Star Wars Artwork | Motorcade | Star Tours | Endor & Tatooine | Miscellaneous

Other Star Wars Weekends coverage: Denton & Jackie Allen

This past week I made my first trek to the annual Disney Star Wars Weekends event. We all enjoyed a week of Disney, capped off on Friday with the opening day of the Star Wars event. I hope you enjoy my observations and images.

Star Wars Artwork

While roaming around Disney's MGM Studios a few days before the official Star Wars Weekends opening day, I was wondering what they were going to do to give it a complete Star Wars feel. Of course, you had the always cool Ewok village and full sized AT-AT which were regulars at MGM, but what about the rest of the park? Well, seemingly overnight the entire park was transformed into a mini Star Wars Celebration! Every where you turned there were banners, signs, merchandise booths, photo backdrops, and (of course) Star Wars characters.

Not only were you visually engulfed in Star Wars, the audio all around the park featured music from the Star Wars movies. So, from one end of the park to the other you got a small taste of what it was like to be at one of the official Star Wars Celebration events. Oh, and there were long lines too!

Featured below are just a very few of the signs, billboards, banners, and backdrops featuring new and old artwork.

Legends of the Force: A Star Wars Celebrity Motorcade

Shortly after the park opened, fans were treated to the Legends of the Force motorcade. Characters from all across the Star Wars universe marched down the streets of Disney with plenty of music and commentary. For the first weekend, Rick McCallum, Peter Meyhew, and the 2006 celebrity host Warrick Davis were the guests of honor. Jedi Mickey led the parade in his custom landspeeder! The costumes and makeup were top notch, with Darth Maul sporting the best likeness since before he was diced in The Phantom Menace!

Star Tours

What would Star Wars at Disney be without the always cool Star Tours ride? As you make your way to the shuttle, you are fully engulfed in a futuristic tour ride facility. Full size droids and shuttles are scattered about in this mock docking bay.

Endor and Tatooine

No doubt the focal point of all that is Star Wars at Disney is the full sized AT-AT making its way through the full sized Ewok village! Being able to walk beneath this gigantic walker gives you a feel for how dangerous (and massive) these machines really were on Hoth! Full of detail, you almost expect it to start walking at any moment.

When you are done walking through the jungles on the moon of Endor, step next door and you are immersed in Mos Eisley where you can find the very popular Tatooine Traders store. There you can find a full store dedicated to Star Wars merchendise.

Miscellaneous

The park was packed with people celebrating Star Wars. Having just spent the week at Disney, Friday was by far the most crowded day, no doubt due to Star Wars fans invading MGM. Everywhere you looked were people, adults and kids alike sporting Star Wars shirts, carrying Star Wars goodies, and posing for Star Wars related photographs.

Last but not least, the whole family got to enjoy all of the Star Wars around us. From riding speeder bikes through the forest moon of Endor, getting painted up like Darth Maul (make that Darth Trent), and hanging out in Tatooine, to narrowly avoiding getting stepped on by that AT-AT that suddenly sprung to life, Star Wars Weekends is highly recommened to Star Wars fans at least once!

Did you attend Star Wars Weekends in 2006? Let us know and we'll tell you how you can add your own Star Wars Experience to our 2006 Star Wars Weekends coverage!

Click here for page 2 of our Star Wars Weekends Coverage: Denton & Jackie Allen

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