Culture Blues

Super Cuddly Comic-Con Coverage: El Fin

If you’re wondering why the Intern is so irrationally positive about everything, read this.

Realer than you are.

Well, Comic-Con’s over and as awesome as it was, and as excited as I am for all the projects that were featured (literally all of them!), the tail end didn’t really feature any huge news.

The Community panel didn’t have anything to show or much to say about the upcoming third season as a whole, but creator Dan Harmon and the cast did drop a number of specific details that will clearly find the show much improved. Troy and Abed will finally live together (this relationships hasn’t gotten enough screen-time yet), there will be a Halloween episode and an episode featuring “multiple timelines,” and we’ll see an empowered Chang after last season’s groveling and scheming. Also, Omar Little from The Wire is joining the cast as a professor. Harmon claims that for those who think Community is too cartoonish, he’s decided to “add the opposite of cartoonish. Let's add The Wire to Community.” It’s a great point because The Wire is a really realistic show top to bottom. It’s practically cinema verite. And there is no better example of that than Omar. Harmon also commented on the possibility of ending the show after four years, when Jeff Winger has presumably graduated from Greendale. Perfect, Harmon. No one wants too much of a good thing.

It’s a well known fact that Total Recall, while awesome, was a bit too over-the-top to be a proper Philip K. Dick adaptation. Finally, someone’s got the guts to stand up to the inevitable and unreasonable backlash from 40-year old bloggers and make a movie worthy of Dick’s original work. Len Wiseman will be directing Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel. The notoriously cynical internet crowd was instantly won over by the footage unveiled at Comic-Con, so you know it must be really good.

It's the The Wire of humans vs. dinosaurs stories.

FOX is banking pretty heavily on this fall’s sci-fi epic series Terra Nova, Spielberg’s second new television project of the year (we talked Falling Skies on Saturday). Luckily for FOX, Terra Nova looks too big to fail with its prehistoric setting and frequent dinosaur attacks. The creators revealed that there will be no T-Rex creatures in their show because they don’t fit into the timeline, and that they are actually creating a lot of new dinosaurs based on what the most recent scientific research suggest might have been running around. If there’s one thing that the public at large wants, it’s more realism in their time traveling dinosaur stories.

The gritty fairy tale Snow White & the Huntsman had something of a coming out party at SDCC, as the first images of all the main characters were released and producer Joe Roth compared the scale of the film to the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s about time someone took up the cause of wrestling fairy tales away from Disney’s tyrannical grasp. And this seems like the perfect antidote to the mighty mouse’s talking teapots.

Finally, in a nod to the onstage Avengers Assemble moment from last year, Marvel released concept art for all of the major characters from Avengers, and they can all be combined into one image that has my heart beating a little faster in anticipation of next summer. Not only do we get to see all the characters together for the first time, and get our first look at the new Hulk, but we also get to see the new costumes these heroes will be rocking. The Iron Man design in particular features a multitude of improvements that will be obvious to anyone with eyes. And Captain America’s outfit maintains his military roots by including a bunch of pouches. I’m so excited for The Avengers!

Finally!

Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the Culture Blues coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2011. This was definitely the best Comic-Con I’ve covered… ever.