San Diego Comic Con Preview: Roving Reporter Steven Panzarella On What He’s Excited To See.

For me, the day you find out you are going to Comic Con is relatable to the day you find out you are going to Disney World… Emotions range from pure joy to wondering how you will overcome the fear of Storm Troopers. Since I will be spending 5 days in San Diego, California this week for Comic Con, i will be not only be live tweeting my experiences(@StevenPanzarella), I will also be running a daily blog post on this website entitled “Life On Mars”.

Comic Con has been going on for years, it went from a small comic book convention into the largest pop culture convention in the United States. People come from all over the world to meet celebs, see clips from new movies, and get their hands on the latest toys and comics. It is also a place for artists, writers, and designers to meet people in the business and hope for job offers. It is literally the Holy Grail of nerd-dom.

I wanted to tell you the major reasons why I am jumping up and down in anticipation for this years comic con.

Television–  AMC’s The Walking Dead- At the NYC Comic Con in October of 2011 I witnessed plenty of fantastic panel dicussions (something Comic Con is known for)- AND one of my favorites was for The Walking Dead. If you don’t know what it is then to quickly jog your memory it is a show based on a comic book series that chronicles a group of survivors as they fight the infected zombies or “Walkers” and each other.  (Confused? Stay with me.) A lot was revealed – including the first 5 or so minutes of the season premiere days ahead of the TV debut. (Sneak peeks are another big part of the convention.) It is one of the biggest and most original shows on TV and has a massive following and after new plot lines and cast members have been revealed it will be exciting to see where the discussion goes.

Game Of Thrones– HBO’s hit show could give viewers an opportunity to get a close look at the 3rd season or at least answer some burning questions fans have. The series is just starting to film season 3, and some cast members will be there. The panel could reveal new material for one of HBO’s most popular shows. It also gives the opportunity to get questions answered by the cast and even book writer George R.R. Martin.

Fringe– the show which is coming into its final season has a very loyal fan base and will actually be getting a panel in the con’s Hall H. (for those of you wondering if comic con is related to Disney World, that would make Hall H the Magic Kingdom). Fringe will hopefully show us a little something for the final season and answer burning questions about where we could be left off.

There will be plenty of excellent television programming to catch that will likely be in on the action, including Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory, and more.

Movies– A more recent occurrence at comic con has been the introduction of films. Film has actually taken over the convention to the point that most people go to get a look at the films they are most excited for rather than the comics themselves. So we know we will see the likes of Iron Man 3, Breaking Dawn Part 2, and Resident Evil: Retribution, for me it is falling into the unknown.

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit– ever since I heard that a Hobbit movie was getting made the 13 year old in me jumped up and down for joy. Then came the news that Peter Jackson is shooting The Hobbit in 48 frames per second which is not at all normal to the 24 FPS that movies have been shot in. This caused quite a controversy at Cinema Con in April after Jackson showed the footage which some described looked more like watching a sitcom then it did a movie, never mind one of the largest prequel’s in modern movie history.  So I am itching to see this for myself and make my own judgment’s considering as movie writers we tend to overreact.One of the other reasons to be hyped for The Hobbit is the cast which has some returning cast members including (Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom,Ian Mckellen, Andy Serkis and Elijah Wood) and newbies that include Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch (is that not the greatest name on earth). The cast that so many loved in the Lord of The Ring’s series, allows fans to get very excited to expect more of the same while adding plenty of new faces and new story lines.

Pacific Rim-Another movie I think we are all very ready to hear more about is the passion project of monster master himself Guillermo Del Toro. He was once working on The Hobbit with Peter Jackson who needed help while finishing Tin Tin, but after so many production issues Del Toro left and moved on to  Pacific Rim. About massive aliens that invade earth and the pilots who control huge robots that are built to fight them. Starring Charlie Hunnam(Son’s Of Anarchy), Idris Elba(Prometheus) and Rinko Kikuchi(The Brothers Bloom), we have not seen any footage and the only pictures we have are Posters and a few set photos. This will be the premier of all footage for the movie coming out in July of 2013. As a huge fan of Del Toro’s especially Pan’s Labyrinth in 2007, he is a visonary director and no one does monsters quite like he does so most people who go to the panel will be looking for some look at what the monsters will look like.

Oz The Great And Powerful-Another Film to look forward to hearing about next weekend is Sam Raimi’s take on The Wizard of Oz with the prequel called “Oz the Great And Powerful“. Starring a huge cast that includes James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz, Oz tells the story about how the wizard arrived in Oz and became its ruler. It also follows the story of the three witches who are played by Kunis, Williams and Weisz respectfully.

Man Of Steel-There are plenty of big time film panels and a lot to reveal but one that has everybody wondering is Man Of Steel, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer(The Dark Knight) wrote the script for Zach Snyder(Watchmen). The most interesting aspect is the cast with Russell Crowe playing Superman’s father and Henry Cavill (Immortals) will play the man in red. They are hoping for a much more successful film that Superman returns which was less than stellar, especially Brandon Routh who was, in my opinion, not a very good Superman. People are excited to see Snyder’s vision and some are nervous due to the fact that not many enjoyed Snyder’s most recent work Sucker Punch and some fans of the Watchmen series had issues with his version of Watchmen. We will find a lot about Man of Steel over the weekend and you can imagine judgments will be made based on the footage we see.

There will be plenty of big stories and a lot of revealed footage to talk about over the weekend and if you are a movie and television fan like myself there is a lot to look forward too.  Keep track of all the things happening at Comic Con by following me on twitter @StevePanzarella and by following my daily blog posts right here on POPGOESTHEWEEK.com.