Thirty years after the release of "Return of the Jedi" many of the cast members gathered at the Star Wars Celebration in Essen, Germany, according to the New York Daily News.
The group of actors was joined on stage by two Stormtroopers and Darth Vader. In attendance were Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine), Warwick Davis (Wicket), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Jeremy Bulloch (the original Boba Fett). Notably absent were Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams but I'm sure fans just imagined Han and Lando were off grabbing a drink at the Mos Eisley Cantina.
Mark Hamill talked to reporters about how amazingly dedicated "Star Wars" fans are, according to Digital Spy.
"It never ceases to amaze me, the passion of these fans," Hamill said. "First of all, they know more about the movies than I do and it's just a wonderful energy that they bring. To see parents who were children when these were brand new, it jumps from generation to generation. I never expected that kind of longevity."
Also at the Star Wars Celebration is a life size model of the TIE Advanced x1, or to less nerdy fans, Vader's TIE fighter. The model was made by a group of super-fans using plans by architect Markus Sammann. The model cost a whopping $18,600 to build, according to C-Net.
Fans are hoping that some details about the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode VII," which have been few and far between, will be revealed at the convention. With the original cast in attendance it had been speculated that it would be announced that they were returning for the new movie. So far, nothing official has been announced.
In an interesting "Star Wars" related story in National Geographic the set that was used for Tatooine in the filming of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" is in danger of being swallowed up by the Tunisian desert. An enormous sand dune called a barchan is slowly moving toward the set that served as the fictional town of Mos Espa, according to National Geographic.
The former movie set, which attracts thousands of tourists a year, is actually helping scientist Ralph Lorenz study the migration of the sand dune because it serves as a point of reference.
"One of the challenges in measuring dune migration on Mars or Earth is that dunes often appear in vast sand seas where not only can it be difficult to tell one dune from another, but there may be no fixed reference point against which to measure the dune's position," Lorenz said.
Lorenz expects the bachan to overtake and destroy the set within the next six years, according to National Geographic.
