Last night wasPreview Night; the champagne bottle breaking on the four-day geek mecca known as San Diego Comic Con.
Today was Day One.
Let the revelry begin!
My wife’s brilliant cosplay as “Muriel”, the long-suffering owner of the titular character in the cartoon, “Courage, the Cowardly Dog.” My wife made both the fake rolling pin as well as the stuffed “Courage” (her first attempt at a stuffed animal, by the way…).Disney’s “Aladdin” and “Jasmine” cosplayers in the Sails Pavilion autograph area. Great costumes. Loved the monkey!
Earlier this year, I wrote a50th anniversary salute to one of my favorite movies of all-time; “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Today I attended an anniversary panel for the film. The celebration will culminate in a fully remastered 4K rerelease of the movie from the original 65mm camera negative. The 4K/blu-ray rerelease of “2001” will street on October 30th.
Here are some pics from the panel:
“2001: A Space Odyssey” celebrated its 50th anniversary at a panel with stars Gary Lockwood (“Frank Poole”), Keir Dullea (“Commander David Bowman”), several authors, futurists, technologists and educators talked about how the film both aligned and diverged from our own 21st century.Gary Lockwood & Keir Dullea told some great anecdotes about their time making the movie, including Lockwood’s suggestion to director Stanley Kubrick about moving Frank and Dave’s meeting concerning the fate of the HAL 9000 supercomputer into the pod set to give the actors a sense of isolation/paranoia. Dullea also did a hilarious imitation of the heavily Cockney-accented assistant director who fed the actors HAL’s lines before Kubrick eventually dubbed in the velveteen voice of actor Douglas Rain.Two of the panelists including visiting Chinese writer/educator Wu Yan, and sci-fi novelist/futurist David Brin (the “Uplift” book series).
Cosplayers, from top to bottom: two sets of cosplayers doing characters from “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (including homemade versions of the ‘bots “Crow” and “Tom Servo”). Two well-rendered haracters from the video game “Halo,” and “Alvin” of “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” On a personal note, the cosplayer dressed as Alvin was my first ‘line buddy’ at my VERY first San Diego Comic Con back in 2004 (hard to believe there was a time when this was new to me!). Back then, he and I were in a thee hour-long line to meet the entire cast of “Firefly” (and its theatrical sequel, “Serenity”) as well as series creator Joss Whedon (“Buffy”). ‘Alvin’ taught me some very useful tips on the logistics of Comic Con navigation.
A booth celebrating the 25th anniversary of my favorite stop-motion animated movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993). The booth included an Oogie-Boogie wheel of chance, as well as an Oogie-Boogie variation of the old children’s game, “Operation.” Back in 2011, I had the pleasure of meeting voice actors Chris Sarandon (speaking voice of “Jack Skellington”; the singing voice was Danny Elfman) and Ken Page (“Oogie-Boogie” himself!). The movie was having a 25th anniversary screening at the Horton Grand Theatre downtown, but we see it every year (and we’ve seen it together theatrically a few times).The IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase) boat docked at the marina behind the Convention Center. If you look closely at the upper deck, you’ll see writer/director/actor Kevin Smith (“Clerks” “Chasing Amy” “Dogma”) in a black coat and baseball cap! My wife and I once sat behind Smith and his wife at a 2006 “Battlestar Galactica” event for the Museum of Television & Radio (MTR) in Hollywood. My wife also met Smith once at a convention in L.A. I’ve never had the privilege of actually meeting Smith, beyond seeing him onstage at panels. Someday…?A chance to get yourself green-screened into a photo of “The Simpsons” ‘ couch. This, along with other Fox Network attractions, were behind the convention center along the marina…
Then I saw the “COSMOS” photo-op booth, where I just had to get my photo (in my full Fred Flintstone costume, of course. Hmm, a caveman traversing time and space; there’s a series in that, I think…). The new 2014 COSMOS series, a sequel of sorts to the late Carl Sagan’s 1980 series, was hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson (whom my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting at our Comic Con hotel restaurant 6 years ago), and was produced by Brannon Braga (“Star Trek: Voyager” “The Orville”) and Seth McFarlane (“Family Guy” “American Dad” “The Orville”).
After that little star trip, I soon wandered into another on the way back to the hotel. In the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego, about a block or two from our Marriott, I noticed that the “Star Trek: Discovery” Exhibit had no waiting (no waiting is a phrase you don’t hear at San Diego Comic Con very often!). The theme of this year’s exhibit was the show’s costumes and props from its “Mirror Universe” arc, which comprised several episodes near the end of the show’s first year (season 2 will debut on CBS All Access streaming sometime in early 2019).
I was most impressed with the level of detail of the evil “Emperor Philipa Georgiou”(Michelle Yeoh) and Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaac) costumes, as well as the mirror universe disguises of Starfleet officers Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman).
Also on display were weapons from the series, graphics, production art and…
….another green-screen photo op. This time with Emperor Georgiou’s flagship background matted in. Naturally, I just had to take a picture there as well.
Back at the convention, my wife (as “Muriel”) slipped the paw of her cowardly dog Courage into the “Infinity Gauntlet” of the Marvel superhero movies (see:“Avengers: Infinity War”). The gauntlet, acquired by the villain ‘Thanos’ (Josh Brolin), contain the ‘infinity stones.’ These stones offer unlimited power over the entire universe:
After my wife and I mastered all of space and time, I decided to get myself a souvenir from the Discovery Exhibit. This was a souvenir that could also double as a cosplay at the Vegas Star Trek convention I’m attending next month; a “Disco” t-shirt worn by the crew of the USS Discovery (NCC-1031) during off-hours and exercise (they had one in mysize, too…how cool is that?!).
Normally I’m not a fan of printed t-shirts (I like my clothing nice and boring, thank you very much), but since this simple t-shirt has the advantage of doubling as Star Trek cosplay? Well, I couldn’t resist. In fact, I liked it so much I think I might just grab another one at the Discovery Exhibit tomorrow as well…
Well, that’s it for tonight; the end of San Diego Comic Con 2018, Day One.
Thanks again for reading.
More to come in the days ahead, I promise…stay tuned!
Great pictures! Been enjoying all the news and trailers ect from SDCC 2018, especially all the Doctor Who stuff! Looks like there’s been some great cosplay as well already, love seeing all the costumes. Really liked the feature on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as well, great film, we don’t see much merchandise for it here in the UK, that version of the operation game looks fun! Also, what awesome Star Trek Discovery costumes on display! Enjoy the rest of your time at comic con 🙂
Thanks Paul! Really enjoyed your Doctor Who post as well; couldn’t get anywhere near the infamous “Hall H” (people were camped out there the night before…I’m crazy, but not that dedicated; hehe).
Cheers! I do love writing about Doctor Who, both the classic show and new version. There’s been so much excitement about what will be shown of the new sereis at SDCC, so great to get all the news yesterday. I bet everyone wanted to go to Hal H LOL!
It’s 7 am over here, and the lines to get into Hall H are already immense. At my age and lack of stamina? I just can’t do that anymore. I pick my battles here very carefully; what I know that I can get into versus what I hope to get into. I still manage to have a great time at the end of it, so that’s the important thing really.
Sounds like a good plan to me. SDCC must be such a huge place to visit, impossible to see everything, so always best to focus on the things you’ll enjoy and have a good time. I don’t think I could wait in lines all that time either.
Great pictures! Been enjoying all the news and trailers ect from SDCC 2018, especially all the Doctor Who stuff! Looks like there’s been some great cosplay as well already, love seeing all the costumes. Really liked the feature on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as well, great film, we don’t see much merchandise for it here in the UK, that version of the operation game looks fun! Also, what awesome Star Trek Discovery costumes on display! Enjoy the rest of your time at comic con 🙂
Thanks Paul! Really enjoyed your Doctor Who post as well; couldn’t get anywhere near the infamous “Hall H” (people were camped out there the night before…I’m crazy, but not that dedicated; hehe).
Cheers! I do love writing about Doctor Who, both the classic show and new version. There’s been so much excitement about what will be shown of the new sereis at SDCC, so great to get all the news yesterday. I bet everyone wanted to go to Hal H LOL!
It’s 7 am over here, and the lines to get into Hall H are already immense. At my age and lack of stamina? I just can’t do that anymore. I pick my battles here very carefully; what I know that I can get into versus what I hope to get into. I still manage to have a great time at the end of it, so that’s the important thing really.
Sounds like a good plan to me. SDCC must be such a huge place to visit, impossible to see everything, so always best to focus on the things you’ll enjoy and have a good time. I don’t think I could wait in lines all that time either.
You risk missing out on a lot if you do.