Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016

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So I just saw Rogue One, and I loved it (19Jan update - seen it 4 times). Yeah, it had issues (which I can't get into without spoilers, although "Don't choke on your aspirations"... REALLY?!?! The snide comments when choking people usually aren't that corny), but it was pretty awesome. You could tell the philosophy was to make a war movie that takes place in the Star Wars universe, instead of just a Star Wars movie. I was a little worried about the reports of reshooting the ending, which generally don't bode well for a movie, but I think whatever they did worked. Go see it if you haven't (but you might be lost without seeing Episode IV: A New Hope first). Side note - you could have just hired Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) instead of going the CGI route. Side note #2 for those complaining that none of the characters had backstory - Chewie didn't have any backstory, but everyone loves him. Doesn't make Baze any less awesome.

I also just finished working through my Star Wars Celebration Europe photos, which is pretty good timing. The convention was held back in July in London, and obviously all the buzz was going to be about Rogue One. To fuel the hype, Disney released a behind-the-scenes trailer on the last day. I didn't get to see it live because the POTF Coins discussion panel was being held at the same time and since Star Wars coins are the only thing I collect, I decided to go to that panel instead. But the trailer hit Youtube pretty quickly, and it's embedded below. I'd recommend watching it even if you've already seen the movie. It's pretty interesting to see the behind the scenes footage, and if you pay close attention you'll see that they clearly had an entirely different ending in mind prior to the reshoots (pay attention to the beach scenes).

Disney also had an exhibit displaying a lot of the costumes from Rogue One, including the new shoretroopers and imperial death troopers. I'll be going to Celebration Orlando in April 2017, so it'll be interesting to see how popular these new troopers are with the 501st Legion (Imperial cosplayers).

And of course, there was all the cosplayers. There weren't as many people dressed up here as there were at the Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015, but there were still quite a few cool costumes (and a few that were also at Anaheim). In no particular order, here are some of my favorites that I saw over the three days.

Click the button below to check out the complete set of photos!