By running away, Rebels finally get their due

Starting February 11th and running until the end of April, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination is showing at the California Science Center.

This is a science center event featuring scientific explanations of real-world technology appearing in the Star Wars universe combined with props, costumes, and models from the films.

I was lucky enough to be included in the events scheduled around this event as a costumed volunteer. The first being the museum’s annual Discovery Ball. This is their big fundraising event centered around their largest exhibit; which this year happened to be Star Wars. I was also lucky enough to be portraying a face character so I used for some special stuff over the rest of my fellow volunteers. I able to hang out in the Cantina early in the night with the infamous Marie Prestin in her ANH Leia costume; chatting and taking pictures with the attendees. I also used in a staged firefight between Rebel troopers, Han, and Leia and Stormtroopers on scaffolds. Beside being waaayyy too long at 3 minutes it was fun. At the end I was required by Lucasfilm to grab Leia and run out as Darth Vader shows up. Apparently, LFL doesn’t want any hero characters to be captured. Instead we do the courageous thing and run away.

This nice thing about running out was that Marie and I got a jump on eating. Which was good because we were quickly grabbed to take pictures with the VIP guests. These tables were purchased for $25,000 or more so the diners were given the opportunity to take professional photos with the face characters from the Original Trilogy. Marie (as Leia) and myself (as Han) were joined by Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Old Ben, and Luke Skywalker as we went from table to table taking pictures.

It was a fun night despite being work and we were very proud to say we helped the museum raise over a million dollars. The first time they had ever done so.

All it took was Star Wars.