Comic-Con

A big TV star, Sarah Wayne Calles was at Comic-Con this year with Colony – but her track through TVland goes far beyond - she is still remembered for the first three seasons of The Walking Dead, and this year she returned to the role of Dr. Sarah Tancredi in Prison Break: Resurrection.

And on Day Three, more heroes came forth: Warner Bros. blew the roof off Hall H with a loaded presentation that included Blade Runner 2049, Aquaman, Ready Player One and Justice League.

One of the Comic-Con surprises this year was an unscheduled advanced screening of the long anticipated pilot for Netflix’s The Defenders. For the few uninitiated out there, that is the “reunion” series based on Marvels’ superhero team that reunites Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), Iron Fist (Danny Rand) and Daredevil (Charlie Cox).

Outlander’s Sam Heughan stopped by the HFPA lounge at Comic-Con to chat about the new season of the Golden Globe nominated show and we were all a bit disappointed that he didn’t show up in a glorious kilt.   The conversation, however, was very romantic in a way, since season 3 will include a lot of emotional drama and forlorn love.

Blade Runner 2049 easily must be the most anticipated movie of the year  - if nothing else because of the absolute cult status of its forerunner: Ridley Scott’s 1982 seminal Blade Runner. That film infused a science fiction story (based on a Philip K Dick novella) about artificial intelligence and the fundamental question of human identity with a film noir sensibility lifted from hard boiled detective movies of classic Hollywood.

On the heels of the latest trailer released strategically in advance of Comic-Con, Blade Runner 2049 wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to woo its hardcore fans. Enter the Blade Runner 2049 Experience, which rapidly garnered a block-long line outside of the big top erected across form the convention center.

“Imagine the raw, gritty Los Angeles of Training Day meets Lord of the Rings” - that’s how Will Smith described Bright to the HFPA journalists attending Comic-Con.   That has got to be one of the most original statements in the history of film pitches but the three-minute trailer for the $100 million Netflix “urban fantasy drama” seems to confirm precisely those elements.

Wednesday was preview day and the last calm before the storm in San Diego with the first visitors allowed on the convention floor for an early pick of swag, mementos, and fantasy knick-knacks. Now the tsunami that is Comic-Con has finally hit in earnest as a wave of cosplayers swarmed the Convention Center, turning downtown into the usual bustling hub for alien life forms.

They are pink, black, red, blue and yellow, always in search of justice and have been loved by generations of children since 1993.  The Power Rangers debuted in the US on Fox, ana adaptation of teh original Japanese Super Sentai series.

The power of Comic-Con may rest in the hands of the studios, but its beauty is certainly a gift from its people. For four days in the sweltering Southern California summer, crowds gather to create an alternate reality, a new planet perhaps.