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.

X-Wing

Some dreams I've had since I was an actual child came true this year, in more ways than one. I've been planning how to write about those experiences, and do justice to the amazing people who brought me there.

But in the meantime, what do I do to celebrate? Start all new projects!

I present to you a photomatched study of the Full-Scale X-Wing. The props in the photos below are from A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, respectively. The geometry matches across all three movies. Either the prop is actually the same or it followed the same blueprints between movies. My gut says that the prop for A New Hope was scrapped and rebuilt with the same blueprints on Empire, which is how the full-scale Falcon was built. Then that full-scale X-wing was reused on Return of the Jedi. In one of the photos an X-wing that is only built from the nose forward is visible, which may have also been a prop in Echo Base on Empire.

Rogue One X-Wing Comparison

So some pictures are coming out of Hollywood showing a full-scale x-wing parked outside the theater where Rogue One will be premiering. Details match the prop we've seen in trailers and behind the scenes footage. How does it look compared to its sister prop from A New Hope?

Started with a photomatch of one of the images from the hollywood prop:

This is pretty quick and dirty, and I don't think I nailed the proportions or matched the perspective perfectly, but I think this is giving me a good idea of the major planes the make up the body.

here's the same thing done with the ANH version

And here's a comparison of the two

the different colors show the major planes. ANH's nose was more complex, and most of the planes are subtly curved to meet each other at the seams. The RO version seems more streamlined. That large yellow plane across the nose is completely flat as far as I can tell. Only the orange panel with the curved edges is a complex non-planar shape.

X-Wing Cockpit Photomatch

Finally nailed it... I've been trying to get this particular photo to work as a photomatch for hmmm, maybe a year or two.

Definitive "A New Hope" Falcon Cockpit

there was probably something else I was supposed to be doing... huh... oh well.

anywhere, here are renders of a project that I started in 2010. This is the cockpit of the Falcon from ANH, warts, misaligned panels, and all. Everything in here has been stared out for countless hours, reexamined, rebuilt, fretted over, deleted, lost in data errors, rebuilt, rebuilt again for good measure.

Finished it all one afternoon a few months ago, very suddenly. I wasn't even expecting it. I added a button, and looked around and kind of just went... oh... guess I... finished it. Then went and had a bit of a lie down.

now what? Finish the rest of the interior... uh, animate the blinky lights accurately? well, anyway, enjoy.

(big credit to J Maruska, who modeled the captain/copilot bucket seats that I used, and who's own excellent Falcon work can be found here!)

Lars Family Speeder

I'd built a model of this a few years ago, but now I'm looking at it again and I see a lot that needs to be fixed.

Here's an all new version, cobbled together with photogrammetry. I estimate that the prop was around 21' in length.

and then here, just for fun, is a possible interior. Man, this was actually a lot of fun to put together. I grabbed a model of Chuck Yeager off the sketchup warehouse for the pilot, and then kitbashed components out of my model Falcon interior to round out the details and greebles.

Docking Bay 94 (WIP) part 2

Docking Bay 94 (WIP)

what a piece of junk!

This was all built in sketchup from blueprints and photogrammetry of the original sets and props.

Docking Bay 94 has become one of my holy-grails of accuracy. I'm getting there...with a few liberties. The far wall of the docking bay was flat in the filming set, both due to the limited space of the soundstage, and for budget. However that wall was subtly painted as a scenery flat to give the suggestion of a fully round bay. The set piece of the Falcon itself was also only about 3/4 complete, truncated pretty much right against that flat back wall. In order to have a fully complete Falcon, as was later created for Empire, I've had to fill in the far wall as though it were complete. Usually I like to recreate the movie sets, rather than the universe, but sometimes I sacrificed my slavish reproduction of the sets and props, and dip a toe into the realm of fantasy...

ANH Falcon Cockpit (part 2)

getting those lights to glow in the corridor was trickier than I thought it would be. It seems the crew may have shone some dim spot lights on them from the floor to get the glowing effect. Maybe... seems cumbersome but it's the only way I could achieve similar results with a physically based based render engine.

ANH Falcon Cockpit (WIP)

few more panels, and rendered a bit brighter...

Full Scale X-wing

The last X-wing I built was based on the special effects model used for filming the battle sequences for A New Hope. Now here's a completely different version, based on the full-scale prop, over 40' long and 36' wide.

They're basically very similar, it takes a sharp eye to tell the two versions of the iconic ship apart.

here's an overlay of my geometry, showing how close it is the genuine article, filmed on the Elstree Soundstage.

X-Wing

Building myself an all new X-wing from scratch. DaveG of the Replica Prop Forum posted his progress building an x-wing from a casting of one of the original models used on A New Hope.

more here

As I followed the thread, I became deeply dissatisfied with the model I'd previously built.

so here's where I'm at now

Props of A New Hope (part 3)

Next up, on the continuing project to create a model of each prop from a New Hope, Darth Vader's Light Saber.

Stared out as a flashgun for an old camera, specifically an MPP Microflash. Just a few details were added to the exterior to round it out.

and here's the collection so far