Father Geek here... Well, The ol'Seaman has stained the pristine blue shores of our land once more with his appearence in San Diego at that city's wonderful Comic Con, one of the largest fan gatherings in the world. He's been out of the country for months on a top secret assignment. Buuuuut for now he'll be reporting from the Con daily I expect sooooooo stay tuned for his reports on all things geeky....
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here in San Diego, experiencing one of the few down times I will have in the next few days. Preview Night has come and gone. Day One is over and I have yet to attend one panel. I have, however, been crawling around the exhibit floor in search of all things cool. One of the first booths we came across was DreamWorks's booth which had big posters advertising SHREK 2. Close ups of Shrek, Fiona and her parents were featured.
This booth also had pics up from SHARKSLAYER, but they aren't anything that hasn't really been seen already. I did see the maquette for the Antonio Bandaras voiced Puss N' Boots from SHREK 2. Think Sir Didymus from LABYRINTH crossed with a cat from CATS AND DOGS.
Also seen around the floor is the playable demo from EA's RETURN OF THE KING game, which looks totally badass. Cooperative play... Gandalf whooping ass (trust me... after you folks see ROTK the only character you'll want to play is GANDALF THE WHITE... I've seen things that'll make your jaw drop), Sam slicing up Orcsies... what? No playable Gollum? For shame!
I next stepped by the MCFARLANE TOYS booth and bought up my own DELUXE ALIEN QUEEN box-set for a measly $20... Beautiful, but the Jaws box-set still has it beat. Then I ran by my buddy, Leith's, booth and spent a half hour going through vintage KUNG FU and HORROR movie posters.
New Line's booth is very LOTR centric, but it does have a mock-up Camp Crystal Lake with bits and pieces of props and replica props from FREDDY VS. JASON. Also got a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE mini-poster... not very impressive. I'm not sold on this film by a damn sight.
One very cool thing about New Line's booth this year is the huge TV that is playing random New Line stuff... Crispin Glover's awesome remix of BEN music video, FREDDY VS. JASON trailer and surprisingly enough older New Line release trailers... like NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES... Super-cool idea! Semi-vintage trailers rule.
Saturday is SUPER BADASS PANEL DAY... Good God, it'll be a long, long report tomorrow... But for as for today... I was tempted to go to the 10:30am panel on movie adaptations of comic books, but they had Mark Altman speaking and I don't think I'd be able to hold back my rage at being subjected to his god-awful HOUSE OF THE DEAD adaptation. For the good of everybody I decided to sleep in instead.
Next up was Lucasfilm's STAR WARS panel... I was late due to traffic and parking difficulties (I left my hotel around 12:30pm, but didn't step onto the convention floor until after 3pm...) Sweet Jesus... It was one of the most boring panels I've ever had to sit through. The speakers were all drab and boring and it felt like sitting through a lecture. Imagine, if you will, an incredibly low, monotone voice going Issue by issue by issue of Star Wars spin-off comics in the utmost of all detail. Lots of time was also spent on the Star Wars novels... and the different patches you get if you join the Star Wars Fan Club.
The only things that made the panel worth while was the look at LucasArts upcoming video games and seeing Genndy Tartakovsky (of Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack fame) introduce a 30 second clip from the upcoming THE CLONE WARS Cartoon Network show. It was actually kinda funny because after all the fluffing of the prequels that was done by the other guests, up comes Tartakovsky saying how he loved the original series growing up and he wanted to make THE CLONE WARS cartoons in the same vein. A nice little jab at the prequels. He also said that Anthony Daniels is the only voice from the films that transferred onto the cartoon.
The clips from the video games they showed were pretty cool for the most part. The stand outs were REPUBLIC COMMANDO, an ALIENS-esque setup with Clone Troopers hunting down the Geonesan bugs... It's the first STAR WARS game that looks like it's ahead of its time in animation. Very hyper-realistic. Really cool. It was the first time I heard the audience really burst into a hearty applause. They also went nuts for the preview of Rogue Squadron III. I have to admit, I was really impressed. Lots of action from the original trilogy.
The Q&A with the audience was painful. Almost 100% negative. Matter of fact a lot of the audience from the beginning was totally filtered out by the time the Q&A started. Nothing is sadder than seeing Jedi and weird aliens walk out of a Star Wars panel. The first question was "This is something I've wanted to know for a while... The second prequel is called ATTACK OF THE CLONES... but the Clones don't really attack..." The panel ended 15 minutes early because there were all of 4 questions asked from the audience.
Next up was the KILL BILL panel, which, ironically, was split into two panels. Today's panel was supposed to be attended by Michael Madsen, Michael Jai White and David Carradine. Sunday is the next one with Daryl Hannah and the man, the myth, the goddamn legend himself, Quentin Tarantino.
Unfortunately, they should have named the panel "An Hour with Michael Madsen." Traffic held up both David Carradine and Michael Jai White. The panel started with the old KILL BILL trailer, the Michael Madsen was introduced. Out he walked like the badass he is. Boots, jeans, black leather jacked and a white Bruce Lee T-shirt. He chatted it up with the audience who asked all of 3 KILL BILL questions. Nothing really new in the way of KILL BILL news... Madsen was really happy that KILL BILL will be released as two films. Apparently by splitting the films into two parts Quentin is guaranteed to get all he wants into the film. Does this mean that Yuki's Revenge might make it back? Hmmmm?
Someone brought up THE VEGA BROS and Madsen was actually pretty confident it was going to happen. "All I can say is Quentin wants to make THE VEGA BROS. He already has it in his head. But it has to be soon. Maybe next year?" Any other info? "It will be set in Amsterdam." Interesting!
Michael Jai White came up for all of one minute saying that the panel is over. He apologized for getting caught in traffic and said that David Carradine and he will be signing autographs as scheduled... I would have preferred they extend the panel, but whatever...
Tomorrow is the big one, squirts. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN footage, GOTHIKA-speak with Halle Berry, TIMELINE with Dick Donner, TROY stuff, STARSKY AND HUTCH, MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, TORQUE, Kevin Smith goodness, RETURN OF THE KING stuff, FREDDY VS. JASON stuff, VAN HELSING stuff... Hooo boy! Keep a look out for that one tomorrow night, squirts! 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
