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By: Ian Trussler, Star Wars Autograph News Correspondent

 

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Recently I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Saber Con in the town of Munchengladbach, Germany, which the organisers hope to turn into an annual event to coincide with the release of the ongoing sequel and anthology films in the Star Wars saga.

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Together with my awesome friend Dave Oldbury, we accompanied our dear friend  Bill Hargreaves, who was one of the shows signing guests. Bill is the supremely talented prop maker who worked on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, making amongst his many creations the iconic bounty hunter IG-88, torture droids EV9D9, 8D8 and the Bo’Marr Monk.

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Also appearing with Bill as signing guests were the beautiful and always popular Femi Taylor and fan favorite Barrie Holland; Oola and Lt. Renz from Return of the Jedi respectively.

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Also in attendance was Simon Fleischheuer who had built a full size replica of Bill Hargreaves famous creation, IG-88, which was located conveniently next to Bill’s table and was the point for many great photo opportunities. It was great to see Simon get the praise he deserved for his hard work and for him to discuss his project with Bill, the man who he was honoring with his model. Simon plans to soon start work on a full scale replica of the Probe droid, another robot that Bill had a part in creating.

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Hargreaves with Fleischheuer's replica IG-88

As well as the usual toy and collectible dealers, the organisers,  Thomas Manglitz, Marc Thiele and Oral Karaarslan provided a wide range of other interests to draw both young and old.

The venue has a small but state of the art cinema with Dolby Atmos Sound which was showing The Force Awakens throughout the day, a real treat for those lucky enough to secure tickets for the 140 seat theatre. Although the movie was shown in German, we were lucky enough to have a demo of the system and got a private showing of the second teaser trailer.

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Hargreaves and Trussler

There were displays of replica costumes and weapons, a full scale Wampa, which has previously been on display at Celebration VI in Orlando, some great Lego Star Wars displays ( a favourite of mine) and make-up artists getting to work on willing volunteers.

Thomas Manglitz also has his own museum nearby which although not part of the show, will soon be open to the public and we were lucky to have a private tour. Housed in an old disused swimming baths, the museum has an amazing collection of Star Wars memorabilia, ranging from vintage toys through to extensive collections of Master Replicas props and Sideshow Collectibles large scale figures and statues. However the most impressive parts were the fan made dioramas, using action figures to recreate scenes from the movies as well as brilliant versions of famous scenes from the ILM workshops, featuring iconic moments like Phil Tippett and Jon Berg doing the Walker scenes. The highlight however has to be the enormous diorama of the Hoth Battle, with a huge AT-AT, Echo Base and Wampa cave. The amount of time, effort and love that had gone into this display was truly amazing. Also on display were some of Thomas’ collection of original movie costumes from films like Blade Trinity, Aeon Flux and Underworld to name a few. Very impressive.

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I, Bill and Dave had a great time and were treated very well by everyone involved. All we came into contact with were very friendly and welcoming to us and made our stay in Germany a pleasure.

We all very much hope to return again next year and encourage anyone who can, to make the effort to support this show and the great people involved.

I would also like to thank the following people for their help and hospitality over our stay: Antje Barkani, Jenny Phl, Rene Comtesse, Thomas Manglitz, Marc Thiele, Markus Meier and Oral Karaarslan.

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Hargreaves, Trussler, Taylor and Oldbury

For more information, visit the Saber Con WEBSITE and Facebook PAGE.