'Star Wars' Celebration Weekend: Your 2-Minute Recap

Marcus Errico

Orlando was the epicenter of the Star Wars universe last week, with species from ports near and far congregating to celebrate the franchise. Even for the most ardent aficionados, navigating event as epic as Star Wars Celebration Orlando can be daunting, but fear not, Yahoo Movies has you covered: Watch our quick highlight reel of the fan fest’s biggest moments above.

The four-day party kicked off with a 40th anniversary panel, which featured franchise stars Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Warwick Davis, Ian McDiarmid, and Hayden Christensen (returning to Celebration after more than a decade away), along with two unbilled surprise guests: saga mastermind George Lucas and, making his first appearance at a Celebration, Harrison Ford. The panel ended with a lovely tribute to Carrie Fisher and a live orchestral performance of the Star Wars soundtrack’s greatest hits led by composer John Williams.

While Day 1 looked back at history, Day 2 focused on what’s ahead: The Last Jedi panel re-introduced the heroes of The Force Awakens alongside Hamill (Luke speaks!), newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, and writer-director Rian Johnson, who topped it all off by introducing the first trailer for the upcoming sequel. Afterwards, whole crew spoke to Yahoo Movies to help break down the preview.

Saturday began with a sneak peek at the fourth — and final — season of Star Wars Rebels. Creator Dave Filoni delighted fans at the panel first by wearing an “Ahsoka Lives!” T-shirt — and then by screening the first episode months ahead of its debut on Disney XD. Other big Day 3 panels included the first look at EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II video game and a Disney/Lucasfilm update on the Star Wars Land coming to theme parks in 2019.

The festival wrapped on Sunday with a closing ceremony that gathered hundreds of cosplayers to bid farewell to each other — and start the countdown to 2018’s Celebration.

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