Star Wars nerds send X-Wing into space, now want premiere tickets

27 Apr 2015

A pair of English super-fans have pulled the ultimate stunt in the pursuit of tickets to the premiere of the forthcoming Star Wars movie: sending an X-Wing starfighter into space.

Hoping to catch the attention of the film’s director JJ Abrams, Essex’s Matt Kingsnorth and Phil St. Pier attached the X-Wing to a weather balloon that carried the model to around 36,190 metres before bursting and returning to Earth.

Kingsnorth and St. Pier run Project Helium Tears, which focuses on photographing the Earth from the edge of space. As pointed out by the BBC, this latest mission took around six months to complete and cost the pair around £1,200.

A video of the X-Wing’s flight, complete with John Williams’ iconic Star Wars score, has been released via YouTube, and the two friends have tweeted the footage to Abrams in the hope he’ll come through with the tickets.

“We know you like practical effects and shooting in real locations and we really love that there are X-wings in the new film,” they say in the clip. Scroll down to watch.

The X-wing first appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy as the primary interceptor and dogfighter of the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic. The craft will feature in new film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is due to be released this December.

In the meantime, fans can re-watch the entire saga as the first six films in the series are now available to purchase as digital downloads.

Dean Van Nguyen was a contributor to Silicon Republic

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