As I mentioned in my Savor the Day column, I’ve known my good friend John in the UK since the mid-1970s when we were both bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and around 18 years old. In 2019, John was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, which he continues to fight to this day.
A little while ago, John purchased a LEGO kit for the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. In order to savor the excitement, he divided the 420 instructions in the manual into 30 days of 14 instructions each. As soon as he implement’s that day’s instructions, he takes a picture and sends it to me. Sad to relate, we’ve been forced to take a brief hiatus because — two weeks ago as I pen these words — John was rushed to hospital. He’s still there as we speak, but the latest news is promising and I’m hoping it won’t be long before we hear he’s back at home.
When John does return home, my fingers are crossed that he will enjoy this video that I found on YouTube detailing what’s inside the Millennium Falcon (the real one — not the toy version):
Now, some people say that I have too much time on my hands with all the things I do, to which I would wryly chuckle under my breath whilst pointing them toward this video, which takes another look at the Millennium Falcon (when the narrator and text annotations say “Hull,” I think they mean “Hold”):
It’s funny. Although I’ve long lusted over the Millennium Falcon while watching the Star Wars movies, the two 3D animations shown above have given me a much better appreciation for this awesome beast. Having said this, given a choice, I’d prefer a model that includes a restroom, which appears to be a feature that’s sadly lacking in the case of the Millennium Falcon. I mean to say, a toilet and shower would be useful items to have on any starship, but — based on what I’ve seen — they would be a necessity if you were taking a trip on any craft with Han Solo sitting in the pilot’s seat.
Until now, one thing I still had trouble with was visualizing the difference in size between various spaceships, starships, and space structures — both from Star Wars and from other science fiction films. I know, I know… it’s not the size of your starship that matters, it’s what you do with it that counts, but still and all, it’s nice to know if you stand proud in the crowd.
So, you can only imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered this video that compares the size of various craft, starting with the Hocotate Ship from Pikmin that stands at only ~30 cm tall, and ending with a 200,000,000 km diameter Dyson Sphere and a 300,000,000 km diameter Ringworld as depicted by Larry Niven.
Along the way we see many classic craft, including Doctor Who’s TARDIS, Rick and Morty’s Space Cruiser, the Millennium Falcon (of course), Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy, Thunderbird 3 from Thunderbirds, USCSS Nostromo from Alien, the Borg Cube from Star Trek, and so on and so forth. I was also delighted to see some personal favorites, like Lexx and Red Dwarf, but a tad surprised when I realized that Jimmy Neutron’s Strato XL and Serenity from Firefly failed to make an appearance.
In fact, I now just realized that Babylon 5 is conspicuous by its absence, which is strange because a Starfury and White Star are both represented. At 8 km in length, the Babylon 5 would have been expected to appear between the Leviathan from StarCraft at ~7 km and Red Dwarf at ~10 km. Even so, the creators of this video at MetaBallStudios did an absolutely awesome job.
On the other hand… if they ever decide to release a new version, I would humbly suggest that — in addition to the missing members noted above — they also add the Liberator from Blake’s 7, the USS Voyager (NCC-74656) from Star Trek Voyager, the USS Orville from The Orville, and the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space (both from the original and the remade series).
Returning to the existing animation, I have to say that some of the ships were substantially smaller than I had supposed, while others were far larger than I had previously realized. All-in-all, this was a very thought-provoking video. How about you? Were any ships missing that you had expected to see? Also, if you were to be offered a choice of a real-world version of any of these bodacious beauties (including a “free fuel and supplies forever” credit card), which one would you choose?
Great Video. I kept finding ships I thought they’d omitted (but they were bigger than I thought). One that WAS missing (unless I missed it) was Rama from Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C Clarke).
The other thing that struck me was the insistence on aerodynamic design for most of the craft – in space where no one can hear the air whistling over the wings. Notable exceptions were (of course) the International Space Station and Discovery One from 2001, and a couple of others.
And I think those are the two I’d most like to visit. Banal, aren’t I??
I’d forgotten all about RAMA — great catch.
I wish they would have used Canadian units. The video is awesome, but now every SciFi director will be saying, “We must have the largest spaceship ever in a movie” and the producers will say, “Are you serious? You know this is ‘The Martian Returns’ don’t you?”
Imagine if they created a movie thinking they had the largest ship, and then found they’d been working in feet while other filmmakers were working in meters LOL