Thursday’s Panels at Comic Con San Diego 2020 – Online Edition

Today’s running notes on CC@Home…Thursday July 23, 2020:

10am PST – Star Trek Universe Panel

They just announced Star Trek: Prodigy on Nickleodeon for kids. I’m not hopeful, but will wait and see.

There’s announcement about NAACPLDF.org/StarTrekUnited — Sign up to help promote tolerance and a better life for all (and marginalized people, especially). It’s a “legal defense and educational fund.”

Discovery cast – Almost every actor is there.

Discovery final episode virtual reading: Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2…this reading is actually pretty cool. I haven’t been watching Discovery because the first free episode on TV turned me completely off, and then they went to CBS: All Access, which also bothered me. And then I never heard anything good about it until the second season. If I ever get to see it I think I will start with season two.

Discovery Q&A with fans

Lower Decks cast – Hard to say if this is going to be good, or too silly. They might need time to get their footing, like The Orville did. It will be set in the TNG era – yay! They are trying to keep it in canon. Now for a clip!

The clip is decent. It’s definitely a show for adults. The main character is drunk on Romulan Whiskey.  Hmm, the doctor is a cat. She’s an actual cat. Where is Spot in all this?

PICARD cast! – WHOOOHOOO I am cheering out loud in my room! Who’s there? Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard), Brent Spiner (Data), Johnathan Frakes (William T. Riker), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), Jeri Ryan (7 of 90, Johnathan Del Arco (Hugh), and all the newbies.

Damn. Sir Patrick is giving a Picard Speech about living well, and mortality, and integrity. It’s amazing. The man IS Jean-Luc. Even all the other actors are saying they are in awe of him. (Marina Sirtis is saying to stop puffing him up; that he will be impossible to live with, lol.)

It’s over. I loved it. Very deeply happy right now. They all put up the Vulcan salute at the end. Live long, and prosper, my friends.

11am PST: Not the Apocalypse You’re Looking For: Real Life Disasters, Fictional Recovery

This is a serious and somewhat depressing panel that doesn’t actually cover TV, movies, gaming, or much of any pop culture. I love dystopian stories and apocalyptic tales, but this is really just a PSA about the real world right now. I get enough of that not during my Comic Con week. Pass. Going to poke around the program schedules for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday instead.

Noon PST: All the Starfleet Ladies

This was nice enough. The panel speakers are all women who write Star Trek novels and feature women. I thought this panel was going to talk about insights into the main female Trek characters, but it really wasn’t.

1pm PST: The Future of Entertainment

While it was sort of interesting, I can’t really speak intelligently about it. It’s about cyber twinning and living your life through a virtual avatar. I kind of cleaned up my room during this one.

2pm PST Directors on Directing

Three top directors…lots of cool inside info on some great movies made in the past, present, and future.

Featuring:

Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom and Dominion — Colin Trevorrow

Top Gun: Maverick — Joseph Kosinski

Alita: Battle Angel — Robert Rodriquez

Some of this was very exciting info: Trevorrow almost did a Star Wars film and designed a “Tie Marauder” — he showed us the only model in existence, and it should have been used. Very neat. Kosinski wrote the movie that became Ford vs Ferrari and was going to run it with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. He didn’t get to do the flick because it went over budget, so it went to James Mangold, with Matt Damon and Christian Bale. (Which obviously did well anyway.)

HA! They talk about how trailers give away the whole movie and how frustrating this is. PREACH.

Damn, there’s some good stories they’re telling. This is a must watch.

3pm PST: The Science of Back to the Future

Very disappointing. Not at all about Back to the Future: it was about a Transformers crossover comic book. I feel annoyed that I got sucked into something misrepresented. I’m going to move onto some other panel. Bored now.

4pm PST: 80 Years of Bugs Bunny

You never know what panel will be great from the title or boring. I really enjoyed this one that brought together all this generation’s Bugs voices and lots of clips I remember from childhood, including my favorite, “What’s Opera, Doc?” That wascally wabbit!

5pm PST: The Science of Star Trek: Three Generations of Advice

This one was pretty decent. I liked the thoughts, but have nothing big to share. They did end it with everyone saying Live Long and Prosper, and doing the Vulcan salute.

I do want to say it was cool to see Naren Shankar, who I always felt was cheated out of his Nick Locarno character from TNG’s The First Duty (along with co-writer Ronald D. Moore). In Voyager, they renamed the same character Tom Paris so they didn’t have to pay royalties for seven seasons of Nick Locarno episodes. I find that very unlike the spirit of Starfleet. Anyway, Shankar went on to write for DS9, Voyager, Farscape, and the Expanse, so I think he’s doing alright.

6pm PST: Dispatches from Middle Earth: What’s New for Tolkien Fans

This was very deeply nerdy and awesome. I don’t recommend viewing it if you aren’t a serious Tolkien fan!

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Okay, those are today’s panels…as Bugs Bunny would say: THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

Live long and prosper — see you tomorrow!

Movie Review – First Man

Sir Patrick Stewart Back as the Beloved Jean-Luc Picard in New Star Trek

Sir Patrick Stewart Back as the Beloved Jean-Luc Picard in New Star Trek