Yesterday was Hall H day, today was Ballroom 20 day. Walking around yesterday and listening to the rumblings I heard that people were going to pack the Ballroom 20 line early in the morning today so they could get in to see 2 of televisions biggest shows, the Big Bang Theory and True Blood. Naturally, I was interested to see those along with a couple others panels in that room too. On the SWAG and offsite events notes, it was hit and miss today; see the report below.
I was in the Ballroom 20 line early (noted in post 2.1) today and it paid off! When they let us into the convention center I ended up in the first 50 people to be in line and the Ballroom 20 line was easily 5,000 people long by the time the first 10am session started (only 4500 fit in the room) and it continued to grow as the day went on because so many people were trying to get to the afternoon sessions of Big Bang Theory and True Blood (and good Con attendees know, get there early and sit through the whole day to see the popular shows playing late in the day). Ended up sitting through some pretty funny SyFy tv show panels before Big Bang started shortly after 1. The Big Bang Theory panel kicked off with a live performance of the theme song by the Barenaked Ladies!! And they held a big audience sing along with the band! Then came the panel with all the cast and Wil Wheaton (famous Bang Theory guest star) moderating. It was HILARIOUS! The cast is very funny and love to talk how geeky they really are in their personal lives. The surprise of the panel was that Jim Parson's character, Sheldon will be spending more time with his new lady friend (played by Blossom tv show star, Mayim Bialik) that was introduced in last season's finale. For those of you that watch the show, Sheldon with a girlfriend seems highly improbable but show creator Chuck Lorre promised alot of fun will ensue.
A couple other not so big panels came up after the Big Bang Theory, most notably, the Joss Whedon hour. As many of you know, I got to see Mr. Whedon yesterday confirm he would be directing the new Marvel movie, the Avengers. Today, he announced that Nathan Fillion is in negotiations to play Antman and that Jeremy Renner will be playing Hawkeye. Very big announcements for geeks everywhere. And Joss Whedon did a great job of leaking the information out over the couple days he was going to be participating in panels. Also, got to sit in on the Bones panel with surprise appearances by the show's stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreantez who acted like brother and sister on stage and tormented and made little comments back and forth at each other the whole time (technically this was a "big (aka popular) panel, but the stars weren't supposed to be there, so people weren't too excited for it at first). It was pretty funny. The big announcement during that panel was that a major cast member will be dying during this season.
Finally, True Blood! I wasn't a big fan when this show debuted at Comic Con a couple years ago, but then someone close to me spent New Year's Day in a marathon session of watching Season 1 - totally hooked now; Thanks Sweetheart :) This was the most popular panel of the day and was also star studded. Very few members of the main cast were missing, one pulled a Brad Pitt and appeared via cardboard cutout (see pictures post 3.1). We were treated with a special highlight reel of things to come in the current new season. There was also serious discussion of the twisted, and some say over-the-top, sex and violence that has taken place in the new season so far. The cast laughed it off and said that while some of it is very disturbing, it is integral to the plot and themes of the season. After the panel we were given a little pink ticket to redeem for a True Blood pack at the Comic Con Fulfillment Room later on in in the day (more details on that in the SWAG area).
After the day of panels, I was hoping to make it to the Tron: Legacy offsite event. Last year I reported on the Flynn's Arcade that Tron hosted out in the Gaslamp District. They have again built a replica of Flynn's from the original Tron movie this year with even more great surprises to see about the new movie. Unfortunately, I arrived (seriously) 2 minutes late to get in and they had to close it off for their private cast party tonight. Will definitely be trying again tomorrow. So I decided to book it back to the convention center and catch the premiere of the new DC Comics Universe animated release, Batman: Under the Red Hood. This was one of the darker tales in the legacy of the Caped Crusader. The movie was very well done and was almost unable to get it's PG-13 rating (they had to tone it down). Cool fact about the movie, Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson, Doogie Howser) voices one of the main characters. The DVD feature comes out Tuesday, July 27th and I recommend it for any comic book fan, even if you aren't a serious Batman fan. There were elements of the recent Dark Knight movie characters throughout the film as well as some good laughable moments. And an additional bonus, while in the movie screening, I found a Chuck giant tote bag that someone had left behind (how people forget these things I'll never know).
In addition to my late night Chuck find, SWAG was mostly from the panels I sat in on today, the exhibit hall floor was not giving much out today (oh no, the bad economy has hit Comic Con! I blame global warming - hahaha). From the Bones panel we got a copy of one of the books that the show is based off of, our True Blood pack included one of Charlaine Harris' books that the show is based off of, a VILF tshirt (please guess on what VILF means), a set of postcards featuring the great marketing posters for the 3rd season of the show and a set of VampStamps (bandaids that cover vampire bite wounds). One thing I did find on the exhibit hall floor was from a movie series that did not have a very big presence at the Con this year, the Twilight Saga - I got a deck of playing cards. I also had the luck of finding this weird purple ticket on the ground and took it to the Fulfillment room to see what I could collect - it was the limited edition, very exclusive, USA Network's Burn Notice Comic Con Tshirt featuring Bruce Campbell's character, Chuck Finley that was only given to those that attended that panel on Thursday! Totally awesome find and made up for the lack of other freebies (I sound like such a whiny brat, I know, but the SWAG is always my favorite part).
Pictures from the day will be posted in the next post!
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