Appendix A: The Lighting
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This page is an attempt to establish the exact lighting arrangements on the Millennium Falcon exterior set used in The Empire Strikes Back (ESB).
EMPIRE’S LIGHTS
To start, the physical set of the Falcon, as seen in the original Star Wars movie of 1977, (A New Hope or ANH) originally had no external lights. The shooting miniature had a strip of white plastic at the back that was illuminated to simulate the engines, but that was about it.
However when ESB rolled around, a complex arrangement of lights was installed on the 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. The miniatures (three were built for ESB, adding to the one built for ANH) mostly didn't have lights - with a couple of exceptions.
THE FORCE AWAKENS
The TFA Falcon appears to be mostly based on the ESB 5 foot Falcon model and blueprints/photo references of the ESB full size set. Accordingly it seems like the lighting arrangements mostly reflect the ESB versions, though there seem to be some differences, such as the mandible lights. (which are consistently red in TFA)
THE BLUEPRINTS
Conveniently, ESB’s white ventral 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 a large yellow circle below. The small ones are “single” units, and shown with a small yellow circle. The small red lights aren’t mentioned on this blueprint, and the mandible tip and prow lights are described as “to be agreed.” This blueprint is thus clearly a work in progress, and may not fully reflect the final set, but it seems pretty close. The main uncertainty is the area around the back of the ship, which wasn’t really shown in the movie. Also, I haven’t seen any photographic evidence of a light on the underside of the mandible tip, as shown in this drawing. 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 recessed large lights on the set version 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, but a) includes four large-style lights on the rear engine/landing gear housing, b) includes two extra small lights on the ventral saucer near the aft end, and c) puts two large-style lights on the underside of the mandible ends. It also doesn’t include the red lights. I don’t know if this is considered Lucasfilm canon.
COCKPIT SIDE LIGHTS
For some reason the 5 foot model cockpit, built originally for ANH and used in all three films of the Original Trilogy, has some small recessed circular areas or holes underneath the narrow grille (made from a material known as “Koolshade”) that extends around the right-hand side. The 32" model, which simply has an engraved strip instead of an actual grille, lacks these recessed areas. Here’s a view of the 5 footer cockpit with the holes around the cockpit neck.
Two of those openings were repurposed as lights on the ESB physical set. They were included on the physical set, and red lights placed behind them. The exact position can be seen in the construction photograph below. The lights can be seen lit in the 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 lacks headlights – they were added to the ESB Falcon. And generally speaking, the physical sets have red lights and the models have white lights, such as this 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?) The headlight colours magically change from white to red and back to white during the Death Star attack sequence in ROTJ. Finally, the TFA sets show mandibles with exposed round red light bulbs rather than recessed headlights.
LIGHT COLOURS
The ventral floodlights appear quite blue in ESB, but the blueprints indicate that quartz lighting was actually used, which has a warmish tungsten light, with a colour temperature of around 3200K. It’s possible that filters were installed on the floods, but it seems more likely that the movie was colour-timed to look bluer, especially for the Hoth sequences.
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. They look slightly larger than the blueprint drawing, at around 2 feet in diameter, though it’s hard to tell.
Despite being really big, these lights have no equivalent representation on any of the physical models.
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 bolts, where some of these 1-lamp units are positioned. Here’s a closeup view of the 5 footer.
However, not every location on the physical set where there’s a lamp has an equivalent lamp point on the 5 foot model. Indeed, the model was retrofitted with lamps around the fore (front) edge of the saucer, but not the aft (rear). Presumably this is because the lamps were needed for the space slug interior scene, but only from the front. The 32" model has no ventral lamp representations at all – just headlights.
1-lamp units, mandibles
The blueprints indicate two extra white floodlamps – one at the end of each mandible on the underside. (i.e.: pointing down) I haven’t seen any set photos or anything indicating that these lamps were ever installed or used.
Multiple-lamp units, rear landing gear box?
Some images suggest lamps on the ventral saucer in the large rectangular box housing the rear landing gear. The blueprints suggest 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.
Red warning lamps, docking rings
Both docking rings feature small cylindrical red lamps, encased in protective white/grey housings, on either corner near the ramp. These are mounted on the vertical wall of the docking ring. These are not on the blueprint, and have no representation on the models.
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 under the ship. They are not indicated on the blueprint, and have no representation on the models.
This edited version of the blueprint below includes some possible locations for some of these red lamps, based on screenshots and other photos. Please contribute if you can get it more accurate!
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 box - the lamps are closer to 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 an angle. These lamps are white in the space slug interior scene in ESB.
Jaws, interior
There are two lights deep inside the jaws, at the base of the mandibles. These are white on the practical ESB set.
Headlights, mandible tips
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. However, on the physical sets they were shown with red lights, which I don’t really get. What would be the point of red lights up there? Parking lights?
The physical Falcon sets for TFA and Episode VIII show protruding red bulbous light bulbs, which again makes little sense. Why wouldn’t they be recessed lights like on the previous versions of the ship? That’s the frontmost section of the ship, and some protection seems reasonable!
MYSTERY LIGHTS
In the Hoth hangar scenes in ESB, one of the port-side circular underside pits (the one closer to the tip) seems to have a small red light deep inside it. Other scenes seem to show red lights buried deep in the sidewall greeblage here and there.
In ROTJ there’s a scene where Lando and Han talk in front of the Falcon. Unfortunately it wasn’t very convincing – it just looked like they were talking front of a canvas backdrop. The painting makes the Falcon look a bit stubby, especially the cockpit, and oddly puts a white spotlight on the underside of the cockpit tube.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Were any white floodlights ever installed on the underside of the full-size set's mandibles, at the fore end?
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)
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?)
If you have any answers to these, or any other earth-shatteringly important Millennium Falcon-related information, feel free to drop me a line!
millennium-falcon-notes@gmail.com
THE NOTES