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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The latest on Thursday night's New Orleans-style celebration of the new "Star Wars" movie by a Mardi Gras marching club known as the Mystic Krewe of Chewbacchus. (All times are local):
9:45 p.m.
Costumed members of a Mardi Gras marching club devoted to all things "Star Wars" poured happily out of a special screening of "The Force Awakens" and celebrated New Orleans-style.
After one couple staged a brief light-saber duel in the theater lobby, dozens of members of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus hit the street Thursday night for a traditional "second-line parade" — a brass band that included an Imperial Stormtrooper on trombone and a saxophone-playing Ewok stepped off with more fans forming a second line behind them.
They marched into the French Quarter from the theater in a posh retail and hotel complex on historic Canal Street.
Krewe co-founder Kirah Haubrich was among those delighted with the new movie. She declared: "You will enjoy it. It was what we wanted."
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6:45 p.m.
Led by a trombone-playing Imperial Stormtrooper and featuring an Ewok on saxophone, a brass band welcomed light saber-wielding members of a fantasy-loving Mardi Gras marching club to a distinctly New Orleans-style celebration of "Star Wars."
The Browncoat Brass band played a ragtime-tinged rendition of music from the original movie's cantina scene.
Band members assembled outside the theater where early screenings of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" were arranged Thursday night for officers of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus. That's a marching club that got its start at a New Orleans bar six years ago.
After the first screening, costumed members of the krewe planned a New Orleans-style "second line" parade into the French Quarter, accompanied by the band playing a medley of "Star Wars" tunes.
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