In addition to what he needed for the replica, he’s been making more for others who want a piece of the carbonite. Using his own powers, Blatt was able to track down a Volvo 343 turn signal indicator, and made a mold to reproduce it. So it wouldnt just be clean lines of Hans clothes on a cardboard box, I needed to make it look as if he were frozen into it. Other parts were from a record player and a camera viewfinder. Being frozen in carbonite for a short period of time has shown to have little to no side effects, known as hibernation sickness. Han wasn't seen again until early in Return of the Jedi, but over the years, the exact time he was spent frozen has never been explicitly stated. The car was only made from 1977-1979, and only made in Europe (since the Star Wars prop team was based in the U.K.). Now, the method is notorious for being used by bounty hunters like Din Djarin but was also used on Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. Turned out, it was a turn signal panel from a Volvo 343. It took until November 2011 for internet sleuths to find what was used to make the parts of the side panel. In the case of Star Wars, it just so happened that what is later seen on the screen became a cultural touchstone. Prop makers often don’t even remember what they used. Those studios aren’t much different from makerspaces like the Node, with lots of stuff lying around that gets turned into something else.
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But the power to recreate things digitally is insignificant next to the power of 1970s prop makers who were just using found objects that happened to be lying around the studio.
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But to get it perfect and get all the details, that’s a whole other level,” he said.īlatt was able to find dimensions, and recreate some of the parts using 3D scans and AutoCAD. “You could build the whole thing in a day if you wanted. Those also happen to be the details that Star Wars geeks obsess over. “You get certain pictures and you’re trying to figure out spacing of things and how big things are, and you never get a straight-on shot and exact measurements of things,” Blatt said. Much assembly was still required, which is where the Bondo came in.īut that still left the vertical side panels, which in many ways are where the smallest details exist. If your an avid Star Wars fan, and just cant get enough of Han Solo, chances are you probably already have the Han Solo stuck in Carbonite ice tray, the Han Solo stuck in carbonite Halloween costume, and of course the Han Solo stuck in carbonite roaster pot.
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Blatt was able to track down the body parts in rubber form, and received them in a rubber blob. In 1996, a company called Illusive Concepts was licensed by the Star Wars empire to produce replicas. In the movies themselves, there aren’t very many shots of the frozen figure, and only two props are in existence in the Lucasfilm archives.īlatt was buoyed early on after finding that he didn’t have to recreate the images of a trapped Harrison Ford.
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(Photo by Todd Blatt)įirst, however, he had to figure out how to build it. A smaller, 3D-printed version of Han Solo in carbonite.