Part I: The Miniatures

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THE MODELS

Any time you saw a flying Millennium Falcon in the Original Trilogy you were, of course, looking at a special effects miniature. In the days before computer graphics this was basically the only way to create the illusion of a flying vehicle convincingly. 

Some of the movie miniatures, such as the X-wing fighters, were indeed fairly small. But others were surprisingly large in scale, to convey a believable sense of size to the audience. For example the first Millennium Falcon model, shown above, was about five feet long. The Star Destroyer from the Empire Strikes Back was a massive eight feet long!

The Star Wars models were all built by a model-making team in the special effects company created by George Lucas for the first film; a firm that later went on to become the legendary Industrial Light and Magic.  A variety of model making techniques were used, but a particularly notable one is known as kitbashing.

KITBASHING AND FOUND HARDWARE

One of the revolutionary cinematic principles that George Lucas brought to the first Star Wars film was the notion that his universe should look used and lived-in. Up until then, science fiction films tended to feature shiny polished chrome spaceships and the like – all improbably new and clean looking. Star Wars – oil stains, broken equipment, and junk – changed everything. Since 1977, science fiction has been about space trucks and garbage scows.

Tight finances encouraged the implementation of this new vision, especially when it came to building the full-sized sets. Not only was Star Wars made on a pretty modest budget, but the early 1970s was a time of sharp economic recession in the UK, where most of the original trilogy’s live action was filmed. Scrap metal from wreckers’ yards and salvage from defunct aerospace firms was readily and cheaply available.

Roger Christian, hired by Lucas to build and decorate his sets, is generally credited with coming up with the ingenious idea of going to scrapyards, buying piles of old airplane parts and the like, stripping the parts down to interesting-looking small modules, and then applying the bits over the set in a visually logical and believable fashion. Lucas dubbed these random parts "greeblies" (sometimes shortened to "greebles").

“...there are serious disciplines involved and procedures to follow. You start with the basics, like pipes and larger pieces, and add into it in layers. Each piece has to be placed with logic behind it, as if it's a real working craft. We are asking an audience to believe they are in a craft and never to question it.”

– Roger Christian, Cinema Alchemist

The design aesthetic was quite different from the relatively simplistic geometric forms and whatnot used to adorn fictitious spaceships of the 50s and 60s. Consider the visual language of Star Trek (1965) versus the Empire Strikes Back (1980), as shown below. Kind of amazing given that a mere 15 years separated the two productions!

The set-building practice was effectively a real-world version of the “kitbashing” techniques used to build the spacecraft models. Just like the builders of the ships in 2001: a Space Odyssey, the Star Wars model makers in California bought roomfuls of plastic model kits – especially military tanks and race cars – and used the tiny plastic components as sub-elements to encrust the model spaceship surfaces.

In the photo below model makers Paul Huston and David Grell superglue greeblies to the surface of the 5 foot Millennium Falcon. Some parts are readily discernible. The beige rectangles with central holes, for example, are actually the top decks of World War II tank models. Note the rows of other kit boxes at the ready.

Such component reuse definitely happened before the pioneering model work on 2001, but that 1968 film was particularly notable for the organized fashion in which commercial kits, and even subcomponents of kits, were bought wholesale to improve the realism of a movie prop.

Kitbashing like this works partly because it yields a convincingly busy texture, but also because the model components are based on real-world objects that were designed to serve real purposes. So when you look at a model covered with this stuff you get the sense that it must all do something, even if you don't know what. Greeblies serve another practical function – they break up the surface, making it easier to conceal joins. The spaceships had to be openable in places to let the filmmakers change light bulbs and such, and having the hull joins filled with a panoply of greeblies was very handy.

The greebly-encrusted side of the Star Destroyer Avenger from the Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, as important as they were, the model kit greeblies were mostly decorative and not structural. The original five foot Falcon, for example, was built on steel tubes, basswood frames, and acrylic plastic domes. Thin styrene sheet plastic was used for the armour plating over top of the acrylic.

The first Falcon under construction, probably in late 1975. Note the precision woodworking and sharp acrylic lines. The holes around the saucer edge were presumably to lower the weight of the model.

Since the ship had to be filmed from a variety of angles, there were six different mounting points built into the model. That way a support pole could be on the side furthest away from the camera. These points were linked to the internal steel frame, making for a very heavy but sturdy structure. Removable panels and components concealed the mounting holes, such as the starboard docking ring hole in the lower right of the photo above.

A rock-solid system for mounting the ship to a stand was essential, as visible wobbling is of course a sure-fire giveaway to the audience that a model was used. But the stand was more than solid - it was also usually static. The moving shots in Star Wars were done by moving the camera, not the models. The ships could tilt or rotate on the stand if required, but it was generally the camera that did the moving around on tracks. The revolutionary aspect of Star Wars’ special effects was that computers were used to command this movement - motion control. This permitted the filmmakers to reliably and accurately reproduce motion sequences, simplifying special effects which require layered shots.

The Dykstraflex camera in action. The camera, mounted on a moving boom, was moved on a track past the stationary TIE fighter model.

Finally, and not to present too much of a hagiography, but the designers and modelmakers employed on the Original Trilogy demonstrated genuine artistry when it came to realizing their creations. In addition to conjuring up a remarkable range of fantasy spacecraft never seen before, the model makers produced miniatures that carry an elegant believability despite their vastly improbable on-screen antics. (Where are the fuel tanks to supply these massive engines? A tiny space fighter can go into hyperspace? Why have those mighty engines if you've got magic antigravity systems?) And the greeblies were one tool to make this all possible.

THOUGHTS ON GREEBLIES

Greeblies are a funny thing though. They’re certainly a matter of expediency and convenience – grab some model kits, pick out some cool thingies, and slap ’em on your model in a place that visually makes sense. The five foot Millennium Falcon also has a lot of small model decals applied all over for extra texture – many incorporating little in-jokes such as a miniscule decal reading DRIVE SAFELY (see photo below right. The white lines appear to be strips of 3M reflective tape – see the section on tape below). The modelmakers' names appear in tiny printed letters on the underside of the five footer in a few places, and the 32" Falcon has the model-builders' names handwritten all over it in pen.

But greeblies and decals aren’t things that fit terribly well with planning or replicating. The surviving Star Wars blueprints have detailed instructions for the set craftspeople, but large areas are just rectangles marked GREEBLIES to be filled in later. The Millennium Falcon model for ANH was designed very hastily to deadline when the ship plans changed (see “The Original Falcon” below), and was mainly built on the fly without a lot of blueprints or plans.

Above: the Millennium Falcon’s designer, Joe Johnston, working on the very first saucer-shaped Falcon, apparently circa late 1975 or early 76.

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, since the 5 foot Falcon model was modified during the filming of the ESB to reflect certain design changes – mainly the addition of the extra landing gear and exterior lights. And it's even more complicated in that there was actually an earlier design for the Millennium Falcon that was never used as Solo's ship in the final film. But, details, details.

The 5 foot model is shown below as Richard Edlund photographs the ANH Death Star docking sequence. Note that it’s often referred to by the original makers as the “4 foot” model, owing to the diameter of the saucer rather than the diameter plus the length of the protruding mandibles. In fact it's neither exactly 4 nor 5 feet in length — those are very much approximations. Bandai refer to it as the 1.7 metre (67 inch) model, and I've seen estimates that it's about 66 to 68 inches in length.

THE BIG DISH

As briefly mentioned above, a  somewhat larger radar dish was built for a stupendously brief appearance in Star Wars' escape from the Death Star sequence. It was pretty detailed, possessing greeblies not seen on the five foot model, so it does seem wacky that they only ever used it for that one moment in the film.

THE 32 INCHER

The 5 foot model was superdetailed and impressive in its scale. But it suffered from one significant drawback – it was big and heavy and difficult to move around. This wasn't a huge issue in the first film, which didn’t show the Falcon doing very much other than sort of flying by. There were a couple of tricky bits, such as the way it backs out of the Death Star hangar, spins midair, and rockets away (a manoeuvre that taxed the primitive mid-70s computers to their limits). But in all, the Falcon’s motions in ANH are fairly basic – approaching the viewer, banking, retreating from the viewer. And this was mostly done with motion control: the model stood still on a blue pole while the camera actually moved around it.

This general lack of mobility has some unintended amusing consequences in the first film, when a harried and pursued Han Solo exclaims, “I know a few manoeuvres!” The scene then cuts to a shot of the Falcon sort of drifting vaguely off to the left, being fired at all the while. Perhaps not the most impressive or effective sort of evasive action for a space cowboy.

On another note, you’ll be able to see darker grey patches on both models. These are areas of the primer undercoat, revealing with ghostly shadows where other parts, now broken off and long lost, were once located. Both of these photos were taken relatively recently, and show the amount of wear and tear that the miniatures have suffered over the years! This is, incidentally, in part due to the location of the parts. The hexagons were actually removable plates used to conceal side mounting points for the models, and so got more banged up than other areas.

Arguably the 32" Falcon was the start of continuity errors when it comes to the models. Nearly all the specific and recognisable greeblies differ completely, especially on the sidewalls, the 32" cockpit cone is pointier and less stubby than the 5" model’s cone, and the 32" model is subtly more slender and more streamlined. The cockpit and mandible tip shapes are probably the most significant visual differences between the two models. Incidentally, RPF member "Jaitea" has produced a helpful page for distinguishing between the two Falcons. Or, if you're interested in super-accurate model dimensions, Joshua Maruska has produced amazing plans of both the 5 foot model and the 32" model.

Since the 32" model appears on-screen mostly during fast-moving action sequences, where there’s a ton of motion blur anyway, these differences from the 5 foot model are rarely seen. But they‘re there if you freeze-frame a BluRay disc and examine the details. The shot below, for example, clearly shows that the 32" was used. The pointier cockpit, the grid-like engine casting greebly to the side of the cockpit, and the blobby spherical greebly to the lower right corner (this greebly doesn’t appear on any other version) are giveaways. It’s also missing the red and black arrow decals on the top of the cockpit.

The 32" version was the one most commonly used as a model for commercial products – toys, etc – and thus most familiar to the public. Many people have a deep emotional attachment to it, owing to posters on bedroom walls, etc. It was also the primary basis for the digital model used in the Special Editions (though the SE model also included a few features of the 5 footer), which is really a shame since it means that the digital Falcon in the SE ANH isn’t the same as the 5 footer used throughout the rest of the movie.

However, now that TFA has officially blessed the 5 foot Falcon as the basis for its digital models and physical sets, this will change for the new generation who’ll grow up all sentimental over the latest rendition of the original model!

THE TINY FALCONS

Two additional teeny tiny Falcons were built for a couple of very brief scenes in ESB. For one of the shots where the Falcon is shown clinging to the back side of the Star Destroyer bridge, a miniature version roughly 2" in size was made. This had mostly pencilled-on details and solid black windows. And for the shot where the Falcon is shown attached to the medical frigate, rather improbably via an exhaust fan, an 8" or 10" model was built. (this is a long shot of the scene, not the closeup in the picture above)

THE SAUCER SEGMENT

A section of the starboard shoulder and parts of the upper saucer were built for a very brief scene in ESB when Lando rescues Luke. It appears that it was modelled after the five foot Falcon, judging by this construction photo.

Incidentally, the scene didn't feature an actor. Instead, the Lando that appears from the hatch for a split second is actually this puppet!

MODEL COCKPITS

The 32" cockpit looks quite different internally, in addition to being too narrow and pointy in the front. It's a bit closer to the film set, and lacks the odd and inaccurate white pipes and circular greeblies on the backwall. However, it features an extra pile of black pipes in front of its console, and a dashboard top arrangement (two small side pods and one large central pod) that totally differs from the set. Interestingly, the surviving 32" model still has a figurine of Han Solo in the pilot’s seat, but his face is painted with (now peeling) brown paint, suggesting that the figurine was retrofitted to represent Lando Calrissian in ROTJ; the last time the 32" Falcon was used to film a movie sequence. No sight anywhere of Nien Nunb, though.

And if you don't remember what the full-sized movie set Falcon cockpit looked like, here's a fun picture to jog your memory. It's an unused promotional photo taken during the filming of the original 1977 Star Wars movie. It's similar to, but not exactly the same as, a promo shot that was widely used in advertising back then.Finally, neither the 5 foot nor 32" models have any glazing in the windows. This is for technical reasons. The optical compositing procedure used by ILM in those days couldn’t handle reflections, which would have shown up as holes. (ie: stars and stuff would have shone through) Accordingly the models lacked glass or plastic windows, though the exterior sets obviously were glazed. The digital models, such as the one used in TFA, have no such problems and therefore boast glazing.Speaking of TFA, in the scene toward the end of the movie where the Falcon is shown lifting up into the night sky, with Chewbacca at the helm, the fundamental scale problem between interior and exterior sets is clearly evident despite the distraction of an oddly placed spotlight. You can see how the cockpit isn’t sized to the same proportions as the normal cockpit set.

THE ENGINES

The engines and the butt end of the Falcon weren’t ever seen in the initial releases of the Original Trilogy. The models just had a panel of translucent white glass wrapped around the back, and the ship produced a wall of bluish-white light when in flight. An optical technique known as rotoscoping was used to give the impression of streams of energy pouring out. Live action scenes of the physical sets never showed the rear of the spaceship.

For the Special Edition of Star Wars, Lucas and John Knoll’s team at ILM decided that the engines should consist of a grid of rectangular holes, through which the magic spaceship energy is emitted. The engines are an almost purple-red colour initially, becoming more blue as the power increases, ultimately turning more or less white. When Fine Molds of Japan produced their first 1:72 Falcon model ILM came up with an “off state” Falcon engine design to build into their product. Finally, The Force Awakens (TFA) introduced a new, and quite different internal engine design. The grid is similar to the SE version though, annoyingly for continuity, it has wider spacing.

For more details on the engines, see part III: Lighting.

LANDING GEAR FEET

The basic landing gear design seems fairly consistent across the films. The various iterations mostly seem to be faithful replicas of the original full size set blueprints. However the underside of the landing gear feet is, as with most things Falcony, rather inconsistently portrayed in the films.

ANH

The original five foot miniature had no landing gear at all. The full size set obviously did, but the underside of the feet was just as obviously never shown. I haven't seen any photos that show much detail on the feet, but set blueprints (below) show angled blocks. These foot pads are marked as 8 1/4" from the side, and 6 1/4" from the front. Since it seems unlikely that they'd be oval in shape, this does suggest that the original blueprints indicate 12 rectangular foot pads with angled sides.

ESB

A change came with Empire, when a complete and full-sized circular Falcon was built in Britain. Since it was heavy but needed to be moved around the studio, compressed-air hoverpads were allegedly built in. These are visible in the ESB studio blueprints as circular discs or rings on the underside of each landing foot, and in some behind-the-scenes photos, such as the one below.

A set of feet was constructed for the five foot model for filming the Bespin landing scene. A cast resin foot, allegedly made during the building of the five foot ESB upgrade, was auctioned by Prop Store in 2015, and that shows a featureless flat foot (with just some bubbles from the resin casting). However, the photo below seems to show a five footer landing gear leg under construction, and a circular disc appears to be present on the underside of the foot. It also seems to suggest that the triangular notch on the angled front toe is missing from the model.

The round discs can be verified in this photo of the landing scene being shot. If you look closely there are four circular pads on the underside of each foot. However, the photo isn't detailed enough to reveal if the pads are cylindrical discs or rings.

Solo

The Solo movie clearly shows the underside of the ship’s feet in two brief moments in the movie. Both times you can see twelve square pads on the undersides. These are in keeping with the ANH blueprints.

Models

The original AMT/Ertl/MPC/Airfix Falcon kit (ANH five footer) and the Perfect Grade 1:72 Falcon (ANH five footer) by Bandai both have rectangular pads on their feet. The Fine Molds 1:72 Falcon and the De Agostini Falcon (32” ESB) both have four large circular rings with a bunch of smaller raised dots inside.

So there you have it. It's up to you, but it seems that Solo/ANH Falcon models should have 12 rectangular footpads with angled sides, whereas ESB Falcons should have four round footpads.

FIVE FOOT CHANGES

As noted above, the five foot model was altered in the late 1970s to reflect the changes to the Falcon's design for the Empire Strikes Back. This useful diagram by RPF users Jaitea and Crackerjazz demonstrates the most notable alterations made to the lower hull.

The two green areas show where the new landing gear boxes were added. The areas in red show where the newly narrowed maintenance pits were installed. (the gear boxes cover about half of the original wider maintenance pits) The areas in yellow show where the undersaucer lighting was installed. And the two blue lines represent a pair of pipes that were removed from the original ANH model.

RING RING

One raging controversy, that's resulted in countless deaths and horrendous amounts of property damage*, is whether or not the Falcon's radar dish should have a ring around its interior or not in ESB or ROTJ.

Basically, we're talking about this: during the filming of ANH, the radar dish's central cone had a raised wire ring running around it. It was held to the cone at a few points. I like it. I think it adds a little balance to the centre of the dish. But at some point after ANH, this ring vanished, and today the five foot model is ringless.

So whether you want the ring there or not is up to you. It comes down to:

Star Wars/ANH, 1977

5 foot model: ring present

Full-sized set: half Falcon built with no dish, therefore no ring

Empire Strikes Back, 1980

32" model: ring absent

5 foot model: ring seems to be absent

Full-sized set: ring present, but only visible in behind-the-scenes photos and never properly shown on screen

* okay not really.

REFLECTIVE STICKERS

For some unknown reason the five foot model, but not the 32" model, has a few strips of 3M Scotchlite reflective material on it. The strips can't be seen in any effects shot in any movie, and are only obvious when the model is photographed using an on-camera light source such as flash. The lines appear to be an original element, since ANH-era black and white photographs clearly show light-coloured rectangles where the Scotchlite is found today. Were they put there for technical reasons? The position on the edges of certain key elements on the model suggests that they were possibly used for aligning shots, but who knows?

Anyway, here's what the Falcon fan grilles looked like way back in the 1970s. You can see the pale rectangles of Scotchlite on the edges of the fan housings.

And here's what the dorsal saucer of the original five footer looks like today, when it's lit with flash. Note how the mandible tips, trailing edges of the fans, and corners of the shoulders are all clearly demarcated, suggesting they were placed there for alignment purposes.

WHAT COLOUR WAS THE FALCON?

One of the most ferocious and bloody controversies in the darkly nerdy world of Star Wars trivia is what colour the original Millennium Falcon miniatures were. There are a number of pretty well-documented points, however.

• The original 5 foot and 32 inch models were primed with black before being painted. There are making-of photos showing the model builders applying detail to black-painted Falcons.

• The five footer was painted a fairly light shade of slightly warm grey, or a very very light tan, as the base colour.

• The 32 incher, for some reason, was painted a slightly darker shade than the five footer. Having seen this version of the Falcon, I'd say it's definitely a pale tan, rather than a light grey.

• The miniatures were treated to a variety of ageing and weathering techniques, including some scratching of paint layers right down to the black primer. This is easily seen in close-up photographs of the five footer in particular.

• The weathering also affected - and definitely darkened - whatever base paint was used.

• However, the optical processes used to composite the original special effects sequences lightened and washed out the models, making them appear much whiter or greyer on-screen.

• It seems likely that the paint colours will have shifted over the years. Colour perception is also notoriously dependent on the light source, especially with subtle light colours. So the Falcon models today, as seen under exhibition lights, aren't necessarily exactly how they looked to the cameras 40 years ago.

• It appears that Floquil-brand paints were commonly used by the model makers who worked on the Original Trilogy. These were high quality and durable solvent-based paints sold to the American model railroad market, with names like "Caboose Red" and "Pullman Green". Formulations changed over the years, the original Floquil paints were famously inconsistent in colour anyway, and all Floquil products were discontinued in 2013.

• Many model makers believe that the five foot Falcon had Floquil "Reefer White" (a reefer is a refrigerator boxcar in American railroad slang) paint as its base colour and the 32 inch Falcon had Floquil "Grime" paint.

THE NOTES

Introduction

Part II: the Sets (the next bit)

Part III: the Lighting

Part IV: Conclusion

The original five foot model’s strange cockpit design

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.

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