Fett's El Camino

The Millenium Falcon is really a van. A van with a wizard airbrushed on the side. There are hot babes wearing chainmail bikinis clutching the wizard’s knees. And I don’t care what the song says. Fett’s ride would have been an El Camino. With flames painted on the side. And the car’s horn would play “La Chucharacha” every time he hit it. ‘Cause that’s how the Fett Man would have rolled, baby.

While Boba Fett’s earthbound ride would have been pretty pimpin', when I think about it, his actual choice of spaceship was kind of…retarded. I’ve been working on a model of the Slave I, and if the model and movies are correct, the ship takes off and lands horizontally, but flies vertically.

Think about it. The most deadly, dangerous, bounty hunter in the galaxy lies prone on his back staring up at the sky for a few minutes every time his ship lands or takes off. This would give any enemies a perfect window of opportunity to blow him to kingdom come while he struggles to get into or out of his seat.

I’m definitely not the first person to have noticed this flaw, as the good people at Lucasfilm have come up with a half-assed explanation of sorts. If the manufacturer was clever enough to build a spaceship, surely they would have been smart enough to recognize this design flaw in the first place?

Painting the Slave I and the Boba Fett figurine has been labor intensive, but fun. Since nobody is going to see much of the interior anyway, I’m trying to use as many different shades of gray as possible, even though the instructions want me to spray paint pretty much everything one shade of gray, with little touches of black thrown in.

Working with spray paint is a lot of fun. It’s a shame that law abiding, suburban youth--not unlike my considerably younger self--aren’t introduced to this wonderful medium. I spent countless hours in class, filling up loose leaf and defacing binders and textbooks with silly doodles when a much more worthwhile art project was literally parked right under my ass.

I had, in grade seven, a very cool ride: a chopper bicycle. Or rather, it would have been cool if it had been the late seventies. It was the late eighties, and everybody had a BMX. I, on the other hand, was pulling into the school bike rack perched on a banana seat, and getting teased mercilessly for it.

It was a shame I wasn’t a little more confident at the time. That bike had everything: mud guards, high-rise handlebars, and a sissy bar on the back. I’ve long since forgotten, and don’t really care about the taunts. The one thing I do regret is not pushing the envelope with that bike.



The paint had begun to fade, and repainting the bike might have taught me a useful skill. Even if I botched the job, spray painting the bike in a bright, day-glo color would have been fun, and the visual equivalent of a large, upraised middle finger to any classmate who thought my bike looked lame.

I’d like to think that’s what the Fett Man would have done, if he were in junior high school.

Update, Extreme Geeking Edition

For all you Sealab 2021 fans out there, Rocky sent me this message and a link: Hesh = M.C. Chris