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Lego MOC: Escape Pod for (10179) UCS Millennium Falcon


No matter what you thought of the standalone Solo Star Wars movie, it was hard to miss the radical changes made to the Falcon. The iconic ship was nearly showroom fresh in white and blue, with a streamlined sensor dish and large escape pod covering the mandibles. The interior is bright and reflected Lando's interests: entertaining in style and showing off his prodigiously large space cape collection.


I challenged myself to build an escape pod for the front of my classic 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon. Because I like rules, I saddled myself with a few guidelines: 1) The exterior should maintain the color scheme and visual language of the UCS Falcon, 2) The escape pod should snugly attach to the UCS Falcon, 3) Make no changes to the UCS Falcon, 4) The escape pod should be able to open up to reveal an interior, 5) Try to use only Lego elements that were available circa 2007.


To make sense of why this version of the Falcon would exist in the Star Wars world, I imagined if during the Kessel Run, they never jettisoned the escape pod - and they never lost the sensor dish. Other damage still happened tho - like losing the hull plating. Side note: what is up with that poor sensor dish? It keeps getting destroyed and replaced. It's like the starship version of the series' dismemberment theme.

This version includes the streamlined, leaned-back sensor dish. (I also have a rectangular one I made to recreate the Force Awakens version.)


My escape pod continues the dark and light blue-gray greebling along the sides and a touch of dark red on the top.





The escape pod has its own propulsion system and landing pads.


The top flips open to reveal the interior, which I imagined had not been modified much since Lando's days. Turns out Lando stashed all of his favorite beverages in the escape pod.


The escape pod has a double-hinged entry hatch on the side.


Lando's wet bar.


Despite the spirits, Han prefers coffee.


Passengers get a better view than the pilot does.



It wouldn't be part of the Falcon without a hidden floor compartment to store a thermal detonator and other goodies!

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