Yes I am a NERD or a Dork or whatever you want to call me for liking stuff like this. Unlike the other reviewers I am at least 2 levels further into Dante's circles of Hell... Not only did I attend Celebration, I went in costume, and it wasn't a simple costume either. I went as PunisherTrooper.
A mashup between The Punisher and a Star Wars TK Stormtrooper. TK being the Stormtroopers from the original movie Star Wars IV, A New Hope.
The Celebration was set up a bit differently than I had anticipated. The upper floor were set up strictly for Star Wars Rebels, a cartoon on the Disney Channel. The main hall was half vacant but had had ropes for lines for all kinds of previews and panels I am sure. They didn't even use the downstairs (big mistake, IMHO). WonderCon and AnimeExpo had used the downstairs area very well for ticketing and checkins etc. Instead we were waiting outside in a ridiculous line to get in. It took at least 30 minutes to get my badge, but oops they ran out of lanyards. I don't understand how they had that problem. If you have 15000 badges, you need 15000 lanyards. Instead they tried to get you to buy them... I was able to use a couple of zip ties instead ;)
They had a few irregular things like hot wheels and fan cars. Some were much better than others. They had a 1/4 sized ATAT, a 1/2 sized Roxy the Rancor, a full sized Jabba the Hutt, and several diorama's (Mos Eisley Cantina, Millenium Falcon, Endor Base doors, Medical Facility from a Rebel Frigate, Imperial Ship bridge, Palpatine's Throne). Add to that a large section of Artwork (I wish I had seen this sooner), a surprisingly small amount of Vendors, huge area for people to get autographs and photos with SW Celeb's, an area for SW Legos with some kewl lego structures, and a large area for SW Battlefront.
Added to this you couldn't turn around without running into some kind of folks in Cosplay. Granted I was adding to that morass, but it is fun. There were a lot of mashups, surprisingly fewer jedi's than I anticipated, a ton of clone troopers, more Mangalorians than you can shake a Wampa at, a decently sized group of TK's, and shockingly a bunch of deadpool star wars mashups, more princess Leia's than Jabba would know what to do with, and for some reason the most popular outfits were xwing pilots. I couldn't go more than 5 or 10 feet without running into one of those stupid red 5 blue 2 green leader etc etc... it was like ahhhhhhhhhh!!!
None the less it was a great time had by almost everyone. I enjoyed partaking in the festivities, met some kewl people, saw some old friends, ran into a couple of yelpers, hell, I even got Han Solo-ette's digits, but I shot first... ;)
If this is ever in Anaheim again you should go. If you haven't been to a Celebration or Con before, you must sometime. It is an awesome adventure and a lot of fun. Just go early, or you wont have any parking...
Fun times and lets all do our part and kill the RebelScum!
#PunisherTrooper tagging off read more