Celebration IV Report Part IV(a): Begun This Clone War Has

[lazypadawan]

A leisurely morning for Debbie and I was taking the time to go to Starbucks in the morning for the breakfast sandwiches instead of buying pastries or something from there the evening before. They were basically tricked-out Egg McMuffins but they were pretty good. Figure-conscious folks can even get a tasty turkey bacon sandwich with lower fat cheddar cheese on a whole wheat panini-style English muffin. Yum.

Even at 8-8:30 a.m. there were only a few hardy souls already in line at the West Hall. Everyone must've been hung over from the Saturday night Celebration party we avoided. After all, Debbie had unhappy memories of the Celebration at Celebration (III) with its endless lines and loud, head-pounding music. I figured any sort of "Ten Forward" party at a convention would be a bit like an eighth grade school dance. People who did go pretty much confirmed our suspicions. However, the Carrie Fisher show was considered worthwhile.

Our game plan for Sunday was to see the animated Clone Wars series presentation at 10:30. But we had a dilemma. Today was the last day they were giving out cardbacks at the Hasbro booth. Based on what we learned on Friday and Saturday, the cardbacks would vanish by 11-11:30, right around the time the Clone Wars thing would end. So Debbie had a crazy idea. I'd go in and hold a seat for her in the theater while she runs out to the Exhibit Hall to grab our cardbacks. She also decided to go get a pre-signed Anthony Daniels autograph since she didn't have time to get in line for it with a busy slate of attempts to get a coin, er, attend collecting panels. So she decided to go over to the South Hall and get in line there since it was closer to the Exhibit Hall. We have this whole plotting thing down to a science.

The theater was halfway between the West and South Halls and being only 10th or so in line at the West Hall, I certainly had an advantage. I started talking with my fellow fans in line, including a guy who literally spent all day in the collector's panel room on Saturday in his coin quest, a young couple who drove all of the way to L.A. from Dallas, and an old school fan from Arizona who had attended the 10th anniversary convention in L.A. back in 1987. She said the Lucasfilm Archives display at that con filled three rooms, even thoug the con overall paled in scale to the Celebrations. She was also planning to go to the Clone Wars presentation.

At 10 a.m., I headed up the escalators and beelined for the theater, entering the same time as the fan from Arizona. She promised to save some seats and keep an eye out for Debbie while I visited the little girl's room. We managed to get in the third row, the closest mere plebeians can come to the front, since the first two rows were saved for "staff" and "VIPs." The rows were completely full, too, though the only person I recognized was artist Thomas Hodges. I kept a nervous eye on my watch and called Debbie on my cell phone to tell her to hurry because the place was filling up. As with the opening ceremony, Debbie dashed in just in the nick of time. With our cardbacks! Yay!

The presentation got started with an introductory video about the show's producer, followed by a live interview on stage which was interrupted with faulty microphones. Then the show's director, Dave Filoni, comes out on stage. Filoni is the luckiest dude ever. Even though he has worked in "the biz" for a while, he is also a really big SW fan. This is a guy who dressed up as Plo Koon for the ROTS line. When he got a call to interview for the Clone Wars job at Lucasfilm, he thought it was a prank and almost blew off his first meeting. Now he's at the Ranch, meeting with George, and putting on a new SW show. He even joked about how Lucas jokingly chided him about taking continuity too seriously. We saw more video featuring the show's staff (with pixelation covering anything our virgin eyes weren't supposed to see) and some pictures of models made for designing the show's characters.

Then they said they couldn't show us anything yet. It was like watching air go out of a tire. I was soooo disappointed. I'd been hearing teases about this show for two years now and I remembered Steve Sansweet promising the Comic Con audience last summer that there will be a preview at Celebration...would we have to keep waiting?

They had a Q&A session and after a few questions, some guy gets up and says, "I've paid a lot of money and came all of this way just to be here. Can't you show us *something?*"

Piloni and the producer say something along the lines of, "Oh, all right. We just happen to have a trailer cut from various episodes we just got permission to show you." Then everybody went nuts.

The room darkened and the noise suddenly stopped. Wow! Even I wasn't prepared for how cool it was. It was completely unlike any animation I've seen before for television; aside from the stylized look of the characters, it looked like a movie or really good CGI. I was very, very happy to see all of the main characters present. The action looked fantastic; when I saw Anakin leaping from STAP to STAP taking out battle droids, I thought, "That's why I wuv him." Visually, they definitely have a huge winner on their hands. It made me as excited to see it as I would be to see a new movie. I even got goosebumps. But I have to wait another year!

The whole audience--all 900 of us--jumped to our feet with a boisterous standing ovation. Filoni in particular must've been absolutely thrilled. To get that kind of reaction must feel like you've taken out the Death Star yourself.

They asked if we wanted to see it again and we said, "Yes!" So we had another run through, followed by another wildly enthusiastic standing ovation. At that moment, Celebration IV had the mountain highs of Celebration II.

On the way out, we got our cool new Clone Wars mini posters. I wanted to keep mine nice, so I went to the Topps booth in the Exhibit Hall, got another free poster (my third) and wrapped it around the Clone Wars poster with a rubber band. Ironically, I carried it in my hand all day and it got all of the way home undinged!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That panel was probably the best at C4. While I'm dissapointed we have to wait for so long, it will no doubt be worth it. With the theatrical nature of the show itself and the long wait, it's almost like Episode 2.5 or something. I actually talked to Matt Lucas on that same day while getting his autograph, and he regretfully informed me that he would not be returning to this series. It seems that he did do a few episodes, but then they decided to go with another actor for whatever reason. He was a pretty nice guy though, and I always thought he did a really great job as Anakin.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's too bad. Listen to Anakin's moans and screams as he's being operated on in ROTS; it sounds an awful lot like the cartoon version even though it was by two different actors. I hope the new guy will do a good job.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

I remember going through the same tease at our presentation. It was frustrating being repeatedly told they couldn't show/tell us anything, but Filoni and the producer had mentioned at the beginning that they were going to have a "surprise" for us at the end - what else could they be referring to but a trailer? I thought. So I stuck around... a few people didn't, though, and I imagine they're kicking themselves now. *g*

when I saw Anakin leaping from STAP to STAP taking out battle droids, I thought, "That's why I wuv him."

I wasn't thinking so much as whooping right there, but I agree, that's our guy! :D This is the boy who leapt out of a speeder into a barely-controlled several-hundred-foot freefall miles above Coruscant to land on another ridiculously tiny moving speeder, after all.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

What, the surprise wasn't going to be $100 bills ;)?

Though that might have made me as happy as the trailer :D.

[aubreys-master.livejournal.com]

So, I've got to know - did you guys get to meet Temuera Morrison? I saw on the broadcast coverage that he was there. Ray Park, too. Did you make it to the Carrie Fisher thing? That sounded cool...

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't make it to Fisher's show. I was too pooped, though in retrospect, I probably should've gone!

I didn't get to meet Temuera Morrison either. But he comes to Comic Con often enough, so maybe I'll finally meet him this summer.

[aubreys-master.livejournal.com]

Be sure to take pictures, to post, if you do get a chance to meet him. :)