It Goes Ding When There's Stuff: April 2011

Thursday, April 7, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - pictures

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Creeeepy.
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The Floor holds a lot of people. Not as big as Comic-Con, but still the population of a small city. The overall attendance was something like twice that for the whole weekend.
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Sam Huntington and Brandon Routh introduce the Masquerade.
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And again.
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Stephen Lang and Jason O'Mara, part of the Terra Nova panel.
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The Thundercats panel. I was in the front row!
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The line for the ATM. There was only ONE ATM for the WHOLE BUILDING.
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I got up at 7:00 on a Sunday so I could get to WonderCon at 9:00, 2 1/2 hours before the Doctor Who panel.
- There are a lot of Chinese people in San Francisco. Weird, and unexpected, I know. Particularly in Chinatown.
- Some of the more memorable costumes I've seen outside of the Masquerade: [I wrote this list on the bus]
- The alien from Alien, including a several-feet-long tail.
- The Predator from Predator.
- Slave girl Leia - and she pulled it off.
- A few Zatanna. They looked kinda uncomfortable.
- Various Death Star officers.
- Strangely, I think I only saw one Doctor. [I saw at least half a dozen Doctors on Sunday, and several more people just wearing fezzes. Fezzes are cool.]
- A few Dr. Horrible.
- Many steampunk people, of varying degrees of quality.

In line for and waiting for the Doctor Who panel:
- There was guy in line behind me wearing a t-shirt with: Blue Lantern Corps symbol + The Flash's symbol = The Flash in the Blue Lantern Corps's symbol (whose power comes from and creates Hope).
1. I am pleased that there is a t-shirt for this.
2. I am pleased with myself for recognizing this.
- THIRD ROW! Getting here 2.5 hours before the panel was so worth it. That wasn't even that early.
- Not only am I in the third row, I'm directly in front of the moderator's podium.
- So many Doctor Who fans in one place. [That was probably the best part of WonderCon, actually. Being in a huge crowd of nerds. We are, in general, a nice crowd.]

The panel had Neil Gaiman and Mark Sheppard! Weee! And Toby Haynes, who directed the last two episodes of the last series and the first three of this coming series. Neil Gaiman wrote the fourth episode of this series, and Mark Sheppard is appearing in the first two-parter.
- "Nixon is scary." - Mark Sheppard. He compared Nixon to other Steven Moffat monsters.
- Neil Gaiman taunts the audience with a flashdrive that contains his episode.
- Mark Sheppard fanboy moment - seeing 9/10's TARDIS (which is appearing in this series, for some reason)
- "Vancouver is a double for everywhere." - MS.
- TH says that his next job is directing Sherlock, and MS begs for a part in the show.
- NG is appearing as himself in an episode of The Simpsons this fall.
I'm sorry. I could have written more, but I was watching and taking pictures instead. They played a clip from NG's episode, which includes Time Lord sign, and a scene with MS, in which he acts disrespectful towards Nixon while talking to him on the phone. I am very much looking forward to seeing how he interacts with the rest of the cast.

Terra Nova panel:
A new show in which people from a dystopic future (the year 2149), go on a one-way trip to 85 million ybp (via a supercollider-caused time crack. Whatever) . It's described as a "postmodern scifi western." I didn't think much of the show before the panel, but I might watch some of it now. Which, of course, is the point of having a panel for it.
- It stars Jason O'Mara (who was in the US version of Life on Mars) and Stephen Lang (who played the bad guy in Avatar).
- "I only do shows that include time travel as part of the premise." - JO
- Oh whoa! JO is Irish? [I immediately liked him more. Am I shallow or what? At least I'm pretty sure he's Irish. I don't know what else that accent could be]
- The show will include a twist on time paradoxes.
- JO takes pictures of the audience at various points in the panel.
- This is another very expensive show.
- It took 12 weeks to build the Terra Nova set in Australia.
- The show will include feathered dinosaurs, which were made using motion capture suits on human actors.
- Sonic weapons.

Thundercats panel:
Some of the people with whom I chatted before the Doctor Who panel helped me acquire a seat in the front row! Thundercats, if you don't know, was a cartoon from the 80s. It now has a cult status, particularly among people who grew up watching it (which doesn't include me, but hey, io9.com recommended going to it, and I was in the front row). A re-imagining of the show is currently in development. The animation is beautiful - lots of detail and generally good-quality animation.

On the Floor:
- Wow, I did not know that the Firefly soundtrack is out of print.
- I noted to Zach Weiner (author of SMBC comics) that lefties rule. He concurred.
- An explanation as to why DC won WonderCon so resoundingly: Marvel is lame. I talked to a vendor, and he said that this is the first time in a while that Marvel has even had a booth here, so obviously they didn't have a panel for any of their three movies coming out this year. DC wins. They gave me free stuff and had lots of panels.

I didn't stay long enough for the people to kick us out of the building, but vendors had started to break down their booths. Thankfully the hostel let me keep my car in the parking lot even though I had checked out, so I didn't have to find parking downtown. Yay. And I only got lost about three times trying to get out of San Francisco. Yay for cellphones and the internet, and Mothers who use cellphones and the internet.

WonderCon 2011 - Saturday, Part II

On Saturday I wore my costume, because the Masquerade was in the evening so I figured more people would be dressed up (if you didn't know, I wore clothing from the game Oblivion). Unusually for me, several people recognized what I was wearing! Not a whole lot, but they were generally enthusiastic (one person gave me a high five). A few other people liked the costume, but didn't know what it was from. I think it was a very good idea for me to include the Amulet of Kings. I know that you can never wear it yourself in the game, but it was still the most identifiable part of the costume.

So here are my notes for the day:

On the Floor:
- Virginia Hey has her own line of perfume. Which is weird. She talked to me and didn't demand payment for taking her picture, which is nice.
- I'm in one of the smaller rooms, and again sufficiently (but not terribly) early so that I again have a fabulous seat. In the second row. In the middle. I'm less than 15 feet from he closest seat on the panel. And I didn't have to wait in line at all. I just walked in.

DC Universe Panel:
- Yay, the Green Lantern Footage again! (abridged, but still awesome)
- Hey, I've actually heard of one of these people - Paul Levitz. Why have I heard of him? [oh. I think it was because he was one of the people who had a Spotlight panel on him this year, and I remembered his name from the program.]
- I need to get Brightest Day [the current DC main narrative]. I may have to wait 6 months or whatever for the trade volume, though.
- Part of the amusement of this panel is how much difficulty the panelists are having in talking about upcoming issues of the book without giving away too many spoilers.
- Some of the best questions have come from a couple of preteen kids.

Super Panel:
Super is a small superhero movie staring Rainn Wilson (and various other people like Nathan Fillion and Liv Tyler). Like Kick-Ass, it centers around a normal guy who decides to become a superhero. It's very different, though.
- There is no moderator, so Rainn Wilson and James Gunn (the writer/director/etc) are interviewing each other.
- The movie cost a couple of million to make - the actors did it for scale.
- "Our movie was made on the craft services budget of Iron Man." - James Gunn
- The Crimson Bolt's catchphrase is "Shut up, crime!" (his weapon of choice is a large wrench)
- The film is much darker and more dramatic than Kick-Ass. The violence is more realistic, so much so that the film is unrated.
- RW says that he didn't improve much for the movie, and notes that most of the time when actors are asked to improve on set it's because the script sucks - e.g., My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
- Q: Who would win in a fight between Dwight (on the Office) vs. Frank (The Crimson Bolt) vs. a bear (not a Rainn Wilson character)?
A: The Bear, no question.

On the Floor:
- I just passed the guy who plays Josh the werewolf on the US version of Being Human. He was walking down the hallway between the small panel rooms.
- Aww... the Anthropology of Firefly panel was canceled, but too late to be removed from the schedule.

LGBT in Comics Panel (instead)
The panel consisted of various writers who have included LGBT characters in their comics (in case you didn't know, LGBT stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual or Transgender). These included a few mainstream people and a few independent people.
- Consensus among the panelists - DC is more open to LGBT than Marvel.
- "Gay men are only interested in Wonder Woman." - Direct quote from a retailer that one of the panelists spoke to.

On the Floor:
- I just saw a guy dressed as Dresden. He was wearing a hat, but I guess that makes him more recognizable. [Harry Dresden never wears a hat. Despite this fact, on every cover of every book he has been depicted wearing one. Dresden even specifically refuses to wear a hat on more than one occasion. Snark from the author.]

Before the Masquerade:
- I am going to be spoiled for Comic-Con. I'm in the fourth row again. Not quite so close to the middle this time, but I think that's a good thing in this case, since it means I can more easily see the screen, and detail might be an issue with the costumes.
To entertain the masses while they were setting up backstage, they played the trailers for several movies on the screens:
- Huh. Super 8 could be cool. Or it could just be another JJ Abrams monster movie with Spielberg familyness.
- My God, Thor is so pretty. [It's probably going to be terrible. Sigh. Oh well. And yes, that is me trying to not get my hopes up while still grinning in anticipation at all the shiny gold and silver and explosions]

Dylan Dog intro:
The Masquerade was sponsored by the movie Dyland Dog: Dead of Night, so naturally the main actors, Brandon Routh and Sam Huntington were there to introduce their movie and the main event. This confirmed that it was indeed Sam Huntington that I passed in the hallway, and not some random guy who looked like him. (You know, it only occurred to me later that those actors have a similar role to those they had in Superman Returns, in which they played Superman and Jimmy Olson, lead and sidekick. Anyhoo...)
- They played a couple of clips from the movie. It looks kindof silly, but it's hard to tell how good it is from just the trailer and the clips. The actors claimed that it is "fun and cool and awesome."
- Brandon Routh is pretty off camera, too.

Masquerade:
The Masquerade is a costume competition that they do every year at WonderCon and Comic-Con. There are group costumes and individual costumes, and they are awarded prizes in various categories. The costumes can be worn by the designers/makers or not, but they all have to be done by non-professionals (whatever that means. Some of the costumes were pretty damn professional). There is no way in hell I would ever compete in this. I could describe all 32 costume sets, but I'm not going to. I will describe the top winners, though:

Best Novice: A group of Jedi fighting a Sith. I think part of the reason why they got this prize was their presentation, which was pretty good. They did a whole fight scene.
Most Humorous: A group of characters from Tangled. (queue girls screaming when Flynn walks on stage).
Best Workmanship: Jack the Ripper vs. Steampunk Batman. Just what it sounds like. And it was good steampunk, not lame steampunk, unlike one of the other entries. Hers was called "Lady Metalica" (one of the presenters rolled her eyes visibly at that name). Her presentation involved pistolwhipping. Steampunk Batman had a Victorian lamp post and everything.
Best Original Design: Another Medusa (there were a few), but this wan was silver and sparkly. Very sparkly.
Best Recreation: An alien in full body armor and weaponry with moving parts. His face even had an articulated jaw. I didn't recognize what he was recreating, though.
Judge's Choice: A group of children dressed as Batman characters. Cat Girl was particularly weird.
Best In Show: Vampires vs. Vampire Hunters. Characters included Blade, Edward Cullen, and Count von Count. There were also several other characters from video games, but sadly I didn't recognize them. I even saw one of the vampires the next day and asked who they all were, and still didn't recognize any of the names. Even so, the presentation was pretty damn funny and the costumes were very impressive.

While the judges were making their decisions they played the winners of a Star Wars fan film competition from the night before. They were all really really good, ranging from stop motion to animation to CGI to live action. The CGI one gave a back story to why Han Solo had a price on his head. One of the animated ones turned the bounty hunters waiting around in the Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back into them waiting around to get into a night club. Dancing Robots were involved. The Best In Show went to a live action film staring four kids and a teenager (as the badguy), and included relatively good visual effects. Luke was played by an unbelievably adorable little kid who looked about five.

The Masquerade ended shortly before 11, and I took the bus home again. I only had one one dollar bill, so but a guy waiting at the bus stop gave me one of his. The bus driver was the same as the night before, a very chatty woman who had helped me find the best place to get off and gave me a piece of candy. She recognized me.

When I got to bed there was only one person snoring, and I was sufficiently tired that I didn't have to break out the seran wrap to smother them. Yay.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - Saturday

I'm only going to write as much as I can get in within the time it takes to burn my CDs for tomorrow's drive back to Eureka, so I didn't even bother to bring my notebook with me to the common room while I'm writing this. I'm really tired. For the obvious reasons - getting up at 7:15, wandering around WonderCon all day, and getting back here at ~11:30 pm - but also because I only got about five hours of sleep last night. Why? Because there were not one, not two, but three people in the room snoring so loudly that even wearing earplugs and covering my ears with my hands, I could still hear them. I considered crying, or smothering the people. I even decided that plastic wrap would be an effective means of making them stop.

I debated between going to the panel for Super or the one for Cowboys & Aliens, but decided on Super, because it had Rainn Wilson, while Cowboys & Aliens only had the director/producer Jon Favreau. Before that was a panel on upcoming things in DC comics. After that I spent most of the day wandering around the floor, taking breaks to read Sandman. It's been a Neil Gaiman weekend for me. By the way, despite what io9.com says, I will be surprised if he actually comes to the Doctor Who panel tomorrow. I can still hope, though.

In the afternoon I tried to go to a panel about the anthropology of Firefly, but it had been canceled, too late to change it on the program. So instead I went to panel on LGBT characters in comics. Which, incidentally, had one or two people in common with the DC panel I went to this morning.

I wandered a little more, then got in line for the Masquerade. Many of the costumes were pretty damn impressive. I can't imagine how much work must have gone into them. I know how much time and effort went into my costume, and mine is relatively simple.

I'll write a more complete account of the day tomorrow or more likely Monday. What else...? I have concluded that, in the ongoing war between DC and Marvel, DC has come out as the decided victor of the Battle of WonderCon 2011. This is in spite of the fact that Marvel has 3 movies coming out this year (Thor, Captain America and X-Men), DC only has one (Green Lantern). Thor is even coming out before Green Lantern. I guess they're just better at hype. It helps that DC has had some really cool stuff come out in the comic books for the last couple of years.

Ok, I'm not done burning my CDs, but too bad. I'm about to fall asleep in this chair, and it's not even very comfy.

I'll end with this:

In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power... Green Lantern's might!
Wonder Twins Power activate!

Wait. That's not right....

Friday, April 1, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - Friday

Here follows notes I made today. If I had a twitter account they would have been tweets. But I do not, so here they are here instead.

- The weather apparently doesn't know that it's San Francisco, because it's warm and sunny, bordering on hot.
- I'm in line next to a couple dressed as a Star Wars bounty hunter and what appears to be a zombie storm trooper. The storm trooper has a screen playing Dawn of the Dead on his backpack. The bounty hunter has an electronic thing making the sound of breathing through a Darth Vader respirator. It's kindof annoying, actually.
- I just saw a 1st edition copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for over $700.

I got in line for the main hall about two hours before the first panel, so I got a seat in the middle of the fourth row, which was about 20 feet from the stage. Freaking awesome.

- I like this place. The music playing in the hall while we wait for the first panel to start is "re: Your Brains." (if you're unfamiliar with the song, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM )

First Panel: Falling Skies
Falling Skies is a new scifi show set 6 months after an alien invasion. The attack included EMP, so most technology doesn't work, and most of the military and government has been whipped out.
- As someone behind me said after the clip - "Intense."
- Pilot written by the guy who wrote Saving Private Ryan.
- This show must be expensive. The aliens and their mechs are mostly cgi, not to mention all the explosions and other special effects.
- Filmed in Toronto. What a surprise. Actually, I'm kindof surprised that it's filmed in Toronto and not Vancouver.
- When asked, the producer says that the budget was "enough."
- They set it six months after the invasion so it wouldn't be about being shocked at the invasion. That's a pretty good idea, actually.
- Apparently there's a mandate from the executive producers (including Stephen Spielberg) that there be no flashbacks.
- The producer on the reason for the aliens' appearance - "Sometimes cool is the reason."
- Ha. I recognized Moon Bloodgood's voice in the clip without remembering that she was in the show. I don't know what that says about me or Moon Bloodgood's voice.

Second Panel - Nikita
A show about a tough chick who does violent things for or against a shadowy government organization or several. I don't really know much about the show, even after watching a whole episode here.
- I don't know who these people are or what's happening.
- For some reason the names of the main actors (Maggie Q and Shane West) sound familiar to me, but I don't recognize their faces at all. [even after looking them up on IMDb I still don't know why their names are familiar]

Third Panel - Green Lantern
I realize that probably none of you who read this will know anything about Green Lantern. Actually, given how much of WonderCon seems to be focusing on it this year, here's a brief overview of the premise: Hal Jordan is a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an organization that spans the known universe. Each member is assigned as guardian of their home galaxy cluster. They get their powers from their special rings which allow them to do virtually anything, so long as they have sufficient willpower and imagination, such as flight, force fields, weapons, telekinesis, reconstruction of solid objects, etc, etc (it doesn't work against things that are yellow. no really. this has been retconned by Geoff Johns so that it mostly makes sense, but for a long time, from what I gather, it was just "because."). When a Lantern dies, their ring leaves them and finds someone who can "overcome great fear." Hal Jordan is the first human to be chosen. One of the amusing things about having a universe-wide organization is that, while many of the members are humanoid (to varying degrees), many of them are not (one of my readers may want to avert their eyes from the last one).
This is the panel that I was waiting for. Same with most of the rest of the audience, apparently.
- Before the panel - for the setup - they put an image of the Lantern Corps symbol on the screens. Woman behind me: "My god, it's so beautiful!" I agreed. [the version they put up was all sparkley and shiny]
The panel included Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively (who's playing Carol Ferris, who later becomes Star Sapphire), the producer, and Geoff Johns, who co-produced the film and is considered to be the current king of the Green Lantern comics, including the version of the origin story that the movie is based on.
- Ryan Reynolds, asked if it was more fun to play Hal Jordan or a villain like Deadpool: "Well look, Deadpool is not a villain, he's an asshole." [that stupid Wolverine movie]
- R.R. Deadpool vs. Green Lantern? - Green Lantern. Most people seem to agree with him. [agreed. Deadpool may be able to break the fourth wall, and may be unstoppably psychotic and what have you, but he doesn't have a magic ring limited only by willpower and imagination.]
- R.R.'s real first name is Rodney [snick], after his "creepy" uncle.
- R.R. describes Hal Jordan as a "Chuck Yeager/Han Solo hybrid."
- The producer says that there is a Justice League film in development.
- R.R. suggests Bradley Cooper as The Flash.

Fourth Panel - Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
For this panel they played the entirety of the new Green Lantern cartoon movie. It is basically five short stories tied together with a central plot involving a moon-sized antimatter dude who wants to come eat the universe or something, starting with the Green Lantern Corps's home planet Oa. Highlights include the fact that one member of the Corps is a sentient planet. Which is awesome. It even has the standard Corps uniform. Yes, a planet in uniform. I wonder how it "wears" its ring? Sinestro (who is good at this point) is played by Jason Isaacs (suave as always), and, more importantly, Hal Jordan is played by Nathan Fillion.
- The panel consisted of three writers (including Geoff Johns again), the voice director, the executive producer, and the actor Wade Williams, who is best known from Prison Break. He has also done a number of voice acting jobs. Nathan Fillion was busy filming Castle, but he called the moderator and spoke over cell phone during the panel.
- The voice director/caster apparently had some difficulty getting in touch with Nathan Fillion to see if he could play the part given his busy schedule working on Castle. Eventually she asked one of the producers if he would text Nathan. A minute later he got the response "hell yeah!"
- During Nathan Fillion's recording sessions for the role, he asked the same producer to pause the screen for a minute, while he took a picture with his phone and texted someone. He had gotten a text from Ryan Reynolds (they're friends, apparently) saying that they had stolen one of the hair/makeup people from Castle, and that he wanted to keep her. N.F. responded with a picture of the the screen and microphone, and said "I've stolen the Green Lantern; I think I'm going to keep him."

Edit: I found the booth for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, but it was empty. I asked the people in the booth next to it, and they joked that SMBC wouldn't get there until Saturday Morning. Maybe it's true.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - pictures

WonderCon 2011 - Sunday

WonderCon 2011 - Saturday, Part II

Sunday, April 3, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - Saturday

Friday, April 1, 2011

WonderCon 2011 - Friday

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