July 22, 2006
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- San Diego Comic-Con 2006 Friday re-cap -
First thing I did at the Comic-Con was to go to "Hall H," which is the largest room it has that seats 6500 people. I was by myself at that time, so I was able to get good seats near the front.
The first panel was for Warner Bros Studio. They showed the trailer for "The Reaping" which looks rather interesting in a religious way (kinda like "the Seventh Sign"). Hilary Swank and Anna Sophia Robb were there to promote the film. Next up was a clip of "The Wickerman" remake, that director Neil LaBute was there to present it. Afterwards, they showed a recorded greeting from Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates, where they gave us hints of what's to come in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." No other things were shown for that though.
Surprisingly enough, the biggest thrill for the WB panel is for something that's already been shown in theaters; Bryan Singer talking about "Superman Returns." They showed blooper reels, which were all just hilarious that I would think that they should have just gone the comedy routine for the movie. The bloopers went as far as Richard White asking Lois Lane about the different sexual positions she used with Superman. Then Richard Donner himself showed up to talk about the release of "Superman II : the Richard Donner cut." They showed us a clip that was cut from the original theatrical Superman II release, involving Lois Lane figuring out Superman's secret identity. It was pretty darn cool. One other thing, the audience was then asked whether they wanted them to bring back General Zod, and the answer was a big YES. So we'll see what happens there.
After that panel was over, I went to the pilot screening of the new NBC show : Heroes. It turned out to be the 72 minutes version that WON'T be shown on TV, with only the possibility of it appearing in the eventual DVD release. So this was a very exclusive screening. The pilot itself felt a little slow and consisted of alot of introduction sequences of the many characters in the ensemble cast. I can already see the slow pace being fixed for the shorter TV version. The show did not feel like a Super hero movie, but more about the characters trying to figure out the connections and wierd things involving them, not unlike the other show "Lost." There were some pretty cool characters (like the definite fan favorite "Hiro"), some cool plot twists were revealed, and the serialized nature of the whole story interests me. The majority of the stars and the main creator were there to present the film, and while they don't have a definite ending to the series in mind yet, they hope that it will last a long while. Oh, they were giving out a free comic book on the show, but apparently the two buttons I received from their booth on the exhibit hall that I happen to leave at the hotel, are the things I needed to get a free copy of the comic book. ah well.
Heading back to Hall H for another panel, I had to wade through a HUGE crowd of people trying to enter Room 20 for the Battlestar Galactica panel. Wow, were there a lot of fans there for it.
The next panel is the Paramount Studio presentation. "Stardust" is the first movie on that panel, which they showed several clips, and director Matthew Vaughn and original novelist for the story; Neil Gaiman, talked about the movie. It felt like one of those fantasy films from the 1980's, epic and magical. It should be good. Afterwards is suppose to be on the live-action Transformers movie. To my disappointment though, they did NOT show any visuals from the movie because "nothing was ready to be seen yet." All they ended up doing was show a video recording of director Michael Bay introducing us to a "special addition" to the movie. It turned out to be Peter Cullen, who will reprise his role as the original voice actor for Optimus Prime! They even had him on the cellphone, pressed up against the mic, where (using his Optimus Prime voice) tells us to join the fight at 07/04/07.
Once again I had to leave the room to go to the "DOA : Dead or Alive" movie panel, which is featuring special appearances by Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, and Natassia Malthe. Nope sorry, the panel was cancelled. As the guy at the door told me "DOA is in fact Dead On Arrival."
From that cancelled panel, it gave me an opportunity to visit down at the exhibit hall again, where it was even more crowded than the previous day. There were more cosplayers though, so that was good. I even got the photo of Zatana that I missed the previous day. I even walked by "The Reaping" actress Anna Sophia Robb, who because she is still rather young blended right in with everybody else. I probably would have been the first person to ask for a photo op, but I decided not to bother her. I did get a chance to swing by past a camera crew again (Electric Playground I think), so maybe I'll be on TV for another brief moment. Speaking of TV, I ran into "Attack of the Show's" hostess Olivia Munn, who I took two pictures with, and I even got her to sign an authograph on my Comic-Con name badge. Me very happy boy.
Off to the Star Wars spec-ta-cu-lar panel! They talked about several projects and events involving Star Wars, BUT they unfortunately did not show footage from the two tv shows in production ("not ready yet"). They did talk about how the Comic-Con was the very first public audience to hear about Star Wars, exactly 30 years ago. In fact, it was via a panel not unlike the ones I go to now. The difference was that they only had roughly 100 people in the audience for Star Wars. Imagine that. They also talked about the original theatrical release cut coming out on DVD, and then went to demonstrate the upcoming next-gen games. First, they talked about Lego Star Wars : The original trilogy. Cute, will buy. Then they showed us a live demonstration of their "euphoria" engine, where they tormented a game character of Indiana Jones involving him falling off a bridge or getting pumelled by large rocks. It was hella funny. Then they showed us footage for an untitled next-gen Star Wars game based between episode 3 & 4. The graphics were really nice looking, and the damage and violence they caused by using Force powers were simply incredible. Definitely looks like a must buy. One thing that I want to mention though, is that Lucas Ltd is not supporting HD-DVD or BluRay for the time being.
Then came the big panel for the day, the NewLine Cinema panel. One thing different about this panel is that they had actor Kenan Thompson moderate it. It felt a little too scripted because of that, but the few flavors he did (that involves cursing at times) were entertaining too. They first featured the DVD release of "Final Destination 3" and they even had a couple of the actors (Ryan Merriman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead) plus writer/director James Wong talk about how you can alter the scenes in it. They then were going to show us footage for the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Beginning," but it was supposedly "too violent" to show. Then they showed us what appears to be the first several minutes of "Tenacious D : in the pick of Destiny;" which absolutely rock our socks off. It had a young actor do a pretty good Jack Black impression, Meat Loaf as the dad, and Dio as the metal poster that shows him his destiny. It was definitely a rock opera as it was all singing so far, but it was great and funny at the same time.
Afterwards, was "Snakes On A Plane!" Let me tell you first that the crowd that showed up for this was HUGE, it was freakin incredible how it completely filled up the 6500+ people capacity. They showed a montage clip of the Snakes On A Plane mania that included the official song, parodies like "Lions On A Bus" or "Goats On A Boat," and several spoof posters. They then brought out real live snakes from small tiny ones to freakin HUGE ones. Wow, my jaws were dropped most of the time. Then they showed us 10 whole minutes of the movie, which according to them didn't even have any of the best scenes. It wasn't bad, Snakes were killing people, everybody was in peril, and Samuel L. Jackson was a badass in killing some of them snakes. Speaking of which, the Baadasss MotherF***er himself showed up to roaring applause and a standing ovation. He was well loved by the people, and it showed big time. In the Q&A, he had some awesome wity answers, remarks, and comebacks. One guy asked them "how" the snakes got on the plane, and Samuel L. Jackson was practically going to bitch slap him saying how he's going to need to spend some money or get the bootleg to find out! "...but thank you for asking." What I thought was funny was how I told my friend that I should go up there and ask him "what is it like to be such a Baadasss MotherF***er?" Sure enough, somebody else asked him that, to the audience's delight. **** that could have been ****ing me, GodDamn MotherF***ers! Which brings me to a funny thing I noticed, at that time, whatever it was in the air, everybody and their mother were cussing left and right. I guess the atmosphere was just right for it, despite the fact that there ARE still kids in attendance.
It was a little past 7PM already and I decided to try my luck with one more panel to attend. The SNL: Saturday TV Funhouse presentation, that might bring the *possible* appearance of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Unfortunately, the room was completely full and there was no way I was getting in. I proceeded to eat a pretzel, took more photos from cosplayers, and went back to the hotel. When I arrived at the lobby, I came across a rather cute cosplayer dressed as Cammy. We chatted for a bit, and I *was* going to take her photo, but we are out of Comic-con grounds so I opted not to (I did not want to make her feel like she was still working). Anyways, back in the hotel room, and will get ready for Saturday.
Friday had it's disappointments, like the no-shows, or the lack of shows, but it was all in all still a good time. I also really realized how professional the comic-con staff are this year, more so than previous years. Kudos for them. I also noticed that the flash of my camera which I kinda broke the automatic function of (I always had to manual open it), is actually working again! Speaking of which, I've chosen the wrong people to use my camera today (for example). Also, hey, theres another girl dressed as Princess Leia in the Gold bikini (I still like the other one though)! Not only that, but the couple of Snakes On A Plane panel videos I took, are the very first uploads I put into my youtube account, so that's a celebration right there. Also also also, I think the room across from me hired a stripper.
Comments (1)
She's a hottie.
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