ANH Falcon Back Wall Misalignment

So it's fairly well known that the back wall of the Falcon's cockpit is a little wonky in the first movie

The story goes that on ANH (left) they built it to match the specs so that in pre-production it looked like its counterpart in ESB (right), and then at some point Lucas said he wanted the cockpit to feel more cramped and some last minute adjustments were made. I'm not entirely sure I buy the official story that Lucas wanted a smaller cockpit, if for no other reason than that it doesn't actually make the cockpit that much smaller. So is it just an error in assembly that got overlooked? Maybe they had to move it from one sound stage to another and on reassembly it just got wonky? But the rest of the production is so meticulous that I don't really think that's true. So who can really say...

Either way, I wanted to show how much it changed. Here's my examination of the back wall based on photomatches overlaid with the production blueprints.

ESB Falcon interior - New Cockpit

here's another small update, working on bringing my cockpit in-line with the rest of my new photomatched interior. So far I've been able to pull in old models of the cockpit, move a few bits around, add a few bits I missed. One thing I'm seeing is that when I compare it the force awakens sets, which are basically ESB with tweaks, they really, REALLY, did their homework. Whatever else you could say about those movies, they really did the Falcon right in a way that's frankly amazing (imagine what could've been... imagine a fully redesigned Falcon-- Star Trek 2009 style. *DEEP SHUDDER OF HORROR*)

ESB Falcon Interior

Testing out Twinmotion on the ESB interior model I've been working on. Still figuring it out, lots of funky camera moves, and lighting issues, but as a quick experiment I'm pretty happy with this! I've been doing interior renders like this since at least 2012, and this process is about a thousand times quicker and more satisfying than those early version, heh. Still so much to learn, but slow and steady wins the race... right?

How's My Driving?

got into a discussion about the visibility of the Falcon's mandibles through the cockpit window. You can't see them in any of the shots in the movies, but if the camera were further forward you would be able to. Just take a look at this image from inside the cockpit of the fullscale Falcon built for Empire.

User Wavey on the RPF said that it "would be hazardous pulling out on to the interstellar highway." I came to the conclusion that the Falcon needs this bumper sticker...

oh the fun we have...

Hoth Scanner

bit of a change of pace. Working on some printable parts for Han's Hoth Scanner for a client.

Impressive... most impressive...

Built from blueprints and a photomatched matte painting.

 

 

More Falcon Cockpit Parts

it never ends

It may not look like much...

but it's got it where it counts.

This may not look a whole lot different from the last render I posted of the Falcon's ESB interior, but believe me, there's a lot of new work in there. Those two lower panels on Chewie's side are now reasonably complete. One or two greebles I had to mostly guess, but on the whole it's fairly accurate to the real deal.

only 7,048,426 parts to go!

Falcon Cockpit, ESB (part 3)

Progress has expanded into the rest of the interior....

Falcon Cockpit, ESB (part 2)

Added the volvo dashboard parts on the side panels there, photomatched in sketchup from some nice close-ups found of the same part on the sides of Han's block of frozen carbonite.

 

 

Falcon Cockpit, ESB

I seem to be converting the details on my ANH cockpit, to the ESB cockpit...

so many details. Don't I always say that?

Echo Base Rough

Just fooling around with a few models... The X-Wing, the Falcon, and all the background elements are mine, but the snowspeeders were downloaded from the sketchup warehouse for a quick preview. The space is based on the blueprints of the Elstree Sound Stage where the interior sets of Echo Base were constructed. The extended space beyond the berths (second picture right-hand) is a rough extension of the large matte paintings that were used in those areas on the sounds stage to imply a larger space.

Farewell to a nice weekend