Category: conventions and events

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Celebration Orlando is almost here!

Star Wars Celebration Orlando begins on Thursday, and we’ll be there! Well, some of us. Our own James and Dan are running the Bounty Hunt puzzle race again, and the rest of us will be around. As always, keep an eye on Twitter! James is @jamesjawa, Paula is @Rosiewook (Check out her public health tips) and I’m @clubjade. Find one of us and you can get a button!

If this is your first time at Celebration, we’ve done a convention tips series in past year that’s still (mostly) relevant. How to photograph fans in costume, packing, what to carry around the con, the quick guide to Q&As, avoiding con crud and basic human decency. I didn’t get a chance to update any of it this year, but hey, maybe for 2019.

If you can’t make it, StarWars.com will be livestreaming again this time, so you can catch at least a few panels. (They’ll begin Thursday – keep an eye on their Youtube.) It’s the next best thing to being there!

Head below the cut for a few hand-picked highlights from the schedule:

Continue reading “Celebration Orlando is almost here!”

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Hayden Christensen returning to Celebration for Star Wars’ 40th Anniversary

Hayden Christensen will be returning to Celebration for the first time since 2002 as part of the 40th Anniversary panel, joining Mark Hamill, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy. “Many galactic-sized surprises” are still being promised, but this is a fairly big one. (And yes, he’s signing.)

In other Celebration news, there’s now more previews up for the Store, mostly t-shirts.

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Del Rey’s Celebration Orlando schedule, exclusives

Del Rey has announced their Celebration Orlando activities, and they’ll have three panels. The biggest, which will feature what’s “in the works for 2017 and beyond” is Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and will have authors Chuck Wendig, Christie Golden, Timothy Zahn, and Delilah S. Dawson, plus Del Rey’s Elizabeth Schaefer. There’s also five University talks with various authors and a whole boatload of signings.

Their exclusives are a Thrawn pin – which you get when you buy the Celebration edition of Zahn’s new book – and a tote bag which is free with #25 in purchases from any of the Penguin Random House booths. (AKA Del Rey, Random House Audio and DK.)

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This week in Rogue One: Gareth Edwards on the ending, Leia, Vader and more

With the Rogue One home release imminent, director Gareth Edwards has been making the rounds. At SWSW, he talked about how Scariff’s name came about. With /Film, he explains the original ending and what changed, plus. how he got away with killing everyone off.

At Fandango, he discusses why we won’t see cut scenes, Carrie Fisher’s reaction to Leia’s cameo and how Vader’s big moment came to be. He also stopped by Reddit for an AMA.

Meanwhile, Ingvild Deila, the actress who helped recreate young Leia, talks to The Hollywood Reporter.

We’ve also seen a few aditional Rogue One guests named for Celebration, namely Riz Ahmed and Alan Tudyk. (There’s been some speculation that Tudyk might host The Last Jedi panel, as Gwendoline Christie did for Rogue One’s at Celebration Europe.)

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Star Wars Celebration is skipping 2018

There will be no Celebration in 2018, Reed announced today. The next Celebration – after April’s Celebration Orlando – will be in 2019.

That’s the year Episode IX is due, and the Star Wars Lands are expected to open, and so far, U.S. Celebrations have been held in the years saga films are released. A return to Anaheim is probably the best bet – I doubt we’re ever going to see a domestic Celebration not held within a few miles of a Disney theme park ever again.

We don’t have a location yet, but these things have in the past few years been announced at the closing ceremonies of the preceding Celebration, so we may find out April 16. Skipping years in nothing new, either – Celebrations started at 3-year intervals with the prequels and swapped to every other year until Celebration Anaheim in 2015.

Meanwhile, we also got details on Rebels programming and new guests for Orlando.

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Thrawn gets a limited edition cover for Celebration

A special limited edition of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn will be on sale at Celebration. The hardcover features a full face of Thrawn and printed endpapers, and will come with a not-yet-identified “extra special gift.”

The white cover is the standard edition, while the black cover is a Barnes & Noble exclusive.

The book is out April 11, so if you want the special edition, you’ll have to hold off a few days. Celebration Orlando begins on April 13.