Disabled Fans Rocked These Costumes at Star Wars Celebration 2022

Two wheelchair users face the camera holding up lightsabers. One is dressed as a Jedi and the other as Ahsoka Tano
Disney
Fae Aconite (as Ahsoka) and their father Yōda Ten Zen Ryu appeared in the official Celebration 2022 Highlights video!

It’s been one month since Star Wars Celebration 2022, and we hope everyone who attended has recovered from the excitement, exhausting, and possible COVID infections (seriously, there were a lot of COVID infections).

We weren’t able to attend ourselves, but we were excited to see a huge number of disabled and other physically impaired fans rolling into the Anaheim Convention Center in amazing style as their favorite characters, or embracing their mobility aids in custom creations.

So we want to highlight some of the great ones we’ve seen!

Let’s start with the High Republic meetup, where one cosplayer brought disability representation to that era:

From Anthony Reilly

A wheelchair-using Jedi (Vernestra Rwoh?) got in on this amazing group shot of High Republic characters and authors.

And another great group shot featured a couple of mobility devices, this time by Twi’Leks:

A group of Star Wars cosplayers are dressed up as Twi'Lek aliens and each have skin painted different colors with matching "head-tail" tentacles. One cosplayer is green, is wearing a suit, and has a Loki-style horned helmet and is holding a cane. Another with naturally dark skin and match head-tails is seated in a wheelchair.

This Twi’Lek group included an amazing wheelchair-user AND an incredibly sharp Twi’Lek Loki (Twi’Loki?) with a cane. 

This adorable “GroguLorian-Jedi” – otherwise known as cosplayer Jaylah Marie, a 10-year-old girl with spiral muscular atrophy (SMA) – took to the Celebration floor and got to meet some pretty major Star Wars celebs. Or possibly other cosplayers – hard to tell.

From Verenice “Cure SMA”

Jaylah had a great combination Grogu/Mandalorian/Jedi costume. 

Sharon Covington was lucky to have a wonderful co-worker build her this Razor Crest walker, complete with a spot for Grogu. She shared the build details on Facebook:

A very good friend at work built it. He used a heavy poster board, shaped it, then covered it with different metallic tapes and paint. We placed small puck lights in the engines. The engines are mounted on tubes that slide into my cup holders. He wanted to make sure my chair was still usable. We attached a metal basket to the front with velcro and zip ties and the front piece is held by velcro to the bottom and top of the basket. It took him a little over a month to make it.

This amazing work even drew the attention of Mandalorian modeler and ILM legend John Goodson himself while Sharon was in the Mandalorian Experience:

He said he loved all the detail. I told him my friend made it for me and he told me to tell my friend that he did an awesome job. My friend is a big Star Wars fan but doesn’t attend events but he was pretty giddy from the compliment.

From Sharon Covington

Sharon and her builder friend received huge compliments on her Razor Crest walker

Sue Contant was inspired by Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction for her walker, but with a porg twist:

From Sharon Covington

We hope no kids tried to tackle-hug all those porgs.

The “Running of the Hoods” is a major tradition at Star Wars Celebrations, but not every Willrow has to be able to run. Roon Marchant brought his own spin on Willrow to the event:

From Roon Marchant

Roon (front right) had his own interpretation of this classic character

Star Wars Show co-host Andi Gutierrez shared another great picture of Roon:

One theme that was prevalent among disabled cosplayers at this Celebration was Leia Organa.

Here are a couple of great takes on Endor Leia. (Jen Eyre‘s Ewok spear cane is especially inspired.)

From Audra Lynne Atkins-Reeves

Jen Eyre also used a lightsaber cane for the Padme costume she was wearing when she met the Bobas. (Jen has made the files for her lightsaber canes available on Thingiverse for anyone who wants to adapt one for their own cane.)

Two Bobas, a Jedi, and Padme with a lightsaber cane.

Jorie Goldsmith also brought a lightsaber cane for her Leia costume, and wore this great First Order-inspired outfit that was designed for cane use.

From Jorie Goldsmith

From Jorie Goldsmith

Speaking of Leias, there were a couple who really utilized their seated mobility aids, starting with this pic Jackie Dobson’s got of her mom dressed as Leia in a wheelchair with a Star Tours attendant who’s got the right vehicle for the job:

From Jackie Dobson

Love this wheelchair-using Leia, and this Star Tours attendant has been bringing her amazing ridesharing Star Tours StarSpeeder to several Celebration and D23 events for the past few years

This Leia fan really nailed the General’s look in her scooter:

An older white woman with grey hair sits on a scooter dressed as General Leia. Behind her stands another woman with pink hair. They are each holding up blaster pistols.

An older General Leia and her friend Admiral Holdo look ready to fight. (She’s always be royalty to us)

One of our absolute favorite Instagram accounts belongs to IndieSpeeder, a young cosplayer with down syndrome. And she and her father really brought their A-game to Celebration, transporting Indie in her advanced TIE stroller, and debuting several new costumes.

Her parents also posted a great recap video that summarizes Indie’s whole experience at Celebration:

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

A post shared by IndieSpeeder (@indiespeeder)

A few of our featured cosplayers have been a bit older, and let’s be honest – some of us early Star Wars fans are getting up in years. Dan “Junkyard Jedi” Thompson – father of Smugglers Room creator Brian Thompson – and his wife-err-… assistant embraced this reality by bringing the right companion to Celebration with their droid AARP-65, complete with walker assistance capabilities and built-in defibrillator.

(This list certainly isn’t a competition, but if it were, Junkyard Jedi here would likely win it.)

And just in time for this piece, Smuggler’s Room actually posted a great build video of Dan’s medical droid. 

We can really see where Brian gets his skills and fandom from.

Finally, we should mention a special “official” cosplay that we feel also falls under this category.

During the Star Wars Visions panel, Mizuno Takanobu, director of “The Duel” apparently appeared via video to thank the audience while dressed as the Ronin character from that animated short and its spinoff novel. We spoke with the author of Ronin, Emma Mieko Candon, on our 8th podcast episode, in which we discussed that character’s prosthetic jaw and chronic pain.

Check out the tweet below for more photos and the creation process!

(We’d love to see this video.)

If you happen to know either the identities or photographers of any of the pictures above, please let us know so we can add them.

Or if you have a picture of your own disability-related costume from Celebration, we’d love to include it in this list! Feel free to send us images on any of our social media accounts: