50 Fun Facts About Star Wars Ships and Vehicles

The Millennium Falcon's first design was scrapped for resembling the Eagle ships of which TV series?

Space: 1999: its Eagle Transporters looked too much like the long-bodied first Falcon, so Lucas ordered a late redesign and the finished model was reworked into a different ship.

The Millennium Falcon's round hull is said to have been modelled on which food?

A hamburger: the story goes that its designers wanted something other than a plain flying saucer, so the hull became a burger with a bite taken out and the offset cockpit an olive on the side.

Han Solo boasts that the Millennium Falcon made which run in less than twelve parsecs?

The Kessel Run: a parsec measures distance, not time, so the boast is about surviving a shorter, riskier route, which Solo: A Star Wars Story shows Han flying to slip an Imperial blockade.

The Millennium Falcon's greenhouse-style cockpit was likely inspired by which aircraft?

The B-29 Superfortress: the bomber's dome of windows closely matches the Falcon's cockpit, and the ship's filming model was detailed with parts taken from plastic model kits.

In The Force Awakens, on which desert planet does Rey steal the Millennium Falcon?

Jakku: the freighter had been stolen from Han Solo years earlier and passed from thief to thief before ending up under a tarp in junk dealer Unkar Plutt's yard.

In which game did Han Solo win the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian?

Sabacc: Lando cheated his way through their first game with a hidden card, so Han lifted it before the rematch and won the ship.

Which rival podracer does Anakin Skywalker beat to win the Boonta Eve Classic?

Sebulba: the Dug sabotages Anakin's engine before the start, yet it is his own podracer that ends the race wrecked in the sand.

What do X-wing pilots lock in attack position before a battle?

S-foils: the wings split into the X that names the fighter only for combat, spreading the four wingtip laser cannons for a wider field of fire.

In the first Star Wars script, what colour was Luke's X-wing squadron before it became Red?

Blue: the blue markings on the models would have vanished against the screen they were filmed in front of, so the squadron turned Red, though the novelisation kept the old name.

What footage did George Lucas's editors use as placeholders while ILM finished the X-wing shots?

World War II dogfights: Lucas taped air battles from war films and cut them into a reel, and ILM then planned its spaceship shots to match the way the planes moved.

Luke Skywalker's X-wing sinks into a swamp on which planet in The Empire Strikes Back?

Dagobah: Luke gives up trying to lift the fighter with the Force and calls it impossible, so Yoda raises it from the water himself.

The X-wing's ancestor, the ARC-170, debuts in which film?

Revenge of the Sith: clone pilots fly the ARC-170s as loyal escorts in the opening battle, then turn their guns on Jedi Master Plo Koon when Order 66 comes.

Ben Burtt mixed a car on wet pavement with which animal's call to make the TIE fighter's scream?

An elephant: the blended shriek became the fighter's signature, and the saga's lore later called it deliberate, a howl the Empire wanted its enemies to fear.

What does TIE stand for in the name of the Empire's TIE fighter?

Twin ion engine: the solar-panel wings power the pair of engines, and leaving out shields and life support keeps the little fighter light and nimble.

In The Empire Strikes Back, which twin-hulled Imperial craft hunt the Millennium Falcon through the asteroid field?

TIE bombers: the twin-pod design was drawn for the first film as a boarding craft and shelved, and ILM's model makers nicknamed the finished ship the "double chili dog".

Which Imperial official commissioned the original TIE fighter, according to canon lore?

Grand Moff Tarkin: he told Sienar Fleet Systems to make the fighter fast, cheap and easy to mass-produce, because ships and pilots alike were meant to be expendable.

Why does the basic TIE fighter lack a hyperdrive, besides weight and cost?

To discourage defection: a pilot who can't jump to lightspeed stays dependent on the fleet that launched him, which is just what the Empire's planners intended.

Which TIE variant does Darth Vader fly in the Death Star trench in A New Hope?

The TIE Advanced: unlike the standard fighters he leads, Vader's bent-wing prototype has the shields and hyperdrive that the Empire denied its ordinary pilots.

In Return of the Jedi, Jabba the Hutt rides his sail barge out to feed his prisoners to which creature?

The Sarlacc: the execution backfires when R2-D2 fires Luke his lightsaber, and it is Boba Fett who ends up swallowed while the barge is blown apart.

Which scavengers roam Tatooine in giant treaded sandcrawlers?

Jawas: the sandcrawlers were built as mining vehicles and abandoned on Tatooine when the mines failed, so the little scavengers moved in and made them rolling homes.

Whose flagship, the Invisible Hand, do Obi-Wan and Anakin crash-land on Coruscant?

General Grievous: he flees in an escape pod, leaving the two Jedi to bring down what is left of his ship after it breaks in two.

Which Super Star Destroyer is Darth Vader's flagship in The Empire Strikes Back?

The Executor: aboard it Vader strangles Admiral Ozzel for his clumsy attack on Hoth and promotes Captain Piett to admiral on the spot.

What finally destroys Vader's flagship at the Battle of Endor?

An A-wing crashes into its bridge: with the shields down, Arvel Crynyd's stricken fighter ploughs into the command deck, and the leaderless giant drifts into the second Death Star.

Whose command ship did the Return of the Jedi crew nickname the "pickle ship"?

Admiral Ackbar: his knobbly cruiser Home One was built as a civilian deep-space explorer and only later armoured for war.

A Lambda-class Imperial shuttle from Star Wars makes a cameo in the pilot of which other sci-fi series?

Firefly: the shuttle from Return of the Jedi can be glimpsed lifting off in a corner of the frame as Inara's own shuttle docks with Serenity.

The Rebel frigate modelled on an outboard motor serves as what in The Empire Strikes Back?

Hospital ship: Luke is fitted with a mechanical hand aboard the medical frigate, then watches from its window as the Falcon sets off to find Han.

Boba Fett's ship was based on which object, according to its designer, despite the popular street-lamp story?

A radar dish: Nilo Rodis-Jamero says the street-lamp tale began only once the model was being built, when someone at ILM spotted the likeness and everyone assumed he had copied it.

Which bounty hunter flies Slave I against Obi-Wan Kenobi in Attack of the Clones?

Jango Fett: his son Boba inherits the ship, and in 2021 Lego dropped its name for plain "Boba Fett's Starship", saying Disney no longer wanted it used.

What pulls Count Dooku's ship along as he flees Geonosis at the end of Attack of the Clones?

A solar sail: the count's Geonosian sloop carries no fuel at all, riding instead on a huge sail that gathers its energy from space.

Which military aircraft inspired the Naboo Royal Cruiser, blown up at the start of Attack of the Clones?

The B-2 Spirit: the flying-wing cruiser lands safely on Coruscant, then is blown apart by a bomb meant for Padmé that kills the decoy who had taken her place.

Doug Chiang drew on 1950s hood ornaments to design which sleek ship in The Phantom Menace?

Queen Amidala's royal starship: it needs a new hyperdrive part after running the blockade, which forces the stop on Tatooine where the Jedi find young Anakin.

In The Phantom Menace, the Trade Federation landing ship's final design was based on which insect?

A dragonfly: early sketches looked like airships, and Lucas approved the winged version because it reminded him of an old biplane.

Which giant First Order ship serves as Snoke's mobile capital in The Last Jedi?

The Supremacy: 60 km from tip to tip, it can dock eight Star Destroyers at once, yet one cruiser hitting it at lightspeed slices it in two.

Which Resistance flagship does Vice Admiral Holdo fly through Snoke's fleet at lightspeed in The Last Jedi?

The Raddus: it began as the New Republic's Dawn of Tranquility, was retired under disarmament treaties, and took its new name from the admiral who died at Scarif.

Which Star Wars Rebels character owns and pilots the freighter Ghost?

Hera Syndulla: she named the ship for the way it slips past Imperial sensors unseen, and it stayed her rebel crew's home base for more than a decade.

In Rogue One, which small Rebel ship shoves one Star Destroyer into another above Scarif?

A Hammerhead corvette: it pushes a crippled Star Destroyer into its neighbour, and the wreckage smashes the shield gate so the Death Star plans can be beamed out.

What is the centrepiece weapon of the Imperial Interdictor in Star Wars Rebels?

Gravity well projectors: the four domes fake the pull of a planet and drag passing ships out of hyperspace, which is how the Empire springs its blockades.

After the Razor Crest is destroyed, which rebuilt starfighter becomes Din Djarin's new ship?

A Naboo N-1: mechanic Peli Motto offers the old relic in place of his lost gunship, and the two rebuild it together into a faster machine that wins over the doubtful Mandalorian.

Which Star Wars Rebel fighter has a cockpit that stays level while its whole body rotates around it?

The B-wing: the rotating cockpit was first sketched for the Millennium Falcon and dropped, then revived years later for this Return of the Jedi fighter.

Which port's cranes does George Lucas deny inspired the AT-AT?

Oakland: the cranes stand across the bay from ILM's old offices, but Lucas told a local reporter the tale "is definitely a myth", and the walkers' animator Phil Tippett agreed.

Which two-legged Imperial walker, nicknamed the "chicken walker", patrols the forest moon in Return of the Jedi?

The AT-ST: built to guard the flanks of the giant four-legged walkers, it proves easy prey in the forest, where one is hijacked by a Wookiee and two Ewoks.

What do Rebel snowspeeders wrap around the legs of the AT-AT walkers on Hoth?

Tow cables: the walkers' armour shrugs off blaster fire, so Wedge Antilles and his gunner harpoon one, circle its legs until it topples, then shoot the exposed neck.

Which Return of the Jedi sequence was filmed at walking pace?

Bike chase: Steadicam's inventor walked a Californian forest shooting under one frame a second, so at normal speed the trunks flash past the speeder bikes in a blur.

A three-wheeled Bond Bug car was hidden beneath which Star Wars vehicle?

Luke's landspeeder: the little British three-wheeler's wheels were hidden behind mirrors angled at the sand, so the car seemed to float above the desert.

Why does the Death Star have its equatorial trench?

Colin Cantwell's station was meant to be a perfect sphere; the countdown buzz comes from Flash Gordon serials.

Which weak point do Rebel pilots target to destroy the first Death Star?

A thermal exhaust port: Rogue One later revealed the flaw was no accident but sabotage, built in by the station's own reluctant designer, Galen Erso.

On which world is the hidden Rebel base that the first Death Star arrives to destroy?

Yavin 4: the Rebels hid in an ancient jungle temple there, but a homing device planted on the Falcon led the Death Star straight to them.

Which Corellian corvette opens A New Hope, fleeing Vader's Star Destroyer?

The Tantive IV: its model was built to be the Millennium Falcon, then given a new cockpit and recast as Princess Leia's ship when the Falcon was redesigned.

Who flies beside Han Solo as the Millennium Falcon's co-pilot in the original trilogy?

Chewbacca: the two meet in Solo when Han is thrown into a pit to be fed to "the Beast", talks to him in his own language, and breaks out with him instead.

What call sign does Luke Skywalker fly under in the attack on the first Death Star?

Red Five: the victory he won under that call sign became year zero of the saga's calendar, which dates every other event as before or after the battle.