![]() “My intention was to cover the walls entirely like a Russian submarine. “I think that’s my best set, it took at least six weeks to dress and I love that kind of aged, real science fiction look,” he reflects. Of all the sets he decorated for the Falcon, Christian is particularly proud of the Main Hold area, featuring the holographic table where R2-D2 hilariously beats Chewbacca at an intergalactic version of chess and where Luke begins his Obi-Wan tutored lightsaber training. To be honest I prefer your way!’ So I think they were using the same techniques but they had the experience of all the films to draw on.” “He said, ‘You know, I’m doing what you did 38 years ago – but the difference is I get drawings and have to do it exactly as it’s drawn, whereas you just went ahead with scrap and laid it in organically. Intriguingly, Christian has been in touch with one of the art directors behind The Force Awakens, who compared his experience working on the iconic ship. ![]() ![]() “Apparently JJ Abrams had seen them and asked one of his assistants to go on eBay and they managed to track some down so he’s put them back in the Falcon. “I did a Reddit session recently and told them the dice story and immediately we received an email to say, ‘Go get the Vanity Fair cover now and look at it – your dice are there!’” explains Christian. However, one talented eagle-eyed fan did notice Christian’s chrome dice and as a result they’ve been incorporated into the Falcon’s cockpit for The Force Awakens. Only later did I find out that Gilbert Taylor eventually took the chrome dice down and they never got put back, so if you see the film they’re actually only in there for a couple of early shots – then they’re gone!” “I was trying to personalise the cockpit and I said to George that I noticed he put dice in Ron Howard’s car in American Graffiti, which was a hit film, so placing hanging dice in the Falcon was both to bring good luck - and because it’s Harrison Ford, and it’s exactly what Han would do,” says Christian. That personalisation included the now blink-and-you’ll-miss-it inclusion of some infamous chrome hanging dice. The exterior had to look used and pretty beaten up, and the cockpit had to be a fantasy that you felt could work.” I put in pipes and bits of dressing to try and personalise it. “It would’ve been too clean but it was a good basis. “He created the panels and switches slightly (like 2001), was done, and then I came along and fucked it all up to give it the Star Wars look!” laughs Christian. Oscar-nominated art director Harry Lange, who was behind the interiors on Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, was appointed to work on the Falcon’s cockpit. ![]() That’s how it was done in those early days.” We’d just get a package once a week and we’d look and go, ‘Oh my god this is what we gotta build!’ and we’d send back drawings. “We never met because we were on two different sides of the Atlantic and there wasn’t email. “He laughs about it now because it was literally making a hamburger into a ship!” says Christian. “I think that was great – it created a ship that had never been seen before or since and that round shape has become a very iconic kind of image,” reflects Christian.įrom McQuarrie’s painting, miniature effects illustrator and designer Joe Johnston drew further sketches and made a miniature model, enabling the design process to evolve further. ![]() Significantly, McQuarrie’s Falcon realigned that cockpit from a conventional front positioning to the rather irregular side of that “half-eaten hamburger” design. In fact, the only noticeable design aspect that was utilised from McQuarrie’s original concept was the cockpit, which derived from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress – a fighter plane used in World War Two. Production illustrator Ralph McQuarrie’s originally linear Falcon design was instead modified into the Rebels’ Blockade Runner, Tantive IV, the first ship seen entering the Star Wars universe in A New Hope. ![]()
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