Friday, May 31, 2013

Denver Comic Con : Day One

In short, my first day at Denver Comic Con 2013 was amazing.

It is now midnight. I just got home. I'm getting up at 7am tomorrow so I can catch one the first panels. That is why I must be brief, and why I'm writing a blog from my tablet for the first time. I'm curious to see how well I can edit the pictures in here.

Hmm, looks like I can't. Oh well, so here's a quick commentary followed by some pictures of the day.

This is the first convention I've ever dressed up for. As I walked through downtown Denver sporting the Federation Uniform, I felt that odd outcast sense from the residential stares. Then I arrived at the line for Comic Con and felt right at home. The Cos-Play scene at this Con is very rampant, and very friendly.

I've met an official AMC walking dead zombie, and a professional voice actor (Hal Rayle). I've been introduced to new card games in development. I've seen Felicia Day from a far. I've attended a great panel on the battles of earning a place in the cartoon voice industry.

The highlight though is the strong vibe of respect and acceptance among the crowd of attendees. This really is a celebration of "being" geeky. It's only day one, and I've already had multiple nerdgasms.

OK, enough late night blabber. I'm off to sleep for Day 2. Enjoy a few pictures from my day ...

A Denver Comic Con Prequel Story, featuring Waldrop

It confounds me me that the last time I did something like this was 14 years ago. Before I begin my Denver Comic Con 2013 experience, let's flashback ...


The year was 1999. The location was Dragon Con, a three day science fiction and fantasy convention hosted in Atlanta, GA. I went with a close friend of mine who, while very relevant to the story, we will keep anonymous with the pseudonym "Waldrop". Waldrop was an impressive portrait artist that enjoyed getting his portraits signed by the celebrities they featured. At this point in time, I believe he had an Eric Idle portrait of his signed by Mr. Idle.

That, for the most part, was Waldrop's motivation to come to this convention with me. He had a great portrait drawn of Billy D. Williams as the Lando Calrissian Character, and Billy D Williams himself was to be at Dragon Con that year. So after dragging Waldrop through the trade room with me for a while, we went to meet the great Star Wars traitor himself.

Billy D. Williams from 1999's DragonCon
As we approached Billy Dick William's signing room, we were cut off by security. They informed the line that Mr. Williams would not be signing ANY Star Wars memorabilia. He would only be signing his new book, which we could purchase there for the signing. Well, a couple of underpaid security guards never stopped a pair of teenagers in my knowledge of the history of America. Confident that we could appeal to the "Artist" within Billy D., Waldrop snuck the picture under his shirt and we confidently continued forward. When we reached the book sellers they again warned us Mr. Williams would only sign the new book. We continued on, and Waldrop stood before Billy D. Williams with his portrait in hand.

"Hello Mr. Williams. I understand you are an artist, like myself, and I was just wondering if you had any comments about my piece of you here or maybe if you'd might honor it with your signature?"

Billy D. just stared blankly at Waldrop and said "No.", and pointed us towards the door.

Waldrop was devastated.

Adam West from 1999's DragonCon
I lead us on to the Celebrity Walk, in hopes of raising his spirits with a different celeberity. As luck would have it, Adam West's booth was within sight without a single attendee before him.

"Hey dude, cheer up! Let's go say 'Hi' to Batman!"

If you're not in the know, Adam West is fucking awesome.

I walk up, nerding out to Mr. West about how I grew up watching his show, when he notices the distraught Waldrop. 

"Yeah, that's great kid. What's wrong with your friend?"

Waldrop steps forward, "Billy D. Williams wouldn't sign my portrait of him."

Batgirl at 1999 DragonCon
"Really, what a jerk! Can I see it? Wow kid, this is really good. Tell you what, can I sign it?"

Waldrop begins to lighten up a bit, "Um, sure."

So Adam West signs Waldrop's Billy D Williams Portrait, writing in one corner "Great work kid, keep it up. Love, Adam West" and in the other corner "Sorry I'm such a douchebag. Love, Billy D. Williams".

He gives us the portrait back, and suggests that we get all the other celebrities at the con to sign it. Then we could bring it back to Billy D. and exclaim, "Hey all these other celebrities would sign it, why can't you?"

So that's what we did. A campaign across the DragonCon Celebrity booths to gather signatures to shove in Billy D. Williams face. Now this was 14 years ago, so my memory may be fallible but I remember us getting ...



Apollo Smile at 1999 DragonCon

Yvonne Craig (60's Batgirl)
Apollo Smile
Phillip Brown (Uncle Owen Lars)
Peter Ostrum (Charlie from the Chocolate Factory)
Julie Dawn Cole (Veruca Salt from Chocolate Factory)

Just to name a few of the signatures I remember ...

Now fast forward to 2013 ...

The Denver Convention Center Bear just wants to come in to play!
I'm attending my second convention in almost 14 years since that epic day! I'm excited and hopeful for some new stories to share from Denver's Comic Con. There will be many photos coming to this blog, so stay tuned or subscribed or however you choose to find my blog through the internets.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Boldly Going : A Commentary on Star Trek Into Darkness

Spoilers!

I apologize for starting a blog with required reading, but the situation calls for it. The following article inspired my Star Trek Into Darkness experience to such a degree that I am unable to write without including it.

The article is ...

Harry dives into STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS' spoilers to reveal the truth behind the blockbuster we're seeing!


 ... You're back already? Did you even ... oh alright! I'll summarize with an excerpt ...

The first film saw a 9/11 shock and awe attack upon Vulcan that resulted in it’s complete annihilation.   The attack also targeted Earth…   In addition, that very first attack – it took Kirk’s father – a father that in our beloved Trekverse, lived and served as a constant inspiration for Kirk.   In JJ’s, ol Tiberius has the swagger and the libido of Shatner’s Kirk, but he isn’t prone to preach the ideals of Starfleet.   Instead, he’s raised with at least one step-father that he has zero respect for – and is prone to reckless adrenaline rushes.   Shatner’s Kirk was an adventurer at heart, marveling at the infinite variety of civilizations out there around the stars.  We can see some of that with Pine’s Kirk – he’s anxious to get way out there, but he hasn’t believed in Starfleet for most of his life.

Now – is this Starfleet still based on the idealism of the 1960’s America?    No.   With STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, the Darkness of the film isn’t Khan.   It isn’t the Klingons or the Romulans, it’s the Darkness that has infected policy in STARFLEET.   In other words, this is a metaphor for a Post-9/11 America.    In JJ’s Verse, he has a Kirk that doesn’t yet value the core beliefs of STARFLEET…   Meanwhile, the rest of his crew…   good souls like Spock and Scotty…   They raise these issues with Kirk, but Kirk doesn’t want to hear it.   He’s us.   Kirk has always been us.   But just like Kirk, we’ve changed.    - Harry Knowles @headgeek666
Classic Star Trek was classic for a generation because it was once relevant.

From the BoOk Of Knowledge 
Roddenberry wanted to tell more sophisticated stories, using futuristic situations as analogies for current problems on Earth and showing how they could be rectified through humanism and optimism.
It's this often unspoken of ingredient of Star Trek's appeal that J.J. Abrams has kept alive in this interpretation  The alternate universe idea has changed the setting of Starfleet a little more than it's core characters. From this perspective, Into Darkness succeeds in presenting us the "What If" scenario of the crew of the Enterprise being pulled into the politics of "The War on Terror".

I found this sequel to be more in tune with the characters than the original, both in scripting and in portrayal. Simon Pegg in particular stole the show with his Scotty performance, and it felt like Chris Pine had included a little more Shatner to his performance. The Enterprise Crew I knew and loved as a child really felt reborn this time around.

Well, for the most part ...

There were a few moments that threw me off as a fan. Namely moments where classic scenes were relived from different perspectives. While Kirk is the driving motivation for pursuing Kahn, it is Spock who actually does most of the battling with the genetic superman. It's a cool alternate universe idea, I admit. Seeing Spock and Kahn battle it out was most excellent, but Spock yelling "Kahn!!"? Too much Abrams ... too much. Yes, like the original Shatner scream, it had a nice flare of cheese to it. Yet Spock's "Kahn" scream just killed any tension and tone building with the scene for me, whereas Shatner's kept the tension building to Ricardo Montalbán's victory orgasm.

Despite my little geeky nitpicking, Into Darkness was an overall success in bringing classic Star Trek back alive. It's nice to see good guys be good guys despite the darkness growing in their/our world.

I'm also thankful they didn't abuse Spock's classic "The need of the many outweighs the need of the few" line as a pro-war on terror statement. That would have been awkward ...

Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Man In the Iron Suit : A Review of Iron Man 3

Sigh, I am a mutant with the power of opinion and its spider sense is tingling.

I wish I could put on a magical suit of armor to protect me from disappointment. I'd be "Denial Man", impervious to let downs. Everything I experienced would be "epic".

While I was a little disappointed, I still left the theater mostly satisfied by my Iron Man 3 experience. It was great for what it was, a movie about Tony Stark defeating his inner demons both external and internal. This film picks up with Tony Stark dealing with the shock of his experiences at the end of The Avengers. Its actually quite a nice continuation of the grander Marvel movie plot. We see how P.T.S.D. has taken it's toll on Tony Stark, who is so lost in his Iron Man weapon as a way to distract himself from his trauma. As the film unfolds, we see how the suit doesn't make the man as Stark successfully survives without his stockpile of technology. Tony Stark IS Iron Man, not the suit of armor.

So with Robert Downey Jr's excellent performance and the films deep introspective into the character of
Tony Stark, why was I disappointed? In the same fashion that I was disappointed with Oblivion. My expectations, led by a winter of action filled trailers, led me astray. I expected a lot more Iron Man battle action. Frankly it's not essential to see this in 3D as the majority of the film is dramatic dialog scenes. While there is some great action near the end, there's not enough of it to warrant the film being in 3d in my opinion.

Also there's the disappointment of new suit. The new armor is a running plot device to just fail on Tony, to the extent that Stark prefers to not wear it for most of the film. I think there's a plot hole in that throughout the movie we're left to believe that Tony is suitless due to only assessable suit being out of order. Then by the end of the film, we find out that Stark had an army of suits conveniently available for the ending showdown. That scene in itself was awesome in 3D, but you can't help but ask "why didn't he summon these suits earlier in the movie?".

The recurring theme for me this summer seems to be "stop having expectations". I think if I had gone to this movie without any expectations, I would have walked away a lot more satisfied. Iron Man 3 was a good movie, just not the style of movie I had expected. I suppose that says a lot for how well Iron Man 3 is if it can deter from my expectations and yet still satisfy. If you're a comic book movie fan, I highly recommend checking it out.