millennium Falcon
“A piece of junk”, “Bucket of bolts”, “That thing”, and “The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy”, the Millennium Falcon always breaks down at the wrong time, yet always comes through in the end. Capable of point five past lightspeed, she made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, outran Imperial starships, escaped Imperial blockades, dodged through asteroid fields, and played a prominent role in the destruction of two Death Stars. In the words of her captain, Han Solo, “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.”
The man in the picture is Peter Meyhew who played Chewbacca in the original trilogy and again in Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens. I met him several times and can tell you he was very sociable with his fans. On a previous occasion I made the Falcon for him and took a picture with him. Unfortunately the picture didn’t come out. I was rather depressed about it but life goes on. The next time I had a chance to meet him I made another Falcon. I asked if he remembered the other one, and would he mind if I took another picture. He told me the original was at home in his display case. I can’t tell you how proud that made me.
The Falcon is another of my favorite designs. I think it has that perfect blend of simplicity and design. It’s pretty quick to fold, so when I’m asked to fold a model from my book, it’s usually the one I’ll make.
An embarrassing side note… A week before Phantom Menace opened, my local theater started selling tickets. I was standing in line with about 100 Star Wars fans, so naturally I was making my Star Wars models and giving them to whoever wanted them. Now at this point the book was years away from publication, and only a few family members even had a copy of the manuscript. There was a young boy, I’d guess 11 years old, standing in line next to me. Every time I folded something he would make some comment indicating he’d seen that before. I took this as the usual childish attitude. But after the fifth time it became annoying. So I finally turned to the boy and said, “Look, there is no way you could have seen these before. I invented them.” The boy said, “well my friend at school has them in a book”. To which I said, “Right. He has a copy of a book I haven’t published yet”. And he said, “Yeah, Andrew showed it to me”
You know that sinking feeling you get when you realize you goofed? All I could say was, “Ummm… Andrew Hogan?” I had forgotten I had given a copy to my friend’s son. So as a silent apology I asked the boy his favorite ship and made the Falcon for him.
