The Millennium Falcon was used by smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca during and after the Galactic Civil War. For convenience and luxury, it received various upgrades, including painted external paneling and a spacious space pod.
An escape pod is big enough to hold one or two people in peril or an emergency escape vessel from battles in times of need, making an escape pod valuable to any ship. Here’s the brief history of the Millennium Falcon escape pod.
The Millennium Falcon Escape Pod: A Brief History
Lando Calrissian is the brain of this wonderful design in the Millennium Falcon escape pod. After losing in the game of Sabacc with Solo and the famous record-breaking of Han Solo’s Kessel Run, the modifications made by Calrissian were destroyed, including the escape pod.
Obi-Wan Kenobi advises Han Solo to get rid of the pod as the ship got caught in a tractor beam that later they regretted getting rid of because it was too expensive but recognized the value of their decision later on.
Interior and Exterior Design
The Millennium Falcon escape pod’s hatch has a hand-lettered Clynese text saying, “Property of Han Solo, Please Return.” The escape thruster of the escape pod can be seen in its front while the emergency locator beacon is below it. The ingress and egress (in and out) hatch are in the upper center of the pod.
The atmospheric control vanes and repulser soft landing coils are on the pod’s side. The status display is on the left side. A hatch release is on the center-left side of the pod, and far below it is the sensor band. Emergency supply storage is in the bottom left of the pod, while the attitude control thrusters are at the end of the escape pod.
The front center part of the Millennium Falcon is believed to be the escape pod. At the beginning of the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, during the “Kessel Run” scene, the escape pod was thrown out and never returned, making the interior and exterior design still a mystery.
It would be lovely to see the Millennium Falcon escape pod reappear if they ever make more Star Wars movies in the future. The said escape pod in the movie was just a mere modification made by Lando that was originally a cargo ship.
Importance and Main Functions
The importance of the Millennium Falcon escape pod is to carry a passenger that’s in trouble or get them to safety in the event of some emergency while they’re on board the Millennium Falcon.
The interior compartments can carry weeks’ worth of rations such as food, water, medical supplies, glow rods, comlinks, and survival shelter. Sometimes, they also include a civilian hunting blaster.
Its mission is to get the passenger safely toward the nearest habitable planet because it only has enough fuel to take such a destination and additional assistance in emergency braking during the landing phase.
Significant Design Modifications
The early version of the Millennium Falcon‘s design from the Star Wars Sourcebook (1987) has two escape pods on each side of the port and the starboard side.
The 1996 Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels shows that the escape pods are only on the starboard of the Falcon.
The publication of Exposing the YT-1300 Transport: Secrets of the Falcon (2003) is different from the first two mentioned because this model shows five escape pods that you can see at the vessel’s rear on the engineering bay.
Star War Blueprints: The Rebel Edition (2010) also shows five escape pods that you can see on its engineering bay beside the hyperdrive core.
Toy models of the escape pod are also different from the movies because they’re just generally one pod on the starboard side that is big enough to handle action figured in it.
Most recent publications moved the escape pod to its engineering bay, later making it the canonized version.
Issues and Problems
Solo: A Star War Story made the Millennium Falcon slightly different from its original design. The movie intentionally covers up the notch and instead places an escape rod in it. The escape pod, later on, gets abandoned in the movie, which explains the notch in the pod’s absence.
There’s also a problem with the design of the Millennium Falcon‘s ship because it has no door that is needed to access the escape pod in the notch.
Non-Canon Appearances
The Star Wars Epic Yarns: The Empire Strikes Back by Jack and Holman Wang from the Star Wars Epic Yarns series is a non-canon title that presents The Empire Strikes Back from 2015 for mimicking the characters as they’re made of yarn or felt.
Another non-canon appearance of the escape pod is from the mini-series LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales that are non-canon and aired on Disney XD. The entire show was shot from the perspective of R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Flight of the Falcon is also a non-canon series from the fourth episode of LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales. R2-D2 was kidnapped, so Han, 3PO, Leia, and Chewbacca prepare to take off on the Millennium Falcon, but the ship’s engines won’t work, making Han complain about it.
