The adventures of Richard & Sarah Woloski at The Force Awakens world premiere & after party!
It was the BIGGEST movie premiere in the history of movie premieres. Four blocks of Hollywood Boulevard closed off to accommodate the massive tents that housed lots of Force-ful fun. Three theaters including the TCL Chinese IMAX Theatre, the Dolby Theatre and the Disney Owned El Capitan, which combined held over 3,000 seats played the film simultaneously. All to celebrate the premiere of the most anticipated film of all time.
Because we were associated with LiningUp.net, which organized the fans, the Starlight Children’s Foundation charity drive and the logistics with the TCL Chinese Theatre we were asked to attend the world premiere on Monday, December 14th and watch as the stars walk the red carpet. Before the complete question was asked, we jumped at the opportunity. But then the other shoe dropped, we had to be there at 6:00 am sharp!
Monday morning came and Sarah and I gathered with dozens of other friends and fans. I’m used to getting up early to get in line for a Star Wars film, the only difference now was that this film was opening in the cold month of December. I know living in Los Angeles we have no right to ever complain about being cold, but the longer you live here the more your blood thins and anything below 65 degrees Fahrenheit is freezing. When I saw a Tauntaun fall over dead I knew it was cold, even for Los Angeles!
After an hour and a half wait, we were finally escorted over to the entrance of the red carpet area. Everyone’s bags were checked thoroughly as we went through metal detectors. It may have seemed like a hassle, but in light of what’s been happening in the world recently, I was more than happy to wait it out. We were then brought close to the holding pen at the “mouth” of the tent, which was in-between 27′ tall lightsabers of Kylo Ren and Finn (or depending how you see it, Luke or Anakin).
A few hours into the waiting process, the fans started getting restless even to the point where some left since promises that had been made were not kept. Now, did we want to wait for the next eight hours in the cold and on the hard sidewalk? As we were deeply pondering this, Line-Liaison Shawn “Obi-Shawn” Crosby came to us with news that changed everything. We were going to be let in to see the world premiere of The Force Awakens AND the coveted after party! (Listen here at 41:30 to here our reactions moments after we heard this news)
Cold? Hard sidewalk? Dead Tauntauns? None of that mattered anymore since we were going to see The Force Awakens in now just a matter of hours. Spirits were lifted as we just had to wait a few more hours until the start of this whole media circus when the stars’ arrived on the red carpet. This gave us time to process this information, tell all our friends on social media and whip out the microphones and do some podcasting!
At 4:30 pm, celebrities started arriving! One of the first was Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) who sidestepped the red carpet to come over to us and say “hi” and sign various items! We Periscoped @SkywalkingPod and had over 1,000 people tune in. Then, the celebrities kept arriving! We also were right next to the staging area for the army of First Order stormtroopers, Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren and a squad of Resistance pilots. We got a hearty wave from Mark Hamill and a lightsaber salute from Peter Mayhew. Gwendoline Christie’s head towered above everyone else’s, so we were able to see her all down the red carpet. We watched as new fan-favorite BB-8 rolled down the carpet and melted people’s hearts. Sarah cried at the sight of composer and music maestro John Williams. Every star of the film was there, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cosplaying as Yoda in green face paint.
When the last star arrived, which was Billy Dee Williams and his two grandkids, we were given special-guest laminated lanyards and escorted to the TCL Chinese Theatre. We were now 30 minutes away from seeing The Force Awakens! We were hurriedly led through the tents and past many great displays we wanted to check out but we kept getting reminders that the film will start soon with or without us. I took Sarah’s hand and we swerved around the others like the Millennium Falcon swerving around asteroids.
We checked our cell phones in with security and raced to preselected seats, our bodies started to return to a normal temperature. Just before they were to roll the film, the theatre treated us to an onscreen live-feed from the Dolby Theatre where all the stars, director and producer took over the stage. Kathleen Kennedy told a great heart-felt story about how the right people come in to your life at any given time and can make a great impact. George Lucas got a thunderous applause and standing ovation. The presentation ended with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and R2-D2 front and center to remind everyone where we started back in 1977.
Then the screen fades to black. The crowd goes CRAZY! There were no previews but a fade up on that beautiful Lucasfilm logo. “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away” followed and the theatre goes into a deafening frenzy. We cheered absolutely every time a new character came on screen, recognized a musical cue or a returning character. This was a very emotional roller coaster ride from beginning to end.
When the end credits faded out, the theater was silent as we all tried to process and figure out what we had just witnessed. We knew we would have plenty of time to talk this through as we found our support groups at the after party. As we entered the big white tents we got to now focus on what we had to rush past as we were being herded inside just a few hours ago. There were Disney Infinity and Battlefront game stations. Sarah got to play the new The Force Awakens playset with the Vice President of Disney Infinity himself, John Vignocchi! Attendees were invited over to the Build-A-Droid bins just like at Disneyland (only these were free). Moisture Vaporators double as photo kiosks. LEGO reps were asking everyone to help build on to their First Order TIE Fighter.
And of course food. As we waited in the dessert line about to grab a pumpkin cream-cheese whoopee pie, someone cuts in front of Sarah. “Who does he think he is…” Oh, it’s Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D! He spends every week saving the planet from the evil Hydra–I guess he’s entitled to a quick piece of flan.
Then we turn around and who is standing there amongst the fans and not in the designated VIP section, but the director of The Force Awakens himself, Mr. J.J. Abrams! There was a makeshift line to talk to him, so we joined in. Unfortunately the line turned into a mob very quickly and poor JJ was surrounded by fans wanting pics, selfies and answers. We managed to work our way to the front, and I was able to ask about the aforementioned support group which he thought was very funny (that makes three times in a week that I got to make JJ laugh. You better believe that’s going on my resume)!
The evening didn’t end there. We caught up with friends of the show Dave Filoni (Executive Producer, Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars), David Collins and Sam Witwer (both of whom did various voices in The Force Awakens including stormtroopers) and Steve Sansweet & Consetta Parker of Rancho Obi-Wan. Others that were there but eluded us were Ray Park (Darth Maul), Bonnie Piesse (Beru) and Daniel Logan (Boba Fett).
Then, there were plenty of photo ops stations available with BB-8 (screen-used), R2-D2 and C-3PO, Chewbacca and First Order stormtroopers. We took advantage of everything the party had to offer (including the swag). At midnight the phalanx of security guards started “escorting” everyone to the door. We were literally the last guests to be shooed out. We didn’t want the night to end but we were crossing the threshold of being up for 24 hours. This definitely makes our top five list for favorite fan moments ever. See everyone next year when we do this all over again for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story!
Catch the whole story on episode 104 of Skywalking Through Neverland: