Note: Before I really get going here folks, I’d like to first apologize for the lateness of this column. Going to Comic-Con was a pretty overwhelming experience, and the trip plus going right back to work when I returns has absolutely sapped all my energy. On the other hand, I’m going to be featuring the convention for the next few columns, including this one, the longest single column I’ve ever written. Hope you guys enjoy. See you next week.
Note 2: I’d also apologize for some of the photos in this columns, they were taken with my iPhone, so they’re the best that I could do, but not as good as I’d have liked for them to have been.
– Rob
As a geek, I think you get used to waiting for things. You’re always waiting for the next big movie. The coolest new toy is just around the corner. In a few weeks or a few months, that graphic novel you’ve been frothing at the mouth to read will finally come out. Well imagine that someone told you in a just a few months you were going to get the opportunity to be in the same room with Robert Downey, Jr., Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Paul Bettany, Mila Kunis, Cameron Diaz, Meagan Fox, Thomas Jane, Josh Brolin, Tim Burton, Patton Oswalt, Johnny Depp, Andy Samberg, Anna Farris, Seth MacFarlane, Anthony Daniels, Robert Zemekis, Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron. How much would it kill you to have to wait for that? Well, I can tell you, I had to wait it out, and it was worth every single second.
Right out of the gate, I’d like to personally thank my friend Robert Kirkman. If you don’t know who Robert is, he’s the very successful writer of his creator-owned comic books for Image Comics, Invincible, The Walking Dead and many others as well as having a successful run at Marvel Comics, including writing the first two volumes of the award winning series, Marvel Zombies. More importantly to me though, is that Robert has been my best friend since we were in high school. He’s the one I deem responsible for reintroducing me to comic books when I was a sophomore, therefore costing me thousands of dollars and hours of my life in the process, but also giving me one of the greatest geek obsessions ever. When I met him, he was the only other geek in an English class full of jocks and rednecks. Now he’s tweeting with Tyrese Gibson.
Again, it’s because of Robert’s generosity that I was able to go on this trip, and I’ll never be able to show enough gratitude for such a mind-blowing geek experience.
Looking back on the experience itself, the entire convention was a whirlwind. I was going to set up a twitter account before I left, but ended up not having time, so I ended up updating my facebook really often during the whole of the trip using my iPhone, which really ended up a boon for me because it was an easy way to keep a pseudo-journal of the whole event. So what follows is what I can really remember of the event as a whole, broken up into different sections as best I can. Nothing I could write could really do justice to the experience of the San Diego Comic-Con, but I hope I can just give a bit of a glimpse into the 5 days I had there.
Setting Up
I’ll spare you my thoughts on the flight in; suffice it to say that it was not very fun. Eventually though, after not getting much sleep the night before and then a long, long flight, we finally reached San Diego.
Because Robert got me a gig as an exhibitor, helping him set up the Image booth, I was able to enter the hall while everything on the floor was still being put together. Before a single fan was able to get in, I watched as forklifts and workers brought in giant boxes and crates. Eventually these crates that would reveal Star Trek uniforms, huge displays and booths, a life sized Transformer, and ungodly amounts of collectibles. I got to chat with industry professionals and run around looking at booth after booth of awesome statues, movie replicas, and an adolescent’s wet dream worth of action figures.
I didn’t even bother trying to hold in my inner fanboy (I often don’t) as I wandered through the Star Wars exhibit, a giant HD screen playing various clips from the movies and the Clone Wars as I wandered near the little stage that was set up for taking pictures with the life-sized statues of Obi-Wan, Anakin and others. The largest exhibit on the floor, this was the only time I was able to get this close to the stage, and the fan bombardment of the booth was pretty constant throughout the week.
I waded through the rest of the booths as they neared completion, trying to avoid getting run over by forklifts, and nearly getting thrown out by security in one instance.
Thankfully, I got a little time before what is known as Preview Night at the convention even started, which allowed me time to map routes and get my plan together for the next day, which was the best decision I might have made the whole con, because my friend Shaun and I, who hung out together for the five days, had no idea just how crazy it was going to get. If not for that, Twilight might have ended up ruining Comic-Con for me.
Waiting for Cameron
So the decision was made before we even got to San Diego that if we only got to see one panel the whole week, it was going to be the panel for James Cameron’s Avatar. I absolutely love Cameron’s work and regard him as a director to be a man of giant vision, and one that more often than not ends up accomplishing whatever task he sets up for himself, even when that vision is completely insane. He just kind of seems unstoppable, so when I hear the hype about Avatar, I believe it.
For those that don’t know, the movie takes place on a planet called Pandora; a jungle planet inhabited by the Na’vi, a tribe of ten foot tall cat people with blue skin. They are a warrior people that fiercely hate humans because Earth is encroaching on their planet in order to mine its precious minerals, and to the Na’vi natural order is everything, and humans are destroying the precious balance of their planet with their industrial workings. The main advantage seems to be that humans are unable to breath the air on Pandora.
In order to combat this, humans have to inhabit Avatars, living Na’vi host bodies that are linked to a human’s brain. This allows for people to explore Pandora, but if the host body dies, so does the human its linked to. Oh and the whole thing is filmed in the most beautiful 3-D you’ve ever seen. Sound ambitious and downright crazy? That’s James Cameron for you, but I wouldn’t bet against him.
The fact that the man was able to follow-up Ridley Scott’s Alien with a movie that many consider to be a superior film is an astonishing feat, but this is a man who created Terminator for $5 million, launched the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then followed that up with what many consider to be the textbook example of sequel film making in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Cameron started the 90’s with that movie and then ended the decade by making the most successful box office grosser of all time with Titanic. Let me just say that when movies such as True Lies and The Abyss are on your resume and those aren’t the movies that people remember you for then you’re doing something right.
Planning on taking a walk around the con Thursday morning, Shaun and I decided to check out the line in order to gauge how long we’d need to wait to get into Avatar and then maybe get some breakfast. Completely underestimating the rabid devotion of Twilight fans, Shaun and I had to skip food altogether, and went ahead and got in a massive line that we waited in for 3 ½ hours in order of meeting our single goal for the week, getting to see footage of the first James Cameron offering in over a decade. Thank God, the wait was worth every second.
The Big Reveal
Again, as a geek, standing in line is not a foreign concept. Hell, I’m a Star Wars fan, so line waiting is no big deal, but waiting while surrounded by Twilight fans, and then having to wait through the New Moon panel in order to get to Avatar, which wasn’t even guaranteed to show footage, now that was a test of will. It was another time Cameron had to come up big for the fans out there that have stood by him, even after making the biggest chick flick of all time and then following that up with nothing but undersea documentaries since then.
I shouldn’t have been worried at all.
Fox CEO Tom Rothman came out first to introduce Cameron, and he seemed a combination of worried and excited about what he was about to show us. I’m not sure how much this film cost, but working on this project for 4 years, I’m sure Fox has a significant investment in this film. Then again, its not like Cameron hasn’t produced for the studio before, with the aforementioned True Lies and The Abyss coming up big for them in the past, not to mention the monster success of Aliens, but there is still a lot riding on whether or not this thing is going to blow up.
There were some more introductions made and we got to watch a video from Sam Worthington, who was off on another project at the time (I‘m assuming Clash of the Titans), and I totally geeked out for Sigourney Weaver when she came on stage, but nothing could compare to the moment when Cameron asked the audience “How many of you have ever wanted to go to another planet?” He then followed by telling us to get ready to go to Pandora. We then threw on our 3D glasses and got ready to be blown away, and after spending 25 minutes there, I can’t wait to go back to the world created by James Cameron.
Walking on Pandora
Thankfully, even though we only got certain scenes, the progression of the sequences seemed to tell a certain story of their own. The first selection didn’t throw us onto an alien world, but instead gave us a place that seemed very familiar to Cameron fans; a futuristic military base. It’s all cold looking steel walls and floors, and we start on the image of a combat boot. Eventually we focus on Stephen Lang as Marine Corps Colonel Quaritch, who has a big scar on his face and looks like he belongs in a James Cameron film, though deep down I wish this role was being played by Michael Biehn. Lang showed hints of his level of badassery in Public Enemies recently, and I can’t wait to watch him here. He has a great monologue as he welcomes a bunch of newcomers and states “My job is to protect you” and then adds “I will not succeed.”
As he’s talking Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully rolls in. This is going to be make or break for Worthington, as I think he was one of the best parts of Terminator: Salvation, but there’s no disputing the movie was at least a financial disappointment. The fact that Cameron has put the movie in his hands is an interesting choice, and hopefully he’s able to live up to the responsibility. I think Jake has the potential to be an amazing character.
You see, Sully is paralyzed, which you would think would preclude him from being a part of this project, but the Avatars are developed to work with specific DNA, and Jake’s twin, who was supposed to lead this mission, has just died.
In the next scene we get a bit of a glimpse of the Avatars, and I think it’s a terrific way for Cameron to introduce them, as Jake gets to see the lifeless body that has been developed that will be able to take his consciousness. There’s a sense of wonder and expectation on Jake’s face, and I love what a doorway this scene will be for the audiences out there as well. This Avatar body is our first glimpse into the magical world of Pandora, and just like Jake is tied down to his reality because of his handicap, we as an audience are tied down because of our perceptions of the what a world looks like, and Cameron plans on showing us a whole new one.
Next up is Jake waking up in the new body, and he’s desperate to get going. Even with doctors screaming at him, his excitement at being able to walk again can’t be contained. This is the first real example of Jake’s rebelliousness, and many, including Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel (Drag Me to Hell) can’t get him calmed down. As his excitement peaks, Jake runs for a hatch.
The first big action set piece we’re treated to has Jake in his new body out scouting with two other Avatars, one for Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine and Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman. Dr. Augustine is trying to instill patience in Jake, who seems to be hopping around the jungle like madman, when he finally runs into this huge creature that seems to be a rhino crossed with a hammerhead shark that’s the size of an elephant. This is an awesome sequence where Jake has to stand his ground in order to show dominance and you can feel his confidence growing in his new body, a confidence that is shattered when he comes across a giant panther, triceratops-like creature that Jake must flee from to save his life.
This action sequence again is awesome, and shows Cameron’s gift for visceral entertainment. Just like the first assault by the Aliens or Schwarzenegger busting through the windshield of the car driven by Kyle Reese, Cameron loves making his action up close and personal, and as the creature is desperate to destroy Jake, we see our hero doing everything he can to survive, the best part coming as Jake takes refuge in the hollowed up bottom of a tree that is promptly eviscerated by the creature as Jake tries to make its escape.
This is also the first you see of the landscape of Pandora. As thick a jungle as I’ve ever seen on film, the fact that none of it is actually there is completely inconsequential. The landscape looks as real as any I’ve ever seen, the jungle is a page out of classic-era Star Wars world building. You completely believe the world is there, the only thing telling you that any of it is CGI is the fact that your main characters are blue cat people and they’re fighting giant half dinosaur/half panthers. Did I mention that all this awesome action and landscape is in STUNNING 3-D?!
Next up has Jake fighting a pack of dog-like creatures and being saved by Neytiri, a female Na’vi played by Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana, who seems to immediately regret saving Jake, sorrowful at taking the life of another living creature. The moment is a good one, and gives us immediate insight into the Na’vi and their traditions without saying very much at all. It’s a interesting start to what will obviously be the main relationship to the movie.
This bleeds into the next sequence, where Neytiri is basically trying to tell Jake to get lost, and admonishing him for trying to kill a little flying creature that is bothering him at the time. A moment of hesitation from Jake leads to a gorgeous sequence where all these little lightning bug/tiny jellyfish things surround him. It’s another stunner of a instant from Cameron, who shows off his wonderful visual flourish by giving us a quiet moment of beauty in this jungle world he’s created.
Finally, we see a trial that Jake must face in order to be accepted by Neytiri’s Na’vi tribe; he must form a bond with a bird/pterodactyl by defeating it in combat. Taking place on a Cliffside/waterfall, this is undoubtedly one of the most visually impressive scenes we were given, reminding me again of some of the best moments from Peter Jackson’s King Kong on Skull Island, because honestly that’s the only other movie I can think to compare it to. The landscape is alien and untamed, these creatures almost overpopulating the area. The scene is so lush and overwhelming, you can see exactly what Cameron was going for here, and I think he succeeds swimmingly.
Jake tries desperately to wrestle the creature and just won’t quit when it continually tries to throw him off. Our hero fights and fights until they both go over and we’re given more visual bravado from Cameron. Disappointingly, at that point the lights came back up.
Given just a taste, I can firmly tell you that this movie excites me more than any other that’s on the horizon right now. This is exactly the story a mad genius like Cameron would wait over a decade to tell, and from what I saw it looks to be worth the wait. This is world-building from the ground up and every minute detail seems to be explored in full. I simply can’t wait to see more, and can only hope that Fox releases a trailer for the film very soon.
Wrap It Up Rob!
Unfortunately, due to sitting in line for hours as well as going through hours and hours of panels, Shaun and I were starving to death and decided to forgo the rest of the day’s panels, including The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and more importantly, Kick Ass, which apparently wowed the audience in Hall H. Then again, as we left the restaurant we grabbed lunch at and walked back toward the hotel we were staying at, Shaun and I ran smack dab into Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan as they ran from photographers. Finally reaching the hotel, I got the chance to meet Drew McWeeney from Hitfix.com (formerly Moriarty from Aintitcool) and we chatted up Avatar till I got to my room. That’s pretty much what Comic-Con is like.
Alright, I’m already running over this week, next week I’ll rundown my favorite panels and hopefully my favorite footage that wasn’t Avatar!
