Comic-Con 2010: Day 1 Recap!!!

Fellow nerds! (and closeted fellow nerds!)

I am now a Comic-Con veteran and what a great day to get started! We spent the whole day in the same room, Hall H, the biggest venue at the convention. This is because it is where all the major studio films do their panels. Below is a summary of everything we experienced today. If any of it sounds cool, look it up online, I'm sure you can find footage of it by tomorrow. So, here we go...

We arrived at the convention center at 7:30 in the morning to stand in line for the first panel that didn't start until 10:00. We were probably 3,000 people back in line. The ones at the front camped out all night. It was a cold and misty morning but everyone was excited for the official start of the Con! It was a serious crowd but everyone was kind and patient to each other. It was a really nice example of community.

They opened the doors at 9:30 and the line moved fast. The hall was a very decent size and seated approx. 6,500. We grabbed seats on the aisle of a row right in the middle of the room. We had a solid view of the stage but also had two giant screens in our sightline that overall gave us what felt like a perfect location for the day. We had decided to stay in the hall all day to see all the panels. We quickly learned this was not an original idea and about a few thousand other people would be doing the same thing. This was good to know because if you leave the hall you have to get back in the line to get back in.

"MEGAMIND"

The first panel started about 15 min. late and featured the upcoming Will Ferrell animated comedy "Megamind". Will was there, dressed as his character, crudely painted blue with what looked like a giant playground ball on his head. He brought breakfast for everyone but there were more people than he expected. All he had was 1/2 dozen donuts and a half gallon of orange juice! Tina Fey and Jonah Hill also joined the panel. They were all excited to be there and were hilarious. They played about 5 minutes of the movie in 3-D and a new trailer. The footage showed a different side to the story than what the first trailer portrayed and it is an interesting take. I am quite excited to see this movie now. Brad Pitt, who also has a role in the movie, did not show but luckily Will had a life-size cut-out for the ladies' viewing pleasure!

"TRON: LEGACY"

The second panel was one of the most anticipated of the convention. 27 years after the release of the original "Tron" comes the LONG-awaited sequel. While in line in the morning, I noticed several hundred people wearing FLYNN LIVES shirts. The moderator was Patton Oswalt, best known as the voice of "Ratatouille" and his role as Spencer on "The King of Queens." He is one of my favorite comedians and was the perfect person to moderate this panel. His pure joy and geekdom just seeped from him and engaged us immediately.

They began the panel by introducing the creative team and stars from the movie, the most recognizable being Academy Award winner, The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges. A lot of the talk focused on how far the technology has come from the original installment to now. The creator of the first movie was on hand to give some insight to this discussion and Bridges, being the common factor between the two, tied it all together. Michael Sheen, from "The Queen" and "The Damned United", was also on hand. He is one of my favorite actors today and I found this particularly exciting.

They screen a brand-new trailer and 8 minutes from the film. It looks astonishing! The world they have created is beautifully dark and futuristic. Jeff Bridges plays two characters in the movie, the aged Flynn and the computer living 35 year old Clu. They used a new technology that allowed Bridges to play the 35 year old version of himself and it was eerie. There is a scene where the two characters face off against each other and it is amazing how realistic it all looks.

They also gave all of the attendees to be in the movie. There are several crowd scenes where battles take place. They gave us directions on the screen and recorded us following along. So, when you go see the movie in December, the crowd you hear yelling and cheering at the battles was our audience here at Comic-Con. That is a pretty cool experience to me.

Since Disney sponsored the panel, they dropped two little nuggets on us at the end. They played an exclusive video from Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow talking about the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, that will release in May. They also announced that they are rebooting the "Haunted Mansion" franchise and Guillermo Del Toro will be taking over. For anyone familiar with his work, "Hellboy" "Pan's Labyrinth" etc..., this is exciting news. He was there and talked a little about how he will make it scary and dark. My favorite line of his was, "We are not returning Eddie Murphy's phone calls." It was hilarious!!!

SALT and BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

The next session covered two different films, one that releases tomorrow and one that comes out sometime early next year. The first was "Salt" starring Angelina Jolie. She was there along with Liev Schrieber, the director and the executive producer. They screened an extended trailer of the film and talked a little in depth about it. I was actually kind of surprised by how personable and intelligent Jolie sounded. She seemed very comfortable and proud of this movie. I won't lie, she kind of won me over and there is a good chance I will go see the film now.

The second half of the presentation was on an upcoming movie called "Battle: Los Angeles". They showed about 7-8 minutes of footage. It was hard to tell exactly what the film is about but from the panel's discussion, their aim is a realistic war movie set in Los Angeles except the enemies are aliens. The stars are Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez. Both were there and went on and on about the training for this film and how they wanted it to look very real, like footage from combat in Fallujah. Maybe it will grow on me, but none of it really did anything for me.

"RED"

Next up was a movie from Summit Entertainment entitled "RED." It stars Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban and Morgan Freeman. Willis, Mirren, Parker and Urban were all on hand. I mean, this was pretty cool, seeing Helen Mirren and Bruce Willis sitting next to each other not 100 yards from me. The Queen and John McClane! They played a new trailer that was so nice they played it twice. This movie really does look like a lot of fun. It is about a group of retired C.I.A. agents that the government comes after because they know too many secrets. The humor and action they showed give the feel that these great actors had a blast playing with some solid material.

"EW presents THE VISIONAIRIES: J.J. ABRAMS & JOSS WHEDON"

This was my dad's favorite panel of the day. These two creative masterminds spent an hour talking to us about the state of movies, television, internet and just plain storytelling overall. They were extremely candid and you really felt like they were the most relatable to us out of every panelist we had seen thus far.

For those who don't know, these guys created and directed some of the greatest television shows and movies from the last 20 years. Whedon created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Angel", "Firefly", "Serenity", "Dollhouse" and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog". Abrams is behind such hits as "Felicity", "Alias", "LOST", "Cloverfield", "Fringe", "Mission: Impossible 3" and "Star Trek."

Whedon did officially announce that he will be directing "The Avengers" and Abrams talked a little about his upcoming collaboration with Steven Speilberg. There was no footage at this session but it wasn't necessary. These guys were tremendously entertaining and enlightening. In my case I found them to be inspirational. My dad, who barely knows anything of what they have done, was enthralled by what they had to say.

"THE EXPENDABLES"

What does Comic-Con need more of? That's right, manly testosterone driven butt-kicking. Who can best provide that? Well, Sly Stallone of course! The next panel featured Rocky himself, along with other action greats; Terry Crews, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren. That's right...Dolph Lundgren!!! They were there to talk about the upcoming release "The Expendables". Stallone wrote, directed and stars in the film. Besides the other men on the panel, also starring in the movie are Jet Li, Jason Statham. Oh yeah...and cameos from some little guy nicknamed "The Govenator" and some bald dude named Bruce Willis (who dropped in on the panel briefly).

This is meant to be the ultimate action film and let me say, from the two clips they showed us, I won't be surprised if they succeed. The first clip in particular, I can't believe they were allowed to show it at Comic-Con. If you love action, especially something like "Rambo" or "Predator", you are going to be obsessed with this film!

The panel themselves were surprisingly entertaining. I believe this is because they are very excited and proud of the film. They just sat there the whole hour talking about the different injuries they all recieved and how crazy the explosions and action scenes were. The great part is they all sit there laughing and smiling while they talk about this crazy stuff they were doing.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Dolph Lundgren, aka Drago, was there?!?!?!

"SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD"

The last panel of the day was the one I was most excited about. "Scott Pilgrim" is based on a series of comic/graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. I got hooked on the books after I read that Edgar Wright was going to be directing a film adapatation of them. Wright is the director of "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz", two of my favorite films of all time. He moderated the panel that included, a too-many, 13 guests; O'Malley and 12 of the actors. Some of the stars who were there included Michael Cera (who plays the title character), Jason Swartzman ("Rushmore"), Brandon Routh (Superman) and Anna Kendrick ("Up in the Air").

Cera came out dressed as Captain America. This was the funniest aspect of what was an entertaining but overall disappointing panel. The biggest ovation of the day did come though when Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (the stars of Wright's other films) made a very brief but funny appearance. This was another immense thrill for me. I love both those actors. I hope to see them at the panel for their new movie on Saturday.

Two clips from the movie were played and they had a video intro for each panelist. All questions came from the audience and no new insight was given. The only note-worthy piece of information came at the end. They handed out buttons to everyone and if you had a certain one, you could follow Edgar Wright from that room to a theatre not far from the center to watch a screening of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." I did not have the lucky button. However, all is not lost, they are screening it for free tomorrow and Saturday night. We plan to check it out tomorrow.

Well, that was our day. I apologize for the lack of creativity and craftmanship to this post. It is late and I have had a long day. There is also another early start to tomorrow, so I need to hit the sack but I wanted to make sure this got up before I did. I hope to have some pictures tomorrow. On tap, we hope to make panels for the new version of "Hawaii Five-O", a look at AMC's new zombie series "The Walking Dead", and the one I am most excited about for tomorrow..."Yo Gabba Gabba"!!!!

Thanks for reading, friends. I am wiped but look for another update tomorrow. Hopefully it will include a review of "Scott Pilgrim" and tales of me walking with the living dead and imaginary characters from a boombox!