Comic-Con Part 1: Megamind, TRON, Disney Announcements

I saw four panels on Thursday, one on Friday, and six on Saturday, so dividing these recap posts up by individual day is doomed to failure. I'm just going to keep writing until I hit what I feel is a good stopping place for each post. I also want to quickly note that most of the footage that was shown in the larger panels, and in some cases the panels themselves, can easily be found through Youtube or official websites.

First up on the Thursday schedule, I went straight from the registration line to the Hall H line for "TRON." The wait wasn't nearly as long as I thought it would be - probably only about an hour and a half before they started letting people in for the 10AM "Megamind" panel that immediately preceded "TRON." Contrary to the claims of the Comic-Con website, no one cleared any of the rooms after panels, not even the smaller ones, not that this was necessarily a bad thing. The less popular panels benefited from bigger audiences than they would have attracted on their own, so the promotional efforts were seen by more ambivalent crowds who weren't already fans. Me included, in the case of "Megamind."

A couple of thoughts on Hall H first of all. It's the largest auditorium in the convention center, with a capacity of over eight thousand, and its own restrooms and food services for those who wanted to stay there all day. What struck me the most was how dimly lit is was, even when the lights were up. Big, obscuring, black curtains lined both sides of the room, making the whole place feel like a big, cavernous movie theater - very appropriate as Hall H was hosting all the film panels. I was near the back of the room and wouldn't have seen a thing if it weren't for the three giant overhead screens giving us close-up views of the panelists at the front. The real benefit to being there in person was the crowd. The energy generated by eight thousand people is incredible.

After being handed a pair of 3D - ahem, Real D - glasses and a "Megamind" swag bag on the way in, we were treated to the new trailer, which has since been released online through Yahoo. I hesitate to say if it's better or worse than the first trailer, or to even describe it in much detail because it has so many potential spoilers, but the marketing is definitely taking steps to distinguish "Megamind" from "Despicable Me." Hero/villain relationships are the major theme, and it's not hard to predict how the story is going to play out jut looking at the promotional materials. However, the 3D didn't do much for me, either for "Megamind" or for "TRON," but there was nothing obnoxious about the use of it either.

Then they brought out the director and three members of the cast: Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Jonah Hill. Ferrell brought the cosplay spirit and was dressed as Megamind, with his face painted blue and a giant bulbous fake head. There were rumors that Brad Pitt was also going to put in an appearance, since Angelina Jolie was confirmed for the "Salt" panel later that day. Instead, Will Ferrell psyched us out with a full size cardboard cutout of Pitt, that confused at least a few fans from the screams at the front of the room. Cardboard Brad Pitt spent much of the remaining panel time on Tina Fey's lap. There was some nice banter back and forth, and the actors talked a little about their characters and answered a few questions - every panel left about ten minutes for audience Q&A.

Does Will Ferrell prefer playing villains or heroes? For "Megamind" he got to be both. Does Tina Fey find voice acting or live action roles easier? Voice acting. Was Jonah Hill going to reveal the big twist about his character? No, but he was going to play up the fact that there is a twist for all he was worth. In the end, the presentation did its job. I'm more likely to see "Megamind" now than I was after the initial teaser trailer. The story looks stronger and the visuals have a bigger scope. I'm still getting the vibe that this is Dreamworks' very late answer to PIXAR's "The Incredibles," with double the sarcasm and about half the charm, but it's a formula that works for Dreamworks, and they've surprised me before with "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Kung Fu Panda." We'll see in November.

Now on to the main event.

The minute the "TRON" panel started, you could feel the tension and anticipation in the room rising. Patton Oswalt came out to moderate, greeted by cheers. We got a clip package on the impact of "TRON" first, a collection of clips of other media with "TRON" references and spoofs, including the famous "Homer3" from the Simpsons, the Cheech and Chong web parody, and of course the TRON guy. "TRON Legacy" director Joe Kosinski, producer Sean Bailey, original "TRON" director/creator Steve Lisberger, and cast members Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, Bruce Boxleitner, and Jeff Bridges took the stage, and the room cheerfully erupted for them. Bridges and Boxleitner were the main event from the start, as they reminisced about the production of the original "TRON," where most of the film was shot on all-black soundstages and the effects were added later by animators. Kosinski had video game machines on the set, a fatal mistake since Bridges would often get caught up in "research" between takes.

Kosinski promised that the new film was being shot for 3D, with the same system James Cameron used for "Avatar." Technological advances mean that the "TRON" production is very different this time, and one of the biggest upgrades will be that the illuminated sections of the suits will be a practical effect. Garrett Hedlund described being jammed into the very tight, very stiff costumes that required him to stand very still to avoid tearing them. The action sequences are likely to be much more fight-intensive. Hedlund had to pick up parkour and motorcycle skills, while Wilde talked about discovering she was going to have to perform her fight choreography in four-inch heels. One of the most talked-about effects will surely be the digital de-aging process used to create CLU, a character who is essentially an evil, 35-year-old version of Jeff Bridges. I've heard a few complaints that CLU looks too plasticine, but I honestly couldn't see the flaws in the brief scene we saw with him.

We were treated to both the new trailer, which was simultaneously released online, and an eight-minute clip that featured the full sequence where Sam, Garrett Hedlund's character, is picked up by a Recognizer. He's mistaken for a "stray" program, since he has no disc, and carted off with a group of other prisoners. They're split into two groups, one to be "rectified," and the other to sent to the Games - apparently a fate worse than death because one program leaps to his doom upon learning his fate, off the side of a platform and right into a giant fan blade. Sam ends up in the Games group, and gets a costume change with the help of four female programs, who strip him down, outfit him with a lightsuit and data disc, and then send him off on his way with only one word of advice: "survive." The sequence ends with the shot from the first teaser, where Sam enters the arena. We got to hear a good chunk of the Daft Punk score, which is a nice mixture of electronica and orchestral music. Also, I noticed that the programs speak with a slight electronic voice effect, some more noticeably than others.

The rest of the clip was a montage of finished effects shots, most of them shared with the new trailer. Bits that were exclusive to the Comic-Con footage included a quick glimpse of masked, winged soldiers who looked like the Superman villain Firefly, and a few different shots of Martin Sheen's and Olivia Wilde's characters. I liked what I saw and wanted to see more. The characters are still sketchy and the footage is still too scant to piece the whole story together, but there were mentions of exploring issues related to the dark side of technology use, and the father/son themes are going to be the backbone of the narrative, as Sam will spend a good portion of the film searching the "TRON" world for his father. That supports the rumors of "Apocalypse Now" parallels that surfaced a few months ago.

Between the second clip package and the trailer, we did a neat little foley exercise to provide some noise for the arena crowd scenes. They got the whole hall to spend several minutes shouting "Disc Wars!" "Rinzler!" and "De-Rez!" in time with video instructions on the screen. The takes we managed to get right might end up in the final film. If not, it was still a great experience to be one of eight thousand fans chanting "TRON" dialogue in unison. I've already covered most of the interesting tidbits that came up during the closing Q&A, but a common refrain from everyone involved with the first "TRON" was how surprised they were at the film's longevity, at being involved in the new project twenty-eight years later, and how much technology has changed since 1982.

But wait, there's more!

I think I must have been one of the only people in Hall H who noticed that the "TRON" presentation ended well before the schedule said it was going to, so I was fully expecting a surprise or two after the "TRON" panelists exited the stage. Most of the other attendees did not, because everyone was getting up to leave before Patton Oswalt returned to the microphone and told us all to sit ourselves back down. The lights dimmed, and Johnny Depp came onscreen in full Captain Jack Sparrow regalia, to vehemently deny that he was planning to go after the Fountain of Youth on his next voyage, and to extol the virtues of rum and Bloody Marys. Zombies, mermaids, and Penelope Cruz were mentioned offhand, before the title screen was revealed. "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" will be on its way to theaters in the near future. It was a good teaser and I hope the movie lives up to the cast being assembled for it.

The lights came up. Oswalt asked us which Disney property we'd like to see rebooted. After some confused murmuring from the crowd, he announced that "The Haunted Mansion" was going to get another feature film adaptation. Another short teaser followed, just a few seconds of animation of the a green logo being stretched out a la the famous "growing" entryway portraits in the Disneyland ride. There was a palpable sense of "that's it?" when the lights came back on, but then Oswalt told us that the project's director was going to come out to say a few words: Guillermo del Toro. I was screaming. Everyone around me was screaming. Del Toro took the stage and first quickly reminded himself that he had to watch his language because this was a Disney panel. Then he talked about how much he loved the Disneyland ride, how he was planning to make a genuinely scary film centered on the legendary Hatbox Ghost, and how he was not returning Eddie Murphy's calls.

I knew Del Toro was going to be at the "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" panel on Friday that I was going to have to skip, so it was great to be able to see him. At the time I thought that "Haunted Mansion" was the new directing gig he had been expected to announce at Comic-Con, though from subsequent reports this apparently is not the case. Del Toro later clarified that he probably wouldn't be directing "Haunted Mansion" because his slate was too full, but he planned to write and produce the film. The next one he's actually directing has yet to be announced.

Whew. I think this is the longest post I've put up on this blog, and I've barely made it through two panels. But this was a great kick-off to my Comic-Con experience. More to come soon!