Harsh Words Mark Opening Day
Day one of ComicCon 2007 was greeted with flared tempers and heated exchanges of words as literally thousands of ComicCon attendees, many of whom traveled cross country and around the world and paid hundreds of dollars to be part of the world’s largest gathering of pop culture consumers, were turned away from Thursday’s Paramount Pictures presentation.
The entire affair turned into a gigantic boondoggle of crowd control about forty minutes before the presentation was to start as throngs of convention attendees, unnoticed by ComicCon authorities, exiting the San Diego Convention Center’s Hall G, executed a sharp right hand turn and made a beeline for Hall H, where the Paramount presentation was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. In the process they cut off access to Hall H to thousands of other attendees waiting patiently inline, some for as long as two hours.
Convention Center security forces and ComicCon managers tried several times, in vain, to reorganize the queue but it was too late. Hall H had reached the crowd capacity level set by the Fire Marshals.
Elsewhere other convention goers were either late or completely missed being admitted to a host of presentations as they struggled to master the traffic flow patterns imposed on the massive convention center’s corridors. Throughout the day in an effort to create one-way traffic flows, security forces, standing beneath Convention Center signage identifying halls and presentation suites listed in the ComicCon program guide, routinely turned attendees away and directed them to alternate entrances.
No effort was made by either the San Diego Convention Center or ComicCon officials to put up directional traffic signs to aid attendees. Several longtime “Con” attendees reported that this year’s event was “the worst organized I’ve ever seen it.”
Just minutes after the doors closed for Paramount's 1:30 presentation Con attenees began lininging up for Lionsgate's 3:45 show.
Two Spocks for the Price of One
Inside Hall H at the Paramount Presentation the lucky few, approximately 6,500, who got in weren’t disappointed. The studio passed out “ComicCon” versions of posters for several upcoming SciFi and fantasy fan favorite films.
Paramount confirmed the previously leaked news that Karen Allen, who starred opposite Harrison Ford in the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Arch, will in fact appear in the fourth installment of that franchise now in production with director Steven Spielberg. The real treat for Con attendees was the video greeting from the set by Spielberg, the cast and Allen all in costume.
Producer, director J. J. Abrams also confirmed that Zachary Quinto, Heroes super villain Sylar, will play a younger version of quintessential Star Trek Vulcan, Mr. Spock in the next installment of Paramount’s multibillion dollar SciFi franchise due in theatres in 2009.
But, what really brought the crowd to its feet was an appearance by the original Spock himself, actor Leonard Nimoy, and the news that he too will once again bring the planet Vulcan’s most famous citizen and ambassador to the screen and thereby become the first Trek film to feature two Spocks in leading rolls.
Lost No More
By late afternoon both the crowds and ComicCon staff seemed to have a better grip on traffic patterns and crowd control. Only those attendees naive enough to arrive as late as a thirty minutes prior to the 5:00 p. m. Lost Season 4 presentation were turned away as again a convention center ballroom played host to in access of 2,000 rabid “Lostees.”
The previous day ABC Entertainment head honcho Steve McPherson addressing the Television Critics Association gathering a few miles to the north of ComicCon in Beverly Hills USA, let the cat out of the bag and told the assembled media that actor Harold Perrineau would be returning to the alphabet network’s now resurrected hit series, Lost.
Actor Harold Perrineau, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse of ABC TV's hit series Lost. This picture taken from so far back in the San Diego Convention Center that the people behind us were being asked for Passports and Visas.
All images copyright© obe-mediaone.
This did not dampen the fan enthusiasm as Perrineau, who plays Michael father of teenage savant Walt in the series, was greeted by thunderous applause and cheering as he made what was still something of a surprise appearance on stage with producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.
The two executive producers opened their session with a sneak preview of some of the special features, which will be found on the Lost Season 3 DVDs, and a look at UBISOFT’s upcoming Lost video game. Something for fans to watch out for was the remarkable candor about character and storylines exhibited by Lost cast members in special features highlights.
The Lost Season 4 presentation closed out with a made for ComicCon reel of “lost film footage” found in a storage room of an office building in Norway once used by the Hanso Foundation. The grainy series of mixmatched clips once again featured that well know DARMA Initiative spokesman Marvin Candle, also known as Mark Wickmund and this time in his Dr. Edward Hourwax persona holding, what has now become a staple of Lost lore, a big white fluffy white bunny rabbit. This one held in such a way as to reveal the number 15 painted on its left side.
The part of the film that had fans buzzing was a dramatic scene that featured the usually calm Candle/Wickmund/Hourwax character freaking out when it was revealed that an identical white rabbit, also bearing the number 15 on its side, was in the same room at the same with the first rabbit. Alarms, went off, the good doctor panicked and began shouting profanities and then of course before you could find out what all the excitement was about the film skipped back to normal, dull, DARMA orientation film.
More to follow...
