“We’ll send a car to pick you up. We’re taking you to an undisclosed location to show you something big, but we can’t tell you what it is.” Now, I wouldn’t jump in that car for just anyone, but when Lego sends a car, how could I possibly refuse? I doubted myself when we pulled onto a deserted, industrial road, but then I walked into an airplane hangar at the Islip Airport in Long Island and beheld the largest-ever Lego model, the Lego Star Wars X-wing Starfighter. Aw, yeah.
Today, anyone flocking to Times Square can see the grand unveiling of this geeky masterpiece, created to celebrate the premier of The Yoda Chronicles on Cartoon Network on Wednesday, May 29.
So how big is this X-wing Starfighter? Here are some of its vital stats.
- It contains 5,335,200 Lego bricks.
- From tail to nose it measures 43 feet and its wingspan is 44 feet.
- It’s 11 feet high. I needed a ladder to get into the cockpit to say hi to R2-D2.
- 32 builders in the Czech Republic spent over 17,000 hours building it, working in shifts for 4 months.
- It arrived in Long Island in 34 pieces carried on 2 boats.
- 3 flatbed trucks transported it in the cover of night to Times Square.
The designers worked with LucasFilm to make the model the real-life size of an X-wing Starfighter. Even cooler than that, though, is that the model is 42 times the size of the Lego building set. All of the details on it are based on the Lego X-wing Starfighter, right down to the knob and rubber bands that control the wings. The huge rubber bands on the model are made out of Lego bricks.
Though I’m sure seeing this in Times Square will be amazing, it was unreal to see it in an airplane hangar. The thing has lights and impressive subwoofers that run an audio sequence of the X-wing about to take off. The whole model shakes, then R2-D2 talks to you a bit at the end. Kids who have the pleasure of sitting in the cockpit are going to be thrilled.
The X-wing Starfighter will be in Times Square for three days, then it starts a cross-country journey to Legoland California, where you can see it for the rest of the year. Lego Star Wars fans shouldn’t miss it. Nor should they miss The Yoda Chronicles. I saw a sneak peek of that, too, and it looks hilarious.
