The thought of messing with the design of what is probably the most beloved spaceship in all of sci-fi (apologies to the USS Enterprise) would chill the blood of most designers, but the team behind Solo: Star Wars Story, led by James Clyne, knew they had to retrofit the Falcon and so began the task of bringing to the screen a new version of the YT-1300, but one that would eventually morph into the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy that we all know and love.
Clyne spoke to StarWars.com about the process.
When James Clyne first envisioned remaking the Millennium Falcon, he pictured the ship that made the Kessel Run having its perfect and pristine hull stripped away, panel by panel, to reveal the hunk of junk beneath the shiny exterior.
The move would be a combination of movie magic and something of a parlor trick. “The way I saw it, it’s like ripping a tablecloth off, you know those magicians that rip a tablecloth off and everything is still there? All the things that we know and love about Han Solo’s ship is underneath that. That was kind of the starting off point.”
Clyne, Lucasfilm’s design supervisor for Solo: A Star Wars Story, and his team ultimately created about 60 iterations of the fastest ship in the galaxy before landing on the design that’s featured in the new film, out now. The process took Clyne back to his childhood and essentially transported the entire crew back to the 1970s to explore muscle car culture, model building, and the original concept art that inspired the creators of Star Wars in 1977.
