why not stick Mickey Mouse on the front while you're at it..

Needs more lens flare. Can we fix that in post production?

*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, September 18th, 2014 2:34pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter brycewi19.

I love the Millennium Falcon... one of the greatest spaceships in sci-fi. But watching it closely, it has some stupid design flaws... all that wiring and pipes and whatnot totally exposed.

Maybe, but I seem to understand that its shields would be magnetic (or some sort of forcefield) thus making it's outer physical structure mechanical only and not protective ?

I agree, but to play devil's advocate here are two counterpoints:

1) The YT-1300 was designed as a freighter, and the Millennium Falcon only became a capable warship after pretty extensive modification by Lando and Han Solo. So, perhaps some of those flaws can be justified with "not really intended to be a combat vessel" rationale.

2) Or even ignoring that, shielding seems to be established as being much more important than armor plating around wires and pipes in the Star Wars universe. TIEs (at least the lower models) have no shielding whatsoever, and the only thing that separates them from just being pure cannon fodder is size, agility, and numbers.

But even in medium fighters that DO have shields, it seems like they at best protect against a very low number of glancing hits -- we see X and Y wings with shields go down after 1-2 hits a LOT in the movies. In that scenario, I guess there isn't a whole lot of need to slow yourself down with heavy armor plating that might let you survive another hit if you are lucky. Kinda like how modern police officers and soldiers don't wear heavy steel plate armor; they either wear kevlar (think "shields") or nothing but clothing/uniform.

So, maybe the larger ships in Star Wars stock up on shields and aren't too fussed about physically covering up systems -- once the shields are down you're pretty much toast anyway.

Well, maybe. That makes sense.

I think the Millennium Falcon's design was more about aesthetics than practicality, it was designed as the ship that didn't look like much but had it where it counts. IIRC, when they were designing the Star Wars universe they wanted to have a very dirty and used feel to it, so we get lots of open panels and exposed systems everywhere, the future is Bauhaus then I guess.

The Millennium Falcon is a perfect cross between a kid's dream fort, and a 70's teen's dream van. It's freedom, it's got cool hiding places, it has a Habitrail leading to the feaking GUNS--what more could a young man want in a vehicle?

I know I've wanted one since the first time I saw Star Wars.

that was 30 seconds of my life wasted

I don't get it. Can someone explain to me what I was just looking at?

The shape of the Batmobile from the newer Batman movies was "hidden" on the Millennium Falcon there.

Oh, that's what that is? Totally would never have recognized it.