Friday 19 October 2012

CLASSIC IMAGE: GOODBYE TO THE FALCON?


With the original specially built full size prop of the Millennium Falcon sadly not making it into the final version of RETURN OF THE JEDI, several matte painting substitutes would help to fill in, including this one (possibly by ILM's Roberto McGrath?) for Han Solo's melancholy view of it from the command deck of the stolen Imperial Shuttle.

4 comments:

Jamie B said...

It is odd that this matte painting has been published in two books as being from TESB. I think they need someone like us working there. ;)

aficionadofan said...

Hello Jamie B! Yeah, Rinzler's was an error which he really regretted, and he said as much in one of his blogs after publication of his Making of Empire book. How the other happened, I don't know, though Rinzler has intimated from time to time on his blog that there has been the occasional misfiling of materials at the Archives over the years-a lot of it around the nineties probably- and I gather there's still lots of Classic Trilogy era boxes being sorted out since the San Francisco movie, apparently...

We'd do a brilliant job there sorting it out, I agree!

James the Reviewer said...

Wonder it did not make it into the film. Wasn't there a full sized one used in Empire though?

-James

aficionadofan said...

Hi James, a full sized prop was indeed built for EMPIRE. It was put into storage and reused for the eventually deleted sandstorm scene in JEDI. As the other Elstree soundstage for the Rebel fleet hangar bay, due to scheduling, was too small to house the massive prop, it wasn't used-hence the matte paintings. After JEDI the interior and exterior sets were junked but pieces of it went into fans collections.