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San Diego Comic-Con 2017 – Preview Night

Jul 21, 2017 Posted by in Features | Comments

My first day of SDCC 2017 started with an early morning flight out of Logan airport, which actually arrived in San Diego 45 minutes early! This year the Hotel Lottery gods were not as kind as they have been in the past—while I still managed to get a downtown hotel, this year’s Sofia Hotel is still a bit of a hike compared to the other hotels I’ve had the past several years. When I checked in at the hotel, they handed me two of the special Warner Bros keycardsWestworld and Supernatural. I dropped up off my stuff and made a quick trip to Ralph’s for some supplies for the weekend. On my way there I scoped out the Conan ticket line location where I would be spending some time the next morning.

After returning from my quick grocery trip, it was time for my annual blogger/press friends meetup at Bub’s At The Ballpark for a quick lunch. We discussed our plans for the weekend and traded tales of our late press room confirmation woes. Afterwards we headed over to the convention center to pick up our WB bags and lanyards. (I received the Arrow bag with a Supergirl pin). I immediately headed to get in line early for the Preview Night access to the convention floor. I met up with friend Paul, whom I had met several years back, but this was his first SDCC in 5 years.

When we were let into the convention center, we made a mad dash towards the Twentieth Century Fox booth to grab picture tubes, and then get in line for the annual The Walking Dead picture opportunity. This year the booth opened with a scene of The Kingdom where you could sit on a bench next to an animatronic Shiva. Then you proceeded around the corner through the trash heaps where walkers were waiting for you around every corner. I was impressed with the performers—they really stayed in character and were quite creepy as they got all up in your face, groaning. At the end, you came face to face with statues of the spiked trash heap fight club walker, as well as Negan holding Lucille.

After this we headed to the WB booth because we saw they were handing out all kinds of swag. As we entered the line we could see a The Big Bang Theory picture opportunity—they had recreated the living room set and you could get your picture taken sitting in Sheldon’s spot. Unfortunately this wasn’t open on preview night. We wound our way through the rest of the WB booth, and at the end were given a bunch of swag—a Batman bag, four issues of The TV Guide with the SDCC covers, a Harry Potter hat, a Bugs Bunny t-shirt (all they had was 2XL, so I gave mine away), a Green Lantern comic and an Arrow bookmark.

Next we headed to the ABC booth where they gave us an appointment card to come back in an hour to go through their holographic experience for Once Upon a Time. The booth had two different activities. First you entered a large room where there were projections on all four walls, and some characters from the series would pop up on these different walls. In the front of the room was a holographic stage. Captain Hook rose up from the floor, talked about his forthcoming adventures, and told a lot of groan-worthy puns. Afterwards, we walked out and got into line for the second activity—a holographic sword fight with Hook. When it was your turn, you stepped on a circle on the floor and waved your hand around to swing your virtual sword. In front of you, you could see a holographic version of yourself fighting Hook. At the end of the activity, they emailed you an animated GIF of the adventure with added backgrounds and effects.


At this year’s People of Earth booth, they had an alien Abduction Experiment. When it was your turn, they led you into a booth where you laid down in a reclining chair and put on a pair of VR goggles. It looked and felt like you were sitting on the operating table as the aliens poked and prodded and decided what to do with you. You couldturn your head and see all around the room—it was like you were really there! There were also some 4D effects thrown, making use of air and water to add another level of realism. It was a really funny 5-minute scene with the three aliens arguing with one another. As I exited the experience, they handed me a fidget spinner and a comic book. They also emailed me a video from my experience—it was supposed to capture your reactions to them activating the air and water, but it pretty much just showed the top of my head and not the cool setup of the VR rooms. I wish I had taken a photo of the VR rooms!

We wandered around the floor some more looking for other cool stuff and photo opportunities. At the BBC America booth there was a Dalek instead of the usual TARDIS. There was a booth for Outlander, and Toddland had decked out their booth to look like the Bob’s Burgers shop again. We also some cool Lego statues, and came across a place where you could take your picture holding a light saber a la The Last Jedi poster.

We then headed out of the convention center towards an escape room activation that I had a press reservation for. However, on our way we passed the Blade Runner 2049 activation and decided to see if we could get in. They handed us bags and gave us wristbands with chips that identified us. Then we entered a hallway that was filled with storyboard photos. At the end there was a TV showing a trailer for the film. Then we went around the corner where there were rows of theater D-BOX seats with VR goggles. Once you put on the goggles you felt like you were in the cockpit of a flying vehicle and you were chasing after a criminal, flying up and down over the city, eventually crashing into your target—you could feel all the turbulence and you could look in any direction and it felt like you were really there. After the goggles were removed, the wall that was in front of us when we entered the room was gone, and now there was a full scale replica of the street and the crashed vehicle. There were actors in costume/character interacting with us. A police officer was investigating the scene while another bystander holding an umbrella was asking folks if they were “Sam”. We then proceeded into an adjoining room which was also decked out to look like a set from the movie. A wall of falling water then blocked us from returning to the previous room. There was a bar and appetizers, and along the walls were props from the film. On one wall you could use your chipped wristband to activate an ocular scan which reported if you were human or replicant. On another wall you could swipe your wristband to dispense a t-shirt. In an adjoining room there was even more food—a noodle bar, desserts, coffee and a Johnnie Walker trio sampler distributed in a mini test-tube set. Earlier in the day Paul had texted to tell me that Adam Savage was on his flight to SDCC—we happened to run into him again at this event, so we both introduced ourselves and said hi.

Afterwards we headed outside and found ourselves at the The Expanse Escape Room activation. There were two large shipping containers set up for teams to compete in. The premise was that your team is trapped in one of these containers and must figure out how to restore the power, oxygen and unlock the door within 10 minutes, ir before the other 4-5 person team you are competing against, whichever comes first. As the teams try to work out the puzzles, there is a voice that gives hints to both teams. We managed to open the door to our container first, but then discovered yet another ajoining common room what was also locked. As we madly searched for the code to unlock the final door, the other team, a family of four, also managed to open their container. However, through shear brute force, we managed to enter the code first and survived. As we exited, we were handed swag bags containing a fidget spinner and the second season of The Expanse on Blu-ray. They also generated motion photos of us—we stuck our heads through a glowing ring and then when the photo was generated it looked like we were in a space suit. As we walked out there were some props from the set in display cases.

That marked the end of a fun, busy and tiring first day at Comic-Con 2017! The theme of the con so far seems to be VR and fidget spinners.

(Check out all of our SDCC 2017 Daily Recaps: Preview Night | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4)