A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
The release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is still nearly six months away. But Friday evening at Comic-Con International, some 6,000 people will cram into San Diego Convention Center's massive Hall H to catch a glimpse of the film's stars and director, and perhaps see some unseen footage from the film.
Thousands of fans have camped out in line for days to get in the door.
Yet, however much attention the Star Wars panel, and panels for fan-favorite television shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, received Friday, there are about 125,000 attendees who won’t get in to Hall H — or aren't even interested in trying. After all, there's plenty else happening at the annual geek gathering.
Southern California Public Radio’s Web Producer, Mike Roe, has been at this year's Comic-Con since Wednesday. He talked with The Frame host John Horn about what to see and do beyond Hall H.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On one of the challenges of attending Comic-Con — figuring out where to go and what you can get into
MR: It really depends on what you care about and where you want to spend your time. Do you want to invest a couple days camping out in the very front of Hall H and maybe get to see Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill and all the 'Star Wars' stars up there? Or do you want to take your time and go to some of the smaller panels where maybe it's a little easier to get into?
Then, if you don't get into the things that you like, you have to figure out, 'well, what do I do now?' There's going to be a lot of sad fans wandering around trying to find out what else they should see at Comic-Con.
What were some highlights from Thursday?
MR: One of my favorites, I expected this to be packed: it was William Shatner doing Captain Kirk in Ballroom 20. I just happened to wander over there and there was [only] about half the room full.
So you never know what people are going to be drawn to. You thought this was going to be a geek fantasy, but it didn't fill the room.
Also, I went and checked, in the afternoon, a new web series called, 'Con Man.' It was in Hall H; one of the biggest web series of all time because it's the third biggest crowd-funding [campaign] ever. It has all the stars from the classic cult TV show, 'Firefly,' as well as other geek heroes.
So that was a huge panel; and it actually ended with a gay marriage proposal, so you never know what you're going to see at Comic-Con.
On the costumes
MR: There's been a lot of really great cosplay. One thing that I thought has been really interesting this year is I feel like cosplay has expanded a lot beyond the classic comic book characters. It's not just Wolverine and all of those characters anymore.
I saw somebody cosplaying from 'Grand Budapest Hotel.' There are people cosplaying from Pixar movies. There are people cosplaying from just about everything under the sun.
Fandom has started to become much bigger and broader. Basically anything that people can be a fan of, they are here representing that.