Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars" (1977)

Scale: 1:72
Initial Release: 1979
Medium: Styrene
Kit Rarity: 3

About the Design

Although at first glance it resembles a familiar flying saucer, the Millennium Falcon is actually shaped like no other spacecraft in movie history. Originally, the Falcon was going to be a traditional "linear" spacecraft (i.e., cockpit, fuselage, engine block), but this early configuration was ultimately rejected by George Lucas who then used the design -- with slight modifications -- for his Rebel Blockade Runner.

When his designers were unable to devise an acceptable substitute, Mr. Lucas purportedly bit into a hamburger, showed the result to his artists, and said, "Try this."  This (likely apocryphal) lunchroom inspiration led to this "saucer-plus-mandibles" design with its cockpit and radar dish placed oddly off-center.  (Purportedly, the Falcon was originally supposed to fly edge-wise like a sunfish and the cockpit would rotate accordingly, an ability ultimately given to the B-Wing fighter featured in "Return of the Jedi.".) 

About the Kit

This MPC kit was a second-generation "Star Wars" model released subsequent to the the company's success of the X-Wing Fighter, R2-D2, C-3PO, Darth Vader, and Darth Vader TIE Fighter kits. Large and nicely detailed (albeit technically inaccurate), it was re-released in the 1990s by AMT/Ertl as a Cut-Away that allowed you to look into the ship's  impossible-to-accurately-reproduce interior.

The kit was re-released again in early 2005 with new box art to coincide with the May 2005 release of "Star Wars - Episode III - Revenge of the Sith."

This model was built from an original 1979 issue.