Guardians of the Galaxy!!!! GROOOOT!!!!

Ok so Monday night I got to see Guardians of the Galaxy, courtsey of a Skype event at the Flatiron building area. They had a little dance video you had to create and post online somewhere and then post the picture of you with the movie poster behind you, pretending you were the sixth guardian. And in that photo you posted, and adding Guardians as a skype comtact, you had to come up with a sixth Guardian name. I came up with Missy the Massacre, because I like alliteration... hehe

Not the best picture with the wind blowing my hair in my face...

At the skype event, I got a sketch from Sean Chen. who illustrated Nova, Iron Man and other such comics. And I found out he worked at Valiant for many years so he actually is friends with my ex-hubby. (whom also worked at valiant for awhile). Sean was uber sweet. Took his time to talk to you and get to know you a bit while sitting there. We talked about my new love of comics and how I only read Lenore from Dirge since I was about 14 and then how only in the last few years I've come into my own, reading more mainstream comics from Marvel, DC, IDW, etc. Talked about women reading comics now and how I got started from meeting other women not ashamed of reading comics and how I branched out knowing these women read comics, too. It was a lovely conversation with Sean.

Sean Chen's Rocket Racoon sketch for me.

Me and Sean Chen

For posting the video, picture and adding GOTG to Skype contacts, we got some cool swag. Some GOTG buttons and roll of stickers packaged in a box that looked like a cassette tape. Yay so cool! And of course a GOTG t-shirt and poster. We also got a Skype seat cushion and a Skype drawstring bag to hold all the goodies in. Fun!

To wait for contest winners call-time, my friends and I then went to dinner and caught up with each other. Then went back to the event to see if we won, via Skype app, tickets to the screening that was happening at 11pm. 9pm was when folks were supposed to start getting notified... we waited... and watied. Eventually I got the message first, around 9:30pm! But I had won! Yay! We waited around some more, knowing it was all being sent manually to each person. Also, we were told if we didn't win, to wait around anyway just in case they had extra tickets. Sure enough, Nate won tickets, so now all three of us could go, and Jon's other friend, Jessica, who was with us earlier, could also go :) Fun!

Eventually we split up so Nate and I could get a spot on line, but Jon and Jess beat us to it. (Subways suck...) Found out Jon got his ticket as well. so now Nate and I still had +1's but no way was any of our friends going to get there in time. So oh well.

The movie was at 11pm. But there was some fiasco with the film or the projector or even the room itself (like not finding the key to the projector room). so the movie started very late - at like midnight... And because of that either you could leave and get another voucher for wed with a +1 guest or wait it out. Nate has no work so he waited. Jon and Jess left because of work the next day and train schedules home. I figured I'd wait a lil longer and sure enough about 15 min later it started. But we also got a free voucher at the end of the night, for another regal movie anytime, to make up for inconvenience, so that was nice. (Just one voucher tho but hey, its something, thanks Regal!)

Ok, onto the movie review - NO SPOILERS!!!!

Guardians of the Galaxy was just as amazing as the commercials led it on to be. Highly recommend and I want to see it again and again. OMG SO GOOOD!!!!!! GROOOT!!!!! So many good action sequences, great character development and some history of course behind it, lots of really funny moments thrown in a lot, especially from Quill and Rocket. Very accurate in that sense. I loved Rocket and Groot (who doesn't?!) Their banter was fantastic. And Karen Gillan. Whoa! Awesome villian!!!! Holy hell she brings it to every scene!!! squeee!!!! She was really amazing as Nebula! Incredible performance. And this is from a girl who didn't much like Amy Pond's character on Doctor Who, but it's how she was written more than telling of her acting abilities. I know she can act because of that role, but it wasn't one I liked much. This, though, this was fantastic! She really was just incredible as Nebula! Sidenote: in the prison scene (no spoilers, I swear) look up in the rafters, when they show the other prisoners, you'll see Lloyd Kaufman. If you don't know who he is, we can't be friends anymore haha -- seriously go watch some Troma movies (ie Toxic Avenger) or even Rocky...

Anyway, I loved the play on each character, the build-up's of each one, their history and then how they eventually come together. I have not read the comics for this so I can't compare accuracy but it all flowed well for the movie. And my comic geeks haven't said a peep about how or if they changed things around (in bad ways) so I think that says a lot too, that it must be pretty close to the comics history if they haven't said otherwise. (You know us geeks like to compare and rip thing apart so if that doesn't happen as the movies credits roll, you know it's gotta be good...)

Of course some recurring characters from Avengers end scenes were there, Thanos and the Collector from Thor: The Dark World. So it was nice to see that storyline continue, as we knew it would.

There's a lot of heart in the movie too, where you don't think it would normally fit into a comic book film such as this, but it really blends well. The writers really did a good job of blending everything well. Nothing really felt too rushed or too forced.

This is just such a fun, fun awesome movie!! Go see Guardians of the Galaxy!!!!!

Oh, and in terms of toys, again no spoilers, something at the end of the movie, they better make a toy of because I was squeeing like a 5 year old in my seat. Everyone, but especially girls will want this thing to be made into a toy!!! When you see it, you'll know exactly what I was talking about...

Note that our version didn't have an after-credits scene. Not sure if it will have one like they did with Avengers, where all the screeners didn't have one yet, but for opening day they got one into the film (shwarma eating scene) at the last minute. There was only the one scene right before the main credits start rolling for our screening. So no matter when you go, stay anyway just in case... (not that I need to tell my friends/fans that though...)

3D Sculpts Announced for Star Wars Weekends!

D-Tech has been announced for this years Star Wars Weekends!!

Back at Hollywood Studios, Star Wars Weekends always has this awesome opportunity to create your likeness as a Star Wars character using 3D technology.

This year you can have a 3D sculpture made of you as Leia in her Star Wars: A New Hope white frock or a Rebel Alliance pilot. Those are the two new ones this year. 

Same price point as previous years, for 7" scale figure it will cost you $99.95/figure, plus appropriate sales tax and shipping charges.

Photo courtesy of Disney

In addition, they will have the Han Solo in carbonite and Stormtrooper figures that was there the last year. The stormtrooper will still have the woman's body option, which is cool. 

And both the Leia and Han in carbonite figures will come in the kids sizes as well, which the carbonite one has had in previous years. It just meant you had a shorter body then what you see below. The head is actually probably around where the neck begins and the feet are up a little higher as well.

Me in Carbonite figure

Me as a Stormtrooper, female body form

This year, they are also introducing a large-scale 16" figure option, if you'd like. This option will run a pretty penny of $1499.95. Yes, you read that right, about 1500 bucks for the large-scale.


You get your head scanned on property, only on the Star Wars weekends dates, which run each weekend from May 16th through June 15th. And you can make appointments ahead of time by calling 407-WDW-TECH (407-939-8324). You can usually do walk-ins as well, which I did last year. I just made sure it was the first thing I did when I got into the park. No real lines at that hour. Then had rest of the day to enjoy the park and SW Weekends festivities.

In past years, this experience has been located at Darth's Mall, behind the Rock n Roller coaster area. This year they are moving Darth’s Mall to Soundstage 1 area between the Studio Backlot Tour and Toy Story Midway Mania. Makes me wonder how much more packed that area will be, and it's an already high-trafficked area thanks to Midway Mania.

You can check my blog post from last year when I talk about some of the DTech experience and the whole SW Weekends as a whole.

As much I don't care for this Leia outfit, and I'm almost more interested in becoming a Rebel Alliance pilot instead, I know I will end up getting both of these figures of myself. I want to collect them all unfortunately. haha.

Dresses, We Wants Them All!

Perusing Etsy can be dangerous. Last night I decided to look up geeky dresses, cuz it's me! Lo and behold I found this store: Lameasaurus. The name is pretty awesome in itself. Hehe.

I pretty much want EVERY dress in this collection. Wonder Woman, Doctor Who, Nightmare Before Christmas, Loki!!, Disney, even Dr. Horrible! I love it!!!!

They are all reasonably priced too, for something unique, beautiful and everyday wear. I love the ninth Doctor's dress as most people would not know right away what it was. But I would! Love!!! <3 <3 (Two hearts, see what I did there? haha, I crack myself up...) The fourth Doctor's dress is just the cutest with the scarf as a sash! OMG WANT!

I love the Nightmare Before Christmas one, as that's my all-time favorite movie, tied with Star Wars. Speaking of which, those are fantastic too!!! Eeks! I want them all!!

Ok enough words, here's pics of them (via their etsy site). Visit these lovely ladies site and buy stuff!!

Fourth Doctor's Dress!!!!

Tardis Dress

Ninth Doctor's Dress!!!!

Loki-inspired Dress

Wonder Woman Dress

Nightmare Before Christmas inspired Dress

Haunted Mansion inspired Dresss 

 

Haunted Mansion, Tightrope Girl inspired Dress (from the stretching room portrait)!!!

Darth Vader Dress

R2D2 Dress

Rapunzel Dress

Haunted Mansion Handbags at Disney Parks

Wow!

Dooney and Burke will debut a new handbag at the Disney Parks on Sept. 13th (Friday the 13th!) with Haunted Mansion theme!!

It has the famous Haunted Mansion wallpaper design as the main body and has a hang tag with the Haunted Mansion logo on it. Inside is a bright red interior.

The handbag will retail for $330.00 USD and will be available at select locations within Disneyland and Disney World. It will be available later this year on the Disneystore.com site as well, so those of us who can't make it to the parks will have a chance to own it as well! Yay!

Hurry back to get it! I think there's plenty of room to put your death certificate in there...

The British Are Coming! To Disney's Epcot UK Shops

According to the Disney Blogs, dreams are coming true! Disney World's EPCOT United Kingdom pavilion has added more Doctor Who merch to the shop and have also added a few shirts for Downton Abbey!!! This is so exciting! The Doctor Who merchandise last I was there in June/July was lacking. They had maybe one or two basic shirts available (men's only btw) of the logo or the "Angels Have the Box". Nothing exciting.

Here's a few sneak peaks at what is coming:

Maggie Smith gets all the best lines. This one isn't the best but it's still good.

Pretty much all of this is new since June/July. The one in the bottom right, was there last visit though.

This is the new 50th Anniversary shirt with all the Doctor's (minus Capaldi)

They've added the Tardis scarf as well.

Yes, the Doctor Who shirts and accessories you can find online nowadays but it's good progress for Disney to aquire the license to sell them. The Downton Abbey items are amazing to find at all these days. Sure it's not a replica dress of Lady Grantham or Lady Mary or jewelery inspired by the show, more of a catchy modern tee instead. But it's definitely good news for Disney!

Meet Thor!!!!

I can meet Thor!??? Yes, please! Ok, I know it's not Chris Hemsworth but that's pretty awesome!

Disney announced today that this summer, at Disneyland, California, that you will be able to go to Asgard and meet the Mighty Thor.

It is of course, to promote Thor: The Dark World, in movies Nov. 8, 2013.

If I could get out to Disneyland this summer, that'd be my first stop!!

People have been asking if they can meet Loki too, but per the Disney reps, that is not in the works at this time. Aw, shucks!

Disney D23 Jewelry Debut

Disney's D23 Expo kicks off this weekend in Anaheim, CA. Disney has been tweeting all the amazing things to do, see, watch and of course buy while at the expo.

I am not going this year, but so jealous of everyone who is. It's like San Diego comic con for us Disney fans. So I can't wait to hear about everyone elses adventures on all the social media outlets.
In the meantime, these awesome pieces of jewelry are being debuted at the D23 expo. Seeing the sterling silver and gold charms and pendants are lovely and I would actually love the heart pendant made up of Mickey heads. That one is more my style. But the wow factor is that ring and the diamond pendant made up of smaller Mickey heads! Gorgeous!  And I do not want to know the prices for that ring. But they look gorgeous!

These charms come in sterling silver or 14k gold

Halo Diamond Ring

Halo Diamond Pendant

These will all be available to view and purchase at the Dream Store at the D23 Expo.

**Pictures courtesy of Disney Media

Star Wars Weekends at Disney!

Once again I was lucky enough to go to Disney's Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios!

I attended Friday and Sunday this year. Took Saturday off because the crowds were probably going to be crazy.

Friday was good. Got up at the crack of dawn to get fastpasses for autograph sessions. Yes, people have camped out overnight in order to get them by the way. They started handing them out about 6am we found out. Got there about 6:45/7am. Got Admiral Ackbar/Salacious Crumb's Tim Rose's autograph wristband first. Then went in line for Ashley Eckstein (mind you there was no real lines at this hour, just the roped off queue lines though). That's when we found out you could only get one wristband per 2-hour window, just like a real fastpass works. Erm... understand but that stinks- there won't be any wristbands left in 2 hours! And sure enough we came back at 8am even the line queues were gone. So I guess we got lucky in getting in the line we wanted first without realizing it.

Sidenote: I did get Ashley Eckstein's autograph and met her later though, as she does a daily signing at 3-4pm at the HerUniverse shop within Darth's Mall. So that was nice. As long as you buy those products, you can get those signed by her during that hour. She is under contract to not sign anything else though, so don't bring anything else to get signed to that. Also be sure you are there at about 2pm to line up. I was lucky that I was there about 2:15pm on Friday and was third in line. Sunday I went about 3:15pm and they had already cut the line! (I was busy with family earlier and couldn't get there at 2pm when I wanted to).

Back to the morning...

Waited in ticket line after we got our one autograph wristband. It was still almost an hour til the gates opened to Hollywood Studios. Eventually we got in and stood with the rest of the crowd at the rope drop. This year they didn't have the stormtroopers up on top of the ticket gates, instead they had them on small wheeled stands on either end of the roped area.

This is my video I took of the stormtroopers opening ceremonies.

Sorry I cut off his head in the pic as I was running into the park.

It was a cute funny bit with them. Eventually they dropped the rope and let us all in. First thing in the morning at 8:45am I had an appointment to the D-Tech Stormtrooper 3D figure-making. So I got to Darth's Mall and ran to the appointment first. Did my stormtrooper and hopefully I picked a good face for it. The first face they just let you do whatever. Then they ask you do make certain faces afterwards, like "show me angry!" or things like that. Those always come out cheesy so I picked the first one I did. Painless process, done the same as last year's Han in carbonite figure, which was available to do this year as well.

Not me obviously, but the guy before me. You wear a disposable headband thing so no pieces of hair are in the picture or 3d sculpt later.

  

 This is what you see when you first walk into the Darth's Mall. It's a life size replica with blinking lights and things.

And I did not realize Salacious Crumb sitting up top there til now.

Then I went to get this year's nametag for Star Tours. Last year was blue and I got Missy written in aurebesh with the planet Tattooine as my hometown. This year the tags were green and you could have either a planet or a title! I wish you could have both though. So this time I did my full name of Melissa and put Jedi as the title. The annual passholder one is black with gold trim. I got that Sunday when some passholders I knew were coming. That one said Missy and I got Rebel put under it as I was the rebel spy in the Star Tours ride that day!

The cast members, especially in Darth's Mall, have actually studied the aurebash language that most of them could actually read your nametags if you came up to them for something or were at the registers with them. That was fun.

I got to participate in the Lego Star Wars posters build as well.

this was my block number

finished my block

my block on the wall

my friend building his block

which happened to be only a couple over from my block

the two blocks we did (1804 and 1806)

this is the finished lego poster wall - the entire thing is legos! even the top.

this is the poster we helped with. my block was the laser all the way to the top corner, towards the bottom of the laser and my friends was part of the lightsaber mickey is holding, deflecting the laser.

Obviously I rode Star Tours a few times as much as I could through the day, as long as it was no more than 20 minutes wait (which is a long time considering I always walk on in 2 minutes on the off-season). Eventually I was the rebel spy!!! Whee!! My friend was the rebel spy earlier in the day, too!! Awesome! And by chance he went to buy the "I am the rebel spy" shirt as now it made sense. Upon doing so, the cast member asked if he was actually the rebel spy and presented him with a Disney "I'm celebrating" button that said underneath "I'm a rebel spy" Nice! so that was a nice treat. When I became the rebel spy later, I knew to go to the register and tell them so I could walk around with that button too!

oops sorry, that's my nail in the corner there. (Looks pretty phallic tho)

Did normal Disney stuff of course inbetween going back and forth to Darth's Mall. We needed the limited edition Star Wars pin for a couple people so we had to go back and get those and then a friend was asking for some things, too. So we went back a couple times to get things and then to see Ashley Eckstein as mentioned above by about 2:15pm.

This is some merch we saw there or got -- I got the window clings of Darth, Yoda, R2 and Princess Leia. It only came as a four-pack for about 20 bucks.. Apparently, in Disneyland they come separately priced at about 5 bucks each. The black Star Tours nametag is the Passholder one and the green was the normal nametag color. And the limited edition SWW pin is in the second pic below. A lot of the merch was related not just to the SWW 2013 but also for the Return of the Jedi 30th anniversary (which is my favorite of the original trilogy and of all the SW films so I was excited by all this merch!)

pic courtesy of Disney blog.

pic courtesy of Disney blog.

I had to have this! it was the most adorable Ewok I've seen! It was also available in the D-tech area as a 3d printed Iphone case. (I don't have an Iphone so that was useless) but when I saw the shirt...!!!

I would have bought this too had it not been only on a tanktop. But I loved the design of Minnie on a speeder.

Since it was the third weekend out of four, there was a lot of merch that was sold out already. Especially pins (the spinner ones like the one you see in the first pic, bottom right corner) were sold out the first weekend.

Finally got to meet Ashley couldn't have been more sweet and kind. She even remembered me from twitter as we have had a few twitter exchanges. She signed my two items I got -- the Rogue Squandron dress and R2 tunic hoodie. She signed the tags on them- which as she said, was created so that she could sign them. She assumed people would not actually want the clothing to be signed, but no, sooo many people want the clothing signed! But she thinks like me and if signing the clothes, neither of us would wear it again haha. So she designed the tags to have a lot of space to sign on it. And she did sign my friend's autograph book too.

Me and Ashley Eckstein, her hubby is the guy on the left in the background hehe

R2 tunic and rogue squandron dress.

this comes pre-signed. I wore it on Sunday when we came back to the SWW.

Sidenote: earlier when I bought the R2 tunic, I found the last XL on the rack. Well, it had some makeup smudges on the bottom of the hoodie/neckline of the shirt. But I figured I'll just get it because it's my only chance and I really wanted it and I could wash it off later. But it was a slight disappointment. But as luck would have it, Ashley's wonderful hubby had just gone to the back room during the signing and got more of the tunics out. I quickly told him my situation and he was more than accommodating to swap mine out. He felt terrible that happened. So I got to swap mine out right before my signing. I made sure to thank him again once I finished my meet and greet with Ashley. He mentioned that he and the family try to be in the shop as much as possible so that things like that won't happen -- and that if they see someone with makeup on, they ask them to not try the clothing on. But of course they can't be there all the time so it does happen. I thanked him again for his kindness and went on our way.

Seriously, Ashley and her hubby are the best. Thanks again guys!!!

We also got pics with R2D2 and C3P0 who seriously sounded like Anthony Daniels!! R2 was moving around and such. And C3P0 liked my outfit a lot- said I had impeccable taste hehe. Just in case you can't see it all, I'm wearing my R2 homemade skirt, Wampa purse, Jedi sneakers, HerUniverse Alderaan shirt, C3P0 lego necklace, HerUniverse Jedi logo necklace, r2 and Yoda hairclips and my Star Tours nametags all over the place! haha

And I got a picture with the infamous real-scale Rancor!!! eee!!! I'm pretending to run away from it whilst in its grip, in this picture. I look like I'm still laughing though. oops. hehe

Around the park they had a lot of characters walking around, like Darth Vader, jawas, gomorean guard, Boba Fett, etc. And they had a life-size clone trooper toy box to make yourself into an action figure.

This Jawa was trying to trade stuff with a guest. Like they wanted the woman's camera in exchange for a McDonald's happy meal toy they had in that droid leg they were using as a bag.

the stormtrooper made sure Vader got backstage without any incidents

me and Jango Fett

me as an action figure

Eventually it was time to meet the great Tim Rose, who was Admiral Ackbar and Salacious Crumb's voice. He was very sweet. And he signed his headshot with "Run, Missy, It's a trap!" Also, he apparently calls himself "Timbo" and almost signed his picture that way haha. When I took my pic with him, he is sitting on a platform so I didn't want to make an assumption to stand on it, but I really was too short so they told me step up onto the platform haha.

me and Tim Rose

As per previous years, they also had the Disney characters dressed up as Star Wars characters. I skipped them this year because we spent way too much time getting in line for those characters last year. But they are cute. Goofy is Darth Vader, Donald is a stormtrooper, Minnie is Princess Leia and Mickey is a Jedi.

The first day went by so quickly. As mentioned earlier, skipped Saturday and came back Sunday for the last SWW day of the weekend. 

Focused on the shows for Sunday. So we saw the Voices Behind the Force show with host Ashley Eckstein and featured the talented actors Sam Witwer, James Arnold Taylor and celeb cameo from Back to the Future fame Tom Wilson (Biff!!) I was soooo floored when I saw it was Tom Wilson!! :) 

blurry pic from camera phone but it's Tom Wilson!

The point of the show is to discuss the voiceover process and how the actors come up with their voices for different characters, mostly for the Clone Wars cartoon but other shows as well. Then they pick people from the audience to do voiceovers for a short cartoon made just for SWW.

Sam Witwer and Ashley Eckstein

Sam Witwer and Ashley Eckstein

From l-r: James Arnold Taylor, Tom Wilson, Sam witwer, two audience members, Ashley Eckstein
In this "scene" Tom goes to threaten Sam's character.

James Arnold Taylor, Tom Wilson, Sam Witwer

From l-r: James Arnold Taylor, Tom Wilson, Sam Witwer, two audience members, Ashley Eckstein

http://youtu.be/Cn3XPXaDrjo

This is the video from Behind the Force show. Having technical difficulties embedding it here. 

The funny but weird thing that happened at the end of the audience VO session was when the hipster teen/young 20-something was leaving the stage and took a moment on stage to ask Tom Wilson who he was. <Head slap> Parenting fail people! You must all show your kids Back to the Future!!! Ok I digress.

Also went to see Warwick Davis' show which was kinda of a life story of his. It was really funny and cute and Warwick really is a comedian. He also had people come up to be certain people in his life, like his agent, mother, Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, George Lucas and a couple other characters I can't recall. It was really cute and I wonder if he really is trying to make it into a real show or not, as he joked about it being a trial run. It could really work as a real show if he wanted it to, it would need a little more work but it could. But of course it could still just be for the SWW.

Warwick Davis

audience members with Warwick Davis

R2 and Warwick Davis

That was the Star Wars portion of my weekend! It was a fab time with Disney and Star Wars!!! Can't wait for next year!