Meeting George Lucas
OK. I can die now.
I met George Lucas. And Rick McCallum. And they complimented my droid.
I can’t say it any better than Jason Smith, founder of the R2 Builders Group:
“Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 03:05:16 -0500
From: “Jason Smith”
Subject: C3 Update – Todays Events Part One…George!
Well…If operating the real R2 yesterday was not enough, the events of today just pushed everything COMPLETELY over the edge…We were not supposed to open the builders room this morning until the3rd Lucas show was seated (around 10:30)…However, many of us hadgotten there early enough to get the room set up just in case we had anyspecial unexpected visitors…It was a long shot that we were hopingfor, but we wanted to be ready…
At around 9:30 Don pops his head into the room and pulls me into thecorridor outside…”They’re going to try to bring George through on hisnext break” he tells me…So immediately I very casually start preparingpeople for what might indeed become an opportunity of a lifetime…IF George was going to come by the room, we wanted to be absolutely ready…(we even practiced the photo op placement)…
So as the second show emptied and the last show began being seated I started feeling like our window of opportunity was getting smaller andsmaller…When Mary Franklin came around with badges to the last show, Iencouraged the builders to go ahead and go, because I didnt want them tomiss the opportunity to see George in person…And I had already slippedin to the first show earlier this morning…
At this point Don and his family stopped by the room and he tells me tokeep the room closed to the public because they are going to try tobring George through after his last show on his way out…He also tellsme that George is scheduled to leave around 11:30…
It’s now about 10:45ish…And the waiting game begins…11:00…..11:10…..11:18…..Still no sign…
Then I see Don come out of our room heading for the backstage area tothe Sagamore Ballroom where George is at…He gives me a look that said “pay attention”…And that’s what I did…The next 10 minutes seemed like hours…Knowing full well that George issupposed to be leaving around 11:30, and it’s now 11:28, I had all butgiven up…I called Don’s cell to ask him if I should go ahead and open up the room to the public (by now we had a line forming to get in)…He responds…”NO…Standy…GET READY!”
Suddenly the door opens up and out walks Rick McCallum…I signal to Terry Alexander the get the press out of our room…(which he does)…And before I could really catch my breath, out walks George with his kids Jett and Katie, Don on one side, and security all around him…Heading straight for our room!!!!!
As they approached, Don signaled for me to come over and he introducedme to George…I welcomed him to the R2 Builders Room as he walkedthrough the door…The next 10 minutes were simply a dream come true…Here’s just a fewhighlights…When I told him that we had about 3500 members worldwide, Georgeliterally stopped in him tracks, turned around and said “How many???”I said…”About 3500″…He responded “Where were you guys when I startedall this???”When Rick began reading the bio boards for the droids, he took specialnotice of the estimated cost line that we had on each one…Hesaid, “Well NOW we know who to talk to for the TV series”They loved the droids…They loved Chris Lee’s projected Leia message…They loved Craig’s mini-mech…Katie Lucas named Alex Kung’s mini-R5 “Hubert”…Jim Shima got an AWESOME photo by himself with George beside his goldplated 3P0 in the Death Star hallway set…George liked Richard Cross’s lifesized Jar-Jar in carbonite so much thathe had his picture atken with it using his PERSONAL camera…(To myknowledge the only pic that was taken with his own camera)George told us that R2 “kicks butt” in the new film…He shook hands…Listened…Took time to take several grouppictures…And was AMAZINGLY cordial to all of us…Then as he was about to be whisked away by his entourage, he waspresented with a personal copy of Cory Pacione’s fanfilm…”R.2. TheExtra Special Astromech”As he left the room and the door closed behind him…The room erupted inapplause and cheers, along with shouts of “Don, Don, Don, Don!”It was simply amazing…In fact, it’s my understanding that our room is THE ONLY thing thatGeorge saw at C3…From our room he went straight to his car, andstraight to the airport…
Oh…I almost forgot…Don also told George that he used some of ourparts in the new film…One of our R&J Domes made it’s way onto thescreen in the opening space battle sequence of Revenge of the Sith…So it’s now screen accurate…But we’ll tell you more about that later 
So…Once again I find myself publicly thanking Don for another amazingday of fanboy dreams being fulfilled…Now George Lucas knows who we are…And he was impressed…
Jason Smith”
Tags: celebration, droid, george lucas, mini, owl, r2, r2 builders, star wars, vehicle
23.Apr.05 
Costuming, Prop building, Travel 
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