No worries about the noob-i-ness of your question. 

The Pro-Shop X-wing comes with the motors for the canopy and wings, as well as grain-o-wheat lightbulbs, so no, I didn't do the mechanisms myself (though I undoubtedly could; I'm a mechanical engineering major). I replaced the bulbs with warm white LEDs in the cockpit to give the impression they're lit with incandescent bulbs, because the cockpit set in the movie was lit with them, and bright red LEDs for the engines. In the Special Edition, they colored the engines pink for some reason, but I always prefered the deep red glow from the original release, so that's the color I went with.

Speaking of which, I think I failed to mention that this is practice for the big resin SS kit. I want to try and motorize that one with a similar setup, except the canopy will be opened and lowered with those cylinders as opposed to a huge solid bar that slides back and forth. I'm going to build a prototype before I do that, to see if I can get the mechanism to work.