Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some drool-worthy reports from Wizard World Chicago and all I can say is... Why the hell did WB not have this BATMAN BEGINS montage ready for Comic-Con!?!? The 6,000 plus geeks that were packed into that room would have gone ape-shit for what was described below, myself included. It's not sour grapes on my part that I didn't get to see it... No, not at all... I... Fuck Wizard World!
Sorry about that. Had to take a time out... I'm all better now. Here's the description of the BATMAN BEGINS montage... Sound excellent!
Harry,
I'm sure you are going to get a bunch of these, but here goes. I just returned from Wizard World Chicago. It was my first experience at a Comic Con, and I sure wasn't disappointed. I attended the end of a DC panel because David Goyer was set to talk a bit about Batman Begins. He spoke for a while and didn't really give any news until he told us they would be talking some more at the end of a Green Lantern panel with a "special guest." When we got to the GL panel there was a noticeable buzz in the room. Who would the guest be? And the question we all wanted answered, would we see any exclusive footage. After hearing some blokes talk about a Hal of a comeback we got to the reason 90% of us were there (I feel sorry for the GL fans that got squeezed.) The door opened and we saw Chris Nolan stride in fresh out of bed with Starbucks cup in hand.
He took a few questions before he had to go to work, but not before he explained that he doesn't edit until all the filming is finished and therefore only had a "montage" to show us. Needless to say, I don't think anyone needed an apology.
So let's get to the Bat-coolness. There was a lot in here, probably 3-4 minutes of footage, so I know I won't remember it all, But I'm sure others will fill the gaps. It opened with alternating shots of Bats getting dressed and some shading guys loading boxes in a truck, whoa. Then as one sets his box in the truck he is yanked up and into the darkness of the truck.
Then we begin to see some cool shots of the different characters. I think Alfred is the only one left out. There's Jim Gordon running. Bruce sword fighting with Ducat. Bruce sword fighting Ra's al Ghul. There there are some great scenes with Lucius Fox. We see Lucius showing Bruce the costume (which Bruce has to make his own modifications on), some weapons, and the second coolest moment. Lucius and Bruce are driving a camouflage version of the Tumbler on a white enclosed test track. After a few laps Bruce and Lucius exchange a look that says, "WOW!" and Bruce asks, "Does it come in black?"
Remember how I said Alfred was the only major player left out? That's right, we got our first glimpse of Scarecrow! The shot had him lunging at Katie Holmes firing his fear toxin from his sleeve. It was a short, short shot, one second or less, so unfortunately I didn't get the greatest look. But what I saw was freakin' cool and unsettling. I'm telling you this was no cheesy costume. This is straight up lunatic-chic. The clips ended with one of those really bad guys who was loading some seriously bad stuff into a truck looking around acting all scared saying, "Where are you?" The shot pulls out a bit and we see Bats hanging upside down behind him responding, "Right here." All in all it was some very cool stuff.
Even without seeing any actual scenes the influence of Christopher Nolan was obvious. Each shot had that gritty feeling of a Nolan film. I cannot wait to see how this film turns out, but it is definately on the right track. If you use this call me Chris Nolan's Cup O Joe.
Now for the next report... I can vouche for what this guy says about the CONSTANTINE footage shown as the exact same stuff was shown at Comic-Con and it was just as he describes below. He's also got the goodies on Kevin Smith and that Whedon guy that the kids seem to be all crazy for.
Hi Harry,
Never contributed but had some new from the Chicago Wizard World con, just ended today.
Kevin Smith Q & A: He is pulling back from directing Green Hornet, but is still writing it. He says he doesn't think he can handle the scope of a big budget action movie like that. He said that a big announcement is coming about his next film, to shoot in November. He said it's a small film. He promised to tell us if we bought all the "Big Ass" Jay Inaction Figures - but I guess we didn't do it, cause he didn't spill (hey, I bought one for the team!).
David Goyer showed up to discuss Batman a little. Nothing spectacular there except to say that they have picked 10 all-time great comic moments and put them in the film. He explained that the Batmobile design was done to look like a vehicle that could actually go through car chases rather than just straight down a road. He also stressed that the cape will actually look like a cape, not some rubber shell. He also thinks that this is as close as we will ever see to having the comic book costume on screen. The basic concept of the parts of the movie hinted at in the teaser, by the way, is to fill in the gap of time before Batman: Year One.
Joss Whedon showed up to talk about anything we wanted to ask. He stressed that he would love to do X-Men 3, but said that no one had officially asked him yet. He is focussed right now on making sure that he "doesn't ruin" Serenity (he's a sarcastic fellow). He'd love to work in the Buffyverse again, but he is not sure that the WB wants to do TV movies, since there has been a change in management. He said that he was going to bring back Tara in the 3rd to last episode of Buffy, but contractual obligations fell through. The idea he had was that Buffy would be granted one world altering wish (with no consequences), and the episode would revolve around her thinking about how to use it (bring back her mom? Angel? etc). He said that the last scene would be Buffy going to Willow and showing her the great new shoes that she wanted so much, and now she has them. Willow would look at her, and say, "You used your wish on shoes?" Buffy would have said, "No, silly", and leave. Willow would turn around and there would be Tara. Joss also showed a brief clip reel from Serenity that looks pretty great, and he said that it was weird to see it, since there's been a lot of work done since to make it look better.
The big event for movie buffs was the appearance of Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine, with an 18 minute (!) preview of the movie. There were a lot of scenes, obviously, in this puppy! At this point, I think any of my doubts have been erased. Forget that Francis Lawrence is a video director - this movie has the slow pace that a good horror / supernatural thriller flick needs. It's dark, it's creepy. Keanu seems to have nailed the essence of John Contantine (a self-centered A-hole magician), and there were a lot of good creepy moments in the preview. Some of the things we see: The opening scene is two Hispanic guys going through the ruins of a church in the desert. One finds a hole, reaches in, and pulls out a dagger wrapped in a Nazi flag. He takes the dagger and starts to walk away, with the other guy calling after him. The first guy, however, is hit by a car immediately after walking about 10 feet. Other sequences: John going to hell to search for Rachel Weiz's sister (who apparently committed suicide) by looking in the eyes of a cat (sounds weird but worked well). John getting supernatural supplies (including dragons breath and a screech beetle) from a dealer. John being told that he's going to die of lung cancer - later he spits up blood, and in another scene is doubled over on a curb when a demon made up of bugs attacks him on a street. My favorite scene may have been seeing Tilda Swinton playing the fallen angel Gabriel. The movie looks to be a good mix of some action, horror, creepiness. It's shot in muted tones and looks like one of those movies that takes you in the dark underside of our world (that we all suspect is there). In short, it looks like a great adaptation of the tone and feel of the comic (it looks to the Dangerous Habits arc), even if the setting and main character has undergone some cosmetic changes. I think it will be a good movie that will please horror and comic fans alike. The director said that he fought to keep the tone right and it looks like he succeeded.
Hope you can use this.
- Snert
And for our last look we have the Star Wars mega-fan of the group with tons of STAR WARS: ROTS and related schtuff info for you.
Harry: My brother is in town and heard about the 2nd major comic show after ComicCon out in CA. Today (Sunday 8/15) was the first day we could go so no doubt we missed a lot. Not sure if there's anything you can use but here is what I saw:
Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith
Great presentation by Steve Sansweet (Director of Content Management in charge of fan relations for Lucasfilm's Marketing Division and regular contributor to Star Wars Insider, author of 8 books on the saga, and holder of one of the laregest private collections of Star Wars memorabilia in the world-according to the guide). He is a soft-spoken, bearded guy in his 40's or 50's that was humorous and obviously was anxious to get the filled room pumped for a variety of Star Wars-related projects: videogames, the movie, and an upcoming major SW convention next April.
I think we missed a preview of the highly anticipated Star Wars Battlegrounds, but I did see a preview of SW3:ROTS the game. It was a five minute or so behind the scenes look at the film which had the game team showing how they were given access to the set to make what they're claiming (we'll see) the most realistic Jedi experience in particular for controlling lightsabers. They actually had the guy who has done all of the sword fighting choreography come to their business and work with all of the animators in have a 5 day sword training process.
They wanted to make the process of fighting with lightsabers as close to reality as possible-and what they showed looked great. This includes everything from stances, wrist movement and all the various ways to swing the blade. They also met with Hayden Christiansen who spent a long time sword training and they used him as the obvious model for the game. Apparently can play as Anakin or Obi-Wan so the final battle of the movie (The Duel with a capital T and D as the one guy is describing the final battle of the movie) will also be the highpoint of the game.
It'll be released a few weeks before the movie itself. There was a very humorous moment when one programmer mentioned that Hayden had told them he wanted his "idle stance" and some other move to be a particular way and the programmer was like what do you say to that other than "Ok."
Steve also let everyone know that in addition to 4-5 other worlds, the Wookie homeworld will be shown for the first time (apart from the Star Wars Holiday Special). We were shown many minutes of footage drawings and sketches of the Wookie homeworld which looked phenomenal. Sort of Ewokish but on a grander scale. They had crazy aircraft (like helicopters) and ships/boats, and a whole barrage of weapons beyond Chewbacca's bowcaster.
Chewbacca will be back and according to Steve, they hired an Australian basketball team to be Wookies of all different ranks and Peter Mayhew (returning as Chewie) was the smallest of the lot. This section was greeted with the most applause by the audience.
Other than that, the main focus of the day was some making of footage of "The Duel" showing Hayden and Ewan rehearsing relentlessly. Both were challenged to try and bring their own styles to the table and it appeared that everyone involved realized that this is the key point of SW3 and it's going to be a huge, knock down drag out battle with lightsabers, punching and kicking.
They then showed a nice piece on the Darth Vader character overall with clips from the original trilogy and then showed the group who made the new Vader mask for Hayden, showed their group excitement as the suit/mask is put on Hayden for the first time and having him walk up the stairs to do a scene. They showed a quick flash of a scene (green screen) of Vader nodding to someone who I'm guessing is the Emperor.
All in all it appears they have been working hard to get everything right with this the most important of the 3 prequels. Given the fans feelings thus far towards the prequels they had been make sure it rocks. I'm one of the 30-somethings who saw the first Star Wars a dozen times in the theaters and had that magic life changing impact that most fans have had. I've also had the sad loss of that feeling when the lights came up after the Phantom Menace came out. I remember thinking I had wandered into the wrong theater, I tried to reason myself into liking it and couldn't. I like Attack of the Clones much better, but it's obvious Lucas should stick to writing stories and let others write the scripts and direct. I think the decision to film anyone/everything separately in green screens and piece them together was a mistake that's evident by the constant wooden acting in some scenes. But I'll digress from that rant.
In other news, we practically walked by Jason Mewes ("Jay" from the Clerks series) who looks completely different and "regular" in that he was blended right in at some random booth in the convention hall. If someone hadn't said "hey there's Jason Mewes" and I hadn't heard his voice I would have missed him. I didn't bother him as he appeared to be speaking with friends and was already surrounded by some fans.
Blade Trinity booth-disgraceful. Granted it was the afternoon of the third day, but they had a small corner booth with just two copies of the banner/poster, a pile of giveaway posters and the following: a TV/VCR which was off (I'm assuming it was showing trailers at some point) and two lovely ladies with serious attitude that were deep in conversation and made me feel like I was annoying for grabbing a poster and poking around for anything else. Not cool. Fortunately being a huge fan of the series this doesn't mean I'll skip the movie-and I'll be honest, I didn't see things Fri/Sat so maybe they were more fun/friendly and had more to offer but that was lame.
Finally I had a chance to see/meet Rena Owen and Orli Shoshan who were both minor characters in SW2 and both will be in 3. I spoke with Rena (she was the body and voice of the head of the cloners in 2) and she explained that "George" had seen her and the guy who plays Jango Fett in "Once Were Warriors" which is why both were cast in the 2 prequels. She was a lovely, lovely person, very beautiful and fun to speak with. She said she loved filming the head cloner because she showed up in whatever clothes and did her lines and they CG'd the alien body over her. She also did a bit as a monster on the show "Angel" and told me that it took about 7 hours to do make up for that so infinitely prefers the CG method. But beyond that, she felt that her character was very interesting and I guess she'd originally been set to play a human character and found that part boring. She definitely brought that character to life.
Anyway, sorry no pics or any revelations, but just wanted to send some info your way. Take care.
Windy City Rob
