The Millenium Falcon is spacecraft that exists in the fictional Star Wars Universe. It is owned by Han Solo, and co-piloted by the Wookie¹ Chewbacca. Han often boasts that the Falcon, as it's affectionately known, is the fastest ship around. To most others it looks like a 'hunk of junk' way past its prime.

The Falcon described

The main body of the falcon is saucer shaped. From the front, two wedges protrude like mandibles. Exending from the center to both left and right are two tubes that end in docking rings. To the right of the ship (as you face the front) a tube extends from the centre of the saucer at an angle, then bends forwards to become the 'outrigger' cockpit.

The rear 'quarter' contains the engine. The upper and lower center of the 'saucer' have quad guns. The front left of the saucer has an oversized sensor rectenna.

The Falcon is shod in overlapping plates, many of which have been damanged, or replaced, leading to a patchwork effect.

The fictional history of the Falcon

The Falcon started out life as a Corellian YT-1300 freighter. It had a series of owners, before falling into the hands of Lando Calrissian, who used it as his personal ship. He then lost it in a game of sabacc* to Han.

The Falcon has been heavily modified over its lifetime and now sports illegal military weapons, powerful sensors, oversized engines and a streamlined 'hyperspace' profile that allows it to move faster through hyperspace than many other ships.

The 'real' history of the Falcon

The Falcon began life as a very different ship. The ship, instead of being 'saucer shaped' was in fact a longer ship, with a linear design. It was to have a cone shaped 'head', a huge cluster of engines at the rear, and the mid was to house a number of escape pods. However, with only a few weeks until shooting began, George Lucas rejected the design, stating that it was too similar to a Space: 1999 Eagle.

The legend states that the designers, stuck for inspiration, went to George Lucas. He waved his lunch, a hamburger with a bite taken, at them and said "Use this".

It was originally thought that the Falcon would fly in the vertical plane 'like a giant sunfish'. It would land in the horizontal plane, and the cockpit would rotate* as the ship rotated into its flying position. However Lucas liked the way the ship looked as it flew horizontally and that's the way it stayed. The rotating cockpit was also dumped by the end of the design.

The Falcon's place in Star Wars

The Falcon was always meant to be an important part of Star Wars as a lot of action takes place within, or around it.

Mark Cotta Vaz and Shinji Hata "From StarWars to Indiana Jones":

Since the Falcon figured in so much action, both as a bluescreen model effect and as a live-action prop, its importance necessitated many designs."

The Falcon was also an important ship in the fictional universe itself. It was present, and instrumental, in the destruction of both Death Stars and became somewhat of a symbol for others to follow.

The fastest ship in the galaxy?

Han often boasts of the Falcon's speed. The Falcon, though possibly the fastest freighter in the galaxy is hardly the fastest ship in the galaxy, at least at sublight speeds. In an early scene Han is confident of overtaking a lone TIE-fighter. However in many scenes the Falcon is overtaken by TIE fighters, Star-Destroyers and other ships.

Hyperspace* may be another matter. There are several modifications (possibly made by Han) that streamlines the Falcon in hyperspace allowing it to go faster than most other ships. Whether it is the fastest ship in hyperspace is subject to debate.

The Impossible Falcon

It may be strange to say this about a fictional space ship, from a fictional universe, with technology we can't understand, but the Falcon, as portrayed in the movies, is an impossible ship. This isn't speculating about whether its drive technologies are technologically possible or not, but a statement that the inside dimensions, and layout, cannot fit within the outside dimensions.

In fact the dimensions of the outside of the Falcon are in doubt altogether. A 'full size' Falcon was built and used for some external shots in both A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. Then for Return Of The Jedi, another cockpit was built, which was four times larger than the original; showing that the original set wasn't even correct.

How did this come about? Lack of time was one factor. One team of modellers worked on the full size set, another on the models, and yet another on the interiors. With little time to co-ordinate the efforst of the various teams, it's perhaps a wonder that the sets even came close to making sense.

Falcon Links

Possibly the best resource for those interested in all aspects of the Millenium Falcon is The MILLENNIUM FALCON - ship of riddles by Robert Brown.