To wrap up the 20th anniversary coverage of Celebration III, here are some of my favorite things I dug up in my research that I wanted to share with you here on the blog! And don’t worry, this will not be the last time I write about CIII. There’s way too much to dig into!
THE CARD TOWER ~ Throughout the weekend, the Star Wars TCG (Trading Card Game) booth was building a gigantic card tower. This tradition of constructing and destroying card structures seems to have continued at GenCon, which was periodically operated by Wizards of the Coast, who also ran CIII. The impressive structure was modeled to look like Cloud City and stood tall, marked off by ropes, and (as far as I know) undisturbed…until the last day of the event, when a kid dressed as Darth Vader got to ceremoniously knock the tower down with a lightsaber as the crowd cheered on. I found a video file of this moment in the Rebel Scum Celebration archives and uploaded it to my YouTube channel, click here to watch it!
THE 501ST GROUP PHOTO ~ Group photos are a mainstay at all conventions, especially Celebration, and all of the costuming groups have group photos organized, plus there’s tons put together through online groups and beyond, with the “everyone dressed as (insert character), meet here!” type of pic. The 501st group photo from CIII is a bit legendary, and deserves a dedicated blog post which will come in the future. In the meantime, check out this blog post from the photographer and see the final shot below. Notice that Jay La’gaia, CIII emcee, showed up to be in the pic with them IN HIS CAPTAIN TYPHO COSTUME! I truly think that’s one of the coolest Celebration moments.
COSPLAY ~ The cosplay at CIII beyond the 501st was awesome, with a lot of really creative ideas and interpretations, including clones, a Dexter Jettster, original characters, and much more. Here’s some of my favorites!
THE CELEBRATION AT CELEBRATION ~ This after-hours event was held on Saturday evening within the convention center. It had many crazy features, including fire jugglers (photo evidence below), people making paper mâché Kaminoan heads (I had no idea what they were doing when I found the picture but Jason Gibner of Blast Points told me that was, in fact, the situation), big inflatable gladiator battles, and a whole bunch of other madness. Stilt walkers, air brush tattoos, live music, and more. The party even had it’s own merch! Dave aka Nerdmatters told me, “They had multiple designs you could choose from and they did a heat transfer right there on the shirt you wanted.” Dave’s shirt is pictured below!
but I’m sure it’s fine, photo credit here
DEATH STAR DIORAMA ~ The diorama building tradition at Star Wars Celebration also deserves a dedicated blog post, so look forward to that, but basically if you’ve never heard of it but saw people constructing something with glue and plaster at any Celebration, it was probably them! At CIII, the diorama was the Death Star, and attendees could lend a hand to make the scene a reality throughout the weekend. You can see a ton of amazing photos from the build on the Diorio Diorama Workshop website, and here’s a few examples (all from that site)…
HOTEL KEY CARD ~ One of my favorite random collectibles from CIII are these themed keys for one of the nearby hotels. ROTS branding was big! Photo credit for both is from the Star Wars Collector’s Archive.
THE TALKING VADER ~ The hot item of the weekend was, of course, the CIII exclusive Darth Vader figure featuring the voice of James Earl Jones himself saying “Welcome to Star Wars Celebration III” and a few other quips. These were new recordings made for this figure, which was very cool. Another neat thing about the figure was that the battery case was accessible without removing the plastic packaging off of the figure. So you could keep it talking without having to fully remove it from the package! Click here to listen to the audio from the figure.
A FEW MORE FUN THINGS I CAN’T LEAVE OUT…
Temuera Morrison, and host Jay Laga’aia – photo credit
Overall, Star Wars Celebration III is an incredibly important moment in fandom history. The end of the prequel era, and the start of something new. Look for more coverage of CIII on the blog in the future!
And if YOU were at Celebration III, share your photos!
Share your story! Add it to the archive!
Send it via e-mail today!
the celebration database 
