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Star Wars Celebration IV Displays
There were many cool displays that littered the main floor at Celebration IV. Because of all the stuff that was around and all the sweaty fans roaming it would be easy to miss something. Some things, like full-size X-Wing, landspeeder, and Jabba (Jabba the Hutt and Jabba-sized fans), you almost expected to see. Other things, like samurai Vader, Tom Servo, and unorthodox R2 droids, you didn't. The R2 Builders Club had a room dedicated to people that build life-size, and some actual functioning, Star Wars droids. There were many R2 units with a number of variations and different color schemes. Some of them could have teamed up to form a Power Rangers R2 team as each of the usual Ranger colors was represented in some way. We saw a couple R2 units moving around the halls of the convention. These were radio controlled and one guy kept the controller behind his back as he moved it around and made it respond to people that came up to it. Pretty sneaky, R2 guy. The Lego booth was a little less than impressive. The life-size Chewbacca, C3PO and R2-D2 were very cool, but the Lego area was just a Lego store with only Star Wars stuff. Why buy Lego sets you can already get in any store? There were plenty of other places to drop cash on figures, old and new, or whatever kind of off-kilter Star Wars thing you desired. One booth had an R2-D2 pachinko machine, which did look pretty neat. Whoever bought it must be having the greatest pachinko fun time ever right now. As for new toys, Hasbro has many new figures on display such as the Force Unleashed line based on the upcoming video game, more cool McQuarrie concept figures, and a bunch of comic two-packs for those that get caught up in the questionable expanded universe. To show that Hasbro cares, there is a pink R2 figure coming out that was actually a request from a girl from the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Good job, Hasbro, for doing this for the girl. Plus, I'm sure lots of Star Wars fans have been clamoring for a pink R2 for awhile. Unfortunately, there are also new Star Wars Transformers. As I have stated before, these things would benefit greatly if they were actually Transformers transformers in Star Wars forms. The most notable of these is the Vader that turns into a Death Star. I have no interest in it, but when that thing does come out I had better see some Vader VS Unicron photos. There was a mini-museum of sorts with costumes and models from the films. For the size of the room, it seemed a bit empty. There were maybe ten or so displays and while each one was interesting, I just thought there could have been a lot more. the best things in the museum were the concept models of some of the vehicles from the films. I'm sure if Hasbro sees the need to rake in more Star Wars money, they'll produce toys based on the concept vehicles as they are already doing with the McQuarrie line of concept figures. Also, near the exit of the room was a display of Han Solo's Hoth coat and gear with a voting box to vote if the coat was brown or blue in the movies. The coat on display was clearly brown and Paul and I never knew that this was an issue up for debate. I guess it shows was huge Star Wars nerds we aren't. There were tons of panels to go to and watch stuff or hear people talk about stuff, but we only went to two: The Clone Wars panel and The Force Unleashed panel. We already said how awesome the Clone Wars was. The Force Unleashed panel was more of an excuse to sit down. However, for any Battlestar Galactica fans, Sam Witwer (formerly Crashdown on BSG) is playing the main character of Darth Vader's secret apprentice. LucasArts' speakers stated that if this game doesn't happen, Star Wars doesn't happen. I had no interest in the game before, but after watching some stuff on it and hearing how this story is directly related to the start of A New Hope, I'm more interested in playing it. That Force Unleashed name still sucks Wookie balls, though. Hit the link for a photo gallery of some of the displays at Celebration IV. - Shawn - 06/02/07 Celebration IV Displays Gallery |
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