Fine Molds 1/144 Star Wars Millennium Falcon Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The Millennium Falcon started out as a YT-1300 light freighter that would eventually be modified for rather special duties (smuggling contraband through Empire space). It would eventually become the ship of Lando Calrissian before he lost the ship in a card game to Han Solo. Han Solo, together with his copilot Chewbacca, would run cargo around and through Empire controlled space lanes. Eventually the Falcon would get drawn into the ultimate battle of good and evil through the second trilogy of Star Wars episodes that would pit an adult Luke Skywalker as a fledgling Jedi Knight against his own father, Darth Vader.

At first glance, the Falcon was awkward in its design, but it would become one of the icons of the Star Wars universe promting a cameo appearance in the third installment of the first Star Wars trilogy. Boasting faster-than-light engines, dorsal and ventral guns, and the ability to fly through impossibly confined spaces, the Millennium Falcon is as symbolic to Star Wars as the USS Enterprise is to Star Trek.

Fine Molds has taken on several subjects out of the Star Wars saga and the most impressive of the lot is the 1/72 Millennium Falcon! This release is a scaled down version of that huge kit and provides a simpler build that is more economical in price and shelf space..

With this kit, Fine Molds has given us the second 1/144th scale installment and it makes one hopeful of other subjects getting scaled up as well. This series to date has included:

• X-Wing - SW1 - 1/72
• TIE Fighter - SW2 - 1/72
• Jedi Starfighter - SW3 - 1/72
• Slave I - SW4 - 1/72
• TIE Interceptor - SW5 - 1/72
• Millennium Falcon - SW6 - 1/72
• Slave I Boba Fett Version - SW7 - 1/72
• Y-Wing - SW8 - 1/72
• X-Wing - SW9 - 1/144
• Snow Speeder - SW10 - 1/48
• Millennium Falcon - SW11 - 1/144

The kit is molded in a light gray styrene and presented on three parts trees. One additional parts tree molded in clear is also included for the cockpit transparency.

The kit features some interesting engineering as Fine Molds went to a lot of trouble to ensure that you could fiddle with some of the details like gun turret rotation (top and bottom) and your choice of landing gear down or pose the model on a provided display stand.

The engineering in these kits improve with every release, and like the impressive Bandai Star Trek snap-together kits, this release is designed to be detailed without being overly intimidating. Nevertheless, I recommend that this is not a kit for young modelers unless they have some serious experience under their belts. While the kit would be very impressive if built unpainted, the real benefit will be from careful painting and attention to detail.

Markings are included to replicate the details of the Falcon. Most of the details are provided as waterslide decals while some alternatives are provided as stickers.

This is another impressive work of art in kit form. Congratulations go to the engineers and designers at Fine Molds who can transform a few partial sets and lots of CGI graphics into a three-dimensional model.

My sincere thanks to HobbyLink Japan for this review sample!