Day 3-
We woke at 5am, snarled at each other for a while, and trucked it down to the convention center about 6 o’clock. The crowd was already immense. Everyone wanted to see the Main Event. We only had to wait in line for about an hour and we didn’t get into the main theater. We weren’t expecting it anyway and we got great seats in the first simulcast stage.
Jon Stewart is either a closet geek or was well-coached for this interview. I realize he’s a professional and could have easily faked his nerdishness but I choose to think he actually has his own passion for the saga. The primary questions for George were submitted by fans but Jon had some good follow ups that didn’t seem pre-planned. Some of the segments obviously were planned, such as GL’s presentation of the Stewart Trooper action figure with swappable heads. Even if Stewart knew about this ahead of time there is no mistaking the honor with which he received it. Anyone given a personal action figure of themselves by a functioning Artoo unit will automatically grin like a drunken three year old. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4910628259/in/photostream/
Two pieces of “news” came from this interview. The first was some teasers about season three of The Clone Wars along with the fact that they have written episodes through season five. The bigger news was that the blu-ray will be released in 2011 along with never before seen footage. A clip of the footage was introduced by Mark Hamill; it was his original entrance to Return of the Jedi – a clip long thought lost or perhaps not even filmed. It was unclear at the time whether this release is just the original trilogy or the entire saga. I’m sure this has been clarified through various outlets since.
An interesting side note here is that immediately after the Main event ended all of toilets in the entire wing of the convention center could not flush. Our theory was the volume of people using them actually killed the water pressure so badly they couldn’t operate. The urinal I used not only didn’t flush, but the upper pipe burst.
As we left the Main Event Jon went to do some crowd control work as Sara and I slipped into the line for Charlie Ross’ One-Man Star Wars Trilogy. This show is hilarious and almost worth the price of admission to the Celebration by itself. I saw the show twice at CIII, once in Salt Lake when he was touring, once at CIV and now a fifth time at CV. The best part this time was that he actually incorporated the blu-ray news into his show – less than an hour after it actually happened. This guy is so good he even knew how long of a pause to give after that addition to accept the applause. He also ended up with an impromptu Q&A mid-show that he took in stride, both answering the question and making fun of the asker in one quick move.
We wasted the rest of day 3 getting lunch (my fortune cookie was empty, is that bad), buying some extra souvenirs and catching a piece of the adult fashion show. The fashion show was kind of dumb. I was expecting home-made clothing in homage to the fans favorite movies. Instead it was Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka Tano) hosting an actual fashion show featuring licensed goods from Lucasfilm and her own clothing line, Her Universe (which is awesome).
We also tried to view the TK project in the 501st room but were unable because of the 501st muster in the main hall. The TK project was an art show of things people did with stormtrooper helmets. I liked the similar Vader project at CIV and thought this would be good. The problem with this show is that the room was locked because the entire 501st was busy doing this gigantic photo shoot in the main hall. I’ve developed a bit of a grudge against both the 501st and their “good guy” counterparts, The Rebel Legion. Individual members of these costuming clubs are generally good people. I also like their charity work and their help with children’s hospitals. Unfortunately, by and large, they’re elitist dicks. They also get so caught up in being a part of their own show they forget that others aren’t there to see them. Nothing makes that more clear than their muster at each Celebration. This massive squad of people in costume took it upon themselves to clog up the entire main entrance lobby and kill all movement in our out these doors, as well as lateral movement to access the crew room or other areas, just so they could show off. In the future I feel this group would be better to hold their muster at a nearby park where they can show off marching in unison or performing drills. Disrupting everyone else’s event is just rude. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4911231146/in/photostream/