Of all the sci-fi tvshows and movies out there, I have in my heart a weakness for Star Wars, and all others but were trumped by Firefly. So when I saw that Entertainment Weekly threw these ships of similar occupation in a head to head geek battle, I had to share that with the International Friends.
Millennium Falcon – (modified) YT-1300 Space Transport
”It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.” ”She’ll make point-five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.” Han may brag about his ride, but the Millennium Falcon delivered more often than not. Plus, it had those handy smuggling craters in the floorboards.
VS
Serenity – Firefly Class
This freighter wasn’t designed to be a smuggler’s ship, but a preponderance of hidden nooks and crannies made the conversion incredibly easy. Pretty much defenseless — Firefly-class ships weren’t equipped with weapons — Serenity relied on the ingenuity of her captain and the skill of her pilot.
But before we get into this slugfest I think there are some ground rules. EW’s website says this is a Smuggler Ship faceoff, so let’s keep in mind that it is that very occupation that we will be looking at.
Both captained by scruffy nerf herders. Both have very capable pilots behind the controls. Both very loved by thier owners. But that defines what is IN the ship, not the ship itself.
Lets take these two iconic vessels and compare them. Not the popularity of the movies they come from, not which captain or crew is cooler, not buy which would win in a fight (duh – Falcon has lotsa weapons, Serenity has none) And not which token mechanic is better looking (I pick Kaylee hands down – Chewbacca is not my thing). Which would be the better smuggling ship.
Let’s lay it out like this.
Captain John “Rampage” Campea and his first mate Doug “Crazy Cardigan” Nagy are smugglers. They are in the market to buy a ship.
They approach the lot in a universe where the Empire and the Alliance (from Firefly not the rebels) are the same thing (they aren’t?).
Which ship should they buy? And why?
I would lean towards the Falcon because of the guns. But lets take those out of the equation. For the most part, a Smuggler who gets away is much less wanted than a Smuggler who kills officers of galactic law. Armorments are a last resort for a Smuggler.
Which do you suggest our fictional TMB Smugger team?
Serenity is over twice the size of the standard YT1300. Floor hatches or not…. The size alone makes it so much faster and maneuverable than a firefly class ship. Which in turn, is more valuable than weapons to any smuggler. If the pilot is able to use the ships speed and maneuverability he won’t have to rely on the weapons. They are more of a last resort.
Depends, are we giving the Firefly-class a hyperdrive? If so, it’s being over twice the size of the YT-1300 means more cargo room and more room for crew quarters gives it the edge. Plus, those floor hatches don’t come standard.
The Serenity – way way more versatile and a helluva lot of cargo/crew/vehicle space. Besides with the twin shuttles included, smuggling from ship-to-ship or to planetside becomes a lot easier. You can always add armaments, shields, faster engines, any sort of fancy chess gadgets, or even BSG vipers if you want after you’ve made 24x the profit per smuggling trip over the Falcon.
Millenium Falcon for me… I mean he went through interior construction of death star with blazing speed, with Tie fighters in pursuit. He managed to destroy death star power generators and fly out in the matter of seconds with big ass explosion behind its back. Thats gotta mean something.
Same could be said about that Lu Sau ship Serenity. Pieced together like someone got the parts from a junkyard.
I think it just comes down to preference. I personally think the Falcon is a better looking ship, but its just a ship. In Firefly, the Serenity almost was a character. It wasn’t just their ride, it was their home.
Same could be said about the Falcon, but we didnt SEE them living daily life on the Falcon.
Its just preference.
I’d go with Serenity. Besides from being the cooler ship by far(well… kinda think Star Wars is overrated, and the Falcon especially^^), the fact that it looks like just a cargoship(let’s face it; the Falcons guns and turrets makes it look pretty threatening, and a smugglingship isn’t supposed to attract attention) and the fact that it at least seemes to have far more places to hide illegal goods makes it the better deal. Both seem to have an more or less equal amount of problems with the engine, and due to its twistable rockets, I’d bet the Serenity has better manouverability.
But a little offtopic, why do people think the Falcon looks cooler than Serenity? It looks like someone took a trip to a junkyard and put some pieces together. Ah well… maybe it’s just me.
Mr Greeb
Being boarded by your enemies and having to fight them off has little to do with the quality of your ship.
Just sayin.
I’d say the Serenity is more maneuverable, but the Falcon is faster (probably even at sublight speeds). The Serenity might have more cargo space, but both ships have been searched by their respective foes. Note that in “Episode IV: A New Hope,” Han and company were able to hide initially from the Imperial scanning team thanks to shielded compartments. I’d say that the Serenity’s large cargo hold is probably good for bulk, but its crew has had to retake the ship from enemies more often than the Falcon.
@Thuorn: Maybe famous to you, but remember the scifi worlds that these two ships live in, these were the ford taurus and chevvy cavalier of commonplace craft.
People seem to forget that because its famous to us, that it will be famous to everyone IN the movie.
Neither… Both are way too famous to use for smuggling.
I go a bit random & ask for the “Sirrocco”, the marines ship from Aliens. Has wicked big guns, those dropships & walking machines for loading loot. Also has looks to earn respect.
May lack a holo chess board, but a bit of my pimping and the interior would be a pad worthy of any party oriented smuggler
Rodney,
I agree that a Raptor is too small, but a Viper is even smaller, a Battlestar is just over kill, and if I referenced any of the other ships, my BSG reference would have probably gone over too many heads since I wouldn’t expect most people to know the names of the individual civilian ships. Maybe Colonial One would have been better. I’ll change to that one.
ya falcon is just plain ass kicking…..all i need is Admiral akbar yelling “ITS A TRAP”
I second Andrew James’ comment :P
Well they would both be pretty even in speed and manuverability. and i would have to disagree with Andrew James and say that they both don’t realy attract alot of attention to themselves and in particular the falcon is only high profile because of what was done with Han in comand.
The weapons wouldn’t make you any the more noticable because they are hidden and the only way somone would find out about it would be if you did somthng to become suspicious. The weapons would be a positive if you did get discovered and you can’t just rely on your amazing piloting (which i would assume John and Doug are a little lacking on anyways).
So i guess if you could get the Falcon before Han gives it a reputation then take it but if not then take the Serenity (though i’ve never realy heard of it and i have no idea what it is from).
I know we had said we’re throwing out FTL-Hyperspace-warp speed or whatever you want to call it, but, I do think one thing that has to be considered is that if you give them both lightspeed, then the Falcon has a significant advantage in that it is fast even within this catagory. Although the phrase, “It’s the ship that made the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs” doesn’t actually make any sense it does mean that the ship is considered exceptionally fast within it’s universe. I have no idea how far past lightspeed the average SW ship can go, the Falcon can go .5 past lightspeed, which is apparently considered very quick.
If I were a smuggler, i’d want a common looking ship, within their universes both fit this mold, they’re both based on a common model that’s been modified.
The Serenity has more room in pure statistics by a mile, but again, that isn’t a fair comparison because within each universe the ships in general are sized a bit different. I mean, if I’m flying around in a Firefly class and a Star Destroyer notices me, i’m a big ship to be cruising around without being on a diplomatic mission or having flight plans approved by the Empire. They may decide to search me to make sure i’m not a rebel ship. So all that storage space becomes usesless.
I’d have to go with the Falcon, only because it’s a bit smaller, probably a bit faster universe to universe(though I couldn’t really say that for certain as there’s no good way to compare) and because if I am boarded and my ship is captured, I want a compartment I can hide in where I apparently cannot be detected without very special heavy equipment being brought onboard to find me.
Firefly all the way but the Millenium Falcon does have FTL drive – when it works. ;D
Joshii is right about not seeing the Falcon actually do a lot of smuggling. As such I have no idea how much space they have for smuggled goods. Having gotten a good look at Serenity’s insides though I have to go with Firefly.
The fact is, we haven’t technically seen The Millennium Falcon do a whole lot of smuggling, everything we’ve seen of it has been it’s involvement in the Rebellion. In fact, from what we do know, the last time Han tried to smuggle something, he got boarded and had to dump his load.
But, since we’re just talking ships, I’ll just talk ships. Again, judging from what we’ve seen, the Falcon has one place for hiding things like cargo (evident in Episode 4) and Serenity has quite a few little hiding holes.
Also, we haven’t seen nearly enough of the Falcon to make a decent judgement, it looks huge, but most of the action takes place in the cockpit and a couple of extra rooms. In contrast, anyone who’s watched all the episodes of Firefly, or the first 20 minutes of Serenity probably has the whole of Serenity plotted out in their mind and would still consider it to be pretty big with a lot of hidden places to hide cargo.
And finally, watch the ending of “Out of Gas”. It’s not really pertinent to this argument, but man is that a great ending.
I like everything about the falcon but the general shape, why pilot it from a small protruding tube???
The firefly isn’t that good either. The falcon probably wins, just.
Definitely the Falcon for two reasons:
– #1 It made it through an asteroid field – which is probably the best way to evade the law. Because serenity is shaped like a flying chicken it would have lost the hull and most of the rest of the ship.
– #2 The Falcon had trouble with lightspeed from time-to-time, but that’s really about it. One solid, flying machine.
The Millennium Falcon.
Well, in the Serenity universe, Fireflys are extremely common, and the Falcon would stick out like a sore thumb.
Anyway, are we taking shields out of the equation too? (like we did weapons and hyperdrive). If we are, then it comes down to cargo capacity. Common stats have the Falcon hauling 100 tons of cargo, with Serenity coming in at 2,400 tons.
So which would you chose?
Simple choice. Falcon. In the SW world, the YT is extremely common so you blend in. The Fireflys are old, and stick out like a sore thumb.
However, I’ll take the Serenity’s engineer over Chewy any day.
dude seriously firefly and serenity sucked my ass threw a straw….this hole debate is kinda lame do to the fact that there is no real science involved in the debate of which one i like better…..fact is falcon would win that debate for me every time just cause the fact that the show firefly and the move serenity was crap…i mean great work on getting them to let you use good camera’s but the fact it the hole lump of crap in that universe is shit…sure nathan fallion is kinda likable in a robin hood/bruce campbell way but hell he doesnt come close to what han solo had in the original 3 SW series.
i say falcon mainly cause it rocked, its cooler looking, and if im smuggling anything it better be some dam green chicks or some spice to send to Dune (which by the way has better ships that lulz at hyperspeeed) hahahaha
ps cheesy chess game was wicked sick 4 sho
Screw Serenity!
Millennium Falcon has crapy 3D chess games!!
FUCK YEAH!!!!
Calviin, a BSG Raptor is a small troop shuttle. ZERO cargo space. That would make a terrible smuggling ship.
Same can be said about the Space Winnebago, even with space tracks.
To those that are judging by speed. I say we take that out of the equation too. Since both would be part of the same universe, then both would be equally fast ((since we’ll say that the Firefly would also have hyperdrive if it were in the SW universe)).
As far as which ship would be better i’d have to put my money on Firefly over the Falcon. Note that in Star Wars any real repairs on the ship had to be done standing outside of it. The Firefly is a more simplistic beast that most problems can be done without having to go outside. And if they do, the ship has the ability to allow you to climb out and do it.
Falcon, not so much.
Weapons…sure the Falcon has some, but in a pinch the Firefly could just weld one onto it (as done in the movie).
The ship is versatile. Plain and simple. That’s what you need in smuggling. Well that and not standing out (which firefly would win again as its a common type of ship)
Officially thought, I vote for Serenity. I like it’s style and it has more space. Space is a need for smuggling.
The guns are useful for more than just galactic law. There are other smugglers and pirates to defend yourself from. Hmmm. I choose a Raptor. Not for smuggling, but because if I can get Battlestar Galactica included in this post, it may explode from all the Sci-fi awesomeness included.
One looks like a turkey while the other a wrench.
i’m thinking they should leave that ship port and walk next door and buy the winnebago… this leaves space tracks!!
It’s the Falcon, hands down, but it has more to do with a technicality than anything.
In the SW Universe there is faster than light speed, whereas in the Whedonverse there isn’t, or at least, humans haven’t attained such. As such, the Falcon is faster (literally) than the Serenity because it can make the jump into hyperspace whereas the Serenity can not, and as such is the obvious choice.
If I had to pick which ship to fly around in, Serenity wins easily. The Falcon is pretty small with just the one large-ish room with the “chess” table. Serenity has decent living quarters, a huge cargo bay (where you can shoot hoops), a big kitchen/mess area, sick bay, Summer Glau, etc.
I am sure that the Falcon had more technical errors than the Firefly ever had.
Might have to do with the long history we are exposed to in Star Wars, but it was always a pregnant pause before a hyperdrive jump for the Falcon because you never knew if it was going to work.
As much as I prefer Firefly to Star Wars, I gotta go with the Falcon for this one. Remember just how often something went wrong on Serenity, in terms of maintaince and mechanical problems? Sure, the Falcon had some, but not nearly as much.
That’s a toughie, I mean the Millenium Falcon has that really cool Chess table (probably an extra) but Serenity has the really good manuverability, I mean, they can do a 180 (Crazy Ivan) with a capable pilot. Both seem to constantly be broken down, but I want the storage space, so I’m gonna go with the Firefly.
Normally I’d say The Falcon hands down, but if all I’m doing is carrying cargo from one place to another, Serenity is the ship for me. The Falcon is a bit too high profile and guns blazing and flashy maneuvers are likely to get unwanted attention.
Serenity looks like just another passenger ship with lots of room on board for smuggling things… like cattle. The Falcon would’ve lost a big pay day on that particular load.
If I’m cruising for chick though. Not a ship in the galaxy I would take over The Falcon.
/nerd commentary for today
Let’s face it, the Firefly may the best choice to some…but the Millennium Falcon looks a hell of a lot sweeter (not necessarily an advantage, but definitely why I’d choose it).