Rogue One World Premiere

Tonight I was extremely fortunate to attend the world premiere of Rogue One, along with the red carpet proceedings, and the after-party. I was joined by fellow R2 Builders Mike Senna, Michael McMaster, William Miyamoto, John Boisvert and Carl Cunningham, along with many members of the 501st and Rebel Legions, and several other Star Wars clubs.



I drove to Mike Senna's house, and then it was on to William Miyamoto's place to pick him up, and we arrived in Hollywood around 2:00pm. We joined Gordon Tarpley for a quick lunch.



Around 3:00pm, all the guests assembled and lined up to be given our passes.




Once we had our passes, it was time to head on over to the red carpet. Our path took us right on by X-wing on the red carpet. Cool!



Awesome, front row! Can't get much better than that (although it looks like Mike is trying).



Lots of media were covering the event, and we babbled incoherently.



Let's kick this off with some Stormtroopers!



Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca of course) was one of the first to arrive.



Director Gareth Edwards graciously signed autographs; in my case, I was getting my badge signed.



Riz Ahmed



Diego Luna



Felicity Jones (saying hi to Mike's wife Amy, via FaceTime).



Donnie Yen



Anthony Daniels



and the list goes on...

So after the beautiful people were done strolling the red carpet, we headed down to the carpet ourselves to make our way to the Pantages Theater. (Obsessed followers of this blog might recall that my R2 appeared on stage at the Pantages with Weird Al back in 2011.)





Unlike the premier for The Force Awakens, this time they didn't quite confiscate our cameras and cell phones; rather, they had us place them in bags that only they could open, and we held onto them until after the movie. There was a nice, big mob for that.



And with that out of the way, we took our seats and waited for the movie to begin. The R2 Builders were seated in the third row from the front, on the right side (the first two rows were covered and not populated). It was a little close for a viewing, but we weren't about to complain. A few minutes later, the lights dimmed, the Lucasfilm logo appeared, and our adventure started. (No reviews here, but suffice it to say I liked the movie and look forward to seeing it again.)

A couple hours later, to much cheers and clapping, the movie ended, and we had our phones and cameras liberated from their bags. Next, we headed back out to the after-party at the nearby Avalon.

Feeling blue, but happy too.




Made it! There were some neat displays and photo ops.








We were also able to get up close and personal with the X-wing!






It was a fantastic night, and I am super-appreciative and beyond grateful that I got to be a part of it.

The full photoset is here. A big thank you to Michael McMaster, from whom many of the pictures were pilfered.