I like it smaller :/

well then im sure you'll be happy with the model? theres no chance for it too be increased in size at this stage in production. But it is not the correct size relative to a Star Destroyer. more soo its not just off by a little.

Why do you like it smaller?

There's concept art in the Return of the Jedi sketchbook (pg 88) that shows the Home One as only slightly larger than an ISD. So it appears that the model makers intended the ships to be about the same size. The 3.7 km size is based on the size of a hanger bay door that is just an incidental feature of the model.

That is not the final design it is just a concept, in a sketchbook no less. Basing the real measurements off of a concept, even if your then implying the creators had a specific 'size' in mind is going to be rife with problems. If were going to be using concepts.

The size of the ISD is dealt with on pp.42-43 of the Sansweet's book. A caption to the illustration on p.43 is quite explicit:The final version of the Star Destroyer, built in several different sizes, was meant in filmic terms to be about six miles long.

Than the star destroyer has claim to being 6 miles long.

The absolute affirmation that this ship HAS to be 3.7km long (and thats on the lower end of that spectrum btw) is that the lambha would not fit into the hangar otherwise.

Now if you want to make the argument that the ship SHOULD be smaller than an ISD thats fine but your going to have to then account for the fact that a Lambha shuttle would very clearly not fit into the hangar. Which kind of **** with the original trilogies storyline btw.

People seem to want to hold onto this notion that this ship is WAY smaller than it is or even appears to be in the films which is beyond me.

I'm aware of the Sansweet quote but that was made during an interview years after the fact by a guy who didn't even work for Lucasfilm until the mid 90s. In this book Joe Johnson, who designed the ship, lists the ship's size as 1 mile. These are instructions that he is giving to the model departments.

The fact that the model makers made a hanger slightly too small isn't justification to increase the size of the ship by 50%. There are practical considerations to how big the hanger can be given the need to model an interior and fit it to a onto a curved surface.

So we have a choice, either the ship is 50% bigger than it should be or the hanger is 33% smaller than it should be. The latter, IMO, is more likely.

I'm not saying I want the Home One to be small, it's just that FFG isn't making a mistake in their model. They are simply picking one of two possible sizes.

It's not the size of your Home One that matters, but rather how you use it!

Keep in mind that when these films were made, they weren't anticpating people bringing out rulers and comparing a scene that was a Ralph Macquarrie matte painting (the hangar), to the final built studio effects model. While films do have continuity people, this is likely one that would not have been noticed because it was being handled by two different departments during production.

I think the intention that the MonCal Cruisers were supposed to provide a visual contrast and yet competitive narrative to the might of the Imperial Navy. I have no problem with the presented size of the MC80 in the game, being almost the same length as a standard ISD, if less bulky. Remember the only reason an ISD is canon 1600 metres is that someone asked George how big they were after that awesome opening scene, and he offhandedly said "about a mile long." There's no hard science to it.

You will have to forgive me, but i do not own that 'sketchbook'

however

This does not refer to the Home One, just Rebel Cruiser.

I believe this is the page your referring too, I states in no way that Joe took any of his concepts to the ILM modelers. Again though if you have that in a page i implore you to scan it.

BUT, that wont prove much to me for several reasons. He was a design artist on ROJ not the Design Director HE did not have final say on anything design related it was his job to provide concept art etc. Which he did and it looks great but its quite obvious that those are not the final designs in the film. There can be many many reasons for this but at the end of the day it was the director or design director who had the ultimate say.

Now even after that if it was the case that the ship was supposed to be a mile long then the director should absolutely have been in charge and responsible for making sure the modelers built it that way and to scale.

I can't stress this enough, as a scale modeler the MOST important thing is the relationship of size with other objects. In the Movies, the lambha shuttle can fit into the starboard hangar if i were to make a Diorama i would absolutely HAVE to make the model at least twice the size of a star destroyer in relative scale to make it work/fit.

Another example of this problem when brought to the 3d world is Thomas Benedicts Lego version of the ship. He made his craft to scale against the Lego star destroyer kits which are 3 foot long. He realized through the construction that the HOME ONE had to be at least 7 foot long for it to retain its proportions and to allow for a lahmba to land etc. Its an awesome model check it out.

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/105030

And i find it highly unlikely btw that the ILM modelers got it wrong, those were/are some of the best modelers of the industry.

There are many reasons people think an ISD is 1600 meters not just Lucas saying so? in fact i didnt even know he said that. The easiest way to determine ISD size is to compare it too tantive 4 and then the ISDs hangar.

And im not measuring Ralphs painting, though he was such an amazing painter i no doubt think you could. you dont even need to get that complex. You just have to accept that the hanger was at least as tall as a landed lhambha shuttle (and actually it had to be taller to accomodate it just before it lands) than the hangar has to be at least that tall. which if you then extrapolate onto the model means it has to be at least 3.7km any other size and you start to seriously mess with proportions or you just say that the Lhamba could never land there, which would be a fan ret con of sorts.

As a scale modeler I know which model is correct because of this, and would make the model accordingly. Thats based off of the movie however. If you would like to say, well what happens in the movies doesn't matter than by all means make it whatever size you want. That being said i wish again i hadn't looked this up because now its going to bug me.

For those of you who think that the FFG model of slightly smaller than an ISD is correct i implore you to again watch ROTJ (because it awesome) and just take note when the Home One is on screen, too me it looks HUGE. If it does not for you im sure you will be unbothered by the model, i however do not have that luxury.

Now even after that if it was the case that the ship was supposed to be a mile long then the director should absolutely have been in charge and responsible for making sure the modelers built it that way and to scale.

This is the same director that gave every Imperial officer the exact same rank badge. I can't see him caring if one particular model feature was off scale for one throwaway transition scene.

It's also important to realize that there never was a "Home One" model. They built two rebel cruisers, one with wings and one without and used those models in a variety of shots to represent a rebel fleet in RotJ. The shooting script only refers to "rebel cruiser", "rebel star cruiser", and "headquarters frigate."

Here's the storyboard of the shuttle launch from the Tech Commentaries.

Now the actual launch on film

You could easily have made the launch bay door twice as large without affecting the overall size of the ship.

Notice that in the storyboard that the hanger door takes up a much larger percentage of the bump and has a much more noticeable curve in the side walls. The model makers couldn't have made a hanger door of that configuration because they used tiny projectors to display the interior of the hanger bay onto a little screen. The door of the filming model is as big as they could have made it given the technology available to them.

This is clearly a door that is made too small. The Home One size of 1 mile is perfectly feasible.

I dont think thats true. Its 19km almost everybody agrees on that, wiki and saxton both do and most sources will agree. What is this 'published' length you speak of 2e what source are you refering too?

Theres a full list of the differing sources here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor-class_Star_Dreadnought

Even the official databank has given various sizes. " The Official Databank has given various sizes over the years, starting with "over eight times longer than an ISD", to 12,8km (as a compromise between fan groups) and finally, 19km"

However, 19km seems the current official size and fits with the movies, so good enough for me .

The official size comes from Starwars.com as 19000.0 meters

http://www.starwars.com/databank/super-star-destroyer

I dont think thats true. Its 19km almost everybody agrees on that, wiki and saxton both do and most sources will agree. What is this 'published' length you speak of 2e what source are you refering too?

Theres a full list of the differing sources here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor-class_Star_Dreadnought

Even the official databank has given various sizes. " The Official Databank has given various sizes over the years, starting with "over eight times longer than an ISD", to 12,8km (as a compromise between fan groups) and finally, 19km"

However, 19km seems the current official size and fits with the movies, so good enough for me .

The official size comes from Starwars.com as 19000.0 meters

http://www.starwars.com/databank/super-star-destroyer

Thats...exactly what i said. I think. I am pretty tired though. Been up since 5 am working

Wow Hedge so theres a lot to unbundle there.

First off it wasn't the same director, Lucas did not Direct Return of the Jedi (though this is Fairly unimportant)

Secondly you're right about there only being two models made for the film but wrong about which ones, the Rebel Commandship or Home One and the Wingless type ships were the original models. They redressed the Wingless type to have wings shortly after making them to accomodate the three 'distinct' types

The Wingless Cruiser which was later modified with wings.

Being used in filming

under construction

Notice how the main ship has already been painted but the new added wings have yet to be done up.

And the second ship was The Home One or commandship.

The model painted

Also i see you did not back up your quotes involving Joe Johntson, I would like you to do that please if at all possible. It would have to be him talking about the size of the finished production model in the film and he would of course have to be referring to the Home one not any other rebel cruiser. I should very much like to see that.

As for your continued use of concept art to declare that a ship is the size you think it is, I don't think have too tell you thats a bad route to go down. I would also hazard to say that you claiming you know the intention of any director is somewhat laughable. I certainly dont know what Richard Marquand's intention was with many of the films details.

So are you claiming that the storyboard panels should be held as the main way of determining facts about the film and even supercede details in the film? besides i still dont understand your last point, are you saying that because the model makers couldnt make a door the right size?

And finally how could the model makers screw anything up, which youve said they've done twice now with no sources to back that up, when you've also said there is NO home one model??????????? really!!!????

As for me I really do just want the answer here and soo far i find your arguments very unconvincing. However I will play something of a devils advocate here ( I find it important to try and disprove your own theories as well) The most convincing argument that the Home one was NOT signifcantly bigger than the rest of the rebel fleet came from Jo Jo.

He asks why the death star wouldn't have immediately destroyed that ship if that were the case.

I have no good answer to this and it does beg the question, why?

Some explanations might be but are not very convinceing.

*out of range?

*not easily scanned?

*chaos of battle?

*some other thing?

Aside from that i have not really heard a convincing argument against the fact, MAINLY because i have not gotten any direct sources explaining the size of the ship with backed evidence or at least clarification from ILM

BUT my biggest problem now is that i know no matter what the **** thing HAS to be 3.7km for that shuttle to fit into the starboard hangar.

even if Lucas himself came out and said the ship was 1300 meters than i would still have to say.

DAMMIT GEORGE YOU DUMMY THE MODEL IS NOT PROPORTIONED!!!

But he has not said that, no one with any real determinitive voice on this matter has, and I finally have found out where this number of 1300-1500 meters has come from WEST END GAMES role playing Which is NOT cannon!

Here is another modeler who has had the same issue as me and running into people who will claim THEY know the size of the ship to be 1300 meters.

http://marianlh.livejournal.com/120480.html

Once again im brought back to my simple explanation, NO MATTER the intention of the movie makers if i wanted to make a for instance 1/1000 scale of the Star destroyer, Home one, and lahmba shuttle than the Home One would NEED to be twice the size of the star destroyer for the shuttle to land in its starboard hangar.

The only way to change this would be to Modify the ship so that it is different than the model that appeared in the movie, or for you imps the equivalent if me saying. The star destroyer hangar on the bottom of the ship isnt big enough to accomodate the Tantive so im going to have to make it much bigger, and to be fair it would be on the factor of half. So increasing the hangar size by half.

And for those who didnt click on the lego link. Mr Benedict made a too scale model of the Home One ship with the lego star destroyer kits you can buy (3foot) this thing is awesome!!! and 7 foot long, with working lights!!!

Ken- 19Km is 19000 meters.

Keep in mind that this is the film that had a Falcon sized and a Cruiser sized Blockade runner in the Endor Battle. Scale didnt mean a lot

Thats...exactly what i said. I think. I am pretty tired though. Been up since 5 am working

Yes we're saying same thing; I was adding another link (starwars.com) in addition to the link for the wiki.

Ken- 19Km is 19000 meters.

Yep I got that; I was quoting starwars.com exactly as they have it on their web site.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/super-star-destroyer

I dont recall there being a cruiser or Falcon sized corvette at endor. I recall having really crazy perspective shots where the corvettes were in the background or the foreground causing them too appear slightly bigger or smaller than their size. But thats how perspective works and why using perspective to accurately estimate the scale of a ship is wobbly science at best IMO.

However I will say if you don't think that the movies are good resource, or the best resource as i maintain for getting accurate scale than what by george do you base your scaling off of?

oh ok Ken i was confused there for an instant.

And just again to play devils advocate here, that site claims the Mon Calamari Cruisers at 1200 Meters, though there is no distinction made between any of the classes nor is there mention of the variation in sizes mon cals can have.

I will say this, the theory that Mon cal ships of nay size are 1200 Meters comes from West End Games RPG releasing that as their official interpretation in their Rebel sourcebook i believe or the corebook, i dont have those.

What i do have is their imperial sourcebook which has Their estimate on the SSD which was long ago abandoned as completely ridiculous and out of scale at 8000 meters.

Now its interesting to me that they completely made up both figures and while the SSD is much more popular and so received alot more discussion the Home One has never really in the publics popular opinion dashed off the West Ends stigma of small size. Everyone agrees, even wiki, now that a SSD is 19km yet the other bit of material that they are also responsible for injecting into the mainstream (that the Home One is 1200 meters) is retained?

Interesting but very annoying phenomena, again id have to say this is im part due to WAY more people caring about the SSD, that thread is HUGE.

Actually i have no definitive answer to scale as i also consider the movies to be the final answer in any question of canon etc. But nonetheless, and it is not intended as a criticism of the incredible talents who worked on the original trilogy, there are some issues. Probably related to dealing with Lucas and tight schedules.
Ill have to locate the image of the cruiser sized Blockade runner (maybe closer to destroyer but still bloody big). But here is the falcon sized one. In front of the Nebulon B

Maybe it was crewed by Ewoks. Personally i prefer to think it is supposed to be a smaller version since the Falcon was originally closer in design to the Corvette. Unless that is a Super Nebulon dreadnaught

Well that certainly is hard to explain for me, it appears its crazy out of scale!!! perhaps there are answers to that question but i dont know what they are! XD

Still thats one out of scale ship that, though unfortunate, Doesnt automatically then put the entire line of corvettes into question. besides it look more like that Nebulon is out of scale by alot than that corvette, if the ties are anything to go by. but this is a smaller cap ship that appears in many shots of the film and is easily identified as a certain size. Not just from the film shots either, we have great comparison shots for that ships in anew hope.

actually i would say the star destroyer and the corvette are probably in my mind the best known sizes for star wars ships.

The problem is there is not a HUGE amount of evidence to suggest what size the Home One is, though i maintain there is quite alot of evidence that suggests she is very very big indeed.

At the end of the day the photo you posted is a perspective and i suspect an issue with the models and the cameras used. I think the tantive model was almost as big as the neb? i dont know that for sure.

Althought the perspective shots in ROTJ suggest consistently (not just one shot) that the ships is MASSIVE that is actually as ive said the weekest argument for the size difference, The strongest argument for the size is the Hangar. There is a model of Home One, we do know the size of the hangar in proportion to the ship and we DO know that the imperial shuttle Tydiruium could fit into it.

'You could say, ah well the director is an idiot and really he wanted this' thats fine, im not against the TARDIS argument but if you do make that your argument you than have to prove, i maintain with a direct quote that the intention of either the Art Director or the Director or Lucas himself was that the ship was 1200 meters.

And even then it presents a HUGE problem to scale model makers.

I like the 1200 mtr measurement but not based on any visual, just because it doesnt seem right that the Rebels would have ships that were so much bigger than ISDs. Kind of ruins the plucky underdog thing for me. I know the Empire has more ships and a Death Star but nonetheless i think the villians should have the bigger more powerful ships in order that the heroes can seem better when they win. It isnt logical but it is how it usually works in the land of heroic fiction. Im not by the way questioning the line of corvettes. Im just assuming there was a large Corellian Destroyer and a smaller Corellian scout. Easier that way

Im with with you on likeing the star wars visual approach, hell the whole first scene of A new hope fixates this into our minds but there are certain things you have to remember.

* The SSD and death star were by far still the biggest warships at endor.

* Even though the Home One (which was the commandship for the entire rebellion at the time) was bigger than an ISD, the ISD's outnumber the Home One and even the Mon cal cruisers by a significant amount.

* I dont think that the Home One was in itself a superior warship to an ISD, size isnt necessarily a good determinative for that. As ive said i think the Home one was more an operations control and carrier type craft.

* The scrappy underdog image is itself what they are going for on the whole but under scrutiny in any one subject does not hold up. Let us compare Star fighters for instance.

The mainstay of the imperial fleet the Tie fighter is in almost every way the inferior to the X wing and yet it is the case that the rebels were flying them at endor as there mainstay, sure there were less of them but so again were there of mon cals. I also think there is a much larger disparity between the supiority of the X wing versus the tie fighter than between the mostly comparable mon cal cruisers and that of the ISDs.

The empire either way still does have the better, larger ships. The SSD would still be larger by factors than anything the rebels had. And i dont find it hard to believe that the Alliance could muster up at least a fairly impressive ship as the center of all rebel operations in the universe. To commit it wasnt strange either as it was a sort of all or nothing gig.

Also i see you did not back up your quotes involving Joe Johntson, I would like you to do that please if at all possible. It would have to be him talking about the size of the finished production model in the film and he would of course have to be referring to the Home one not any other rebel cruiser. I should very much like to see that.

You will never see Joe Johnson talk about the length of the Home One because the ship wasn't called that until after the production. The pre-production and script consistently refer to it as either a rebel cruiser, a star cruiser, or the headquarters frigate. There was no model that was referred to as "Home One" while they were filming. It's just like how the Tantive IV wasn't referred to by that name when filming Star Wars (or as a Correlian Corvette for that matter).

The guy who designed the ship gave it's length as 1 mile. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that was his intention. This one mile measurement is consistent with the earlier drawing comparing it's size to the similarly sized Star Destroyer and, apparently, consistent with the model that FFG is producing for SW Armada.

I try not to think about the superiority of rebel fighters *L* I just assume the larger numbers of TIEs sort of balances out

You did no address your claim of the Home One or "headquarters" ship never having a model.

I will touch on Joes drawings again briefly and once again you've failed to give me any sources whatsoever (a scan of the indicated page in the concept book for instance)

Where Joe talks about how his 'concept' drawings and ideas became cannon. Headquarters vessel is fine, anything that distinguishes it from the other mon cal ships as was done in the movie and scripts is fine.

My guess is you won't because such information doesn't exist but i would most definitely love to see it if such a thing did exist and I implore anyone who has such sources to come forward.

Now again Joe was in that moment a concept artist, just because you draw a piece of concept art and show it to the director and say something along the lines of 'and i designed this ship to be 1 mile long'

(which by the way is still not the length FFG went with, your off by about 400 meters)

Does not mean the director will do anything with it, in this case there were MOST definitely modifications done to the designs that Joe drew. THEY WERE NOT FINAL.

You seem to be confusing me with someone who wants the Home One to be bigger because i think it will increase in size? im a scale modeler, these things are very important to us not because its associated with power though? is that why you dont want it to be bigger than 1.6km?

So to conclude id love you, once again to back up your sources where Joe who was not the Design Director at the time discusses how the 'Headquarters cruiser' was 1.6km and if you would acknowledge that you've discussed how the modeling team at ILM simultaneously got the hangar wrong as you say and didnt make a model.

(which they did)

I try not to think about the superiority of rebel fighters *L* I just assume the larger numbers of TIEs sort of balances out

I understand how you like the underdog feel i feel the same, but how could you then not extend the same logic to cap ships? more of them.

Though I admit my personal feelings are that 3.7km is a fair bit big, my preference would be for something just slightly bigger than a star destroyer. But i knowing the evidence, unless given new better evidence cannot disagree with the size. It would gnaw at my soul!! XD

This is the same director that gave every Imperial officer the exact same rank badge. I can't see him caring if one particular model feature was off scale for one throwaway transition scene.

In fact it was a different Director.

And as ive said there was two models but your mistaken as too which two, originally the "wingless" model and the Headquarters cruiser were made. Than after the wingless was shot the went back and modified her to be the winged variant as well.

You could easily have made the launch bay door twice as large without affecting the overall size of the ship.

Notice that in the storyboard that the hanger door takes up a much larger percentage of the bump and has a much more noticeable curve in the side walls. The model makers couldn't have made a hanger door of that configuration because they used tiny projectors to display the interior of the hanger bay onto a little screen. The door of the filming model is as big as they could have made it given the technology available to them.

This is clearly a door that is made too small. The Home One size of 1 mile is perfectly feasible.

You then go on to contradict yourself by saying the model makers just were too lazy? i dont really understand what your saying but you imply that ILM somehow did not make the Home One model correctly even though you say they never made a model.

Either the ship needs to be twice as long OR the hanger door needs to be twice as big. You've chosen the former but that is still a choice. It's a similar situation to the Millenium Falcon where the interior set won't fit inside the exterior set.

This is a better argument to me than you've previously used. Though im not sure about your example, Did they not make a life sized Falcon, i know they are for episode 7? is that going to be bigger on the inside than outside, there budget must be huge! XD

I dont know enough about the Falcon to comment on that, though once again i would ask for sources acknowledging its validity. I will say this can be a big problem in films and especially Sci Fi, However we do have in interesting situation here where the main problem with de scaling the Ship would then disallow the Shuttle to land in it, by a significant amount. Being that the Home One is the ship that carries and launches the Shuttle in the movie i would think that if you say then the ship is too small thats a HUGE plot gap in the movie you then have to account for, It not impossible. you can for instance say 'ohh well the shuttle wasnt actually on Home One at all it was just flyin about' but then you've seriously re wrote the movie havent you.

more to the point no one of any real power at ILM ever made any claims about the size of the Home One and so the size is left to everyone to judge for themselves. And unfortunately West End Games has made a completely unbacked 1200 meters popular, as they once did for 8000 meter SSD (which is very WRONG)

I myself Know there was a model, Know what then can be extrapolated off that model to determine its size and have done so. again I like the ship, i dont want it to change thats why I know its 3.7km and to do any descaling and keepings its ability to house a lahmba is a massive re design, it would not look like or be the home one too me.

Really though this thread is just asking for evidence, i havent really seen anything like the hard evidence ive found in favor of, ive seen alot of conjecture and opinion. At the end of the day however FFG has gone with West End Games length of 1200-1300 meters and they will not change that now, likely the models are already in production.

I don't like that "home one" is being made so small. This is a big mistake when the Empire gets its SSD on the tabletop. They should make a standard MC80 and then Home One itself in a separate wave. I can wait, but I want them to do it right. The Empire will get increasingly bigger ships while Home One will be the biggest ship the rebels ever get. So it had better be bigger than a plain old ISD.