a99kitten's Musings

LOVED IT!!!!

Bought the tickets a couple days ago using my free Fandango codes from Groupon. Yay! Picked a Saturday afternoon show because husband had a couple out of town meetings on Friday and wasn’t going to be back until Saturday AM.  He is going out of town again but said flight wasn’t until Saturday night so we chose the 1:40pm showing. While I very much wanted to see it Friday, I would wait the half a day.  It wasn’t a Star Wars or Indy film after all. :)

Husband called me around 10am today saying he just got on the road about an hour ago. Huh? You said you were leaving “early”. I should have asked whose definition of early we were using. Grrr.  Oh…and that he checked his flight and it was actually leaving at 4:55 and not after 7pm like he thought (that’s the arrival time.) Doh! So he had to drive 3+ hours (always bad traffic on weekends so definitely a lot of +), pack for a week trip and then we would drive to the movies, watch a 2 hour movie after 20 minutes of previews and get him to SFO in time to check bags. Uh…sure…OK.

He did hit a lot of traffic. And got home after 12:30pm. And still had to pack. And we left the house in his truck at 1:04pm. With an empty gas tank. But we needed to take his truck since his surf case wouldn’t fit in my Rover. And hit traffic on Highway 1 because well…it’s the weekend. Tourists.

He says on the way “well, worst thing is I miss my flight and have to pay the $100 change fee for the next one. No big deal. I promised you this movie” Huh?  No big deal? Did the aliens from this movie abduct my husband??? Pretty sure yes…yes they did. Got to the theater at 1:39. I raced in while he parked. I scored us great seats though! Also – got to see the Mission Impossible trailer again. CANNOT wait to see that!!

I deliberately wasn’t reading any reviews of C&A because a) critics are generally stupid and b) I didn’t want any opinions or parts of the movie in my head while I watched it. So if you are like me – STOP READING.

The movie started and I would like to state for the record that I was NOT the only one who kind of quietly but still out loud said “YAY!” when Harrison Ford’s name came on the screen :) #geek #stalker

It was non-stop from the moment it started.  Everyone in it is fantastic. The action was fun and the effects never took over the movie. And a big thank you to Jon Favreau for deliberately not filming it in 3D (he talked about that at Comic Con last year.) I’m sure some effects would have been cool in 3D and all but his decision to go with an old Western movie feel definitely made a difference in the tone/feel (for the better) of the movie.

There are a couple scenes where you jump. So maybe not so great for little kids? Depends on them I guess. Personally, the Harry Potter commercials with Voldemort look scarier to me!  In one scene, our entire row jumped! And then we all giggled at ourselves for it right after. Hehehe.

Harrison Ford has some great lines. He plays a pretty grumpy guy and he made me giggle a lot with his grumpiness.  Kinda reminded me of my old boss actually. Seemingly grumpy with a soft (ish) gooey center. A couple lines were definitely Han or Indy lines :) I truly love Harrison Ford. How is he 69??? Oh, and Daniel Craig is totally awesome too! Although I think he had like 10 lines. He was more facial and action type acting. And Olivia Wilde (who is beyond beautiful.) And Sam Rockwell. And all of the other actors. But…well…no one is Harrison Ford, not even James Bond. ;)

There are a few scenes that are obvious winks at Return of the Jedi.  And one BIG wink and smirk to Indiana Jones. That…or I’m a goober who reads too much Star Wars and Indy into everything :) But I don’t think so. Well, I do think I read Star Wars and Indy into a lot of life, but that’s because they are SO awesome. And so applicable!

Oh! – the aliens want our gold. Me too! This also explains the gold bricks promotion at Comic Con.  But seriously…I want the gold too.

And there is a dog in the movie. So really – this makes the movie pretty darn near perfect. A husky would have made it perfect. But then we would all wonder what the heck a husky was going in New Mexico.  So, that’s OK :)

If you want a super fun popcorn movie that makes you smile – GO! If you only like art house crap…err…I mean indie films to make you think or ponder your emotions you should stick with Netflix tonight. Although…it may be too late since you might have stopped reading by now because I told you to earlier :)

Today was crazy! A good crazy. Comic Con crazy. Woke up, looked outside and saw the GIANT line for people waiting to get their badges (happily picked mine up yesterday), got ready and was outside the main hall doors at 9:28am. They were late and didn’t open at 9:30am. There were grumpy, sweaty geeks ready to storm the doors. And they said so. 2 of them said “Don’t make us geeks sweaty and grumpy. You won’t like us when we are sweaty and grumpy. “At 9:35am, the doors opened and a giant collective cheer went up and then everyone raced to the main floor.  Stuff like that makes the Con and crowds fun.

I found several of the Con exclusive that I wanted and bought a few for a friend who couldn’t come.  I missed out on Squirrel Pool at Gentle Giant. That sucked. Especially after seeing several go up for sale on eBay this morning. Jerks. I hate scalpers. And eBay. They ruined the collectibles market forever.  And this coming from a good old fashioned capitalist.

Hasbro had a couple things I really wanted. And the line at the Hasbro booth has always been out of control busy. But this year you had to go upstairs to a room to wait in line to get a ticket so that you were now special enough to get in an even longer line at the Hasbro booth to wait to buy stuff. Give. Me. A. Break.  And then I saw several guys later with bags and bags and boxes and boxes of the Hasbro toys. How much do you want to bet they are all up on eBay now.  Jerks. And I mean Hasbro, eBay and the scalpers.  All guilty.

BUT – while I was looking around trying to find a booth I ran right into a booth with Peter Mayhew signing! Right then! NO LINE! I do already have his autograph from my first Con ever but I decided to get another J I went up to the booth and while I was deciding on which picture to buy/use (so wished I had the Chewbacca action figure that my brother gave me last October before he died. I did almost bring it just in case but the decided against it so it wouldn’t get damaged), the guy that was at the both helping with the signing looked at me and asked “So…you like Chewbacca.” Huh? Who me? With the Chewbacca backpack and Chewie toy in my hand (that some guy who walked up to me just handed me after saying “you look like you love Chewie” I’m still wondering if it has a GPS chip in it or something and he is stalking me!)

Anyway, got a Han and Chewie pic and he signed to me J Yay!! And he said thanks for being such a big Chewbacca fan. Like how could you not?? J

The floor is hard – so much to see and check out  – total sensory overload. Times a million.  There is s till so much I want to see there but not sure if I will have time. That’s a bummer.

Ran to meet my friend in line for Ballroom 20 to see the Game of Thrones panel. And we hoped to see Ringer too which was right before it. In line for 3 hours. Yikes. But we did make it in! Sarah Michelle Gellar was GREAT! Super cute and funny. Adore her even more now. And the rest of the cash was fantastic too. I shall definitely check out the show – Tuesday at 9pn on the CW – go set your tivos! She was cute when a fan asked her what character she would dress up as to go to Comic Con. She said “Well, if I went as Buffy, I KNOW most of you would see me and say ‘OMG – look at that girl – she is an awful Buffy!” LOL!!

The GOT panel was utterly fantastic. The cast was funny. Had great answers to all the questions. Totally got into answering the questions. Loved them all. And I shall put the books back on my Kindle after deleting them after some repeated animal sadness on the show. I will just fast forward through those pages. The actor who plays John Snow made me one of the fans after answering who his favorite cast mate was with the husky who plays his direwolf. Ok – I like you :)

We then hightailed it over to Hall H to see the Jon Favreau and Gullermo del Toro panel. They were both awesome. Jon has been good in every panel I have seen him at SDCC.  But Guillermo stole the show. He was swearing up a storm and then finally noticed the sign to the panelists saying to their watch their language since it; s a family audience. But his commentary was great!

We got about 7-10 mins of footage from Cowboys and Aliens. Of course I think it looks AWESOME!  Jon had a great little bit about how social media really shows him how different a clip can be perceived.  He said after he released the full trailer with Transformers 3, he saw tons of AWESOME comments on twitter but then just as many “YUCK. Weird. How can you mix those 2 genres” and “how unrealistic”. He was like umm…unrealistic. OK. But machines turning into the trucks – that’s OK. Well alrighty then. He then described his approach to movies like this and how he wants to make the movie perfectly set in its genre and take that 1 little thing that changes it (like in Iron Man all the world was the same except for Iron Man.) In this, it’s a western. Cowboys like we are used to seeing in the movies. But this thing occurs and they have to deal with. But they are still cowboys. Still out in the west riding horses, living their lives in little towns, etc. Nothing is different but this one thing. Hearing him describe it made perfect sense.

Bit of a peeve concerning this movie though. Jon made it seem like he was bringing the world premiere here to SDCC for the fans. His fans. Fans of the genre. Of the graphic novel. But all of the promotions for the tickets have been off site. Too far off site for anyone who is attending SDCC to go. And they are all open to the public. So it’s really a premiere for San Diego and its residents. Because if you are a true Comic Con fan, you are busy all day with panels, signings, being on the floor and never-ending waiting in line for all of these things. So you can’t just run off site 10 blocks away on a minute’s notice. So I do have to say that’s been very disappointing.

Even tomorrow, he announced a signing he was doing where he would give away some tickets. Yay! But no – it’s offsite – at the Hard Rock. In the middle of the afternoon. So no – I will not be going. Because there is no guarantee I will even get in the signing, or then get a ticket. The only guaranteed thing is that I will miss everything going on at the show. Which is why I am here. So that’s a bummer. And I feel a bit mis-leading to say this is for the Comic Con fans. When not a single giveaway has been at the Con. Except for the 1 pair he gave a kid who asked him a question at the panel and was wearing a Cowboys and Aliens shirt. Which was cool of him.  Oh well. A bummer for sure.

Overall a very fun day though. But I guess SDCC has gotten too big. There was a line that was supposedly 1.5 hours long to buy the official t-shirt. To me it looked even longer. Give me a break. Every other year they basically had to give those away on Sundays. But they said “there was a limited amount” in the program. WHY? It’s a frackin’ 2011 Con t-shirt. Make enough and just sell the bastards so people walk around with them and the con gets free advertising.  I do want one. But no way am I waiting that long to buy a t-shirt.

Lines for panels. Line for tickets to get in line for panels (to wait again.) Lines to buy ANYTHING. Lines to win a chance to maybe be pulled from a lottery to be 1 of 100 to get an autograph. WHAT? Come on. So maybe I am just longing for the good ol’ days (3 years ago) that you could see any panel. Buy anything. As long as you were there an hour early. Now – if you want to buy 2012 passes, you had to get in line at 5am this morning to wait for them to start selling them at 8:30am. Jeez. No thanks.

I am still having fun. But I do wonder how long I will keep coming. It’s get more and more expensive and more and more crowded. This year I am just recovering from a broken ankle plus a plus dealing with a pinched nerve so can’t run around too much so I think experiencing longer and longer lines has annoyed me. And then to not even be able to buy what I wanted because scalpers got it got them all or there’s even more lines for them elsewhere – GAH! I almost lost it when trying to plus my iPhone in to charge in the ladies restroom in Hall H. This woman was taking up 2 plugs and then tied taking a 3rd for friends phones. The lady who was using the 4th was like wth? I am only charging to 30% so other people can use the plug, I looked at her “Breathe…we are at the con….have fun….” But really… I wanted to smack the lady in the head too.

I know there are more funny tidbits (correcting the KTLA reporter when he said Star Trek when he meant Star Wars, the costumes, the booths) but I need to go to sleep now so I can get a half way decent night’s sleep so that I can do what? Get up at 6am to get in line….sigh…