Fatter Than Fat Comicon Report

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Fatter Than Fat Comicon Report

Here's the first ever Comicon report by film ick's roving spy in San Diego.


I'm going to go into itallics and then everything that follows will be the work of one Elisabeth Rappe. Give me a while and I might get to drop back in and proof her text a little too - don't hold Elisabeth accountable for any typos or grammatical skews, it's all my responsibilty.

To begin with though, here's the whole big wodge, unfiltered. It's a very
good read and there's a lot of info in there, as well as some keen opinionating. Enjoy.

This was my first trip to SDCC and I really hope it will not be my last. I say that with some surprise, because it was a really exhausting, insane experience. I consider myself to be a pretty tough fangirl, but it was overwhelming. There’s too much to do, see and buy. You compete with hundreds of fans to get a glimpse of a Sideshow Collectible. People wear poster tubes slung on their backs like samurai swords. You look around and wonder how there can be as many geeky people in the world as you...




Now, for what I managed to see...

(...)
Saturday, I lined up early to catch the "300" panel. This was the main thing I had attended SDCC for and was the highlight of the trip. It didn’t disappoint me. The actors on display, Gerard Butler and David Wenham, were clearly having a good time and were good sports with even the silly questions.

For anyone who doesn’t know by now, "300" is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel and follows those famous 300 Spartans to their death at the hands of the Persians. Read it if you haven’t already so that you can look cool when the film comes out. The film is directed by Zack Snyder and has quite a nice cast, mostly made up of young and handsome men —Gerard Butler, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro and Dominic West. Lena Headley is the lone female, Queen Gorgo.

The film was shot in the same style as "Sin City," all green screen to capture the look of Miller’s panels. Now I thought this was a smart move as it would distinguish the movie from the parade of Greek flops that we’ve had in recent years. Many of the book’s fans disagreed, feeling it should be shot as a straight-up historical epic. Just wait until they see this trailer.

This film is going to be huge, if Warner Bros doesn’t blow the promotion of it. (Word to the studio—do not release this in March 2007! Release this in May to give it the summer blockbuster status it deserves!) Snyder insisted it was a rough cut, but if this is unfinished, I can’t wait to see what the polished film will look like. It began with an "origin" for Leonidas and the Spartans, narrated by Wenham, describing how they were examined at birth and trained to be warriors. It featured all the highlights from the book—Leonidas kicking the Persian emissary into the pit ("This is madness!" "Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!"), the Oracle (topless), the deformed Spartan and that wonderful line out of Herodotus , "I have so many archers that their arrows will blot out the sun." "Then we will fight in the shade." Gorgo’s part, known to be fleshed out, was hinted at—and we got glimpses of one hell of a sex scene between her and Leonidas. (Snyder must have felt his male audience needed some breasts with all those half-naked men running around.) It’s going to be violent, raw, sexy and contemporary—everything the book is and more. The audience was completely blown away and the actors, Gerard Butler and David Wenham were so thrilled to see it on the big screen they asked that it be run again. We ended up seeing it three times and honestly, we could have all gone for a fourth. Amazingly, for it being THE film of the convention, precious few I talked to had seen the panel. One WB employee told me he had seen it and that it was "incredible." I actually believe him, not just because of the trailer, but because he confessed to falling asleep during all the WB promo meetings. So if it kept his attention, it must be cool.

Because I ran to Warner Bros to catch Butler’s autograph (a girl has to have her priorities) I missed all the big panels because I could not get back into Hall H.
(...)

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