I love sci-fi movies and what is the mother of all sci-fi movies? If you guessed the Star Wars saga, you’d be correct. So when one my husband’s favorite cousins invited us to join her during the Star Wars convention that was held this past weekend at the Orlando Convention Center…We were very excited to join her and be part of the celebration.
The Star Wars Celebration is a fan assembly to celebrate the release of a Star Wars franchise movie. It all began in 1999, when Lucasfilm held the Star Wars Celebration in Denver Colorado to celebrate the upcoming release of the Star Wars the Phantom Menace. These events have taken place to welcome Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and then again for the release of the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith as well as honoring the 30th Anniversary of the release of the original three films. The eighth such event, the sixth to be held in the United States, took place last weekend in Orlando and I must say I did not know what to expect as I have never been to this type of event…AMAZING is the first word that comes to mind.
The amount of effort and dedication that the participants invested in this event was incredible. We were there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and there was not nearly as many people on Friday as there was on Sunday.
The whole town seems to be involved in the celebration as you will often see different Star Wars characters spread throughout the city, especially in the surroundings of the convention center …I must say it was really neat to be on a bus with aliens and storm troopers!
We talked to some of the participants and they were explaining to us how long some of these costumes and makeup takes and it is truly incredible…the detail you can only truly appreciate on some of the characters if you were present at the convention…The lines were guided by storm troopers and Darth Vader himself! What really struck me as incredible is that this is a “FANS” run show. This means that those storm troopers keeping us in line … were attendees just like us, they weren’t even paid to be there. That just shows the dedication and admiration that the fan base for Star Wars has.
There were many Chewbacca costumes and many of them so nice that they could be used on any of the actual movies (it was fun watching them get ready for the show in the lobby as they had helpers with giant brushes to brush and groom them so these 8 ft tall giants would look perfect).…We even got to see a real working R2D2 that was built by one of the fans and that worked with a control remote….Awesome!
Of course no convention is complete without a good after party, so of course we had our invites…Yeah! Also really nice…Oh some of the original actors and actresses were even present…My husband’s favorite part? Jabba the Hutt slaves that could be found though out the whole convention center but mainly chained next to the actual live size sculpture that was at the convention and that was part of the Gentle Giants display!
Certainly a great attraction for families…We actually saw many families that were in character and kept the memento going to the next generation.
