ORLANDO, Fla. — You could say a giant movie star of sorts has arrived at the famous Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Margaret Weitekamp, a Smithsonian curator who normally handles space-related pop culture items, like a “Neil Armstrong For President” button or action figures, hadn’t worked with something so big before — a full-size X-wing Starfighter with a 37-foot wingspan used as a prop in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
The movie’s production company, Lucasfilm, shipped the X-wing, taken apart in about a half-dozen large pieces. The wings were off, and the pieces laid out in a Virginia complex for the Smithsonian crew to start cleaning it before it gets reassembled and publicly displayed next year at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
