Skeleton Crew Hid a Sneaky Star Wars Deep Reduce in Plain Sight

Skeleton Crew didn’t join itself to the broader Star Wars universe by splashy cameos, but it surely carried with it plenty of connections and hints to the remainder of the galaxy far, distant in a litany of offhand notes and Easter eggs. However one sneaky Easter egg is outwardly much more of a deep reduce than followers anticipated.

Early on in Skeleton Crew the viewers and its younger heroes alike are swept to the pirate cove of Port Borgo, surrounded by an entire flotilla of fascinating-looking Star Wars ships. However one stood out specifically: a skinny, white ship briefly glimpsed as the Onyx Cinder made its means into port. Some followers pegged the design as being from a traditional piece of Star Wars idea artwork: Colin Cantwell’s early design for the pirate ship that will finally turn out to be the Millennium Falcon. Cantwell’s skinny, slender design would finally be iterated on and repurposed into the Tantive IV blockade runner, however may have seemingly made its means again into Star Wars continuity by Skeleton Crew, identical to how Andor canonized his early Star Destroyer design because the Cantwell-class Arrestor cruiser.

It seems, nonetheless, that the ship wasn’t fairly Cantwell’s. As an alternative, it’s a mashup of that design with the similar-looking Eagle Lander from the Gerry Anderson sci-fi traditional House: 1999. Cantwell’s unique design for the ship was really moved away from because of a perceived similarity to the Eagle, so the mashup is kind of applicable—and the “Millennium Eagle” was dropped at life by former ILM modeler and VFX supervisor Invoice George, as a part of a sequence imagining a hypothetical show celebrating life-sized scale fashions of traditional sci-fi ships and props.

“I’ve at all times liked the story of how the Pirate Ship design was modified because it was felt it appeared an excessive amount of just like the Eagle from House: 1999,” George just lately advised ColinCantwell.com, a website just lately arrange by family and friends of the deceased artist to have fun his work. “My unique idea was to do a mash-up of the 2 ships. That wasn’t exhausting in any respect as they do have comparable proportions.”

George confirmed that it’s his hybrid design that made it into Skeleton Crew, after former colleagues at ILM reached out to him and requested if they might scan the mannequin to be used within the galaxy far, distant. “Nobody ever advised me who was behind the request,” George added, “however once I was requested, I jumped on the alternative! I don’t know, however as soon as a mannequin is made, they have an inclination to indicate up in different media. I’m simply comfortable it made it into the background as type of a ‘cameo’ look.”

The ship has but to be straight recognized inside Star Wars‘ universe, so time will inform if the Millennium Eagle will discover a designation as cheeky as its portmanteau title, or if, just like the Arrestor cruiser, it’ll be recognized by an homage to Cantwell and George in another means. However at the very least a enjoyable little twist on Star Wars‘ design historical past has made its means again into the galaxy far, distant the great distance spherical—an thought almost 50 years within the making.

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