SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2011!

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 7/20/11 at 4:15am

and so it begins!!! Tonight is preview night and I'm hoping to get into the screening of the new J.J. Abrams's pilot of Alcatraz... this week is going to be CRAZY! Anyone else going??

[MotorTink]

Posted: 7/20/11 at 7:58am

I wish I was going! Please keep us posted.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 7/21/11 at 3:27am

I will post just because...

so tonight was preview night... i saw the pilot screening of JJ Abram's new show ALCATRAZ... i really enjoyed it... it does create good intrigue and mystery and a good mythology that will form as the series progresses... i like the direction they are going with the disappearance of the inmates and guards and it excites me to see why they disappeared... just another great show by JJ Abrams

i also saw the pilot for CWs new show The Secret Circle... which was basically Vampire Diaries with witches... i think the same author wrote it... but definitely Kevin Williamson developed the show... it was pretty decent... typical CW show with the independent music always playing to sell some CDs.. haha... the show had a good mystery to solve and i'll maybe watch it if i have the time

also saw the pilot episode of Supernatural Anime... it was decent... i love anime but it always makes me sleepy.. it's basically the show in anime.. reusing old episodes but in anime form

and that's what i did today!

Thursday I am doing some panels... hopefully get to see Pee-Wee who they announced will be having a panel at 1:15pm! EXCITING!

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/21/11 at 8:21am

While you're in San Diego, I highly recommend the production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. I was in SD a couple of weeks ago, and I am very glad I found time to see it. If you like scenery chewing, you'll LOVE John Cariani as Dogberry.

[MotorTink]

Posted: 7/21/11 at 8:25am

Yes, Secret Circle is from the same author as TVD. I have not read that series yet but the show looks promising. TVD has become such an amazing show so if they stick with the same formula it should be good.

Heh, I don't like anime but would watch the Supernatural one. It'd be better then reading the companion books they came out with for the series. Awful!

I've been checking TVline often. Can't wait for details from the TVD, SOA, Supernatural and Community panels!

[sally1112]

Posted: 7/23/11 at 6:58pm

I too am in vacation in SD. No tickets to Comic-Con but went to it and walked around. Was lucky enough to see Rob Lowe outside filming a "commercial" for Butterfinger and got some free tee-shirts.

On a theater level:
Tried to go to La Jolla Playhouse to see "Sleeping Beauty Wakes,"
but couldn't get tix. Tonite we are going to go to Diversionary Theater to see some gay play.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 7/23/11 at 8:57pm

I cannot believe The Vampire Diaries has become one of must watches while True Blood got relegated to guilty pleasure. When TVD premiered, I thought it would be at best the other way around, or just not caring at all for TVD. But damn, Kevin Williamson knows how to write a 42 minute episode without breaking a sweat. The Secret Circle previews have been playing on TVD re-runs constantly but it does look interesting, if only for Thomas Dekker in the cast.

The Walking Dead footage shown at Comic-Con definitely had me really pumped, far more than the 'preview' during the Breaking Bad premiere. The tension shown in just a few seconds of those clips reminded me why I loved Season 1 so much (but I really hope a certain character gets it like it happened in the first edition of the comic series).

Terra Nova got a preview to good reviews. I have a FOAF who is working on that show so I hope it is the goods and gets good ratings. I am still skeptical of this show because Jason O'Marra is the leading man and I cannot shake off the Americanized Life on Mars from my memory, but dinosaurs and Stephen Lang could be a good distraction.

It may just be me but after The Amazing Spiderman teaser went like a lead balloon, I found Andrew Garfield's testimony to loving Spiderman that blew up on the web recently to be a little bit... calculated, if only to soothe tensions about getting an actor who cares about the project. We had that moment at Comic-Con last year when Ryan Reynolds did the Green Lantern oath to a young fan. Sorry, the movie has to actually be the goods and brooding Peter Parker is not what I want.

The only movie buzz I was really interested in, besides the superhero fare, was Ridley Scott's unofficial prequel to Alien, Prometheus. The cast, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, and Noomi Rapace already had me pumped so the footage getting people excited is like a cherry on top.

Awake and The River got immediate buzz from the first teaser previews and the industry word of mouth along with the panels from Comic-Con continue to push momentum for both. Hopefully these shows do get a general audience.

And somewhere lost in the shuffle was The Beavis and Butthead return to TV panel. I remember hearing the announcement over a year ago and thought the idea got scrapped.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 7/23/11 at 11:12pm

so today i went to the CHUCK panel... so sad that it's their lost con

saw the pilot for TERRA NOVA and let me say.. AMAZING! I cannot wait to see the second part... it is such an incredible pilot... well worth the wait... i didn't even know we were going to get to watch it.. i just thought it would be some footage but it was the first hour!

The Vampire Diaries was OK... nothing special or important was talked about... rather boring

FRINGE panel was AWESOME! Joshua Jackson made a surprise appearance dressed as the Observer... they had a video of people auditioning to be the next Peter and it had stars like Michael Emerson, Jorge Garcia, Damon Lindelof, Greg Grunberg, Zachary Quinto, Danny Pudi and Rebecca Mader to name a few... it was a hilarious video... the cast also gave a little few hints about next season... it was a fun panel!

yesterday i saw the LOST ON YEAR LATER panel and that was just hilarious... Damon and Carlton Cuse made a surprise appearance and were just wonderful in answering questions about the show one year later and about the expectations that were met or not met by the fans... a great way to revisit a series that I loved tremendously

other than that i walked around the convention to get my free swag

tomorrow, the last day, I am going to see the GLEE panel and IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA... should be fun!

oh and i will also say on Thursday they had an open bar/beer garden across the street with free food... it was the Final Destination 5 studio party... it was awesome!

I LOVE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON!

[Adam Chris]

Posted: 7/24/11 at 12:41am

I also love Comic-Con and of the opinon it should stay in my beautiful city of San Diego in the years to come.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 7/24/11 at 8:21am

as much as I agree... if san diego doesn't get their act together... we are going to lose comic-con! it's insane.. you spend half the time waiting in line just to get into a panel! i literally spent 7 hours in Ballroom 20 just to watch a Fringe panel and that doesn't include the four hours i spent in line to get into the room at 10am!!!!!! The Convention Center really needs to be expanded!

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/24/11 at 9:08am

I watched the Game of Thrones panel on YouTube. You can hear people in the background bitching about not being able to get in and someone keeps repeating that it's a fire marshal thing. They are going to have to improve the venue.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 7/24/11 at 4:58pm

I kept on hearing they had a bigger venue available and there was actually concern about how empty it would look to a lot of panels based on audience sizes (the venue was either 2,000 more seats or just 2,000 seats). I guess certain shows did not have that room booked (I think it was whatever room Glee has/had, which people expected to fill up).

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 7/25/11 at 4:48am

Hall H is the 6200 seater hall and Ballroom 20 is the 4200 seater... I think... either way... Hall H is generally reserved for movies and Ballroom 20 for tv shows... this is the first year Hall H was used on a Sunday and it housed GLEE and other tv shows.. the weird thing is that several hundred chairs were removed making the seating capacity smaller which made no sense to me...

anyway... a lot of people were complaining about the fire marshall... it was quite annoying... the problem with these panels is that you have people attending several panels just for theirs... for example today was the Supernatural panel but the Dr. Who panel came right after... a lot of people will go to the panels before just to get a seat at their panel... this makes the room filled with more people who don't want to see Supernatural and it leaves those that want to see it waiting to get in... it kinda sucks... basically all you had were Dr. Who fans at a Supernatural panel

i went to the talkback panel today and the people were ripping apart this year's comic-con... they did not have their sh*t together this year... it was poorly executed and the communication was horrible as the pregistration for 2012 was a NIGHTMARE! rooms were overcrowded... people spent more time in lines then they did in actual panels and in the exhibition hall...

although I was upset about many things this year... i was happy that I still went... i was one of the lucky people who get a badge for next year so i'm pretty excited

it was a good Comic-Con... probably my least favorite in the past four years but still good

[strummergirl]

Posted: 7/25/11 at 6:23pm

Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg from the Firewall and Iceberg podcast went to Comic-Con and reflect on their experience. They talk at great length of how bad the estimations were about the TV panel turnout.

Comic-Con Podcast Take 2