Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Want the TIE Fighter from A New Hope? More than you can afford


From geekology, Want the T.I.E. Fighter model that was used in Star Wars: A New Hope? The one that hit Vader's ship? Well now you can, it's on eBay.

903. Original T.I.E. Fighter filming miniature and original camera reports from Star Wars: A New Hope. (TCF, 1977) During the nail-biting assault on the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, this is the actual filming miniature of the T.I.E. Fighter that bumps into Darth Vader's fighter knocking him out of the trench, allowing Luke to destroy the Death Star. This historic piece is from the collection of Academy Award-winning Visual Effects wizard, Richard Edlund. The design concepts for the T.I.E. (Twin Ion Engine) Fighters of the Galactic Empire originally came from Colin Cantwell and Ralph McQuarrie. Joe Johnston, who was the visual effects art director and overall storyboard artist for the entire trilogy was very involved in the final finessing of the ships and Death Star designs. Only four T.I.E. Fighters were built for the first Star Wars film. Grant McCune, head of the model shop, used a fairly heavy but stable resin for the body of the ship and other resins for the tinier parts. It has a central hollow aluminum knuckle with six-way threadings for top, bottom, front, back, left and right side mounting options with 11/16 in. hollow threaded rods as wiring conduits which attached to the various self-lit neon blue pylons. The hexagonal wings are created of fine expanded metal sheeting. Much of the intricate design detail was robbed from plastic model kits, then modified and affixed.

Unfortunately, the little thing is only 18" H x 14" W, so there goes using it as a treehouse. So, what can one expect to pay for such a diminutive T.I.E. Fighter? How about $170,000? Yeah. There's never been a better time to kidnap, extort, blackmail, and/or auction your hitman services. I'll start by knocking off The Superficial Writer. Do I hear $10? $5? $1? 2-for-1 Whopper card? Fine cheapskates, but this is your only freebee.

9 comments:

miko564 said...

JPX, do you live above the bar we were in? Damn, you got on the blog quickly...

JPX said...

It's called "having no life".

AC said...

miko, make jpx go to sleep! he has to work early tomorrow. and your avatar does have a gun.

miko564 said...

Yeah, but you can turn the barrel of my avatar's gun back towards him and then he blows his hat off.

JPX said...

AC, what are you doing up so late?

AC said...

my first appointment isn't till noon, but i'm going to bed now, i promise.

JPX said...

I bet you're still up!

Octopunk said...

East Coast crowd is getting rowdy...

AC said...

jpx, you were right! i basically couldn't sleep last night, but at least i wasn't blogging, dammit! maybe there were amphetamines in my veggie burger? they're wearing off now, just in time for a hellish workday. zzzzzzzz.

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