Screen Accurate Millennium Falcon Cockpit (CG Model)

I know the early johnston sketches above show the lounge in an odd position, butnone of these newer BP's use the picture from the book Star wars 365 days. The picture of the macquette of the Falcon's interior made for TESB and show the proper location of the med bay right along the port wall.

To me, the ship of riddles will always be the definitive guide of the falcon. Just wish he'd update the info with the stuff from the 365 days book.

Qrest Fourstar said:

I know the early johnston sketches above show the lounge in an odd position, butnone of these newer BP's use the picture from the book Star wars 365 days. The picture of the macquette of the Falcon's interior made for TESB and show the proper location of the med bay right along the port wall.

To me, the ship of riddles will always be the definitive guide of the falcon. Just wish he'd update the info with the stuff from the 365 days book.

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I wish the site was hosted properly... I have nightmares of it disappearing from the waybackmachine *shudders

Junk Pilot: almost all the external details are from the 5ft. with the few exceptions being taken from the full scale falcon (like the detailing I've done so far on the outside edges of the mandibles.)

If you mean the detailing on the rims of the turrets, where they meet the main hull, I haven't really put much work into that area yet. Got to get my references in order, but I will be using the 5'

thanks for the replies, folks! I always appreciate it.

SteveStarkiller said:

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I used to listen to a Star Wars dramatic eight track recording (which makes me roughly 1,000 years old) and now the line 'Docking Bay 94' keeps going round and round in my head. Fantastic stuff.

Just a little update regarding my purchase of the Millennium Falcon Haynes manual. Here's a few good (and a fair few bad) points about the book...

• 
  It's understandable that it's a manual for the Millennium Falcon and not the YT-1300 but the book also devotes a quarter of it's pages to other models of ship by CEC. It's not really a bad thing but it does mean less room for MF related content.
  
  It would have been nice to see some layouts for these other ships... even if it's just to snicker at them.
  
  After a brief operational history of the MF, there are some nice pictures of the MF including one ventral view that shows the locations of the landing lights.
  
  Next page and one thing jumps out at me... the 3/4 ventral view of the Falcon shows the landing gear deployed but the landing bay doors are still closed!
  
  The next two pages feature a 3/4 cross section and a plan view of the MF's layout... neither of which can be seen clearly because they span two pages and the binding means that the centre of the picture is obscured.
  
  The influence of the maquette from Star Wars 365 is non existent. The medical bay is not located in the main hold. Instead, it is shown as being part of the crew quarters located port aft.

I've yet to read the rest... I have looked at the purty picitures though. There's a few nice diagrams of the back wall of the cockpit. There's also some pictures of various pieces of equipment such as the hyperdrive and fuel system... and there's a picture of the computer terminal that's opposite the engine room in the ring corridor. Over all though, from what I've seen so far, I get the distinct feeling of deja vu. Non of the content (aside from the writing) seems new but I did get it 50% and it is still fun to look at. The book may be canon but for me Robert Brown's Ship of Riddles is still the definitive source of information... if only he would reappear (to much adulation) and address the 365 maquette.


The things I liked about the book

• 
  Aside from a few issues with pictures spanning the centre binding (an issue that is unavoidable), the book is well laid out. The art is crisp and clean.
  
  The illustrations of the various ships systems are gorgeous. I particularly like the crew quarters, sensor dish, loading elevator and power core & power converter.
  
  There's some pictures I've never seen before which are a treat

My criticisms may out number my the positive points in this review so I should say, frame my review with the knowledge that I'm a very critical person. What little praise I offer should carry much more weight. Perhaps I can more accurately sum up my thoughts with the following. I've read about two thirds of the book and I'm really enjoying it, I find myself smiling as I read and look at all the pictures. It was money well spent (and that's coming from someone so cheap that we I drop a penny, I bend down so fast to pick it up that it hits me on the back of the head).

On a side note. Can someone suggest a way of creating a backup of the Ship of Riddles. As I said in an earlier post, I have nightmares of it just disappearing from the wayback machine.

Hey Dr Mcninja,

thanks for the review!

checkout page 11 of the thread here. where we went in depth with the maquette of the medbays. Scoll down to where nick daring posted photos of the maquette, about half way down.

do you mind posting a photo or scan of that image of the back wall of the cockpit you mentioned? I'd like to take a gander at it.

oh, also:

and there's a picture of the computer terminal that's opposite the engine room in the ring corridor

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do you mean the location of the famous kiss? or a different location?

Dr McNinja said:

On a side note. Can someone suggest a way of creating a backup of the Ship of Riddles. As I said in an earlier post, I have nightmares of it just disappearing from the wayback machine.

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I think I have it saved as a MS Office doc files. Do you need it?

Ozzy

I got it saved, but im not sure what format its in. I also have a version im trying to put in a book format and have been replacing the vhs pictures with shots from the dvds

SteveStarkiller said:

Hey Dr Mcninja,

thanks for the review!

checkout page 11 of the thread here. where we went in depth with the maquette of the medbays. Scoll down to where nick daring posted photos of the maquette, about half way down.

do you mind posting a photo or scan of that image of the back wall of the cockpit you mentioned? I'd like to take a gander at it.

oh, also:

do you mean the location of the famous kiss? or a different location?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link Steve... I've followed this thread since it's pages could be counted on one hand so I had already read the posts you mention. As for the posting a scan/picture, fortunately the diagram (and I stress diagram rather than picture) of the back wall is at the edge of one of the pages so it should be a easy to scan but it's the middle of the night at the moment and the scanner is pretty noisy so it'll have to wait until I won't risk waking people up but consider it done.


Finally, the location of computer terminal I was referring to is actually somewhat ambiguous. Most pages of the book highlight sections of the ship, on a little plan view of the ship in the corner of the page, where the featured equipment is found. When it comes to the computer in question, three areas are highlighted, the circuitry bay where Han and Leia smooched, the area numbered "8" in the following picture and the area labelled "engineering station" (just above the number three). The smooching bay can be ruled out as the diagram is very different to all the existing canon regarding said "smooching bay", so that leaves the other two areas.



There's also a diagram of the engineering station from the engine room that I'll post. It shows the manual control for the landing claw. Also of note is a lovely clear photo of the back wall of the main hold... you can bet on me posting that! It includes a odd little chair that I don't think I've ever seen before.


If there's anything else you want from the book, just let me know.

ozzyguanche said:

I think I have it saved as a MS Office doc files. Do you need it?

Ozzy

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I would appreciate it Ozzy... the word "need" is well chosen. I'll PM you my email.

Qrest Fourstar said:

I got it saved, but im not sure what format its in. I also have a version im trying to put in a book format and have been replacing the vhs pictures with shots from the dvds

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Now that's something I'd love to see!

Now that Im back home I can check it.

The one I have saved is a word document. I've added a few extra pictures and tried to replace the VHS screen grabs with DVD screen grabs. I also scanned in the Selayana Class Blue prints since I have a copy of them. As well as my scans of the pictures of the set macquette from the 365 days book(seen earlier in this thread). I have always planned on updating the newer info and putting a footnote about the stuff but havn't gotten around to it.

ah, I see. Have I mentioned that I'm grateful to those of you who've been following this thread from....seriously almost a year ago? wow... anyway Thanks!!

can't wait to see the scans. It's pretty damned late over here too, and I should be sleeping, but instead....

on a side note, anybody recognize the little mini forklift in the background? I had thought it was a droid from the screencaps I was looking at, but one day realized it's just a plain old forklift. even has a steering-wheel... which just somehow feels out of place in star wars.

here's a picture of the real guy:

in the right hand forground, next to the crouching man.





and here again in the left-hand background. Plus, I just love this photo...

Dr McNinja said:

The influence of the maquette from Star Wars 365 is non existent. The medical bay is not located in the main hold. Instead, it is shown as being part of the crew quarters located port aft.

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Frankly, the interior maquette matches nothing seen in the films and therefore irrelevant. It was a concept model. Throughout ESB there's a solid wall there. The actual location of the medical bay is impossible. Leia walks out of a round arch indicating that the main circular corridor of the ship dead ends into the medical bay. It's not very practical.

BTW - Being the illustrator on 3 major Millennium Falcon projects (Haynes manual, 3D Owner's Guide and SW Blueprints:Ultimate Collection) I know quite a bit about the ship. There's nothing in Ship of Riddles that I don't already know.

Feel free to ask any questions, but don't assume that the people behind the manual don't take the ship very seriously. It's a labor of love to be sure. Every source was consulted (including actual set blueprints) and every compromise was carefully thought out. We're the reason Lucasfilm officially changed the length of the ship to 34.75 meters (114 ft.) when it was previously 87.6 ft.

There's a lot of new stuff in the book. We build and expand on previous reference books while fixing some issues when possible. We also made sure the publisher included some of the rarer photos from the Lucasfilm archives.

I would have liked to have included floorplans for the other YT ships (it was discussed), but as you pointed out the YT section was already taking up quite a few pages. We were working with a fixed page count and fixed budget and so I preferred to dedicate the time and space to more Falcon specific art.

Unfortunately, there's no workaround with the page gutter running through the 3/4 cross section and flat floor plans. I hate it too, but it had to be done. I was thankful that the placement worked out so the gutter only ran through the main hold and didn't disrupt many details.

PS - The 3D model of the Falcon seen in the book with the landing gear extended and doors closed is the ILM model built for the new Star Tours. There are a few issues with that model that bother me (the underside landing lights aren't all correct), but there was no way to fix them. Overall it's pretty nice though.

BTW - I love the 3D work you've done Steve! I have been following the thread, just never chimed in until now.

Falk said:

this published piece of crap? Really? I can understand if some fanboys drool over it (it's licensed! It's from the flanneled one! It must be good!)

Cheers!
Falk

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I could go down your whole list of complaints, but really it shows how little you understand the ship yourself. There have to be compromises everywhere like those front rooms (otherwise half the ship is wasted space). The films themselves give the ship all sorts of interior height issues. The lounge is actually correct. I started the floorplan with the actual interior set blueprints - adjusting where I had to so it would fit.

Our floorplan is basically a corrected version of Incredible Cross Sections. We might have changed a few things if we could have deviated more from that plan, but not much. It's a solid floorplan- at least as solid as it can be for the "ship of riddles".

I agree that Bob Brown should have been in the acknowledgements. I think we just got caught up in all the official sources that had to be thanked and forgot.

Steve's doing a great job with what he's doing but he's only copying the original sets - it's no more a workable floorplan than the one seen on film.

Feel free to ask anything and I'll tell you why things are the way they are. Believe me I know the ship VERY well (and yes we know the films too).

LOL - you are welcome Chris.

No one will ever be able to create a "true" image of how a real life Millenium Falcon would look like - it is simply impossible. Period.

Why? Simple: Both main references (for exterior issues), the original SW miniature (the 5+footer) and its replica, the variant for Empire (aka 32in model) have different proportions and details. The Elstree set decoration, though a lot larger, is a lot less detailed than those models and is everything but not life sized or accurate at all.

There is no way to fit the interior (and I mean everything, not the cargo hold only) into that shape three-dimensionally - neither as far as the proportions nor the dimensions are concerned... You found a way to throw that corridor into the disc? Fine, now tell me the height of the hull at that point. Add the gun ports and the compartments for smuggling or maintenance. Got ridiculous measurements already? Think positive: This way you do not have to bother the ceiling height of the compartments at the edge of the saucer... lol

They had the original tubular shaped pirate ship (which became the RBR eventually) in mind when they began starting set construction. There are parts of the interior (like the cargo hold or hidden sheds) which are simply too large to correlate properly with other elements like the ramp or gun ports or whatever is inside the ship (as long as it is supposed to look like the ILM miniatures from the outside)!

It is like you would try to fit a basaball into a football - and that is the reason why it is indeed called "Ship of Riddles".

Cheers,
Falk

PS: I notified my good friend Bob Brown of this thread and (although he is very bitter regarding how franchise and fandom have emerged since the mid 90's) I am possibly able to talk him into reposting the site (and maybe even updating it) if he can find a good home for it...

Hi Chris. I feel I must apologise for some my earlier post. I'm naturally a critical person... I tend to point out the flaws and neglect to mention the good things. I will edit my post to better reflect my thoughts on the book. I'm a big fan of your work and I'd hate to think that I cast it in a negative light when I get so much enjoyment from it.

Your offer to answer any questions we may have is greatly appreciated.... oh, and your picture in the back of the book really made me laugh!

[EDIT] I just wanted to address a few more things...

lonepigeon said:

Frankly, the interior maquette matches nothing seen in the films and therefore irrelevant. It was a concept model. Throughout ESB there's a solid wall there. The actual location of the medical bay is impossible. Leia walks out of a round arch indicating that the main circular corridor of the ship dead ends into the medical bay. It's not very practical.

BTW - Being the illustrator on 3 major Millennium Falcon projects (Haynes manual, 3D Owner's Guide and SW Blueprints:Ultimate Collection) I know quite a bit about the ship. There's nothing in Ship of Riddles that I don't already know.

I would have liked to have included floorplans for the other YT ships (it was discussed), but as you pointed out the YT section was already taking up quite a few pages. We were working with a fixed page count and fixed budget and so I preferred to dedicate the time and space to more Falcon specific art.

Click to expand...

You're right about the maquette not being supported by the films. If it wasn't for the height limitations, and what must be a very large piece of machinery for the sensor array; it could be said that the 365 medical bay is a CEC option that maximises rearward cargo space.

The 3D Owner's manual is brilliant. I feel like a little kid looking at it. The information about the ceilings is one of my favourite things about the book... I still keep the book in it's shipping box (when I'm not looking at it that is) for fear of damaging it or it getting dusty!

As for including floor plans of the other YT models... I would have loved to have seen that happen. I must say though, I wouldn't envy the task of coming up with a workable floor plan for the YT-2400 that fits with what little canon there is. Especially in regards to the issue of size.

Falk said:

It is like you would try to fit a basaball into a football - and that is the reason why it is indeed called "Ship of Riddles".

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Oh believe me I know every problem on that ship. I've been perfecting the current state of the official Millennium Falcon interior for the past 4 years.
It's latest state is not all that different from Bob's solution. The ship's about 30% bigger than it was. There will always be issues though

Bob's site can still be found here:
STAR WARS: The Millennium Falcon

Dr McNinja said:

You're right about the maquette not being supported by the films. If it wasn't for the height limitations, and what must be a very large piece of machinery for the sensor array; it could be said that the 365 medical bay is a CEC option that maximises rearward cargo space.

Click to expand...

It wouldn't be a bad option. It could probably be made to fit in a YT-1300 with a standard sensor suite. Maybe the next book

Dr McNinja said:

The 3D Owner's manual is brilliant. I feel like a little kid looking at it. The information about the ceilings is one of my favourite things about the book... I still keep the book in it's shipping box (when I'm not looking at it that is) for fear of damaging it or it getting dusty!

Click to expand...

Thanks! The book was a lot of fun. One of my favorite projects.

Dr McNinja said:

As for including floor plans of the other YT models... I would have loved to have seen that happen. I must say though, I wouldn't envy the task of coming up with a workable floor plan for the YT-2400 that fits with what little canon there is. Especially in regards to the issue of size.

Click to expand...

Each of the other YT's has it's own problems with interior space.
I like that the YT-2000 at least tries to accommodate the gun turrets by making the ship twice as thick as the Falcon in the middle.
The YT-2400 is fairly impossible, but it looks so darn cool. The cannons were ridiculous on that thing once scaled together with the rest of the ships. I ended up reducing them to look a little more realistic. Besides that I was happy just to be able to depict the YT-2400 accurately for the first time in a long while. The blueprints in the Essential Guide are awful. Everyone else seems to base the Outrider on early inaccurate concept art instead of the actual 3D model.

As promised, Steve. First of all, the back wall of the cockpit.


001 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr

The control panel I refereed to is at the bottom of the picture.


005 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr

The station from the engine room. [EDIT] the console isn't actually in the engine room. It can be found just outside the engine room, next to the number "3", as shown in this picture - LINK


003 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr

And, here are a few other pictures I thought you might be interested in.

First of all a nice clear shot of the computer console in the crew lounge/main hold.


004 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr

The gun turret.


002 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr

Lastly, a lovely clear picture of the back wall of the main hold. If you look closely I think Artoo is trying to order a Coke from the computer console.... the picture must have been taken back when he was drinking heavily.


006 by Dr McNinja, on Flickr