MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – It's nearly 70 degrees and Brian MacMillan is standing in a full Chewbacca costume and gym shorts. At his feet are his 3-year-old Ewok-attired son, Matt, and an R2-D2 replica with a lightsaber attached to it. It's not just any lightsaber, however. This is the official "torch" of the lightsaber relay Course of the Force, which will be passed hand to hand by hundreds of fans running from the Bay Area to San Diego for Comic-Con International to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
In order to capture the lightsaber's journey for the YouTube masses, producers have set up a short where the Wookiee takes off running through the Google campus with the lightsaber, his Ewok son in the lead and cameramen close behind. "They've gone to plaid!" yells IGN's Jessica Chobot, a shoutout to the Star Wars parody Spaceballs. Five minutes after they disappear, a man in almost head-to-toe khaki and a Yoda baseball hat jogs back through the courtyard carrying the same lightsaber, trailed by the same crew. A few minutes after that a gentleman in full Jedi regalia returns with the light blade in hand. He'll do it an additional two times for the camera as Nerdist's Dan Casey proclaims, "That's the fastest run I've seen, Kessel or otherwise."
This year marks the second Course of the Force relay, the result of a partnership between Lucasfilm, event organizers Octagon, and Chris Hardwick's Nerdist Industries. Last year it went from Santa Monica to San Diego and raised some $100,000 for the charity. This year the run has extended north to include Bay Area locations. "Last year we started in Santa Monica, this year, Marin, and hopefully next year Tatooine," Hardwick joked in announcing this year's relay.
"[It was] decided last year, 'Let's bite off as much as we can chew' to make sure we can execute this event, and we did. And with that we built up enough credibility both with the fan-base and with Lucasfilm that they allowed us to play at the Ranch," said Nerdist CEO Peter Levin. "We're just trying to extend the Comic-Con experience, and what better way to do that than with a lightsaber relay?"
>'We're just trying to extend the Comic-Con experience, and what better way to do that than with a lightsaber relay?'
Nerdist CEO Peter Levin
Course of the Force started back in late 2011 with an email from Levin to Octagon containing his plan for a lightsaber being run Olympic-torch style all over Los Angeles and down to San Diego. It made its way to Octagon's head of global events Andy Bush, who thought the idea was a longshot at best. But after multiple meetings with city councils, municipal officials, and law enforcement, it started to look more feasible. Soon thereafter, Lucasfilm and Make-A-Wish were on board too, as well as Machinima. On July 7, 2012 the first Course of the Force took off – complete with a Sail Barge that follows along with the bearer of the lightsaber.
"The great part is that obviously doing certain things in California can be a challenge, but when you need resources [they're there]," said Bush. "We found the guys who build the floats for the Rose Bowl parade, so when you look for prop-building and street-legal vehicles, California is the best place to be."
The Sail Barge came back for this year's Course, as did the concept of the "Conival" (aka party) along the course route. Even celebs like Chris Colfer of Glee and America's Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry joined the run, and while Bush declined to say just how much the event cos, said that it "almost doubled from last year." This backing comes from sponsors like Samsung and Qualcomm, so all of the fundraising still goes to Make-A-Wish. Last year donors paid $500 each to take a stretch of the 136-mile course, raising $100,000 for the event. This year the cost of entry is a more reasonable $150 per runner, but thanks to the longer route Bush said the event is on course to exceed last year's total.
To be fair, this year's Course of the Force isn't a complete relay spanning the 500-mile distance from San Francisco to San Diego. Instead, the lightsaber was carried across the campuses of Google and Yahoo, San Francisco's Embarcadero and over the Golden Gate Bridge before taking a Virgin America flight from the Bay Area to southern California. But in a more metaphorical sense, Course of the Force is helping bridge the gap between the nerd-vana of Silicon Valley and the nerd-vana of Comic-Con. Each year as the pop culture convention in San Diego gets bigger and harder to get into, events outside of the con itself provide an alternate route by which to enjoy the festivities. Throw in the fact that each person relaying the lightsaber pitched in $150 for a children's charity to do a quarter-mile stretch of the relay and it becomes more than just another excuse for Han Solo cosplay (though he did run through San Francisco's Embarcadero carrying a Rick Deckard Blade Runner blaster).
"This gives you a chance to help out in a fun way on a couple of different levels. You've got people who can't go out and run, who can't get down to con, or who can't do a lot of the things that we take for granted – these are all things that are a huge part of my life," said Charles Yoakum, the aforementioned Solo, a 47-year-old who owns a running store in San Anselmo when he's not waving to tourists with a lightsaber. "It gives you a chance to potentially open that up for someone."
Turns out, he's right on point. There are actually a number of kids who ask for Comic-Con trips from the charity each year, according to Alex Cano the director of partnerships for Make-A-Wish San Diego. They also have kids with Star Wars-themed wishes, like one boy several years ago who asked to become Anakin Skywalker (it was done with VFX). Several Make-A-Wish kids also got to participate in the lightsaber-carrying and will be able to attend the grand finale party when the saber finally lands in San Diego following its long journey on Tuesday.
"Disneyland, Super Bowl, baseball all-star games, NBA all-star games, those are common wishes," Cano said. "Coming to Comic-Con has been a popular wish for years for Wish kids. … Make-A-Wish is about making dreams come true and for some people running a marathon or being involved with something like Course of the Force or Star Wars or Lucasfilm or Nerdist is all part of that idea of making wishes come true." (Donations by the public can be made here.)
