San Diego Comic Con: The Good Recap

By: ScarletteThe Mithical team barely managed to climb out of bed today as we're all kind of sleep deprived from the greatest geektopia event known as San Diego Comic Con. We went all four days, including preview night, and have a few choice things to say about the convention. There is no possible for for us to recap every single thing that happened at SDCC, as the convention is just so MASSIVE, it's nearly impossible to see everything---and any veteran SDCC attendee will let you know: you honestly cant do all the things; you need to pick and chose your battles....er, lines. We mean you need to pick and chose which lines you will be standing in.That being said we will recap some things that all attendees experienced and what we feel the overall quality was for SDCC this year.The Good: The new RFID badges came into play this year and we're so happy to say that they WORKED! We haven't heard of any nightmare stories about badges going missing in the mail, and noticed that the badge scanning to get into the convention center did not hold up the traffic too noticeably. After everyone got use to the process or scanning in and out , it was smooth sailingMajor shout out to security this year as well--they were very diligent in checking badges, even after attendees made it past the scanning stations.Looking over the panel schedule and news for SDCC before attending (or events confirmed at least 48 hours prior) people weren't really sure if anything AMAZING was scheduled for this year. Marvel Studios had plainly announced weeks before that they would not be showing any new footage at SDCC because they're tired of the stuff being leaked onto the net before the panel even ends. To make sense of this frustration: Hall H, where Marvel usually hosts many of it's exciting panels, has a strict NO FILMING policy. It also made more sense for overlord--er, sorry, we mean to say Parent company-- Disney Studios to want to announce any news and footage at its own convention, D23...which is scheduled for next year.With Marvel pretty much backing out of Hall H, that left attendees to rely on WB to bring them camp worthy news. But with the box office failure of Superman vs Batman, nobody was too inspired to want to see anything from WB. Attendees, primarily the cult of Hall H campers, were wondering if they would be camping at all for their beloved hall. Was there anything of worth to camp out for? Turns out there was:Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr. Strange casts announced, near the approaching SDCC dates, they would coming to SDCC. Guardians didnt share any new footage but hosted a great panel. Dr. Strange on the other hand...well, lets say Marvel did stick with the time old tradition of at least dropping a new trailer:[youtube id="HSzx-zryEgM"] Not to be shown up WB Pictures also dropped equally amazing  trailers: [youtube id="5lGoQhFb4NM"]It's so good to finally have more footage on Wonder Woman-- the myth of having a movie is finally real! And the trailer looks great, we dont mind an origin story at all! Here is to hoping WB doesn't drop the ball...because they really cant afford to screw up their super hero movies any longer.Fantastic Beast PanelAnother thing that sent the crowds at SDCC into a tizzy this year was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. When the announcement was made Fantastic Beast would be hosting a Hall H panel the Potter fandom went ablaze.This was a major deal to Potter fans for a couple of reasons. First: we're getting another, new, fresh, glimpse into the Potter universe. Second: SDCC never scheduled any Harry Potter movie panels before. This was the first Potter related movie panel to ever debut at SDCC. New trailer dropped and we all had fangasms.[youtube id="YdgQj7xcDJo"]Also, Sony Studios came to play this year! They gave us a new Spiderman: Homecoming trailer! The trailer hasnt been officially released online yet but you can take a peak at some footage taken from their penal[youtube id="fEignOVaGUU"]  Pokemon Go! takes the honors this year by becoming the first video game panel to make it to Hall H. Originally, the panel was scheduled to be in room that could hold only a couple hundred of people--given it's viral success, the panel was instantly upgraded to Hall H. Dont worry folks, no legendary Pokemon was released at this panel; in fact Niantic owner said the release of a legendary pokemon so early into the game made no sense, specially since global roll out for the game had recently happened. However, we did get to see what each faction leader looked like!Another huge plus to this year's convention is that the Comic Con experience has grown to be so much larger than the convention center. It sprawled not only on select lawns near the convention center, but across the street and into the adjacent neighborhood, the Gaslamp. Huge industry giants are no longer taking up precious floor space, and crowding out smaller vendors--ensuring that SDCC is strictly NOT an industry exclusive event--but going to other locations where they can pull out all the stops and have convention attendees come visit. This helps alleviate some of the traffic on the floor, as many people are out and about at off site exhibits and pop up stores. SDCC attendees were able to swing by off site events like Nerd HQ, the Nintendo Lounge, and the Square Enix Experience.However, SDCC is not done growing quite yet. The convention center is no longer the only place where panels are being hosted. Panel locations have seeped into neighboring hotels, which is great because that means more programming for every attendee, more people are taken off site to help bring down the body count in the convention center, and bigger rooms are being utilized to accommodate more attendees who are interested in said panel.One other thing we noticed this year was the "no standing, no sitting, no stopping in the aisles," rules have bent just a little bit this year. Which is good news, seriously. We distinctly remember previous years at SDCC where all you could hear was "NO STOPPING" constantly. It kinda killed the convention and made a lot of attendees agitated. It was good to be able to actually sit against the wall this year and take a small break in the AC without security yelling at us. Security seemed to understand better this year that there simply isn't enough designated space  for attendees to stop and take a break; this year security wasn't nearly as hard up on this rule, they just didn't want attendees blocking doors/exits or sitting on the floor in the exhibit hall. Here are some photos of the exhibit floor at SDCC. Be sure to check out our next SDCC recap installments where we talk about things that can be improved from this year's convention. Want to see more? Check out our expanded gallery here!