[MOC] Mos Eisley Shipwreck Vessel - The Dodgy Sparrow

[millenniumf]

In the background of the scene where Luke and Ben are pulling up to the cantina, the astute movie viewer will notice a pile of what looks like giant rocket cylinders and some sort of radar dish:

If you look closer, you'll notice that it's actually the skeletal remains of some sort of small transport. And a drawing done by John Berry during production shows what the wreck originally looked like:

So I thought, why not flesh it out even further, the same way Stinsen Lenz of https://deeplyobsessed.blogspot.com did and make a Lego version of the same ship?

In the theme of naming ships after birds, I decided that this ship's original name was the Dodgy Sparrow, a small Sorosuub TG-2200 spacetug meant for ferrying small amounts of cargo from a planet's surface to orbital facilities and back, as well as latching onto cargo containers and towing larger ships around. Small but powerful engines flank its sides and a powerful tractor beam is mounted to the rear frame of the vehicle, and two docking rings flank the cockpit to enable the transfer of personnel from space stations to the ship without the need to land. One of these ships fell into the hands of the smuggler Doran Liasan, who began using the inconspicuous and innocuous looking craft to smuggle small amounts of illegal cargo under the nose of Republic customs ships. He refrained from arming his ship, fearing that authorities would see the weapons and begin poking around and asking too many questions, and as fast as his ship was owing to the quartet of engines on the flanks, he wasn't about to test the armor and shields of his ship against Republic laser cannons. One day as he was making a run from Socorro to Tatooine to deliver a cargo of thermal detonators to his buyer in Mos Eisley, he attracted the attention of some pirates flying near one of the planet's moons. He tried to outrun them, but their ion cannons made short work of his reactor and port stabilizer. He used the remaining stabilizer to bring the ship down, but the resulting crash landing sheared off the portside engines and broke the cockpit free of the hull. Doran rode out the crash, but the impact had shattered several ribs and broke his legs. He attempted to free himself from the wreck, but the pirates who had shot him down landed a few yards away, walked up to the severed cockpit, and shot him as he sat in his chair, still held in place by the seatbelt. The remains of his ship can still be seen outside Chalmun's Cantina as a warning to anyone who thinks the skies above Tatooine are safe.

The Lego model has several features added to it. I didn't want to be satisfied with a static model, so the landing gear can fold up and the top hull sections can be pulled off to view the interior. 

More pictures can be seen in the Imgur album: https://imgur.com/gallery/vs6VVw8

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by millenniumf