, ventral saucer

A series of smaller white floodlamps, described in the blueprints as being 7 3/4" in diameter, are arranged around the perimeter of the ventral saucer. The blueprints also describe them as containing 1000 watt lamps.

On the sets they seem to be recessed holes cut into the plywood skin, as above. However, the 5 foot model was equipped with small squarish panels and simulated bolts, where some of these 1-lamp units are positioned. Here’s a closeup view of the 5 footer. Note that the model lamp housing is underscale compared to the physical sets.

However, not every location on the physical set that has a lamp has an equivalent lamp point on the 5 foot model. Indeed, the miniature was retrofitted with lamps around the fore (front) edge of the saucer, with two at the aft (rear). Though oddly the four large undersaucer lamps were never included in the model. The 32" model has no ventral lamp representations at all – just mandible tip headlights. Though these are in the middle of the mandible tips, not offset towards the centre as on the 5 footer and physical sets, creating another 32" continuity error.

1-lamp units, mandible tips

The blueprints indicate two extra white floodlamps – one at the tip of each mandible on the underside, pointing down. However I’ve never seen any evidence that they were installed. This behind-the-scenes photo, in addition to offering fine possibilities for uproariously hilarious pieces of indecorous ribaldry, clearly shows there are no light fixtures there, either lit or unlit.

Multiple-lamp units, rear landing gear box?

Some images suggest there were lamps on the ventral saucer, in the large rectangular box housing the rear landing gear. The blueprints do show two pairs of 1-lamp units towards the back of the box, one on either side close to the landing gear. There are no physical representations of this on either model. So this is another mystery area.

Red warning lamps, docking rings

Both docking rings feature small round red lamps, encased in protective white/grey perforated housings which look suspiciously like PVC rooftop sewage pipe vents. They're mounted on the vertical wall of the docking ring, on either corner near the ramp. These are not on the blueprint, and have no representation on the models. The one to the right of this image is the lamp that C-3PO's head later slams into when he's carried aboard the Falcon on Chewbacca's back. For some bizarre reason these lights can be seen lit when the Falcon is in flight in some scenes of TFA.

Some hobbyists building Falcon models like to put additional red lights on the flat vertical discs of these features for some reason. I have no idea why, since such lights don’t appear on any movie set or model that I’ve ever seen.

Red warning lamps, ventral

There are identical red lamps with housings scattered on the underside of the ship, perhaps as sort of warning lights for people walking underneath. They are not indicated on the blueprint, and have no representation on the models. It's very difficult to know exactly where all these lights were installed, since it isn't straightforward figuring out angles from the photographic resources that we have.

Note that photos of the sets seem to suggest that two of the lights in front of the two frontal landing gear boxes are not positioned symmetrically – one appears to be slightly closer to the landing gear (ie: away from the edge of the landing gear box) than the other. The photo below is a useful resource, though note that one of the red lights is off - perhaps its bulb was burned out during this take. Also, the frontmost red lights are on the saucer and not the landing gear box wall, whereas the rearmost red lights are on the gear box wall and not the saucer (see the photo at the top for this).

Red warning lamps, front landing gear box

There are two red warning lamps on the front edge of the frontmost landing gear box. Note that these lights are not located within the two ring-like greeblies commonly depicted on this structure - the lamps are on the flat planes by the edges.

Jaws, lower front edge

The box-like jaws which extend between the mandibles have two lights on the lower jaw, underside, facing forward at a downward-pointing angle. These lamps are white in the space slug interior scene in ESB. At least on the model. The fixtures appear to be completely absent in the full-size ESB Falcon set (they're missing below).

Jaws, interior

There are two lights deep inside the jaws, at the base of the mandibles. These are white on the practical ESB set, and are visible when Han lounges around looking cool on his spaceship.

Headlights, mandible tips

As noted earlier, the two mandibles have headlights on their tips. Sometimes these are shown as white lights in model versions of the Falcon, which makes a lot of sense to me, as they’d function as, well, headlights. In ESB and ROTJ they are thus used mostly when the Falcon is flying inside something (eg: space slug cave), rather than travelling through open space.

However, on the physical sets they were also shown with red lights. So maybe they're supposed to function as parking lights when the ship is parked. But who knows? After all, the headlight colours magically change from white to red and back to white during the Death Star II attack sequence in ROTJ.

On the other hand, the physical Falcon sets for TFA and TLJ show protruding red bulbous light bulbs, which again makes little sense as well as looking like 1960s Christmas lights. Why wouldn’t they be recessed lights like on the previous versions of the ship? That’s the frontmost section of the vehicle, and some protection from impact seems like a good idea! I guess it's semi-consistent with the ESB set, which shows more protruding lights (albeit more cylindrical in shape rather than round) at this location.

I suppose at least they're consistently red in the new films. But the weird thing is that they even seem to be lit red during a lot of the flying-through-space scenes in TFA. Oh well. In the Last Jedi the front lights seem to be red lights when parked and white lights in flight.

RAMP CEILING LIGHTING

The boarding ramp interior is another aspect of the ship that changed from film to film. Here's a brief summary, though for more details I have an entire page on the subject of the ramp, which includes blueprints.

Star Wars/ANH (1977)

This ramp appears to have had a plain ceiling with no overhead lighting. The only lights that are part of the set itself are the small indicator lamps built into the ramp walls.

The set blueprints show nothing on the ceiling other than the note “clad with selected purchased rubber flooring as on ramp”. The top bit of ceiling is briefly visible during the “Chewie get us outta here!” and “it’s lucky you had these compartments” scenes, and it’s just a dark grey surface unadorned by lights or greeblies.

In both scenes where the ramp interior is visible (the external Falcon set for the hangar scene and the internal corridor/hold Falcon set for the hidden compartment scene), the ramp is side-lit and not top-lit. The angle of the shadows clearly shows that studio lamps on stands were used, not ceiling lights. See the Death Star hangar photo at the very top of the page.

ESB (1980)

Both movie footage (the space slug gut and Bespin arrival sequences) and behind the scenes photos clearly show three separate pools of light illuminating the ramp. Other behind the scenes photos show pairs of overhead lights, though none show the whole ceiling.

From this information it’s reasonable to infer that the set had six working ceiling lights in three pairs.

TFA (2015).

This film set was similar to the ESB set, only behind the scenes shots clearly show eight ceiling lights rather than six. Also, the two walls on either side of the ramp are mirrored, whereas each wall was detailed differently in ANH.

Finally, in the deleted sandstorm scene from ROTJ, there seems to be a new red light on the underside of the cockpit tube. (the other two lights are the standard double-red cockpit tube side lights)

THE ENGINES

A big decision you need to make, when building a model of the Millennium Falcon, is what you want the engine to look like. Basically that amounts to which movie piques your interest, and what compromises are acceptable to you.

THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY

All versions of the Millennium Falcon shown in the Original Trilogy (ANH, ESB, ROTJ) had really boring back engines. Probably. Basically, we never really saw them on-screen. The five foot (shown below) and 32" models had plain milky-white diffuser panels, through which bright white light shone. A fiery glow, with the slightest hint of light blue around the edges, was added optically in post-production.

At least one pre-production sketch by Joe Johnston shows a Falcon engine strip with vanes, possibly directional, but as far as I know these were never built into any movie model.

No information was given as to what the engine behind the grid looked like, however. Most modellers have simply stuck some diffusing material behind the grid to spread the glow of light. Some model kits of the Falcon, starting with the Fine Molds 1:72 model of 2005, have depicted an arrangement of bricklike blocks behind the grid. This bricklike design, with a series of rounded-corner rectangular openings, was reportedly designed by Lucasfilm at Fine Molds' request.

None of the physical filming models of the Original Trilogy were re-filmed as part of the Special Edition footage, and so none were retrofitted to include a new engine design.

THE FORCE AWAKENS

The grid design made another appearance in the TFA digital Falcon, which was reused for TLJ. However, the engine grid is now made of two sections. The outer section is a plain rectangular grid, but with wider spacing for no readily apparent reason, with only 45-46 rectangular openings. A new inner section, which differs significantly from the Fine Molds model design, consists of a series of curved boxes with diagonal struts, and produces light of a paler cyan blue. The video game Star Wars Battlefront seems to show the same basic design.

Because of this movie a lot of modellers nowadays use blue LEDs to light their Falcon engine models. I personally think this looks a bit wrong, since the movie engines are pale blue to white, and blue LEDs are pretty bright blue. That said, this engine design has grown on me. I think the wider grid spacing looks a bit better than the SE narrow grid spacing.

TFA VARIANT

As part of the marketing of TFA, Lucasfilm/Disney constructed a promotional physical model of the Falcon. It was built using digital assets, and was never used as a shooting model. This is usually called the “Launch Bay” Falcon, since it was used in a Disneyland Star Wars tourist attraction of that name. This “Launch Bay” Falcon appears to have the engine design seen in TFA, but the outer rectilinear grid is simply missing and looks kind of bad. Strange.

THE BELLY CANNON

Finally, a really minor point that has nothing to do with lighting is the mini cannon that pops out from a hatch on the underside of the hull in ESB and kills a few troopers. No - not the question of how Han managed to aim the gun so precisely from inside the cockpit without any obvious form of sighting mechanism. (maybe it was a Dark Star-like sentient weapon!) 

However, there are some people on the Interwebs who are convinced that the belly gun footage was filmed for ANH, never used, and then thriftily recycled and edited into ESB.

I’m not sure where this myth comes from. After all, it's completely clear that the belly cannon footage in Empire was filmed for Empire.

As you can see, there is an undersaucer red light and two white lights, right there in the frame. Those lights simply didn't exist on the ANH film set Falcon, as documented above. If that's not enough evidence, you can actually see the edge of the Hoth hangar set in the sequence. And this wasn't some sort of special edition change, since the same lights and Hoth set are visible in scans of the original 1980 35mm film release. Case closed.

In fact, no footage from ANH was ever reused in ESB. At least one idea was - the jokey concept of R2-D2 plugging into a power socket and getting zapped by mistake. But no actual film footage. This differs from Jedi, which cheaply reuses a couple seconds of the Death Star firing sequence from Star Wars.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Does anyone have any official references as to the location of the red warning lights on the ventral saucer of the ESB full-size set? (e.g.: blueprints, better photo references than screen grabs, etc)

Does anyone have any references for the actual and final locations of the white ventral saucer lights at the aft section of the ESB full-size ship? (i.e.: are the blueprints correct, bar the underside mandible tip lamps which were never installed?)

Why didn't the art directors of TFA try to smooth out some of the continuity issues rather than introduce new ones? Wah.

If you have any answers to these questions, or any other earth-shatteringly important Millennium Falcon-related information, feel free to drop me a line!

millennium-falcon-notes@gmail.com

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Eaglemoss. A kit of LEDs for De Agostini Falcon modellers. Includes a map showing theorized light locations which differs slightly from my version.

A discussion about lighting on the RPF.

A discussion on the De Agostini fora related to lighting.

A discussion on making a TFA-style double grid engine on the RPF.

THE NOTES

Part IV: Conclusion (the next section)

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.