During the span of April 13th through April 16th, 2017, The Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, hosted a grandiose event: The Star Wars Celebration.

The acclaimed Star Wars franchise, now owned by the Walt Disney Company, has grown quite noticeably since the original Star Wars film debuted in 1977. With seven more films added to the franchise, the most recent the 2016 spinoff, Rogue One, in addition to an abundance of TV series, published novels, toys, video games, and more, the leading figureheads deemed it a wise publicity move. The first celebration was held in Denver, Colorado, in 1999.
This year’s celebration for the franchise was a landmark due to the fact that it marked the series’ 40th anniversary. Given that gargantuan landmark, the recorded attendance was approximately 70,000 attendees, which is the new record for the event (according to geek.com).

One event was a tribute to the late Carrie Fisher, who portrayed the character Princess Leia in the original trilogy as well as in 2015’s The Force Awakens. Taking charge of the tribute was Star Wars creator George Lucas who was accompanied by Star Wars’ stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd.
Another noteworthy event that occurred at this year’s celebration was the first showcase of the latest EA (Electronic Arts) development of Star Wars Battlefront II, the upcoming video game that is a sequel to 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront but also a callback of sorts to the original Battlefront games which dropped in 2004 and 2005 respectively by LucasArts. The 2015 installment was a figure of controversy when the game offered no campaign mode and required players to put down an additional $50 for the game’s season pass in order to acquire more characters and maps to play. The game without the added bonuses of the season pass dropped at an initial retail price of $60.
“A couple of years ago, when I preordered Battlefront, I was slightly confused as to why there were so few maps and game modes as well as a lack of a campaign mode. I thought that I’d still get my money’s worth after I had downloaded and enjoyed the game’s beta test which dropped about a month before the actual game’s release. In reality, it became stale relatively fast and I wasn’t willing to spend another $50 for added DLC (downloadable content.) So I’m going to be a lot more skeptical before purchasing Battlefront II given that I buy it at all,” said senior Connor Bergersen.
At the celebration, EA dropped a two-minute long trailer for the game and announced that they would not be doing the season pass for an added $50 and instead are responding to the excessive complaints over the matter by putting all the game’s content on the game disc itself. Battlefront II currently has a loose release date of November, 2017 and is already up for preorder on EA’s website.
“I’m really excited for Battlefront II because I loved the first game and still play it accurately. Even though I know a lot of people got upset about the extra DLC for $50, I think that it was well worth it and had no problem paying that because all the bonus content really made the game that much more of an experience. That being said, I’m really stoked that all of the game is going to be included with the initial purchase this time. Not to mention, there are going to be characters from the prequels and from the Force Awakens in Battlefront II as well as a campaign mode, space battles, and a bunch of other things that were still left out in the 2015 Battlefront. I’m already on the verge of pre-ordering it because it seems as if I’ll like it even more than Battlefront and I like Battlefront a lot,” says senior Jack Vento.
The final major event that went down in Orlando this year was the unveiling of the trailer for Star Wars Episode XIII: The Last Jedi. The instant the trailer dropped, sites like Entertainment Weekly, Comicbook.com, YouTube, Facebook, and many more. In the time span of twenty-four hours, the teaser trailer garnered north of 40 million views across the web (according to recode.net.) Furthermore, analysts and film critics from all corners almost instantly came out with intense analysis of the new trailer and pointed out new “Easter Eggs” found in the trailer even up to two days after the initial trailer drop.
“I really liked the trailer. I think that it did a really good job on just giving a bare bones sneak peak without revealing too much information about the plot. Those kind of trailers, I think, are often better because they just give a sense of imagery and tone as opposed to summarizing the movie in two-three minutes. Leaving you to speculate and interpret the trailer yourself definitely makes you want to see it more because it’s so intriguing to anticipate what it all will boil down to and how this next Star Wars installment will unfold,” senior Jeremy Mason said.