Hey folks, Harry here... Friggin Quint sent a zillion photos... a zillion I tell ya. I need to rap that boy upside the head and teach him the finer skills of cropping and photoshop. My head hurts from having to deal with all of this. ARGH! Hehehehe

Ahoy, squirts. Quint, the crustiest of seaman, here with a rested mind and body, ready to put my coverage of this year's San Diego Comic Con to a close. Now, I know it's been a while since ComiCon wrapped up... Hell, I myself thought I had put that crazy geek weekend behind me and had no plans to write one last report. That is until I was cleaning out my travel bag and found the ComiCon schedule. After flipping through it, I realized I had left some rather cool stuff out. I covered all the big news, like the X2, T3, Daredevil footage and the biggest panels, but some of the smaller tidbits fell by the wayside, slipped through cracks so to speak, as I was concentrating on trying to get the biggest coverage up for you folks. Give me a break. I may be crusty, but I'm also human... Super-human, yes, but human nonetheless.  

I also found I had a whole bunch of pics from ComiCon leftover. I had to summon a mighty titan, who calls himself a "Kraken" whatever the hell that means, using my mighty seaman powers before attending the Con. I knew I'd need some help photographing the event and although The Kraken smells like rotted fish heads and is ugly as sin... Well, his help was invaluable. So, we had 2 soldiers armed with digital cameras wandering around the Con. Some of the below pictures were taken by yours truly and the others (ie the shitty ones) were taken by The Kraken.  

So, below I have some DVD news that I haven't seen anywhere else yet, related stories on the behind the scenes of MEET THE FEEBLES and LOTR straight from the mouth of Weta's Richard Taylor, pictures of one of the Sideshow guys getting transformed into an Orc live onstage, pics from various panels and anything else I can rip out of my short term memory. Here goes!  

MR. SHOW  

The coolest news I have that I don't believe has been reported yet involves the next Mr. Show DVD. While hanging around the Dark Horse booth, watching the multiple hundreds of people filing past Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman and Mike Mignola, getting their ComiCon exclusive HELLBOY posters signed, I spotted 2 familiar faces. First spotted was Jill Talley, a Mr. Show veteran who also plays Ronnie Dobbs' trailer trash wife in RUN RONNIE RUN. The second familiar face was none other than Tom Kenny:  

He's also appeared on Mr. Show and is one of the most in-demand voice actors working today. He's done the voices of the Mayor of Townsville as well as the Narrator in THE POWERPUFF GIRLS, he's the voice of Spongebob Squarepants and he's had his voice recorded for just about every damn video game on the shelf, it seems. They were both extremely cool and approachable. The married couple were there making an appearance in Mark Hamill's mockumentary that he was shooting at ComiCon.  

Anyway, when I asked what Tom was up to, he told me he had just recorded the commentary tracks on the Mr. Show: Seasons 3 & 4 DVD!!! I acknowledge that I'm not the world's best at keeping up with DVD releases, but being a Mr. Show fan this was news to me. I guess that kickass DVD of the first 2 seasons sold pretty well. If and when RUN RONNIE RUN gets released, us Mr. Show fans will have nothing to bitch about anymore... Well, except for the neverending bitching at HBO for canceling the show in the first place, but you know what I mean.  

RICHARD TAYLOR, WETA AND LORD OF THE RINGS  

Of all the panels I had read about, the one I was most excited about as an overall panel was Richard Taylor's 2 hour panel on movie make-up and Weta's history. Richard is a great guy. I got to meet him in person before his panel while hanging about the WETA/SIDESHOW booth and he was just like I thought he'd be like. Smart, funny, enthusiastic... A geek in the best sense of the word. One of us. He's also tall as a mountain. I'm no squirt myself and Taylor towered above me... So, the man's a giant, but with the greatest non-threatening, high-pitched squeaky voice you've ever heard. He struck me as a great guy to hang around, someone you could bullshit about monster movies all day with.  

And he proved to be a terrific public speaker, keeping the audience involved in his stories, making us laugh and listen when he wanted us to. He told us of working with Peter Jackson on the brilliant low budget flick MEET THE FEEBLES (which I hear Anchor Bay is putting out in a Special Edition DVD next year, by the way) and how that was the most fun he's ever had in his life. Specifically, he recalled shooting a scene with Mr. Belch, the Walrus baddie of the film, playing golf. In this scene, Mr. Belch had to barf up that cute little goldfish thing that he ate at the beginning of the film. So, Taylor had this pump set up with a huge tub of vomit on one end and the other end going through the bottom of the Walrus suit and held up through the mouth by the unfortunate actor inside.  

I saw unfortunate because when the time came to roll film, Taylor threw the first lever, starting the pump, and very little happened. He threw a second lever, which sent more pressured vomit through the hose... Well, it was too much. Mr. Belch's head damn near popped off with the gushing vomit spraying everywhere. The actor in the costume was doing his damnedest to keep the scene from being ruined. Unfortunately for him, though, there was a leak of some sort in the tubing and his suit was slowly filling with vomit. The poor bastard was soon up to his chin in the stuff... Yet he still struggled to keep the scene going. The vomit was at his mouth... He still kept at it... It was above his nose... Then up to his eyes... He couldn't take it anymore, plopping over, letting the vomit spill out and gasping for air.  

Nice story, eh? Hopefully, Anchor Bay will seek out Richard and his gang of misfits from Weta (and Peter Jackson, of course) for a commentary track so we can get more stories like the one I just relayed.  

Let's take a look at the Orc make-up process... Like I said, one lucky Sideshow stiff got to be transformed by Weta's top make-up artists (forgive me, I don't remember their names) into an Orc. The whole process took a little over half an hour. Here's what the dude looked like when he first sat down, before the make-up was applied:  

As Taylor talked those two Weta dudes did their thing. Taylor told many more amusing anecdotes... but since we're still on the subject of vomit, let me relay his next puke themed behind the scenes story. As most of you know, Peter Jackson was given New Zealand's National Army by the New Zealand government to help make Lord of the Rings. Apparently, these army blokes were very much the "Kill-kill-kill-shoot-shoot-kill!" soldier types and a lot of them resented being ordered to make a silly movie instead. Taylor said one of his favorite memories from the set was seeing a grunt getting chewed out by his superior officer after complaining about shooting the movie. The grunt was getting it so bad, he was biting back tears... All the while, both were dressed head to toe in full Orc armor and make-up.  

OK, so that wasn't a vomit story... Here's the vomit story. Apparently, to make friends with the "Kill-kill" army dudes after a hard day of shooting, Jackson and crew decided, in true New Zealander spirit, to give the entire regiment free booze. Of course, the next day was an equally hard day of shooting, now made even harder by the fact that they had 300 hung-over grunts on their hands, all in full Orc dress, of course. Now, only a few of the soldiers got the full on Orc make-up prosthetics. Those closest to the camera got the full on treatment, like our Sideshow buddy here:  

Those further back had to wear masks, much like the rubber monster masks you can get around Halloween. Well, apparently it was quite a thing to observe this army of poor bastards stumbling about in the heat, being ordered by their superior orc officers to under no circumstances remove their masks. Of course, there were those special few that were so hung-over that they got sick... And those lucky few were wearing masks, not make-up... And were ordered to keep them on, no matter what. Taylor described seeing one grunt doubled over, hand over mouth, making the classic stomach turning throw-up sounds, his cheeks expanding as the vomit entered his mouth, deflating as the vomit exited, but the mask prevented its escape. After a while, you'd see streams of vomit trickle out of the bottoms of these poor fool's costumes. Nice, huh? Betcha wish you were there to smell... erm... see that in person, eh?  

About the only talk of The Two Towers was just all the Weta guys saying it was ten times bigger in scope and vision as Fellowship was. Taylor was pretty tight lipped about the next film. Oh well. Taylor did talk about employing nearly every homosexual in New Zealand to play elves, though. When shooting the opening sequence of Fellowship of the Ring, where Elrond and his army join with the humans to defeat Sauron, the majority of the Elven army was more preoccupied with their outfits and hair than they were at shooting arrows. Here's a funny pic of Richard doing an Elven imitation:  

The other blokes sitting down behind Taylor are (from left to right) Sala Baker, the guy who played Sauron, Lawrence Makoare, the guy who played Lurtz, Weta sculptor (and the guy who made that badass Legolas statuette that I can't afford) Daniel Falconer and the last guy is a higher up at Weta, whose name I don't have. Sorry, dude! I met Daniel, so I remembered his name, but I never met the other guy. So sorry. Anyway... The Orc is finished. Let's take a look:

Pretty cool. It was cooler when he got down and started harassing the official ComiCon guy who, like a God, decided who got to ask questions, when they got to ask it and interrupted the speakers whenever it pleased him. The newly created Orc made quick work of the Mic Gestapo, as you can see here:  

Now while the Richard Taylor/Weta panel was a hoot, the most disappointing panel of the whole Convention was the New Line Lord of the Rings big deal panel. It was basically Richard Taylor stalling for time, spending a half an hour telling the same stories he did at the Weta panel. They showed some behind the scenes of a video game that looked alright based on Tolkien's books. There was a nifty video at the beginning, a greeting by Peter Jackson to all us ComiConians. There was a short 3 or 4 minute documentary on Christopher Lee. It's always cool to hear Christopher Lee talk, but it was all about Fellowship. No Two Towers stuff... And no footage.  

They announced a surprise (to most... hehe... I love being evil sometimes) appearance by hobbitses Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd. Great panel material. Three members of the Fellowship there plus Richard Taylor and Co. I was hoping for at least a discussion about the next movie, but I didn't get much. I can't lay a lot of blame on the panelists, though. It was my fellow geeks who failed me this time. During the Q&A, there was one guy who said he was a huge fan of the movie and asked for all the panelist's autographs. Good for him. It was kind of an asshole-ish thing to do, but he had balls to ask.  

But his granted autographs opened the flood gates. Every single question afterwards was stupid fan bullshit. Can I have a picture? Can I have your autographs? Can you record my voicemail message? They were all asshole-ish questions, but lacking the balls of being the first to ask. Normally I don't give a shit if fans ask for autographs, but it was getting ridiculous. If I sound a little bitter, I apologize, but I was very much looking forward to this panel and they ended up not talking about anything related to the movies.  

There was a mob scene after the "panel" trying to get at the hobbitses. It was crazy. I was gonna approach those guys and try to get interviews for you folks, but that mob scene was too much to handle. I actually spent a summer palling around with Elijah while he was in Austin shooting The Faculty. You folks might even remember the interview I did with him way back in the day (read it here!! http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=1203). I had lost contact with him since he started doing LOTR and I was hoping to say hi, but alas... There were 3000 horny preteen girls and middle-aged men who wanted to get at him a lot more than I did. C'est la vie...  

MISC. PANELS---DREAMCATCHER---ECKS VS. SEVER---HELLBOY---BULLETPROOF MONK---THE CORE  

This report is fucking long... I'm gonna keep to mostly pics for this last bit here. I've already told you my thoughts on the DREAMCATCHER panel and footage shown (here http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=12927)... Here's an alright shot of Jason Lee and Tim Olyphant from their panel:  

If you don't want to read the last report, let me boil down the DREAMCATCHER stuff for you. Jason Lee was charming as usual, even though he had to put up with the worst fanboy bullshit (Do you want a chocolate covered pretzel? was asked a few times). The footage was cool.  

Now, for ECKS VS. SEVER... They showed the trailer, which I believe is out now... Pretty nifty. Looks like it could be a lot of fun. Lucy Liu, director Kaos and Darth Maul himself, Ray Park, were there to talk about the movie. Liu went off on racism in Hollywood. People asked a lot of boring questions (with Ray Park getting most of the fanboy geeky stuff due to the whole Darth Maul thing) and nobody took the opportunity to ask Lucy about KILL BILL, so I did. She said she was very much looking forward to doing the movie and was training hard at wielding Samurai swords to her best ability. Very cool. Here's a crappy picture from the panel:  

THE CORE... Premiered the trailer. Looks like it could be fun or suck badly. Not too sure on that one. Hillary Swank came out and talked about it. Here she is:  

HELLBOY has already been covered, but here's a picture of Guillermo and Ron Perlman from their panel:  

BULLETPROOF MONK... The trailer premiered and Jamie King and Sean William Scott came out to talk about the movie. The trailer looked alright. What I liked most about the trailer is it seems that Sean William Scott is taking on a role that is distancing himself from the DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?/STIFLER persona he's been in since he first broke out as an actor. I've always thought Scott was a funny guy, but he was in danger of stereotyping himself by playing the same role all the time. He was a really funny panelist and proved to be a huge movie geek. He told a story about his introduction to John Woo/Chow Yun Fat flicks, how he and his brother really geeked out over them. When he got the job on BULLETPROOF MONK, he basically worshipped the ground Chow Yun Fat walked on, as he should. Good for him. Hope the movie doesn't suck. He did say that he hadn't ever heard about doing the sequel to DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? until he read it on the internet and hasn't been approached yet.  

Here's another crappy picture from the panel:  

Well, that's it from me, thank God. I want to thank ComiCon guys David Glanzer and Scott Fiore for all their help and kindness as well as The Kraken for keeping me company and being all squishy and cuddly. It was a blast attending ComiCon, as usual, and I can't wait for next year!  

I'll be back soon with a peak into the editing rooms of two really big geek flicks coming out in the next 7 months or so. 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.  

-Quint

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