10 Things You Didn't Know About The Millennium Falcon

5. It Was Originally The Tantive IV

Han Solo had a 'pirate ship' in the second draft of the script for A New Hope, and the initial versions of its design were pretty standard and rocket ship-shaped. Upon realisation the designs looked way too similar to a ship from TV series Space 1999, George Lucas gave modelmaker Joe Johnston the task of coming up with an alternative more akin to a flying saucer. What Johnston came up with was the distinctive saucer-shaped-but-not-really form of the Millennium Falcon.

The original, too-generic design was altered to have a more hammer-headed shape, and was used as the basis for the Tantive IV, the Corellian corvette used by Princess Leia and the first spaceship seen in A New Hope.

As impressive as that ship was, it's difficult to imagine the Millennium Falcon being quite such a pop culture icon with the more mundane shape of the Tantive IV.