I found out in September about the Star Wars Identities exhibition coming to Lyon and I was planning to keep this surprise for our anniversary in January or Valentine’s Day. But I couldn’t keep the secret anymore and decided to do it in December, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Being a big fan of the Star Wars saga, Seb was very disappointed that we couldn’t attend the Star Wars Identities exhibition when it was held in Paris and that’s why I was so excited to surprise him with it! Choosing a random date had the great advantage that he didn’t suspect anything. It was so much fun to wake him up that morning and tell him to quickly get ready for his surprise activity. He was like a little boy, disoriented at first and eventually very excited, it was very sweet! And on the way, to preserve the surprise as much as possible, he was blindfolded! He told me it was really weird to feel the car going so fast on the highway without being able to know where we were going! 

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We arrived 2 and a half hours later at La Sucrière in Lyon, where the exhibition was installed. We waited for a long time in the cold and then we were equipped with a headset and an electronic bracelet to enjoy the visit the best way possible. The least we can say is that the presented collection was quite impressive! The whole tour takes about an hour and a half. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about the time spent there since there’s no limitation but, the visit being packed of people going the same way, you can’t quite go back once you are done with a room. If you like the Star Wars universe even just a little bit, you won’t know where to look with all the props, costumes and numerous explanatory videos displayed along the way!

The sketches

It was very interesting to get a glimpse of the huge creative work that went into achieving the Star Wars saga. George Lucas had in mind a very specific universe made of various alien species or planets, each with their particularities, to which they had to give life. Seeing all these sketches helped us measure a little bit the size of the task and it was pretty amusing to find out how Chewbacca or even the iconic Yoda had evolved through time.

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The props

We heard that a lot of the props had been requisitioned by JJ Abrams to shoot episode 7 leaving this part of the tour a little empty. Where the hell were the lightsabers ??! We still got to see plenty of really cool stuff such as a replica of Anakin‘s Pod-racer seen in Episode 1 or the model of Han Solo‘s Falcon Millennium from the first trilogy. Fun fact: Jabba‘s eyes you can see on the 5th photo are the only remains of the original costume!

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The costumes

My favorite part of the exhibition was actually getting to see all those beautiful and impressive costumes used during filming. The Chewbacca one was absolutely awesome, the actor was really huge! Seb was obviously very excited when we got to the oh-so-famous Princess Leia costume that had generations of teenage boys fantasize for decades and, of course, the highlight of it all was the Darth Vader costume! Unfortunately, it was dusty but still beautiful!

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Our Star Wars alter egos

We thought this was a great idea to make the visit even more fun. An electronic bracelet was given to us at the beginning of the tour and, by making many choices on about ten terminals scattered throughout the course, we were able to create and customize our very own Star Wars universe characters. We had the opportunity to make various choices regarding our personal history, our origins, our allies, and many other things to finally choose whether or not we would swing to the dark side of the Force. It was very nice and we are pleased to present you Lythana a Twi’lek Senator, and Seth, a Wookie bounty hunter!

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P.S: Next, we’ll go to Paris in september for the Game of Thrones exhibit!