Bandai 1/100,000 Super Star Destroyer 'Executor'

…A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…

Thus begin probably the most profitable and the most popular Sci-Fi film franchise ever! Now, Star Wars is not just a great sci-fi film, but it is also very widely known for its eclectic collection of vehicles, some of which had entered sci-fi stardom. Vehicles like the Millennium Falcon, TIE fighter, and the Star Destroyer (Imperial Star Destroyer. Colloquially known throughout the War verse as an Imp Star D) etc became the go to vehicles in sci-fi lore in general.

One of the biggest ships, sans the Death Star in the original Trilogy universe is the Super Star Destroyer. Officially known as a Star Dreadnaught, and championed by none other than Darth Vader himself, the first Super Star Destroyer built, named the Executor was given to Darth Vader in his pursuit of the Rebels. At an official 19 Kilometers long (about the size of Manhattan Island), the ship was filled with no less than 5000 tubolasers and ion cannons, that’s excluding a massive open hanger bay equipped with thousands of Tie/ln, Tie/in, Tie Bombers and other transport crafts including personal Siennar Fleet System Lambda-B shuttle crafts for Vader himself, and hundreds, if not thousands of landing crafts that can land the Army sized Stormtroopers, while others carried the hundreds of AT-AT walkers and other assault vehicles should a landing be necessary. The ship can easily be a fleet onto herself and can easily conquer a planet if the need arises.

The fact of the matter is, the ship is actually too big and wholly unnecessary since it was too big, too unmanuverable and too slow. In fact, like the Death Star it serves as a symbol of Imperial might and power and the Emperor bottomless pit of wealth and can build anything and everything he wants on the back of the people in the galaxy. Official records states eventually the Empire would build 13 SSD’s. However, after Endor, at least 6 was captured by the New Republic and the rest was destroyed, with the last one making its fateful crash landing on Jakku.

As for the Executor, it saw a few fleeting moment of glory when it helped capture the new Rebel base on Hoth. However, during battle of Endor, Admiral Piett proved to be no match for Adm. Ackabar. After its bridge deflector shields was taken out, a crazed Rebel pilot slammed his A-Wing fighter into the Executor’s bridge, killing everyone instantly in a massive fireball. Before secondary crews can gain control of the ship in the emergency bridge located deep within the ship, the Death Star’s gravity well captured the ship and the massive construct slammed into the surface. This proved disastrous later on for the Empire since even though it was terrifying serving under the Dark Lord, where he has a nasty habit of force choking anyone that displeased him to death, serving onboard the ship was still considered to be a plump assignment and a fast track to admiralship and thus, fame and fortune so many of the Empire brightest served on the ship and when it went down with all hands, took many of the Empire’s brightest with it.

The fact of the matter is, I always wanted a scale model of the Executor! I always like the Super Star Destroyer better than the regular “Imp Star D”. I still remember the scene in Empire Strikes Back where the Probe Droid just discovered the Rebels on Hoth and reported back. The next scene, with the thunderous Imperial March booming in the background, we saw a massive ship moving in, its dark shadow casting an ominous darkness over the now puny Imperial Star Destroyer as the Executor is being unveiled. The fact of the matter is, this scene wasn’t supposed to be included in the movie. But after the original 19 foot long filming miniature was unveiled, with its over 10,000 lights turned on, it was such an impressive sight that all the people who were there, including Lucas quickly decided to include that scene in the film to underscore, as I went when the Executor showed up, “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOYYYY are Han, Leia and Luke in trouble!!!” So I always wanted a model of that, not just because of that scene but also because I’m always attract to the Executor’s shape, a decidedly no-nonsense arrow shape that seems to point its pointy end at whatever or whoever displeased the Dark Lord himself!

Alas, for over 30 years now, no one had ever made a model kit of this said ship. There are resin kits…Each costing over $500 a pop….Yeah, no go on that! But throughout the years, Monogram, AMT, and now various manufactures such as Fine Molds never came out with a model of this famous ship. Last year, finally, Bandai took it on themselves to finally, finally release a model of this ship in 1/25000 scale…

…You read me correctly, it’s in 1/100,000, that’s one/One Hundred Thousand scale! Now, I know the original ship is big so the scale will be small but this is a little too small! Come on! Give us a bigger scale….Like a 24 inch long ship will do! But yet, you get a ship that’s only about 4 inches. Sigh, it will do…I’ve been waiting for an Executor kit for ages now.

Upon opening the 8 inch box, one is greeted with three sprues. These include the top and bottom half of the ship and its various accessories including the engines and the parts for I like to call the “cityscape” in the center of the ship excluding the three black parts for the display stand. The small instruction is very clear about where goes what. However, due to the extreme small size of the ship, the side details are completely missing. Hence why I’m hoping for a larger scale of this. Anyways, time to begin.

Again, everything is straight forward. This kit is snap tight but I cemented everything shut. First step is to cement the top and bottom half of the hull together since everything goes either on the top or bottom of this. Next are all the engines on the aft bottom end of the ship.

Finally, the “cityscape” was added on to the top, along with the bridge…Again, due to the small scale, the two deflector domes are missing. This is why a larger scale is wished upon! Details like this can be easily added if the scale was bigger!

Well, that about does it for Construction…Just about the shortest kit I ever made. Time to put some paint on this very big but very little ship!

There are no decals. The ship in both ESB and RotJ was clean and sported no markings. Main paint scheme is light ghost grey for the outer part and Dark Ghost Grey for the cityscape on top, the hanger deck, engine deck and the bottom aft of the ship. I tried medium grey and gunship grey but those proved to be too dark or too blue so dark ghost grey is the way to go.

Painting starts with a spray of light ghost grey over the entire model. I did not tape the dark ghost grey parts since this will serve as a bottom contrast coat. It took only two coats to cover the ship since it is so small. I waited 12 hours before taping up the relevant parts for dark ghost grey. It turned out to be too short since the tape ripped of some light ghost grey paint apart, forcing me to go back and respray. But anyways, two coats of dark ghost grey and the cityscape, the hanger bay and the engine rear deck were done. The final bit was I took Testor’s Taillight Amber Yellow and using a small brush, stuffed the inside of the engines with it to denote that they are on and operating……And…………and……….and………

And that was it! Model done!...Ok, fine I had to put the display stand together. This include a swivel piece on top but that was rather painless and I put the ship on the stand…….And…and….And that was truly it! Model truly done!

And that is that. Easy, cheesy, painless. Again, just wish the thing is a bit larger…24 inch model will do….A 32 inch one would be more than acceptable but that may be too big for some people since that would be the size of a 1/350th scale U.S.S. Enterprise! Still, the detail is generally good for this ship and the price is very cheap and you can get this done in less than two days. I took a while cause there were so many other projects on the shelves here. And yes, this is me trying to kick some of them out cause my “Waiting to be completed” is full and seriously need some space!

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