April 16-19
By:
Cannon Adams
Star Wars Celebration 7 in Anaheim California is now over. Everything that was shown since day one had tons of hype and excitement from every fan at Celebration. First being the showing of The Force Awakens trailer #2. Almost everyone that showed up to Celebration was all dressed up as their favorite characters such as Mandalarian's, Darth Maul, Plo Koon, Kanan Jarrus, Sabine Wren, fan made Jedi and Sith, etc. Every costume I have seen was amaizing. I only went to Celebration on Friday and Saturday and saw tons of amazing things that I am going to split into sections of both days. Me and a couple of us fans are admins to the Nerds of the Force Facebook page so come like us. https://www.facebook.com/NerdsoftheForce
Thursday:
In a way my Celebration time started on Thursday. I went down to the convention center to purchase the Friday pass. When I got there I immediately saw dozens of amazing costumes such as Darth Maul from the Clone Wars Animated Series.
When I purchased my pass and made my way out the convention hall doors, I saw the most important person of Star Wars walking into the building through the same door that I came out of. Kathleen Kennedy walked right into the building from the same door as I came out of and I wanted to try to take a picture with her but her guards were backing people off from her and she looked as she was in a hurry to get somewhere. This all happened at 1pm. I went home and went straight to YouTube to check out the new trailer to The Force Awakens. As I watched I was in total shock and was surprised to see a crashed X-Wing and a crashed Star Destroyer, Stormtroopers in front of a large red banner with a new logo that now represents The First Order, new T-70 X-Wings, the new Sith named Kylo Ren, and of course "Chewie, we're home". That ending amazed me and I was happy to see Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew once again. That was my Thursday.
Friday April 17:
The day finally came. I went to the convention and stood in a long line inside the convention hall waiting for 10am to strike. When 10am hit, I wanted to go to the Battlefront premier panel. After getting lost on where to go for the panel and discovered I had to go up to the 3rd level into the digital theater hall, I missed the panel. When 10:30am hit, the Battlefront panel started and there were still tons more people in line that missed their chance as well to be inside the room for Battlefront. What I found out later on YouTube watching the Panel, there was a PS4 bundle giveaway for only 3 people and for those 3 people there was a paper slip taped under their chairs and they told everyone to look under their chairs for this paper and if they had it, they won the PS4 bundle with a digital copy code of Battlefront.
I can go on about the whole Battlefront panel but in a way all I can say is that good thing I did miss that panel because instead of seeing the Battlefront panel, I saw the Clone Wars "Bad Batch" panel instead. Watching unfinished 4 episodes of Bad Patch was weird looking but amazing. No mouths were moving, characters looked to be skating instead of walking or running, but despite all that it was still amazing. Bad Batch is a company of 4 clones that their DNA was altered so none of them looked alike like the Clones themselves. They are pretty much a band of misfits and their mission along with Commander Cody and Captain Rex, were on a mission to rescue the clone trooper Echo. Yes Echo still lives. Echo appeared I believe in season 6 of The Lost Missions only once and looked as if he died, Echo remains. I believe these 4 episode arch of Bad Batch will be released on starwars.com in the near future since some fan during a fan question time, asked Dave Filoni and the crew if these episodes will be available on the Star Wars website and Dave Filoni said "Maybe, not sure. We will ask them to see if they can load it up on the website". Now I wish that they would finish the series of The Clone Wars because according to the crew, Echo is the 5th installment of the Bad Batch company. That would be interesting to see.
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| Dave Filoni at The Clone Wars Bad Batch Panel |
Before the Clone Wars panel, there was a person in line who had the new book Star Wars Lords of the Sith book and was reading it. I asked him where he bought the book and told me at the Mysterious Galaxy booth 960. After the panel I made my way back down the 1st floor into the vendor area and went to booth 960, saw the books, and bought my 2 week early copy of Lords of the Sith. So far the book is amazing, must get. After that I walked around the floor and looked at amazing displays such as Lego Star Wars characters, Gentle Giant Statues, people in their costumes, it was Disneyland of Star Wars. At 4pm I got in line for one of the best Star Wars authors James Luceno to sign my copy of Star Wars Tarkin. After I got that signed I went to autograph hall to buy 5 slips of $10 value tickets for an autograph of Billy Dee Williams for a friend of mine in Australia. Line for him was not long and Billy Dee Williams looked tired, really tired. It was awesome to meet the man that played the smooth talker Lando Calrissian.
Pretty much after that signing basically completed my day for Friday for after that I walked around some more taking pictures which you can go see on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NerdsoftheForce and go under our photos and albums section.
Saturday April 18th:
This day was going to be the busiest day for me and it sure was. After waiting in a long line again for 10am to strike, I immediately raced to the 2nd floor for The Force Awakens exhibit. Waited in that line for an hour and finally had a geek moment seeing all the amazing props they had on display. What they had was the model of the new Millennium Falcon with the new rectangle dish, model of the new T-70 Resistance X-Wing, the new Stormtrooper costumes, Flametrooper costume, Snowtrooper costume, Rey's costume played by Daisy Ridley , Finn's costume played by John Boyega, the new BB-8 ball droid which looked amazing, and last but not least, Kylo Ren sith costume and on a display behind him his cross-guard lightsaber hilt.
After the exhibit it was time to get in line for the Star Wars Rebels Season 2 premier at 1pm and wait until 5pm for it to start. My dad who was with me waited in line the whole time while I went down to the first floor hall to get my A New Dawn book signed by John Jackson Miller back at the Mysterious Galaxy booth. Then rushed to autograph hall and got my autograph pictures of Amy Allen (Aayla Secura) and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett). For Jeremy Bulloch I waited in line for a little over 2 hours from 2pm to 4:20pm. The line was long and massive. I was worried I would not make it back to the 3rd floor for the Rebels premier but as a die hard, I stayed and waited. I also got the opportunity to talk to 3 awesome fans about of course Star Wars and the changes made for the re releases of the movies and how much we dislike George Lucas for that and just had a good time to pass the time in line. Luckily I was about 30 people in front of a guy who would have made me late for the premier because he brought what seemed to be over a dozen posters of Boba Fett to have Jeremy Bulloch sign all at once, I despise people like him. What was funny that whole time in line, someone in a fully armored Boba Fett costume went up to Jeremy Bulloch, knelt down to one knee, raised his blaster up with his head bowed as if worshiping or honoring Jeremy Bulloch. People laughed and cheered and we got loud. Jeremy Bulloch looked surprised and waved his hand across the Fett helmet and said something that I could not hear, the cosplayer rose and got his autograph on his gun I believe. I am a big time Boba Fett fan myself and when I got up to Jeremy Bulloch I was having a geek moment because of the awesome part I get to shake hands with Boba Fett himself. Once I got my autograph, it was time to run back up to the 3rd level at 4:25pm. By the time I got up there, the people waiting in the queue room where my dad was, was about to move into the digital theater hall. Luckily I made it just in time because as soon as I saw my dad, I slipped under the caution tape they put up and joined him. It was time to watch Rebels Season 2 premier.
The workers told everyone "At this time please turn your cell phones off. Anyone caught recording, will be tossed out of the building. We would like to tell you that we have night vision binoculars" which they did. The panel started with Dave Filoni entering on stage and we started the panel late like around 5:10. Dave Filoni did not talk much due to time wasted, he just basically introduced Rebels Season 2 Episode 1 and he left the stage to sit and the lights went off. The first episode we watched was the season 1 finale Fire Across the Galaxy, which was still awesome to watch with hundreds of Star Wars fans. After that episode, it was time for episode 1 of season 2. I will not tell you about the episode for I do not want to spoil anything, but all I will say is that Dave Filoni took the whole Star Wars animated TV shows to a whole new level. Season 2 episode 1 got dark at some points, funny moments, and awesome combat moments. All I can tell you is that the season premier is awesome, it is souped up, darker, and an hour long. That is all I will tell you about season 2 premier of Rebels. I came out of the panel excited.
After the panel it was back to level 1. Took tons of pictures of cosplayers, droids, statues, and whatever last minute things I can get. 7pm hit and half the lights turned off indicating that was it for the day and for people to start making their leave. I didn't and refused. I continued taking more pictures of stuff and decided to go back to autograph hall to see if I can get a picture taken with Ray Park. I waited until the last 5 people got their autographs signed and a volunteer worker comes up to me and said "If you are waiting to take a picture with Ray Park, he is not going to be taking pictures after he is done so please head to the exit of the building". I looked at the guy like yea right and I said to him "Oh come on man, Ray Park likes taking pictures with his fans, he wont say no to that". The volunteer worker looked at me and laughed like ha ha yea your right and wen towards Parks table. I then said forget this guy and went up to Ray Park's table. After he was taking pictures with the volunteer workers including that guy who basically told me to leave earlier, I quickly yelled out "Mr. Park can I take a picture with you?" Well take a look at the end result below:
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| Picture with Ray Park (Darth Maul) |
I was not going to leave until I get my picture! He had more autograph pictures on his table, I had the $40 on me and should have pocket Ray Park the $40 for his autograph but I did not think of that because I was so happy at this very moment that I got to finally meet and shake hands with my 2nd favorite Sith in all of the Star Wars canon line, Darth Maul. I then asked him when will he be at Frank and Sons Collectible Warehouse again and he said "I usually like to go there around the holiday time so I will be there in November". Well Ray Park I will see you there with a Force FX Darth Maul lightsaber for you to sign and a signed autograph picture in November. Ray Park is a really cool dude. He loves his fans for supporting and loving him as Darh Maul, if it wasn't for us fans, he wouldn't be the cool and bad ass dude that he is today. Take my advise ladies and gentlemen, Ray Park loves taking pictures with people for free. If anyone like that volunteer tell you that he wont take a picture with you or whatever, do not listen to him, push yourself to Ray and ask him to take a picture with him, he will do it just like he did with me. Thank you Ray Park for that awesome moment to where I finally get to meet Darth Maul!
End of the Day!
After my last day at Celebration I was happy and excited that I got to be with over 60,000 fans of Star Wars, talk with some of the people, took pictures with cosplayers, got my books signed, saw The Force Awakens Exhibit, Rebels Season 2 Premier, and got to take a picture with Ray Park.
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| My 2 day Celebration Haul! |
I wanted to come back on Sunday but tickets were already sold out. If Sunday was not sold out, I would have gone on the last day. Now I wish I had because during one of the panels, another small minute trailer premier was shown! Star Wars Rogue One was shown. From what I heard since I have not seen the panel on YouTube just yet, Rogue One is going to take place before A New Hope showing how the Rebel Alliance fought and died to steal the Death Star plans. I have to say, at first when Disney bought Star Wars for $4.05 billion, I thought that was the end to Star Wars. But since Disney and LucasFilm are making episodes 7-9 and spin-off movies, I am excited. I cannot wait for what is to be shown in The Force Awakens and Rogue One of what Disney and LucasFilm and JJ Abrams has to give to us fans. Fans prepare, there has been an awakening.... Have you felt it? May the Force Be With You All!
The Force Awakens Exhibit Pictures:
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