“Does anyone have a Coca-Cola?” Those were the first words from Carrie Fisher during her surprise spotlight panel at Salt Lake Comic Con Fax Xperience after she walked onto the stage to a standing ovation. The audience loved it, and if the rest of the fans were like me they expected someone who worked for the Salt Palace (where FanX is held) to bring her a Coke. But one of the fans was more prepared and brought an unopened can of Coke up to Ms. Fisher. To thank him she gave him a full hug and a kiss on the lips, and later thanked him for the “make-out kiss and the Coke”. Even Wookiees aren’t that lucky!
The Carrie Fisher panel on Saturday was my highlight of this year’s SLCC FanX. She even had a couch brought on stage for her and moderator Bryan Young to sit on. Other guests just don’t get this special treatment. She was only on stage for about ten minutes, but it was well worth waiting in line for over an hour. Some fans reported waiting in line for over three hours to get her autograph and those who did wait not only got Princess Leia’s autograph but also got “glittered” by her. She was putting glitter on her fans because as she said during her panel, “It’s the law” that everyone needs to glitter at some point. And then she threatened/promised to glitter everyone else in the audience.
Joining Carrie and Bryan on the couch was Carrie’s dog, Gary. She described Gary’s tongue as a “flesh waterfall” because it is two times the normal size and since he is missing all his teeth on the right side of his mouth his tongue constantly hangs out. She also told the story about when she found out she was going to be in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She and George Lucas were at a convention together and she was told that George wanted to talk to her. She had to stay after the convention and she thought she was in trouble. We should all be lucky enough to be in that kind of trouble.
On Friday afternoon we went to the live recording of the Full of Sith Podcast. Bryan Young was joined by Matt Martin from Lucasfilm and Jim Cummings, who is the voice of Hondo Ohnaka on The Clone Wars, as well as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and many others. On Friday night the final panel featured Ray Park, who has played Snake Eyes, Toad, and of course Darth Maul. He told the audience the story of Rick McCallum, producer of the Star Wars prequels, calling him to tell him he won the part of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. Ray was driving in his car and McCallum told him that he would probably want to pull over to the side of the road. He was 21 years old at the time and told he would be Darth Maul. And then he was told he couldn’t tell anyone! Not even his mom and dad. I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret that I saw in person the guy who played Darth Maul!
There were a lot of other guests at SLCC FanX, including Christopher Lloyd, Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid), Steven Yeun and Emily Kinney from the Walking Dead, Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), and Matt Smith (Dr. Who). But Carrie Fisher was my favorite. After my wife and I waited in line for over an hour on Friday for a picture with the Princess I heard another fan shout to her, “Thanks for putting up with us, Carrie”. She responded with, “Thank you for putting up with me!” She had been scheduled for 30 minutes of pictures, it had been over an hour, and judging by the length of the remaining line it would probably be at least another hour. And she had already signed hundreds of autographs and glittered hundreds of fans. She was worn out and wanted to sit down for most of the pictures, but she was still in good spirits and very friendly and funny. Then she had to do the same thing on Saturday. No wonder she needed a Coke.
Did anyone else attend Salt Lake Comic Con? I’d love to know what you thought of it. Leave a comment below or email me at ryderw@coffeewithkenobi.com. You can also follow me on twitter @ryderwaldrondds.
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