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The Venator-class Star Destroyer, also known as the Venator-class Destroyer, Republic attack cruiser, and later Imperial attack cruiser, was one of the capital ships used extensively by the Galactic Republic during the later parts of the Clone Wars, as well as by the Galactic Empire. It was designed and constructed by Kuat Drive Yards and Allanteen Six shipyards.
A stock ship was 1,137 meters long, making it one of the largest capital ships capable of atmospheric operations, landing on planets to load and unload troops and vehicles.
The Venator-class was born from the success of the Acclamator-class assault ship and was designed by Lira Blissex for the purpose of serving as a medium-sized, versatile multi-role warship.
Roles
Roles
While designed primarily for ship-to-ship combat, the Venator had secondary roles ranging from starfighter carrier to military transport and battleship escort. The expanded carrier role made the Venator-class popular amongst Jedi starfighter aces.
As a popular multi-role warship of the Republic Navy, the Venator was considered heavily armed and armored enough to lead assaults on Rim worlds like Utapau as well as fast enough to chase down blockade runners. Due to being relatively less self-sufficient than other ships in the fleet, the Venator-class often relied upon supply lines to aid long-range campaigns.
These vessels also sported the red color of diplomatic immunity all Republic ships sported; by the beginning of the Galactic Empire, the hulls were deprived of this symbol of the Republic, giving them a dull Imperial-gray appearance.
Revell Star Wars Republic Star Destroyer
KIT HIGHLIGHTS
- Detailed plastic pieces molded in light gray
- Fully detailed engines
- Conning tower assembly
- Waterslide decals
- Illustrated instructions
- Length: 19-13/16″ (503.23mm)
- Width: 9-5/8″ (244.47mm)
- Height: 4-13/16″ (122.23mm)
- Skill level: 4
- Parts: 74
- Kit # 85-6458
- MSRP: $42.99
- Street Price: $34.99 (approx)
Finally, I can call this model kit done and part of my Star Wars collection. When the Republic Star Destroyer from Revell was available, the Clone Wars animated series was in full swing. Unfortunately I suffer from a severe case of procrastination plus the frequent arrival of model kits to our premises, that I totally forgot about it. The moment I wanted to build it, the kit was out-of-print. Prices on the auction site were prohibited with some listings going for over $200. I recall sending an email to Revell inquiring for a future re-release of this kit. Good fella Ed Sexton promptly replied with pretty a huge wink. A few months later Revell announced the re-release of the elusive Republic Star Destroyer.
I don’t consider the Republic Star Destroyer a Snap-Tite model kit in all the sense. But it is an easy build straight out of the box. This model kit offers a very nice canvas for further super detailing. If time is no object for you, you can almost bring this model kit to filming miniature quality. I opted to light up the kit with fiber optic. Every single hole was drilled by hand with .135 for .25 fiber optic strands and .020 drill bits for .50 fiber optic. There is room for improvement on the engine nozzles but they will do out-of-the-box -. Dang! I need a mini 3D printer for jobs like this.- I did cut one of the blast doors to expose my vision of a hangar. It is not screen accurate so please be gentle 😉
I added to the engine nozzles 3 & 5mm blue flickering LEDs. As you all can see on the picture below, it can be powered via 12v AC adapter or a 12v with 8 AA battery pack for shows. I have seen one of these kits built with the top hangar doors open and the interior scratch built like in the animated series of Clone wars. Again, if time is not a problem, this kit will keep you quite busy.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I am really glad that Revell decided to listen to its customers and bring this model back when we wanted it the most. My local hobby shop
(Hub Hobby) is well stocked with them and I am planning to get at least 2 more. For $35.00 the Republic Star Destroyer from Revell is a steal.
(Hub Hobby) is well stocked with them and I am planning to get at least 2 more. For $35.00 the Republic Star Destroyer from Revell is a steal.
My sincere thanks to Revell USA for sending in this production sample.
It has been discovered that a recaster from South Korea has been making copies of Scale Solution's Super Star Destroyer kit (SSDEC2) in white resin. I believe this is the 15' kit. Please note that when you buy a recast of someone's hard work, you are not only buying a cheap copy with lots of bubbles and holes, but you are also depriving the rightful owner of his fruits from his labor. They even had the nerve to use copies of his instructions.Get the original cause trust me, when you compare them side by side, you can see why.
Recast |
Original |
Original |
Recast Instruction copy |
Original Instruction Sheet |
Here is how Scale Solution's original Super Star Destroyer look like before and when completed.
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/SUPER-STAR-DESTROYER.html |
You won't be able to get those fine details with a recast. So remember folks, buy a re-cast at your own risk.
Scale Solutions is an established Australian Garage Kit (GK) maker and is well known within the GK community for providing kits that are perfectly cast with fine details and very minimal or no defects. Founded by Wayne William Pugh who himself is an ardent artistic model maker, He also offers his services for model making, resin molding and casting, blacksmithing, as well as fine arts.
Star Wars Mysteries: Exacting Executor Measurements
Etiquette dictates that to avoid upset feelings or arguments, there are three things you never discuss at the dinner table: religion, politics, and the lengths of Super Star Destroyers. The last one, in particular, is a topic fraught with controversy with impassioned opinions that have sparked many a damned fool idealistic crusade. This blog is one of them.
What’s the kerfuffle about? In case you haven’t heard, the size of the Executor has, for years, been a contested thing. Today’s era of computer-generated visual effects offer an advantage, in that there are set numbers that define the “real” size of CG starships. Sure, some shots may fudge things in the composite, but in general, all the elements within a CG shot are to scale with one another, and by opening up the assets on a computer, you can find out how big a model is supposed to be.
Motion control models, however, aren’t as rigidly defined. Yes, they’re built to a certain scale, but in the set-up of an optical composite, the arrangement of ships can be composed to the frame, rather than true perspective, and it gets harder and harder to establish what the true size of any given object can be.
That’s a long way of saying it’s hard to measure a ship by looking at the screen. And that’s what’s spawned all sorts of debate on what the intended size of Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer should be. And it shows in the spin-off books and guides that have come after The Empire Strikes Back, in that the size of the Executor has varied over the years.
Super Star Destroyer Model Kits For Sale
If we accept that a regular Star Destroyer is a mile-long, then we have an accurate “yardstick” by which to measure the Executor. But the problem is that shots in Episodes V and VI rarely line up the ships perfectly for us to measure. Shots like this give us the closest clue:
But even here there are camera-based unknowns like lens type and focal length that could affect how big the objects in the image appear.
So we are forced to turn to text and see what’s been written about the Star Destroyer length. Does the script say anything on how big the Star Destroyer is supposed to be? Alas, no. It just says the following:
Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer, larger and more awesome than the five Imperial Star Destroyers that surround it, sits in the vastness of space. The six huge ships are surrounded by a convoy of smaller spacecraft. TIE fighters dart to and fro.
We can take it as canon that the Executor is indeed more awesome than a regular Star Destroyer, but specifics about size are lacking.
The next source to weigh in on anything quantitative is The Art of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) which tells us, rather unhelpfully, that Vader’s Star Destroyer has “twice the destructive capability of any craft in the Imperial fleet.” In 1983, in The Empire Strikes Back National Public Radio Dramatization has Lando Calrissian eyeball Vader’s flagship to be about three times the size of Cloud City, a measurement that is no help given that Cloud City’s size is never specified. For those doing the math nowadays, based on how big we understand Cloud City to be, that puts the Executor at a whopping 48 kilometers in length, or 30 times the size of a regular mile-long Star Destroyer.
The first source to attempt to say anything definitive about a Star Destroyer length is A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, written by Raymond L. Velasco and published by Del Rey Books in 1984. It says, quite firmly, that the Executor is five times the length of a regular Star Destroyer. This locks in the size of the Executor at eight kilometers long (five miles), and for years after that, it was the accepted length. West End Games, publishers of the Star Wars roleplaying game at the time had to adhere to this. So did the video games that followed in the ’90s, the size charts in the hefty Star Wars Chronicles book, and the first edition of The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels.
To this day, I don’t know where Velasco got the five-mile length from, but he had to have good reason. He cites in the Guide as his sources for that entry The Art of The Empire Strikes Back and The Empire Strikes Back itself, but neither source makes that claim. It wasn’t until The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels that this size got bumped up to 12,800 kilometers in length, and the most recent measurements that came courtesy of later era cross-section books and published blueprints have settled on 19,000 kilometers in length. My how has it grown!
But what was the intent of the modelmakers? Is there any way to figure that out?
During the filming of The Empire Strikes Back, there were two principal scales for the Star Destroyer model. ILM used a 91-centimeter long model originally created for A New Hope for some shots, as well as a much larger 259-centimeter long version for Empire. These allowed them to get different types of shots, including wide shots that wouldn’t require trucking the camera a long distance away. You can tell the difference between the two scales of Star Destroyers by looking at the detail on the engines.
But the enormity of the Super Star Destroyer created a wrinkle. It was built a relatively manageable 282 centimeters in length. Capturing the whole thing was possible on stage, but in order to put a regular Star Destroyer in frame with it, you would have had to have a huge floor space to get far away from even the 91-centimeter model so that it scaled properly.
To save money and studio space, ILM built a small Star Destroyer out of brass to share the shot with the Executor. It was built of brass so that a hot light source could run from inside the small model without melting the dense little ship.
The important thing about the brass Star Destroyer is that it was built to be in scale with the Super Destroyer model. So if the little brass ship is supposed to be a mile long, then we know how long the Executor truly is supposed to be. I found the brass Star Destroyer at the Lucasfilm Archives and was able to measure it.
It is 33.5 centimeters long. Compare that to the Super Star Destroyer’s length of 282 centimeters long, and that suggests the intended size of the Executor of 8.418 times the size of a regular Star Destroyer. In other words: 13,469 meters long.
I say intended size, because I’m not about to weigh in here with a canonical size of the in-universe vessel after all these years. I’ll let someone else duke it out to settle that statistic. But now you’ve got another data point on the ongoing debate.
Etiquette dictates that to avoid upset feelings or arguments, there are three things you never discuss at the dinner table: religion, politics, and the lengths of Super Star Destroyers. The last one, in particular, is a topic fraught with controversy with impassioned opinions that have sparked many a damned fool idealistic crusade. This blog is one of them.
What’s the kerfuffle about? In case you haven’t heard, the size of the Executor has, for years, been a contested thing. Today’s era of computer-generated visual effects offer an advantage, in that there are set numbers that define the “real” size of CG starships. Sure, some shots may fudge things in the composite, but in general, all the elements within a CG shot are to scale with one another, and by opening up the assets on a computer, you can find out how big a model is supposed to be.
Motion control models, however, aren’t as rigidly defined. Yes, they’re built to a certain scale, but in the set-up of an optical composite, the arrangement of ships can be composed to the frame, and it gets harder and harder to establish what the true size of any given object can be.
That’s a long way of saying it’s hard to measure a ship by looking at the screen. And that’s what’s spawned all sorts of debate on what the intended size of Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer should be. And it shows in the spin-off books and guides that have come after The Empire Strikes Back, in that the size of the Executor has varied over the years.
If we accept that a regular Star Destroyer is a mile-long, then we have an accurate “yardstick” by which to measure the Executor. But the problem is that shots in Episodes V and VI rarely line up the ships perfectly for us to measure. Shots like this give us the closest clue:
Han & Chewie would go on to endlessly debate this view.
But even here there are camera-based unknowns like lens-type and focal length that could affect how big the objects in the image appear.
So we are forced to turn to text and see what’s been written about the Star Destroyer length. Does the script say anything on how big the Star Destroyer is supposed to be? Alas, no. It just says the following:
Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer, larger and more awesome than the five Imperial Star Destroyers that surround it, sits in the vastness of space. The six huge ships are surrounded by a convoy of smaller spacecraft. TIE fighters dart to and fro.
We can take it as canon that the Executor is indeed more awesome than a regular Star Destroyer, but specifics about size are lacking.
The next source to weigh in on anything quantitative is The Art of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) which tells us, rather unhelpfully, that Vader’s Star Destroyer has “twice the destructive capability of any craft in the Imperial fleet.” In 1983, in The Empire Strikes Back National Public Radio Dramatization has Lando Calrissian eyeball Vader’s flagship to be about three times the size of Cloud City, a measurement that is no help given that Cloud City’s size is never specified. For those doing the math nowadays, based on how big we understand Cloud City to be, that puts the Executor at a whopping 48 kilometers in length, or 30 times the size of a regular mile-long Star Destroyer. Never trust Lando’s estimates, then.
The first source to attempt to say anything definitive about a Star Destroyer length is A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, written by Raymond L. Velasco and published by Del Rey Books in 1984. It says, quite firmly, that the Executor is five times the length of a regular Star Destroyer. This locks in the size of the Executor at eight kilometers long (five miles), and for years after that, it was the accepted length. West End Games, publishers of the Star Wars roleplaying game at the time had to adhere to this. So did the video games that followed in the ’90s, the size charts in the hefty Star Wars Chronicles book, and the first edition of The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels.
Imperial Sourcebook and Star Wars Chronicles scale illustrations.
To this day, I don’t know where Velasco got the five-mile length from, but he had to have good reason. He cites in the Guide as his sources for that entry The Art of The Empire Strikes Back and The Empire Strikes Back itself, but neither source makes that claim. It wasn’t until The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels that this size got bumped up to 12,800 meters in length, and the most recent measurements that came courtesy of later era cross-section books and published blueprints have settled on 19,000 meters in length. My how has it grown!
But what was the intent of the modelmakers? Is there any way to figure that out?
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During the filming of The Empire Strikes Back, there were two principal scales for the Star Destroyer model. ILM used a 91-centimeter long model originally created for A New Hope for some shots, as well as a much larger 259-centimeter long version for Empire. These allowed them to get different types of shots, including wide shots that wouldn’t require trucking the camera a long distance away. You can tell the difference between the two scales of Star Destroyers by looking at the detail on the engines. The smaller ship has three added struts along the perimeter of the primary thrusters.
Top, the 91-cm model; bottom, the 259-cm model. Catch: it’s supposed to be the same ship.
But the enormity of the Super Star Destroyer created a wrinkle. It was built a relatively manageable 282 centimeters in length. Capturing the whole thing was possible on stage, but in order to put a regular Star Destroyer in frame with it, you would have had to have a huge floor space to get far away from even the 91-centimeter model so that it scaled properly.
The foreground Star Destroyer is a different scale than the other two.
Super Star Destroyer Model Kit 1/144 Scale
To save money and studio space, ILM modelmaker Paul Huston built a small Star Destroyer out of brass to share the shot with the Executor. It was built of brass so that a hot light source could run from inside the small model without melting the dense little ship.
The important thing about the brass Star Destroyer is that it was built to be in scale with the Super Destroyer model. So if the little brass ship is supposed to be a mile long, then we know how long the Executor truly is supposed to be. I found the brass Star Destroyer at the Lucasfilm Archives and was able to measure it.
The Rosetta Stone of Destroyer Sizes
It is 33.5 centimeters long. Compare that to the Super Star Destroyer’s length of 282 centimeters long, and that suggests the intended size of the Executor of 8.418 times the size of a regular Star Destroyer. In other words: 13,469 meters long.
I say intended size, because I’m not about to weigh in here with a canonical size of the in-universe vessel after all these years. I’ll let someone else duke it out to settle that statistic. But now you’ve got another data point on the ongoing debate.
Edit: The first draft of this entry used kilometers instead of meters in the 12th paragraph.