Submitted by: Matthew Ryan Freds
Hey Frank! Hope you had as great of a time as I did at Star Wars Celebration. I was blessed to have some amazing moments at Celebration. It was really quite amazing the amount love, joy, camaraderie, and sense of family I witnessed being shared between friends, but mostly important, strangers, while I was there.
So back to my story (and I’ll get to Mark in a round about way). I planned on attending Thursday through Sunday on my own, both to have some fun, but also to plan ahead for taking my son who is five and has autism, on Monday. I figured this would be the best day for him being the slowest, and boy was there still plenty there for him to enjoy. I was a little disappointed when Anthony Daniels made his attendance announcement that he’d only be there Saturday and Sunday, as he was the only guest I had hoped my son might get to meet since C3PO and R2 are his favorites.
Since my travel plans were pretty much already set going back and forth, I thought I’d see if I could get something special from Anthony Daniels for him. I got in his line Saturday first thing, and waited for a couple hours to finally get my chance. At first he was taking selfies, but by the time I got up to him he had stopped because the line was super long and he didn’t want to make everyone wait all day; albeit he was still being very chatty and friendly. I chanced it and asked if he’d do a quick five second video for me saying hi to my son since he couldn’t be there and he was a big fan. He looked around me and said, “well the lines pretty long at the moment, come back later and we’ll see what we can do”.
A little disappointed, but also determined that I still had a chance, I walked a few feet away to put away our signed photo. I get a tap on my shoulder. Anthony had come around the table, told me to get my phone out and ready, and let’s do this. He proceeded to give me a 30 second video saying hi to my son and way more than I asked for. I nearly cried. I sent it to my son immediately and he loved it.
So back to Mark Hamill. I was on the floor early Sunday cosplayed as Bespin Luke, and I got stopped by Chris asking if I was a big Luke fan and if I wanted an autograph. I admitted yes I was, and yeah I would like one. But then i thought to myself, I’ve been blessed so much already (my son included), and the fact Mark was doing this also inspired me. I told him that I had actually got to meet Mark in Orlando and got his autograph there for my son and I. I told him to give it to a kid who may appreciate it more. He said he’d let Mark know I did that; if I had an doubts about feeling like a moron for turning down a Mark Hamill autograph, it went away right then haha! The spirit of celebration really is a thing and does exist. I felt it. Hopefully many others did as well!
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Click HERE to follow Chris Argyropoulos on Twitter. He was a key resource for official Star Wars Celebration information leading up to Chicago and a “must follow” for Star Wars fans.
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