Friday, March 25, 2016

Silicon Valley Comic Con/Saturday

Saturday was the first full day of the convention and I woke up feeling like death. I largely blamed it on the crappy food from the night before, but as the weekend progressed, it looked more like the stomach flu. Sorry to anyone I came in contact with, I honestly just thought it was a mild case of food poisoning!

Anyway, my husband and I started our day at Psycho Donuts, which was super close to our hotel. It was delicious! It had all the fancy donuts you only see on Instagram in there, and I was excited. I got the Cereal Killer, while my husband got the Headhunter and a Sticky Monkey (for later).



Convention-wise, we started our day with a panel by Loot Crate and QMX. They went into detail about how they make the figures that go into Loot Crates, paying special attention to that Deadpool figure that was in February's Crate because.....they gave everyone that attended the panel one! I was pretty excited, because that figure is so cute. But it was very interesting to hear the process of making the figures, and just making Loot Crates in general. It was there that they also announced Loot Crate DX, a higher priced box offering more high end or more detailed items. They refused to give a price point at the panel, but its since been revealed that they will be $50 (monthly plan), with small price breaks for those who purchase a multi-month subscription. 
The Loot Crate panelists.

After that, we went upstairs to the main hall and caught the opening speech by Steve Wozniack and his business partner Paul White. It was very good, and they announced that there will be a sister convention in Tokyo, they even brought in a Japanese senator to help make the announcement. Now I would love to attend that one! I mean, I think any comic convention in Japan would be great, but pop culture and technology there?! Japan houses some of the biggest entertainment brands in the world, plus all the anime and fashion. Madame Tussaud's also unveiled their wax figure of Steve Wozniack during this time. It looked so real!! Its going to be housed in their San Francisco museum, and they had it on the convention floor all weekend for people to take pictures with. (All my pictures from the opening address have a weird white light, so no pictures of that- bummer).


The panel with Jeremy Renner was next. It was in the same hall as Steve Wozniack, so we just moved up in seats and were going to wait for it to start (like you do at SDCC). But they cleared the room, so only VIPs could sit first and everyone else had to get in this huge line. I will talk about VIPs and the lines in general in my wrap up- but it was a pain. Back to the panel though: It was a spotlight panel, much like William Shatner's, so he was up on stage alone taking questions from the audience. He got started right away, no opening monologue or story. Some of the questions he got were just.....wow. I get that people are excited to talk to their idols, but you expect those feelings, and prepare for them. Also, and this is just good for panels in general, have a backup question prepared in case someone in front of you asks your question. That way you're not stuck asking a "what's your favorite?" or "who would you rather be?" questions that everyone groans at and the celebrity has probably heard a million times. Overall, he was very gracious and funny, but at times it did seem like he was uncomfortable answering the questions. Some people read it as arrogance, but I think it was just because people have an overly high expectation of what celebrities are supposed to provide them. The best question came from a young boy though, who asked that in the first Avengers movie, Hawkeye was in love with Black Widow, but in Age of Ultron he had a wife a kids. He said that it was confusing for young viewers and asked why they did that lol. Jeremy Renner was just like, "its confusing to me too."
Jeremy Renner

After Jeremy Renner was done, we stood in line to get right back into the very room we'd just exited to see Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion never disappoints- hes so funny and he to get everyone going he opened with a little story. He got just as equally bizarre questions as Jeremy Renner did (he even got a marriage propsal!), which is funny because when you look at them celebrity wise, people might classify Renner as the bigger star, even though Nathan has been doing it much longer. 
Nathan Fillion

After Nathan Fillion, we took a short lunch break and ate some over priced convention food, then came back in to check out the Founder Fireside with Steve Wozniack and Palmer Luckey (the found of Oculus). It was interesting, but a little over my head, so I was very ready to skip out early on that and head downstairs to Tim and Blur's Tips on Winning the Deadpool panel instead. This was the first panel that my press pass was acknowledged at and actively used in, and I am grateful because I probably wouldn't have gotten a seat in it otherwise. They talked about what it was like making the movie, and pretty much how they got to do everything they wanted with it. They wouldn't say who is playing Cable (my husband asked lol), but Tim Miller said that everyone he wants casted gets cast, so hopefully he has someone really awesome chosen for Cable (oh yeah, that's a spoiler for anyone that hasn't seen Deadpool yet, sorry!!). 

Tim Miller and Friends.

Our last panel of Saturday was a little disappointing. We went to the I am Not a Serial Killer panel and screening. When I think of a screening, I think of seeing the whole movie or a whole teevee show episode. But in this panel, they only showed a few clips from the movie, so to me it wasn't much of screening. Also, Christopher Lloyd was supposed to be one of the panelists, since hes in the movie, but he showed up during the last ten minutes, spoke for about five, then just took off. Now, there were a lot of Back to the Future things going on that weekend, so maybe he was just too booked up, but to me, it looked rude to just step in and out like that. The author of the book on which the movie is based and the director of the movie were the other two panelists, and they were nice guys.

Our night ended with pizza at Pizza My Heart, which was delicious. I wish we would have eaten there the first night we got into town. Or at least somewhere in that area, there were so many food choices! 

Stay tuned for Sunday, and don't forget to check out Friday's coverage if you haven't already!


4 comments:

  1. That is one of the reasons why I avoid going to celebrity panels. The questions that get asked! Even I'm like "Did that really come out of that persons mouth?"

    I had plans to go to SVCC but things didn't fall into place and I've heard mixed reviews about it. I hope they take the feedback and get better. I was so annoyed with the lack of updates when it came to guests. I didn't even know Carrie Fisher was a guest until they announced she had to cancel.

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  2. She was supposed to be a guest?! I had no idea lol. Everything was so focused on all the Back to the Future stuff that was going on, it was ridiculous. I like BTTF, but everything they had for it you had to pay to do, which sucked. But now that you mentioned Carrie Fisher, the presence of the Stormtroopers makes a lot more sense. They used them to guard lines in the morning and to help introduce Steve Wozniack. It was almost like a mixing of nerd genres, like he was trying to prove that he was a nerd in some way. I think the convention has a lot of potential, but there is a lot of room for improvement for sure.

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  3. Yup! Peter Mayhew was a guest too! I didn't know until my friend sent me a photo of her photo op with him. I was like, What the hell!!???

    I'm hoping they do this again next year! It sounded really neat and fun when it was working!

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  4. Yeah! My husband and I did the photo op with him on Sunday. It was a last minute thing, we didn't know he had one that day and were actually going to do one with Jon Heder instead. But my husband was like, "Chewbacca!!!" and that was the end of that lol.

    They said that they already have a SVCC 2.0 planned for next year, and its supposed to be bigger and better, so I'm really hoping that they do it. The bigger part doesn't really need to happen so much as the better. And even then, not better in the conventional sense, it just needs to be a little more polished, and it would be great.

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