There are legions of dedicated sci-fi fans who have managed to build their own R2D2 robots, intricate models of spaceships down to the minutest detail and more.
Why, you may even recall the story of the guy who was so obsessed with Raiders of the Lost Ark that he remade it shot for shot on video tape.
So now a group of fans are trying to build their own full size Millennium Falcon, a project Cinema Blend says is being spearheaded by a Star Wars fan in Tennessee named Chris Lee. Lee has put out the call to the world of Star Wars fans the world over to come in and help, and one artist in Alabama is working on the cockpit, while an exec at Elstree Studios, where much of Star Wars was shot, has also been in touch.
The plan is to indeed build a replica that’s 114 feet long, and Lee has an 88-property for the ship, where they’re also clearing room for further Millennium construction. Obviously the plan is not to fly it into space, even if it’s “got it where it counts,” but to have the full sized Falcon on display in this area, and set it up as a non-profit area. Lee’s thinking of a “maker camp that encourages all kinds of creativity and construction.”
The potential time and cost involved in all this? The current speculation is this could take five years to complete at least, with a potential cost of $200-800,000. Did the original Falcon in Star Wars even cost that much?
You also may recall we did a story on somebody sending a proposal to the White House about building a full blown Death Star, which would be ridiculously expensive, quadrillions of dollars in fact, but we got the impression this was a joke that somebody sent in to our government as a goof. Now there’s another request to build an Enterprise ship, although it’s not clear whether the Death Star jokers are behind this one as well.
As Giant Freakin Robot tells us, the request to build an Enterprise originated from an organization that calls itself BuildTheEnterprise.org, and like the Death Star request, it needs a certain number of signatures by a certain date to be put across the President’s desk. (As of this writing, it needs 23,298 signatures by January 21, 2013).
All this stuff is funny to read about, but it also seems a little silly to spend this much money to build a life size Millennium Falcon, which could end up being the genre version of the biggest ball of twine.
Then again, you could hitch it up to a trailer and take it out on a Star Wars parade, and if the ship’s going to be complete on the inside as well, you could probably make some good money with it as a tourist attraction as well.
