The Con (2007)

The Con (2007)

I got back from the 2007 San Diego Comic Con today, and it was eff-ing crazy there! 120,000 nerds around every single day. It's the first time that Comic Con sold out. (Of tickets, that is. The whole event is a celebration of selling out to the nerd within.) Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera along, so it's all just written description here.

So many cool people that I got to see in person there: J.J Abram, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Jon Favreau, Frank Miller, Clive Owen, the cast from Get Smart (the Comic Con crew loves The Rock), Paul Dini, Roy Thomas, Brian Posehn, Ed Brubaker, Ridley Scott and more that I don't care to mention.

We got a live feed from the Indy 4 set with Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Ray Winstone, Shia LeBeouf and Karen Allen.

I got TONS of free swag, including a Dave Gibbons original mock-up poster for the upcoming Watchmen movie, about six XL t-shirts from various movies, more posters including some for 1/18/08, the new Star Trek movie coming out, Tim Burton's upcoming take on Sweeney Todd, and a smaller Iron Man one, and various other stickers, pins and flyers.

I got to attend The Eisners, which has been a dream of mine ever since I was little kid. It was boring as hell in person, but it was so cool to be in the same room as so many legends of the industry. So cool.

I got to see a five minute trailer for next summer's Iron Man, and it showed EVERYTHING. We saw the explosion that shoots the shrapnel inches from Stark's heart and the machinery that keeps alive. We saw Tony Stark building the Mark I. We saw the Mark I in its first full action sequence. We saw flashes of the iterations of all the Iron Man suits between the Mark I up to and including the most current. Of course the crowd erupted after seeing the primary suit for that instant, when the screen cut to black. Just when we thought the trailer ended, we got to see the suit in the air. After a few seconds of the suit flying facing us, two F-16's pulled up in formation with Stark and all three peeled off out of frame. I know I'm a total geek, but it gave me goosebumps. I had so many reservations about Favreau directing Iron Man, and that all went away after seeing that trailer. That movie is going to be absolutely amazing. I saw this trailer at the Paramount Pictures panel on the first day.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to make it to the Marvel Studios panel, which had Favreau return along with Robert Downey Jr. and, I believe, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow for the Iron Man segment. My friends attended it, though, and as blown away as we all were by the Iron Man trailer, they were much more impressed by the Incredible Hulk panel. Using their analogy, if Iron Man is Spider-Man, then Incredible Hulk is Batman Begins. Iron Man looks like it's going to be a lot of fun, but they're going to make Incredible Hulk a cerebral comic film a la Batman Begins. And apparently Ed Norton wrote the script for it and is a huge Marvel geek. Good news.

Also, if haven't seen the trailer for 1/18/08 (or Cloverfield or Slusho or whatever [NOT Monstrous as the mock-up poster would have us believe]), do. It looks amazing. If The Bomb was the genesis for Godzilla, 9/11 is the genesis for this monster. It's in format of the working title, even.

And the Wes Anderson's new film trailer for The Darjeeling Limited looks like a return to form for him after the stubbornly opaque Life Aquatic. It seems to split the difference between the tones of Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums. I'm very much looking forward to this one, too.

PS - If anyone is planning on attending Comic Con next year, let me know. I'm 98% sure I'm going again. We can maybe hook up a series of rooms close to the convention center. To give you an idea, I registered early this year (about two or three months ago), and it cost me $55 for four days plus the preview night on Wednesday. That's a steal for what you get to see and do. Anyway, you know how to contact me if you're interested.

PPS - For any Blade Runner fans out there, I got a sneak peek at the 5 DISC ULTIMATE EDITION of the film that will come out around Christmas time. It's got four different versions of the film with commentary and features on each of those discs. The fifth disc has more special features, including a THREE AND A HALF HOUR documentary. It also comes in an a small attache case. It's an AMAZING package.

Watching

"Arrested Development - Season Three"

"The Wire - Season Three"

"Lost - Season Two"

"Police Squad!"

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Batman Begins

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers

The 39 Steps

Faust

Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe

Reading:

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius, Marc Seifer

At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Fourteen Lectures Given in Stuttgart, 22 August to 4 September, 1906, Rudolf Steiner

Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

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