Secrets of the Millennium Falcon

The ship's stubborn hyperdrive is never seen in the movies, but it causes no shortage of trouble for Han and company in Empire. "The hyperdrive was something we wanted to include from the beginning," says Reiff. "It was a chance to develop the interior workings never seen before."

The first inspiration was the hyperdrive from Queen Amidala's ship, seen in The Phantom Menace. With the idea that the Falcon boasted a faster, more advanced model, the artists compressed the charge planes into a stacked formation with short connections in between so they work in series rather than the large wide flat panel seen in the Queen's ship. The overall design was inspired by photomultipliers, light detecting vacuum tubes that utilize multiple metal plate dynodes stacked inside. Dynodes from old photomultipliers were used as detail parts on Darth Vader's open helmet in Return of the Jedi.