My Star Wars celebration experience. By now those of you that
went or read about the convention on other websites know of its
nearly already legendary rain and cold so I won't bore you with
those. Nor will I bore you with my own personal horror stories
that had little to do with the rain. Instead I will focus (mostly)
on the glorious parts of that weekend.
We arrive in Denver on Thursday. (After a 14-hour drive that included
a 3-hour pull-off the side of the road because it's raining so
hard we couldn't see where we were going) We went to the convention
with a dealer friend of ours, Jim Connor. It is thanks to him
that I got to go to this convention in the first place. He was
also bringing in a special guest to this convention. Later that
same afternoon we went to the airport to pick up this special
guest and his lady friend, a delightful woman by the name of Eraina
Cassidy.
So it was that I found myself in a rental van with my friend Jim,
Erainna Cassidy and David Prowse, yes, the man who played Darth
Vader.
Later that evening we went out to dinner with him. So there I
was at a table with Erainna Cassidy, my friend Jim, my wife Amy
and David Prowse having dinner. Are you listening? I had dinner
with Darth Vader! This weekend hadn't even started yet and already
it was one of the coolest I'd ever had.
Next morning we are at the convention
early setting up our table and Amy and I don't have our vendor
passes yet. We were becoming nervous but needless to say the situation
was resolved. Jim left us in charge of the table while he went
back to the hotel to retrieve more products from the hotel. I
find out ten minutes before the convention opens tat dealers are
allowed to wander the main hanger with their vendor passes.
So I bolt for the main hanger and take a very quick look around
before the convention opens. I saw the pod that Anakin uses in
episode 1 as well as lightsabers, battledroids, c-3po, toys, new
videogames and enough episode 1 upcoming products to kill a horse,
twice. But the convention is about to start and I'm not about
to leave my wife alone at the table when that happens so I bolt
back to the dealer's tent and the day begins.
I took my lightsaber that I had made to the convention and put
it on the table for sale. Within 3 hours I had sold it. I was
asking for 120$ and most people seemed impressed with the hilt.
I can make another one that will be better than the first and
was happy to sell it. For one thing all I had was a measly 60$
to spend at this con and now I had 180$, much better.
Amy and I ended up spending five hours at the table before our
friend came back and then we walked around the dealer's room and
the main hanger looking at things.
That night we had a signing with David Prowse that had about 20
or 30 people show up due to the fact that it was a last minute
word-of-mouth arrangement. It was fun though. Erainna was a delightful
person and fun to talk to and David told many great stories about
his star wars experiences, many of which I'd never heard before.
For example, we all know the scene in Star Wars where Vader uses
his boot to step on Obi-Wan's cloak after the lightsaber duel.
Did you know that wasn't Prowse's boot? Furthermore the actor
that played Vader's boot went on to play Dengar the bounty hunter
in Empire. Bet you didn't know that did you?
Or how about the fact that after Star Wars did so well financially
that Ford, Fisher, Hamill and others each received a 1 million
dollar bonus while Prowse received only 6000$. What's up with
that?
Saturday. We were going to have
another signing with David that evening but this time we had fliers
printed up and we passed those out during toe day. Mostly we hit
the 3-hour line to get into the episode one store. At least a
couple hundred people showed up that night and David signed from
8 PM to well past one in the morning. We kept asking him if he
wanted us to cap the line but he wouldn't hear of it. David is
a great man who appreciates his fans. Something I certainly appreciate
having dealt with too many Trek celebrities who don't care about
their fans.
Saturday we got to see Ahmed Best (JarJar), John Morton (Dack),
Warick Davis(Wicket) and Ray Park (Darth Maul) speak. On the vendor
passes is a picture of Jar Jar so when Best was done speaking
my wife decided to get his autograph on the badge and bum rushed
the stage pushing people out of her way, I followed her proud
of
her disregard for other people. We were on the outskirts of the
stage but still up front when Best start signing things for a
few people. There was no signing at this convention but some guest
would sign at the stage for a couple minutes after speaking.
With time against us and Amy realizing he would never make it
to the end of the stage before he left AMY decided to appeal to
the actors ego by holding her badge aloft and screaming "WE'VE
GOT THE COOLEST CHARACTER ON OUR BADGES!!!!". It worked,
Best skipped over the rest of the crowd and came straight at my
wife. My badge was help up right next to hers and they were two
of the last items to be signed by him. Could this convention get
any cooler? In fact it could.
We also saw John Morton (Dack) who apparently did some stand in
shots for Jeremy Bolluch when he was called away from the Empire
shooting for a few days. Remember the scene where Boba Fett says
"He's no good to me dead."? That's Morton. Morton could
remember Boba's line in this scene as he told the story but not
Vader's response so he asked the crowd for help. I was about ten
rows back and didn't even bother to try and volunteer to be the
line provider. I mean a room full of Star Wars fans, the first
guy to be called is going to get it, right? Wrong.
There was a mike provided for conventioners to ask questions.
People then lined up behind it and waited their turn. The guy
already at the mike said he knew the line then proceeded to just
stand there. The understanding crowd booed him harshly. Morton
called on someone else who had his hand raised and after stepping
up to the mike this person proceeded to say the next line was
"The Empire will compensate you if he dies." He was
boooed because obviously this is the wrong line. I leapt from
my seat not waiting to get called on. A room full of Star Wars
fans 
and they're blowing lines!?!
I storm up to the mike without being called on and tell Morton
that the previous line was from the carbon freezing chamber scene
and the line he was actually looking for was "He will not
be permanently damaged." The crowd erupted into applause
for me and I turned to face the audience with my arms raised in
triumph. For those of you that were there I was the one in the
black beret.
Later that day we saw Ray Park (Darth Maul). The line to ask him
questions was instantly way too long so I decided to forgo my
question. I had a reasonably intelligent question concerning the
dangerous nature of the double bladed lightsaber and how that
might have been taken into effect during the choreography of the
fight scenes but decided not to ask.
Several times fans asked questions whose answers would have led
to spoilers for the movie. Here the crowd got load yelling "NO!!"
over and over again not wanting to hear the answer. Anytime this
happened Ray would not answer the question not wanting to spoil
it for the crowd. I appreciated that. The question line was smaller
now and at insistence from my wife I went to go stand in it.
The line was capped after two more people got in it behind me.
I was standing there thinking about how to phrase my question
just so. You see I wanted Ray Park to go in a particular direction
with my question but I didn't want to spoon-feed the question
to ensure that direction. I wanted to see if he would pick up
on it. Let me explain.
I have had several discussions with friends about the dangerous
nature of the double bladed saber. You can't use it like a quarterstaff,
you'd severe limbs. This was the direction I wanted. So with only
two people to go the guy at the mike starts asking about the lightsaber.
Great, my question ruined. No, wait. He didn't touch on exactly
what I was going to ask, so when I got to the mike my question
went something like this...
"I wanted to expand on the earlier question concerning the
lightsab
er. The double bladed saber seems to
be a dangerous weapon. Not only to your opponent but to the user
as well. Did you take that into account when choreographing the
fight scenes?"
Ray Park picked up on it instantly. In paraphrasing he said. "Oh
absolutely, it's not like a quarterstaff is it? You'd tuck that
under your arm and end up severing a limb." He said more
but I can't remember what it was. I was just standing there in
front of the stage while Ray Park is looking at me answering my
question. And then I asked one last little question that over
50% of the others had. "Can I shake your hand?" and
I did. I shook the hand of Darth Maul. I went back to my seat
and finally remembered how to breathe.
During the signing that night we met the coolest people, Jason,
Scott and Jazelle. We ended up spending a lot of time with them
and I wish it could have been more. They were great people and
I never did thank them properly for all the diet cokes and help
with David Prowse.
In fact at the end of the convention on Sunday, Jason let me have
his 3-day pass. I wanted one of them because they had Darth Maul
on the front. I said to them "I know the answer's no but,
I have to ask anyway. Is there anyway I can talk one of you out
of your badges?" Jason just handed his right over and I thanked
him profusely. Thanks again, Jason.
But, I am getting ahead of myself. Since discovering late Friday
morning that dealers could walk around the hanger before opening
I wanted to get there early on one of the remaining days to see
stuff without having to wait in line. Not to mention getting free
goodies. Saturday it didn't happen so I expressed my desire to
arrive early again. Unfortunately Saturday night we were all so
tired no one bother to call in a wake up call. I was the first
to wake up and it was after 9. Doors opened at 10 and we were
½ hr away from the convention grounds. Oh well.
Something else almost as good happened on Sunday though, the sun
came out!!!! This made for a much more enjoyable day. After setting
up that morning and finally being set free Amy and I made a beeline
for the most important thing in the universe to us at that moment,
FOOD! We were starving. KFC later and we were much better. I still
hadn't seen the episode one store and was determined to see it
despite the 3-hour line. but wait! Guess what our vendor passes
allowed us to do? You guessed it. We walked right in the back
door of the store. No line, no wait, no muss. Vendor passes rock.
Come to find out that the Ray Park appearances in tent A were
accompanied by a martial arts demonstration while the ones in
tent b were not. Guess which one I had seen. But that's OK there
was one more demonstration in tent a at 3 today.
I had to take Jim pack to the hotel at 1:30 because David was
doing another, small informal signing at the hotel at 2:30. The
plan: take Jim, drop him off get back in plenty of time. We got
back at 3:35. I was disappointed but oh well. I heard there was
also behind the scenes and additional footage of lightsaber battles
during this show.
Then I heard they had added one more performance at 6. So I was
in the tent at 4:30 to see not only Park but Pernilla August (Shmi
Skywalker), John Knoll (ILM) and Anthony Daniels and a load of
video including the four (now five) commercials available later
on TV and Starwars.com.
We got seats very close to the front and our new friends Jason,
Scott and Jazelle were up there as well.
Below are some picture of what the badges looked like. JarJar
and Maul are scans of real badges while Padme is a pic of the
forthcoming replica badges that will be sold.
