Star Wars Celebration good, but not great
April 28, 2005 -
I never claimed to be the biggest "Star Wars" fan on earth.
Sure, I had a lot of action figures when I was a kid. I've seen the movies a bunch of times. And I helped create an entire newspaper publication devoted to the "Phantom Menace" back in 1999. But I figured I was quite a lightweight compared to some.
It was about time to find out more about these other fans, so I attended the Star Wars Celebration, which was held April 21-24 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. A friend and I headed up there on Friday, thinking we'd miss much of the weekend crowd but still get to see the meat of the celebration. The place was packed when we arrived, and instead of waiting in the line that wrapped around the RCA Dome south to Nashville, we waited under the overhang, and out of the rain. Celebration opened at 9 a.m. for its fan club members, which we are not, and we finally made it in about 10:30 a.m.
Here's a rundown of the highlights:
Noon: We picked up our only freebies of the day: a wristband, a poster and a Hasbro toy. Where were the handouts? It cost $36 to get into this thing!
1 p.m.: "Star Wars" producer Rick McCallum showed a three-minute montage of the new movie, and it was breathtaking, definitely the best event of the whole day. It was so good he showed it twice.
2:30 p.m.: We checked out the autograph room, which appeared to be full of autographs, all of which cost money. Apparently hard core Star Wars fans have wads of money to pay for the autographs of Admiral Ackbar and Greedo, but we didn't. Instead, we just took pictures of many of
the actors and actresses.
4:30 p.m.: The Episode III Star Wars art department spoke about the making of the movie and fielded questions. They also showed different pieces they had designed and their work on General Grievous, the newest bad guy.
There were a few lowlights as well:
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The lines: We weren't prepared to wait for just about everything, so that was a little disappointing. Some things were worth waiting for (listening to McCallum), but others, like the Star Wars archive, were downers. We waited approximately 30 minutes to see actual movie props, all 15 of them.
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Missing Ray Park: The actor who played Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace" gave a lightsaber routine, and we thought for sure we had missed it. Instead, we later found out the auditorium where it was being held definitely could have seated us. I also accidentally had him confused for Ray Parker Jr. of "Ghostbusters" fame.
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The Sights of Star Wars: We weren't really sure what this would be, but it turned out to be a 15-minute slide show about filming locations. I had been to better Chemistry lectures in college than this, although not many of them involved the Ewoks.
Finally, here were the strange occurrences (bizarrelights?):
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M&M Jedis (see picture): If you think candy dressed up as movie characters is a little bizarre,
you haven't seen anything yet.
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Stormtrooper issues: One stormtrooper was dressed as Captain Jack of "The Pirates of the Caribbean," the other as Elvis. Overall, about 15-20 percent of people were in costume, a little lower than I expected.
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Fans from everywhere: We heard people speaking various European languages and also a lady asking if she could ship something to Alaska. I'm not even certain everyone was from earth.
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Where's the band: A man was really worried about finding the place that had the Max Rebo band poster. I didn't know what to tell him.
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Vader Viper: We were asked to register to win this three times, so I'll ask you too:
Register now
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Costume malfunctions: We saw Cinderella, Pudgy Fett (Boba's beefy brother) and a Lobot with a little too much duct tape. There was a tie for my favorites: a young man who looked just like Lando Calrissian and a Jedi with a lightsaber through his stomach with a sign that read "Spoiler."
I had a good time, but a little more than midway through, I was pretty much Star Warsed out. I'll be ready again, though, when Episode III comes out, which is May 19.
Check out the official website for more info. Save me a seat if you camp out for tickets.
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