Well, Quint finally hobbled in from the fantastic San Diego ComiCon and gave Father Geek the following report on the whole affair. He covers all the big events, plus comes up with lots of little bits of info gleaned from the floors of the dealers room and the various panels; stuff on OSMOSIS JONES, as well as PHANTASM 5, and BLADE 2, and MONKEY BONE, THE CELL, LOTR, X-MEN, and more info on whats happening in BATMAN-land. See what he heard first hand from the likes of Bryan Singer, Mark Hamill, Reggie Bannister, Paul Dini, and Wil Wheaton. Its all contained in his report below. Check it out...

Ahoy there constant readers, the forever crusty Seaman, Quint, here once more this time with an overview of the jawdropingly huge San Diego Comic Con. I'll be covering everything from X-Men to Osmosis Jones to Lord of the Rings to the new Batman animated feature, plus a lot of stuff inbetween.

Let's start with the Lord of the Rings footage. Don't worry, I'm not gonna repeat what all the other LOTR posts have said. By now you all know Sir Ian showed up and said a word or two, you know that about 2 minutes of additions were made to regular internet teaser and, if you've read the other posts from the last day or two, you know just about everything that was added. I'm just gonna throw in a couple things I didn't see reported in the previous posts. There's a great shot in the new footage that I had heard was in the ShoWest stuff, but still made my eyes bulge when I saw it and that was seeing a regular sized man walk into our group of Hobbits. I don't know why so simple a shot, considering the film we're talking about, was the most impressive for me. In it we see Frodo, Sam and I suspect Merry and Pippen in a pub, presumably right before they meet Stryder, and a human walks through their group. One of the hobbits steps out of the way, the others are brushed up against and nudged slightly. It's amazing work that's being done. I'm glad Peter Jackson and WETA are using the effects that are at their disposal to perfect the little details, as well as the huge shots, like the battle scenes. They understand that the movie's potential greatness lies in the details and that the best effect is usually one the audience doesn't notice... at least right off the bat.

The other LOTR shot I want to mention before moving on is the continuation of Sean Bean holding up the ring. In the footage I saw, he has a line... something like "Why so much fear and pain over such a small thing?" I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what he said, but that's pretty damn close. I can't wait.

Next up is some stuff from Bryan Singer. The most interesting thing from Bryan's panel were outtakes from X-Men he showed. Now, the "Elite Security" made sure nobody taped anything, took any pictures or even had a tape recorder on during the showing of this footage, so you guys are going to have to depend on my sub-par grasp on the English language to guide you through what I saw. I'm going to go into as much detail as I can because Bryan seemed pretty sure that this footage wasn't going to be on any DVD or special or anything availible to the masses.

The first scene they showed was of Hugh Jackman driving through Canada... well, obviously on a soundstage, but you know the scene. It's almost a POV shot from the passenger seat, so you can see Hugh and out through the driver's side window. On cue the snowy background starts going by, giving the illusion of movement. For a solid 20 seconds it's just Hugh sitting there, saying nothing, pretending to drive and then out of nowhere Bryan Singer, headphones and all, comes "flying" next to him, Superman style, seen through the driver's side window with a goofy grin on his face. Pretty funny.

The next one is my personal favorite. We saw an extended version of the scene between Patrick Stewart and Hugh after Rogue absorbs his powers. You know, the whole "Why do I feel like she almost killed me?" scene. Patrick Stewart does his thing. "If she held on any longer, she could have." That's where it ended in the theatrical cut. In this footage he continues, "Get some sleep, Logan." Then he backs up his chair, being engulfed in the shadow. The chair spins left and he goes for the door, passing the camera. The camera pans, following, to see silouhetted against the light the door's letting in and then all of a sudden CRASH as he rams into the door post, off about 5 inches to the left. You could see the back end of the wheelchair jump with the collision. Everybody went crackers in the audience. Somewhere in the dark auditorium, as the laughter dies away, comes Bryan's voice, "That happened more than once."

He set up the last outtake by saying, "Don't blink. Just look for something a little out of place." The outtake is from a scene toward the end of the film. Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey and I think Wolverine are all in costume, ready for battle. On action, they all run up to their mark, just in front of camera and look worried. Then out from behind them Spider-Man runs up to his mark behind Cyclops and leans in the direction they are all leaned in. James Marsden looks over and starts laughing hysterically. The whole group busts a gut and Spider-Man runs off.

Overall, Bryan was incredibly humbled by the adoration of the crowd. Just about every question that was asked started off with "The movie rocked, thank you sooooo much." Lots of questions about an X-Men sequel. He said he'd just barely finished this one 3 weeks ago, that a sequel is definately in order, but nothing is being done right now. One question asked was about other X-Men characters being introduced in the sequel. Basically he said what I stated above, but he did mention that one of his favorite characters from the comics is Gambit, so I'd say Gambit's pretty much a lock for the next film. That is, if Bryan comes back for the sequel. He wouldn't say one way or the other, but I get the feeling he'll be back. I know he had some hardships during shooting, but you could just see how happy he was with the finished film and the reaction of the fans. Plus, the film is a financial hit. If it keeps raking in the money like it has been, I have no doubt the studio will give him carte blanche with the sequel. I heard rumor of him wanting to do a different film before going into a sequel, but I'm not sure how valid that is. Take 'im for ballast, Cheif.

How about those Spider-Man production stills? Kick-ass. Congrats to CA and all for nabbing them.

I also saw the 15 minute featurette for The Cell. I must say I'm extremely impressed. Looks freaky as all hell. The featurette seemed to me to be basically a 15 minute version of the film. Vincent D'Onofrio again plays a psycho, but damn if he isn't good at it. Vincent was on a panel after the footage and talked about getting himself into character by going to restaurants and sitting near the back of the room, facing a mirror, his back to the people, staring at their reflections and visually stalking them for the duration of their meal. He said he watched their movements, how they ate, picking out their patterns and he thought about how he could go after them and kill them. Of course, he didn't take it that far, but isn't that creepy as all hell?!?! If I ran into him in a dark alley and saw that Full Metal Jacket grin I think I'd shit my pants then drop dead of fright.

The movie itself is about Vincent's character who likes to kidnap women and put them in a homemade cell, where they are fed and showered for 40 hours. Then the showers come on in the cell, but don't turn off. He then does whacked out stuff to their dead bodies. Anyway, he kidnaps one girl, puts her in the cell and then somehow falls into a coma. It's up to Jennifer Lopez's character and Vince Vaughn's character to find the girl before the showers turn on and don't stop. Jennifer uses some cool-ass high tech equipment that allows her to go into the killer's fucked up mind and try to find out the location of the kidnaped girl. Pretty fucked up stuff. Looks beautiful in a sick, surreal way.

Warner Bros. showed some behind-the-scenes stuff of Osmosis Jones, their big animated film starring Chris Rock as, ironically, a white blood cell detective who has to team up with an antibiotic voiced by David Hyde Pierce to stop a lethal virus played by Laurence "Cowboy Curtis" Fishburn. That stuff is pretty much common knowledge. There are two other cast members that I had no clue were in the movie. Maybe I just overlooked it in Elston's Weekly Recap or something, but William Shatner does the voice for the mayor of the body, the guy that forces Osmosis to team up with the "outsider." The other, and cooler in my opinion, additional cast member is Bill Murray, who is live action. He's the body that all this crazy stuff it taking place in. I saw a little bit of his stuff. It looked great. The director said about 25% of the film would be live action, with the rest being animation, the stuff that takes place inside the body. The director, who also co-directed Lion King, said the film was basically a buddy cop movie that takes place inside a human body. Also of note is that the antibiotic character is CGI and all the rest of the interior body is traditional animation. Looks pretty cool. I hope they can pull it off. Now for some TV/video stuff. Warner Bros. also showed a trailer for the upcoming Batman Beyond feature film, done by the always dependable Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Return of the Joker. The trailer kicked some ass. We see Harley Quinn, we see the new Joker and we see the old fashioned Batman! Apparently there's a flashback to a fight between Batman and the Joker. Dini let go that the new Joker, again voiced by Mark Hamill, would be a lot more mean and brutal than previously seen in the animated series. He kills people in this movie. Mark Hamill told the crowd that Paul and Bruce came to him to return as the voice of Joker, but he couldn't just fall into his old routine, so he created a new, more menacing voice for the new Joker. The film should be hitting video stores in the near future. Keep your eye out for it.

Also shown by WB were some scenes for their new animated series called The Oblongs. From what I saw... I was surprised they would even consider doing a cartoon this risky for air during prime-time. The series is about a family that lives in the poor part of town, near a sewage plant. The father is a qua

driplegic, the teenage sons are Siamese Twins connected at the hips, who argue in the shower about whose turn it is to scrub their asses, the seemingly normal, sweet little girl has, upon closer inspection, a weird, pink strangely phalic growth on the top of her head and the cat has bags under it's eyes and is always smoking a cigarette. Then there's the other son who's always twitching and has to go to a junior high school for psychopaths. The five or six minutes I saw where hilarious! If the series can keep it funny after the sight gags are old hat, then this show could be the next South Park.

Now, at the end of this long report, I have the creme de la creme, some small tidbits, not unlike Elston's Gunshots, that I picked up during the Con. I met Lou Ferrigno, who was totally clueless about anything going on with the Hulk movie. I heard word that Ron Pearlman might be in Blade 2 as a big bad-ass bloodsucker. I ended up hanging out with Wil Wheaton a lot, who, believe it or not, turned out to be a really cool guy. A total geek. One of us, oogle-goggle. I'll have an interview that we're in the process of completing up in a few days. I found out that Reggie Bannister, of Phantasm fame, is pulling for Wil to be in the next Phantasm film alongside Reg, Angus Scrimm and Bruce Campbell. Not sure if anything will come of it, especially since they're still having trouble getting the budget for the last instalment to the Phantasm series, newly retitled Phantasm's End. Saw the new McFarlane toys. Ash rocks, but the Snake Plisskin figure was sadly unimpressive. Carpenter's The Thing toys however are amazing. Those are absolutely going to be the coolest toys on the market when they're released. I also saw McFarlane's Shaft figure, which looks freakishly like Sam Jackson. The Rocky Horror figures rock. Tim Curry rules the Earth. Now if only McFarlane would do a 12-inch Darkness figure from Legend... Lastly, the prototype Monkey Bone figures were on display. The three coolest ones were the roadkill guys. This is looking to be Henry Sellick's darkest film to date. All the figures were similar in design to the Nightmare Before Christmas townsfolk. Wonderfully demented and surreal. I can't wait.

And that should just about do it for me. If you made it this far, congratulations. Hope I didn't babble too much in my drunken haze. I gotta get to work on the Orca's engine. The trip to and from San Diego was hell. I think the injectors were scorched by the salt water in the fuel. Fuckin' shark. Anyway, until next time my little sea squirts, farewell and adieu.

-Quint

aicnquint@earthlink.net or quint@aintitcoolmail.com