Celebration news runs rampant and Dave Filoni teases fans like nobody else can tease.
By Mike Audette // Filoni is a troll (in the best way possible), Rogue One Key art is unveiled, the podcast stage at Celebration Europe is announced, but first…
News for Celebration London and Celebration Orlando dominated the headlines this past week. On the 39th anniversary of the debut of Star Wars, tickets went on sale for Celebration Orlando. Fans did what they do best when something goes on sale. Break the website. Just like when the tickets for The Force Awakens went on sale last fall and the mad rush to buy them crashed multiple movie theater and ticket websites, the same happened for the Celebration ticket buying site. If you tried to get onto the site right at 3 pm Eastern time, like I did, you were greeted with error messages. Even when the site wasn’t crashed, for a moment the link on the Star Wars Celebration website directed you to the tickets page for Celebration London. That’s not helpful. I got scared for a second when getting prepared to get my tickets since I was at work and would have to buy them there. Then I learned my work’s Internet security settings blocked StarWars.com. Rough. Luckily for me this is the age of the smartphone. I was able to join the online queue for tickets on my phone and after a few minutes wait, get my 4 day pass for Orlando!
There was also quite a kerfuffle over VIP tickets for Orlando that you can hear more on this week’s episode of Brews and Blasters!
On the Star Wars Show this week, Andi and Peter unveiled the key art that will be featured all across Celebration London for merchandise, the official SWCE poster and other displays and signage. The badges for the convention will probably have the key art featured on it as did last years badges for Celebration Anaheim. The art features the characters from The Force Awakens at the top with characters from Rogue One to the bottom. Making their debut on the poster is the all new shoretrooper and the new class of AT-AT called the AT-ACT, aka the All Terrain Armored Cargo Transport. This AT-ACT is the one seen in the teaser trailer that is shooting at Jyn Erso and the rest of the Rebels on the beach.
Following the precedent set at last year’s Celebration, the podcasting stage will be returning to London. In collaboration with Jedi News, the UK Garrison of the 501st Legion, the Elstree Base of the Rebel Legion and the Galactic Academy, the “Four Clubs, One Force” will be hosting the podcast stage. With planning between Mark Newbold of Jedi News and Mary Franklin from ReedPOP, fifteen different shows will be all sharing the stage over the course of the convention to live broadcast their shows for everyone in attendance. RetroZap’s own Blabba the Hutt will be hitting the stage at 1:30 pm on Friday the 15th! Congrats to Jamie and Kate! I saw a few shows on the podcast stage last year at Celebration and it was a really cool experience to see many shows that I listen to weekly perform live.
Announced on Friday, Dave Filoni will be coming to Celebration and bringing with him two all-new episodes of Star Wars Rebels season 3. It’s been almost a certainty that anytime there is a convention these days, Rebels episodes will be getting a sneak preview. It happened last year at Anaheim, and last fall at New York Comic Con and now this summer in London. Selfishly, I am hoping the same thing will happen yet again for NYCC this fall.
I'm looking forward to seeing you all at #SWCE 2016! And remember, there's always a bit of truth in legends. pic.twitter.com/auc6HDDAx1
— Dave Filoni (@dave_filoni) May 28, 2016
If you know anything about Dave Filoni, you know he is the trolliest of trolls. He posted this on Friday night–a tease of a Star Wars book spine. Studious people took to Twitter to try to decipher which novel this would be and a lot found similarities to the old hardcover of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire famous for introducing the fandom to Grand Admiral Thrawn. There have been a lot of rumors swirling around that Thrawn will be coming into Rebels and production artwork from before season one featured Thrawn’s species. the Chiss, as a concept for how Agent Kallus was going to be portrayed. It never came to fruition but the sentiment still remains to bring Thrawn to Rebels.