South East Clone Wars Premiere - Chat and share your Chapter pics here!

On Friday, August 15, Star Wars will be back in theaters with the release of the Clone Wars movie. Woot!

Quite a few of our SouthEast chapters are making plans for this event, so let's talk about it! And we wanna see pics.

 

We're doing 2 events here at the AMC in Concord Mills:

Thursday night line up and on Saturday we'll be at the theater from 2pm to 8pm with Clone Wars "star" R2-KT.

If I'm lucky I'll have my Yarna costume done.

 

We're doing a 4 hour event on that Saturday at the Rave Theater with costuming, video gaming, SW Jeopardy, Jedi Academy, dueling, and a costume contest. It's a joint 501st, Rebel Legion, and The Jedi Academy event where our FanForce planned and organized it. Of course it helps when a few of us are in all those groups.

We'll probably hit the midnight premier once they confirm it. It's nice to have an event that our members can rally around, as it's got a little stale since the Episode III fever died down. Hopefully the movie, along with the cartoon series and eventual live action TV show will keep everyone up for a good, long while.

 

The MACON CLONES are having a lineup which will feature a costume contest, giveaways and screenings of our award winning fanfilms in addition to a special showing of Star Wars: Revisited.

Our leader is a Producer at the local tv station and has been doing a good bit of promo stuff for us so I'm hoping for a big turnout.

 

Jada: Both of those sound really fun! I'm going to show my ignorance and ask who Yarna is...

Vesper: Cool! You are SO right that it's nice to have something to rally around again. We don't have an organized costuming group in our town and this is one of those times that I'll miss them.

Allie: Oh, wow - having a tv station contact is awesome! Your line-up sounds like a blast.

 

One of our members is organizing a costume/movie event in his neck of the woods near high point so we will be there. If that doesn't work out for same times as the CFF's event at Concord Mills I may drag the family there - would love to see the droid in person and a get another chance to speak with them about the future.

 

Yarna is the 6 breasted dancer from RotJ.

I won't have her finished by Saturday but I'll have her at D*Con.

We are now up to 30 characters appearing on Saturday.

 

Today at The Parkside 16 theater in Pinellas Park the Rebel Legion is having a costumed event from 2pm-8pm. I saw the movie on opening night and I am very impressed, can't wait to see it again.

 

Chattanooga "Chattooine" FanForce mission report:

We had a really good time and was well received by everyone.

We arrived around 11:30am to set up. It seemed like rain was a possibility, but we decided to set up outside anyway as there was a nice breeze and it never got hot. The rain never came where we were, but unfortunately it did rain in other areas which caused Dan (from the R2 Builders Club) and R2 to remain home. I know they both hated missing it, but I doubt R2 is waterproof. By the time we were ready to take over The Rave, we had several costumers ready to go.

Once everyone was changed into their costume, it was a steady stream of people the entire time. Loads of pictures were taken and even the theater managers came out to take some pics. The Rave gave us a few free popcorn and tickets to give away as prizes and even brought out pitchers of drinks to us. There was a kid who was having a birthday party in their "party room" (which is where we were going to have Battlefront II set up, but scrapped it when that room was booked), so we took a squad and raided his party (to his delight). Vader seemed to be the star of the show as they had him serving concessions and in the ticket booth! Our table had flyers set out for both Chattooine AND ConNooga, as we had more than a few ask about the club and the convention.

We had several Clone Wars coloring pages set out. Anyone who colored a page was entered into a random drawing to receive a prize and a Chattooine patch. The Jedi Academy went over well, as there were a lot of kids dueling jedi and Vader. Star Wars Jeopardy was fun as well as we were able to fit in 2 games as the time neared 4:00pm. Afterward, we packed up as some of us stayed over to watch The Clone Wars.

Here's some pictures:. The Rave managers said they would e-mail us the ones they took as well. Mission success!

 

Sounds like a great event. Here is an after report from our event on Saturday:

The Carolina Garrison would like to brag that we were the only garrison in the Legion to have international superstar and Clone Wars actress R2-KT in attendance at our event.

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What better way to spend a hot August day then trooping a movie event inside a nice air conditioned mall? Saturday, August 16th the Carolina Garrison joined by the Rebel Legionâ??s Freedom Base, the Mandolorian Mercs and the Charlotte Fan Force converged upon the AMC 24 Concord Mills in Concord, NC around 1pm. The excitement built as each trooper arrived. A lot of us had not had a chance to troop together before so this was a very special event for us.

At 2pm we went out into the foyer in front of the theater and we were mobbed by fans. Our wranglers set up a desk to hand out tattoos, trading cards, activity books, stickers and honorary cadet certificates and were immediately inundated with children of all ages wanting to sign up.

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Movie goers and mall walkers all stopped short when they saw the plethora of costumed characters outside the theater. Each one had a favorite and there were so many photos taken our troopers must have gotten sore face muscles from smiling under their masks.

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The Empireâ??s finest protecting a future 501st member!

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Mandoâ??s at their finest

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Some impressive Clone Troopers and adoring fans!


Some of the real highlights of the day were when we went through the theater just minutes before the previews started with mock fights between the Jedi, Snowbunny Padme, Mustafar Padme and the Troopers. Even the Tusken got in on the action. (Hopefully video will be available soon.) People cheered at this bonus entertainment.

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We also were very fortunate enough to have our very own Ahsoka!

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Thank you to the quick sewing and crafting of TB0314 â?? Cami for making this outfit for her daughter, Mary Louise!

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Cami and her youngling

This day marked a fine day for the Carolina Garrison as we welcomed back one of our favorite members who had moved away â?? TA240 â?? Al!

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At 5pm with the crowd swelling Jada wrangled the troops together for a group shot. (Unfortunately we had 2 or 3 folks who had to leave before then.) The crowd wasnâ??t thrilled when Jada backed them up so that Tripartite and she could get some good pictures of the group so, to appease the crowd â??Captain Rexâ?? shot Jada with his nerf gun firing about 20 pellets. Laughter ensued.

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Also in the picture is AMC 24 Theater Manager Ernie . . . an aspiring 501st member himself!

Another highlight of the day was when the police officer who worked off duty at the theater on weekends came over and asked if he could hire the Stormtroopers to stay and help him keep the peace. He examined their weapons with awe and was thrilled at how professional the costumes were.

Several members from neighboring fan force chapter Salisbury came down to support the event also.

 

Vesper: Mission success, indeed! It sounds and looks like y'all had a great event. Love the Jedi Academy pics!


Jada: Impressive! Most impressive. Looks like a huge success and how cool to have so many different groups there. Ahsoka is adorable and a special round of applause for R2-KT.

 

I've just added over 100 more photos to our photobucket.

 

Wow! Incredible event, Jada! I can easily see why you had so many pictures. Whew! Good job!!

 

I've been adding everyone's pictures to my photobucket (I'm appropriating them, not stealing )

I just found out I have about another 200 to add.

 

Dude, that's a lot of pics!



Our local Malco is not friendly to SW fans (as we've learned over years) so we didn't have festivities, but here's a shot of the Memphis group at the theater:

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I guess we're still in the spoiler period for talking about the movie itself, but I don't know what was funnier: the purple Hutt or the guys in my group laughing hysterically at the purple Hutt.

 

Oh...it was the boys laughing at Grimace the Hutt that amused me the most. You couldn't hear their running commentary where you were sitting.

 

We've decided that our indoor cat, Darth Leo . . . a rather large cat , most closely resembles and acts like Grimace the Hutt!

I wasn't disappointed by the movie. I saw it with my child and through her eyes. It was fun. I knew it was a cartoon going into it and it wasn't being released by Fox. That was strange to not see the Fox logo and music.

For the most part, I liked it.

 

The Orlando System had a small turnout at the Clone Wars first midnight screening. Here's a picture of the faithful.

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The Alabama Star Wars Syndicate had a fun turnout, with Snow Bunny Padme one day, extra Jedi the next day, and the entire Cantina Band both days, entertaining the crowds with new music and traditional oldies at Patton Creek Rave in Birmingham, Alabama. We got to raise money for Rave's charity, Will Rogers Institute, and loved posing for pix with the crowd.

A very happy young man won the raffle package (Clone trooper helmet donated by TRU, and a set of mugs hand-etched by a local artist with Imp/Rebel symbols)- so happy that, when I called him, though he was IN the theatre he came right out. I teased him about answering his phone while the movie was going on... he said he had a feeling in the Force he would win and had his phone aon vibrate! Dad was just as excited that they had won.
I don't have a way to post pix from the event, but you can view them here:

http://forums.swsyndicate.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=91

 

Sabacc: Three cheers for The Faithful!

jedicharlie57: A Cantina Band? Awesome!! Bet that was a blast. Those are some great pics, too.