Salt Lake Comic Con: Day 3

When I saw the HUGE crowd surrounding the Salt Palace on Saturday morning, I felt completely overwhelmed.

We had tried to leave the motel early and we were still behind this whole horde of people! The sight was so discouraging, all I could think to myself was, “There is no way I'm going to get inside, let alone see anything today.”

I left my group for the solitude of Ensign Bookstore. It was nice, even though they didn't have anything really interesting for sale.

A while later I walked back. The line was still super-long, but I was able to get inside pretty quickly with the help of my sister.

We didn't feel like cramming ourselves into the workshops, so we went to the Center Stage.

• The Power Rangers were going to be there!

Unfortunately they were not the Power Rangers of my childhood, but the “Power Rangers Samurai”.

(WHICH ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!!)

Fortunately, these Power Rangers were still really cool! And the experience definitely had nostalgia value for me. I watched the original series as a kid, when you're small they are your Superheroes...the kind of person you want to be when you “grow up” and become a teenager.

The kids in the audience absolutely adored their Power Rangers. Multiple times, a little kid would come up to the microphone to talk to his/her heroes and say:

“I LOVE POWER RANGERS!!!” (Too loud!! But I guess you can't control the volume on a child.)

Without fail, the actors would say, “And we love you too.” Then one of them would run and give the kid a hug.

It was very touching, I could tell it meant a lot to the little kids to see their heroes.

(An added bonus: Steven Skylar looks very much like Alejandro Sanchez.)

• I went to the Vendor area and picked up my comic book

(I'm quite pleased with the way it came out, Edward even got one of his fangs knocked out!)

I got to briefly meet the mormonmovieguy and got an autographed copy of his book.

(Which is really good, btw. Gives a content overview, summary, discussion guide and applicable scripture for each of the 250 entries.)

• Manu Bennett
  
  
  
  
  

Going into the Q and A session all I knew about this actor was that he plays the White Orc (who should have been a Goblin), Azog (who should have been Blog) in The Hobbit Trilogy.

Almost soon as he sat down someone (I believe it was the announcer) said:

“I just want to address the elephant in the room. When are you going to take off your shirt?”

Mr Bennet obliged, removing his black, long-sleeved shirt and posing momentarily, displaying his ripped upper-body, before retreating behind a table/curtain set to put his shirt back on.

It was a surprisingly modest gesture and he explained, 'I did that because I'm a performer and it was for you. I'm not trying to be Magic Mike.'

OK...so that was the first surprise, a really hot guy who also demonstrates modesty (to some extent, at least). He's also really thoughtful and expressed his belief in the importance of cultural heritage. He gave a shout-out to the native peoples of Utah (the Utes) and the Mormon settlers of the area.

“I'm a Maori boy.” He explained, “Of course, I'm also Scottish and Irish..”

He even shared the traditional Maori greeting.

Mr Bennett discussed some of his roles. The most interesting sounding one is Crixius in Spartacus I hope that one isn't too violent, a lot of the people in the audience were very impressed by his performance in that role and I'd really like to check it out.

(He did a few character impressions of Crixius on stage, it was pretty funny.)

He also discussed his role in The Hobbit.

 "Azog has a son, and he's a really tough on him. And his son makes a lot of mistakes, so he's not a very good father."

I for one am very pleased at his confirmation that they have at least filmed this aspect of the story; it not only shows a side to the orcs/goblins that we haven't explored before, but it is also a concept that is original to Tolkien's work.

He also says he named the White Warg that Azog rides “Daisy”. ;)

“I wanted Azog to have a relationship with him; 'When I get those hobbits, I'm feeding them to My Warg!!'”

Then he started talking about his personal life, and why he became a performer.

I personally met a lot of people who have a “defining moment” in life, or an event that set them on course in life. For Manu Bennett it was the death of his mother, and subsequently his brother, in car accidents.

The interview got really intimate (in a psychological way!) it was evident that he felt that the performing arts were a way to connect to his mother and brother.

Afterward our whole group got together and sat on the floor and ate lunch.

Then waited in line....... ...................................................................................................................

(For a long time)

And then sat down in Center Stage. And waited some more....

• And then William Shatner came on stage!!

The whole performance was extremely awesome. Mr Shatner as a reputation for being conceited (He does sound like he was the practical joker on the Star Trek set...The Lenard Nimoy Bike Prank was pretty cruel XD.), but he was hilarious! And a lot of his insights on geek culture and humanity in general were really thoughtful. It really seems like he was puzzled with the geek culture and went to lengths to come to an understanding of it (even trying to go incognito to interact with geeks).

 He was able to articulate his growing understanding of the “geek movement and culture” in the most cohesive way I've ever heard. (I will never hear the phrase "Get A Life" in quite the same way again.)

If you want to watch what we saw, check out these youtube videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3J2iIddMcw (There are two of them.)

After the performance, we were about to leave the stage when the announcer told us to “Stay in your seats if you want to see Stan Lee” so of course I totally didn't need to use the bathroom any more!!

We waited for an hour, and Stan Lee was only on stage for twenty minutes. He didn't give a lot of insight or anything, it was just mostly sass. But it was electrifying to be in that packed room with so many enthusiastic people and Stan Lee being his sarcastic self.

Also, we got the most awesome picture:

(Me and Stan Lee!)

I also got to see Stan Lee up close; when he went to sign autographs, his go-cart stopped in front of me and walked behind the black curtain to his booth.

Later on, we got back together for a last hurrah!

Went out to eat and started a plot to invade the next comic con!

Conclusions on Comicon:

I had a lot of fun. I liked spending time with my brother, sisters and friends. I enjoyed meeting the Comicon attendees and looking at the cosplayers. A big part of the experience was the last day, and being able to see Will Shatner and Stan Lee.

You kind of have to got into the experience expecting that you will miss a lot of what you want to see, because you probably will. If I ever go to a Comic Con again, I will probably :binge" and buy the VIP tickets.

(His sign says it all)