Pat’s Adventures At The San Diego Comic Con 2009 - Thursday

 

The second day of Con, technically the first full day, started off early.  I had to get up and get my ass to the Convention because my good friends Matt, Wes and Jesse were putting on a panel called the Fan's Guide To Comic Con.  It started at 10am sharp, and I wasn't going to miss it.

 

10:00am:  The Fan's guide begins on time and the jokes start flying right off the bat.  This is the third year that the Fan's Guide as been put on by my friends, and they're getting better each and every year.  Along with their scrpits that are chock full of actual helpful Con information and advice for both newbies and veterans alike, the audience is also treated to a hilarious slide show presentation that highlights a number of the jokes and adds some great visual gags to the information being presented by the panelists.

 



 

Aside from a small hiccup with the slideshow, which was quickly fixed by Comic Con's staff, the show went off brilliantly and those who attended walked out laughing and having been highly entertained.  I'm sure they'll be seeing a lot of return audience members next year.  This really is a hidden jewel at the convention that shouldn't be missed.

 

11:00am:  After the Fan's Guide panel, my friend Gin and I headed over to get in early for a Battlestar Galactica Panel which started in about an hour and a half.  As Comic Con has gotten busier and busier, it has become wise strategy to get into a room way before the panel you want to see starts, even if that means sitting through a panel you don't know anything about or care about.  It's far better to sit through a panel you could care less for than getting stuck outside the room for the panel you wanted to see because the line for it got crazy busy right before it was set to start.  And who knows, you may just end up being suprised by the unknown panel you sit through.

 

That's what happened here.  We got into the room right as a panel for a cancelled TV show called The Middleman was about to start.  I remember sort of seeing ads for the show when it came out, but had never actually seen an episode before.  I really didn't know what the show was about, to be honest.  As I had said, the show had been cancelled after 12 episodes and the 13th episode (the season finale) never got made.  Much like many panels at Con though, the fans of the show were rabid and demanded to see more and the creator and stars of the show were more than happy to oblige them by doing a full script reading of the unaired 13th episode.

 



 

So as I sat and waited for the Battlestar Panel to start in an hour I listened to the Middle Man panel doing their script reading, and god damn if I wasn't hooked by the story in about five minutes.  Even though I had no idea who the characters were, I was able to follow the story and piece it together pretty quick.  Middle Man was a Sci-fi/action/comedy series about two secret agents who fight space aliens, monsters, robots and the occasional mad scientist as they fight to save the world every day.  The hero was your classic square jawed, milk drinking, non swear word using kind of guy.  A real Captain America type.  His partner was a more modern, hip-talking woman with an attitude and the abilities to back it up.   Together they were facing an evil genius who was determined to mold the world into his own design.  The story was funny and had interesting and likable characters.  The dialogue was downright hilarious.  It was a mix of classic sci-fi and comedy that was just perfectly my sense of humor.  And the actors?  Oh they were great!  They really got into their characters and you could actually feel how much they loved playing these people.  Plus, the main villain was played by Mark Sheppard, the same actor who played Badger from Firefly and Romo Lampkin from Battlestar, and that was just awesome.

 



 

The Panel ended up being a really good time, and I'm seriously glad I stumbled upon it.  It's now left me wanting more.  I will be checking out the newly released DVD set soon.  I think I've found a new show to love.

 

12:30:  The Battlestar Galactica Retrospective panel is now beginning.  This isn't the big BSG panel about the upcoming movie called The Plan.  That's tomorrow.  This panel is more of a fan appreciation panel and general discussion of BSG.  It's hosted by Rochard Hatch, the actor who played the original Apollo from the old BSG Series as well as the great character Tom Zarek on the new BSG Series.  Joining him on the panel is the new BSG's composer, the amazingly talented Bear McCreary.  Aside from BSG, Bear has also done the music for other shows like Eureka and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Also on the panel is one of BSG's producers and the show's science consultant.

 

The panel begins with a video package discussing the history of Battlestar and its impact on both fans and the sci-fi genre.  It's a cool little video which features clips from interviews of the stars and production people from both the old and new show.  After the video, Richard Hatch comes out and talks for a few minutes about working on both shows.  He then brings out the rest of the panelists and then they basically take questions from the audience for the rest of the panel.  Typically, I'm not a big lover of fan Q&A's because most fan questions tend to be rather dumb in my opinion.  I know this is just a personal thing with me, but good and intelligent questions seem incredibly rare to me during these types of events. 

 



 

However, one really cool piece of information does come out during this particular Q&A.  It turns out that Bear McCreary is playing a series of Battlestar Galactica Concerts for the next three nights while at Con.  The concerts are being held over at the Hard Rock Cafe, will feature 17 musicians who worked on the show's music performing pieces live, and will be held both tonight, Friday night and Saturday.  Bear also promises special guests from the show for each night.  Tonight, Katie Sackhoff (Starbuck from BSG) is going to be showing up to perform a piano duet during the show.  Tickets for the show are $55, but they give everyone at the panel $10 off coupons. 

 

I really would love to go to tonight's show, but unfortunately the concert starts at 8pm and I'm scheduled to be on the GeekRoundTable panel at that time.  Gin really wants to go though, and she proceeds to spend the next few hours trying to talk me into going either Friday night or Saturday night.

 

1:30:  After the BSG Panel, we head back downstairs and get in line for freebies at the Paramount booth.  I'm still determined to get my tribble, or at the very least these large foam hands they're giving out which are giving the Vulcan salute.  Sadly, there are no tribbles to be had, but Gin and I are thankfully able to pick up the large Vulcan hands. 

 

I, obviously, am elated.

 



 

2:00pm:  With our large foam Vulcan hands securely in our possession, we decide it's time to head off for lunch.  There's really only one place I want to go, the Old Spaghetti Factory!  It had been a Comic Con tradition of old that I made it there at least once every con for their tasty pasta dishes, but a few years back the city of San Diego had shut down the restaurant (which was conveniently located less than a block from the convention center) and replaced it with a crappy, overpriced restaurant when they rebuilt most of downtown around the new Padres Ballpark.  I had been truly saddened at this loss and had spent the last few years at Con bemoaning the loss of one of my favorite eateries. 

 

Somehow though, the gods of tasty foodstuffs had smiled upon me and had re-opened the Old Spaghetti Factory right back in the original building it used to be in.  I can't even tell you how happy this made me.  So it was with a happy skip to my step that we left the convention center and made our way down 5th Avenue for lunch.  What with all of the Comic Con pedestrian traffic nowadays, the city shuts down 5th Avenue for a block or so from the convention and advertisers have descended upon this empty street in droves hocking their TV shows and movies.  The outdoors equivalent of booth babes are everywhere passing out flyers and cards.  Girls in cheerleader costumes are advertising the Megan Fox film Jennifer's Body, Playboy has playmate models out signing autographs and giving out free Big Stick popscicles and other women dressed in t-shirts that say "Fang Banger" on them are passing out stuff for HBO's show True Blood.

 

Hands down though, the single best bit of marketing I've ever seen at Con before goes to the SyFy Channel (yeah, I still hate the new name).  These guys went all out.  As I'm walking up the street towards my tasty spaghetti goodness, I come to a stop when I see this bit of unexpectedness.

 



 

It's a cardboard standee of the character Jo from the SyFy Channel TV show Eureka (which I love).  Standing next to her on a small cafe's patio are a series of cardboard standees featuring other characters from the show as well.  When I get to the cafe's door, I am completely floored as it finally sinks in what I'm seeing here.  They've built the full restaurant from Eureka called Cafe Diem.

 



 

Somehow, the SyFy Channel has rented out an empty restaurant less than a block from the convention center and has rebranded it as their fictional restaurant from the town of super geniuses.  It's one of the most entertaining bits of marketing I've ever seen.  It's even a fully functional restaurant too, complete with a menu of SyFy TV show themed items.

 



 

All of the chairs have Cafe Diem logos on them, and there's a big screen inside playing clips from different SyFy TV series'.  My hat goes off to the folks at SyFy.  They may have picked the most retarded station name ever, but somehow they still know how to pull off an amazing bit of unique marketing greatness.

 

However, as awesome as all that is, they're charging $15 for a hamburger, so I still elect to go to  the Old Spaghetti Factory.  I am, afterall, a cheap bastard.

 

4:00pm:  After lunch, with a happy belly full of pasta, Gin and I had finally agreed to go see the Battlestar Concert on Friday night, so we needed to walk up to the Hard Rock Cafe (about 10 blocks away) to go get tickets.  On the way up we noticed a long line winding through the streets of downtown SD.  We didn't really know what it was, and we didn't really pay it too much attention.  After having gotten the tickets though and as we were heading back down towards the convention center, we ran across the line again, this time we were coming down 6th Avenue.  That meant this one line wound up and between 5th and 6th Avenues, switched back at the top of downtown and then came all the way back down 6th Ave. almost all the way to the convention center.  This line had to be almost two miles long.

 

Walking by the people in the line, it became apparent pretty quickly what these people were waiting for.  The vast majority of the line were teenage or adult women, and a lot of them were wearing Twilight t-shirts.  We stopped and asked what the line was for and were told the movie theater downtown was having a screening of the first Twilight film with members of the cast on hand.  I couldn't believe the line was as long as it was.  In all of the years I've been going to SDCC I've never seen a line this long.  It was freaky. 

 

Now feeling frightened by the scary Twilight crowd, I quickly moved on and returned to the relative safety of the convention center.

 

5:30pm:  Having underestimated the number of people who would want to see the Physics of Hollywood Movies panel, I arrive to find the door blocked by a Comic Con volunteer who informs me the room is full.  After a few minutes of talking to the kind gentleman at the door, I am able to make it inside  and find seats at the very back of the room which some people had just vacated.  The panel itself is interesting and kind of funny.  The host is a physics professor who proceeds to show us clips from popular Sci-fi and comic book films and then explains how the physics behind them are totally wrong. 

 

As an example, in the first Spider-man film, when Peter Parker tries to swing on a web for the first time and he swings face first into a brick wall . . . the panel's host shows that clip, then takes us through the physics equations to find out how fast Peter hit that wall and how much force he hit it with.  It turns out that he hit the wall at around 50 miles per hour, and unless he somehow also managed to have some super healing factor like Wolverine has, that trip into the wall should have shattered every bone in his body. 

 

As amusing as this panel was though, there's another one starting at 6:30 that I want to see, so we head out a little early to make sure we can get seats into that one.

 

6:00pm:  I'm now seated and waiting for the Anthropology of Star Trek panel to begin.  It's being put on by an anthropology professor from Lake Tahoe Community College and a couple of his students.  He's the same guy who did the Archaeology of Indiana Jones panel at Wonder Con last year that was fairly amusing. 

 

This time around, he's discussing topics like religion, culture, racism and the effects of technology on what it means to be human in the world of Star Trek and how it all relates back to us in the real world.  Some interesting topics are brought up and there's a goodly amount of debate with the audience on what certain things mean.  Sadly though, I have to leave this panel early too.  It's almost time for the GeekRoundTable panel, and since I'm actually supposed to be on that panel, it would be sort of bad if I missed it.

 

7:00pm:  I'm the first to arrive in the room for our panel, but our fearless moderator Ned Cato Jr. quickly arrives after me.  We discuss some last minute itinerary things as the room fills in and the rest of the panel shows up, and at 7:30pm we begin.

 

We start things off by having each panelist give our Geek Cred for the last week.  For those of you who haven't listened to any of the GeekRoundTable podcasts (shame on you), the Geek Cred is where we say the geekiest thing we'd done in the last week.  For me, it was buying a big screen TV and making sure Star Wars Episode IV was the very first thing that got played on it.  As a side note, seeing the Star Destroyer roll across the top of a 47" LCD screen is something so beautiful that it brought a tear to my eye.

 

After the Geek Cred, we move onto our first topic of Geek Stereotypes in popular media.  This is a continuation of the same topic we discussed in episode XX of the Geek-tastic podcast.  This time though, we get the audience in on it and get a really good discussion going about the topic.  This goes for about 30 minutes or so, and then we move on to the second main topic for the evening.  The Era of the Reboot.  Ned asks the room and the people on the panel what they think of all of the reboots and remakes we're seeing nowadays in Hollywood.  Has Hollywood run out of ideas?  Are they just trying to capitalize on pre-established fan bases?  Another great debate is had with the audience giving us their two cents and the panelists responding and adding in their own ideas. 

 

At one point, Ned even decides to tell the audience a secret about Comic Con,but he makes everyone in the room and stand up first and pinky swear never to repeat it.

 



 

See?  Aren't you sad you missed the GeekRoundTable panel now?  Now you'll never know what that totally awesome secret was.

 

As we wrapped things up, Matt and Wes told some absolutely hilarious stories from Comic Cons past involving a friend of theirs who had unfortunately passed away recently.  It was a great tribute to a fellow geek and the tales had the whole room in stitches, especially the song their friend had sung about the Green Lantern Corps using the Gay Rights Inch Worm Beanie Babie.

 

Even though we were only scheduled for a 60 minute panel, we ran for a little over 90 minutes total and a lot of fun was had.  We were the last panel of the day for that room, so it's ok we went a little long.

 

9:30pm:  It had been a very long day, and I hadn't gotten much sleep the day before, so I decided not to partake any of the nightlife that evening.  Instead it was off to sleep because I knew tomorrow was going to be even longer.