The Force Awakens Millennium Falcon Projects

Not to be a naysayer on this but i still don't think that the toe in is enough on the Bandai.

I also thing that the outside of the mandibles doesn't quite sit right with the saucer. It's too skinny for my tastes. Now, this might be because the transmission pieces don't seem quite right (which might be the case for the epi 7 version)

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Falcon dimensions in TFA -


I agree that the sidewalls do seem short in the shots we've seen of TFA so far. But I can't spot any obvious dimensional changes compared to the 5-footer. My theory is that the dimensions are the same but it's the details & conditions making the difference.


Maybe they deepened the recession of the (5-footer-size) sidewalls for detailing reasons. Or maybe the additional greeblies & weathering just makes it look deeper/darker. We might be visually perceiving the sidewalls as being shorter just because of that.



Also, we are totally unused to seeing the 5-footer's shape under these conditions. Broad sunlight, in action, in super-high resolution? Not in the OT.

The OT mostly featured the Falcon in space or in hangars. The soundstage scenes were necessarily keeping the lower & sides of the ship pretty well lit, for the actor scenes. The Mos Eisley scene was on a soundstage even if it was supposed to be sunlit from above. The Bespin landing pad scene was done in the Hoth hangar and it was heavily matte painted.

The ILM model space footage was lit pretty globally rather than suggest any specific light source, in order to keep the fast-moving ships easy to see. If half the Falcon had been in shadow at any given time it would have gotten difficult to follow the action. (Remember the abandoned early plan for the TIE fighters to be red?)
 
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Not to be a naysayer on this but i still don't think that the toe in is enough on the Bandai.

I also thing that the outside of the mandibles doesn't quite sit right with the saucer. It's too skinny for my tastes. Now, this might be because the transmission pieces don't seem quite right (which might be the case for the epi 7 version)

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But on the positive side, we all know how the construction of the Bandai kits go together,...I'd say if the toe in is not to your taste the mandibles would likely be separate units anyway....the real problem with all the kits released to this day is the thickness of the ship, which effects the curvature, which effects the side-wall height

Every (official) kit so far has had issues with that fundamental issue,....thankfully we don't need to worry about it with the Bandai

J
 
Yes looks like Bandai captured the curvature -- even at 1/144 it shows so that's really something. And the mandibles do look like they are detachable. I can see that the Wankels that don't wankle out too much, giving the illusion that the mandibles don't align well with the hull. Or maybe that's how they look on the CGI one? Still, this 1/44 looks like a true-blue Falcon!!!

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If I can get my hands on one, my desire will be to swap dishes with a 1/144 FM kit so I can have an ANH version (even if the dish diameter is too small). Either that or wait for somebody to do a proper one for the kit on Shapeways.
 
That Falcon from the trailer never convinced me. I noticed immediately that it was CG rendered. The entire image is CG. I would bet everything that a motion controlled miniature would deliver a better outcome. Just my opinion.
 
That Falcon from the trailer never convinced me. I noticed immediately that it was CG rendered. The entire image is CG. I would bet everything that a motion controlled miniature would deliver a better outcome. Just my opinion.


Are we defining "better outcome" by how closely it matches reality? Or how closely it matches the OT look?


If we had a real life shot of a flying Falcon for comparison then I would bet the CGI shot looks closer than any model shot.

But whether the CGI shot's realism pleases us more than a top-notch model . . . that is a different question.
 
A visual effects shouldn't tell you that it is indeed an effect or seem artifical. CGI looks too clean or better too sterile. I guess it's how light is reflected on surfaces. A physical model looks real because reflections are natural and not rendered. It is like some informations get lost during rendering which than affects the overall look of the model. As long as you notice that an image is rendered with a computer the effect gets lost. That sequence with the falcon looks like a video game intro. That's not cinema or a good representation of reality. It looks fake. The mistake is in my opinion that the entire image is CGI. A good choice would be a physical model with some digital correction to improve the final result.
 
A visual effects shouldn't tell you that it is indeed an effect or seem artifical. CGI looks too clean or better too sterile. I guess it's how light is reflected on surfaces. A physical model looks real because reflections are natural and not rendered. It is like some informations get lost during rendering which than affects the overall look of the model. As long as you notice that an image is rendered with a computer the effect gets lost. That sequence with the falcon looks like a video game intro. That's not cinema or a good representation of reality. It looks fake. The mistake is in my opinion that the entire image is CGI. A good choice would be a physical model with some digital correction to improve the final result.


The TFA trailer Falcon looks the way we are used to CGI looking. But is that inaccurate, or just what we think is the "CGI look"? I'm not sure.

I have seen some airshows and a few vehicle stunts & explosions being done live. More than once I have found myself thinking, "It almost looks like a CG effect!" Think about the implications of that. Maybe (the best) CGI work is closer to reality than we think but it fails to fit our mistaken expectations.



Do the X-wings in the TFA teaser flying over the water look better than the Falcon? I thought so at first. But maybe it's because they are something we can relate better to. Water, spray, moderate lighting, smaller ships that match our human expectations, etc.


The new Falcon is 1.5x the size of the OT Falcon exteriors. It would cover 2/3rds of a hockey rink now. The Falcon is not a fighter jet, it's more like an airliner that moves like a fighter. My point is that in most of the flying footage the ship is much bigger & farther away than we probably subconsciously assume.

Remember the popular still image from the trailer where the Falcon is just closing in on the blasting TIE fighters? The Falcon's engines are probably never less than 50-75 feet away from the camera in that "closeup". This is relevant because the image of the ship should look "hazier" than we might think just because of that distance. There is also the effect of all the sand & dust being kicked up by the Falcon's engines in that whole scene.
 
That's my point, right there.

That model shot does look more tangible and less video-game-y than the CGI trailer Falcon. But it's not more accurate to real life than the trailer shot, it's just more accurate to our expectations for a flying ship from the OT.



Of course this is not a strictly fair comparison. Not even close. ILM would have that model shot looking a whole lot better. Weathering, detailing, etc.

But you can look at that shot right now and see the issue I'm driving at.
 
Ok,...so this is where I'm at with the FineMolds 72nd,....as I said earlier the Foamalux is the part thats keeping her fat

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ESB landing gear bays will be removable
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At the minute the Mandibles slot in
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I tested the cockpit tube & right enough it points down slightly as Hunk a Junk had experenced
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Thats it at the minute,....the next part will be re-attiching the docking corridors

J
 
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Looking good! This brings back nightmares. Just wait. Putting the boxes back on and matching the new curve is a pain in the seat cushion!
 
Would you remove the additional TESB landing gear boxes?

That would depend on if I can only get one or two of the kits. If it is just one, probably not. Two... I might have a go at it (unless Bandai perhaps molds the gear boxes separate anticipating that an ANH version of the ship would be done eventually).
 
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