Just a quick note for those of you who haven't seen all of the new Battlestar Galactica Series yet. I mention a MAJOR SPOILER when discussing the BSG panel during the 11:55am portion of this post. If you don't want the end of the series ruined for you, consider this your SPOILER WARNING!!! Feel free to skip past that part of the review. The rest of it is spoiler free.
Ok, let's get this thing started.
Friday
What with the Battlestar Concert that was surely going to run a little late into the evening tonight, and with the fact that I was going to have to drive back from San Diego up to Orange County afterwards so I could attend my friend's wedding the next day, I knew today was going to be a long and busy day. As such, I slept in a little bit and didn't make it to the Convention Center until about half an hour after the exhibit hall opened.
10:30am: Upon arriving at the convention, my friend Gin and I once again wander the sales floor for a while looking for cool things to look at and any boothes possibly giving away free schwag. I'm also on the lookout for any interesting stuff to take pictures of. Comic Con is an amazing place for taking really strange but cool photos.
Case in point.
After wandering around for a bit, Gin decided she wanted to go upstairs to see if she could get in line for the big Battlestar Galactica/Caprica panel that was going on at 11:45am. I wasn't so sure this was something I would care to do though because as much as I did want to see the big BSG panel, it was being held in Ballroom 20 (the second biggest room at the Con after Hall H) and what with the panel starting in less than an hour I figured the chances of the line to get in already being incredibly long were probably pretty good. I told her though that I would walk up with her to see what the line looked like and that if it wasn't crazy long I would try to get into the panel with her.
11:10am: So it was with much skepticism that I walked upstairs with her to see how things looked on the second floor. I must say that I was completely shocked to see almost no line whatsoever going into Ballroom 20. I don't know what happened, but somehow we were able to get into the line for the BSG panel and in about 10 minutes time were only eleven people away from the front of the line. I figured with less than 30 minutes to go at this point, all we had to do was wait for the current panel in the room (Stargate Universe) to let out and we'd be in there in no time.
11:30am: As we stood there near the front of the line, waiting to be let into the room, the line slowly but surely filled in behind us to the length that I had originally expected when I came upstairs. Before I knew it, the line wrapped all the way down the long hallway we were in and went outside and wrapped back in on itself. It definitely achieved crazy long status.
I couldn't believe our luck. Somehow, we had managed to walk upstairs at just the right moment to beat the mad rush to get into Ballroom 20. There was a solidly good chance that a lot of the people behind us in line weren't going to get into the BSG/Caprica panel. I hadn't planned on going into any of the big TV show panels this year at Comic Con because of the lines, yet here I was about to get into one after having waited in line for less than 30 minutes or so.
There's only one word to describe this feeling . . . . . w00t!!!
Oh, also . . . cool highlight of waiting in line. As I'm standing there I see Admiral William Adama himself (actor Edward James Olmos) walk by with his small entourage. No one else in line had noticed him yet, and he was looking right at us. Now, I'm not usually one to get starstruck and I hate it when people go crazy fanboy around people from popular sci-fi shows, but it's not every day that I turn my head and see the man who played the leader of the human race from one of my favorite shows. I completely blanked on what to do, so in a completely lame move the best I could come up with was waving at him and saying "Hello!" in a voice that probably sounded overly friendly. He waved back and said hi as he and his crew walked past. I instantly was annoyed with myself for not being cooler and coming up with something witty or intelligent to say to him in the moment I had. That moment faded though. Afterall, the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet and who hunted down Replicants in Blade Runner just waved at me and said hi.
Ok, so I do get geeky starstruck sometimes, and this was definitely one of those moments. At least I didn't freak out though and say something stupid like, "Oh my God! Admiral! I love you!" That would have been really bad. Just waving and saying hello, while entirely unoriginal, was at least fairly simple and wasn't in any way crazy or super fanboyish.
11:45am: The panel is supposed to be beginning, but they haven't opened the doors yet. I begin to get slightly concerned.
11:50am: Still no movement. The panel must have started by now. I am fully worried now that we might not make it in afterall and my original worries may have been well founded.
11:55am: The doors to the panel are finally opened and we are led in by security people as a trailer for Caprica plays above us. I'm annoyed to see somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred empty seats near the back of the room. I was suddenly left wondering why the doors couldn't have been opened five or ten minutes ago if there was this much space to be had in the Ballroom.
Whatever. At this point I was just happy to be in the room. We took some seats near the back of the room and as the trailer ended, the panel officially started up, so thankfully we didn't miss much more than the introductions of the panelists (and as I would find out later, the trailer for the upcoming BSG movie The Plan).
On the panel was Ronald D. Moore, the creater of the new version of BSG and a producer of some of my favorite sci-fi TV shows of all time such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space nine. You know that t-shirt that has been fairly popular for a little while know that says "Joss Whedon is my master now" in a sort of Empire Strikes Back font? Well to me that t-shirt is crap because it should read "Ronald D. Moore is my master now". If you disagree with me, go compare Mr. Moore's IMDB listing to Mr. Whedon's and you'll see why the former deserves our love much more than that latter. I'm not knocking Joss Whedon here. I love his work too. I'm just saying that Ronald Moore's work has had such a bigger impact on the whole of Geekdom, and yet somehow he's not getting properly recognized for it and that bugs me.
Also on the panel is BSG and Caprica producer David Eick, writer Jane Espensen (who's written for Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, BSG and Caprica), actor Esai Morales (who stars in Caprica Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama from BSG and the director of the upcoming film The Plan) and last but certainly not least, the stunningly beauful and talented actress Grace Park (Boomer/Athena/Every #8 Model Cylon).
The panel is being moderated by someone from the SyFy network and she starts things off by asking questions to the panelists about the new upcoming Caprica series, what it's like to work on, how it's different from BSG and stuff like that. Both Ronald Moore and David Eick stress repeatedly that Caprica is nothing like BSG, yet it will still be something both BSG fans and new fans alike will be able to enjoy. They say that you don't need to have watched BSG first before watching Caprica, and that the new show stands on its own as a complete series.
The discussion then moves on to the upcoming BSG film The Plan that Edward James Olmos directed. He makes a number of bold statements about how this film will change how you view the whole of the BSG series and how after watching it, you'll want to go back and rewatch the series again in order. He also jokingly suggests over and over again that you buy the series again as it comes out on Blu-ray because then the people at the SyFy network will love you so much.
My favorite moment from the panel though came from one of the most interesting connections that Olmos made as he was discussing his thoughts on the BSG series. He brought up the fact that in the BSG series, one of the running themes of the show was how "All of this has come before, and all will come again". It's a mantra repeated many times throughout the series, about how the rise of technoloy and man's inevitable fight with it is a cycle that repeats itself over and over. He then points out that after having seen the series finale, BSG's story states that the survivors of the Human and Cylon conflict become our ancient ancestors after landing on Earth 150,000 years in the past. Then, at the very end of the last episode, we are shot to modern day where we are given a stern warning against the modern rise of technology and how we're beginning to dabble in self-aware robots that could once again make all that has come before come again.
To see that happen, he says, immediately after finishing the last episode of BSG, pop a copy of Blade Runner in and watch as "a descendent of Admiral William Adama's hunts down intelligent machines". It's a brilliant connection that I hadn't really thought about before. BSG ends on the planet Earth way in the past, but in the last episode we see that modern culture is descended from them. Blade Runner takes place on Earth in the future, so technically the two properties could be said to exist in the same universe (about 150,000 years apart). Therefore, Replicants are the result of the decendants of Humans and Cylons working to make a race of machines once again. That idea is so cool to me that it will forever affect how I view Blade Runner.
My mind was officially blown at that point. Way to go Admiral Adama!
The rest of the panel was Q & A with the audience, which I've mentioned before I'm not the biggest fan of. Overall though, the panel was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I got to see it. Listening to Esai Morales do his Admiral Adama impression alone made the panel worth attending. Oh, and there was this really fun moment when Esai, who plays Admiral Adama's father in the Caprica series, gave his "son" a very loving Adama family hug. It was very cute!
1:00pm: Immediately after the BSG panel in Ballroom 20 was the panel for the CBS sitcom the Big Bang Theory. I'm actually a big fan of that show too, so Gin and I decided to stay in the room after BSG ended. They brought the whole cast of the show out, including the show's creator and they basically spent the entire panel doing Q & A with the audience. Despite this though, it still managed to be an entertaining hour with a couple of amusing highlights and insights made about the show. It also helped that the panel was moderated by the always awesome Mike Mignolia (the creator of Hellboy).
On the highlights front, one of the questions a fan asked was whether actor Jim Parsons (Sheldon from the show) could wipe his face with a napkin he had so he could collect some of his DNA with which he could create his own mini-Sheldon. For those of you who don't watch the show, this was a direct reference to an episode in which Sheldon is given a napkin with Leonard Nimoy's DNA on it which he plans to use to grow his own Spock clone. When the fan asked this question, the whole room went into hysterical laughter and I was glad to see the cast play along with the joke as Mr. Parsons did indeed use the napkin and then give it back to the fan.
Also of interest to me was realizing that the actor who plays Raj on the show doesn't use a fake indian accent for comedic value. That's just how he talks. Personally, I find that awesome. It makes the character a little more authentic and a lot less like a racial stereotype.
At the very end of the panel, there was a bit of super cool Comic Con goodness as a representative from SDCC gave the whole cast of the show Comic Con Volunteer t-shirts as thanks for being a part of such a great nerd show that has mentioned Con a few times during its two seasons. The cast seemed genuinely flattered by this gesture and a few of them even put their shirts on right there on stage.
Maybe with any luck, we'll get to see them wear the shirts on an episode of the show.
2:oopm: With the last of the panels done for the day that I had planned on seeing, I was free to spend the rest of the afternoon wandering the floor and taking some more fun photos like these.
I eventually took a break for a late lunch and made it back just in time to get in line for the one thing that had eluded me thus far . . . I wanted my damn Tribble.
5:30pm: The last Tribble give outs were set for 6:30pm, and since the line was rather long, Gin and I had decided to get in it early in an attempt to guarantee ourselves some small, furry goodness. The line looked pretty long too, but unfortunately, went rather faster than expected. Before we knew it we were near the front of the line and only 10 minutes had passed. We were still way too early for Tribbles. We got out of line and had to go back to the end of the line because we couldn't hold spots near the front for the Tribbles. Deep down, I understood the need for and the logic of this rule, but it was still annoying as I repeatedly had to get back to the back of the line again and again as the like kept moving quickly.
6:15pm: Currently being given out by the Paramount booth were Transformers seat cushions which I didn't really want, but I knew of a friend of mine who would love one, so I did eventually decide to take the line all the way to the end where I snagged one of the seat cushions for him. Then for the 4th time or so, Gin and I got back in the end of the line for our Tribbles.
We knew that the Tribbles were in limited supply, and being the end of the day they staff at the Paramount Booth would probably count out the number of Tribbles they had, would count out that number of people in line, and then would cap the line there. It was the only smart thing to do really. Our only hope was to be before that cutoff point, whatever it was. It was still 15 minutes before the Tribbles were to be given out, and based on how the line had been moving up to that point, we felt like we were in pretty good shape to be near the front of the line again as the Tribbles started getting handed out.
Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case. Almost immediately after getting back in line again, the line stopped moving entirely as they shut the line down for a moment to count the peole in it. With some serious disappointment, it turned out that we ended up being about four or five people past the cutoff point for the Tribbles. After having gotten into and out of line multiple times, it turned out our timing was off by about one minute. If we had gotten out of line and gone back to the back one minute sooner, we would have gotten our Tribbles.
With the floor closing soon, and with this being the last day I could attend the Con, it was a pretty shitty way for the day to end. I walked out of the convention center feeling rather dejected. I was Tribble-less after multiple attempts to get one. The only solace to be had was the fact that at least I had managed to get the cool Vulcan hand the day before as well as a cool seat cushion I know my fried would love.
At least there was one more major Con related activity to look forward to. Maybe it could lift my spirits. I speak, of course, of the Battlestar Galactica concert going on that night at the House of Blues in Downtown. The show was set to start at 8pm. Gin and I hurried back to my car, dropped off our bags and passes, had time for a pint of beer at an awesome bar called the Tilted Kilt, and then headed over to the show.
8:00pm: The Battlestar Galactica concert starts. It's actually so frakking amazing that I've decided to write a separate post about it (coming soon). Let me just say this though, this concert more than made up for the lack of Tribbles from before.
Oh, and just so I do end this post on an upbeat Tribble related note, I will say that even tough I couldn't attend Con on Saturday, Gin did and she was finally able to acquire one of the elusive Tribbles for herself. I am highly jealous of this, but I am happy for her. Maybe if I'm lucky, she'll let me hold hers once or twice.
Here's to hoping.
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