The Celebration Store had its soft open on Thursday night, with exhibitors, VIPs, and Jedi Master level-badge holders getting a shot to pick up their Celebration merchandise. Her Universe’s shop was part of the Celebration store, and Ashley Eckstein was on hand to give us a tour of the Her Universe gear at Celebration. Plus shirts, football/soccer gear, barware, and a visit from Admiral Ackbar?
Several of my fellow convention attendees enabled my shopping, and I escaped there with a ton of damage to my credit card bill. But I did show off my new Boba Fett messenger bag to Jeremy Bulloch!
Course of the Force moved to southern California over the weekend, with Day 4 (Friday) of the relay going from Pacific Palisades to Santa Monica, and then Day 5 (Saturday) from Santa Monica to Huntington Beach, and Day 6 ending in Oceanside. There were conivals, movie screenings, and of course, fans young and old running with the lightsaber in the relay for Make-A-Wish. I went out to the Oceanside Conival on Sunday to meet up with my Team Hondo teammates and we had a blast – all before our big part of the relay on Monday morning!
We’ve got the Day 4 recap video above, which has a really adorable Costume of the Day: an Artoo Dress, and there’s more photos over at the blog summary of the day, and some catching up with Robot Chicken writer Kevin Schinick.
Also, the Day 5 recap from Huntington Beach, with some more celebrity runners, Jennifer Landa’s Millennium Falcon dress, and more. Plus the photos and text of day five, and a Behind the Saber with actor Danielle Panabaker.
Day 6 had the sail barge cruise down the interstate from Orange County to Oceanside, where the relay picked up for a few more miles, then ended at a conival at the Oceanside Pier. There’s the official write up with photos, including Castle‘s Molly Quinn as Mara Jade.
I went out to the Conival to meet up with my fellow relay participants on Team Hondo. After some cool megasized Icesaber Otter Pops and taking some photos at the Cinemark booth, we relaxed in the sun to the Springsteen tribute band, Thunder Road. You can check out all my fun Conival photos on Flickr! Also, I got to photobomb Team HTown Jedi as they came in to the conival. While we had been leading them in the afternoon with fundraising, they’ve gotten the upper hand with a big donation late in the day. But you can show that pirates are better than Jedi by supporting me, or Dani and Lindsay!
Team Hondo – Dani, Lindsay, and myself will all be running tomorrow morning in the Oceanside and Carlsbad areas in the 8 am to 10:30 am timeframe – watch #TeamHondo on Twitter in the morning for more details if you are in the area and want to cheer us on!
The official Course of the Force recap video of the second day of the lightsaber relay is now up, hosted by Chris Hardwick, Carrie Keagan and Ashley Eckstein, with plenty of shots of the relay participants in San Francisco from AT&T Park to across the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, before heading down to southern California, the Course of the Force made some stops at some of the different tech giants in the Bay Area, visiting Google and YouTube. Check out more Course of the Force coverage from the first few days in the Bay Area.
Ashley Eckstein’s Her Universe is bringing the expanded universe to SDCC! They’ll be debuting a new Mara Jade tee using Daryl Mandryk’s art from the Choices of One paperback cover, and a Jaina Solo tee using John VanFleet’s art from the Sword of the Jedi teaser image. Only 100 of each will be offered at the con, however, and they’ll only be online “for a limited time only.” They’ll be online during SDCC.
It also sounds like they’ve revamped their booth, which is promising.
Course of the Force, the lightsaber relay from San Francisco to San Diego raising funds for Make-A-Wish, kicked off on Tuesday with a special celebrity run at Skywalker Ranch, then proceeded on Wednesday around San Francisco, ending with a concert and conival. Ashley Eckstein, one of the co-hosts of Course of the Force, was at Skywalker Ranch to help start the relay and covered it for the Official Star Wars Blog.
Day 2 started off in San Francisco’s South Beach neighborhood, and the relay continued along the bayfront, ending with a crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge, with 38 relay participants scheduled for the morning race. The Conival at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza featured a concert by Journey Unauthorized, and had booths ranging from Otter Pops to Qualcomm and State Farm. Chris Hardwick joined co-hosts Carrie Keagan and Ashley Eckstein for the end of day dueling. My favorite costumes: a family dressed as the Avengers!
Today, the Course of the Force takes a little breather as the lightsaber flies to Los Angeles before picking up for the Southern California segments of the relay from Friday to Tuesday as it travels from LA to San Diego and Comic-Con. Check out the daily schedule of relay segments and conivals. And if you’re on the lookout for Team Hondo, you’ll find the three members of Team Hondo in motion on Monday, July 15 in the morning in the Oceanside and Carlsbad segments – I’ll give out exact details on twitter at @jamesjawa. (And there’s still time if you still want to donate to Team Hondo’s fundraising efforts for Make-A-Wish Foundation chapters in California! I’m currently aiming for $1,250 and I am closing in on it.)
And to put you into an even weirder Course of the Force mood, join Billy Dee Williams, Patton Oswalt and Chris Hardwick for some Star Wars Cantina Karaoke:
Just in time for SDCC, Her Universe adds another franchise – They’re now making products based on AMC’s zombie drama The Walking Dead. It’s not a show I’m all that familiar with, but one thing’s for sure – that hoodie is killer. (There’s more, including a dress, at the link!)
The line isn’t online yet, but it will be available at at San Diego Comic-Con so we’ll no doubt be seeing it soon.
(Star Wars fans, there’s something new for us, too – An Artoo dress at Hot Topic!)
Here’s a closer look at Her Universe’s exclusives for Celebration Europe. In addition to many of the new products that debuted for Star Wars Weekends, you’ll also see this Darth Vader dress, limited edition Ahsoka tee featuring Dave Filoni artwork, and a tee that features ‘May the Force Be With You in multiple languages.
UPDATE: The Darth Vader dress, while debuting at Celebration Europe, is NOT an exclusive. You’ll be able to get it on the Her Universe site and at SDCC, per Ashley.
It may not be coming to a theater near you anytime soon, but Attack of the Clones 3D will be heading to Germany for Celebration Europe II in July. Reed today announced that exclusive screenings of the converted film will be shown for ” an extremely limited engagement.”
Next Thursday, July 11, Ashley Eckstein of Her Universe and The Clone Wars will join the folks at 
