Amongst the many iconic shots that defined the original Star Wars series, the scene of Luke Skywalker firing the finishing shot to destroy the Death Star may go down as arguably the biggest. Case in point: a model X-wing fighter used to film that scene was just sold via Heritage Auctions for a whopping $3.1m USD — the largest sum for any Star Wars-related prop ever.
The fighter was built by Greg Jein, the legendary Chinese-American model designer and visual effects artist who worked on a number of iconic scenes, including Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and Mulan (2020), amongst many others.
“The success of this auction was a profound testament to Greg Jein as both a visual-effects master and one of the great collectors,” said Heritage Auction’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena. “This event exceeded my expectations.”
Jein passed away in 2022 after a series of health complications tied to diabetes. The X-Wing model was one of many different archival objects he worked on throughout his career, which were recently discovered by the artist’s friends across storage units in Los Angeles. The Jein collection was auctioned off earlier this month in Dallas and brought in $13.6m USD.
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