Friday in a nutshell

Have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn for George Lucas so I’ll make this quick:

1. Rick McCallum was awesome. The footage was awesome. The movie will be 2 hours and 11 minutes. They finished it Tuesday.

2. Star Wars fans still really like trivia.

3. The Rock Bottom Brewery is on the other side of the Hyatt.

4. Fanboys are in favor of cleavage.

Thank you and goodnight.

Celebration 3… so far

Apparently Star Wars fans love trivia, standing in line, the 501st, and talking action figures. Who knew?

C3 is fabulous but insane, and the lines for said action figure are longer than anything I ever saw at Disney World. There’s a rumor going around that someone actually spent $25,000 dollars on C3 merchandise.

I’ve only been able to get to two things so far – an taped Ian McDiarmid interview and the Opening Ceremonies. Guess what – Sidious and Palpatine are the SAME PERSON. Is your world shattered?

Also, Rick McCallum is doing not the two shows he’s scheduled for today, but they announced he’ll be showing the new ROTS footage all day long — seven minutes that we haven’t seen in the trailers or anything else.

But Thursday’s major announcement – that DVD that’s coming with the soundtrack? It’s a retrospective of the music across the saga, chosen by John Williams, and yeah, it’s cut with footage. They showed us the video for ‘Battle of the Hero’s’, which mostly had footage we’ve seen in the trailer with extra bits of duel. And there are 16 of them in total.

And George isn’t even here yet. There was hinting that something big will be coming on Saturday… What the hell is left? Are they actually going to show the movie? ‘Cause I honestly don’t know what they have left to announce. (Well… TV show. Eliz and I had visions of Kevin Smith showing up. Which he may anyway, I suppose.)

And can you imagine people lining up to watch A New Hope in the year 2005? Deet can. She had to work it. Muhahaha!

EU at C3

Also, Saturday and Sunday schedule for Celebration is up. Saturday includes two panels that are a can’t miss for EU fans:

3:30 — 4:30 pm Continuity: Keeping a Universe in Order. It’s a big, big galaxy out there, and the keepers of Star Wars lore have a big job making sure nothing is in conflict. Find out how they do it, and more about what’s to come, with authors Troy Denning, Timothy Zahn, and Aaron Allston, Shelly Shapiro of Del Rey, and Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee of Lucasfilm. Pablo Hidalgo of starwars.com will moderate. Behind-the-Scenes Stage.

5:00 — 6:00 pm Title Reveal! The next arc in the best-selling Star Wars novel series is upon us, and the creators will reveal the title in this special panel at Celebration III. You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions from the authors and publishers, and hear about the unique approach planned for this series. Arc authors Aaron Allston, Karen Traviss, and Troy Denning, plus Shelly Shapiro of Del Rey, and Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee of Lucasfilm. Behind-the-Scenes Stage (109).

And there’s also a Tim Zahn Outbound Flight event on Sunday.

C3 details

Hayden will be at Celebration… Sort of. He’ll be beaming in (heh) via satellite from Rome, where he’s filming The Decameron. It’s set for 10:30 a.m. on Friday – Hayden fangirls best keep Thursday partying to a minimum.

As for the other major (most major) guest, starwars.com has posted the scheduled times for George Lucas’ appearances. There are three short sessions early on Saturday – the first one starts at the ungodly hour of 8:45 a.m. (Seating starts at 8:00!) Looks like no one is going to do any late partying this time. But hopefully, with 3,300 seats for each session, most people will get in.