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WonderCon 2009 – Closing Thoughts

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:54:14 +0000

WonderCon 2009 was fun and I took a lot away from it. I’d like to share a quick look back at a few moments I experienced while there!

On Friday I walked the entire floor, checking out the booths for both product and celebrity appearances. The floor is definitely more focused on games and comic books. While browsing around, I asked a few folks about the size of the con and a few of them thought it was smaller than in previous years.

Despite the years, Mark Hamill was by far the most popular notable on the floor Friday night.

Yet the one thing I noticed was the lack of costumed attendees. There were some, but the numbers were a mere shadow of how many folk came dressed as their favorite movie character back at Comic-Con.

The biggest thing that stuck with me from the weekend was seeing the first 20 minutes of Watchmen. I was blown away. I also came away with a completely different perspective about Terminator: Salvation. What I saw was compelling and awesome – The direction they’re going with that movie took me by surprise (Check out the new trailer to see what I mean).

But enough about my drooling all over myself. Here are a few photographic moments, memories and lessons learned from my weekend at WonderCon 2009:

This is the line to get in on Saturday morning. The convention is ready to ramp up for another big day!

This is the line for the raffle for the Watchmen tickets to Friday night’s midnight screening. It turned out that after standing in line for more than an hour, some attendees were turned away at the doors because the theater was overbooked. According to some rejected sources, the theater was just letting walk ups in to see the movie. Ouch! I don’t know all the gory details, but I’m bummed for those who ended up getting turned away.

They still had cool things for sale… this booth had some Star Trek toys that were very hard to walk away from.

There were obviously some pretty cool outfits in attendance. The Storm Trooper on the left was the coolest one in the convention while the Transformer Bumblebee was a pretty intense outfit.

No matter how much cool stuff is at the Con, it can still be a tiring event as even Batman was tired of buying Batman stuff.

There were obviously some “really nice” costumes at WonderCon. Gee, can you guess which panel I was waiting for?

So I took a pretty quick picture that and didn’t get my flash synced up fast enough – But I noticed something in the background. After playing with the exposure, I really have to wonder what the heck the guy on the right is focusing on with his telephoto lens!!??

So what did I learn at WonderCon?

The bridge of the Enterprise in the new Star Trek movie is going be steamy good looking, regardless of who you are.

Did I not say in an earlier post that the Terminator: Salvation panel was fun. I learned that the panel tables are strong enough to hold up some resistance fighters from Terminator: Salvation!

This was when McG asked Moon Bloodgood to stand up. No one was complaining.

That Adam Baldwin can describe how Chuck holds a weapon, but still make it dirty. The man’s comedic timing is flawless.

And this is how Chuck fights… cover the face, cover the jewels… Now he’s ready to rumble!

I learned that my camera, for what ever reason, is a secret agent of my wife’s and didn’t cooperate when it really counted most. If I didn’t just buy the thing, it would have become a UFO zinging through the auditorium! What’s up with the Batgirl shirt Summer?

Despite it being late Sunday afternoon, the Con is still going strong with the power of the fans. That’s what it’s all about. You, the fans. Thanks for sharing my WonderCon weekend with me!

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WonderCon 2009 – ‘Chuck’ Panel

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:25:50 +0000

The Chuck panel at the 2009 WonderCon was attended by Zachary Levi (Chuck), Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah), Josh Gomez (Morgan), Adam Baldwin (Casey) & exec producers Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak.

We were treated to some previews and upcoming scenes. There is definitely a lot more skin this season than last. Wouldn’t you agree? No, I’m not having a problem with it – just saying.

Here are some points and notes they touched on during the fun session:

On their guest stars: They really had good things to say about everyone, but they especially liked the evil of Chevy Chase. They enjoyed how Scott Bakula blended with the cast so well and how Tricia Helfner brought an interesting edge to the show.

We’ve not seen the last of Jill.

The crowd was polled and no one wants to see Bryce again. The producers made no promises.

We will see Jeffster perform again.

There will be a few weddings before the end of the season.

With a hopeful eye towards the future, season 2 is not ending with a series finale.

The producers noted how putting this show together is a finicky balance with Chuck and Sarah and their “tensions”. And to keep a show about a guy having a quarter life crisis interesting, the explosions and violence really help! But the rest of the season will be tackling the Chuck and Sarah thing a little more directly.

Someone asked Baldwin who would win in a fight, Casey or Jayne. Adam thinks Casey would because he has better weapons.

Zachary Levi was asked what his favorite episodes were. He had one from each season: Season one was “Chuck Versus The Wookie” and season two was “Chuck Versus The Seduction,” with guest star John Larroquette.

Someone asked what character the actors would want to switch with in the show. Josh Gomez said he would want to be Sarah Lancaster so he can stare at himself all day long and take lots of showers. Zachary Levi took the high road and said Casey.

The geekiness of Levi playing video games transcends the show. Aside from things like the Comic-Con stickers that are in his characters room, Levi does like playing Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, Madden 2009, Street Fighter IV and he’s looking forward to Resident Evil 5.

The end of the panel was pretty cool because even though the convention staff usually shuttles the personalities off the stage faster than you can focus a camera lens, (Trust me on that one.) Levi and Gomez went to the stage edge for a few minutes to chat up the crowd. Then the convention staff became a little more gruff and away they went.

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Alien Trespass Has The Potential To Impress

Sabrina Cognata — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:52:56 +0000

Alien Trespass is the classic example of a movie that’s made for consumption by the crowd at WonderCon. Directed by X-Files veteran, R.W. Goodwin, Alien Trespass is the story of an intergalactic lawman transporting a terrible monster, the Goata, when his spaceship crashes into Earth. The alien becomes freed and terrorizes a small 1950s desert town. The premise of the film is a throw back to classic science fiction films, but quite meta in the explanation of its storytelling.

In order to prevent his film from being considered a farce, Goodwin explains the fact that it takes place as though it were filmed in the 1950s by saying that it was a classic sci-fi feature that was never released by the studios and presumed to have been destroyed. But luckily a copy of it is found in Hollywood and will finally be released to the public. Most of the backstory is filled with jokes that brings to light the nature of a film that pays tribute to the early origins of science fiction.

The story itself begins when the town doctor (Eric McCormack), sees a spaceship crash and decides to check out the crash site. When he gets there his body is taken over by the interstellar lawman in order to hunt down the Goata. While he hunts the Goata down the rest of the town slowly begins to realize that the space creature not only exists, but is feeding on townspeople.

Alien Trespass touches upon a lot of interesting stereotypes of both science fiction films from the ‘50s, as well as general stereotypes of movies from that time. In order to put a post modern spin on the film, the waitress at the local cafe (Jenni Baird) is the person that figures out the way to destroy the Goata, a plot twist that would be uncharacteristic for the time the film was supposedly produced.

During the panel Q & A Goodwin said:

“We have the most wonderful monster you have ever seen in your life. Terrifying in so many ways. Basically, it’s a movie that’s going to make you feel really good. It’s funny but also scary. It’s a real time trip back into the ‘50s.”

The interesting thing about the film is the impression given off from the trailer, that it is actually a throwback to classic science fiction cinema. Everything from the language to the serious overacting seems to adequately highlight the cinema of that time.

Regarding this, Goodwin said:

“When I direct anything, when I directed ‘X-Files,’ it’s all about planning and working really hard before you get to the set. It’s choosing the right staff, the right actors, the right script. Cause we were so specific about the style, I spent months watching films I had not seen since childhood, my notes, including character notes for the actors and shooting notes for the crew ended up being longer than the shooting script. It’s all about the writing.”

From what I could tell from the Alien Trespass trailer, Goodwin appeared to have done his homework, as did his actors, bringing the sort of preparation to the table that allowed for the earnest, theatrical acting of the 1950s. Which helped give the impression that the film could easily have been released with War Of The Worlds, The Day The Earth Stood Still and They Came From Outer Space. If you enjoy any of those films, you’d probably be the target audience for Alien Trespass.

Alien Trespass opens on April 3rd.

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Watchmen Wows At Wonder Con

Sabrina Cognata — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:44:35 +0000

The Watchmen panel was the highlight of my time at the San Francisco Wonder-Con. Probably because I have been anticipating this film since it was published as a graphic novel. After hearing a mix of reviews about the film I was slightly apprehensive about attending the panel and seeing the first 20 minutes of the film. Especially because most reviews have said that those 20 minutes are incredible, and the rest of the film is sort of a let down.

Keeping with the trend, I too can confirm that those 20 minutes are absolutely awesome. Not just in the way that it’s visually presented on the screen, but in the way that director Zack Snyder chose to begin the film with a montage of the history of the Minutemen, the original group of masked heroes in the story.

After the montage, the most notable thing about the Watchmen clip was Jackie Earl Haley’s portrayal of the story’s epic anti-hero, Rorschach. When asked about the voice he used for Rorschach, Haley said it was what he heard in his head while reading the graphic novel.

“There was something about the little speech bubbles. The way they were written and the way they were drawn. Zack and I even thought to try something else, but in the end it’s what worked.”

Snyder indicated that parts of the montage that were cut, a sequence having the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) raise the flag at Iwo Jima and Nixon’s Inauguration were omitted from the montage in the film’s final cut.

Although, depending on the reception of Watchmen, both would be provided in the director’s cut of the film, in addition to the death of the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason. The director’s cut of the film is planned for theatrical release in July of 2009.

Snyder joked that the final cut of the film will not have an abundance of Dr. Manhattan’s nudity, but that somewhere it does exist and for the people that need more blue nudity and more violence. So never fear blue nudity lovers, according to Snyder your wishes will eventually be granted.

He also noted that the film in it’s entirety would be released on the director’s cut of the DVD. It would incorporate the cut scenes plus the animated version of The Black Freighter carefully integrated into the film in the same way it is laid out in the graphic novel.

Snyder said he has been asked about the possibility of a sequel by the European media:

“It’s a surprising question to me because it’s impossible to even think about. It’s like the sequel to Moby Dick. The studios, when i got the first call they said, ‘Hey, we have the script for the movie Watchmen. We think it’s based on the graphic novel.’ At that point it was PG-13, It ended with (The Nite Owl) killing a certain someone and he had a certain catch phrase in in the end.”

From the sounds of it, Snyder not only saved the film, but prevented it from becoming massacred by Hollywood executives. Most importantly, the carefully crafted structure of the graphic novel seemed to be upheld in the clip that I saw. This does not mean it continues throughout the film, but from what I could tell, it appeared to uphold the integrity of the book, which was one of my major concerns. Hopefully, we won’t be let down this week, but I suppose the only way to find that out is to go out and catch the film.

Watchmen opens on March 6th.

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WonderCon 2009 – Harper’s Island Panel Preview

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:33:10 +0000

When I first heard of Harper’s Island, I didn’t give it much thought. In fact I might have dissed it in a previous post on the TV seasons. Yet let’s take a look at the minds behind the show: Executive producer Jeffrey Bell (Angel, The X Files) and co-exec producers Dan Shotz and Karim Zreik (Jericho). I have to give pause one moment and wonder anew about this show. Some of the cast includes Katie Cassidy (Supernatural), Christopher Gorham (Jake 2.0, Ugly Betty) and Elaine Cassidy. I was also surprised to see Harry Hamlin and Richard Burgi in it. Oh, and Jim Beaver plays the town sheriff. That’s Bobby Singer from Supernatural!

The show doesn’t air until April 9th and runs through to July 2nd, but last Sunday we were treated to the entire first episode of Harper’s Island and I have to say I was actually engaged by the opening set up for the show.

It’s about a wedding party between the awesome hot rich girl Trish Wellington (Katie Cassidy) and a regular Joe kind of guy, Henry (Christopher Gorham). The party is loading up on a boat in Seattle headed to Harper’s Island. From a guys point of view, the show is loaded with some pretty nice eye candy. I think CBS is playing to its older audience.

In the episode, we aren’t that far along when the first murder takes place.

A party goer drops their empty beer bottle into the water. We follow the bottle down and we find ourselves looking at a man tied to the propeller shaft of the boat. He’s been given scuba gear so he can experience this moment, which I find to be a lot of work to kill someone, and yet, it appeals to a certain part of me. Poor guy. Gets himself a role on a new show, and only lasts about a minute!

Anyway, the boat shoves off and no one notices the splotch of red water behind the boat and victim No. 1 is down for the count.

It’s a 13 week series and we’re told that people drop like flies except for the main characters. By the end of the 13 weeks, only a few are left. Meanwhile, we have to ponder who in the wedding party or which island local is the murderer. From the boat murder, I’d think it was a party goer. But that’s just my first wild stab at this.

Despite my original aversion, I want to look at this as a possible mystery show that will keep us guessing about who the killer is and if possible, will keep us interested in the outcome with tangible clues and misdirects. We know we love misdirects. It keeps us on our toes.

Unfortunately, yours truly had to run to catch a train and I missed the panel with Katie Cassidy. Trust me, I’m real unhappy about that, but it was a real surprise treasure of an intro episode. Now we get to start a ‘who’s the murder suspect‘ post!

Note: In my limited exposure to the panel, I did not see mention of Jon Turtletaub (Jericho) at WonderCon, but the CBS website has a video of him extolling the virtues of the show and they have him labeled as the Executive Producer of Harper’s Island. You do the math. This could be cool.

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WonderCon 2009 – The Sarah Connor Chronicles Panel

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:27:39 +0000

The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel had Josh Friedman, Summer Glau and Shirley Manson in attendance.

The panel started with a preview of upcoming scenes from the rest of the season. First, we watched Catherine Weavers daughter skipping down a typical hall in her mom’s big company. She accidentally finds John Henry. John Henry asks her if she wants to play hide and seek. The door shuts behind the little girl, but John Henry is across the room and it seemed obvious the little girl didn’t shut it. Creepy imagery.

A few of the other scenes we’ve already seen on TV, but there was a new scene where John is laying on top of Cameron, sort of breathing hard… no, no… fully clothed… but still. I think it’s a misdirect cause I can’t wrap my mind around that one yet. This isn’t Westworld!

So let’s do a quick rundown on moderator questions:

On the three dots that Sarah has been chasing, Josh Friedman said all will be revealed.

Will we ever see Shirley and Summer fight? Well, besides in the green room, no. Besides, he thinks Shirley would kick Cameron’s ass anyway.

He was asked why have we not seen so much Cameron recently. Friedman said that he’s been focusing on Sarah for the last few episodes (yeah, we noticed). The challenge with Cameron, he added, is that there are alpha issues between the two. Obviously Sarah’s in charge, but Cameron is the kick butt machine. But never fear, the last six episodes will have a lot of Cameron in them.

On a machine trying to be a mother: Shirley finds she likes the challenge of the subtleties there. It’s a machine, but it’s trying to mimic motherhood, trying to make nice with the child.

After seeing her own scenes where she destroyed the warehouse in the desert, Shirley said she was thrilled to do it and after watching it, she felt that she was “scary bad ass.”

Friedman was asked if they will push forward to meet with the movie mythos. He said no.

He added that he likes moving his story along slowly. Moving things too fast makes it a soap opera of sorts. He wants to see his characters actually earn their developments, their changes. Though he does recognize that commercially speaking, that isn’t always the best approach. But when all is said and done, it is Terminator.

As far as whether he’s heard anything about a third season, he said there’s no news. Every time he goes on set, he sees the 250 people looking at him, wondering if they have a job next week.

There are six episodes left and there will be lots of action with many questions getting answered in these episodes. He said he was surprised at the number of reveals that they pulled off in the last six episodes. And he said we will be at last seeing Shirley and Summer in a scene together.

The fans started to ask questions at this point and here’s what came from that part of the session:

Shirley said that going to a TV series is surreal for her. She’s been making music since she was 15 and and she gets confused by lingo like “we’re gonna force you tonight,” and she left us with a confused, yet deadpan expression on that one. The audience found themselves eliciting a chuckle out of that one.

Summer explained that after a 12 hour day, it’s overtime. If you do that, and then they bring you back without a 12 hour break, it’s referred to as “forcing” you. Dang, I had a sense the audience was hoping for more than that.

As far as bringing any more Terminator mythos characters into the show, Friedman said no. He likes the cast family he has.

Friedman did toss out that he has a plan and is continuing with that story plan. This 2nd season finale encompasses 20 episodes of buildup and it does pay off. Yet he’s also opened more doors with more questions for a third season if they do get renewed. He added that he doesn’t want to end the show with all the questions answered and no new questions. He doesn’t want FOX to think he has no new questions. He doesn’t want them to think he’s done.

Someone asked a Firefly reference of Summer. In the outtakes of Firefly, they wanted to know why when the cast goofs their lines, they yell out Summer’s name! She said that during a scene prior to that, she was playing with a rubber ball and the toy distracted her while filming a scene and she missed her line. The director yelled SUMMER!! … and it sort of stuck.

As for whether there’s any more music in Shirley’s future, she replied “I hope so!” She wants to continue to make music the rest of her life. Of late though, she’s been pretty busy with the show so she hasn’t had the time right now.

Someone asked Friedman about Shirley’s character intro scene into the show and how they came about using Shirley’s music. Basically, Friedman didn’t want someone else to do her intro music and then feel stupid about it if he didn’t ask her… So he did, she said yes.

And no, there will be no effort to create any continuity ties to the new movie, Terminator: Salvation.

The last question came at Summer, asking her if she liked where Cameron was by the end of this season and Summer seemed confused. She wasn’t sure what to say and looked at Friedman, and then she sort of held her head and just said she is both happy and sad about the end of the season and where it finds Cameron.

I’ve have to say, everyone on the panel was rather engaging. Friedman seemed to speak from the heart, Manson was at ease on the panel and this is the first time I have ever seen Summer with emotion. All I’ve ever seen of her was playing her emotionless or crazy roles. This was a fun panel.

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WonderCon 2009 – Terminator Salvation Panel

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:37:24 +0000

McG (pronounced like McGeee) came on stage and was pretty energetic and it helped spark the crowed to an even higher level of anticipation. He was pretty liberal with his language, so I won’t be translating literally. As someone sitting next to me said, wow, he cusses a lot. I looked over at them and said no sh**! The rest of the panel included Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Common and Bryce Dallas Howard.

During his initial few minutes, McG touched on how James Cameron didn’t bless his efforts but that the movie was headed in interesting directions. He also touched on the passing of Stan Winston and said he wants to dedicate the film to him. That was met with a resounding room full of applause.

At one point, he said Christian Bale never comes to these (bleep)ing things, so he pulled out his cell phone and made a call. No on answered. We got a voice mail with a girls voice, so McG asked us to demonstrate to the phone how we feel about this new Terminator movie. My ears are still ringing folks.

McG said that one of his techniques for filming is to get the cast to start doing some of the hardest, physically demanding scenes up front. The demands on set help bring the cast together for the rest of the shoot. It develops a shared sense of experience and he feels it translates on-screen.

At one point Anton Yelchin talks about how he hopes this film will honor the legacy of the two films out there. LOL. There was some knowing laughter from the audience and McG added at some point that the Terminator franchise was a great idea that lost its way and we’ve come along to restore order. Yea, there’s no lost love for the 3rd one, that’s for sure.

Other snippets from the panel included:

The Connors coming down from the mountains after so many years to help society fight the machines.
With the rising of Skynet, all of humanity comes together against the common enemy.
Mention of the obvious undertone of female empowerment and how Mrs. Connor is 2nd in command.
McG notes how Skynet is gathering people up for their stem cells for the human tissue replication process.

We got to see 3 vids. The brand new, never before seen preview trailer that will be accompanying Watchmen when it comes out next week, and two scenes that were still in the raw format of what the editing crew would see. That alone was pretty cool, but then I got lost in the two scenes and almost forgot about some of the cartoonish bots, safety cables attached to the actors and other odd looking spots because they were that cool.

The movie trailer was pretty cool.

There are new parts we haven’t seen before. Combined with the 2 scenes we saw, the movie was already depressing me with the sense of a post-apocalyptic feel. That’s how good these snippets were.

One scene from the trailer shows a badly injured character by the name of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). This is where the story takes one heck of a twist.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Wright still thinks he’s human and has no idea he’s now a machine until Connor shows him. But Wright wants revenge for what’s been done to him and we see the introduction of friendly terminators as the trailer closes with Marcus standing enshrouded in the dark, saying “I’m the only hope you have”.

Yeah, intense.

The first clip they showed us came from a gas station scene. A young Kyle Reese and Marcus Wright stop to look for food here and encounter other people, and then they are suddenly attacked by a harvester machine which is grabbing people and stuffing them in a Hunter-Killer machine.

As Reese and everyone escapes, we get to see our first look at the moto-terminators. Motorcycle bots. Eesh.

The second clip happens over a water scene where Connor (Bale) is forced to crash his helicopter into the water. Water teaming with hydro-bots… 3 to 4 foot long water snake robots. Dang, they’re everywhere. Connor dispenses most of the snakes with his rifle but one last one comes for him as he runs out of ammo, but Marcus comes out of nowhere and stops it.

It’s a tense stand off as Connor holds his sidearm to him. Marcus tells him Skynet has Reese. Connor asks him “What are you?” He says “I don’t know,” as he backs away into the water.

[END SPOILERS]

Words just don’t capture the essence of the scenes. The despair facing the characters. I think this is going to work out just fine with a friendly cyborg no one trusts and various other parts of the mythos being brought to light.

Moon Bloodgood at WonderCon

At one point, I completely missed what was being said for some reason. I hope you understand. Oh.. that’s right – all this talk of McG “fighting for an R-rating?” It’s to include a topless scene of Moon Bloodgood in the film.

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WonderCon 2009 – Knowing / Astro Boy Panel

Bruce Simmons — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:46:12 +0000

We were running short on time so we flew through these combined panels.

Knowing

Alex Proyas chatted to us remotely via a video about Knowing, telling us what we were about to see. They showed us the movie trailer and two scenes from the movie.

Knowing is about a teacher who examines a time capsule unearthed at his son’s school. The contents, a piece of paper, has a series of numbers that lead to predictions that have already come true and the rest of the numbers on the list presumably lead to events that will come true. This list leads Cage to believe the world is going to end at the close of the week.

The first scene involves the airline crash we catch a glimpse of in the trailer. This scene is pivotal to Nicolas Cage being convinced that the series of numbers is actually true. He’s stuck in a traffic jam and as he gets out to see what is going on, the plane goes tilting by, slamming into the ground. It’s an intense scene, and well done.

Cage reacts to the disaster by running over to the wreckage to help people. Some were on fire, some get caught up in secondary explosions and so forth. The note full of numbers showed the lat, lon and number of people who die at this location.

It’s accuracy to this event is, we’re told, what pushes Cage over into the believing side.

The 2nd clip shows Cage trying to anticipate the next disaster in a subway. He sees a suspicious character whom he pursues into a subway. I won’t tell you what happens with this suspicious character, but the ensuing subway accident, like the airplane, is detailed and devastating. Not too gross, but it’s implied well.

These scenes lead me to feel like this could be a great multi-mini-disaster-wreck-fest movie. It’s classic Cage playing a regular Joe shoved into an extreme circumstance. It could be good, but it’s what we don’t see that will either make or break the movie. Is the rest as good? Is the story compelling? I hope so.

Knowing opens March 20th.

Astro Boy

For the CGI movie Astro Boy, all we experienced today was a preview clip.

It opens with him falling down along the side of a skyscraper screaming. More screaming… a little more screaming as he goes shooting past us and suddenly his foot jets kick in. We watch him try to learn his balance on this new found skill.

He acquires it pretty quickly as he zooms up the side the building and into the clouds where he plays amongst the fluffy white things for a few minutes before zooming off saying out loud how he has to go home and tell his father.

Astro Boy features the voices of Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Donald Sutherland, Nicolas Cage and others.

How does this sound to you?

Astro Boy opens in October of 2009.

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WonderCon 2009 – Star Trek Panel

Bruce Simmons — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:42:30 +0000

The Star Trek Panel filled the room… of course.

J.J. Abrams, Chris Pine (James Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Robert Orci (Co-writer) & Bryan Burke (executive producer) were in attendance. The crowd went crazy as they came out.

We were treated to a new movie trailer and there were scenes in this particular trailer that have not been seen before. In fact this trailer will be the one airing with Watchmen when it hits theaters on March 6th. According to some folks sitting next to me, they were a little ruffled at what they showed in this new trailer. I won’t blow it for you because when you see this scene, you probably won’t realize what you’re seeing, but it is definitely a new Trek-verse.

Abrams said that what he was striving for was a balance between the old and the new. He wanted the fans of the existing franchise to know can bring what they know to the movie, realizing that they know some things, so it’s not completely alien to them while also trying to draw new fans to his version.

Orci said the old fans should be happy.

During the panel, an extra who was on the set of Trek came to the mike and brought to our attention about Abrams rapping while on set. Abrams came back with something to the affect, so what’s your name and the name of your friends…. who will never work in Hollywood again! Yes, it was a fun, lighthearted moment and we were surprised to discover that there were quite a few extras from the movie attending the panel.

Zachary Quinto was asked how tough it was to balance the two jobs – Heroes and Star Trek. He said he was blessed, but with a little less sleep than normal. But he had no complaints. He also pointed out how he never watched the original series, but rather, worked with Leonard Nimoy to get his angle on things. That and he read up a lot on the world of Star Trek.

Abrams was asked what inspired him to bring Star Trek back. He said that though he wasn’t a massive fan, he appreciated the fact that there were massive fans out there. After reading the script he was not only swayed but said he couldn’t not do it because he would have been jealous of anyone else doing the movie.

He was asked how he communicates the intricacies of a character to the screen and he said that he combines relatable, broken characters and throws them into the craziest sh** of all time. This brings much to the surface of the character. This is when we see the vulnerabilities and the strengths of the characters he creates.

Chris Pine said he enjoyed the comraderie of the cast and crew and that Abrams made the environment pretty cool for them. (I guess when Abrams is rapping on set, that would help do it!)

When Abrams was asked about the change up to the Trek universe, he mentioned how people will go anywhere willingly within sci-fi. He gave a Fringe example, where people are willing to accept an invisible boyfriend, but people badgered him about Harvard having a free lab.

Non-Trek items:

The one thing a lot of us noticed was that Abrams was wearing an Avatar tee-shirt.

Cloverfield 2 – working on an idea right now. Do it because you’re inspired. Doesn’t want to do it just to make a buck. He has a “pretty sweet” idea.

Star Trek opens May 8th, 2009.

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WonderCon 2009 – Day One Recap

Bruce Simmons — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:02:13 +0000

I arrived at WonderCon around mid afternoon and walked the floor to see what they had. It is a lot more low key than the San Diego Comic-Con and the focus is so much more on comics and video games.

The hall is only 2/3rds full of vendors and booths today. It’s odd to see so much empty floor space in a convention like this. Is the economy hitting even here? I’ve been told that the Con filled the hall last year.

There were quite a few folks signing autographs. Most were character actors like Bobby Clark, the man who wore the Gorn suit on Star Trek and Anthony Forest, the storm trooper who said “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for” in Star Wars.

The bigger draws that I saw were the likes of Richard Kiel and Mark Hamill.

When I tried to get a snap of Kiel, he asked me to buy a picture. When I said no thanks, he gave me the cold shoulder.

Hamill was pretty chatty with everyone who asked for his autograph and was pretty friendly with people who even stopped him after the signing session. He was wearing a Warner Bros Joker coat.

Then there was the coveted prize of the day. The Watchmen raffle. WonderCon was screening Watchmen at midnight tonight in a nearby IMAX theater and they were raffling off 400 tickets. The line was long. All we had to do was shuffle along until we came to a desk, then reach into a big plastic bag and pull out a raffle ticket. Those who pulled out a ticket with a smiley on it got a wristband for the movie. A person in front of me and a person behind me got smiley faces. Sigh. I’ll just have to wait.

Well, on to Saturday. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow as I’ll be literally sequestered away in the Esplanade Ballroom all day. I hope they have bathrooms!

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New 10,000 B.C. Details Revealed

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:04:36 +0000

I think it’s inevitable that the new Roland Emmerich film 10,000 B.C. will have a killer opening weekend so I guess I’ll talk about it a bit more.

At the WonderCon panel they debuted a brand new trailer, which built upon the previous one in terms of impressive visuals. If I had to come up with one word to describe what’s been shown so far it would have to be: Spectacle.

The movie seems to be all about incredible vistas populated with a combination of ancient temples, pyramids, woolly mammoths and a cast of (CGI) thousands. Even though it looks to me like this will be the worst sort of fluff, you never know. Perhaps with the proper attitude adjustment before entering the theater, it could turn out to be good fluff.

Emmerich freely admitted that this movie is a combination of history and fantasy and that it’s not meant to be taken as his take on historical fact. It turns out he based the idea on a book called “Fingerprints of the Gods” which is about the theory that very advanced civilizations have preceded ours, but of which there is no evidence (how convenient, says I).

He was also inspired to make a movie that contained woolly mammoths after seeing a program about them on the Discovery Channel.

Although in the first trailer I did not detect any hint of accents coming from the actors, in this new trailer they did have them. They said that they tried to create an accent that was a combination of English and Arabic for the film.

Interestingly, Roland stated that he is a big fan of what I consider to be the best and most realistic caveman movie out there, Quest for Fire. I found that funny considering the plucked eyebrows and shaved chests that run rampant in this movie.

He also stated that the world of this film could be compared to that of Conan the Barbarian: An ancient fantasy world similar to Cimmeria.

Finally, when asked “What can you tell us about your upcoming movie 2012?” (About the upcoming end of the world according to the Mayan calendar) he replied simply:

“Nothing.”

And of course now we know for sure that the new Dark Knight AND Iron Man trailers will be attached to this movie. But of course that’s not enough to sway anyone to go see it.

10,000 B.C. opens on March 7th.

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Iron Man At Wondercon, Part 2: Future Armors, Flight Scenes And More

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:12:26 +0000

On order to get this out to you guys faster I’m working off of notes instead of transcribing from my recording of the panel. I spent the morning typing up my one on one interview with director Jon Favreau which will be up in two parts, one here and and a more technical oriented one over at Iron Man fan site Advanced Iron some time in the next week or so.

So let’s see what I didn’t cover in Part I of the panel…

Jon Favreau stated that the movie was fun to shoot due to the cast. Speaking of the cast, one interesting item was the fact that he had to fight for Robert Downey Jr. for the part. Robert lobbied hard for the role, but initially the studio wanted to cast a young twenty-something as Tony Stark. Thankfully Jon prevailed.

Favreau is hoping that the film is successful enough to greenlight sequels because he’d very much like to make more Iron Man movies. If this film is a big success, he may have the opportunity to direct the Avengers movie.

Regarding the practical (non-CGI) armor, Stan Winston, who he worked with on Zathura, approached Jon to say that his company could build a practical model of the armor. Speaking of which, I’m going to plug the limited edition 1:1 scale Iron Man movie bust designed by Stan Winston studios.

The movie will definitely be rated PG-13, but not due to excessive foul language or sex and nudity. Favreau wants the film to be family friendly and the rating will be due to the action sequences in the film. For example the bikini babe image posted the other day is from a scene that did not make it into the final cut.

Related to that, he stated that it would be difficult to do a movie based on the “Demon in a Bottle” story (Tony Stark’s decent into alcoholism) from the comics because it would be hard to tell the story in a family-friendly film. Although he did say that often sequels can get away with being darker than the original film.

Favreau also stated that while there are plenty of action sequences in the film, they are not there just for the sake of action. Any action scene in the film must advance the story and not just be there to provide eye candy.

In order for the flight scenes to seem as realistic as possible, instead of just shooting them virtually in CGI, actual cameras were placed on jets and taken up for shooting of most of the flight sequences. He used Top Gun as a guideline for shooting these scenes because the aerial shots in that film were done before the advent of CGI and thus convey a much more realistic sense of flight.

Overall, even though it’s a superhero movie, Favreau wants the action to seem as realistic and plausible as possible.

If you want a more detailed description of the trailer, just head on over to Quint’s post at AICN where he gives a very good breakdown of it.

It’s all good as far as I’m concerned, and remember to keep an eye out over the next week or so for Screen Rant’s exclusive one on one interview with director Jon Favreau!

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New Iron ManTrailer & Footage Revealed At WonderCon

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:22:16 +0000

[UPDATE: Click here for the new full Iron Man movie trailer!]

Director Jon Favreau was the only person involved with Iron Man who appeared at WonderCon, but like at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con he had something special for those who showed up.

I was expecting to see the new trailer that is to premiere during the next episode of ABC’s Lost and would have been very happy with that. But oh, there was more.

Probably in reaction to the super-quick-cut edited Super Bowl commercial, we were shown a couple of extended scenes from the film.

The main scene that we were treated to was a very extended version of what was shown in the Super Bowl spot, where we seem him testing the flight capabilities of the suit in his very large garage populated with rare cars.

It opens up much earlier, with the scene that shows him working on one of the propulsion boots. He’s working alone and apparently talking to himself, like some eccentric scientist. But as we cut to the next scene where he tests the boots for the very first time we see that he is in fact talking to the robotic machines that assist him in the construction and testing of the suit.

They seem to have some sort of rudimentary artificial intelligence, or at least enough programming to respond very effectively to voice communication.

He does a first test very cautiously at only 10% of propulsive power and the result is unexpected and very funny. I won’t say more so as to not spoil it any further than that. We then cut to the garage where he will now only test the propulsion at 1% of it’s capability. He has a rather animated conversation with one of the bots, telling it not to unleash the fire extinguisher on him unless he specifically requests it. The robot obviously understands what he is saying.

He takes off gingerly as shown in the commercial and flies around the garage more than in the commercial, inadvertently hovering over a couple of his expensive cars and ruining them.

We then cut to a scene where he dons the Mark II armor fully for what seems to be the first time. We get a glimpse for the first time of how we will see Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark inside the suit, and while much more advanced, it does bear a resemblence to the method used in David Guivant’s recent fan film.

We see his face, looking at it from outside the armor with multi-layered graphics hovering in front of his face, implying a virtual multi-dimensional display. We then also see him looking out from the armor helmet in his POV where there are a plethora of graphics overlayed similar to the Terminator POV from those films.

On to the new trailer…

First off, for Iron Man fans, a critical character is also revealed in this scene: Tony Stark’s assistant, Jarvis.

Favreau’s earlier statement that Jarvis would be in the film “in a way” is now revealed – Jarvis is an A.I. system that attends to his needs, runs the automation in his home, his lab and now, Iron Man.

We hear his (British) voice responding to Stark’s commands and queries while in the Mark II armor, and the voice does have a personality. Stark seems to be doing a final test and as Jarvis wants to be done and shut down the armor, Tony overrides him and wants to take it for it’s maiden flight. We get to see him (as in the Super Bowl commercial) take off wildly down a passageway and shoot off into the sky. We do see much more flying time here, including one of the boots failing and him falling to earth, landing on yet another of his expensive cars.

BTW, the trailer that will be shown during Lost is 90 seconds long while the full trailer which we saw is 2 1/2 minutes long. It will be shown with 10,000 BC, so now you have another cool trailer to see ahead of that film along with The Dark Knight and possibly The Incredible Hulk.

Continued in Part 2…

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Wanted: Brace Yourselves For A Wild Ride

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:41:30 +0000

At the Universal panel, we were treated to an entire scene from the upcoming action film Wanted.

You’d better brace yourselves for this one, folks.

The action in Wanted is going to be ultra-over-the-top. Basically I felt like I was watching a superhero movie, even though it’s actually about an elite group of assassins with no super-powers.

The sequence was not quite complete in regards to music (Danny Elfman is scoring) and visual effects, but it definitely gave us the tone of the film.

The scene that was shown was the one we see in the trailer that starts out at the mini-mart where Jolie introduces herself to James McAvoy’s character. An assassin is there to kill McAvoy and she saves him in an extended gunfight sequence that is very effective at showing her skill and experience.

Unfortunately, McAvoy’s character freaks out (as I’m sure any of us would) and takes off running, which removes him from Jolie’s protection. As he’s about to be run down by the bad guy in a delivery truck (with cute puppy or kitten on the side), she swoops in with a Dodge Viper and does the most amazing “scoop” of a passenger I’ve ever seen.

That was extremely cool. However…

From there I started to get more than a bit annoyed at McAvoy’s character continually screaming, whining, etc. I understand that he is playing the “relatable” character, but damn… don’t be that much of a wuss.

For the record, I found James McAvoy to be extremely polite and charming and polite, so that’s no reflection on him personally.

Jolie in this scene leaves you with your jaw on the floor from the stunts her character is performing, including smashing out the windshield so she can lie on the hood and shoot back at the bad guy while still semi-driving with her foot. There was humor in the scene as McAvoy even in his terror was distracted by the fact that he was able to look up Jolie’s skirt.

All this was great (despite the whining) but the finale of the scene in my opinion took the “curving bullet trajectory” thing we’ve seen in the trailer WAY too far, and then the way they escape is so over the top as to strain even movie-physics credulity.

I’ll be interested to see how audiences react to Wanted, which opens on June 27.

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First Ever Look At Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:19:22 +0000

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a 30 minute preview of the new Brendan Fraser film Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D. We were able to see both the 3D version of the trailer as well as a number of completed scenes from the movie.

The big deal about this film is that it is the first live action, digitally shot 3D movie, and it was “filmed” using James Cameron’s new 3D Fusion camera system.

Now here’s the thing to keep in mind about Journey 3D: It’s goal is to be the film that ushers in the 3D movie revolution. It’s going to provide amazing 3D visual effects and (literally) a rollercoaster ride for the audience.

The target audience for this PG-rated film is kids, and I think they’re going to eat it up. It will basically be a longer version of the sort of experience you usually have to travel to Disney or Universal Studios to see.

It’s being brought to us by Walden Media, which is known for it’s family friendly films. (I shudder to think of the opposite end of the scale and 3D movie technology).

So what was it like? Imagine Beowulf 3D, but in live action and even higher quality. Think of the difference between watching your TV at home, and then walking into a Best Buy and watching a 60″ plasma Hi-Def picture, and then multiply that by two.

It looks like they’ll probably follow the original story for the most part but with a few additions and twists. I’m sure that some people will find it silly, and there is certainly some stuff that warrants that (like the boy, while at the center of the Earth, receiving a cell phone call from his mom. Now THAT’s cell phone reception!). But again, this is a movie targeted more at kids and created to provide a great visual experience.

I won’t get too technical, but part of the “new and improved” aspect of the system as that it has a varying convergence point capability. What that means is that just as your eyes cross slightly when focusing on something nearer than something farther away, the lenses on the camera can do the same. What this means is that instead of everything in a scene being in sharp 3D focus, objects that are either in the background or not the center of attention can be slightly blurry, just as in traditionally shot movies.

Even just the watching the trailer in 3D was a vastly different experience. Seeing the YouTube version is really pretty silly in trying to capture what this movie will be like.

Personally I’m a fan of 3D and while this one, as an introductory film will be quite gimmicky in it’s use of the visuals, I look forward to seeing more and more movies produced this way.

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D opens on July 11

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Exclusive: New Iron Man Poster Shows Armor Evolution

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:54:23 +0000

Click here for a much larger version of the new Iron Man movie poster

[UPDATE: Click here for the new full Iron Man movie trailer!]

Check out this sweet new poster that debuted at Wondercon. For tech-geeks, it’s ultra cool – showing all three armors from the film: The original Mark I, The prototype Mark II and the final red & gold Mark III Iron Man armor.

The poster gives the most detailed look yet at the original armor and the not seen very often seen all silver Mark II, all from the same angle.

I’m going to see if I can score a few copies to give away here on Screen Rant, but no guarantees!

Tomorrow (Saturday, February 22nd) I’ll be following up with a report from the Iron Man movie panel in the afternoon, plus a one on one interview with director Jon Favreau.

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