Thread by @spaceshipsporn

Did you like the Dornean Gunship, Braha'tok-class? You will love the Arrestor Cruiser ! A story certainly better known, but it will have taken 43 years to appear (extremely briefly) on the big screen. Let's go for a new #StarWars story

Arrestor Imperial Cruiser - Solo : A Star Wars Story ( @RealRonHoward 2018)
Concept art (1975) by Colin Cantwell.

@RealRonHoward Present on the screen for a second or two in Solo: A Star Wars story, this design would go back almost to a few details, to 1975, when the Star Destroyer had not yet won the design that we know.
(Drawing from OriginalProp)

@RealRonHoward Let's start with Solo (2018). The Arrestor Cruiser can be seen very briefly in the Imperial recruitment hologram, at the Corellian spaceport, in the first minutes of the movie. Yes, we don't see it very well. :-)

@RealRonHoward Originally, we had to see it longer! @colincantwellcb , the author of the design, welcomed it before the release of the film. But the scene where the ship was supposed to appear was cut. The scene where Han Solo is an imperial cadet.

Hello, Arrestor cruiser.

@RealRonHoward @colincantwellcb This sequence was therefore between the sequence on Corellia and that on Mimban.

Fortunately, we now can see the scene cut off (on the Blu-ray too), and (admittedly briefly) the Arrestor Cruiser!

(Yes, the visual effects are not finished.)

@RealRonHoward @colincantwellcb It also seems to me that in the script, the Millennium Falcon was at one point to be captured by a tractor beam ship, at the beginning of the Kessel Run. Maybe the Arrestor Cruiser? A question I'm addressing to @JonKasdan :)

(the image is just for illustration)

Let's go back in November, when George Lucas hired Colin Cantwell and then Ralph McQuarrie to put his vision into images and models. A name that was recommended to him by his friend Hal Barwood (The Sugarland Express 1974 & Dragonslayer 1981 cowriter), future gamer designer.

Incidentally, Hal Barwood will become the lead project of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (LucasArts, 1992), a legendary adventure game, but that's another story :)

The debut of Cantwell's work on Star Wars is extremely well told in the Making of SW written by @jwrinzler

@jwrinzler So George Lucas gives Cantwell and McQuarrie some drawings, and they will have to create the Star Wars style. If McQuarrie will focus on his famous designs, Colin Cantwell will also make concept models.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb on Instagram, about the Star Destroyer : "I asked George about the scenes. We had a few words in which he described the scenes. I then asked "Is it bigger than Burbank?" to determine the size of the Imperial Cruiser and the opening scenes of the movie."

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb "The hatch concept was developed in terms of the need of actual scenes later in the movie. In the opeing I was describing something WWII-ish of a concept with a gunner in the fuscelage."
(from originalprop.com/blog/2014/11/1…)

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb Cantwell: "The ship was designed with a lot of thought on what the viewer would experience related to the massiveness of the ship. This involved thinking of things and creating relationships between all of the ships and their interactions with each other."
(Original Prop blog)

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb "I basically designed this ship aaround the function and the impact of the ship on the viewer. The sequence of function and the emotion and it had to feel like it was already there. When starting on a ship, I never did know what it would look like by the end."
Cantwell & Lucas :

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb In early 1975, the design evolves, and the specific form of the Arrestor is abandoned in favor of a triangle shape. Colin Cantwell makes this model, which will become, after some alterations, the Star Destroyer that we know.

Cantwell model/ILM SFX model/A New Hop (1977).

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb The Colin Cantwell's 1975 models were kitbashed from model cars, pill bottles, easter egg halves, "and anything else I could scrape together." So it was concept art, but in the form of study models.

Let me know if some of Cantwell's concept models remind you of something.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb Be careful, it's not like he invented these designs alone. There were Lucas's instructions (and sketched queues), and back and forth between Cantwell, McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and Alex Tavoularis. Teamwork obviously, and extremely well documented thanks to the success.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb So here we are in 1975, with this first design of abandoned Star Destroyer.

40 years later, the production of Solo is launched. Someone from Lucasfilm (who?) has the wonderful idea of paying tribute to Cantwell's early works.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb Below, a Solo (2018) concept art by Vincent Jenkins, who wrote on Instagram: "Another Empire ship inspired heavily by @colincantwellcb featured in the Art of #SoloAStarWarsStory book. Us concept guys wanted so much to get Cantwell in there! He was there at the start of it all".

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb And, yeah, The art of Solo : A Star Wars Story by @PhilSzostak is a great book for spaceships lover :)

Many, many great concept arts.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb @PhilSzostak Model maker Alex Hutchings on Instagram : "So this is the design for the #arrestorcruiser based on the @colincantwellcb design from 1977, I did a few models based on the design but the original was always best! You can see the cruiser on the bonus disc." (instagram.com/p/Bouen_rAVaN/)

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb @PhilSzostak Fun fact : there is a Hot Wheels !
Made before the cut.

@jwrinzler @colincantwellcb @PhilSzostak And for "SW Armada" players, go see @mel_miniature !

shapeways.com/product/HZM3ZG…

Autographed prints of the 1974 design are still available on @colincantwellcb website :
cantwellcollection.com

I leave the final word to Lucasfilm's Leland Chee. :)

https://twitter.com/HolocronKeeper/status/1002239233682161664

Afterwards, I'll take a break from #Star Wars threads :)
It takes too much time !

@threadreaderapp unroll

@threadreaderapp Erratum : "Original pre-production sketch art created BY Colin Cantwell FOR George Lucas in imagining the spaceships that might populate the Star Wars (20th Century, 1977) universe, circa 1974/1975."
(bidsquare.com/online-auction…)

Lucasfilm design supervisor James Clyne seems to be the origin of the unexpected return of this early 1975 design in a spring 2018 movie.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/1088123797671047168

Trivia.

https://twitter.com/Easy5055/status/1088136960282120197

In Republic Commando (2005) and Empire at War (2006).
starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Arrestor_…

Trivia strikes back.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/1088251711490162689