Star Wars Celebration V - Day Two, Friday

[jedimara77]

I headed out to the convention center a little before 9 am on Friday morning.  I was going to leave early, but I didn’t want to have to wait outside the convention center for too long since it was so hot.  So imagine my surprise when I got the convention center and was directed inside to Hall A, which was set up as a queuing area.  Nice touch, letting us line up inside! 

 

I chatted with a woman sitting next to me, until I heard Jay Laga’aia’s (Captain Typho from AOTC and ROTS, who was the Celebration Stage host) voice over the loudspeaker.  He was walking down the line, talking to folks, taking pictures, and making announcements.  After a few minutes I heard Anthony Daniels start speaking, and then the line started to move.  I passed Jay and managed to take a few quick pictures, but didn’t see Anthony anywhere. 

 

I immediately went into the Exhibit Hall to the Her Universe booth, because I wanted to see if Ashley Eckstein was there so I could get a photo with her.  She was just about to leave, but was nice enough to take a photo with me. 



Then I headed up to the Behind-the-Scenes stage for the Sounds of Star Wars panel with Ben Burrt.  Pablo Hidalgo was the moderator, and they spoke about the upcoming Sounds of Star Wars book written by J.W. Rinzler, which discusses how Ben came up with the Star Wars sounds, and comes equipped with a sound board that plays over 200 sounds.  It was interesting during the Q&A session, Pablo made everyone pick a number before asking the question, and when Ben was done answering, he would play whatever sound came with that number.  It was lots of fun.  My favorite tidbit from the panel: the noise of the Sando Aqua monster (the biggest creature in the SW galaxy, from the underwater parts of Naboo in TPM) is actually Ben’s daughter, Emma, when she was five months old.  He said she had a very growly cry so he recorded it, then slowed it down, etc. 

 

After the panel, I checked to see if the line for Mark Hamill had started already, then went in to see the last forty minutes or so of the One-Man Star Wars show.  I had seen it at Celebration III, so it wasn’t on my must-see list, but it was still really humorous.  He added in some lines as a result of the prequels, which made me laugh.  During the Yoda scenes on Dagobah, he said “oh, father, powerful Jedi was he.  And a powerful whiner too.”  Hahaha.  But my favorite part was from ROTJ, when ghost Ben is talking to Luke about Vader/Anakin, and said: “He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil. Because I cut off his arms.  And his legs.  And he fell into a river of lava.  I wasn’t even in that movie.  It was the bloody Scot!”  Oh, I just about died there. 

 

I had a voice mail from Nancy when I left the panel.  Apparently the Mark Hamill line HAD already started, and she was calling to tell me that they were about to hand out wristbands for the panel.  I hurried over and found her in line, and we soon got our wristbands. 



Thankfully, that allowed us to leave the line, so I went to the bathroom and got some food while she held my place.  We had about an hour and a half before the panel started, so we chatted about EU, Luke, etc.  I was so excited to see Mark Hamill.  You all know that Luke is my favorite character, and I was ecstatic just to see him onstage.  Finally they ushered us inside, and they actually had a warm-up DJ and comic, which was really fun and got the crowd really pumped.  It was like a show instead of just another convention panel.  (They did this at all the shows in the Celebration Stage, not just for Mark Hamill.)  Finally they announced Jay Laga’aia, and they showed a hysterical video before hand.  My favorite part?  “What a piece of junk!”

 

 

FINALLY they announced Mark Hamill.  They played a super funny montage of all Luke’s best moments, set to the tune of “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler. 

Then Mark came out and, I swear, the crowd erupted.  I saw George Lucas at CIII, and the cheers for Mark were right up there with the cheers for George.  I was screaming my head off – I was seeing LUKE SKYWALKER, people!  AHHHH!  Oh man, that guy can TALK.  He just rambled and rambled and was super funny and made me go “WTF?” several times.  Several times he stated that he doesn’t know nearly as much about Star Wars as all of us, and how he didn’t know that so many of the things and creatures in the movies had names until he saw his son playing with the action figures.  He told the story about his son being born during ESB, and them making him go into work to shoot a scene during the Hoth panel, only it turned out that he didn’t even need to be there because it wouldn’t be a close-up shot.  Some of my favorite parts from the panel: Mark trying to describe the sandcrawler, only not knowing the name, so we all screamed it out, and he questioned “Landcrawler?” and then we all corrected him: “SANDCRAWLER!” and he jumped back in the seat.  He called the blaster the pew-pew gun (which made my mage DPS self laugh), and talked about all the questions he’d ask George: “Where’s my dad?  Where’s my mom?  Why is the milk blue?”  WHY IS THE MILK BLUE?!?  I think we’ve all been asking that, Mark.  HAHA.  Then he went on to talk about Princess Leia and his shock of finding out that they were siblings, and asked “Where are all the women in this universe?”  (We’re over at Ashley Eckstein’s booth buying t-shirts!)  Anyway, it was a great panel, and I’m so glad I got a chance to see him.  Unfortunately they had to whisk him off stage before he could do the Joker voice. 

Here's the link to the first part of his panel:

After the high of Mark Hamill, I decided to go to the Exhibit Hall and see if I still had time to get some books signed by Troy Denning and Aaron Allston, who were there to promote the Fate of the Jedi books series.  I ended up buying one of the FOTJ books by Christie Golden, because I didn’t have any books for her to sign and felt bad.  I told her that I liked her WoW book, and she told me she has another one coming out (which I’m sure I’ll read).  I had Aaron sign his two New Jedi Order books, because I don’t own any of the X-Wing books, and told him that his books make me laugh a lot.  I had Troy sign Tatooine Ghost, and told him that it was one of my favorite EU books, and he thanked me graciously.  I decided to go see the Fate of the Jedi panel the following day and see if they could convince me to come back to the EU.  (If you’ve read my most recent entries, you’ll know the answer to that already!) 

 

It was about 4:30 after that, too late for me to get into the Clone Wars panel with Dave Filoni, so I headed over to the Commitment Chapel to watch Bonnie Burton from starwars.com marry R2-D2.  Where else can you see a wedding featuring Darth Maul as officiant, Adrianne Curry and Darth Vader as the wedding party, and Steve Sansweet giving away the bride to a droid?   Oh, and I saw this there, too:

 

After that I went over to the Digital Stage to catch some of Revenge of the Sith, which started at 3:30.  I was sad that I couldn’t watch all of ROTS and A New Hope, but I was able to catch the second half of ROTS and ANH, at least.  Anyway, I walked into ROTS right as Palpatine killed Mace, so I got to see Order 66 and all the parts that make me cry!  During the scene with Yoda and Ben in the temple, a little girl behind me said “Look at all the little kids who died!”  Oh, I wanted to whisk her out of that movie.  Bad dad, bad for letting her see that! 

 

After ROTS, I headed over to the Why We Love the Prequels panel.  I was looking forward to this.  As you know, I’m an unabashed prequel lover and I hardly ever get to talk about the prequels without someone talking about how much they suck.  I was surprised that the panel was so full.  It featured Kyle Newman (Fanboys director), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan from Clone Wars), Dave Filoni (supervising director of Clone Wars), Tom Hodges (Star Wars artist), Eric Geller (from theforce.net), and Jesse Hildreth (from Lucasfilm animation), and was moderated by Bryan Young.  Anyway, I really enjoyed this panel, despite the jerks in front of me mocking everything that was said (it was for people who LOVE the prequels, assholes, go away! Lol).  Dave Filoni came in late, and I loved what he had to say:  “I like Star Wars, thus I like the prequels.” 

 

I was able to get back into the Digital Stage to see the end of ANH (I came in during the trash compactor scene).  Everyone cheered when the Death Star blew up.  And the Throne Room scene is awesome on the big screen.  I love Luke. :D

 

That night was a fan mixer party, but I decided to head home early because I knew I’d have even more stuff to do the next day, and I didn't want to be TOO tired.

 

Next up: ALMOST seeing Lucas, panels galore, and rediscovering a lost love.

Comments

[nic]

This is an awesome review. I'm so glad you had such a good time and I am SUPREMELY jealous that you got to see Mark Hamill!

[jedimara77.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And it was SO AWESOME!

[ewanspotter.livejournal.com]

OMG CAN I LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH YOU? KTHANKSBYE.

[jedimara77.livejournal.com]

YES! But it's OVER now! :(

[jadesfire55.livejournal.com]

"And the Throne Room scene is awesome on the big screen. I love Luke. :D"

HAHAHA!! I love how the one just naturally follows the other. :)

Also, I'm going to shamlessly steal the links to those videos when I write up my post(s).

[jedimara77.livejournal.com]

Woot!