Comic-Con 2011: Saturday Blog

Saturday was my last day at Comic-Con, and I spent it almost entirely in Hall H. Check out my reactions the panels and more after the break.

The first panel of the day was for Francis Ford Coppola’s TWIXT, which started at 11:45am. I got in line at around 8:30am and I was surprised to be pretty close to the front. All the buzz for that day (and most of the con) was Ballroom 20, which had the popular TV shows. I, however, wanted to see movies.

Coppola was in attendance for his panel (read the live blog here), and what he showed us was wild. The movie itself is strange, gothic, and really hard to describe. Coppola told us that he had a plan to change the way movies were shown. He and composer Dan Deacon clumsily tried to show us his vision. They wanted to tour with the movie and have Deacon do the score live, as well as the narration. They could even shuffle scenes to make each viewing unique. It was pretty interesting and Coppola was visibly excited about it.

Next was the Immortals panel. The fight scene they showed was pretty impressive, and I like how they are making the gods actually do something in the film, where usually in movies they watch over.

Knights of Badassdom was next on the docket, and I was pleasantly surprised. It looks pretty funny, and I like how enthusiast director Joe Lynch was about the whole thing. Of course, geek god Summer Glau got huge applause when she came out, as did True Blood‘s Ryan Kwanten.

The biggest movie panel of the day was for Snow White and the Huntsman. Our live blog for the event saw a massive increase in viewers, and it was actually a bit overwhelming. It was about a 1000% increase, and it was hard to keep up with all the comments, which were almost entirely about Kristen Stewart. Despite that, Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, actually got the biggest reaction from the audience, which was nice to see. Since they didn’t have much to show (filming starts next week), it’s hard to tell if the film looks good or not. However, Snow White in full body armor has me intrigued.

The Dorothy of Oz panel was probably the weakest point of the day. While it was great to see Patrick Stewart, the movie didn’t look that great, and Lea Michele wasn’t even there. This surprisingly was Stewart’s first time to Comic-Con, so he got a standing ovation when he came in, and we all sang him Happy Birthday since his birthday was last week.

Kevin Smith was funny and insightful as usual during his annual panel. We got to see a clip from Red State, which was pretty brutal, but looked good, especially for a director like Smith who admits he’s not great at action. After that panel, I went to the NBC party at the Hard Rock Hotel, and that was pretty much my day.

I’ll be posting a few panel videos and a bunch of roundtable/press conference audio today and tomorrow, so look out for that. Follow all our Comic-Con coverage here.