Monday, October 30, 2023

MPC's Millennium Falcon rerelease

Hello all! I wanted to post up some of my own pics of the recent rerelease of MPC's Millennium Falcon kit! As you or may not be aware, Round2 recently announced that they were looking into retooling parts of this kit to fix some fairly major inaccuracies, namely the tall sidewalls! A lot of modelers have been looking forward to this; after all, a 70 dollar kit is way more palatable than a 400 (or more) one, namely the Bandai kit (which is superb, there's no doubt). And the Fine Molds version commands some pretty hefty aftermarket prices, what with them being defunct. Yeah, I think we're set with this MPC re-release! 😁

Before I get into the pics, here are some videos of the new kit;

First up, Steve Iverson of CultTVMan posted this video unboxing the newest rerelease next to the original vintage kit! Check out the original kit box art! Sweet condition, too! I'm jealous! 😗🎶

Next up, these three videos are from All Scale Trek. He does a great job in reviewing the new parts, and even throws in a couple of comparisons to the Bandai Millennium Falcon kit;

Part two, mostly the buildup and lighting of the MPC rerelease;

And the third part explores the painting and weathering of the kit, and even uses some of the included kit decals;
 
Here are pics of the main hulls; cream color on the right is the new re-release, light grey on the left the "original";
 




 
 
And here are pics of the parts trees; This is where the differences between both releases really comes into play (parts are photographed from both sides, so you can see all of the details);
 
 











 
And then the clear engine pieces; blue is the re-release, clear the "original";
 
 
 

Here are pics of the front sidewalls. Just like Steve Iverson mentions in his video, the newly tooled sidewalls are reduced by a quarter of an inch when compared to their original counterparts! This makes the Falcon look a lot sleeker, yet still retains it's beefy appearance! You'll notice not much changed with the docking ports; but the rest of the sidewall parts are newly tooled!
 
 
Not much changed with the docking ports.








 

The new sensor dish! This is smaller, yet more detailed!





Last but not least, the Han Solo and Chewbacca figures! I cannot believe the detail on the new figures; simply outstanding! 🥰
 
 
Nameless figure from old kit

Old Chewie

Old Han

New Chewie!

New Han!


Here's a few pics of the two main hulls together with the docking ports in place and then side-by-side. They really did not do anything to these parts, but you can see from the photos, they did cut off a bit from the top hull's pegs; 
 

Old

New

Old

New

Old connecting pegs

The factory shortened the top connecting pegs!
 
As a sidenote, any parts not mentioned or shown are simply not changed at all; there is the small matter of the lack of control panel for Han and Chewie in the cockpit that still was not addressed by the modelmaker. Happily, a set has been produced by Paragrafix; Falcon Detail set from Paragrafix! Even with this add-on, this still makes the model kit well worth getting, and still way cheaper than the alternatives in this scale!
 
 Overall, this is a very pleasing, very budget friendly kit of the Millennium Falcon! Nice to see it enhanced like this, and the major problem with the kit sidewalls not only corrected, but given it's proper detail!!!

~Sean Kneeland, aka Zakuformer