San Diego Comic Con July 15-17, 2005

San Diego Comic Con - July 15-17, 2005

Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Ron Glass and Joss Whedon

 A report co-written by Rosie and Julie. Photos taken by Julie or found online.

Julie's Point of View 

The Browncoat table was amazing! Every time we walked past, people were crowded around it, entering the raffle, gathering information from the tables, and getting a crash course on the Firefly 'verse. The Browncoats manning the table were so hardworking and outgoing. Passing out the awesome CD sampler, generating interest from passers by, and encouraging people to enter the raffle.  In awe of the organization and dedication of all those involved. Hats off to all of you!

Adam and Ron signed autographs early this morning at the Diamond Select booth. The vendors at first said we couldn't line up in advance, but when they realized how popular the two stars were, they reconsidered when they saw how many people were around the booth pretending they weren't in line. Both Adam and Ron were incredibly gracious (no surprise there) and I'm sure Rosie and Saxon will have more wonderful things to add about the autograph session.

The Serenity Panel was at 2:15, right after Kevin Smith. Hall H was filled to its capacity of 6,500 people. Joss came out on stage and introduced the cast (Alan was unable to attend due to Spamalot), but completely forgot to introduce Jewel and started the Q&A. Morena and Adam pointed out his error and Jewel came out pretending to be very sad.

Joss got down on his knees in front of her, begging for forgiveness. Our BDHs looked great as always.

Panel highlights:

During the Slither panel, someone asked Nathan how his One Life to Live Days has helped him in his other roles. He responded that on soaps, you always have the dramatic pause after someone reveals something to you and then it goes to the next scene. He said during his dramatic pauses, he always had three things go through his head. "Did I leave the stove one? I think I did! Oh, no wait, I didn't." Then, he turned to a costar to demonstrate. Costar: "I slept with your brother." Nathan: pause as you see him mentally go through is three steps. Applause. "Works every time!"

An audience member suggested that Gina would be perfect for Wonder Woman. Morena protested and said she wanted to do Wonder Woman too. Joss said the two women would have to fight to the death for the role. Adam jumped in immediately and said he wanted to be in the film, and have the two girls fight him. Then Nathan proceeded to stand up and audition for the Wonder Woman role on the spot. Our own Cappy, arms spread, spinning around in a circle. Pause for effect. More spinning. Arms on hips.

The man is hysterical!

Nathan's new thing during the panel was the "slow clap". Any time someone said something incredibly moving, he would start a slow clap that built up until the entire audience was clapping and cheering.

They showed a new clip from Serenity. Non-spoiler description: It was great! 

Question from the audience: "How do you picture each of your characters dying?"

Joss: Between two buses
Adam: In his bunk. (Gina added, "With a big smile on his face.")
Gina: With her guns, in Jayne's bunk.
Nathan: Mal would die from a common disease that had been misdiagnosed by the Doctor.
Summer: River wouldn't die. She would outlive everyone.
Sean: After Jayne, Zoe, and Mal died, Simon would take control of Serenity, promptly crashing the ship, killing everyone else on board.
Jewel: Kaylee would die in Simon's arms. (So sweet!)
Morena: Inara would die with a bang...wicked laugh. She wanted to add in Mal's arms.
Ron: In his deepest fantasy, Book and River would be immortal.

In addition to the "slow clap", Nathan also had another trademark for this afternoon's panel. If one of his fellow costars said something very eloquently, Nathan would pip up with this agreement. "Word, Adam. Word." Go, white boy, go!

After the clip of the film, Joss mentioned they were almost out of time. Everyone groaned, but Nathan piped in and told us not to worry. "I've got some good news." Collective gasp from the audience., more clips? "I've just saved a ton of money on car insurance." That brought the house down, and prompting odd looks from his friends. "Oh yes, I went there."

All the questions were supposed to relate to Serenity, but a gentleman came up and said he was representing many fans from Europe and that they think Joss was the best thing in entertainment since aerosol cheese. The fans are involved in an Angel RPG online. He wanted Joss to give him some magical tidbits to take back to the group to help in the game. Joss had no idea what the man was talking about and explained that the magic was made up. He then directed the question to Sean, who looked completely stunned to be called upon. Sean said he was still trying to decipher the aerosol cheese comment and asked for a pass on the question.

And I'm sure someone will post this more eloquently, but someone asked a question about how the fans have affected their lives. All of them were so appreciative of everything the fans have done. Summer said that we were like family to her. Sean jokingly said that his new celebrity status caused him to have to move four times because it was so hard getting out of the garage every day with all the fans jumping onto his car. Then he got worried that people would think he was serious, so he emphasized that he was kidding. I love this boy! Adam, as always, said they owed the fact that there was a film to the fans. He said some lovely things about the fans. There will be no sound in space, according to Joss. (much applause) Some sound in the area between planet and space and lots of dialogue on planets.

Adam praised Nathan for being a true leader and keeping them all going during the black time before the filming.

Nathan then gave a hysterical speech that ended with him proclaiming that the cast members were his “broken time-rock people”.  I've heard that mentioned before, but I still love that our heroes are so close and that Cappy is just that...a captain to the crew. :)

Rosie Comments

Nathan is definitely improving on his selection of wardrobe. I just think it’s important to point out, at Wizard World he was wearing a nice regular T-shirt and now a nice white shirt, simple.

I just really want to say I am way tooo tired to be coherent. That last picture of Hasufel's Rosie and Jeremy shows how tired I really was. I just walked aaaaallllllll the way back back to the booth and sat on the floor. Also I just remembered I was talking to Jeremy so I was moving when that was taken.

I would be happy not to see that picture again. Jeremy looks great though. That is why I did not take a picture with Jonathan Woodward; I just started a hottie thread for him.

Rosie’s Report

I am so sorry. This report did not get written up right away. This was my first 3 day con and I did not realize how tired I would be. Also I thought that I could save money by driving back and forth each day, San Diego is 2 hours away; that was definitely a bad idea. I was way tired after the 3 days.

Day 1 was about getting to see the Browncoat table and non-Serenity panels. I was very impressed with the Browncoat table. It was always very busy each time I stopped by. It looked like they always had more than enough people working it.  They day went in a blur. There was a lot of walking around. We drove back early.

That guy from that show. He's everywhere! Most recently the dynamite guy on Lost.

Day 2 was Serenity day. The first order of business was getting in line for the autographs for Adam and Ron. We stopped by to buy tickets the day before. There would only be so many autographs. There were also tickets for the screening of Serenity that night, the final cut. We went to the Browncoat table and saw the line so we got in line. They did not know when the tickets would arrive. We would not be able to stay to see the movie but thought we would be able to give the tickets to someone who was not there in time. However we needed to move to the autograph line so we decided not to wait.

With me were my sister Carol, her friend Christiann, Julie, her 2 co-workers Betty and Aimee and Marci.. Also Saxon, Ewok and the rest of the family were there as well. We made our way to the Diamond Select stand where the autographs would be. Some folks already started to line up. The people from Diamond Select did not expect this number of folks. At first they told us we could not form a line yet. So we all hung about. Finally they realized we would not go away and began a line against the wall. I always get very excited waiting to see them. Finally Ron and Adam came in. It was great seeing them. The line started to move and when I approached the table, Adam looked up, stood up as he shouted “ROSIE!”

    Adam and Rosie

We hugged and smiled as he sat back down. I told him how much I enjoyed his new show The Inside. He said to enjoy it while it lasts. I also mentioned that is the only show my sister Perla, mother of 3, tries to watch each week. I can’t remember what else I said. Then I moved on to Ron. I don’t really remember saying anything more than thank you for coming.

    Ron Glass and Rosie 

   Carol and Adam Baldwin

After we finished we split up. We needed to get to the Hall H. Others wanted to walk along the exhibit floor or see some other panel. There was a huge line to get into Hall H. It was the big-ticket item hall. Star Wars was having a panel talking about the future. Aeon Flux was having its panel, then Kevin Smith and finally Serenity. The room was massive. I wanted to go back and see if Adam was still at the table but did not want to lose my spot. Joss forgot Jewel. Nathan auditioned for Wonder Woman. Nathan was very funny. The cast is always fun to watch. We did not get a chance to get any closer. By the time we arrived back at the Browncoat table I was exhausted. The Table was under banner A and the Great Hall for panels was H. It was about half a mile from point A to H. There were 90,000 people registered. The maximum occupancy for Disneyland is 45,000. So by Saturday night I was so tired I just kept thinking that it’s like being in Disneyland but there are no rides, just a lot of lines and walking around. We left Saturday and said goodbye to everyone.

Day 3 Julie decided to go to Disneyland. Sunday was the 50^th anniversary of Disneyland and she had plans to go. Saxon and her family are huge Disney fans and they went to Disney land as well. I went back to San Diego with Carol and Chrisitann. There were a few folks we wanted to see. The Browncoat Table was the best fan table. It was well decorated; it had a charity side and a promotional side to raise funds for Equality Now. By the end of the weekend they raised over $12,000. The raffle was schedule for Sunday at noon.  They had to move all the stuff up for raffle to the Browncoat room upstairs. I helped move things but things were not quite ready at noon. Therefore I was asked to talk to the crowd as things were being set up. We had Browncoats from all over. The person who traveled the farthest was someone from Australia and it wasn’t our Aussie Browncoat that has been going to all the cons this past summer.

I had a great time talking to the folks there sharing my stories and asking trivia questions. Many were from California and others were from out of state as well. It was nice hearing how folks came to find out about Serenity. Winners did not need to be present to win which is how we were able to raise so much money. The big prize we had was Inara’s red dress from Shindig. Shawna Trpcic, the costume designer for Firefly donated the dress for charity. The best thing was that the winner of the dress was indeed present and was a man. He was quite surprised and happy at his luck, he only bought one ticket.

After the raffle we went back to the Browncoat table. I simply sat down once we arrived I just did not feel like moving at all. Then I remembered I needed to stop by Jason Palmer’s table for a print of his latest work, Shindig featuring Mal, Inara and Kaylee.  However Jason was clear on the other side of the exhibit hall. I walked over with Marci and on our way spotted Joss just walking about. Marci wanted her picture with him so we approached. Joss was great as always, very welcoming. I did mention the amount that was raised for Equality Now. He was very impressed and happy. It is amazing what a group of Browncoats banning together can do.

Once I returned Jonathan Woodward was there. That was my first time seeing him. He just walked in to the back area of the table. I didn’t recognize him right away since he had some facial hair. He was friendly and easygoing. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him I was way too tired to be coherent. But I was happy he stopped by and was excited to be with us. It was time to clear out. We grabbed something to eat and hit the road. There was a lot of traffic. It was a great experience.

 Back Row: Betty, Carol, Christiann, Marci          Front Row: Aimee, Rosie and Julie