The Five Most Important Takeaways from Star Wars Celebration Anaheim

Another Star Wars Celebration is in the books. While attendees deal with the inevitable post-con depression and binge-watch Star Wars movies, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, let’s take one more look back at the weekend as a whole.

It would be easy to fill a story like this with the simple, bombastic updates: BB-8 in the (metallic) flesh, along with trailers for The Force Awakens, Battlefront, Rebels season 2, and Rogue One, would make for a competent and easily defensible list of the best, most important, or just most fun moments of the weekend. Instead, ComicBook.com wanted to take a look at what those, plus the other bits and pieces of news, conversation, and discovery throughout the weekend in Anaheim really mean to Star Wars fans and the people creating the next generation of experiences in a galaxy far, far away.

The Story Group Truly Emerges

When the new Star Wars Story Group was announced a while back, it was hard to envision what that actually meant. Okay, the basic concept is there: a small group of individuals who will help guide and maintain the story across all media, creating one cohesive canon Star Wars universe. But what does that mean in practice?

We discovered the answer to that this weekend. After the new desert planet of Jakku was announced during the Force Awakens panel, EA Games revealed the “Battle of Jakku” mission for their Star Wars Battlefront video game. Then Del Rey announced a Battlefront novel, which would also encompass the same battle, but from different points-of-view.

When it came time to talk about the new Anthology films (that’s what Lucasfilm is officially calling those stand-alone movies now), it was Kiri Hart and Pablo Hidalgo, two members of the Story Group, out on stage for the announcement alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards.

All of this (and much more) demonstrates just how involved the Story Group really is in the creation and expansion of the Star Wars galaxy. Not only are their hands in everything, but they’re also incredibly inclusive to the other companies and creators they work with. The idea that a third-party video game company would announce a major story element is outrageous, but thanks to the Story Group, they could. It makes that promise of a cohesive world across all media easier to believe and achieve.

Laughing, Crying, and Making $2 Billion

When the second teaser trailer for Episode VII of the saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, debuted in front of a crowd topping 4,000 fans, plus cast and crew from the film, it’s fair to say people went nuts. Fans shook, laughed, cried, held hands and hugged strangers. As they emerged from the dark arena, there was a sense of disbelief; it was as if every person in the stadium had been injected with adrenaline, told they won the lottery, and met the love of their lives for the first time. This reporter could barely type the opening words of the voiceover, “The Force is strong in my family,” without tearing up again.

But something else happened after that scarcely two minutes of video rolled. Not only did fans around the world get excited, and watch it more than 88 million times in the first 24 hours, but investors went wild, too. Disney stock’s overall company valuation went up 2 billion dollars in the hours following the trailer’s release.

Right now, news organizations and websites are speculating whether Disney’s other massive property, Marvel Studios, will make $2 billion in the box office with Avengers: Age of Ultron. That’s all well and good, but Disney just made that much (in actual value, not just box office sales) with a mere 90 seconds of new Star Wars footage. Nothing demonstrates the power of a pop culture franchise more than the bottom line, and that makes this a force (sorry) to be reckoned with.

Yes, Nostalgia is Strong in This Family

The Star Wars story needs to strike a certain balance when appealing to fandom. On top of the millions of original fans who want to see the stories they grew up with well-represented, there are now a good four generations of fans, each of whom grew up with a different era of Star Wars. Of course, Lucasfilm also wants to make new things with new characters, and needs to do so in order to keep the franchise vibrant and living.

But nostalgia does rule, and it’s a testament to the characters that have thrived throughout Star Wars‘ 38 years as a franchise. The biggest pop for The Force Awakens was “Chewie, we’re home,” as delivered by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. The loudest cheers during the Rebels season 2 trailer came for Captain Rex, alive and well 15 years after The Clone Wars, and Darth Vader, appearing stronger and more terrifying than ever. Vader got a great reaction in the Battlefront trailer, too, though his was dwarfed by a shot of Boba Fett blasting into the air via jetpack. And of course, Rogue One is basically built entirely on the concept of nostalgia, but more on that shortly.

The Anthology Films Are on the Right Track

If the franchise had one major question mark before this convention, it was the stand-alone films. Or make that several big question marks: What was the point of them? When and where would the first film, Rogue One, take place? What is Felicity Jones’s role in the film? What would be the tone? How closely would it fit in with the timeline of the episodic films?

Even though Rogue One hasn’t even begun filming yet, Gareth Edwards and the Story Group came with answers to all of these questions, and more. Armed with a teaser video created by the talented folks at ILM, the group gave fans enough to guarantee one thing: these films are on the right track. We now know that these films are called Anthology films, and they will not just fill in holes in the episodic movies, but will be born purely of story first; if there’s a story to tell, and it fills a narrative gap, all the better. We discovered Rogue One is the story of the Rebel Alliance stealing the Death Star plans just before Episode IV. We found out Jones will play one of those soldiers (possibly a leader?) in a unit not unlike those found in your typical WWII films. Heck, the Story Group even confirmed that this movie wouldn’t contradict anything Rebels is doing, and could even rub up against it, if the story deemed it necessary. 

Did you see how many times the word “Story” appeared in that paragraph? That’s the clearest detail: story comes first in these movies, which will appear in the “off” years between the episodic films. They just sound like a lot of fun.

Star Wars Lives, and Belongs to the Fans

The amazing thing about Star Wars Celebration is that the tens of thousands of attendees are all there for one thing: Star Wars. It’s unlike any other convention; Most single-franchise conventions don’t hit the attendance numbers that Celebration has, and cons of similar size, like Comic-Con International: San Diego, splinters into hundreds if not thousands of different subjects and fans.

You feel it every moment. You start a conversation about how AT-AT should be pronounced, and it becomes a discussion about what other Walkers might be called in the heat of battle (would the Rebels have goofy nicknames for them? Would the AT-ST be called an “ST” in battle, or maybe something like “Chicken Legs?”). You cry during a trailer, and there are ten others surrounding you with tears of their own. You want to talk about nothing but the Rebels season 2 premiere, and there are always five other people around who want nothing more than that, too.

It’s remarkable. But what’s more remarkable, is that many of those experiences happened alongside or with the people actively creating these products. I had that Walker conversation with people from Lucasfilm Publishing and Marvel Comics. My tears were shed alongside fellow writers for StarWars.com, DK Books, and more. I talked about Rebels excitedly in a walk with members of the Story Group. These people are all fans of this franchise. These people all love Star Wars.

Mark Hamill, addressing the crowd just before showing the big Force Awakens trailer, told them, “You’re not just fans, you’re family.” That is how it feels to those in the audience, and that’s how it feels to the people on both side of the camera, those writing books or creating television, and those hoping interactive game experiences can add to the story. We all love it, and it belongs to all of us. Here’s to one of the best conventions ever, and what looks like one of the best years ever for Star Wars.

What did you think of this year’s Star Wars Celebration? Let us know in the comments below.