Background -
While at Wonderfest, a conversation wandered around to "what's left" in terms of studio scale models from the Star Wars films (and by "Star Wars films", we are referring to the OT). For some reason, Captain Needa's shuttle popped up a couple of times. It's seen in exactly one shot in the film and is overshadowed by Vader's line, "Apology accepted, Captain Needa" in the next shot.
But what was it? It's was a model, not a photograph because it changes perspective. But who built it? Out of what? This is pretty much all we have to go on -
About the only thing that can be discerned from the screengrab are the reversed DV TIE wings from the same MPC kit that the TIE Bomber used.
As for what's in between the wings - impossible to tell from the screengrab. As Jason said at Wonderfest, "It could be a potato in there for all we know." Lorne Peterson and Pat McClung were of no help because neither of them could remember the model, let alone who built it. (Pat did build the Probe Droid Escape Pod in the span of a day off of a quick concept sketch by Joe Johnston, but didn't work on Needa's shuttle.) And to my knowledge, it's not in any of the photos of the mass of models that people are surrounded by in various books.
I did some additional research and came across this, a storyboard -
Cropped -
OK, not the most detailed sketch ever, but it does seem to confirm a couple of things - reversed wings and (likely) the double cylinders of the TIE Bomber. (For all we know, they could have just popped off the wings that were on the TIE Bomber, reversed them, and called it done....)
We found out at Wonderfest that Joe Johnston had a habit of updating the storyboards as the show progressed. Boards were redrawn to reflect the elements and plates that were filmed. That's why the final shots look so close to the storyboards..... hmmm. This board has an "Added 9/26/79" notation, along with another note indicating that the Star Destroyer was shot facing left to right. So, it may be that they built the thing as boarded.
The model -
Since I have a stash of DV TIE kits for another project (the Vulcan Shuttle from ST:TMP uses a lot of parts from the DV TIE), I decided to do a (hopefully) quick kitbash on the subject. I'm trying to remain true to the nature of the original, treating it as a kitbash out of available parts with nothing too fancy thrown into the mix. Due to the prices on some of the usual studio scale donor kits, I'm trying to use up other kit parts instead and save the "good stuff" for other projects that have better reference. (Hence the use of the Monogram Saturn V, not the Airfix, etc.)
The main body tubes are the third stages from a couple of Monogram Saturn V rockets -
The gray ring around the back end is a trimmed 1/48th Gemini capsule part -
Since the wings had to be reversed, I decided to sand off all of the detail off of the middle section of the wing panel, since the outside would now be the inside -
Total PITA, by the way. Should have just covered it with sheet styrene of some sort.
I'm still working on how to mount the wings to the body and all the various proportions, but this gives you an idea -
More to post soon.
Gene
PS - Jason is working on one of these too, so we may see a couple of different takes on the concept..............
While at Wonderfest, a conversation wandered around to "what's left" in terms of studio scale models from the Star Wars films (and by "Star Wars films", we are referring to the OT). For some reason, Captain Needa's shuttle popped up a couple of times. It's seen in exactly one shot in the film and is overshadowed by Vader's line, "Apology accepted, Captain Needa" in the next shot.
But what was it? It's was a model, not a photograph because it changes perspective. But who built it? Out of what? This is pretty much all we have to go on -
About the only thing that can be discerned from the screengrab are the reversed DV TIE wings from the same MPC kit that the TIE Bomber used.
As for what's in between the wings - impossible to tell from the screengrab. As Jason said at Wonderfest, "It could be a potato in there for all we know." Lorne Peterson and Pat McClung were of no help because neither of them could remember the model, let alone who built it. (Pat did build the Probe Droid Escape Pod in the span of a day off of a quick concept sketch by Joe Johnston, but didn't work on Needa's shuttle.) And to my knowledge, it's not in any of the photos of the mass of models that people are surrounded by in various books.
I did some additional research and came across this, a storyboard -
Cropped -
OK, not the most detailed sketch ever, but it does seem to confirm a couple of things - reversed wings and (likely) the double cylinders of the TIE Bomber. (For all we know, they could have just popped off the wings that were on the TIE Bomber, reversed them, and called it done....)
We found out at Wonderfest that Joe Johnston had a habit of updating the storyboards as the show progressed. Boards were redrawn to reflect the elements and plates that were filmed. That's why the final shots look so close to the storyboards..... hmmm. This board has an "Added 9/26/79" notation, along with another note indicating that the Star Destroyer was shot facing left to right. So, it may be that they built the thing as boarded.
The model -
Since I have a stash of DV TIE kits for another project (the Vulcan Shuttle from ST:TMP uses a lot of parts from the DV TIE), I decided to do a (hopefully) quick kitbash on the subject. I'm trying to remain true to the nature of the original, treating it as a kitbash out of available parts with nothing too fancy thrown into the mix. Due to the prices on some of the usual studio scale donor kits, I'm trying to use up other kit parts instead and save the "good stuff" for other projects that have better reference. (Hence the use of the Monogram Saturn V, not the Airfix, etc.)
The main body tubes are the third stages from a couple of Monogram Saturn V rockets -
The gray ring around the back end is a trimmed 1/48th Gemini capsule part -
Since the wings had to be reversed, I decided to sand off all of the detail off of the middle section of the wing panel, since the outside would now be the inside -
Total PITA, by the way. Should have just covered it with sheet styrene of some sort.
I'm still working on how to mount the wings to the body and all the various proportions, but this gives you an idea -
More to post soon.
Gene
PS - Jason is working on one of these too, so we may see a couple of different takes on the concept..............
