#SDCC Day One Round Up

By Adam Ruhl

I am currently in the midst of experiencing my very first San Diego Comic-con. It’s a mad crush of thousands of people falling all over each other trying to get exclusive toys and previews of upcoming movies and television. So far I've lived through the preview night and the first day and I've gathered some good info from a day of panels to share.

From the Dexter panel we learned that not only will the Final season will be available on November 5^th but that a complete series box set will also be available on that date. The complete series set ships in a wooden case made up to look like Dexter’s slide box and all the discs in their slip cases as slides.

There was first look footage of a movie called Divergent from director Neil Burger (Limitless). This movie, based on the young adult novel of the same name, tells of a future Chicago where the population has been reduced to a few tribes. A young girl named Tris faces a difficult choice of following her own path at the risk of losing her family. The film seems very similar to The Hunger Games and several other recent young adult adaptations. Author Veronica Roth shared that the upcoming third book in the series would be told from the point of view of the main characters Tris and Four.

One great surprise today was during the panel for Terry Gilliam’s new movie The Zero Theorem. Terry’s Daughter Amy Gilliam, who’s producing the film, screened the first ten minutes for the crowd. The movie stars Christoph Waltz with his head and eyebrows shaved, in a dystopic future. He attempts to figure out the meaning of life by solving the “Zero Theorem”. The movie bears strong resemblance to Gilliam’s Brazil and 12 Monkeys in set design and themes. Many Gilliam hallmarks such as wires dangling all over, television monitors on metal stalks, and Orwellian but mostly incompetent corporations are present. 

Other panel highlights included Ender’s Game where they revealed a lot of the space battle and zero gravity arena footage. The CGI is stunning, I wish I had been able to take pictures of it. Harrison Ford sat on the panel in a rare comiccon appearance and Ender’s Game author Orson Scott Card was noticeably absent. The producer of the film went so far as to repeat Lionsgate’s support of GLBT equality and asked that people please not reject the film because of the opinion of one person (meaning Card).

There was also a panel on the new found footage science fiction film Europa Report. It details a doomed voyage to the titular planet and though it’s already on VOD I recommend seeing its theatrical release. The images of Europa and Bear McCreary score are breathtaking in a movie theater. The movie used consultants from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory so the movie is based in a lot of real science which gave the footage a very believable feel. A pair of those consultants sat on the panel and talked about the feasibility of primitive life on Europa. The panel footage stopped short of showing what they find on Europa but the movie looks like a solid Horror Sci-Fi film worth checking out.