WonderCon Wrap-up
WonderCon, Comic-Con’s smaller cousin, was taking place in San Francisco this weekend. We attended and caught several panels, most notable was the Star Trek panel with JJ Abrams, Chris Pine, and Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes). Let me say too that JJ Abrams is the man. He knows how to woo most geeks with seductive phrases like ‘I wanted Kevin Smith’s feedback on the film early on’ and endure the rest of the nerds with good grace, who were prone to antics like saying “May the force be with you”.
There were a few movie preview panels, including one for a 50s’ mock-up sci-fi film called Alien Trespass. Perhaps the most enjoyable panel was for the TV show Chuck. Adam Baldwin has a great straight-man sort of humor. He also answered the age-old question of who would win in a fight, Jayne from Firefly or Casey from Chuck (both played by Adam Baldwin). “Casey,” he said. “He has better weapons.”
Joshua Gomez who plays Chuck’s socially-challenged sidekick Morgan, was as confidentially self-deprecating and humorous as expected. ‘Would you say you resemble Morgan in real life?’ someone asked. ‘Oh, no. I’m nothing like Morgan in real life. I’m actually quite the ladies man,’ he says with a smile. ‘Who else would you like to be in the show?’ was another question posed. He responds almost immediately: “I’d like to be Sarah Lancaster and then I’d just spend the whole day looking at myself in the mirror… take 3 showers a day.”
And Zachary Levi, who plays Chuck, had a cute moment where someone asked if he is actually geeky in real life. He’s a very clean-cut and attractive guy who looks more like he’d enjoy snowboarding than all-night World of Warcraft gaming. He sighs as it’s obviously a question he gets a lot and gives this sort of generic answer of yes, he’s geeky. But then at the end he does act in typical geek style by going off on a tangent about a glitch with Resident Evil 5 and how he enjoys being able to move and shoot at the same time, thank you very much. Q.E.D.
The last panel we saw was for Sarah Connor Chronicles. Weirdly, the women on most panels were incredibly silent. They didn’t make jokes, they didn’t jump into conversation. Perhaps it’s because actresses are sometimes chosen for their hotness not their humor, I don’t know. So, ending on Sarah Connor Chronicles with two actresses and one male writer from an overall very female-dominated show was kind of nice. Shirley Manson, who plays a badass and scary-as-hell terminator, was also the lead singer in Garbage and speaks with a wicked Scottish accent. Who would win a fight between her terminator and Summer Glau’s terminator character? “She’d probably kick my ass,” Summer admitted. “Age before beauty,” Shirley quipped.
One of the audience members asked why, when people messed up in outtakes from Serenity, they would often shout “Summer”, even if Summer wasn’t in the scene. She somewhat reluctantly retold the story behind that. During the shooting of the film there a scene where the whole cast was lined up for a single long shot with her as the last person. She was supposed to be concentrating on this dot and imagining it was Earth. They got through everybody and it was just perfect, but when they got to Summer she was concentrating so hard on the dot that she missed her line. After that, whenever anybody would mess up, they’d shout “Summer”. And apparently this phenomenon cascaded to shows she wasn’t even on, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
