The Star Wars saga easily has some of the coolest starship designs in pop culture history. And we know that the majority of those ships are some pretty massive beasts. The opening shots of A New Hope were all about selling the audience on just how big these spaceships actually were, and audiences in 1977 were blown away.
But without a real world frame of reference, do we really have an idea on just how big these suckers actually are? Thanks to mechanical engineer turned VFX expert Wren Weichman of Corridor Digital (via Laughing Squid) we now have something of an idea. In the video above, Weichman illustrates exactly how huge the ships from the galaxy far, far away actually are in comparison to real world locations.
Mostly he focuses on the “bad guy” ships from the Empire, Trade Federation and the First Order. Mainly since they seem to really adhere to the “size does matter” philosophy more than the Rebellion does. Although we do find out that The Millennium Falcon is actually the size of three city buses, which is bigger than I actually thought. That’s sure to be a tight squeeze in Galaxy’s Edge!
Meanwhile, I always thought the Death Star was the size of the actual Moon. Turns out, it’s only about the size of Ireland! So when Han Solo thought it was a “small moon,” he wasn’t kidding. And even as a hardcore Star Wars fan, I don’t think I ever registered that the second Death Star was that much bigger than the original.
It would be fun to see Weichman and the folks at Corridor Digital apply this model to other sci-fi franchises. I’d love to see how big the Enterprise from Star Trek is when next to real world locations. Or even the Galactica. In the meantime, you can check out their videos at the Corridor Crew YouTube channel.
Images: Lucasfilm