Well, I went to the San Diego International Comic Con 2005 last Saturday. Let me tell you, it is a busy, busy place to be at. If you don't know where you are going, it is easy to get lost. It would really take 2 days to see the entire exhibition, let alone all the special events they have continually going on. In the 4 and half days of the Con, you cannot possibly see everything. It is impossible. It really is. Impossible.

But, this does not mean you can't see the best thing they have to offer over the weekend, which is to see Natalie Portman live! Yes, indeed, I got to see her- from a point of view of about 300 feet away, while she is sitting down behind a table with a microphone in front of her. Good thing there was a large screen. I took some photos, which I have displayed here. Again, thanks to my awesome digital camera, it looks as though she was sitting right next to me. No, seriously, I now realize why some cameras are more expensive than others. The pictures I took are terrible, but I wanted you to see them any way. I will walk you through my experience as only my camera was able to pick up.

Ok, below is a picture of the stage as is from my seat. Can you see Natalie? No? Hmm. Must be your bad eye sight. She is the one sitting all the way on the right.

Yes, that is her. She had her head shaved from her latest film, V for Vendetta, which looks to be a really cool film. The link is to the comic book, which I highly suggest!! It is incredible and undoubtedly the comic will prove to be better than the film. But nonetheless, it is a difficult book to transcribe into filmic terms. I was privelaged at this little suare to witness the first world premiere of the trailer of the film. It looks quite good and Natalie looks very nice as well. She has her head shaved at some point in the movie, and that is what she presented herself here live. Another photo depicting a close-up of Natalie that the large screen showed.

The other people there were Joel Silver, the producer, the writer David Lloyd and another guy. Alan Moore, the writer who is usually given credit to the book was not present, nor does he endore this film. He does not like Hollywood. There was a Q&A for the panel, which, ultimately, ended up with a Q&A for Natalie. We were preambled with a set of instructions as to not ask Natalie if we could go on a date, marry her or if she wants to do it behind the curtains after the show. We were also instructed not to take any photos of the screen, particularly when the trailers were being shown. They were pretty emphatic about this. The Hollywood secret society does not like all this bootlegging and downloading happening. At any rate, I also got to see the world premiere trailer for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which looks darker and more intense than the last film. Also an extended sequence from Tim Burton's next film Corpse's Bride. Finally the world premiere of the trailer of Fountain, Darren Aronovsky's next film. He arrived there with star of the film Rachel Weiss, who looked very nice. She had little to say that showed depth, but she was nice to look at. Darren, on the other hand, seemed pretty cool and down to earth. He seemed really interested as to whether the film looked good or not (or he is just a good PR person). Either/or, he was fun to listen to. He also showed the first 10 minutes of the film, which was a cool treat. Below is a picture of them two standing together (this is of the screen).

Once that was over, I trollied over to the main area where all the bigwigs of the comic industry held their, well, booth's would be an understatement, but rather exhibitions or small fun houses. There were a lot of statue companies there to display their stuff. Some gorgeous models from all the popular films. I took alot of photos of these things. So check them out.

This was a large scale model from Gentle Giant. It probably stood like 6 or 7 feet tall. It truly was gorgeous.

Remember Clash of the Titans? Well, here are 3 statues. Are they not the coolest looking thing? My, if I had nothing to spend my money except nice looking statues of characters from movies, these would be some of the ones I would get.

This actually is not a statue, but the actual costume used in the movie Batman Begins. It is the garb of the Scarecrow, played by Cillian Murphy.

Next is a large, very large statue of Peter Jackson's next film, King Kong. That's right, and it looks hot. Although, my first impression was that the T-Rex is very reminiscent of Jurassic Park. I thought that maybe King Kong is the true sequel to that classic Spielberg film. Who knows. The statue on the other hand is still gorgeous and exciting to look at.

These two are the Marvel characters, both exquisite in detail and form. The Dr. Doom, sitting there on his throne, is just powerful and majestic. I love it!

 

With all these statues, who could leave Lord of the Rings out? Strangely, the Lord of the Rings trilogy has been done with for over a year now and the industry is still trying to sap every last sent they could out of that franchise. It is probably as big a thing as Star Wars. I am surprised they keep J. R. R. Tolkeins name still there. I suppose its part of the title. Maybe one day it will show up on a Trivia Pursuit question and the answer will be "J. R. R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings". But no one will know what J. R. R. Tolkein is. But this statue of Sauron is magnificent. He looks like a dark mountain. The statue was probably 2 or 3 feet in height. The photo is not the greatest (with all due respect to my camera, it actually is a very good picture if you consider the above photos in comparison), but you can make out the basic shape.

Lastly is from Star Wars, General Greivous. Very cool looking and quite large as well.

These are just the ones I thought worthy of photos. There were hundreds more. It seems such a big part of the industry now that it everything has crossed all boundaries of their source.

I think it began, once, when actors started saying, "But what I really want to do is direct." From there, musicians started saying, "But what I really want to do is act." Then directors started saying, "But what I really want to do is produce." And so, musicians became actors, and actors became directors, and directors became producers, and producers controlled the rights of items, and directors wanted more control over their work by producing and controlling the rights of their items, and selling the rights to as many different venues as possible, and actors and musicians wanted to do as many different things for one movie as possible (direct, act, produce, cut a few hit singles for the soundtrack, distribute, and sell the rights to many toy companies). It's a big business.