Our Epic Star Wars Media Day Adventure & Press Conference Details!

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Hey All!

With the highly anticipated epic-ness that is Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening in a few days, I finally have the opportunity to share with you the awesomeness that was the media day. It was by far the best press conference/media day/Star Wars Party, what ever you want to call it, that I’ve ever been to. It wasn’t your average press conference, It was a Q&A with the stars of the film, J.J. Abrams (Director/Producer/Co-Writer) and Lawrence Kasdan (Co-Writer) hosted by none other than the hilarious Mindy Kaling. Before the Q&A to end all Q&A’s started, we were treated to what I call the Star Wars carnival and it was paradise to a Star Wars geek like myself. I came dressed themed in BB-8 for the occasion.

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There was Google cardboard experience and we were given the BB-8.

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There was Star Wars themed ice cream and tons of tasty food to enjoy.

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There was Disney Infinity and Star Wars Battlefront to enjoy and play with while we waited for the press conference/Q&A to start.

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They even gave us a Kylo Ren Disney Infinity figure to keep.

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Every piece of Star Wars memorabilia was on display and it’s sad to say we own almost all of it.

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Everything except for this BB-8 wallet purse, which I must have!

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They had Star Wars Art form The Art Awakens exhibit I attended and some incredible sculptures like this amazing cupcake storm trooper on display.

Disney Art

And they had lots of the incredible costumes used in the film on Display.

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Yes Kylo Rey, Captain Phasma, Han and Leia were on display and it was awesome!

leia costume

kylo ren costume

han solo costume

captain phasma

1st order storm trooper

I also got to meet the insanely adorable BB-8, with whom you all know I’m obsessed with and he agreed to come home with me!

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Check out the full unedited video of this glorious meeting below:

This was all leading up to the Q&A and panel portion of the media day. It took place on this epic stage.

STAR WARS MEDIA DAY STAGE

The first group up was Carrie Fisher, J.J. Abrahams, Adam Driver, Lupita Nyong’o, Daisy Ridley, and Lawrence Kasdan. As you can see from the pics, everyone gets along famously and seemed just as thrilled to be there as we were.

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First, I had to get the strength and courage to ask J.J. the question that I’ve been wanting an answer for since the movies were announced. WILL THERE BE EWOKS IN THE FORCE AWAKENS?

JJ ABRAMS

This was his response and how it went down (Carrie Fisher hilariously also chimed in on):

J.J. ABRAMS: Living?

Everyone starts laughing and I’m dead serious since I love me some Ewoks with a passion.

ME: Living.

J.J. ABRAMS: Listen, if a man can’t joke with friends. No, there are no Ewoks in this film, but you’ll find…

Carrie Fisher cuts him off.

CARRIE FISHER: That you’re aware of.

J.J. ABRAMS: That’s right. There were rumors that some snuck onto set, but there are a lot of them in Return of the Jedi.

I did start laughing at the sarcasm, but I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t extremely disappointed to find out there were no Ewoks in the movie. But nothing was going to stop my excitement from seeing this film even if there were no ewoks. I wasn’t apparently the only one who wanted to know if there were Ewoks in the movie. The whole audience of press let out a sigh of aww after the laughter. And apparently Entertainment Weekly magazine thought this was such an epic funny moment in the press conference, they put it as one of the highlights of the day in their post. See the Ewok highlight HERE!

LUPITA NYONG’O-Carrie Fisher

Mindy was also hilarious in her questions. One directed toward Lupita was exceptionally funny and that was:

MINDY:

Lupita, you play a former space pirate who now runs a bar. I’m wondering, this seems sort of to me like a female Sam Malone from the American TV show Cheers. Does that mean that Yoda is Norm? You might not know this. I was just going to say, could you talk about your relationship with Yoda, and is it convivial?

Lupita didn’t know Cheers so J.J. answered for her:

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J.J. ABRAMS:

Well, I will say this, in an attempt to save my friend Lupita from this slightly awesomely geeky question, which is that I do believe that Maz and Yoda at one point had crossed paths, but that is not something of course due to the events of past films happens in this one.

Lawrence Kasdan spoke about coming back to write another Star Wars with J.J. Abrams after all these years.

LAWRENCE:

It’s really a privilege and you have to be very lucky to get to write the next Star Wars. And so we didn’t really have fear. I think we had trepidation about fulfilling people’s expectations, that they be satisfied with what we came out with. But we didn’t want them to know what we were going to come up with and we wanted this moment that’s coming up next week would be a fresh moment for the, you know, as many people in the world who were interested in it. So the only pressure is: can you do something that’s worth that much anticipation? I think.

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Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) talked about being terrified to take on the roll in this new Star Wars saga.

ADAM:

Yeah, I don’t know, I guess I’m kind of terrified before most jobs, so the prospect of this, the Star Wars and all the kind of iconography associated with it, like I tried to not think about as much as possible. So maybe when it first started and then kind of suppressing that as much as possible and trying to break it up into moments then that way. But I don’t remember like one thing in particular that seemed particularly terrifying.

Adam Driver

Daisy Ridley revealed how she listened to the song “I’ll Make a Man out of You” from Disney’s Mulan to get herself into character and ready for shooting. She even sang some of it.

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DAISY RIDLEY:

Oh, my gosh. [SINGING] “Mister. I’ll make a man out of you”. It’s like iconic guys.

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Carrie Fisher was obviously incredible as always. Just being in the same room with her and with in a few feet of her gave me chills. I was sitting in the first row. I love her so and I’ve seen her feisty wit a number of times at multiple conferences. I knew were were in for a treat!

Her daughter has a cameo in the film and she wanted her dog to have a cameo as well. J.J wouldn’t let the dog be on camera or on set apparently. They went into a playful batter over the dog during the Q&A and it went like this:

CARRIE FISHER: I wish. I begged J.J. And Gary was willing to sleep with J.J. to get into this movie. And I mean nap, but still.

J.J. ABRAMS: Yeah, that was the enticement.

CARRIE FISHER: That’s why it didn’t go forward. He didn’t like having him on the set.

J.J. ABRAMS: That’s not true.

CARRIE FISHER: Oh, it is true.

J.J. ABRAMS: Oh, it is not.

CARRIE FISHER: I’m going to go get Jerry, and Gary wasn’t allowed here.

J.J. ABRAMS: His name’s Gary!

CARRIE FISHER: He was not allowed here today because of the whole tongue rule!

Trust me it was just as hilarious to see as it is to read!

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The second group to come out had the man of the hour Harrison Ford, Kathleen Kennedy, John Boyega, Oscar Issac, and the AMAZING Gwendaline Christie.

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Oscar Isaac revealed the party trailer on set of course belonged to Carrie Fisher!

OSCAR ISAAC:

My uncle came to visit – huge Star Wars fan. And I – I mean, he’s so obsessed with Star Wars. And I lost him. I couldn’t find him. And I heard all of this laughter coming out of Carrie’s trailer, and I went in there, and he was there, just with Gary Fisher, her dog, just hanging out with them. I said “Tio (Uncle in Spanish), what are you doing here? Hey, out of there.” Yeah, so that was a fun place to hang out, was Carrie’s trailer.

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The fabulous Gwendaline Christie stated how much she loved the fan excitement over Captain Phasma and let out a huge fun fact that she’d love to play Marvel’s Captain Marvel!

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GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE:

I was very surprised and heartened at the overwhelming response to the character of Captain Phasma. But I really felt that what Kathleen, and J.J., and everyone had created at Star Wars was fantastic. I think J.J.’s been open about the fact that he wanted to respect the origins of the films and celebrate them, but to bring them into the modern day. And confirmation of that seemed to be, to me, in this amazing character of Captain Phasma, who is Star Wars’ first on screen female villain. And more than that, this is a character who, so far, we have related to due to her choices, due to her character, and not due to the way she has been made in flesh. And conventionally, that is how we have related to female characters. So this to me felt very progressive. And the response from the audience and the fans has been so celebratory, it makes me think that this is the kind of thing people want to see. People want to see a more diverse reflection of society. And I feel incredibly privileged to play that part. If anyone else wants to offer me any work, then I am very grateful and willing to listen.

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I almost lost it seeing Harrison Ford. I saw him in the hallway and could not bring myself to say hi to him. He was beyond the point of cool and charming as you would imagine. He’s literally Han Solo come to life honestly.

Kathleen Kennedy

I mean look how cool these socks are…

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And just how he’s sitting there like a boss! He’s literally too cool for school!

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He’s hilarious as well! One person asked if he had any advice, to the new cast members joining the Star Wars legacy, on how to handle the worship and madness that comes along with being in a Star Wars film.

HARRISON FORD:

I think – my advice is pretty much limited to look both ways before you cross the street, stuff like that.

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He was also asked as a parent, what it was like telling his kids he was coming back to this franchise? Did they think he was cool?

HARRISON FORD:

My kids do not think I am cool at all. And being in this movie is not gonna convince them otherwise. So NO! They’re just glad to see that Dad is still working, you know.

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I think we could all disagree there! He is the king of COOL! And we can all agree we’re all thrilled beyond the point of excitement that he’s back as Han Solo, along with Carrie Fisher Leia Organa Skywalker and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.

I hope you enjoyed this inside look at this once in a lifetime media day and Q&A for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I had the time of my life! I had so much fun even the LA Times took notice and put me on their site. It was truly an experience I will never forget!

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STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS arrives in theaters everywhere on December 18th!

Check out a full video of the press conference Q&A below:

Or you can also view it on my Youtube channel and also check out my spoiler free review of the film as well! It’s one word folks, FUN with a capital FUN!

For more info:

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And visit the official STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS website: http://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens/

 

 

All photos taken by Vanessa Diaz for Briteandbubbly.com. Please do not use our photos with out asking permission first. Thanks!

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