When I wasn't following naominovik around (some pics here), I did see some of ComicCon. And wow, all the stories you've heard are true. The place is enormous. Gigantanormous. Just. Frakking. Huge. And there are tons and tons of people (though you wouldn't know it from the mundane news reports, probably only 10% or so are in costume). And an exhibit hall that is also very very large, and you can buy stuff, or just hover around the big company displays until they give you free stuff.

Speaking of free stuff, I doubt she'll tell you this herself, but a minisize booklet with full cover art and the first chapter of His Majesty's Dragon was in everyone's official ComicCon bag. Awesome!

And for the rest....



I had decided to take the train down to San Diego because parking at our hotel was $25 a day and the train cost $40 round trip. So, um, duh. The train was very crowded, and it had been very hot waiting on the platform, and I was dragging my (overpacked) bag. So it was a relief to finally find an empty seat next to a young woman. Before too long we are talking and we discover we are both going to the con... and it turns out she is the director of publicity for a division of Warner Brothers. We had a lovely chat and before we arrive in S.D. she has invited me and my friends to a party on Friday night, which we went to and was really quite fabulous, and they gave us fun toys. Trains are cool.

Actually, not only did Warner give away cool stuff at the party, they gave away the best stuff at the con all weekend. My Warner haul included Reaping t-shirt made especially for the con, a Harry Potter keychain, a V for Vendetta mask/fan (which came in handy... the fan part), a Superman/Superman Returns keychain, a 300 button, a Legion of Superheroes t-shirt, Veronica Mars and V photo cards, and a Superman foldable-frisbee sort of thing. Warner Bros. is cool.




I went to the presentation for Children of Men, the new Cuaron movie which stars Clive Owen and Julianne Moore. Guillermo del Toro came out and introduced Cuaron, and then they showed the trailer. Which was very cool... but looked like, you know, what you expect a trailer to look like.

The first thing Cuaron said after the lights came up was something to the effect of "Heh. That trailer has more cuts in it than the entire movie." Apparently he filmed the movie in long, single shot sequences -- he showed one of them which was a rather big action setpiece, with Clive Owen running through war-torn streets, bombs going off, dialogue, the whole deal. The clip was at least 5 or 6 minutes long and he said that was only about half of it.

The movie itself looks awesome -- Clive Owen fans are going to be very very happy, and Michael Caine plays a role unlike anything I've really seen from him before. And if you thought the London of V for Vendetta was a dark, dystopian place... well, this makes it look like Munchkinland by comparison.

The rest of the time was mostly GDT interviewing Cuaron and asking questions about the film... so instead of (generally uninformed) audience members asking questions, it was one filmmaker talking to another and eliciting far more interesting answers. One of the best sessions I have ever seen at any of these events. I really hope it makes it onto the CoM DVD.

At the end they did have time for a couple of audience questions, and someone asked about the difference between working in English and Spanish. He said that in English, because of his accent, the crew usually does what they *think* he said, which is usually better than what he actually said. He told a funny story about the storyboard artist for the Harry Potter film -- in the scene when the dementors first appear and it's raining, he wanted the rain to freeze and turn to ice as it went toward the ground. The storyboard artist thought he said "eyes" instead of "ice" so the original storyboard had all these floating eyeballs on it... and everyone thought it was so brilliant and artistic. I think they should put that sucker on E-Bay, myself.




So, Saturday morning, it's hot as hell outside. Not even a hint of a breeze coming off the bay. Fortunately, the doors to the gigantahall were opened early, and by the time the presentation for The 300 started, all 6500 seats were full. The panel was Frank Miller, director Zach Snyder, and actors Gerard Butler and David Wenham. They showed a clip reel (actually, before it was over, they showed it 3 times, by popular demand).

The story of the film is the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC and specifically the army of 300 Spartans who sacrificed themselves to delay the Persians long enough for the Greeks to pull their act together. (My dad likes to say that if it weren't for those 300 guys, most of us might be speaking Farsi today.)

The look of the film is hard to describe -- it felt very faithful to the graphic novel, while still retaining more of a sense that this was the real world as opposed to, say, Sin City. The colors were mostly very dark and saturated. If what we saw was any indication, the movie is going to be quite graphic and violent. Butler plays the Spartan king, Leonidas, and Wenham is Delios, the storyteller -- we heard his voice on the clip but I don't think we actually saw him.

The majority of the questions were for Frank Miller, the unfortunate actors got a bit of the expected idiocy from the fangirls, but they seemed pretty at ease, Butler in particular. He was full of quips and comebacks, and got a bit of his own when he answered a question about the difficulty of filming by saying that he had a hard time with the cape getting tangled up in his sword and spear. He also mentioned the weight and the scrapes it left on his shoulders, which led to Miller later on mimicing a whine from him: "My cape hurts! Waaah!" (All definitely in good fun.)

The clips had shown some Spartan women characters and some fairly graphic sex, which led a questioner (a guy, no less) to ask whether the relationships between the Spartan *men* were equally realistic. (There was no doubt as to what he was suggesting.) Miller gave a perfectly brilliant answer: "No. It's fiction." (Read: Yes, we know the Spartans had gay sex, and no, it's not in the movie for reasons that are probably obvious -- it's a big action movie and we want teenage boys to come, ok?)

Do I need to mention that both of the actors were hot beyond hot? No, I didn't think so. I think I'm a fan of Gerard Butler's now, and I couldn't name anything he's done besides Phantom of the Opera if my life depended on it.




Wow, man, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino? Those dudes are crazy. Especially Tarantino, who is only slightly less hyper than someone on certain illicit substances. Anyway -- they are making what appear to be intentionally bad movies -- kind of Lord King Bad Movies, if you will. They are going to show as a double feature called Grind House. Rodriguez's is called "Planet Terror" (zombies) and Tarantino's is "Death Proof" (slasher). The footage was... well, I can't really think of anything better than cracktastic. The film itself was distressed and the sound crackled and it was pretty easy to believe it was 20 year old footage. Except for the really cool digital effects that remove Rose McGowan's leg at the knee... what they replace it with.... well, that's the cracktastic part.

Also in Rodriguez's film (all the footage was his... QT hasn't started shooting yet) is Michael Biehn, and Freddy Rodriguez of Six Feet Under, and lots of lovely ladies, several of whom joined the directors on stage.

The films were originally supposed to be 60 minutes each... but not so much, as it turns out. They're going to be full length. Coming out in April. Oh, and the posters are very cool.



What did I learn from this panel? Mostly that Edward James Olmos *really* enjoys torturing studio executives. Tell us about season 3, EJO: "It's going to be dark. Really dark. So dark, in fact, that nobody should watch it." (Cue Sci-Fi exec burying his head in his hands at the end of the table.)

Heh. So anyway, this panel had Ron Moore and David Eick, said hapless executive, EJO, James Callis, Aaron Douglas (the chief), and Lucy Lawless. Sci-Fi showed a promo first (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it was the same one that aired during Eureka last week).

I didn't take any notes, but from what I recall, EJO mentioned that there would be new tension between Adama and Lee this season. Some relationships that we've wanted to see develop (L&K?) will finally do so. There will be an extended arc upon a Cylon base star. And yup, they are killing off some characters, and not all of them will be cylons, either.

Remi Aubuchon is developing "Caprica" and it's really just a script at this point. David Eick and RDM's focus will remain on BSG.

The actors all seemed to be really enjoying themselves. EJO said he would never be one to tell us to Get a Life, which was warmly appreciated. Lucy was totally relaxed, a 10 year veteran of these things by now with Xena and all.

I'm sure there's more, but... I got nothin' else. I blame the con for eating my brain.



I'll let naominovik tell her own story of the fantasy authors' panel, but I thought it went very well. The room was completely full, and Naomi certainly held her own among the legends on the dais.

I had One More Cool Thing happen -- I'm too tired of typing to tell the whole tale of how it came about, but during the authors' autograph session on Saturday, I had the lovely fortune of meeting Steven Sears, who was a writer on Xena, among many other shows. He couldn't have been more gracious and friendly, and the slightest prompt from me on any particular person or topic led to one wonderful story after another, for more than half an hour. It was one of those fan experiences happened purely by chance, and that I'll remember and appreciate long after my memories of what I saw on stage have faded.

All in all -- ComicCon is beyond-the-telling exhausting, even if, like me and unlike Naomi, you have nothing really important to do there. But I'm glad I went... and I'm equally glad it's a year before it's time to go back!