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Day Four - Saturday, May 26, 2007

This day became a revelation for us. Steve had a great idea. Since the Celebration Store is open 24 hours a day during the convention, what if you could just go into the store around 15 minutues before the doors open, and just enter the convention when it opens? I mean, on the one hand waiting in line a couple hours before is cool because you can talk casually with perfect strangers about Star Wars while you wait. On the other hand, being able to wake up later in the morning would be great, since sleep is probably the biggest necessity for these types of events.

Thus, on this day, when we got to the convention center, Steve decided to check out this method while we waited in line. Sure enough, it worked! Needless to say, the next day (Sunday) my dad and I did the same thing. Did not have to wait in line at all! All it took was a little wandering around in the Store and when 10AM hit, we would leave and just walk into the convention! Personally, I do like waiting in the line before the Convention opens so that I can meet new people. But when sleep is precious, and/or you are running late, entering the Store before the convention opens is a real good way to get to where you want to go in the convention center before other people get there.

Once my dad and I got in, we went to get Anthony Daniels' autograph. This guy is a real trip. He was sarcastically teasing my dad because he was talking too much and taking forever to figure out how to work my camera to take a picture of Daniels and I. "Just take the picture!" he joked. "Does he talk like this all the time? "Is he on drugs?" are a couple of questions he asked with a smirk. In response to his questions, I said, "Yes [my dad talks a lot], and no [he's not on drugs], he's just on A.D.D." He was just kidding around, of course. It was quite funny. Anyhow, we got an autograph on my photo of C-3P0 and on my CIV Ralph McQuarrie action figure. Good times.

 

Then, I believe while my dad went off to look at more Star Wars art, I decided to get in line for Carrie Fisher again, because Steve wanted her autograph, but he was off doing something else at the moment. So I gave him a ring on his cell phone and told him to get down to the autograph hall to wait with me. I waited in line with Steve simply because I wanted to see Carrie up close again, and I wanted to get some better pictures and video. I succeeded this time around! Once again, she was very kind and had a smile on her face.

The one regret I have about waiting in line again for her was that I missed out on the Irvin Kershner panel. The director of The Empire Strikes Back was there, and I missed it! Oh well.

Since we missed out on the Fanboys preview and panel with Kyle Newman and the cast the day before, my dad and I decided to take a look at the panel they had going on today (Steve once again went to an unknown part of the galaxy). They actually had the main cast there and Kyle Newman again, and they showed a bunch of footage from the movie! It probably was not as much as the day before (I heard they showed like 45 mintues worth of footage before), but what they showed was awesome! I will not go into detail about what I saw, but let us just say that the footage I saw was hilarious, and Star Wars fans are going to love this film (and you can probably find footage online at YouTube or something). They also handed out a free Fanboys "prequel" comic book when it was over.

When we left the Concourse stage where the Fanboys panel was at, we saw the Happy Birthday Star Wars signing board. We had walked past this a few times already, so of course I had to sign it. I signed right next to the "Use TheForce.Net" sticker that was on there so that I will always know where it is at.

The next thing was getting in line for the Star Wars Family Guy panel (Steve came with us). I have never been an avid viewer of the show, but once in a while I will catch it on TV and it is quite funny sometimes. The creators of the show, including Seth MacFarlane were there to talk about the show. MacFarlane did a couple of the voices from the show (Peter's and Stewie's), which was quite weird to see, but also very funny. They talked about the upcoming Star Wars episode of the show for a while, and then they showed the footage. Stewie as Vader. Peter as Han Solo. Lois as Princess Leia. Chris as Luke Skywalker. Meg as the dianoga creature in the trash compactor on the Death Star! Funny stuff. I cannot wait to see this episode! Seth was kind enough to sign some autographs after the show.

There were some things I wanted to see after this (like the 5/25/77 movie Creators panel) , but we made arrangements to have dinner at Leti's parent's house. So we walked outside of the Convention center to a spot where they said they would pick us up. In the meantime, while we were waiting, we realized that Seth MacFarlane was standing outside about 10 feet from us waiting for his ride! We almost said hi, but we didn't. Oh well.

Our ride showed up and we went to Leti's house and enjoyed authentic mexican food. I am glad we spent some time there and got to meet her family, because good times were had, and it gave us some much needed rest for a while.

After filling our stomachs with great food, we made our way back to the Convention to wait in line for the Conversation With Carrie Fisher session. I was looking forward to this, since it was to be more of Carrie Fisher just talking about her experiences working on the Star Wars films. Once again, she was very entertaining and enthusiastic. At the end of the panel, she was made an honorary member of the 501st Legion! What a great time.

After this was done, we kind of just roamed around for a bit and found the Celebration Party going on. It was in this huge room where tons of fans were dressed up in various Star Wars costumes, waving their lightsabers dancing to the 1982 soca song Hot Hot Hot by Arrow. People seemed to be having a good time parading around the room, but we thought it was pretty lame so we went to the Star Wars in Pop Culture room and watched some documentaries and films about how Star Wars has impacted our culture. It was okay, but I could tell that the day was kind of wearing down, so after about an hour we made our way back to the hotel, after waiting forever for our shuttle bus. For some reason, our bus took longer to get there than the others.

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