“The Inland Empire Strikes Back!”
Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, Riverside, California.
About five miles or so from where I used to live in my bachelor days, the venue is rather small. However, with various vendors, cosplayers, a few celebrities and a bit of the Force, The Inland Empire Strikes Back managed to make a meal out of this snack.
Riverside, California is where I first saw “Star Wars” (years before it was subtitled “A New Hope”) at a long-defunct mall theater back in August of 1977, at age 10, and it changed my life (not to mention the very art of cinema) forever. Much later, during the seven years I lived in Riverside back in my bachelor days, there were no major sci-fi/fantasy conventions to speak of.
A much larger fan event held two years ago, Anime Riverside packed the Riverside convention center; inside and out.
However, Riverside has (tentatively) thrown its hat into hosting occasional fandom conventions (for anime and horror), or, in this case, fan gatherings. “The Inland Empire Strikes Back” was held at North Park in downtown Riverside on Saturday, March 22 for one day only. And while it was nowhere near the scale of the world-renowned Star Wars Celebration, it was a small but sincere Star Wars fan event, held only few blocks from the famed downtown Mission Inn hotel.
And for a $12.50 ticket price (less than the price of a movie ticket these days), The Inland Empire Strikes Back was a low-risk shindig for local Starwoids, as well.
“What about that blue one? We’ll take that one.”
Held on a beautiful day after the arrival of spring, outdoor booths were filled with vendors selling fan-made wares such as jewelry, baked goods and artworks, as well as collectible action figures, toys, lightsabers, and other vintage Star Wars doodads. There were also a few food trucks nearby selling cuisines to sate even the appetite of a hungry Wookiee.
“Surrounded by various Kenner action figures and diecast spaceships rests the Kenner “Millennium Falcon” toy; a toy I never had as a kid, but would’ve loved.
Tons of Star Wars figures; some new, some vintage. I used to have a bunch of them back in 1978; still have a few, in fact.
My wife, who is my usual convention partner-in-crime, was unable to attend, so I took our dear friend Alison (who introduced us, 28 years ago), and she wound up buying a Star Wars necklace.
“Through the Force, things you will see; other places…”
The photo op areas were small mural canvases stretched to give attendees a brief, otherworldly experience. Some of them included prop speederbikes as well, which my friend Alison and I just had to pose on, of course…
A mural of the Lars homestead on Tatooine, with Anakin Skywalker’s speederbike parked out front for visitors to pose upon.
Alison and I pose for a quick photo op at Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine. Alas, we were not booking passage to Alderaan…
A Jedi Tusken Raider (canonical in Star Wars media) swings its lightsaber while outrunning Imperial scouts on Endor.
An Imperial snow trooper prepares to disembark from an Imperial star destroyer for Hoth.
See the “Skeleton Crew”
Since this was not a particularly large event, there wasn’t room for a lot of autographing. However, the young cast of Disney+’s latest Star Wars streaming series, Disney+’s latest streaming series, “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” were in attendance, including Ravi Cabot-Conyers (“Wim”), Ryan Kiera Armstrong (“Fern”) and Robert Timothy Smith, who plays the breakout Orlaton character “Neel.” While I didn’t personally introduce myself to these young performers, there were other fans there with posters and other various collectibles to sign. Also in attendance were hair and makeup artists Maria Sandoval and Elissa Alcala, who’ve worked on Disney+’s “Star Wars: Ahsoka” and “Star Wars: The Mandalorian.”
Sandoval had some disheartening but very honest advice for young people wanting to break into the industry; “The industry (in LA) is in flux. Try London, or Canada. Or maybe theater work.”
“She’s got it where it counts, kid…”
There was also a fan-customized minivan customized to look like Disneyland’s “Star Tours” StarSpeeder 3000, complete with rooftop R2 unit, and mirrors strategically placed around the parked car to mask its wheels–very similar to how the wheels were actually hidden on Luke’s landspeeder during production of Star Wars back in 1976.
A mini-SUV modeled after the ‘StarSpeeder 3000’ from Disneyland’s “Star Tours” attraction; loved the use of mirrors to hide the wheels (which is actually how they created some of the landspeeder effects in the original trilogy). Somewhere on the car was a hidden Mickey Mouse, but Ali and I couldn’t find it.
There was also a miniature version of Luke’s landspeeder signed by various actors connected with the Star Wars franchise, including actress Ivanna Sakhno, who played “Shin Hati” on Disney+’s “Ahsoka” streaming series, as well as Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in two of the Star Wars prequels and the Disney+ streaming series “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
An autographed ‘mini landspeeder’ signed by various actors from the Star Wars franchise, including Ivanna Sakhno, who played the villainous “Shin Hati” in “Star Wars: Ahsoka.”
Jedi and Sith Lords and Droids–Oh my!
And now onto my favorite part of any fandom gathering or convention; the cosplayers! As usual, cosplayers are the heart and soul of these events, and once again, some of them really brought their A-game to The Inland Empire Strikes Back; wearing heavy costumes on a warm, almost Tatooine-temperature spring day in Southern California.
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (“The Force Awakens”) and “The Mandalorian” cosplayers pose for a pic.
Imperial TIE fighter pilots from the famed charity cosplaying “501st Legion” stand by…
A Sith-decorated protocol droid modeled after villainous Darth Maul (“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace”), carried on the back of its cosplaying wearer.
Right: “This isn’t Hoth, is it?” An Imperial snow trooper is a bit overdressed for a spring day in sunny SoCal.
Right: A cosplayer dressed as one of the “THX-1138”-inspired prisoners from the Imperial detention center in the brutally harsh TV series “Star Wars: Andor.”
So nice to see local Star Wars fans all channeling the Force in their fashion!
Right: A pristine R2-D2, still wearing its restraining bolt–if you remove the bolt, it might be able to play back its entire recording.
When I was near that little boy’s age almost 50 years go, I would’ve lost my little mind to get that close to a screen-ready R2 unit!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this vicarious virtual ‘Star Tour’ of local Star Wars fandom. To those who are interested, all 51 of my full-size photos can be seen via my Flickr account here.
May the Force be with you!
That is so cool! What a great place for a convention like this, and such a lovely sunny day for it as well. Fantastic cosplay too, especially that Mondolorian and the Snow Trooper!
It was a lovely day; couldn’t have been more perfect for that event. Hope they do it again next year.
Always nice to know that such conventions can still endure despite the creative troubles of the franchises. Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure. And yes, I’m not really the biggest fan of the franchise’s more recent output, but thankfully this was a celebration of new and old.
Even more thankfully there’s still plenty of the old to still enjoy.