“Lucasfilm is rightly very careful about how they work with those assets as an active film company.” “This is a big complicated request because those kinds of screen-use vehicles are not easily available,” Weitekamp said. Weitekamp also knew it was going to be a tough ask. … This is one of the moments where my kids think I’m cool,” she said. “But the idea that I have to be off on a call with Lucasfilm. The nearly 20-year Smithsonian veteran joked her “day-to-day job” fails to impress her kids anymore.

It was the culmination of an idea that began in 2019 when Weitekamp and her family sat a row over from a Smithsonian executive at the premiere of the latest “Star Wars” movie.īy the time Weitekamp got home close to midnight, the email was already in her inbox: What could the Smithsonian do to capitalize on the excitement?įor Weitekamp, who grew up watching the original “Star Wars” in the theater and playing with the movie action figures with the neighborhood kids in rural Pennsylvania, she felt the excitement.

News over the Smithsonian’s exhibit broke last week on May 4, which Star Wars fans know as “May the Fourth Be With You” day. That’s not something we’re trying to fix,’” Weitekamp said. “That kind of detail is a wonderful thing to get to see up close and then, you make a note of, ‘OK, we’ll make sure we leave that alone. It had been in a few close call calls while flown by Resistance commander Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac). Was that “hangar rash?” on the side, she wondered.īut then, Weitekamp learned quickly it was part of the original paint job since the X-wing wasn’t meant to look pristine in the movie.

Seeing the X-wing up close for the first time this month, Weitekamp noticed all the little details, like one spot that looked a little beat-up. “After any long trip, you would want to get cleaned up,” Weitekamp said. 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. The movie’s production company, Lucasfilm, shipped the X-wing, taken apart in about a half-dozen large pieces.

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