San Diego Comic-Con 2013 – Day Four

Oh my God what a time I’ve had so far. Day Three was unbelievable! It’s been mind-blowing; I can’t believe all that I have seen, heard, and experienced!

I don’t even think these blog posts can truly convey the scale of it all. There was just too much to see and do—I’d need ten of me to cover it all. So definitely head over to the io9.com website after reading this to check out their super-comprhensive wrap-up of San Diego Comic-Con 2013.

And now there is just one more day to go… Day Four.

Sunday is the last day. It’s supposedly when the convention starts winding down but I certainly didn’t experience that.

It seemed like it was even more packed. I think it had something to do with lots and lots of families coming to Comic-Con on this day.

Anyway, got up in the morning and got ready to head out. Pete was all done and had to catch a flight back home. Joel and I bid him farewell and he left.

We then headed out to the convention center one last time.

First we stopped at this killer burrito place called Lolita’s. We got some breakfast burritos and headed on our way.

We were just south of Petco Park where there are a lot of parking lots that have some great outdoor exhibits going on. Some were promoting The Smurfs 2 movie coming out complete with a 40-foot giant smurf hanging around, a Hello Kitty store, a giant pavilion setup promoting the remake of Mad Max, and a special 3D preview of Alfonso Cuarón’s new movie Gravity (starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock)—which I’ll get to later.

Oh, and speaking of Sandra Bullock, I co-host a movie review show with Rosemary Pacheco for Motif Magazine’s web-channel MoTiV called Take 2. Our latest episode featured the movie The Heat starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. What was great about that episode, aside from both Rosemary and I loving the movie, was that we had a couple of awesome guest stars who starred in and worked on the movie! Erica Derrickson and Tiffany Crosby really rocked on Take 2 telling hilarious stories from the set of The Heat!

You can check out Take 2 and the other killer shows on MoTiV here at MotifRI.com!

So Joel and I took a quick look around and then headed to the convention center.

Here I wanted to take another long look at all the stuff inside the main exhibit hall.

I don’t know if I really described it well enough so here it goes:

Companies like Rhode Island’s own Hasbro, Mattel, Sony, Lucasfilms, Warner Bros, Legendary Pictures, tons of game companies I can’t even recall, and tons more all have multi-million dollar pavilions set up in the exhibit hall to promote their movies, games, toys, and tie-ins of all kinds—with tons and tons of free give-aways (t-shirts, books, buttons, etc.).

And there’s more!

Tons of celebrities are there doing autograph signings; as well as, authors, graphic novelists, etc. There’s also whole swaths of graphic artists there with tables showing off their work. Small press tables are there selling so many graphic novels, comic books, and other books that are just too numerous to describe. And Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering table games going on.

Also, there’s tons and tons of vendors selling everything from t-shirts, toys, games, sculpture and figurines, to hard-to-find movie/comics memorabilia of all kinds. It’s beyond count!

And there’s killer MMO (Massive Multi-player Online) gaming pavilions with live stations and games going on.

And there’s more, and more, and more!

Not to mention the thousands, upon thousands of people in and around there—most dressed up in the most elaborate costumes you can imagine. People were taking pics of these cosplayers left and right. I even got a shot of me being accosted by a giant, and I mean giant, demon!

We must have wandered around for hours checking things out and talking to people.

I even interviewed Daniel Benkwitt (Senior Manager, Brand PR & Communications) for Rhode Island’s own Hasbro. He was telling me about the great new Transformer Constructs line of toys that were being exclusively launched there at San Diego Comic-Con.

Awesome!

I can’t even tell you how much stuff there was to see and experience.

Of course there were also plenty of zombies about, even a The Walking Dead pavilion with a prison setup like in one of the recent episode. Only here, the zombies were eating willing spectators!

And the celebrities were everywhere!

I saw Evangeline Lilly from the upcoming The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug movie doing autograph signings. Michael Dorn who played Lieutenant Worf (the Klingon) from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Movie screen and TV star Edward James Olmos (most recently of the Emmy Award-winning Battlestar Galactica rebooted series), and many more!

But the best one that I saw was just outside the exhibit hall. It was none other than Lou Ferrigno from the old The Incredible Hulk TV series.

He had just come out of the bathroom and walked by me. I said, “Mister Ferrigno!”

He gave me a sideways glance and said, “How are you?” And then kept on walking.

I totally understand why he really didn’t want to shake my hand post-toilet! Hahaha!

Anyway, I thought that was great. And even after all these years, he is still is one “hulking” dude. Wow!

And so Joel and I were almost done with the whole epic adventure.

But I still wanted to interview one more cosplay conventioneer so we went outside and found a great girl who was dressed up in a mash up costume of The Green Lantern and Sailor Moon (an anime character). And she called herself Anna-Mae (a play on the word Anime, the Japanese style of animation).

Come to find out during the interview, she actually had several different costumes going for the entire con! She mentions them in the interview. That’s dedication!

Finally, Joel and I head over to the Alfonso Cuarón Gravity 3D sneak peak. We were sitting inside a mini-stadium seating theater (one that comes on a truck!), with about 50 people all wearing 3D glasses.

So we saw the already posted trailer for the movie in 3D, cool, but we also saw a 5-minute exclusive clip from the movie! And it was amazing! I can’t even describe the level of effects and thrills it had. Everyone in that theater had their minds blown!

What a way to finish up San Diego Comic-Con!

So after a quick bite to eat at The Tilted Kilt, Joel and I headed to the hotel to get our stuff and get to the airport.

So here I am now flying at about 36 thousand feet recalling my once in a lifetime experience that I soooo want to experience every year.

This has been the convention to end all conventions!

Everything you’ve ever heard about San Diego Comic-Con pales in comparison to actually being there yourself.

I plan on coming back because I just cannot get enough of this pop-culture mega-extravaganza!

With my mind blown to bits and my body in sheer and utter exhaustion, it will take me weeks to decompress.

But my memories of the end-all-be-all of sci-fi/fantasy/comic book/movie/cosplay/pop-culture conventions will last forever!

San Diego Comic-Con I love You!

Nicholas Iandolo is a freelance writer from Boston, MA. He is also the author of two books on screenwriting: Cut The Crap and WRITE THAT DAMN SCREENPLAY! and Cut The Crap and PITCH THAT DAMN SCREENPLAY!, as well as the epic Sci-Fi eBook series NLV (a.k.a. New Las Vegas). He also hosts Motif Magazine’s Take 2 with Rosemary Pacheco on MoTiV, and is the producer/writer/director/host of the upcoming Nick’s Sci-Fi Corner for DedhamTV. Follow him on Twitter @cutcrapwrite, email: nick@tenthsphere.com.