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Well, I went to CVI on Saturday, and I must say, it was amazing!
Saw Anthony Daniels and Dennis Muren walking in the almost-empty OCCC lobby, which was a great start to the day! My dad and I proceded to wait in the "queue" (stupid system they had going, IMO) for the Clone Wars panel. Once we got there, we saw exclusive clips of Onderon, Anakin's Bedroom, a stupid comet storm scene with the droids and an organic action figure, the rogue Republic Commando, and the Maul-Oppress tag team being sent to the Black Sun. After that, Dave Filoni introduced a special guest, who turned out to be George Lucas! The crowd went insane! After some discussion with GL, they showed the Season 5 trailer, and ended the panel. Even though I think the show is stupid, I'm glad I went to that panel!
After the Clone Wars panel, I met OMB and we talked for a few minutes, he then gave me a "A Force for Childhood Literacy" refrigerator magnet and he had to leave to cover more panels. It was a pleasure getting to see you, OMB!
Next, I went to the "Attack of the Clones 3D" panel which was held in the same room. Dennis Muren and John Knoll of ILM explained the 3D conversion process, and really gave an example on how labor-intensive it is. They proceded to show a 3-minute montage of scenes from AotC that have been post-converted. I must say that the footage was magnificent and the 3D effect was definitely more pronounced than in TPM (and I even loved the 3D in that). I feel this will please the less depth-perceptive who thought TPM was too flat will enjoy this. Dennis Muren went on to show a demo of different slides from the movie, and gave visual examples on how they went and post-converted every frame. It was very interesting and I actually enjoyed it more than the Clone Wars panel. And most of all, it actually got me excited to see Attack of the Clones...
We then went on to see "In the Cutting Room" with Ben Burtt. The panel was pretty boring at first with a simple powerpoint presentation, but it got interesting when he showed us examples of his "makeshift" edits where he changed parts of the raw footage before sending it off to ILM. The highlight of the show was one of the original versions of the Grievous chase in RotS. It was completely rendered, and showed some of the original ideas, like Grievous using his wheel bike to run over traffic and crash through a running train. The ending was quite different than the final cut. Grievous' chest was originally going to house his brain. With that idea, they had Obi-Wan come and rip his brain out and then shoot it, which was what killed Grievous. Burtt himself said that the scene was "quite sadistic". I left the panel once they got to Q&A.
My dad and I went to Denny's for lunch after our little stint of panel-going, and I had a wonderful meal of blueberry pancakes.
We went back to the OCCC, and we spent quite a bit of time on the show floor. I got a few action figures from the private sellers. After that we just walked around and checked out all the booths they had there. It was pretty interesting but I got a bit claustraphobic in those crowds...
The highlights of the show, though, were the theatrical screenings of ESB and RotJ. We went in the digital theater a little early and caught the tail end of The Smuggler's Gambit, and got to see people like Daniel Logan, Tom Kane, Ashley Eckstein, Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Lanter, and Sam Witwer (!!!). They pulled off their parts pretty well, and it was fun to see those guys in person. Once the theatrical screenings came on though, it was a totally different experience. It was absolutely wonderful! The crowd would burst into applause the first time a character would make an appearance (or in Boba Fett's case, his first five appearances... ). there was also clapping and cheering every time a famous line was said ("I know." "I am your father" and "It's a trap!" just to name a few...). It was really fun being able to see the films with many other Star Wars fans. I'll definitely be aiming to do this again when CVII comes around the corner!
Overall, it was wonderful, and I definitely feel I got my money's worth! I'd love to get a 4-day pass and a hotel room when CVII comes, but we'll see I guess. I am optimistic though.  _________________

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