I survived Celebration Europe (and have the crew t’shirt to prove it!)
Got back from Germany last Thursday after an eventful weekend full of Jawas, Jedi and Jabba! Yes I was at the Star Wars Celebration Europe II convention in Essen, Germany.
Compared to Destination Star Trek London last year it was a breeze. The crew leader was so relaxed it was almost scary. I turned up on the Thursday night and discovered that I was indeed crewing but hadn’t been receiving emails telling me when and where. I ended up doing three morning shifts from 8.30 to 2. Most of that time was manning the crew lounge, for that read doing extremely little, marshalling queues occasionally and going to watch the talks in the main hall. Got to see Warwick Davies rehearsing a lot, boy he worked ridiculously hard over the weekend. He hosted all the main talks on the Celebration stage. Special praise must be made for his interview with Carrie Fisher, started off rather awkward when she came on stage with a dog…which promptly started trying to eat one of the toy ewoks on stage. Warwick managed to get a great chemistry going and it turned into a rather funny set, especially when they recreated a scene from ROTJ.
Even crewing I still got to see most of what I wanted. Got to sneak off to see the chaps who did the ‘Save the Lars Homestead’ project in Tunisia give a presentation. Saw the Clone Wars exclusive Darth Maul 4 parter directors cut. Rather disappointed by the Rebels preview, the new animated series to ‘replace’ the Clone Wars. Expected a trailer at least but all we got was concept art and a new logo, oh and a free badge! And I may or may not have inferred from Dave Filoni that Ahsoka was going to be in it.
There was a series of lectures on collecting which I wasn’t that interested in going to until I realised they were giving away freebies, ‘Star Tots’, which my cynical geek side thought - ‘hello ebay’. Got three, didn’t have the time or inclination to sit through a lecture on ‘Collecting; Nordic Vintage Collectables’. Did see the guy who created Rancho Obi-Wan talk about its origins and how it turned into a non-profit museum.
Met some nice folks, crew members and random people in queues and train stations!
Some highlights; the behind the scenes talk about the Clone Wars was interesting. Dave Filoni was literally straight of the plane and joked that if ever he was to say something he shouldn’t, now was most likely the time! Lots of pictures and tales about roads not travelled basically. Most exciting was a Duchess Satine arc that was lost in the return of Maul plot. We were shown a drawing of Satine in a ceremonial version of Mandalorian armour, the reason being she had to wear it for some traditional ceremony and quite understandably was non to pleased about it. Image inspired by Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, long flowing hair over battle armour, gorgeous.
Ended the event by meeting Ashley ‘Ahsoka’ Eckstein, who was lovely and again had spent the entire weekend mostly on the convention floor meeting and greeting and signing autographs for free.
Had a few days sightseeing in Essen and Cologne afterwards. Rather exhausted by the time I got back to work on Friday!
Next Celebration is going to be in Anaheim, USA in 2015…maybe, just maybe…
Finally - new Doctor - Peter Capaldi - awesome!