A Long Time Ago… in Pembroke Dock: The Welsh Story Behind Star Wars’ iconic Millennium Falcon ship
A LONG time ago, in a dockyard not very far away…
Did ewe know that before the Millennium Falcon became one of the most recognisable spacecraft in cinema history, a full-size version of Han Solo’s famous ship was being constructed in considerable secrecy in Pembroke Dock, west Wales.
Not in Hollywood.
Not at Pinewood.
Not even at Elstree Studios.
Pembroke Dock.
And as Star Wars prepares to speak Welsh for the first time this Christmas, the story of how a group of Pembrokeshire engineers helped bring the galaxy’s most famous freighter to life suddenly feels particularly appropriate again.
SEE THE MILLENNIUM FALCON STORY FOR YOURSELF
Pembroke Dock Heritage Trust recently shared this look inside its permanent Millennium Falcon exhibition, where visitors can discover how the famous spacecraft was constructed in west Wales:
From oil industry to outer space
Following the enormous success of the original Star Wars film in 1977, George Lucas and his production team needed something much bigger for the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.
The Millennium Falcon had previously been represented using models, partial sets and other film-making techniques. For the new film, however, the production required a huge full-size exterior prop.
The job eventually went to Marcon Fabrications, an engineering company based at Pembroke Dock.
Marcon was rather more accustomed to creating machinery for the oil industry than spaceships, but it possessed two important advantages: a skilled engineering workforce and access to one of Pembroke Dock’s enormous former aircraft hangars.
Construction began during the spring of 1979.
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Welcome to ‘Magic Roundabout’
Secrecy surrounded the project.
Workers were reportedly instructed not even to refer to the object as the Millennium Falcon. Instead, the operation was given the wonderfully unlikely codename “Magic Roundabout”.
Keeping a 20-plus-tonne spaceship secret in a close-knit Pembrokeshire community proved rather difficult.
Rumours circulated that some kind of UFO was being constructed inside the hangar, and the local Western Telegraph eventually blew the secret in March 1979 with a story about the mysterious “flying saucer”.
It must have been quite a sight.
Around 30 to 40 craftspeople and engineers worked on the project for approximately three months. The completed Falcon measured more than 80 feet in length and around 65 feet across and weighed roughly 23 tonnes.
This was not some lightweight movie model.
It was serious Welsh engineering being applied to a spaceship that didn’t actually exist.
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How do you move the Millennium Falcon along the M4 motorway?
Building it was only half the problem.
The Falcon was needed at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, where The Empire Strikes Back was being filmed.
Unfortunately, even Han Solo might have struggled to fly a 23-tonne film prop out of Pembrokeshire.
Instead, the structure was dismantled into sections, loaded onto lorries and transported eastwards before being reassembled at the studio.
Special effects supervisor Brian Johnson later recalled that compressed-air pads beneath the structure enabled the enormous prop to float fractionally above the floor so that it could be moved around the set.
And so a spaceship constructed by engineers in a former Royal Dockyard in west Wales eventually found itself appearing in one of cinema’s most famous science-fiction films.
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The Falcon comes home – sort of
The original structure no longer survives, but Pembroke Dock has certainly not forgotten its unlikely role in cinema history.
Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre [https://pdht.org] now has a permanent Millennium Falcon exhibition featuring photographs, models, film material and recollections from people involved in the project.
Visitors can also see a full-size reconstruction representing one of the 16 sections used to create the original prop – useful for appreciating just how enormous the finished structure really was.
The Heritage Centre describes the Falcon alongside the many genuine vessels associated with Pembroke Dock’s long maritime and military history.
There is something rather wonderful about that.
A town famous for building ships and housing flying boats can also claim a place in the history of a spacecraft from a galaxy far, far away.
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Wales and Star Wars – the story continues
The Millennium Falcon is not Wales’ only connection with Star Wars.
Richard Marquand, who directed Return of the Jedi, was born in Cardiff.
Other Lucasfilm productions have used Welsh locations, while parts of Star Wars: The Acolyte were also filmed in Wales.
But in 2026 the connection has become stronger still.
This Christmas, the original Star Wars: A New Hope is being released in Welsh for the first time as Star Wars: Gobaith Newydd.
The official Welsh-language version has been produced by Lucasfilm and Disney in collaboration with S4C and Creative Wales and will be broadcast on S4C from Christmas Day 2026, ahead of the original film’s 50th anniversary in 2027.
And the cast is impressively Welsh.
Fresh from his historic double Emmy success, Matthew Rhys voices Han Solo.
Rhys Ifans is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays Princess Leia, Osian Morgan is Luke Skywalker and Mark Lewis Jones, who previously appeared in The Last Jedi, provides the voice of Darth Vader.
The wider cast includes Llyr Ifans, Nia Roberts, Richard Harrington, Owain Arthur and Rhodri Meilir.
Almost half a century after Welsh engineers built Han Solo’s spacecraft in Pembroke Dock, Han Solo himself is therefore about to speak Welsh.
You really couldn’t script it much better.
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From Pembroke Dock to a galaxy far, far away
The story of the Millennium Falcon is exactly the sort of unexpected Welsh connection that can easily disappear beneath the bigger story of a Hollywood blockbuster.
But behind the cameras, special effects and science-fiction mythology were dozens of real craftspeople in Pembrokeshire.
They weren’t Jedi.
They weren’t Hollywood special-effects stars.
They were engineers and fabricators who were presented with an extraordinary problem and worked out how to build something that audiences were supposed to believe had crossed galaxies.
More than 45 years later, people around the world still recognise the result.
And a small piece of that galaxy belongs to Pembroke Dock.
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Did Ewe Know?
The huge Pembroke Dock Millennium Falcon did not survive to become a priceless piece of movie memorabilia. After filming, the full-size structure was ultimately sold for scrap – making the surviving photographs, recollections and modern reconstruction in Pembroke Dock all the more valuable.