October 2016
Millenium Falcon
Link to Website Index: 
Link to Website Index:
www.gengriz.co.uk
Background Image: Britain’s own “Death Star” is under construction and will soon be “fully operational”.
Have a look at my What If? pages for more imaginative models
The iconic Millenium Falcon space vessel first hit our silver screens in 1977 as a key component of the original Star Wars film trilogi. As the home of smuggler Han Solo and his colleague, the Wookie Chewbacca, it played a key part in all three of the original films, setting a new standard for film prop space ships.
After a long break, the Falcon has returned once more in this year’s Star Wars, The Force Awakens sequel, now in the hands of the scavenger Rey (and of course Chewbacca). It has seen a few changes since its last outing, most noticeably, more undercarriage legs (the original prop was apparently unstable, and had to be held up by a solid “refuelling pipe” that Han Solo leans on in the first film) and a new rectangular antenna to replace the iconic dish lost in “Return of the Jedi”
The Star Wars franchise has been incredibly popular since the very first film and has spawned a large number of Star Wars models and figures in many different scales. These tend to be quite expensive for what they are, but remain very popular.
Revell are one of the current license holders and have reissued many of their previous kits (along with some from other manufacturers) in line with the latest film. Although some of these are very expensive indeed, they also produce some very nice snap together models that are ideal for the less experienced modeller. Whilst simplified, some of these are really very nice and form a good base for a little imaginative experimentation.
This is one of those nice simplified kits. Its full recommended price (£60) is a
little difficult to accept, but it is currently available at half this from quite
a few sources. Ostensibly in 1/72 scale (the real thing seems to suffer a bit from
Tardis syndrome -
However, with a little more paint detailing and weathering, it can easily be made
to look even better. I haven’t added anything to this build -
Whilst there are other (more expensive) kits that reflect the film prop(s) more accurately, this one is quite accurate enough for me.
The kit has been released several times before, but this issue includes a new sprue section to cover the changes in the latest film. Most of the original parts remain though (but sadly, not the Han Solo and Chewbacca figures). I chose to keep the original dish antenna which looks more credible than its crude rectangular replacement which looks a little too “1940s retro” for me!
The top and bottom fuselage halves snap together, so can be split apart later if
needed -
