Here, then, are some shots of the Detention Corridor and Leia's Cell:



(I designed the "corridor" sticker myself as an homage to Kenner's vintage style.)





I replaced the tiny cell that came with the original playset with a more accurate room of its own. The playset itself is completely removable from the diorama itself (though it looks silly without it there.) There is also an opening behind the trash grate to allow the figures to fall through to the bottom level--I put some nice pipe details in there, but none of my pictures of it would show up very well.

A couple of nit-picky thoughts I came up with as I read the news:

J'Quille


Elom

Looks to me like we might be seeing a bit of parts sharing between these two figures. A simple head-swap and different deco would suit these two. Especially with all the figures planned for their wave...

Tatooine wave has three figures, which means four per case (and leaves R2 and R1 to duke it out for the pegwarmer of the bunch). Palace wave has five, so the ratio there will be screwed up. I'll guess three each of Lando and Shawda Ubb, plus two each of J'Quille, Elom, and Luke. They could really mix it up by making Luke a one-per or J'Quille and Elom replace one another as a running change.

For my money, I'll bet the B'omarr Monk will be a straight rehash of the exclusive version, so now I have to decide if a wall monster and Bubo are worth ten bucks. That was a deluxe set I didn't see coming, and just proves that assortment is wide-open now.

Holographic Luke sounds really cool to me...the best surprise yet. And it's great to see the fantastic job done on the R1. I'm looking forward to searching for all of these!

In the QnA over at GalacticHunter, Adam made reference to the fact that Rieekan would be included in the Deluxe Assortment (including The Wampa, new Jabba, and Escape Pod Threepio, and three other unnamed releases.) Question number 9 here.

This is the first I've heard of Rieekan as a deluxe figure...I'm sure the tactical display he comes with is nice and all, but I hadn't been under the impression it was "deluxe" nice.

Has there been offical word that Rieekan is indeed a deluxe figure?

When I first got htese figures I spent an aftermoom stripping them down (And then getting them dressed again.) The figures are fully painted and sculpted under their robes, but the sculpting to allow for hip articulation reminded me a lot of the old vintage figures (think Tatooine Luke or Ben Kenobi's hip joints.)

I found it was easier to pop the lower parts of their arms off to help slide their robes off.

From a marketing standpoint, it makes no sense right now to not have OT DVDs officially released. Episode I and II are already available, but I can pretty much guarantee there will be new versions of them lined up for the "Ultimate" edition of the Saga on DVD that we've been assured will come after Episode III.

So why not release a bare bones version of the OT to compliment the regular editions of the PT? Especially as has been described--a boxed set of all three movies (Special Edition verison) plus one disc of extra features.

Had VHS held up as a selling platform until 2005, this might not have been a necessary step. DVD is no longer the future, DVD is the here-and-now, if there is an OT DVD set, it will only be Lucasfilm acknowledging that fact.

Thanks, Matt! Things are in fact progressing--I finished the Detention Level yesterday, and hope to have pictures to show everyone soon. Now on to the Docking Bay level (which has everything but a docking bay!)

As for the conference room, my creativity's just not piqued with building one...maybe if Hasbro makes a Screen Sceen table...the whole thing disassembles by level, so I haven't ruled out any rooms for sure. I'd love to even stick in a ROTJ Throne Room at some point, but it's not a part of my initial design.

...maybe after I build my modular Cloud City playset...

Outstanding work there Muftak. How big do you plan to have the entire set be? Will it encompass such things as a full detention cell hallway, conference room, and/or the hangar bay?

There will be four more levels on top of this one, it will be just a bit bigger than three feet tall when finished. The next level up (3) has the detention center and the cellblock playset from 96, the one above that will contain the hangar control room, the hangar hallway (with blastdoors) and the elevator hall. The next level up (4) will be the control room and a short hallway with blastdoors. The top level will be the central core shaft, with two bridge doors and the tractor beam controls.

Docking bays are just too large to fit the size I was working for (trying to keep this thing under four feet square).  I really weighed doing the conference room, which would have been a floor all by itself I think, but in the end it boiled down to not enough officers to fill it. Tarkin, Motti, and Vader will just hang out in the control room. If hasbro suddenly has a change of heart and makes a troop builder set of officers, I can alway retrofit it later.

Great use of the CD to add effect for the superlaser control room, but wasn't the chamber parallel to the controllers, or was that in ROTJ? I forget....

After studying that three-second shot for waaaaaay too long, I've come to the conclusion that the control platform is actually in the round chamber (the laser blast bursts right behind them), which was actually just a matte painting. The painting had all the curved walls, while the platform and all it's walls were straight. In ROTJ it looks like they use the same footage flipped mirror-image style.

What about detailing on the outside, will you add anything like gunner stations or the turrets from the trenches?

I originally thought about putting two little gun towers on the very top (above the chasm doorways), but have lately been toying with the idea of making the whole thing double as a nearly-to-scale gun tower from the back, with  two large cannons sticking out about level three.

Maybe an exhaust vent hidden on the back of level two..?

Here are some shots of the trash compactor:









I'd have liked to give it mashing walls, but the Screen Scene base kind of made that impossible. I'm going to put a chute opening in the ceiling to allow figures to drop from the cellblock (which will be directly above it) into the compactor.