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.