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SXSW is often more of a marketing free-for-all than an actual conference or festival, so if you're a company that's trying to promote the upcoming Blu-ray release of one of the biggest movies of all time, what do you do? You bring a life-sized TIE Fighter to Austin, Texas, of course.

Here at SXSW Disney has erected a 20-foot tall TIE Fighter to promote The Force Awakens, which is coming to home video next month. (The behind-the-scenes documentary that's part of the release, humbly titled Secrets of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey, is having its world premiere at the festival on Monday.) The display comes as a bit of surprise, with Disney building it in relative secrecy last night near a collection of food trucks that's known during the festival as "SouthBites." Sadly, you can't actually sit in the thing, but if you're here in Austin and want to get tacos and then hang with a First Order stormtrooper, you know exactly where to go.

Grid View It took six hours to build the TIE Fighter display last night. (It was also raining.)

This particular TIE Fighter wasn't used in the film, but was built expressly for the purpose of touring around at various events.

It also wouldn't be great at staying pressurized while in space.





SXSW really knows how to do lines, so fans will be able to queue up to get their picture taken.



If this were a toy, this is where the spring-loaded wings would pop off.

Members of the fan-based 501st Legion charity costuming group, on hand as troopers.

Don't let the pointing fool you. They were very polite.



