Well Little League is about to come to an end... we only won 3 games so far but believe it or not we still have a shot at the playoffs. It's all a bit bittersweet. Moving on... ROTS countdown!!! 2 weeks! can't wait! I'm thinking midnight movie for the opening, followed by a 10:30a viewing for the office the next day and then that weekend with Angie and Dade. I might take Dade to the midnight screening as well. LISTEN UP FOR ALL YOU OUT THERE SCOFFING AT ME RIGHT NOW! Just because you choose to do nothing does not mean I have to. Every day when I am sweating my ass off on the eliptical machine I think I should stop at 30 and not do the 5 minute cool down... and everyday I have the same response... what good is getting home 5 minutes earlier, how are you going to use that time to enrich your life. Then I pedal a little harder and finish the 5. So When all of you are sleeping on May 19th at 12:01am I will be enriching my life. I will be watching the culmination of a story/saga that has played out for almost 30 years. The story that inspired me as a youth. Star Wars was my cowboys and indians when I was little and this is the finality of it all! Think back to your childhood, no bills, no responsibility, no job, just your imagination. When was the last time you "went out to play!" 12:01am on May 19th for me... Now does scoffing at me make you feel more important or better... enjoy yourself then I will! All that being said... have a link or two...
Star Wars Fan Films winners from C3! Make sure you watch Boba, I found it very much hits home. and for those still who agree with my statements above... for those children of SW definately watch the overall winner "For the love of the Film!" ... ok I just watched one more that is great... Andy's Episode
:: 5/4/2005 3:07:50 PM http://www.santoalt.com/videos/big_bass.php OMG! this is getting ridiculous! I remember seeing a Rockford Fosgate Jeep that could make the sand level out from the bass, but oh my!
STAR WARS C3 Report...bottom line was a Saturday flight in land @ 9:45 Saturday only visit!... I'm reading about 4 hour lines and freaking out about the possibility that half the day is going to be gone before it starts! ... ok back up a second who left the fridge open!?
We land it's 40 degrees and raining, grab a taxi, staying at the airport Raddison so we slide by and check our bags and head for the convention... as we are approaching I see the line ...Well there is no line? I see emptiness where the line was... I also see people walking everywhere with packages so this is a good sign! Hop out of the cab right in the front and there are only 2 people in the will call line. Get my pass and merge with the thousands that are walking down the hall as it turns out it was the end of the looong line it's 11a for those keeping track. So I basically showed up and hour late and had no line at all.
The show...first thing is damn everywhere you look there were top notch costumes. I mean first class... I'm pretty sure that at any given moment in the whole day you could look around and be able to see someone from the 501st ... Ok the first thing we did was go into the exhibit hall which I will call the retro toy graveyard. There was some exhibitors like Lego, Hasbro, MR and Cingular, but for the most part it was garage sale glory with OLD SW collectible toys. There were gems in there but a good portion was the SOS. The first thing we hit was the Lego booth. It was cramped up bad but there was some very cool things in there. Life sized Lego versions of Chewie, Vader, and R2 plus some other things. Nothing you can't see the local Wal Mart. There were teams bulding the GINORMOUS Star Destroyer sets for the time competion and that was neat to see. Next we went to the MR booth... yum there were some cool looking items in there. Those Clone helmets shwing! anyway... they were selling FX sabers @ $120ea and there was an hour long line to get one. Appreciating you JD and Oh-Bee-One! They had a gold plated Anikin and OB1 saber display that was beautiful. Across from them was the Sideshow booth where they had a Greivous on display that will be out soon that was spectacular! I've never been in to these kinds of collectibles but that one look hot! Hasboro was giving out Atacktix figures so got in a short line for that... did the life sized video scratch off card at Burger King and won a Whopper.
We looked at every booth and tried to look hard but many were just booths with the same toys and figures over and over. The prices were not that spectacular either. One very funny for me moment was when I saw one of my Jurrasic Park Cryo Cans for sale in one of the booths for double what I initially sold them for.
After firing down a barely cooked hot dog we ventured out and found out the line to into the C3 store was 7 hours long! ughhh ohe well maybe later... nope later they closed it for the day! I think at around 4p there were some irrate people when that happened. We moved on and saw some of the SW musical... R2 as a shop vac and the part where Indiana Jones came out only be berated for being in the wrong show and ripping off the hat, jacket and pants to reveal his Solo gear underneath were quite funny moments! We went down and watch a game of minitures and then up the the R2 builders room... One thing I have to mention is everywhere you go there are costumed people posing for pictures and it's so cool you just have to stop and look making it slow to move around... by choice!
Anwyay back in the R2 area there were several R2 units running around outside of the room in various states of build. It's very humorous when one starts getting up next to a pretty girl and starts making his humming nice sounds. The woman started blushing, but this little show get's cut short when a spot on child in a Jawa costume comes walking up .... all three R2s start "raising the alarm" and screaming and running away! It was so cool... I don't think it was planned at all but the improv was one of those moments that made me glad I was there. Once we got in the room there was lots to see. About 40 R2 units were in there. One of the best even had the "help me Ob1" playing from a project inside the dome... very very nice! I spoke with many of the guys in here all were very nice. One guy showed me his interactive R2 that he had converted to a remote unit, it zooming around all over... pretty cool.
Next we went to the Star Wars in pop culture room... nothing but a video playing so we sat down... my 7 year old needed a rest ... what it was was all the tv shows and comercials and movies infulenced SW... we watched about 30 minutes ... everything from old toy comericals to the Simpons to SNL ... damn funny when Will Ferrel was QVCing Kenny Baker for $3000 only one left!
Next went the Fan Club Exhibit Hall. The full sized X Wing was in the center of the room here. It looked a bit rough around the edges I thought. Anyway the 501st had a booth here and there were a ton of diaromas(sp) here the Dagobah swamp was cool as was the Landing Bay of the Death Star. While in here my son changed into his Padawan costume we had in our backpack... this changed the dynamic of the show for us... suddenly people wanted pictures with him which was cool. While in this hall there was a Sand People convention ... about 20 Sand People showed up and posed for pictures. We also saw a handfull of Indiana Jones' cracking their whips in here. One had an authentic David Morgan and was putting on a show. The funny part was when a trooper friend of his doned the fedora and tried the crack the whip. ABS and Fedoras look strange together but better than was when Indy walked out wearing a bucket and showed him how to do it!
We stopped for a coke while in here and sat with 4 guys from the 501st... they were all VERY friendly and talked alot to my son. I can't say enough about the people in costume... I know at this point they have been there for almost 3 days in costume. I didn't see one person refuse a photo op or ignore anyone who wanted to talk to them. It was very refreshiong to see that.
PROPS!!!!!!!!! One last thing and I'll shut up... we went to a side room and watched the end of the SW roadshow. You know where people bring up junk and hope they have a gem... one guy had an original poster worth about $125 he got for $3 but other than that it was a bunch of junk. The funniest one was this lady that had a little black box that when turn it one way it's Yoda and when you look in the other side it'side it's Vader.... the announcer ok everone together now... and 30 people all together went TACO BELL! Funny I have one of those on my desk at work... anyway a panel of guys came up next to talk about props. They talked about replicas and mentioned the RPF but the focus was on the screen used stuff. They showed "never before seen pictures" of all kinds of props mostly masks but some other parts. There was some heart breaking pictures of Falcon parts laying out in the open at Elstree just decaying in the elements. They talked about how one of the original Vader masks went for $10k in 92 and last for $90k! It seems as the ANH had nothing left because they didn;t know to keep it by ROTJ they were keeping eveything in the Lucas Archive.(which they had some of there) Now on the Prequel movies all props are bar coded! One of the best was a set of screen worn sunblock that had all of these scratches on it and a screen shot with a trooper wearing said armour scratches and all!
Over all even though I had to cram it all in one day it couldn't have been better! I wanted to buy some ABS by the time I left and started inquiring about it near the end of the day. My son is now all geeked and tweaked as you can get for ROTS ...he can't wait! Neither can I. I must say that leaving the con I felt a little pang of sadness...as we were in the taxi going back to the hotel I was thinking this is really the end... SW was there when I was little and now it's back for my son and me to experience together and vicariously, thank you George Lucas for about 20 years of SW and 10 years of hiatus! but now this is it... there won't be a C as big as this again... and SW is over and done in less than a month. This cemented with me hwo glad I was that I made the effort to attend even if it was only for Saturday, the memory of 30,000 SW geeks as passionate about SW as am in one big party is a memory I will always treasure.
:: 4/25/2005 9:08:39 AM http://compass.t-mobile.com/Default.aspx Something ALL mobile providers should show... that being said yuck! looks like their coverage sucks!
:: 4/25/2005 9:49:58 AM http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7562991/ Some stories about the impact of seeing SW ANH for the first time... I have to admit if you look backwards in my blog you will find a similar waxing poetic of my own here.
OMG! You are the biggest dork I know.
Nice report. I haven't read your blog in a loooooong time. My friend Mark may call you about making a website for him.
:: 5/9/2005 4:46:31 PM
