I got back from Comic-Con a week ago, and I meant to post at least once while I was there, but I was pretty insanely busy. (If you don't believe I was actually doing work, check out the stuff I wrote up for AOL TV and Moviefone. Also a few boring blog posts.) And it's taken me a week to detox, for real.
The most striking aspect of Comic-Con isn't the suffocating mass of humanity you'll encounter there, or the costumes, or even the big stars and and exclusive scoop. It's the realization that Comic-Con is, more than anything else, a safe haven for geeks. I don't mean that as an insult. I just mean that over and over again you spot these people who, in high school, are surely being shunned or laughed at or beaten up; and at Comic-Con they're free to be themselves, and to know that everyone there accepts them for that -- whether they're dressed as Stormtroopers or just reveling in all the glorious geekdom that is Comic-Con.
So, too, is Comic-Con a place for fans, plain and simple. You won't find celebrities ducking and running here, or looking down on the little people. It's the one place I've seen where producers, stars, and directors seem delighted to have fans, and are unabashed in showing their gratitude in return. Even when they're being interrogated by a guy in a Batman outfit.
But enough about those other geeks. Here's what made me geek out at Comic-Con:
Hugh Jackman. It was the end of the Fox panel, and the moderator came on and said they had a "special surprise ... all the way from Australia ... Hugh Jackman!" Wow. Sometimes you think you aren't capable of being bowled over anymore, but then Hugh freakin' Jackman comes onstage and you're like a teenager who just got a wink from the star quarterback. He was so charming ("I owe everything to you guys"), so charismatic, that my long-ago, forgotten crush on the man came back in full force. I don't even care if he's gay. This guy's a star.
He was there to show fresh-from-editing footage of Wolverine, and it looked really good. I didn't even remember that Liev Schreiber is in the movie, but he plays Sabretooth, Wolverine's archrival. The best part by far? Two quick glimpses of Taylor Kitsch, aka Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights, who plays Gambit. Eeeeee! And hey, I wasn't even the only one squealing.
Twilight. And speaking of squealing ... I have to admit that prior to Comic-Con, I had vaguely heard of this movie Twilight, but I had no idea what it was about. To my credit, none of my colleagues did, either. And then the Twilight panel started, and the hall packed with 6,500 people -- 99% of whom seemed to be teenage girls -- started screaming at decibels that could shatter glass, if not my startled eardrums. And they didn't stop screaming. Ever. I've been to plenty of concerts in my day, but I do not exaggerate when I say I've never experienced anything like this. "It's like being at a Beatles concert," I wrote in my notes. Then I deleted "Beatles" and wrote "Jonas Brothers."
OK, so now I know that Twilight is based on a series of young adult novels about a teenage girl and the vampire boy who loves her. The girl is played by Kristen Stewart, perhaps best known as Jodie Foster's daughter in Panic Room; her vampire boyfriend is played by Robert Pattinson. "Oh my god, he's so beautiful, it's ridiculous," the girls behind me gasped; meanwhile, my friend Alexis and I were frantically trying to look up who the heck he was. Turns out he played Cedric in the Harry Potter movies. He looked slightly embarrassed to be the subject of so much adoration, getting questions like "What it's like to be so HOT?"; enjoy it now, I thought, because a few years from now when you're in rehab, you're going to look back on this as the best time in your life.
Heroes. This was the one that brought out the geeky fan in me. The line for the Heroes panel was literally a mile long -- and when I say literally, I mean an actual mile. The end of the line was way out in Seaport Village, where they dock boats. Seeing as how I hadn't camped out overnight like everybody else, I despaired of actually getting in; but fortunately I did, and the reward made the wait worthwhile. Not only did they bring out the entire cast -- who seemed psyched to be there basking in the fan-love, with Greg Grunberg and Adrian Pasdar even taking pictures of the crowd -- but then they unloaded one of the best surprises of the convention: the entire season premiere of Heroes. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but it was pretty great. And Maya's barely in it! Whoo!Furries. I'd been there about a day when my friend Jason texted me asking, "Seen any furries yet?" I texted back: "Is THAT what they are?" From then on, whenever I saw anyone in an animal costume, I couldn't help but think, "Oh my god, do they have sex like that??"
24. Yes, last season of 24 sucked, but Tony's back this season, and Carlos Bernard was at the panel, and I flove him. (I sense an mortifying theme to this post.) Kiefer Sutherland also looked terrific; I dare say that jail has agreed with him. The best part of the panel was when someone asked Kiefer, "I notice that you say 'dammit' a lot. Is that scripted, or improvised? And the second part of my question is, would you say 'Dammit, Cameron' to me?"
Kiefer said, "Let me address the second part of your question first." Then he carefully moved the microphone aside, leaned forward, and went, "DAMMIT CAMERON!" The room erupted. Even better, after he'd finished answering the first part of the question ("You can't swear on network TV ... and I needed some kind of expletive to express true frustration, whether that was not being able to control my 16-year-old daughter, or a nuclear bomb was going to go off"), the fan said thank you and started to walk off, and then Kiefer went, "DAMMIT CAMERON, DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME!"
Food. It makes no sense. You're going to cram over 100,000 people into a convention center, trap them there (because if you leave, you'll never get into some of these panels), and feed them nothing but pretzels, hot dogs and pizza? After two days, I would've killed for a nice sandwich. There's a prime money-making opportunity in Comic-Con concessions, folks. You can thank me later.
Lost. This panel was just the producers, and of course they didn't really reveal much of anything about next season -- they just finished the last one, after all -- but it was a pretty fun panel. They gave away prizes to everyone who asked a question, and they made sure that each prize was appropriate to the question. One fan who asked "How old is Richard Alpert, and how many toes does he have?" got a (pre-printed!) t-shirt that said, "I asked a Richard Alpert question and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Also, they said Jin will be back this season, so, yay; though it sounds like he is in fact dead, so, boo.
Watchmen. I was lucky enough to make it into this panel, which was one of the most popular of the convention, given the reverence with which fans regard the graphic novel. I've read the novel now, and the footage shown -- an extended, R-rated version of the trailer -- seemed faithful to the artwork, at least; and the cast seemed respectful of the original novel. That said, the director's Zack Snyder, and I didn't love 300, which was really kind of a stupid movie, so I'm not confident yet that Snyder can take on a complex work like this and make it into something more than a gorefest.
Really I just wanted to post this picture of someone dressed as Rorschach (a character from the novel) asking the panel a question. So meta! Also this one guy dressed as Batman asked a question, and the whole cast got a kick out of it. "Thank you, Batman," Billy Crudup would say. "So here's the thing, Batman ..."
Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Kevin's Smith's new movie, starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as best friends who decide to go into the amateur porn business. Hilarious panel. They showed a clip from the movie featuring Justin Long and Brandon Routh, and again I won't give too much away except to say that this clip contained the most quoted line of Comic-Con (by us, anyway), via the title of a porn film that Justin Long stars in: "Shut Your Mouth or I'm Going to Fuck It."
And that's it, more or less. Except that I accidentally ran into Seth Green (seriously, he comes up to my shoulder), and saw Michael C. Hall in the lobby of the Hard Rock (he looked sort of waxy and made up), and interviewed the guys from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (SO funny, I've got to watch the show now) and then got all fangirly because they recognized me later when they were heading into the EW party and I was failing to get in ("Hey, you changed clothes!" Glenn said), and saw Joshua Jackson at a different party (PACEY!), and spied Masi Oka in the lobby of my hotel, and spent one night until 3am partying with the publicists from ... well, what happens at Comic-Con, stays at Comic-Con, right?
