Allow me one quick moment to be totally sappy: I have never before felt so strongly that Star Wars is a universal language.
Obviously, not everyone here speaks English, and it didn’t matter: we all love Star Wars. Today the little stuff impressed strongly upon me, like standing at an art booth and hearing a Japanese man exclaim with delight when he noticed a print of Jedi Mickey. I couldn’t help but say, “I know, right?” And he looked at me quizzically until I pointed at it and said, “So cute!” And he enthusiastically repeated, “SO CUTE!”
…Totemo kawaii, rather. The words don’t come fast enough in the moment, even if I know them. But like I mentioned previously, most people here start with English when they see me. The one time having some Japanese really would have come in handy was yesterday when I was trying to buy an ankle brace at the pharmacy, and those words were totally beyond me. Fortunately, the very nice pharmacist who came over to help me understood when I picked up a wrist brace and said, “like this–” then patted my ankle and said “but for this”.
The other time speaking Japanese would have come in handy was navigating the logistics of this convention. I don’t think the convention staff were truly prepared for the size of this event. There aren’t anywhere near enough food venues, and the locally hired frontline staff aren’t great at communicating complicated instructions or dealing with a customer service issue due to the language barrier–even the ones who have some English. Let me be clear–I’m not blaming them, and I’m very aware that I’m the visitor in THEIR country. But the same company has been running this convention for over a decade at this point. It should be on them to make sure things run smoothly and those complicated interactions aren’t needed, or at least to have someone around who can step in when needed.
Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that rant out of the way: the good stuff.
First of all, I kept getting compliments on my outfit.
The vibe stepping in to the Celebration Stage this morning felt…I mean, all I could think was, “Chewy, we’re home.”
There was a mysterious wristband on my seat when I arrived.
After a grand welcome from R2 and 3P0, they got the party started.
The big panel this morning was for the upcoming “The Mandalorian and Grogu” movie, but before they got around to talking about that, Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy had some rumors to dispel, for which they brought Shawn Levy out to the stage. (He directed Night at the Museum and Deadpool and Wolverine).
Shawn confirmed that he was indeed directing a standalone Star Wars movie, and was excited to announce that it’s no longer just ‘in development’…it’s a go, and will be filming in the fall. But rumors, he said, have been flying about just what this movie might be, and he was here to set the record straight. “As to the rumors that my movie is starring Ryan Gosling, let me say right now that those rumors are completely, one hundred percent…true.”
Ryan Gosling, who is super stoked to be in Star Wars, then joined him, and as proof of how this was a match made in heaven, his mom sent along a photo of his Empire Strikes Back bedsheets from when he was five.
“Star Wars: Starfighter” will be released May 28, 2027, three days after the fiftieth anniversary of the original Star Wars.
So now, we finally get to Grogu. Jon Favreau joined the stage to talk about it.
He and Dave were both stoked to have an excuse to build an actual real AT-AT cockpit.
In their discussion of practical effects, they took a brief detour to bring out some guests–the new droids from the Disney parks, complete with an Anzellan rider.
That’s when they announced that sci-fi royalty Sigourney Weaver will be joining the Star Wars universe in this film.
Sigourney explained that Dave Filoni just kind of politely suggested one day that she watch The Mandalorian, since she hadn’t yet, and as she put it, she “fell in love with Grogu, as we all do” and had to have a part. She explained later in an interview on the show floor that her character is kind of skeptical of Mando and Grogu at first, so when she finally got to work with the little guy she had to work hard to suppress her instincts to fawn over him until after they yelled ‘Cut!’
We got to see the trailer, and you guys–it’s amazing. It was just like a straight sixty seconds of light-speed, beskar-plated dopamine. And those mysterious wristbands they gave us? They lit up along with the trailer!
Finally, Grogu came out to give all his dads a hug, then the panel came to a close.
Still high on the vibes, I went and grabbed lunch and tried to catch the next panel I wanted to see on the ‘University Stage’, which turned out to be a tiny little room that was already full. So I wandered around the show floor instead!
Grogu is a big deal here. A BIG deal.
Captain REX, of Star Tours fame, seems to be very beloved as well. The Japanese ladies in attendance tended to have really awesome hats or headwear, often 3D-printed–like, one had a whole AT-AT on her head. And that’s what I mean about Star Wars being a universal language, because all I had to do was touch my own head and babble at them excitedly and they 100% knew I was complimenting their awesome hat. Anyway, one of the ladies next to me in my afternoon panel had a replica of Rex on her head, and we totally had a moment of mutual appreciation.
I’m an idiot for thinking the Japanese fandom would be any different from the American one, honestly. They have their own contingent of the 501st, their own model-building society, and their own droid-building club.
There was a bank of nine vending machines on the show floor, one for each Skywalker Saga film, that contained cans of oolong tea with special edition wrappers featuring characters from each film. I mean, I had to get at least one, right? I chose the Episode IV machine and got this lovely Obi Wan design.
Thus refreshed, I headed to my last panel of the day. Doug Chiang, who has been designing Star Wars for 30 years at this point, is always so cool to listen to, and he was talking today about designing Skeleton Crew, which might have been my favorite Disney+ series so far.
He confirmed that the vibe they were going for was the Amblin Entertainment movies of the 1980s, with a couple other things mixed in.
Doug said they had more concept art for this series than they ever have for anything else, because the vibe was so specific. (Every square on this screen is a piece of concept art.)
Pirate droid SM-33 was ‘a bunraku-style puppet’, with the puppet basically sitting on top of the performer who was edited out in post.
Doug talked about the inspiration for some of the concepts in the series. For the ship-to-ship space battles in which we first see the space pirates, they turned for inspiration to the Errol Flynn pirate films of the 1940s. The abandoned ship that the kids find, on the other hand, was nicknamed ‘the Ironclad’, and was based on the actual real-life warship Ironclad from the Civil War.
The pirate port? It was basically Neverland from ‘Hook’, with a blue nebula simulating the water and the sort of space equivalent of a cove where the ships parked.
Meanwhile, the pirate vault was inspired by both Indiana Jones and the LucasArts Monkey Island games from the 1990s.
There was a lot of thought about evoking a nostalgic feel, right down to the late-1970s color scheme they went with for their suburban space neighborhood. With the massive crab monster, they made an intentional choice to do stop-motion because they wanted to maintain that same nostalgic feel and, as Doug said, “sometimes CGI is too perfect. There are some things you just can’t do with it.”
Anyway, I was absolutely delighted with the two panels I made it to today–but tomorrow is Andor AND Ahsoka, so I think it’s gonna be pretty wild.
Laura Writes 