Celebration VI (Sat)

by Darth Danno
on 2012-10-03, 07:45:18

Cris wanted Ian to get some footage of the front of the Convention center with the SW banners and all, so he asked me to drive them and park the car. I did, but couldn't find my way back to our normal parking lot. I did find parking, but it was on the other side of the complex! I had to take a bus from there back to where I needed to be.

As soon as we got in, we went to Cartamundi and got our exclusive card for the day, the Queen of hearts (Padme), we grabbed the Topps card for the day as well and then headed upstairs to get in line for “The Future of Star Wars in 3D”. It was only 10:30 and it didn't start until noon, so there were only two people in line at the time. We copped a squat, and proceeded to wait.

We were in the same room as the Clone Wars premiere was, and David Collins brought out Dennis Muren and John Knoll who talked about the transformation process and showed some scenes of what “AOTC” would look like. Not an actual theatrical preview, but cool just the same. We even got commemorative CVI 3D glasses to keep.

After that ended, we headed back downstairs and grabbed some lunch. Then I decided to get my CVI badge signed by the artists who created the artwork for them. I got Brian Rood's easily, but every Time I was at Chris Trevas' booth, he was somewhere else. I had also brought with me my “Clone Wars webcomics: Volume 1” book. Grant Gould, Katie Cook, and Jeff Carlisle (even ran into Seth Green while standing at Jeff's booth. He wouldn't allow pictures, but was nice enough to shake my hand and apologize) signed it in short order, but Tom Hodges was away from his booth every time I stopped by. Barry and I each broke down and bought Brian Rood's McQuarrie tribute as proceeds were going to his widow. Then we headed off to the Gentle Giant booth.

Slave Leias in abundance!!! Never stopped to count how many there were, but there was quite a group of them. If you were dressed like a SW character, or looked like George Lucas, which one guy did, you could get pictures with the girls, the rest of us were relegated to just take as many pictures and as much video as we wanted...without us being in them.

“Secrets of the Cantina” was our next panel. It was hosted by Pablo Hidalgo and Tom Spina and was very interesting. Upon entering, we were each handed cards with a picture of Snaggletooth on them, advertising Tom Spina's company. Nick Maley and Jon Berg were part of the panel as well and we got to see some very rare footage and photographs from the scene. At the end, we were asked to pull out the cards we were given at the beginning, and if the Snaggletooth we had had a mustache drawn on it, to come up to the front.

Neither of our cards did, but the guy who had the mustache came up and it turns out that one of the background Cantina aliens, he had a Fu-Manchu moustache, was never named. They took this guy's real name, re-arranged the letters in it, and made that the name for this character, even updating it on the internet right then and there. How cool is that! After the panel concluded, we could come up and ask questions if we liked, I was simply happy to get Tom Spina's autograph and have Mr. Hidalgo sign my Clone Wars webcomic book. Unfortunately the timing didn't work out between this and “Smuggler's Gambit”, so we had to miss that.

Went back downstairs to try and get Chris Trevas and Tom Hodges' signatures, only to find out one had left for the day, the other was in a panel. With this being our final day here, it made me sick to think I would be leaving with so many things unfinished. But there was no point crying over spilt blue milk.

Our final panel for the day and for the trip was “Star Wars is Forever and so are We”. Hosted by Jedi Jones. Cris Macht was one of the speakers, so that's the reason we went. They showed the preview for “The Force Within Us” and spent the rest of the time just talking about SW. My booming voice and unparalleled exuberance got me noticed by the host, and Jedi Jones said the next time he hosts a panel, he definitely wants me to be a part of it. By now it was close to 9:00, so Cris asked me where I parked, I told him, and he asked if I would be kind enough to go and get the car and pick them up. Barry went with me and we ended up taking a pedicab back to where I had parked that morning. We found the car, picked up the guys, and headed back to the resort.

That evening, back at the Marriott, was when I was interviewed for the film. After that was complete, I started packing. Ian and Alfie were flying out on Sunday as well, but had morning flights. I told Cris that he, Sean, and Lisa would be going without us the next day. He thought about it and came up with a solution. If we'd help distribute fliers for the film at the center and help him get another exclusive ornament and Lego set, he'd take us there and bring us back when we needed. So the Force was with us! We would be going back to Celebration on Sunday!!!