niamu

Brendon Walsh
Did I Fall Asleep?

Did I Fall Asleep?

2009-11-08

So this post has been a long time coming and I'm forcing myself to throw this together now before I lose all interest.

So let's just pretend that this is a bit more timely than it actually is.

My dad and I took a trip down to San Diego this past July for Comic-Con. Unfortunately, we only had passes for the Friday, but this is what we saw...

Stargate Universe

I ended up sitting in on this panel accidentally. Shortly after wandering around the HUGE Con for a while and seeing the sites we returned back up to Ballroom 20 where all of the big panels were being hosted. So many people with Battlestar Galactica uniforms were wandering in to Ballroom 20 I assumed that the conference room was already filling up for the BSG/Caprica panel. Not realizing that these fans might have other Sci-Fi interests, I followed them in and stumbled upon a panel with Robert Carlyle and the rest of the cast of Stargate Universe.

Stargate Portal

In all honesty, I had very little exposure to the Stargate series until this moment and more unfortunately, after witnessing the panel I am fairly comfortable keeping it that way.

I really didn't get much out of the panel. I had no idea what they were talking about and if it weren't for Robert Carlyle on the panel, I probably wouldn't have payed any attention to it at all.

I've since tried to get into this season, but it just wasn't something I could get interested in. I might be able to change my mind if someone passionate enough about the series stated their case. This tactic has worked on me before with both House and BSG.

BSG/Caprica

Moving on to more awesome matters, the Battlestar Galactica/Caprica panel followed on the heels of the Stargate Universe panel.

For your viewing pleasure, I had the foresight to record the event in it's entirety on the FlipHD. Please forgive the poor camera work in regards to me attempting to be sneaky and record the exclusive trailers. But I was trying hard not to get kicked out at the same time. You're not missing anything that hasn't been released as an official trailer since though. It's just nice to capture the crowd vibes during those screenings.

This was an absolutely incredible panel. It was much deeper than the typical "Yeah, we're happy to be here and thanks for watching." The only thing that could have made this better would have been a spontaneous "So say we all" chant at the end of the panel. But I'll settle for Edward James Olmos' voice as he says "Blu-Ray."

Interlude

The Big Bang Theory was next in Ballroom 20. But we skipped that panel in the interest of making the most of our time and seeing as much awesome cosplay as possible.

Who you gonna call?

At this point we just had the Dollhouse panel and the Totally Rad Show to look forward to. We had a few hours to waste away, so we tried our luck getting into Hall H where all the action takes place and the big reveals are made, but the line was going to take a few hours to get through and as it was wrapped way outside the building, I decided to fight off skin cancer and wander around the booths inside more.

The cray line for Hall H

Dollhouse

Joss Whedon, for all his trials and tribulations with network television, is one hell of a superstar. The Dollhouse panel was by far the most packed and enthusiastic of the lot.

I recall planning out the day we'd have at Comic-Con when I bought the tickets and making specific note of the Dollhouse panel. Though the information overload I was dealing with that day allowed me to forget my reasons for being there until Joss came up on stage and told us all we'd be watching Epitaph One together. All several thousand of us in this huge room. What happened next was one of my favourite moments of the Con by far...

I love that episode so much and experiencing it for the first time with several thousand amazing Whedon fans with Buffy & Firefly shirts and Dr. Horrible costumes can not be topped.

Unfortunately, Joss was accompanied by Eliza Dushku for the panel and her presence at her first Comic-Con did not help her rapport. She was extremely out of place next to Joss and couldn't seem to understand that it was an audience of geeky fans rather than generic audience that was there to see a pretty girl laugh and show cleavage (though that wouldn't have been too bad if I wasn't sitting so far back...)

The Totally Rad Show

I think this was the panel I was looking forward to the most. 3 guys who host a show on Revision3 and just talk about TV, Movies, Comics and Videogames. They are pretty much my window in what movies I should be checking out and whether or not there are better TV shows coming along that I should tune into.

Totally Rad Show Comic Art

Alex, Jeff and Dan are really a representation of the ultimate geeks. Each one of them has an area of interest greater than the other. Alex is the TV guy. Dan is the movie guy. Jeff is the Videogame/comic guy.

If you want to check out the episode and see what I was there to see, check out TRS #123 and be sure to scrub through frame by frame looking for me and my dad on the audience shots.

When the panel was over I got EXTREMELY nervous as I made my way out and hung out briefly with the hosts as they chatted up with fans of the show on their way out to a bar to hang out more with them.

Me less than 5 feet from these rad guys

My blurry photos of them show exactly how nervous I was to be in their presence.

All in all, this was a fantastic experience. I don't know if I could do it again though. The day is extremely exhausting and the lines do not get any easier to cope with as the day goes on. Maybe next year I'll try PAX. who's in?