Star Wars Celebration Blog 5/27

The Unholy Trinity

I had wanted to talk about the coolest thing we saw the day before, but the entry was already getting unwieldy.  Marshal had mentioned that Jon Favreau said that everyone should check out "The Mandalorian Experience" while they were there, and we tried to find it, not knowing what it was.

Turns out, it's a museum-type collection of costumes, props, and animatronics used on "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," which you could look at up close.  They recommended you make an appointment, but that system wasn't working yet, but there was a stand-by line.  The sign in front of the entrance said the wait was forty-five minutes, so we went for it.  A little over two hours later, we got to go inside.

I'm not really complaining.  We sat on the floor and talked about, I dunno, "Space: 1999" and "Logan's Run: The Series" or something, and the time went by fine.  

"The Mandalorian Experience" was pretty spectacular, and I'd say that if they wanted to have it be a touring attraction, Star Wars fans would be happy to pay to walk through it and see the cockpit to the Razor Crest, the costumes Greef Carga, Cara Dune, Cad Bane, Moff Gideon, Garza Thwip, Fennec Shand, the Client, Black Krssantan, and all the Mandalorians wore, the modified N-1 starfighter, and props, weapons, decorations, droids, jawas, and the animatronic bantha, Grogu, and full-sized rancor head used in the various episodes.  

I walked around there for a good while, taking dozens of photos, but I could've spent another hour there, no problem.

We went to the "Light and Magic" panel, where various effects artists looked back at their time with ILM, part of an upcoming miniseries on Disney+ I will watch the crap out of.  Dude, it was like it was made for me.

Joe Johnston was among them, and speaking of him, there was another retrospective you could tour solely dedicated to Boba Fett, his history, and the various offshoots (like Jango Fett, Pre Vizla, Bo-Katan, and Sabine Wren).  That was much smaller, and it included items from various collectors, such as Steve Sansweet.  Once again, I was reminded that while I consider myself a Star Wars fan, I'm far from the biggest Star Wars fan.

We also went to the Hasbro panel, but I felt bad for Marshal, since it was about upcoming toys, and was (literally) the most skippable panel we went to.

There was also the "Star Wars Trilogy In 30 Minutes" panel I first saw in Indianapolis decades ago.  It was so full that it was standing room only, but I found it very worth it (Ryan and I both stood the whole time), and was as close to a religious experience as I had that weekend.  It reminded me of going to Nativity plays or midnight mass or some other ritualized religious service, except with more laughs.*

Look, I'd like to go into more of all this stuff, but I'm now literally two weeks behind on my blog (I've got a dozen posts ready to go but they're waiting for the Celebration stuff to go up first), so I'll leave you with this:

I wasn't nearly as tired tonight (at the end of the day) as I was yesterday, probably because Marshal allowed me to sleep in until eight.  But I still took a few minutes to work on "Balms & Sears" before allowing myself to sleep.  Actually, both Ryan and Marshal were very encouraging with my writing this weekend, even if it meant that I was still up when both of them were sleeping (or trying to sleep).

Writing or Exercise: Writing

*Of course, a young couple HAD brought their newborn with them, and it began to wail halfway through and they didn't hurry the childe out into the hall, dying with embarrassment.  Instead, they passed the baby back and forth, walked around with it, and tried to feed it while still staying in the room.