Star Wars Celebration April 13-16 Catch all thread

[rteetz]

Ok guys, so I haven't seen anybody post their personal experience at SWCO in this thread yet, so I'll give it a shot. I guess this is a quasi trip report. I was way too busy running around during it, but now I have some time to sort through. By the way, this was my first Celebration. Also, my husband has all the pictures on his camera, but I can try to upload some later if anybody is interested. And let me know if you have any questions!

I stayed overnight on Wednesday for the 40th panel. I got there around 7:30 PM, so I got a seat in the live room. Staying overnight sucked. The doors closed at 12 AM and reopened at 5 AM, so you would think this would be the time that you tried to sleep. Well, right as the whole room was settling down, Mark Daniel and DJ Elliott came in at 1 AM to pump up the crowd. Everyone hated it. Ok, not everyone, but like 90% of people. It was really strange.

Thursday

In the morning, we got our wristbands for the 40th panel and also Dave Filoni & Pablo Hidalgo's chat on Animated Origins and Unexpected Fates.

Before too long, it was time to head into the 40th panel, and oh my gosh, it was overwhelming. Everyone was tired and crying and overjoyed. The surprises were phenomenal. No one knew Harrison Ford or George Lucas were going to show up. I later learned that even the celebrities on that panel didn't know John Williams was going to come and conduct live. Even when he showed up, they thought it was being streamed from somewhere else. And apparently, it was John Williams who asked to come. So, yeah, that was super cool and mindblowing. I won't go into the play by play of this or any of the other panels because, well, if you're interested, you can watch them

That afternoon, I went to the Dave Filoni panel. As always, that was really interesting. I could listen to that man talk about anything. This included some old clips of Cad Bane, concept art of Ahsoka, and various other stories from the show.

Then we just explored the show floor for a little while before going to dinner.

Friday

As a group, we decided that the 40th panel had been enough, and we didn't want to stay over again for The Last Jedi panel. I still haven't seen this, but I will watch it at some point this week. As it turned out, Friday morning was the most disappointing time for me. We went straight over to the Del Rey booth to try to pick up the limited edition Thrawn, but they had only saved 50 copies for the day. So we went over to get in line for the Celebration Store, which was really confusing. While trying to get in line, we did run into Anthony Daniels taking pictures with R2 and children. Super cute. Then we got in line for the store... and waited like 3 hours until we eventually got in and learned they'd sold out of all the 40th anniversary tshirts, which was disappointing. That whole process was run very poorly. (I did end up having a friend with a medical pass buy it for me later, which was super great.)

So after waiting in line all morning to not really do anything, we decided to spend some time wandering the show floor and checking out the booths. So many booths! I don't really remember if we bought anything at that point or not.

Next, we went to the Heroines of Star Wars panel. This had Dave Filoni, Tiya Sircar, and Ashley Eckstein. Then Daisy Ridley showed up as a surprise guest! They actually sort of made her leave the stage, though, and it didn't seem like she actually wanted to go, so that was weird. (If you watch this, you'll see what I mean). This panel had a lot of "girl power! star was is for girls too!" about it, but what I really enjoyed was some of the actors sharing their personal stories and inspirations. We watched one episode from the new Forces of Destiny show, and each of the ladies was presented with their character's Forces of Destiny doll. By the way, those look amazing, and I want all of them! I'm not a doll collector, but I might have to be soon.

At this point, we stopped by to see a friend at the tattoo booth. He was getting a new tattoo of the Gonk droid toy by Kenner. It looked great, and the whole setup in that area was pretty neat.

After stopping by quickly, my husband and I split off to Galactic Nights, which was really fun. That said, if it's an event that does come back as it's supposed to, I'm not sure if it would be worth the money if no celebrities were there. First, we got our picture on the red carpet in front of Hollywood Studios. On our way in, we were given the lanyard and a map. Within the map, there was a pocket with Galactic Nights temporary tattoos. This was a fun, if weird, gift.

Then we went straight over to meet BB-8, which is pretty cool. I understand why he doesn't roll around, but he does talk to you, which is neat. We then grabbed some food and found a seat for the Stars in Cars motorcade. We asked one of the CMs (Patty) about where the line would be, and she positioned us so that we would be on the front row. We talked with her a while, and she was just super sweet. Where we were standing, we were also able to see Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away, and it was really cool when Rey came out. Then the parade got started. I'm not sure if I will remember who all was there, but who I do remember was Anthony Carboni and Andi Gutierrez from the Star Wars Show, John Knoll, Peter Mayhew, Ray Park, Daniel Logan, Vanessa Marshall, Alan Tudyk, Anthony Daniels, and Warwick Davis. They all went to the stage, did a quick interview, and hung around for a group shot. Well, during this time, apparently the parade route for the second half changed, so everyone in that area was no longer in the right place (including us). It was pretty chaotic, and it was clear none of the CMs knew why this was happening, but they were doing their best to deal with it. Thankfully, since we had chatted with Patty earlier, she saw us again, and was like, "I'm gonna take you over across the street," and she moved us over to where the front row was now. Thank you Patty! (We did run into her again later that night and were able to thank her in person.)

As always, it was fun to see the celebs go by. At one point, Ray Park was a little in front of us, and he jumped out of his car and started giving everyone high fives. Daniel Logan was right in front of us at that point, and he said, "Ray's gonna get in trouble for that." But then he did the same thing, so I got a high five!

As soon as the parade was over, we headed straight to the Inside the Saga chat show. I'm sure there's a video of this online somewhere, but it was really neat. Made me really miss Star Wars Weekends. Vanessa Marshall interviewed John Knoll and Alan Tudyk about Rogue and their involvement. This was really fun and interesting. It's also hilarious to hear Alan Tudyk do King Candy's voice in person, btw! They also had a preshow where they asked for audience members to do Star Wars character impressions, which was hilarious!

For the rest of the night, we went around collecting the rest of the stickers. If you stopped by the photo ops, you would get a sticker to put on the back of your lanyard. There was one sticker for each movie that combined to form one image. We didn't end up doing any of the photo ops because there just wasn't much time.

At one point, we were walking by the Brown Derby and almost ran into Hayden Christiansen! It was one of those moments when you don't know someone is there, but then you look up and they're like 4 feet away from you. The plaid asked us to walk away, so we did, but honestly, we didn't know he was there when we went that direction. Anyway, there was pretty clearly a celebrity party going on Brown Derby that night.

We also had to go do Rockin' Roller Coaster with the Star Wars music. We'd done this during the TFA premiere party and knew it was really fun. We also assumed it would be the same, but it wasn't! They played different music and had also added star projections. This was really cool. We also saw Sam Witwer getting on the coaster in front of us. (For those who don't know, he is the voice of Darth Maul on the Clone Wars and Rebels.) It was pretty interesting to see a celebrity on a roller coaster. After that, we continued to see him and Daniel Logan and bunch of folks from Lucasfilm, just because they were out walking around.

At this point, it was time for the Celebrate the Saga show, all about the 40 years of Star Wars. Honestly, I did not care for this show, but it was whatever. Then we had the special reveal from the stickers we'd been collecting all night. When put under black light, it said "May the Force be with you" on them. Really cool. Then it was time for fireworks. I think there was probably some extra fireworks, but this show really wasn't that different from any other night.

On your way out, everyone was handed a commemorative poster.

Saturday

Then it was time to drive home... and get only 2.5 hours of sleep because soon it was time to get up, so that we could get into the Rebels sneak peek panel!
Thankfully, the lack of sleep was worth it because that panel was great! It's always fun to see the celebrities talk about their characters, and moreso hear Dave Filoni talk about them. And guys, that trailer is phenomenal! We also got to watch the first episode of Season Four, and basically, I can't wait until fall because it's gonna be great.

We grabbed lunch, then it was pretty much time to see our next panel for the day. It was focused on details of the Cantina scene, led by Pablo Hidalog and Tom Spina. They also named two background characters from the Cantina after members of the audience. I found this interesting, but 1. I don't feel like I necessarily had enough knowledge to appreciate all of it, and 2. I was super tired, so I may or may not have taken like 5 mini naps during the panel. (Ok, I admit, I did!)

Then as a Disney Parks fan, do you think I was really gonna miss that panel?! Honestly, I was surprised they shared as much as they did. Go watch it, it's really neat. That said, one thing that stood out to me was how excited Pablo seemed about it. And if he's excited, I'm excited

Then we took our friends to Ohana and Trader Sam's. Unrelated to SWCO, but always amazing.

Sunday

Sunday was really really fun. Some of the other days had been amazing and overwhelming and awesome... but necessarily that fun, I guess? Lots and lots of waiting in lines. This day, we finally visited the Rancho Obi Wan exhibit and looked at the diorama builders. We ate lunch, but other than that, we spent almost the whole day at the Star Wars Show live stage. This was so cool. If you waited for maybe, 30 minutes, and moved up whenever anybody left, it was easy to make it to the first row. So from here, we watched some small interviews, but we also saw Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein and the Her Universe Fashion Show, BB8, and the closing ceremonies. The energy in this area, though, was amazing. They gave out prizes, so everyone really cheered and was excited. I loved the warm up guy here, who apparently works at Hollywood Studios, but I don't know where. Anyway, this day was easy and just super fun. A great close to a fun 4 days.

(P.S. If you see a redhead in a navy cardigan and red pants over by the Cantina side of the stage, that's me!)

Other Thoughts

The cosplay was amazing, and while we didn't do this, I understand that the Autograph/Photo process was a nightmare. I'm also really looking forward to watching all the panels I couldn't attend

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

 

[DantePD]

I think Kanan and Ezra are definitely goners. They also left Ahsoka's storyline open right... we never actually saw Vader kill her. Or am I crazy?

We didn't see the end of their duel. And show runner Dave Filoni ended the Rebels panel with an "Ashoka Lives!" t-shirt. (He started with a shirt that said "Ashoka Lives?", then while the lights were down for the trailer, he changed it to "Ashoka Lives!"

 

[GrandAdmiralStrife]

I did not attend the last two Orlando Celebrations (last one we did was 2010) but I can tell you some things never change: ReedPop is ALWAYS underprepared and lost when doors open on Day 1, Celebration Store is always a nightmare (why can't they learn how Disney does it? At least 3 hours waiting is better than the 10 at SWC3 in Indianapolis 2005), and 90% of the people getting autographs are shocked that they have to pay

Can't wait to go to another one, as long as my DS doesn't have to miss school!

 

[rteetz]