Source: Star Wars Celebration | Posted By: Dan Geer

And so it begins. The first day of Star Wars Celebration V, while it did not contain the biggest events of the weekend (Friday and Saturday will be filled with those), it was still quite an eventful day. And just so you know, I do have pictures to show, however I forgot my USB cord for the camera to plug into my laptop, so I will have to update these posts later on in the week with actual photos.

After waiting for about an hour to get in, the first place I went to was the Autograph hall to get everything set up to get all the Star Wars celebrity autographs I want. What was funny, however, was that on the way I ran into Dave Filoni – the supervising director of the hit Cartoon Network animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars – not even 5 minutes after walking into the hall! I thankfully got the chance to get my photo taken with him and let him know that I love the show. He is just totally like any other fan and loves to walk around and check everything out and say hi to everyone. It is really great to know that a guy like that works so closely with George Lucas.

I actually never made it over to get any autographs today, but I will certainly be getting some tomorrow. If all works according to plan, I’ll be getting the autographs of Mark Hamill, Ben Burtt, Gary Kurtz, Ashley Eckstein and James Arnold Taylor (if you don’t know who some of these people are, just click their names for more info). I am so excited to meet these people, especially Hamill since this is his first American Celebration. I also signed up to get my photo taken with him as well as Carrie Fisher, which should be very cool.

After I ran those errands, I headed on over to the main Celebration Stage to check out the Force of the Fetts Q&A panel with Jeremy Bulloch and Daniel Logan. Both guests were interesting to listen to and very entertaining to say the least. It was actually quite interesting to listen to Bulloch discuss his earlier works, as he has played many other roles besides the famous Boba Fett (Did you know he was in Dr. Who and Octopussy?)

Daniel Logan, who played young Boba in Attack of the Clones was his usual chipper self of course, sharing with us some great behind-the-scenes tales of working on Star Wars as well as what it was like to return to the role of Boba Fett years later for The Clone Wars animated series.

What I thought was really cool about the Fetts panel was the video intros they played right before Bulloch and Logan arrived on stage. Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasadan and John Williams all provided their brief thoughts on the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back and wished us all a great time at the Convention. I am actually really regretting not seeing Irvin Kershner at Celebration IV back in 2007, as he is not attending the event this time around.

Next up was Celebrating Celebration with the head of Star Wars fan relations himself, Steve Sansweet. This was more or less an “opening ceremonies” of sorts that let us in on some of the great events going on at the convention. Steve is such a great guy, and famous among fans for his Star Wars collection over at “Rancho Obi-Wan.” Always love listening to him speak, and we actually ran into him later on in the Exhibit Hall – which is, of course, the obvious place a collector like him would be at!
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They also re-ran the intros by Kershner, Kasadan and Williams, along with a new intro by none other than Harrison Ford! I was actually quite surprised that he took the time to record a nice hello to the fans. One of these days he just needs to actually attend one of these events and give me his autograph! After tomorrow, I will have the autographs of all the main “good guy” cast  members of the old trilogy except Ford’s, so this needs to happen some day….

I had a little time in between panels, so I quickly ran over to the Celebration Store to get my official program and also a couple of Celebration exclusive figures from Hasbro. My plan is to not spend too much this time around, so I’m pretty much sticking to exclusive convention items if I purchase anything.

I was really looking forward to sitting in on some Clone Wars panels with Dave Filoni, so I headed on over to The Clone Wars: Evolution Q&A panel to listen to Filoni and CG supervisor Joel Aron discuss what’s in store for the third season of the the animated series. Needless to say, they showed a brief clip from season three that just knocked the socks off fans, particularly those who are also fans of the Republic Commando video game, as it featured the Delta Squad Commandos themselves in the clip.

Seriously, if you have not watched The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, you’re really missing out. The animation just keeps getting better and better, and the stories get more and more compelling with each and every episode. The quality is so good that it really seems like we’re getting a new movie every week. I cannot wait to catch more season three footage at the con in the days to come!

Lastly, we decided to sit in on a screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I know many of you are wondering why on earth I would do something like that, but it seriously is quite an experience sitting in on the movie with a ton of hardcore fans, whether you liked the film or not. It really brought me back to opening day of the film back in May of 1999, with all the same high energy and excitement. It was like watching it for the first time all over again. Despite a lot of technical difficulties they were having with their copy of the film, it was a really fun way to end the day.

Well, that’s about it in a nutshell for Thursday, August 12th. You can watch StarWars.com‘s Celebration V video of Day 1 by clicking here!

Next: Star Wars Celebration V Blog – Day 2