Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope

Another film, another documentary.
At Hot Docs this past year, I watched Morgan Spurlock's POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. It was entertaining. Not the most amazing piece of work that I've ever seen in my life, but definitely entertaining. I was pretty sure that watching Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope would be equally as entertaining. I was right.
The fun started as soon as I arrived to the theatre. Stormtroopers lined the sidewalk. They kindly moved aside to let me pass. Going up that long escalator in the Scotiabank, I had a prime view of all of the different characters who were standing on the accompanying stairs to welcome us to the show. I think I only recognized 10% of the characters. There were more characters wandering around the hallways upstairs. Some posing with other festival-goers for photos, others just hanging out. I was expecting a couple folks in line to be dressed up as well, but I guess those folks go to the actual Comic-Con instead of just going to a documentary about it.
The documentary did a great job of profiling some classic Comic-Con attendees. Aspiring illustrators, aspiring costumers, figurine collectors, a legend from the comic book collecting world, and a pair of nerdy fans who are ever-so-deeply in love. Interspersed between the storytelling of their time leading up to the convention and time at the convention were interviews with some big names in the biz (I assume so - I clearly know nothing about this 'biz') as well as some great snippets with other attendees.
The documentary tied the scenes together through comic-esque drawings. Freezing real footage which morphed into drawn images, zooming out to a page of the comic book of the doc and panning to the next panel and zooming in to reveal the next vignette to be told.
There were at least a dozen folks (including Stan Lee, whom everyone around me was freaking out about - meh. No big deal. Although, he does seem to have a lot of charisma, is a great speaker and comes with his own well=dressed security guard) onstage for the post-screening Q&A. This was the world premiere, so I guess this was the place to be. I think that's going to be my strategy. I love the Q&As and the first screening of the film is at least the TIFF premiere, if not the North American premiere or the world premiere, so chances are there will be someone from the production in attendance and willing to speak about the film and/or answer some questions about it.
Again, this film wasn't ground breaking, but I sure enjoyed it. It's neat to get an inside scoop into Comic-Con and hear about some real-live stories. To follow adventures, root for the characters and of course smile when they give you the 'where are they now' update that (of course) takes place during the end credits.
It's definitely a fun film to watch.

- picture courtesy of www.tiff.net