What scale is the 5 foot Millennium Falcon?
- Thread starter zeus1138
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The reason why is because the interior sets are all we have to identify actual scale of objects. If you know that a man is 6 foot tall and he stands next to a wall... you can pretty accurately tell the wall height from that known measurement. And since the sets were made to be inside the falcon itself it would stand to reason that you would use those sets to give an accurate measurement of the falcon itself. The whole treehouse thing is a farce simply because it's a cartoon. They never intended for it to be reality, however, they actually built these sets in reality and can be measured accordingly!
Like nobody ever stood near/under the Falcon's exterior in the OT?
There's a shot in the Hoth hangar where Han is standing on the ship, perched in between the front mandibles. No way would that look the same with a 114' Falcon. That's one example.
I agree the interiors deserve the greater priority in the case of the Falcon. But I just don't think it should be 100% and 0%. IMO they should have compromised a little on the interiors too. Even with a 114' exterior, the interiors still don't really fit like they appear in the movie. It's not like the 114' figure made everything fall into place beautifully but 104' would have ruined it.
I think the only measurement that really pegs the interiors to exactly 114' size is the cockpit tube diameter. And the details of the soundstage cockpit weren't exactly fixed in stone. They thought nothing of enlarging it 18" deeper for ESB without even doing any exterior shape changes. George Lucas wasn't happy about that change because he had wanted the cockpit looking SMALLER if anything, like a cramped workhorse WWII bomber.
The 114' cockpit size of the soundstage set in ANH was already a visible reduction in the size of the cockpit from the original 1/24-ish-size ILM model. Right from day one there was some limit on how big they wanted that ship to be.
There's a shot in the Hoth hangar where Han is standing on the ship, perched in between the front mandibles. No way would that look the same with a 114' Falcon. That's one example.
I agree the interiors deserve the greater priority in the case of the Falcon. But I just don't think it should be 100% and 0%. IMO they should have compromised a little on the interiors too. Even with a 114' exterior, the interiors still don't really fit like they appear in the movie. It's not like the 114' figure made everything fall into place beautifully but 104' would have ruined it.
I think the only measurement that really pegs the interiors to exactly 114' size is the cockpit tube diameter. And the details of the soundstage cockpit weren't exactly fixed in stone. They thought nothing of enlarging it 18" deeper for ESB without even doing any exterior shape changes. George Lucas wasn't happy about that change because he had wanted the cockpit looking SMALLER if anything, like a cramped workhorse WWII bomber.
The 114' cockpit size of the soundstage set in ANH was already a visible reduction in the size of the cockpit from the original 1/24-ish-size ILM model. Right from day one there was some limit on how big they wanted that ship to be.
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Jaitea
Master Member
I did a resize of that scene,.....reduced the size of Han,....& used alternative footage of Chewie
[video=vimeo;71841727]https://vimeo.com/71841727[/video]
J
rbeach84
Sr Member
J, nice touch 'fixing' the turret gun!
BB, the main point is that if a modeler wishes to establish a scale for a 'non-real' object, it is up to their judgement - in short, it is a personal matter! And please take the time to read Rob Brown's entire dissertation on the MF so you have his take on this issue firmly in hand. If nothing else, it is an entertaining read. If you want to split hairs, the modeler can even decide to build a miniature of the exterior sets as well as a depiction of the filming miniature, if they like - or a mix of it all! But it may be healthier if we all just took in a viewing of 'Hardware Wars' & biased our SW modeling accordingly!
Regards, Robert
BB, the main point is that if a modeler wishes to establish a scale for a 'non-real' object, it is up to their judgement - in short, it is a personal matter! And please take the time to read Rob Brown's entire dissertation on the MF so you have his take on this issue firmly in hand. If nothing else, it is an entertaining read. If you want to split hairs, the modeler can even decide to build a miniature of the exterior sets as well as a depiction of the filming miniature, if they like - or a mix of it all! But it may be healthier if we all just took in a viewing of 'Hardware Wars' & biased our SW modeling accordingly!
Regards, Robert
Vacformedhero
Sr Member
agreed , also for many scenes a totally separate cockpit on a gimbal was built so even scene to scene your looking at a different scale
and let's not forget
.......resolve the inside and outside dimensions of this , and poor R2 getting decapitated to fly
- - - Updated - - -
Also it's not just 3/4 scale it's also built proportionally biased to the camera (like lord of the rings) and distant rebel troopers were crew children dressed in the same garb , all in camera deception
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That enlargement of the Falcon in the ESB footage actually turns out a lot better than I thought. The difference is visible but not terribly obvious. Not in those shots.
But I think the enlargement would probably be more visible in a shot that resembled the ANH scenes, where we see the whole ship & actors walking around underneath the right side. Those shots are much more burned into our memories.
Some people might notice a change in Ep#7 but not be able to put their finger on exactly what it is. They might think the actors look "too small" next to the ship, or the ship might seem too high off the ground, etc.
But I think the enlargement would probably be more visible in a shot that resembled the ANH scenes, where we see the whole ship & actors walking around underneath the right side. Those shots are much more burned into our memories.
Some people might notice a change in Ep#7 but not be able to put their finger on exactly what it is. They might think the actors look "too small" next to the ship, or the ship might seem too high off the ground, etc.
Agreed - that resize does look great. The differences are subtle.
But it also proves the absurdity of trying to figure the "real size", using the model and interior sets. They really just don't jive very well. As I said earlier, VALID arguments can go any way you want to "justify" your position. Pick a theory you like and run with it.
Peace,
Jedi Dade
But it also proves the absurdity of trying to figure the "real size", using the model and interior sets. They really just don't jive very well. As I said earlier, VALID arguments can go any way you want to "justify" your position. Pick a theory you like and run with it.
Peace,
Jedi Dade
Studio Kitbash
Sr Member
Just reposting this from another thread, in case it helps shed any light...
The Millennium Falcon is NOT 1/24 scale.
It is much closer to 1/21 scale.
I'm proceeding with my build by working off the assumption that the model is specifically and precisely 1/20.5 scale. My logic and math are as follows:
Per scalecalcultor.com, using the radar dish at 6" on the five-footer which is 43.4mm on the Bandai 1/72 Perfect Grade Falcon, this works out to being precisely 1/20.5 scale
What this means, in absolutely super-simple terms, is that to derive any measurement, you would simply take the Bandai Measurement and then multiply it by 3.51152. (This comes with a caveat, however: Bandai did knowingly "cheat" some areas of the Falcon by resizing certain greeblies to make them fit onto the hull they had created, so while their bird is a "perfect replica" it's not actually a digital scan recreation of the original, but rather a digital scan of the original that was then converted into some "standardizable" units, which typically meant they balanced out any left/right or front/back asymmetries.
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The Millennium Falcon is NOT 1/24 scale.
It is much closer to 1/21 scale.
I'm proceeding with my build by working off the assumption that the model is specifically and precisely 1/20.5 scale. My logic and math are as follows:
Per scalecalcultor.com, using the radar dish at 6" on the five-footer which is 43.4mm on the Bandai 1/72 Perfect Grade Falcon, this works out to being precisely 1/20.5 scale
What this means, in absolutely super-simple terms, is that to derive any measurement, you would simply take the Bandai Measurement and then multiply it by 3.51152. (This comes with a caveat, however: Bandai did knowingly "cheat" some areas of the Falcon by resizing certain greeblies to make them fit onto the hull they had created, so while their bird is a "perfect replica" it's not actually a digital scan recreation of the original, but rather a digital scan of the original that was then converted into some "standardizable" units, which typically meant they balanced out any left/right or front/back asymmetries.
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