San Diego Comic Con 2015 - Part 2

So day two three begins and already we're tired and achey, but that's okay because I'm already excited! This day always opens up with the Animation Show of Shows, and I'm probably one of five people that actually enjoy this panel because I constantly forget that I'm actually a giant fan of independent animation. The panel started with Disney's short entitled "Feast" which had all the feel-good-lifey bits one would expect of the evil famous studio. See it below, as it is pretty much a short that samples exactly how I usually tend to feed my dogs:

It was also a nice addition because this is about the only bit of footage that Disney brought to Comic Con. My second favorite was 365 by The Brothers McLeod which was an amalgamation of randomness: 1 second animations for every day of 2013. You can see that here. There was also a very emotional Russian piece entitled "You Cannot Live Without Cosmos" which was beautiful and sad at the same time, and seemed to slightly take from the Russian space race back in the 1960s. Definitely worth a buy!

Next came The Walking Dead, which aside from a trailer really didn't offer a whole lot for the audience as far as I was concerned. The fatal flaw of panels like this is that the actors can never really say too much, or really anything at all about whatever it is they're working on, or about what's developing for the next season, so any questions that are ever asked tend to be pointless. The fruitlessness of it all was only made more poignant by Robert Kirman's absence, who could have probably at least fudged a few of these answers.

Fear The Walking Dead's panel felt like it brought a lot more to the conversation, granted not literally because those actors could say even less about the show, which is set to air on August 23rd. Still, as a Walking Dead fan I'm excited to see what this new show might bring to the table.

Then came Game of Thrones, which, as usual, warranted nothing of import save for a very funny story about President Obama asking season five final episode director David Nutter if Jon Snow was really dead.

After that as a quick Entertainment Weekly panel entitled Brave New Warriors, a male version of their Saturday panel Women Who Kick Ass, which enlisted a few actors I'd forgotten I knew, and many actors I never did know. Needless to say, the boys were all very charming and I was happy to see Kevin Durand in person(ish) sharing some wonderful stories about his experiences in the industry.

At the end of the day (Not really the end of the day...sorry Kevin Smith!) came what everyone was waiting for...Star Wars!

I tweeted at one point during this panel that I was very surprised that Chris Hardwick didn't have to stop and place his head between his knees while talking to the original Star Wars cast: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford. Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) even made an off stage appearance for a short while. The cast could, naturally not say anything about production, or even the plot, but there was a brief spoiler about the name of a certain Battle Cruiser: Starkiller, which most people probably know was the original surname of our dear Luke before it was changed at the last second to Skywalker (I think we're all rather grateful for that change).

The new cast included, but was not limited to: Gwendoline Christie ...

Domhall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and Daisy Ridley. Sadly, Simon Pegg was not present, but seeing him in the special footage shown at the panel was very exciting! This panel left me just buzzed enough and ready for more, and at the end everything wrapped up with a free Star Wars concert and, even better, a free light saber!

This is totally a thing.

For those of us who had to go back to line to wait for Saturday, we were later treated to a small battalion of Storm Troopers marching up the boardwalk, which was pretty cool. Meanwhile, poor Kevin Smith found what was likely an empty Hall H for his...thing he was doing.

Seriously, sorry Kevin!

So that brings us into... 

Saturday

More sidewalk sleeping.

Sunburns. God, the sunburns!

Dawn of Justice. I feel bad saying a whole lot about this, because the Warners Bros. panel trailers all hit the general public within a few hours of us seeing them in Hall H which really renders the need to read this entire paragraph more or less moot. The good news is that with the release of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Henry Cavill will not be in want of work for a while. The bad news is that Ben Affleck hasn't smiled once since he was cast as Batman. He'll likely smile less now given the matters of his personal life, too. On the other hand, FINALLY seeing Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman was fantastic, and I personally cannot wait to see her debut film. 

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies came next, and I have to say after seeing this trailer, I was really sad that I hadn't bothered reading the book. This one looks amazing, and if Lena Headey (Cercei Lannister anyone?) in Victorian garb and an eyepatch slaying zombies doesn't get you excited, then you my friend, have no soul! 

Next came the trailer for Patient Zero, which featured two Game of Thrones heavy hitters that surprised me: Natalie Dormer and John Bradley, who's character fate was spoiled rather early on for a film that's yet to be out. Still, Stanley Tucci has a starring role in this movie so my interest is piqued.

Oh hey there.

Quentin Tarantino talked the audience up for about an hour about The Hateful Eight which looked good, but I'm of a small, strange margin of people who actually like to hear Quentin Tarantino talk about movies more than I like to watch his movies. Still, until this day I'd never even heard of Ultrapanavision, and I'd seen Ben Hur (or part of it...once) so the new cinema treats Tarantino plans on applying to this movie should be fantastic, and he also announced that Hateful Eight will be the first movie he's ever made with its own soundtrack, put together by the amazing Ennio Morricone! If you haven't heard any of his scores before, educate yourself now.

Next came Legendary with Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak, which I will likely forever confuse with David Lynch's show Twin Peaks based on the semi-similar names and that they're both pseudo horror in genre categorization. Warcraft the Movie left many people screaming for more (I was not one of them) Krampus (interest is piqued) and Great Wall wrapped up this panel.

Then there was Women Who Kick Ass, another Entertainment Weekly panel that, like Brave New Warriors, picks up a few women who play (predictably enough) kick ass female roles. The best part about that panel? Gwendoline Christie revealed that the punch to Rory McCann's unmentionables during Game of Thrones season three was in fact a real hit, requested by McCann himself (as to why, we may never know).

Joss Whedon then talked at us for about half an hour, which was okay, I guess. It was mostly him defending himself after Avengers: Age of Ultron but I was still entertained. Mostly.

Now, the wrap up. 20th Century Fox.

Fantastic Four. Deadpool. X-Men.

I don't care about Fantastic Four. I never have, and I never will. So sorry if you're a fan, but I'm skipping over this part. 

If you're actually still reading this, you probably saw the leaked Deadpool trailer with Ryan Reynolds. All I can say is that I'm happy that we're finally going to have a real, raunchy, MAX-esque Marvel movie with probably one of the must underrated (or overrated, going by the words of a man I later overheard saying that he thought Deadpool could go f*** himself - even though the Warcraft trailer had made said man cry...) characters in comic book history. I'm also glad to see Reynolds having so much passion for this role. I'm certain he's going to kill it. You know, in a good way. Chimichangas!

This could seriously be the entire movie and I'd still be okay with that.

Finally: X-Men.

I have yet to see Days of Future Past (bite me, I'm waiting for the Rogue cut edition!) but I loved First Class, and I'm excited to see a break from the norm in the franchise and refresh the character list a bit. I'm not entirely sold on Sansa Stark Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, but I'm more than willing to be proven wrong. I didn't particularly like the look of Apocalypse however, and I'm honestly kind of hoping for an appearance of Mr. Sinister who, as someone who mostly watched the cartoons growing up, is probably one of the more iconic X-Men villains in my opinion. But I digress. 

After seeing the trailer I'm not entirely sure where this film is going to leave the franchise. I know that we're going to be seeing a recast of Wolverine now that Jackman's too old for the role (I am totally on board with an Old Man Logan movie however!) and while I understand, that also makes me nervous. Wolverine cannot be an easy character to play, add to that notion the fact that he's such a huge fan favorite and the pressure intensifies. I hope we see a few more unknowns added to the cast, but mostly I just hope that this is the one Marvel franchise that Fox won't ruin before Marvel can finally and properly get their hands back on the IP. 

That being said, X-Men appropriately wrapped up my Comic Con experience for 2015. I was sorry to see it go, but considering I'm still getting over my illness that I obtained after days of being outside in the cold with wet hair and massive levels of exhaustion, I'm happy that the next con is a year or more away, if we go next year at all.