An
early Blockade Runner?
Interesting
similarites between Episode 1 Republic Cruiser and Leia's diplomatic vessel...
Hi,
and welcome to the Virtual Edition.
You've
probably read the report on The Force.net about the shape of the Republic
Cruiser that is visible on the monitor in the (enhanced) picture above.
A sketch of this ship was posted a few months ago on the C.H.U.D.
website, and Jedinet's Prequel Watch reposted that picture here
(note that Jedinet is on-line again, but the next three weeks you have
to type in http://209.60.85.23/
to reach it).
Back
then, I had a little theory about this ship that I never posted, so perhaps
now is a good time.
In
fact, the shape of this "diplomatic vessel" (since it carries our two Jedi
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on a diplomatic mission) looks vaguely familiar. It
has the same dimensions as a shortened Blockade Runner! Take a look at
the comparison below. On the left, a blue-print of a Blockade Runner from
the Behind the Magic CD-Rom, in the middle the enhanced picture of the
Cruiser on the monitor, next to that the contours of the cruiser in the
sketch posted by C.H.U.D. and that Prequel Watch reposted lately, and on
the right a shortened version of the Blockade Runner:
And
also the shape of the cockpit window is similar:
Wouldn't
it be great if that Republic Cruiser turned out to be an earlier version
of the Blockade Runner? After all, Darth Maul's ship looks like a predecessor
of Vader's ship in ANH, so why not? It would make another nice parallel
between the opening sequence of The Phantom Menace and the opening scenes
of A New Hope: at the beginning of both movies, we'd see the same kind
of diplomatic vessel!
It
would also explain why the model makers working on TPM had a huge Blockade
Runner in one of their workrooms, as you might remember from an old update
on the official Star wars website! Here's a quote from that Feburary
23, 1998 update: "The original Rebel Blockade Runner sits in one of
the workrooms: this is Princess Leia's ship, which fled the colossal Star
Destroyer in Star Wars' famous opening shot. The very first spaceship seen
in the very first Star Wars movie was brought in to inspire the artists
creating the models for Episode I. In more ways than one, this film is
a journey to back to Star Wars' beginnings."
Just
a coincidence? I think not!
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