Comic-Con fans pulled out their lightsabers on Sunday to welcome Star Wars creator George Lucas to the prominent pop culture convention for the very first time.
Attendees lined up for hours to grab a seat inside the 6,500-person capacity venue in San Diego, California to see the legendary filmmaker behind the Indiana Jones franchise speak at the event on its final day.
Comic-Con, which draws some 130,000 attendees, has become an important platform for studios and their stars to showcase the latest film and television offerings, especially those with a genre fan base.
"We've been waiting five decades for this!" said panel moderator Queen Latifah, who oversaw the discussion by Lucas and other filmmakers.
Instead of discussing his film works, however, Lucas graced the convention to preview the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art - opening in Los Angeles in 2026 - which the director co-founded with his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson.
"I've been collecting art since I was in college," Lucas, 81, told the crowd, adding that he has amassed tens of thousands of pieces in his collection.
"I've been doing this for 50 years now, and then it occurred to me that what am I going to do with it all because I, I refuse to sell it.
"I could never do that, it's just, it's not what I think art is - I think it's more about an emotional connection," the director said.
In his description of the museum, Lucas said the institution will feature a blend of works.
They include illustrations by Normal Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith and NC Wyeth; artworks by Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White and Robert Colescott; and pieces by cartoonists and artists like Winsor McCay, Frank Frazetta and Jack Kirby.
"This is sort of a temple to the people's art," he said in summation.
The museum, housed in a sleek, curved building, will also feature items from Lucas's films and other exclusive pieces.
For the Star Wars mastermind, the museum aims to be a tribute to the importance of narrative art.
"When you're born, the baseline is fear. And as you go through life, you're curious about things, but you're especially curious about things you don't understand, and therefore that's a threat to you.
"And as a result, you make up stories to make it feel good," he continued.
"Science fiction is a myth... but we've made it real because of science fiction books and art."
'A critical moment'
Among the other members of the panel were Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and production designer Doug Chiang, who shaped the aesthetic of the Star Wars universe for decades.
"What's remarkable about George is that he leads from the heart, and this museum is him," Chiang said.
Del Toro, who will release his latest film Frankenstein in November, said many of the museum's pieces will celebrate freedom of speech.
"We are in a critical moment in which one of the things they like to disappear is the past, you know, and this is memorialising a popular, vociferous, expressive and eloquent moment in our visual past that belongs to all of us," Del Toro said.
The fantasy filmmaker also described comics as a medium with "a lot of social conscience" and joked that comic artists "were the first one to punch a Nazi" in their works.
"What a panel!" said attendee Jesse Goldwater, who travelled to San Diego from Los Angeles. "They are the embodiment of Comic-Con itself, without them Comic-Con wouldn't exist."
Honouring Godzilla
Meanwhile, Godzilla fans celebrated the Japanese monster's 70th anniversary at the pop culture convention Comic-Con.
"I am a very big fan of Godzilla," said Angela Hill, a teacher who travelled from Arizona to take part in Comic-Con, which this year featured events and displays celebrating Godzilla.
As the story of Godzilla goes, a prehistoric amphibious beast is awakened and mutated by nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific. It emerges from the sea and attacks Japan in a rage, symbolising the deadly power of nukes.
"I think because he came from such a historic event - like, a lot of other monsters are just interesting creatures, but they don't hold the grief of a nation," Hill said, referring to the US nuclear bomb attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
At the pop culture watering hole in San Diego, people lined up to shoot pictures and video with an image of Godzilla, which was also the theme of a panel discussion on Friday that featured Shinji Higuchi, who co-directed a reboot in 2016 called Shin Godzilla.
The franchise includes nearly 40 films and has spawned hundreds of animated productions about the monster as well as TV series and graphic work.
'Rooting for him'
On Saturday the writers Ed Godziszewski and Steve Ryfle signed autographs of their book Godzilla: The First 70 Years, which sold out at Comic-Con.
"It's a rich history," Ryfle told AFP.
"This is the longest running feature film franchise in cinematic history that's focused on a single, continuous character. It's been around longer than James Bond."
He said the key to its longevity is that Godzilla has evolved over time but stayed faithful to its origins.
"Godzilla has been serious, it's been scary, it's been heroic, it's been funny. But at the same time this is a movie character that's rooted in something that's very real," Ryfle said.
"And that's the trauma that Japan experienced, both during World War II, and also the trauma of the aftermath of World War II, the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he added.
He said Honda, who directed the first Godzilla movie, was a veteran who used the film to send a message against war and in particular against nuclear weapons.
Michelle Pena, a Godzilla fan who waited in line to get the autograph of the two writers, said part of the monster's charm is how it has changed over the years.
"Good, bad, hero, anti-hero, you know. And I like that," she said.
"He's not, like, lovable," she added. "He's a big dinosaur-looking thing, you know. He's scary. But, like, you really, really find yourself rooting for him." AFP
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