Just like people, ships can have a good side; on the Millennium Falcon, it's its right. “It works really well when you can see that cockpit,” says Christian Alzmann, senior art director at Industrial Light and Magic, the visual effects house that makes rocket ships rocket and lasers go pew-pew. That’s part of the reason the Falcon is oriented exactly that way on our cover this month, screaming through a dogfight that it’s either clearly winning or clearly losing—a situation Han Solo would probably recognize, if that's indeed him at the stick. (We've been sworn to secrecy.)
What's no secret is that our exclusive triple-panel December cover, custom-designed with the VFX geniuses at ILM, captures the speed and excitement at the heart of Star Wars. What people liked is still there; everything else is...enhanced. “The big change on the Falcon is that radar dish, because it was knocked off in Return of the Jedi through some of Lando’s close-quarters flying,” Alzmann says (as if you didn’t know). “As far as the rest of the Falcon goes, we had a whole crew that went up to the archives and saw the original five-foot model from Empire. So the textures are from the original, pretty much. I’m sure our artists put a lot of love into it and fixed anything they found troublesome.” Seems like it might have acquired a few new rust-spots and blaster scars, but who could tell? ILM artists call all that ductwork and detal on the exterior of ships “greeble,” and it makes Star Wars ships singular. Star Trek ships get all the unbroken curves and aerodynamic edges; Star Wars gets junk. Everyone at ILM knows when they get it wrong, as Alzmann puts it.
Just as iconic as the saucer-shaped Falcon, though, are the H-shaped TIE fighters. In Empire and Jedi those ships acquired raked-in wings and a streamlined shape, but that’s gone in The Force Awakens. The color scheme has inverted—it’s black superstructure and white panels now—but the shape is back to the classic, “like the Mini Cooper,” says Alzmann.
That leaves a lot of questions, of course. Where is this chase taking place? The planet of Jakku, probably, since that’s what we see in the trailers. That seems to be the wreckage of an Imperial Star Destroyer in the background. But...how did the Falcon get there? Why is there a fight with TIE fighters? Nobody who knows is saying. But we can answer one question: The red blaster-fire coming from the Falcon is emanating from the quad-cannon on its underside—not the one on top. That’s what you were going to ask about, right?
Millennium Falcon, TIE Fighter, and Star Destroyer © & TM Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC