Last weekend, I got to spend a thrilling three days at the L.A. Convention Center acting as an exhibitor for LEGO BrickLink, Inc. and covering the convention as a member of the press for The Cosmic Circus. Although I attended the convention last December, this was my first time being an exhibitor, and it made for a pretty different experience. However, the highlight of Los Angeles Comic Con this year was still covering panels and getting to see all the wonderfully unique cosplays fans broke out!
L.A. Comic Con 2024 overview
Last year, Los Angeles Comic Con seemed to be a much bigger event, with more high-status Main Stage panels and more celebrity guests. This year, Star Wars pulled the most focus with high-profile panels featuring Rosario Dawson, the supporting cast of The Mandalorian, and Ewan McGregor. McGregor made a splash by confirming that ideas for a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi are being kicked around at Disney, though we don’t have full confirmation of another season quite yet.
The Main Stage also featured live music on Friday and a cosplay contest on Saturday. The best cosplay I saw was a couple dressed as Xenomorphs in human clothing, which was super well-made and honestly hilarious. They could barely see out of their alien heads but made for an adorable extraterrestrial couple!
Universal Studios Hollywood had a presence at LACC this year, promoting experiences from the theme park and bringing the Back to the Future car to the convention for photo ops. Speaking of photo ops, I unfortunately skipped those and autographs this year. I would’ve loved to get autographs from Ming-Na Wen and Kristen Schaal, but instead I spent my money on a brand-new 2006 LEGO® Batman Ultimate Collector’s Edition Batmobile set, which was priced extremely well from the vendor RedKilo Collectibles. I’ll have to fill up my autograph album next year!
I did stop by a Lord of the Rings panel in one of the smaller rooms on Sunday afternoon. Run by moderators from theOneRing.net, the panel dove into the upcoming War of the Rohirrim film and discussed season 2 of The Rings of Power, which I just broke down in a podcast episode for The Cosmic Circle! While it was fun to be in a room full of fellow fans, I left the panel early since I wanted to be part of the conversation instead of listening to others talk about the series.
The Mandalorian panel at LACC 2024
Although most of the panels this year weren’t of much interest to me, I knew I had to be there for The Mandalorian. Featuring stars Giancarlo Esposito, Ming-Na Wen, Emily Swallow, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, conversation shifted between the stars’ experience on the show and their personal lives. Each actor shouted out a charity they work closely with, and there were lots of jokes about Lee’s extensive collection of action figures and pop culture memorabilia. You know he’s a real collector when he’s got an IKEA Detolf cabinet full of his action figures!
The biggest moment from the panel was Giancarlo Esposito nearly confirming that Moff Gideon will be back in the future:
“I don’t know much about what’s going on. I know they’re making a film. I don’t know if they’re going to return to the show or not, but anything is open. And I certainly left the best opening ever for Moff Gideon to come back. You know, I love it when you see a character go over the edge, but you don’t quite know what happens. […] So it leaves it open, with all of those clones, that there’s a possibility that Moff Gideon is still hiding out somewhere, waiting to come back and take over. I can almost guarantee it.”
Emily Swallow is an actress who doesn’t get much of the Mandalorian spotlight since The Armorer never removes her helmet, so it was great to hear more about her work on the series. It was particularly interesting to discover that she’s mapped out a backstory with Bo-Katan for her character, although Dave Filoni disagreed with it.
“I love the moment when The Armorer told Bo to take off her helmet because it was such a simple scene, but Katee [Sackhoff] and I were so excited about it, and we came up with all these theories about whether The Armorer had known Bo back on Mandalore, or had known her dad, and we came up with this whole backstory, and then we presented it to Dave, and he was like ‘Nah. They didn’t know each other, no.’ It was such a simple moment, but there was so much riding on it, and it was just thrilling to get to go through that and then to kind of hear people’s reactions to it.”
Ming-Na Wen said her favorite moment was “coming back from the dead”, while Giancarlo Esposito said he would’ve loved to share the screen with Darth Vader.
“Well, for me, it would be the great one. The great James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. In my dreams, I have that we can go back, and he’s tutoring me on how to take over his legacy. But I love James so much. He was a dear friend, and he was such a great performer, and we all paid so much tribute to him for all that he gave throughout all the characters in his life. But Darth Vader certainly was a powerful one for me.”
A hilarious moment was everyone joking that The Armorer was about to open an Ewok sweatshop thanks to Swallow’s love for the furry creatures:
“My way into Star Wars were Ewoks because I was very, very young when the second movie came out, and they were cute and cuddly and furry. So I was like, ‘I’m all in’. And I do think that it’d be kind of amusing to have [them] maybe because The Armorer is making a lot of armor all by herself. So maybe she could get some Ewoks to come and practice with her, you know, help out a little bit.”
When asked about what piece of Star Wars technology they wish was real, vehicles were a popular option. Giancarlo Esposito really wants TIE Fighters to exist so he’d have a quicker way of getting between New York and Los Angeles, while Paul Sun-Hyung Lee wants a real-life landspeeder (and he wants collectors to “band together to demand” a Carson Teva action figure”.
Finally, we heard a bit about working with the different directors on The Mandalorian. Lee said he had to work to gain Carl Weathers’s trust on his first episode, while Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni trust their actors to do what’s best for the characters. It was also nice to hear more about Bryce Dallas Howard’s directing style, with the stars saying she’s very much an “actor’s director” since she comes from the acting world as well.
A look forward to Los Angeles Comic Con 2025
Los Angeles Comic Con returns to downtown L.A. at the end of September 2025, and I hope to be there, covering all the biggest panels for the third year in a row! 2023 was super busy and 2024 seemed much calmer in comparison, so I’m hoping the perfect balance is struck in 2025. I’d love to see more Marvel and DC stars making their way to LACC since both years I’ve attended have been super Star Wars-heavy.
For more information about the LACC, visit the official website. What are you hoping to see from L.A. Comic Con next year? Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus!
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2, and Future Seasons
What to Expect: The Mandalorian & Grogu Movie
