CV Day 3

Today was day 3 at Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, Florida. Yet again, I was a little late in arriving (I'm still struggling with the three-hour time difference), and I missed the group photo. Oh well.

The sea of humanity entered the building at 10:00am. I would estimate there were at least three times as many people in attendance today than the last two days, possibly more.



I spent most of the morning in the R2 Builders room, answering questions from visitors. Meanwhile, Thomas Clark was busy soldering some J.E.D.I. displays.



Later while roaming the show floor, Michael McMaster noticed Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz walking by, and asked if we could take a picture with him. Gary graciously obliged.



Did you know Garindan had a family? Neither did I.



Back in the R2 Builders room, Chris Bartlett, dressed as C-3PO, was planning a surprise visit to Mark Hamill's booth, and I was able to come along. Unfortunately, we were denied access to Mark because the line for his autograph was alarmingly long. Instead, we crashed the line for some of the Clone Wars voice cast. Ashley Eckstein got up to give C-3PO a hug.



Michael McMaster and I continued to roam the floor.

Lumpy lives!



Other fun stuff we came across.







In the evening, we had the R2 Builders dinner down the street. Dave Everett earned an award for face-planting Cole Horton's droid earlier in the day.



Yearbooks were signed, and good times were had.



Cory Pacione paid tribute to Wayne Orr for the outstanding job he did of organizing our presence at CV, and acknowledging Dave Everett for founding our club, and for coming all the way from Australia to join us. It was a nice ending to another good day.



One more day to go.

CV Day 2

Day 2 at Celebration V started off with a special visitor to the room, George Lucas.



George spoke briefly with Mike Johnson, asking the group (as he did at CIII), "Where were you 30 years ago?" Mike answered that he was only 7, and George had some fun with that.

Michael McMaster was recording the entire visit, and mentioned to George to check out Rob Meyer's 2-3-2 system. George was quite impressed, and commented about how the Lucasfilm droids were not able to retract back into 2-leg mode.



The best part was when William Miyamoto showed George his daughter Zoe's droid, complete with Zoe inside! George pulled out his personal camera and took a picture of Zoe inside of her droid. That was great.


Shortly after George's visit was finished, sound engineer extraordinaire Ben Burtt paid the room a visit, and talked about R2 and WALL•E effects.




To date I hadn't paid for any autographs on my droid's back door, but I decided Ben Burtt was worth the $20.00, so I got in line. Unfortunately for me, a professional autograph collector directly ahead of me in line had literally hundreds of items to have signed. While Ben was signing, up walked Anthony Daniels, and he sat down next to Ben to reminisce. That was cool.



The line stalled for at least 45 minutes thanks to the professional autograph collector. In fact, after the guy was done, Ben had to run off to a panel, so I had to give the sad puppy-dog eyes to get my back door signed without having to come back later, and Ben did indeed sign, and then ran off to his panel.



Next, it was on to the Droid Building on a Budget panel, hosted by Carl Cunningham, and featuring Greg Tracy, Nick Bishop, Mike Senna, and Calvin Thomas.



The builders gave a very informative talk on building with styrene and wood, and explained how the club works. The audience was very engaged and asked good questions.




Next up, droid races! Zoe Miyamoto warms up her R2 (which she was not inside when the real race took place).



I wasn't able to stay for the entire time, but I know both Mike Senna and William Miyamoto won their initial heats, and Mike was 3 for 3 on the day.





Next, a little something bizarre, and only-at-CV. Lucasfilm online content producer Bonnie Burton participated in a commitment ceremony with Jerry Chevalier's R2-D2. If that bow-tie looks familiar, there's a reason.

R2 is nervous before the big moment. Jerry Chevalier and Nick Bishop help calm his nerves.



R2-KT was a Maid of Honor.



Steve Sansweet gave away the bride, it was an emotional moment for him.



R2-D2, Darth Maul and Elvis Trooper. As I said, an only-at-CV moment.



Later, I wandered around with Brian Mix, Michael McMaster and Mike Senna. Somehow we wandered into the Hoth Ice Bar. It was a bar, and it did have ice.



A short while later, we wandered out, and happened to wander into the line that was entering the Robot Chicken panel, so we sat in on that. As usual, the Robot Chicken guys were hilarious, and they showed clips from the third installment of their Star Wars spoof.



My favorite t-shirt? A mash-up of The Simpsons and Star Wars. Here, it looks like Homer/Mr. Sparkle, crossed with Lobot. Michael McMaster approves as well.



Today's full photo set is here.

CV Day 1

Today was day 1 at Celebration V in Orlando. As expected, I got a bit of a late start, and by the time I arrived, the media was well entrenched.




When I got in, the line had literally thousands of people in it. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on an Exhibitor badge today and did not have to stand in it. This is only half the line, the other half was behind me, and both ends stretched off into the horizon.



Once inside, I stopped by the Droid Building 101 panel, and took a few pictures as Doug Dixon, Moose Mendolia, Max Cervantes and Cory Pacione discussed basic droid building, moderated by Ben Lewitt.





Back in the room, some Throne Room Leias stopped by for some pictures.



I had a chance to stop by the 501st's room, and they had some very nice costumes on display, as well as set pieces.




I got to meet 501st co-founder Albin Johnson in person for the first time, as he posed with his daughter, and R2-KT.



The Belgian contingent provided outstanding setups and costumes, recreating elements of Jabba's sail barge, along with some Episode IV cantina characters. For some reason, I love this picture.



I also had some time to spend chatting with Moose Mendolia and the Nebraska builders. They are great folks, cranking out great droids. Moose even let me drive Patches.



I wrapped up the day by taking some pictures around the room again. So many droids, so little time...








We were notified that tomorrow we will have a special visitor in the room before show-opening. We were also told no pictures are allowed, so I don't know if I will or won't be able to get any pictures of this visit, but I'll try.

Today's full photoset is here.