Bandai 1/72 PG Millennium Falcon (also the Revell Germany rebox)

Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

kokkari said:
I don't know if I would say it's a mistake. It's the original after all. There's also plating missing behind the right docking tube corridor on the bottom. Every subsequent Falcon whether the 32 inch or the movie set was a copy therefore is mistaken IMHO.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171207/38e275d7e39a32286464567a48aaf1d6.jpg

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Click to expand...

I never ever realized there was no armor plating there! That's so awesome! Man, the things I am discovering about this miniature. It's modeling and archeology rolled into one! Since I'm modeling the studio miniature, not the fictional ship, there's no way I'm adding plating there. So glad Bandai left it off. It's easier to add the plating if you want it than it would be to scrape it away.
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

SteveStarkiller said:
Someone has got to use this model to redo that horrible matte painting Return of the Jedi...
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SHHH!!! Are you trying to rape childhoods?!?! Don't you know the Holy Trilogy must never be altered*?

(*unless by self-appointed super fans. The guy who actually made Star Wars, well, it's a sin if he changes anything in his own movies.)

;):cheers
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Hunk a Junk said:
Were they there when the model was shot in 1976-77? That's my criteria.
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Good question, and I'm confident that'll be a deciding factor for a lot of builders here. But how to make Scotchlite 3.5 times thinner. . . ?

_Personally_, I think it's some sort of registration system for compositing (does anyone here have more definitive info?). As such, I regard it like the lifting holes, mounting hardware, or motion-control rigs: necessary to use it as a miniature in our real world, but an impediment to accepting it as a real, functioning vehicle. I fell in love with the Falcon as a ship first, and a miniature later. The sense of exhilaration and wonder as a 9-year-old audience member, fooled by the different ways they performed the tricks to entertain us. . . Those are the guiding principles for my own build. I wanted SO BADLY as a kid to be able to get aboard that ship! And, of course, that desire obviously never left me.

Incidentally: does anyone here plan to build it on a blue pole, maybe even scratch building a miniature motion control mechanism? That'd be kind neat, too. . .
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Blue pole....

That's not a bad idea.

Blue pole.png
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Neverendingmods said:
Well, I might as well throw fuel on the fire: What about the Scotchlite strips on the back. . . ?
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That's a great question. What I can't figure out is, not only their purpose but, you would think the studio lights would catch the reflection and they would show up in shots.

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Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Pretty sure the tape reflects light back to the source, so you would never see the tape unless there was a light next to the camera. I have no idea why it's there, though
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Blue pole -- See? Like we saw it in "The Making of Star Wars," or "SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back," which is one of my all-time favorite filmmaking documentaries. I'm gonna do mine as "the 'real' thing," but I'd be fascinated by builds that are 180 degrees away from that!

Scotchlite -- Maybe they hit the 5-footer with light for a minute -- or with a strobe -- from a specific angle, just to line it up in a reticle, then shut it off, and made sure nothing "kicked off" the Scotchlite in the actual FX shots for compositing. . . ? Somebody here HAS to know Lorne Peterson, et al.? Moff Eaton? GKVFX? Anyone?
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

I figured it out! (probably not the first, but still cool to do some investigatory work) First, I simply googled "scotchlite in special effects" and found this article http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1439&context=article

Basically, it deals with front projection, where you project your background image onto a screen that is behind the model. The scotchlite ensures that the model is aligned with the camera and projector, therefore the model's shadow will not show up on the screen through the view of the camera.

I then grabbed my The Making of Star Wars book and found that before ILM did bluescreen, they were attempting to use front projection. Apparently it didn't work, "Back in the United States, ILM continued to work on the plates for front projection with an increasing sense of doom" (p. 182)
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

I'm not aware of the Scotchlite being used on any of the other miniatures, only the Falcon. Such reflectors are common on trucks and other commercial vehicles so I assume it was meant to be there, even if it didn't show up.

*edit* The lit up windows in the Deathstar trench model were small squares of Scotchlite.
 
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Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

JoeCS said:
I figured it out! (probably not the first, but still cool to do some investigatory work) First, I simply googled "scotchlite in special effects" and found this article http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1439&context=article

Basically, it deals with front projection, where you project your background image onto a screen that is behind the model. The scotchlite ensures that the model is aligned with the camera and projector, therefore the model's shadow will not show up on the screen through the view of the camera.

I then grabbed my The Making of Star Wars book and found that before ILM did bluescreen, they were attempting to use front projection. Apparently it didn't work, "Back in the United States, ILM continued to work on the plates for front projection with an increasing sense of doom" (p. 182)
Click to expand...


WOOHOO! Thanks! Fascinating!

I'm still gonna leave it off mine. . .
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Hunk a Junk said:
Were they there when the model was shot in 1976-77? That's my criteria.
Click to expand...

Most likely, yes. There is a series of black and white photos of the five foot model that was taken either around the time of filming of Star Wars or shortly thereafter, which shows the telltale rectangles of the Scotchlite strips. These rectangles correspond to the Scotchlite positions on the model today.

https://sites.google.com/site/millenniumfalconnotes/bandai-s-1-72-millennium-falcon
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

JoeCS said:
I figured it out! (probably not the first, but still cool to do some investigatory work) First, I simply googled "scotchlite in special effects" and found this article http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1439&context=article

Basically, it deals with front projection, where you project your background image onto a screen that is behind the model. The scotchlite ensures that the model is aligned with the camera and projector, therefore the model's shadow will not show up on the screen through the view of the camera.

I then grabbed my The Making of Star Wars book and found that before ILM did bluescreen, they were attempting to use front projection. Apparently it didn't work, "Back in the United States, ILM continued to work on the plates for front projection with an increasing sense of doom" (p. 182)
Click to expand...

The big success of the front projection in 2001's Dawn of Man scenes possibly seemed the way to go??

J
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

SteveStarkiller said:
that is completely awesome! what scale figures are those? 28mm? Some of my calculations lead me to wonder if that could be an approximate scale. Your paint job is great too!

Someone has got to use this model to redo that horrible matte painting in Return of the Jedi...
Click to expand...

Many Thanks sir! The figures are from way too many Fine Molds 1/72 Falcon build ups! They are slightly larger than the 1/72 figures Bandai provided for the kit.
 
Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

Jaitea said:
The big success of the front projection in 2001's Dawn of Man scenes possibly seemed the way to go??

J
Click to expand...

A lot of ILM's work was building off what Trumball and his team did on 2001 and Silent Running. We have to remember that blue screen compositing technology at the time had big limitations. Watch Hitchcock's The Birds to see a ton of bad blue screen composites with thick black lines around objects. Early ILMers were constantly working to try to minimize the black lines around spaceships, usually by printing the ships at a lower opacity -- which is why we could sometimes see stars through spaceships or have transparent snowspeeders. The original lightsaber effect also used Scotchlite on the blades, so it makes sense that they were experimenting to see what new tricks might work.
 

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Re: Bandai 1/72 Millennium Falcon

SteveStarkiller said:
there's no straight answer to that one, and we could (and have) go on for PAGES on the subject, heh. But for my money, and this is just my opinion, that set was never meant to be under-scale. between the ramp and the cockpit, I think that's what the ship was supposed to look like. The reason it gets scaled up is to get the interior set to fit, but that causes problems for both the interior and the exterior. The point is, we were never ever supposed to think about it this much.

the long and short of it is that if I make any figures to stand next to this model, I don't want them to look like they're the size of children compared to the ramp (see my previous diagram). It's just not what is on screen...
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fair enough, I was just curious

Captain Han Solo said:
This model is so beautiful, it lends itself to the Diorama treatment!

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/923/3vidZx.jpg
Click to expand...

SteveStarkiller said:
that is completely awesome! what scale figures are those? 28mm? Some of my calculations lead me to wonder if that could be an approximate scale. Your paint job is great too!

Someone has got to use this model to redo that horrible matte painting in Return of the Jedi...
Click to expand...

They are the Fine Molds "1/72" figures he used. The Fine Molds figures are a bit beefier and a little taller than Bandai's figures. I wonder if Bandai's figures are actually are on the small side for 1/72

Also the FM ones are one fairly thick stands which can add a little more to the height

Here is a comparison of sizes

The Stormtrooper and Boba are Fine Molds, Darth and the Tie pilot are Bandai's




Leia and the pilot holding the helmet are Fine Molds, the rest are Bandai



It hard to see unless you zoom in, but look at the size difference between the Fine Mold's Vader (unpainted on the right) and the Bandai one


Here is the Fine Molds Leia with the Luke from the MPC/AMT/ERTL Action Cantina set. The figures in that are supposed to be 1/72
Leia doesn't look as large as she does compared to the Bandai figures

 

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