Has anyone else ever worried the gunner seat configuration in the Millennium Falcon?
Han clearly goes UP:
...and Luke, just as clearly goes DOWN:
But then things get trippy. As look reaches the bottom of the ladder, the gun should be below his feet:
But instead, he STANDS UP, and gravity has totally changed. The gun is now IN FRONT of him:
Likewise with Han. He is sitting in a chair, facing his gun, and Luke is clearly BEHIND him, and clearly not BELOW:
But HERE'S THE THING: see the little ledge in the ceiling of the tunnel? That is where Han and Luke we’re standing when the step onto the ladder!!!
This is some deeply confounding Carroll-esque weirdness.
I think the confounding physics of this scene are an ode to Stanley Kubrick's play with ground-plane in 2001
...but there is another aspect of confusion with the gunner seats. See how the gun on top of the Millennium Falcon is pointing back towards the incoming TIE Fighters?
But Han is on top, and we can easily see that his gun is pointing STRAIGHT UP:
Likewise, Luke's gun is pointing STRAIGHT DOWN:
Again, judging from the action we see inside the Falcon, this is a TERRIBLE configuration - these guns would only cover cones above and below the ship (Han in red, Luke in green):
...The action we see from the outside of the ship doesn't match. Still not optimal, but the guns are mounted in such a way that they allow much wider cones of fire:
...The action we see from the outside of the ship doesn't match. Still not optimal, but the guns are mounted in such a way that they allow much wider cones of fire:
...The action we see from the outside of the ship doesn't match. Still not optimal, but the guns are mounted in such a way that they allow much wider cones of fire:
Like the confounding physics, I think this goes back to George Lucas' high regard for Stanley Kubrick. Lucas told his set designer, John Barry, that he wanted the Millenium Falcon to look like a ship from Kubrick's 2001, "that had aged two hundred years."
Lucas' model maker Joe Johnson, explained that ORIGINALLY Han Solo's space ship “was supposed to look like a ship that had been assembled from other ships... George wanted it to look like it’d been hot-rodded, so we put we put bigger engines on it and stripped things off of it.”
...And again, the "Pirate Ship", that Johnson ORIGINALLY built, looked a lot like a ship from Kubrick's 2001 "that had aged two hundred years" (note the placements of the guns):
...And again, the "Pirate Ship", that Johnson ORIGINALLY built, looked a lot like a ship from Kubrick's 2001 "that had aged two hundred years" (note the placements of the guns):
...And again, the "Pirate Ship", that Johnson ORIGINALLY built, looked a lot like a ship from Kubrick's 2001 "that had aged two hundred years" (note the placements of the guns):
But on a trip to London, Lucas saw the TV show Space 1999, and became alarmed when he saw the 2001-like "Eagle" spaceship:
The "Pirate Ship" Johnson had built was the most expensive model built for Star Wars, but Lucas thought the "design was too close to Space 1999 and too conventional looking. I wanted something really off the wall, since it was the key ship in the movie."
Lucas later said he "wanted something with a lot more personality. I thought of the design on the airplane, flying back from London: a hamburger.” Some versions of this story have an olive next to the burger, but the early designs belie that.
Lucas later said he "wanted something with a lot more personality. I thought of the design on the airplane, flying back from London: a hamburger.” Some versions of this story have an olive next to the burger, but the early designs belie that.
Lucas later said he "wanted something with a lot more personality. I thought of the design on the airplane, flying back from London: a hamburger.” Some versions of this story have an olive next to the burger, but the early designs belie that.
Lucas later said he "wanted something with a lot more personality. I thought of the design on the airplane, flying back from London: a hamburger.” Some versions of this story have an olive next to the burger, but the early designs belie that.
...more likely than the olive epiphany, the Falcon's distinctive asymmetric cockpit was a utilitarian product: a LOT of time and money had been spent on the cockpit of the Pirate Ship. So it was hacked off the original model and mashed onto the hamburger.
...more likely than the olive epiphany, the Falcon's distinctive asymmetric cockpit was a utilitarian product: a LOT of time and money had been spent on the cockpit of the Pirate Ship. So it was hacked off the original model and mashed onto the hamburger.
...more likely than the olive epiphany, the Falcon's distinctive asymmetric cockpit was a utilitarian product: a LOT of time and money had been spent on the cockpit of the Pirate Ship. So it was hacked off the original model and mashed onto the hamburger.
...more likely than the olive epiphany, the Falcon's distinctive asymmetric cockpit was a utilitarian product: a LOT of time and money had been spent on the cockpit of the Pirate Ship. So it was hacked off the original model and mashed onto the hamburger.
...more likely than the olive epiphany, the Falcon's distinctive asymmetric cockpit was a utilitarian product: a LOT of time and money had been spent on the cockpit of the Pirate Ship. So it was hacked off the original model and mashed onto the hamburger.
Finally, this all seems to have happened pretty late in the game. Dykstra spent so much time developing systems to shoot the models, almost no effect shots had been done by the time principal photography was finished.
Finally, this all seems to have happened pretty late in the game. Dykstra spent so much time developing systems to shoot the models, almost no effect shots had been done by the time principal photography was finished.
Finally, this all seems to have happened pretty late in the game. Dykstra spent so much time developing systems to shoot the models, almost no effect shots had been done by the time principal photography was finished.
Because of 1999 the original Pirate ship had become, in Lucas' mind, too conventional.
...so after being pillaged for parts, the model was reworked with a new, intentionally NOT-Space 1999-looking cockpit, and it became Leia's "Blockade Runner".
And while it was only on screen for a few seconds, the more conventional Kubrick-esque ship was the first ship audiences would see in theaters 1977. (The second ship looked like nothing movie audiences had ever seen, and promptly swallowed the first.)
...But back to the configuration of the gunner seats. Look at where the guns are on this Ralph McQuarrie concept painting:
McQuarrie's gunner placement is reminiscent of the "waist guns" on a flying fortress - if a change were made to the model after an expensive set had been built, it would explain why Han and Luke are clearly across from one another rather than on top of each other.
See what I did there?
You can follow @starwarsmodern.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled:
There are a lot of misconceptions about the Turkish diaspora in Germany. Since i just finished writing an essay about this topic I thought it's time to give other people
Read more
Las mejores calculadoras online en 2020A thread http://totumat.com/2020/11/26/las-mejores-calculadoras-online-en-2020/ Cuando se estudian asignaturas que requieren de cálculos complicados, nada mejor que contar con una buena calculadora.
Read more
Mitigating #ClimateChange is as much about taking up new techs as about leaving others behindMost studies focus on #coal's global downfall but another #energy tech decline is loomingRead my new
Read more