The 12 Best Things About Comic-Con 2011

Brit birds

American ladies like Jessica Biel brought a smattering of sass (Amanda Seyfried didn’t…), but on the whole the US dames present at this year’s Con were entirely outshone by their breezy British counterparts.

Just about every film panel hosted in Comic-Con’s historic Hall H consisted of at least one British person this year, and it was the Brit birds who were the best value for money.

In particular, a surprisingly flirty and feisty Kate Beckinsale came out guns a-blazing, calling her skin-tight Underworld 4 costume “a condom” and teasing that she was “doing the Basic Instinct pose” under the table.

The Amazing Spider-Man

He’s back! The Amazing Spider-Man ’s first trailer had us scratching our heads and attempting to figure out how director Marc Webb’s re-spin would distinguish itself from Sam Raimi’s Spidey trilogy.

Happily, exclusive new footage unveiled at the Con meant we could all let out a massive sigh of relief. With two extended clips shown – one focusing on Peter Parker, the other on antagonist The Lizard – Webb proved that his reboot isn’t a pointless cash-grab. Darker and moodier than Raimi’s films, but with flashes of web-light humour, the footage well and truly converted us.

Topping things off, star Andrew Garfield made a hilarious, heartfelt entrance to the film's panel wearing a kid's Spider-Man costume, and delivered an earnest speech on how much Spidey means to him.

Parking lot parties

Fewer high profile films than ever made it to the Con this year, thanks to various studios (most notably Disney and Marvel) deciding to skip the festivities after previous visits failed to inspire box office cash-rakers (ahem, Tron: Legacy ).

But that didn’t stop other studios piggy-backing the Con with neat little events hosted in nearby car parks. Fun and informal, they were a welcome relief from the often stickily congested Hall H.

Shark Night 3D gave us shark-riding waitresses (opens in new tab) and a gaggle of young stars, while Final Destination 5 showed us the film’s cataclysmic suspension bridge centrepiece (opens in new tab) (and access to a free bar, where its stars were mingling with the fans).

We even got to meet horror ledge Tony Todd. Yes, that's Candyman.

Kevin Smith

Smith may be about to retire from filmmaking in favour of podcasting (he’s currently halfway through writing the script for his final film, ice hockey dramedy Hit Somebody , which will star Alan Rickman), but he’ll always have a home at the Con.

Capping off Saturday’s events, Smith hosted his annual 'An Early Evening With Kevin Smith' event in Hall H, and was as chatty and amiable as ever.

Taking questions from a clearly enraptured audience of fans, he spoke frankly and with foul-mouthed humour, reeling off hysterical anecdotes that would put even the most seasoned of stand-up comedians to shame.

Kevin Smith

Smith may be about to retire from filmmaking in favour of podcasting (he’s currently halfway through writing the script for his final film, ice hockey dramedy Hit Somebody , which will star Alan Rickman), but he’ll always have a home at the Con.

Capping off Saturday’s events, Smith hosted his annual 'An Early Evening With Kevin Smith' event in Hall H, and was as chatty and amiable as ever.

Taking questions from a clearly enraptured audience of fans, he spoke frankly and with foul-mouthed humour, reeling off hysterical anecdotes that would put even the most seasoned of stand-up comedians to shame.

Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

The first Ghost Rider film blew (not to mince words or anything), so expectations for this belated sequel were understandably low.

But star Nicolas Cage gamely pitched up to talk about the film at this year’s Con (alongside Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor), and after a screening of the flick’s flamin' mad sizzle-reel, it became obvious why Cage agreed to return for a second ride.

The crazed, image-colliding footage made Rider 2 looks far, far removed from its safe, cheesy predecessor. Neveldine and Taylor are famed as maverick moviemakers, and their unconventional filming methods seem to have paid off. Rider 2 looks grimy, visually distinctive and absolutely bonkers. Flames of expectation officially stoked.

Guillermo del Toro

Essentially Kevin Smith’s brother from another mother, del Toro is equally as potty-mouthed and chatty, and brought a dose of much-needed (and often bracing) reality to the wackiness of Comic-Con.

Appearing on the panel for Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark as well as Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries, del Toro talked about movies and monsters with as much passion as usual, while stating he feels it’s his “duty to produce first-time filmmakers”.

Proving he's also master of the spicy talk, he commended Dark ’s Guy Pearce as “the fucking man, don’t fuck with this guy”. Give this man his own 'Evening With…' panel, pronto.

Eye-popping 3D

From action to animation, there was plenty of 3D footage premiered at this year’s Con – and it didn’t suck.

Immortals had the Hall H crowd ducking from the godly light-arrows shooting across their heads, while Spielberg and Jackson’s The Adventures Of Tintin used the third dimension to add even more layers to the richly rendered CG.

But, surprisingly, the 3D highlight turned out to be a fun sneak peek at franchise horror Final Destination 5. After a montage of grisly deaths from previous instalments proved that retro-fitted 3D can work, we were treated to the shot-in-3D bridge disaster from the new film. Limbs, entrails and metal rods were all chucked at the audience, who were whooping and wincing in equal measure.

Prometheus

Speaking via a video link from Iceland (where he’s currently wrapping the shoot with star Noomi Rapace), Sir Ridley Scott brought us a first look at Prometheus – his upcoming sci-fi thriller set in the same universe as his seminal 1979 space movie, Alien .

You can read our full reaction here , but the gist is... the footage blew us away. We got our first glimpse at cast members Rapace, Charlize Theron (flamethrower and all), Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender (possibly an android, although Scott teased there "may be two", as well as stunning set design and plenty of Alien nods.

Spielberg & Jackson

On hand to talk about their upcoming performance-capture collaboration, The Adventures Of Tintin , the two filmmaking titans received rapturous standing ovations from a reverential Hall H.

Spielberg also received the event’s lifetime achievement award, preceded by a career-spanning montage of iconic scenes ( Jurassic Park ’s T-Rex chase, Raiders Of The Lost Ark ’s boulder-dodging opening, Roy Scheider’s tracking shot in Jaws ) that gave everyone goosebumps.

The pair proved a likeable double act, enthusing about their working relationship and bemoaning astronomical 3D ticket prices, but the highlight came when they took a question from a nerdy Tintin fan, played by an in-character Andy Serkis. Bless.

Cosplay

The San Diego bayfront was once again taken over by an army of stormtroopers, sorcerers and superheroes, as comic book and movie fans from around the world paid homage to their favourite characters.

With a wonderfully non-judgemental atmosphere running throughout the cavernous convention centre, those who made the effort posed for photos, chatted to admirers and generally made San Diego a much more colourful place to be.

Except for the weird guy walking around in his pants. Just wrong.

Immortals

Director Tarsem Singh and his ridiculously good-looking cast (Henry Cavill, Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz, Stephen Dorff and Freida Pinto) introduced a stunning five-minute fight scene from the upcoming epic, in which Greek hero Theseus (Cavill) takes on the Titans to save Olympus.

In the sequence, Evans’ Zeus and his fellow immortals descend to Earth to take on a horde of mud-covered nasties and topple some colossal stone statues. Playing like 300 on crack, it showed off Tarsem’s signature stunning visuals along with plenty of limb-lopping, head-squishing ultraviolence.

Charlize Theron

The Oscar-winning beauty touched down in San Diego to promote two upcoming projects: the Alien prequel that’s not an Alien prequel, Prometheus ; and the yet to start shooting Snow White And The Huntsman .

Her witty, feisty appearances at both panels had the Hall H audience eating out of her hands. For Prometheus , Theron joked that she only took the part for the money and admitted to enjoying naked press-ups, before using a brilliantly trained poker face to trick the crowd into thinking director Ridley Scott couldn’t be bothered to show up – then introducing him via a live satellite link on location in Iceland.

A couple of days later, the South African actress was back in Hall H to trade some energetic, touchy-feely banter with Aussie co-star Chris Hemsworth, before laying down a (joshing) gauntlet to on-screen nemesis Kristen Stewart (Snow White) - "I'm ready for it, bitch! Let's go!"