![]() The team at Elstree weren’t the only ones working on making the Falcon. “I had no clue if any of this would work,” Christian said. The prop department was then instructed to break it all down, as Christian would then use certain pieces for the interior Falcon sets. “It would be 50 pounds for a whole load,” Christian said.īack at Elstree, the prop room was completely cleared out and a giant 18-wheeler pulled right up and all the airplane scraps Christian bought were unloaded into the room. It was all sold by weight so most if was very cheap to purchase because it was light metal for airplanes. I bought 20 jet engines, a ton of cockpit gear, containers that they used to heat up food, anything I could get my hands on." ![]() “I went in and found mountains of junk,” he said. With an okay from Lucas, Christian set out to get the airplane scraps, which entailed him getting on a prop plane and flying to three different airfields that were basically airplane graveyards. “That was key to making the Millennium Falcon.” ![]() “I had the idea that if I bought scrap junk airplanes I could break it down and build the sets,” Christian said. Immediately they realized they didn’t have the space to build a full-scale set of the Millennium Falcon, so they built half of the exterior along with specific sections of the interior of the ship.Ĭhristian’s idea of the Falcon having this look of, well, as Luke Skywalker famously said in the first movie, “a piece of junk,” led him to the junkyard. So when George arrived with six paintings from Ralph that included Tatooine, Darth Vader, and the Millennium Falcon, all of it showed exactly what we were all thinking.”īy the end of 1976, “Star Wars” had found financing and the team moved to Elstree Studios in the UK to begin making the sets. “He was in the army and understood all of that and the mechanical reality of things. “Ralph is the unsung hero of this whole process,” Christian said. This would all lead to sketches by Ralph McQuarrie that were the first visuals of what “Star Wars” could become. “We used to watch 16 millimeter prints and project them at the studio, we very much related to ‘Solaris,’” Christian said, referring to the classic Andrei Tarkovsky sci-fi epic. So all we had was a communication and it just happened that my DNA matched George’s.”Ĭhristian said Lucas’ vision of “Star Wars” was a space movie that was also a “dusty western.” So for the Millennium Falcon specifically, Christian said he saw the ship having a worn-out look that was “always dripping oil and being repaired again and again.” Those thoughts would then be matched with references to the movies they would watch at night in the studio. “Flash Gordon, ‘Barbarella,’ Robby the Robot, nothing was real at all. “The difficult thing, especially with science fiction in 19, is there’s nothing to reference,” Christian said. It was around 1975 that Roger Christian began work with production designer John Barry, and art directors Norman Reynolds and Leslie Dilley, at a small studio outside of London on designs for “Star Wars.” All of them worked for a small wage George Lucas paid them out of his own pocket, as no studio had greenlit the movie yet. With Han getting his origin story, we thought this would be the perfect time to recount just how the Millennium Falcon was born through the sweat and tears of a small group of designers who, under the guidance of George Lucas, made the iconic ship for the first movie in the “Star Wars” saga, “A New Hope.”īusiness Insider spoke to Roger Christian - who was the set decorator on “A New Hope” (and won an Oscar for his work) - about the movies that inspired the space western style of the Falcon, the truckloads of airplane scraps he collected to create the interior sets of the ship, and how he crafted the famous dice that hung in the cockpit. The ship’s main highlight in "Solo" happens when Lando teams with Han and Chewbacca and they use the ship to complete what will become one of the Falcon’s most legendary adventures: the Kessel Run. In “Solo,” the ship has a slightly different look (no gap in the front of the ship, and much cleaner), but shows the traits that will make it one of the most beloved aspects of the franchise. It often indicates a user profile.īefore becoming one of the standout ships in the Rebel Alliance fleet against the Empire in the Skywalker “Star Wars” saga, it was the prize possession of card hustler Lando Calrissian. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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