1. The interior set is built separately than the model, and I doubt full scale models were even made of the exterior. So making assumptions based on this horrible evidence is a terrible idea and proves nothing.

Yes, but we also have exterior shots (along with clear pictures of the model used in the movie) that confirm what the interior shots show. The model had a pilot included, and you can clearly see that there isn't much space in the cockpit. So there's probably a bit of inconsistency between the two, but it's between "much smaller than the FFG model" and "much smaller than the FFG model, but just a tiny bit larger than the other option".

And of course the ONLY place where the larger size is given is in EU sources where someone just declared "it's this long". You will not find any evidence for the larger a-wing in any of the movies (whether on-screen or by looking at the models/sets/etc).

Do people think they're too big or too small?

They're indisputably too small based on what we see in the movies and pictures of the models used in those movies. Scaling it based on the size of the pilot/cockpit the a-wing should be about the size of the front "wedge" section of the y-wing. Most likely what happened was that FFG decided that a true-scale a-wing would be too small to be a practical model and increased the size.

There was a whole thread on this a while back. FFG consults with Lucasfilm to get the sizes right, so the sizes they have are canonically correct. The tiny A-wings are from one painted backdrop for RotJ where the painter wasn't given any scale information and thus that backdrop scalewise isn't even consistent with the rest of the film. There are some rather big errors with the Falcon too, I'm pretty sure.

Do people think they're too big or too small?

They're indisputably too small based on what we see in the movies and pictures of the models used in those movies. Scaling it based on the size of the pilot/cockpit the a-wing should be about the size of the front "wedge" section of the y-wing. Most likely what happened was that FFG decided that a true-scale a-wing would be too small to be a practical model and increased the size.

There was a whole thread on this a while back. FFG consults with Lucasfilm to get the sizes right, so the sizes they have are canonically correct. The tiny A-wings are from one painted backdrop for RotJ where the painter wasn't given any scale information and thus that backdrop scalewise isn't even consistent with the rest of the film. There are some rather big errors with the Falcon too, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, just watching A New Hope, it's quite obvious that the Falcon is way bigger on the inside than the model looks.

Yeah, just watching A New Hope, it's quite obvious that the Falcon is way bigger on the inside than the model looks.

Aye, that's true of most such things in films (and older computer games) I reckon.

So to summarize, the two sides of the debate appear to be:

Empire: "LFL says it's this size, therefore it is. And it's an awesome mini."

Rebels: "Kazimir Malevich can say that Black Square is actually a yellow circle, that doesn't make it so. The films are the canon. It's still an awesome mini though."

I'm in the latter camp (hence the names), but we have to live in peace, or we'll have nobody to play with.

The A-wing did always strike me as big, but FFG's stance has been study the filming models for scale where they exist and they've been fairly devoted to getting things right. Look at the HWK: accurate to images and models but completely defies what many of the EU's RPG sourcebooks say about it. I'll have to look into this A-wing matter further: pretty sure Youtube has a complete Battle of Endor where I can find a filming model shot.

In terms of armarda there's a technical limit on how small they can make the a-wing and still have it look right, in terms of x-wing they made it off the measurements they were given, Lucas arts had final say now Disney do ffg has no real choice on what scale they use.

The A-wing did always strike me as big, but FFG's stance has been study the filming models for scale where they exist and they've been fairly devoted to getting things right. Look at the HWK: accurate to images and models but completely defies what many of the EU's RPG sourcebooks say about it. I'll have to look into this A-wing matter further: pretty sure Youtube has a complete Battle of Endor where I can find a filming model shot.

Thank god it defies the sources too, since the source is essentially one William C. Deitz.

Really the whole argument breaks down to this.

Either LFL has the correct size listed in their canon sources, or they don't. Either way FFG had to go with what LFL says is canon, so no matter what the movies may or may not show. The size FFG had to use was 9.6m.

But based on those pictures Tie Pilot posted, it looks like the A-Wing is a lot bigger then some people think.

Really the whole argument breaks down to this.

Either LFL has the correct size listed in their canon sources, or they don't. Either way FFG had to go with what LFL says is canon, so no matter what the movies may or may not show. The size FFG had to use was 9.6m.

But based on those pictures Tie Pilot posted, it looks like the A-Wing is a lot bigger then some people think.

It is. But the real problem is just how big the cockpit is, and how tiny it was in the incredible cross sections book.

I mean just look at this thing. This is comparable to an ETA-2 Actis interceptor in size. It's tiny.

But the real problem is just how big the cockpit is, and how tiny it was in the incredible cross sections book.

What it really comes down to is this. We expect a movie, novel or even artwork to be authoritative to the degree a blueprint would be for building a F-14 Tomcat.

FFG goes on film models rather than EU. I'd say their A-wing matches the film models.

FFG goes on film models rather than EU.

The A-Wing in this game is a scale 9.6m I checked it last time this came up and that's how big all the ones I have are.

That is the size LFL lists in a number of sources, sources where are considered canon. The whole argument really is that LFL has the size wrong based on footage from the movie, or other sources, such as the size of the cockpit... So it becomes a question of what is the official or canon size? The size LFL lists or the size based on a model or image someone found somewhere.

I have to say once again, based on the 3 images from the movie you posted, the A-Wing is bigger then some people think. Way bigger then the front of a Y-Wing.

And could the length of the film model possibly be...

...9.6m?

And could the length of the film model possibly be...

That's the issue I think. I'm not sure if there is an official "This is the scale model" model. I mean they no doubt had some idea how big they wanted it. But the size of the model wouldn't have to fit to scale, not when you start considering things like perspective and other movie tricks. Look at what they did in LotR with the Hobbits...

So who knows if there ever was, let alone still is a model that is the correct scale size.

The tiny A-wings are from one painted backdrop for RotJ where the painter wasn't given any scale information and thus that backdrop scalewise isn't even consistent with the rest of the film.

No, they're from pictures of the model used in the film:

See how small it is relative to the pilot? Either the a-wing is a TINY ship, or a-wing pilots are all 10' tall aliens. And just to deal with any questions about "they weren't careful with the scale of the pilot figure you can't even see in the film" the interior shots from the movie show a very similar tight fit for the pilot:

Now, it's likely that the scale in the two shots isn't quite a 100% match, but they both confirm a very small a-wing. Any mismatch is the difference between "much smaller than the FFG model" and "much smaller than the FFG model, but very slightly larger than the other option".

See how small it is relative to the pilot?

See how big they were compared to other ships in the images that Tie Pilot posted?

It is always basically impossible to accurately judge scale from film shots like this, but even so, assuming about 2m for the pilot, that picture makes it look about 8-10M long.

What it really comes down to is this. We expect a movie, novel or even artwork to be authoritative to the degree a blueprint would be for building a F-14 Tomcat.

That makes it sound like people are quibbling over minute details. Nobody's saying anything about precision, it's general feel that people disagree with. In the films the A-Wing is much smaller than the Y-Wing and X-Wing, in the official figures it's only a bit smaller. Nobody's arguing about fractions of a percent.

Been looking through my model box just now and the ship that really feels small is the X-wing. Next to just about anything that isn't a Z-95 Headhunter it feels small. As for the Y-wing, the cockpit looks tiny relative to all the ships.

In the films the A-Wing is much smaller than the Y-Wing and X-Wing

I would say that based on those images on page 2, the A-Wing isn't that much smaller. Not anywhere near as small as some people are claiming.

People say that the A-Wing is about the size of the wedge at the front of the Y-Wing, based on that image that's not even close to true.

There are some shots in which it looks pretty titchy too, but it's definitely not thumbnail sized (Y-wing cockpit with engines) as iPeregrine's suggesting.

See how big they were compared to other ships in the images that Tie Pilot posted?

No, because you're neglecting the effect of perspective. In those pictures the a-wing is closer to the camera than the other ships, so it will look larger. Without knowing the distance between them (impossible to do against a plain black background) you can't correct for this and get an accurate comparison.

It is always basically impossible to accurately judge scale from film shots like this, but even so, assuming about 2m for the pilot, that picture makes it look about 8-10M long.

The goal isn't to get a length from that picture, it's to get its size relative to the other ships. We can see that the cockpit is a pretty tight fit around the pilot, and certainly doesn't have more room around the pilot than an x-wing or y-wing. So we should expect the cockpit areas on all three ships to be about the same size. But instead the cockpit on FFG's a-wing is significantly larger. So that tells us that the a-wing is out of scale.

The Y-wing cockpit may sink deeper into the ship than the A-wing. Plus the Y-wing cockpit seems tiny compared to petty much everything else in the game, especially TIE cockpits.

Question: do you think the Z-95's out of scale too? It's got a huge cockpit compared to the X-wing but they're technologically very similar ships: it's hard to imagine the Z-95 has a massively more spacious cockpit than the X-wing.

I think it's got a lot to do with them being bubble canopies. If you painted the X-wing and Y-wing canopies solid black they'd look bigger.

There are some shots in which it looks pretty titchy too, but it's definitely not thumbnail sized (Y-wing cockpit with engines) as iPeregrine's suggesting.

No, it really is that tiny. Look at the pilot in this picture. See how small they are relative to the "wedge" section of the y-wing? Now compare that to how the a-wing pilot looks relative to the whole ship.