One of the things that I’ve spent the most time doing while researching the first three Star Wars Celebrations is what I like to call “Wayback Wandering”. This is basically when I pick a site, either the official site or a fansite, insert it into the Wayback Machine, and then dig around in the early screenshots that are saved through the Internet Archive.
I do this to varying degrees of success…sometimes it skips you to a later page and you can’t find the date you seek, sometimes (usually) all of the images don’t load or whole sections no longer function, sometimes the page just goes straight to 404 Not Found. But sometimes…you strike gold.
This was the state of things when I discovered one of my favorite research finds thus far. Not only is it miraculous that it still exists and functions, but it is also probably the most rare piece of media out of Denver that I have found.
The first Star Wars Celebration (hereafter called SWCI) was dedicated to the release of The Phantom Menace. Stars like Ahmed Best, Ray Park, Jake Lloyd, Pernilla August, and Hugh Quarshie were on hand to talk about their roles in the upcoming film. Also on stage in the tents were some true behind the scenes legends, sharing details about the making of Episode I to an eager crowd.
Among those in attendance all three days were Trisha Biggar and Iain McCaig, who talked costumes and character design, Doug Chiang and Terryl Whitlatch, who discussed concept art and design, the ILM wizard John Knoll, creature designer Nick Dudman, and sound design legend Ben Burtt. These talks took place once on each of the three days. I have seen a few photos taken during these panels, including this one of the gorgeous Padme costume displayed during Trisha & Iain’s panel.
Those panels must have really been golden. This is a few weeks before The Phantom Menace premiered, when only a few trailers had been released and every bit of new information or footage was huge. No filming was allowed inside the event, only pictures, so I believed that was all that existed, most likely. That is until I found something on the official site that I’m pretty sure made me yell “WHAT” out loud at my desk. And I work in a library, so that’s not great. But it was warranted.
I was doing some of my classic Wayback Wandering on the official site, looking for the coverage of SWCI from right after the event had occurred. There was the reports that I had read before, but then I noticed that multiple of these links said “listen”. Sorry….does that say listen?
I clicked through. And what I came across was this…
FIVE recorded panels (including the moment from the opening ceremonies that I wrote about in my previous article!) were available for all the fans who couldn’t make it to Denver. I was stunned, and I don’t think I was breathing as I pressed play on the first one…nothing. Because the audio was via QuickTime, it simply takes you to a broken apple.com site. Same for all of them. Crap! I Googled a bit to see how to rescue QuickTime audio but no luck. I made peace with the fact that this audio was lost to time, but took note that it did, at one point, exist. This was proof of that.
Flash forward to a while later, Wayback Wandering on the official site again, this time digging into the ten year anniversary coverage that was shared in 2009. There was lots of reposting done to celebrate SWCI turning ten years old, sharing the original written reports about the event as well as the piece about Jar Jar Jam and reflections from co-MC Scott Chernoff. There was even a collection of new memories from fans and crew. And there was also something listed as “Celebration Soundbites”. Great, I thought. It’s just going to be more broken links.
I tried the links to part one of Iain and Trisha’s panel first…tried to press play…file not found. Tried to download…broken link. Part two, more of the same. Then I clicked for part one of the panel with Nick Dudman, who I noticed was not listed on that Fan Event Audio page I had found. I pressed play, and after a short “buffering”, there was the sound of audience applause through my speakers. THE AUDIO WAS WORKING.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer was saying, “please welcome the host for this presentation, world renowned Star Wars collector and head of Fan Relations for Lucasfilm, Mr. Steve Sansweet.”
Was this really happening? Was I hearing audio from the very first Star Wars Celebration? I could NOT BELIEVE IT.
“Hello, welcome in from the rain.” It was Sansweet alright! He jokes about the lousy weather, talks a bit about the weekend, ending with, “We’re all here because Star Wars ROCKS!” This was VERY good quality audio. Strikingly good quality, actually. And guess what. The second part of the Nick Dudman interview also worked!
So what does this mean? This is a full panel of audio from SWCI, which I believe was recorded on April 30, 1999 (Steve references the rain and the weekend ahead, so I think it was the first day) around 2:30 PM Mountain Time on Stage A (as per the revised event schedule). I also believe this is proof that all of the panels listed in the earlier screenshot exist as well, at similar high quality. My hope is that they’re all sitting on a dusty Lucasfilm hard drive. And in the meantime, thanks to the magic of the internet and a bit of a miracle, we can listen to one of them and time travel to that weekend in Denver!
CLICK HERE to listen to part one of the Nick Dudman panel
CLICK HERE to listen to part two which includes Q&A
(Please note that the sound and these links work as of 6/7/24.)
the celebration database 