In-person cancellations have not kept every event this summer from canceling entirely.  One of those is typically one of the summer’s biggest events, San Diego Comic-Con.  As with last year’s Comic-Con At Home, events for SDCC 2021 are proceeding this week, once again providing a rare opportunity for fans of all things pop culture a chance to sit through the kinds of panels you might see were you to attend in person in any regular year–without standing overnight in lines.  You can even grab a lanyard off the rack, print your own badge (for you and your pets), cosplay with your family, and load the panels up on as big of a screen as you have.  Check out some suggestions for building your own fun convention week experience with SDCC 2021 below.

The first step is checking out the daily panel scheduling here.  Thursday is a short day so you have plenty of time to plan for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday events.  Just like any other year, you select the panels you want to attend, with the bonus that you can watch any and all whether or not they overlap.  The first is already posted from last night: a presentation somewhat slicker than what you’d see at a live panel, a look at Snake Eyes: Origins (and each panel and presentation is available at the above link even after its scheduled time slot).

This year you’ll see a lot more of the typical guests not doing panels this year (alas, no Marvel movies casts but unlike last year there will be a Doctor Who cast event) and many more events that look like panels but are actually “watch parties” available via Scener, including Star Wars movies, Labyrinth, Willow, Little Shop of Horrors, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Lupin the 3rd: Castle of Cagliostro, Superman (1978), Quigley Down Under, The Rocketeer, Creepshow, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Maltese Falcon, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Princess Mononoke, The Shadow, Hail! Caesar!, The Goonies, Ella Enchanted, the pilot episodes for the original Wonder Woman and Star Trek, and Netflix’s Enola Holmes, among others.

Like last year you can bring your dog, cat, bird, rabbit, horse, etc. this year, too, and you can print off badges for them and yourself.  Here are some highlights:

Stan Sakai and the Usagi Chronicles.  An early look at Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, with creator/writer/artist Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) joining the cast and creators of the new Netflix animated series based on the comic books.

Doctor Who.  The annual (except for last year!) panel will feature showrunner Chris Chibnall, the Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, new Doctor Who cast member John Bishop and a surprise guest as they share exclusive content from the upcoming season.

Vampirella: 50 Years and Counting and Dynamite: All the Big Reveals.  Current Vampirella creators discuss the series today, and Dynamite unveils some coming attractions, including Army of Darkness: 1979, the return of Jennifer Blood, and James Bond: Himeros.

WETA Workshop.  Find live collectible reveals through the weekend via WETA’s Facebook page.

Abrams Books is hosting panels on Dune, including the status of its novels, graphic novels, and comics, a Garbage Pail Kids panel with R.L. Stine, co-creators of Run: Book One (reviewed here) will talk about the late Congressman John Lewis and their new graphic novel, our pal Sal Abbinanti hosts Alex Ross discussing his New York mural and the book The Alex Ross Marvel Comics Poster Book (reviewed here), plus lots more, including promotions and contests at the SDCC Online Exhibit Hall.

Titan Books is hosting panels featuring crime author Max Allan Collins, a discussion of the new book Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, and a talk with Charles Vess about The Art of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’ Stardust with more content available via the SDCC Online Exhibit Hall.

And, finally, don’t forget to watch the 2021 Eisner Awards ceremony, always on Comic-Con Friday night and available to watch online here.

And, of course, there is much more than we’re highlighting here.  Go through the programming agenda and select what appeals to you.  You can buy SDCC swag like T-shirts and mugs here.

Need to enhance your experience even more?  Take time off work (if you’re still working in-person at an office).  Go all-out and print off all the room and access signs SDCC made available here especially for SDCC@Home, and every hour play loudly the audio notice recordings posted here.  Walk a treadmill for an hour then search all over the house another hour to find a bottle of water, and pay your spouse $10 for it.  Tap your badge at every room before entering.  Unfortunately you can’t replicate walking across the street from the San Diego Convention Center for lunch and eating some good fried fish and chips at Tin Fish or another great restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter District (or maybe you can–get that cookbook out and go for it, or check out the SDCC recipes posted here).

Stay at home, wear your masks if you’re out, stay safe, and sit back and enjoy this year’s San Diego Comic-Con 2021 at home.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg

In-person cancellations have not kept every event this summer from canceling entirely.  One of those is typically one of the summer’s biggest events, San Diego Comic-Con.  As with last year’s Comic-Con At Home, events for SDCC 2021 are proceeding this week, once again providing a rare opportunity for fans of all things pop culture a chance to sit through the kinds of panels you might see were you to attend in person in any regular year–without standing overnight in lines.  You can even grab a lanyard off the rack, print your own badge (for you and your pets), cosplay with your family, and load the panels up on as big of a screen as you have.  Check out some suggestions for building your own fun convention week experience with SDCC 2021 below.

The first step is checking out the daily panel scheduling here.  Thursday is a short day so you have plenty of time to plan for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday events.  Just like any other year, you select the panels you want to attend, with the bonus that you can watch any and all whether or not they overlap.  The first is already posted from last night: a presentation somewhat slicker than what you’d see at a live panel, a look at Snake Eyes: Origins (and each panel and presentation is available at the above link even after its scheduled time slot).

This year you’ll see a lot more of the typical guests not doing panels this year (alas, no Marvel movies casts but unlike last year there will be a Doctor Who cast event) and many more events that look like panels but are actually “watch parties” available via Scener, including Star Wars movies, Labyrinth, Willow, Little Shop of Horrors, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Lupin the 3rd: Castle of Cagliostro, Superman (1978), Quigley Down Under, The Rocketeer, Creepshow, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Maltese Falcon, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Princess Mononoke, The Shadow, Hail! Caesar!, The Goonies, Ella Enchanted, the pilot episodes for the original Wonder Woman and Star Trek, and Netflix’s Enola Holmes, among others.

Like last year you can bring your dog, cat, bird, rabbit, horse, etc. this year, too, and you can print off badges for them and yourself.  Here are some highlights:

Stan Sakai and the Usagi Chronicles.  An early look at Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, with creator/writer/artist Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) joining the cast and creators of the new Netflix animated series based on the comic books.

Doctor Who.  The annual (except for last year!) panel will feature showrunner Chris Chibnall, the Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, new Doctor Who cast member John Bishop and a surprise guest as they share exclusive content from the upcoming season.

Vampirella: 50 Years and Counting and Dynamite: All the Big Reveals.  Current Vampirella creators discuss the series today, and Dynamite unveils some coming attractions, including Army of Darkness: 1979, the return of Jennifer Blood, and James Bond: Himeros.

WETA Workshop.  Find live collectible reveals through the weekend via WETA’s Facebook page.

Abrams Books is hosting panels on Dune, including the status of its novels, graphic novels, and comics, a Garbage Pail Kids panel with R.L. Stine, co-creators of Run: Book One (reviewed here) will talk about the late Congressman John Lewis and their new graphic novel, our pal Sal Abbinanti hosts Alex Ross discussing his New York mural and the book The Alex Ross Marvel Comics Poster Book (reviewed here), plus lots more, including promotions and contests at the SDCC Online Exhibit Hall.

Titan Books is hosting panels featuring crime author Max Allan Collins, a discussion of the new book Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, and a talk with Charles Vess about The Art of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’ Stardust with more content available via the SDCC Online Exhibit Hall.

And, finally, don’t forget to watch the 2021 Eisner Awards ceremony, always on Comic-Con Friday night and available to watch online here.

And, of course, there is much more than we’re highlighting here.  Go through the programming agenda and select what appeals to you.  You can buy SDCC swag like T-shirts and mugs here.

Need to enhance your experience even more?  Take time off work (if you’re still working in-person at an office).  Go all-out and print off all the room and access signs SDCC made available here especially for SDCC@Home, and every hour play loudly the audio notice recordings posted here.  Walk a treadmill for an hour then search all over the house another hour to find a bottle of water, and pay your spouse $10 for it.  Tap your badge at every room before entering.  Unfortunately you can’t replicate walking across the street from the San Diego Convention Center for lunch and eating some good fried fish and chips at Tin Fish or another great restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter District (or maybe you can–get that cookbook out and go for it, or check out the SDCC recipes posted here).

Stay at home, wear your masks if you’re out, stay safe, and sit back and enjoy this year’s San Diego Comic-Con 2021 at home.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg

The Lord of the Rings.  Vikings.  Game of Thrones.  If these shows define your expectation of cutting edge visuals for your favorite swords, armor, and fantasy property, you’re not alone.  In post-production for its new eight-episode series, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Prime Video revealed 23 teaser posters for presumably the series’ key characters.  Consistent with the idea of a “tease,” what has been billed as the most expensive series ever made has opted to home in on the details of characters’ props and costumes rather than faces.  But the result is spectacularly… unspectacular.  Costume fabrics and trims look more off-the-rack than the hand-stitched costumes and individually-hammered and fastened scalemail of Peter Jackson’s movies.  And it is immediately obvious Weta Workshop didn’t make the props for this new series–the intricacy of that studios’ artisanal mastery in forging metal swords, armor, and jewelry could not be confused with what is featured in these posters, which at first blush is more like Legend of the Seeker, Shannara Chronicles, or The Tudors.  So what did the studio spend its money on?

Not the cast, clearly.  Unlike the Tolkien movies, which tapped someone for each major role already well-known for one–or in the case of Christopher Lee and John Rhys-Davies–many genre works.  The most familiar cast member for Rings of Power we know of so far is Jessica Jones and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter actor Benjamin Walker–he’s playing a yet-to-be-released named character, but would seem to have the stature of a possible Sauron, or Sauron-in-the-making.  And as with nearly every new production, expect a few actors who played minor roles in Game of Thrones.  Is it possible these images aren’t the best representation of what lies ahead?  Sure, but the film’s marketing folks chose to highlight these images.  Compare the armor in these photos with that in Game of Thrones here, the Tolkien movies here, here, and here, and the Vikings here, or even Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance here, and it’s easy to spot the difference.  Note the printed fabrics, simple cloak patterns, and molded gauntlets.

Fabrics in these publicity photos feature more simple solids without detailed embellishments when compared to even the most minor dwarf from the six Tolkien movies.  Armor appears to be molded (are those molded rivets?) instead of hand-forged and pieced and the deep etched artwork is yet to be seen, along with the films’ trademark elaborate leather work.  Rings and other jewelry have the look of being designed by the same team, as opposed to reflecting the incredible individuality and lived-in look of the Middle-Earth races seen in the tens of thousands of props that made it into The Lord of the Rings and its successor film series, The Hobbit–and the many that were set decoration that didn’t make it onto the screen.  We also see dirt on the hands of some, combined with what appears to be brand-new, clean costumes without distressing or wear.  Curious!

Is it enough to say that this series features events long before the time of the films, or that this story is about a much poorer society, so the costumes and props should seem more primitive?  That doesn’t seem quite right, although it’s possibly what the production is aiming for.  But look at the detail on the ornate shield props and feathered costumes of the early society in the series Vikings.

Do the details matter?  They do to the actors–costumes and props bring out their characters.  Vikings actress Alyssa Sutherland said here a few years ago, they informed her performance.  “Working in these costumes–it’s so much easier to get into character when you have something on you that makes you feel so much a part of it….  Costumes are a really important part of your character and feeling you really are that person…. Everything–every detail, from the sets, the costumes, the hair and the make up, the props…  Absolutely everything has so much detail in it.  I’ve been on other sets and it feels a little bit like a set.”

But maybe more importantly detailed costumes and props quickly convey aspects of the world building for the audience, when the storytellers only have a few hours to develop a world and story.  Edith Head, probably the most famous costume designer of all time, once said, “What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage.  We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not.  We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen, he’s become a different person.”

Here are the rest of the 23 character posters:

Ultimately it will be story that reflects whether fans take to the series or not.  As George Lucas once said, “A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story.  A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.”  This story will be almost entirely new, with very little pulled from Tolkien’s written creations.  Without the celebrated team behind the Tolkien movies, how will this expensive, only eight-episode series fare?  If the story is good, perhaps the art production will take a backseat.  This is after all only a first glimpse.  We’ll find out in September.  The first season of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power arrives September 2, 2022, only on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform.

If you’re interested in the best genre costumes and props from TV and film, check out Game of Thrones: The Costumes, discussed here, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance–Inside the Epic Return to Thra, discussed here, Middle-Earth: From Script to Screen, discussed here, The Hobbit: Cloaks and Daggers, discussed here, Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy, discussed here, Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars, discussed here, and Star Trek Costumes, discussed here.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg

Review by C.J. Bunce

Prime Video’s much-anticipated, record-setting big-budget, eight-episode series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has arrived with not just one but two episodes available for its opening weekend.  Impossible not to compare and contrast with Peter Jackson’s six films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and its characters, the most striking difference is the deliberate, steady pace of this new story.  Carefully introducing lead character Galadriel and using two entire episodes to build the first trilogy character’s backstory, the quick pacing of the movies is only echoed by distant Hobbit relation the Harfoots, who are every bit as spunky as the Bagginses of Bag-end.  Future Elf-king Elrond firmly establishes stoic Elfdom literally thousands of years before The Hobbit, and viewers meet a Dwarf who would make Gimli proud many generations later.  But the best of the series may be its characters new to those who know only the players in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The series requires a few things from the viewer.  First, forget about the movies.  This looks like a television series, with production values that might measure up to some films, but not Jackson’s masterpieces.  From costume details to the cinematography and set pieces, it’s obvious the tens of thousands of artisans and craftspeople who made Jackson’s movies weren’t used here.  So adjust expectations accordingly.  What has been billed as the most expensive series ever made still makes for an attractive television show that rises above nearly all of its competition.  Second, the series beats mirror the movie beats.  This is both good and bad, reminding the viewer of what they know, and also hinting that maybe there’s not much a lot more that needs to be told.  Getting past that will be one of the challenges of forthcoming episodes.

Both the films and TV series open with an historic battle many years ago, the series’ imagery less elaborate.  Both follow one “hero’s journey,” but here we’ve no Samwise Gamgee to tell us why we should love Galadriel and follow her as we did Frodo and Bilbo.  Both stories enlist wide-eyed Hobbits, stern royal Elves, angry feisty Dwarves, and humans caught in the mix.  The “touring by map” and the names and races and creatures like Orcs aren’t explained for that viewer who isn’t already familiar with the series.  But does that matter, and will they even show up to watch?  Even those who know the main Tolkien books may not be familiar with Tolkien’s “appendices” on which The Rings of Power is derived, set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, an Age before The Hobbit.  What is on the screen is a different–yet attractive–look at New Zealand converted into a giant, layered fantasy world.  But there’s a lot of new content, players and places to digest.

What The Rings of Power doesn’t have makes it very promising.  You won’t find here the sex, nudity, boring royalty politics, and the senseless violence of some other fantasy TV efforts.  The first two episodes achieve their objective: they build some good drama to bring viewers back for episode three.

Morfydd Clark (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, His Dark Materials) is a bit stuck as a one-note lead heroine with her young Galadriel, who is much like Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreides of those other fantasy worlds–she’s singularly determined and focused.  But she’s just getting started.  Robert Aramyo (The King’s Man) has more by way of intrigue to do upfront as young half-Elf Elrond, scheming with a famous blacksmith and challenging a Dwarf, improving our view of the bland Elf leader he becomes much later.  Like the shark in Jaws, Sauron may be even more compelling, a force of darkness completely out of the characters’ and viewers’ sights (or is he?).  For those who know the novels, the appearance of a certain broken sword prop introduces a jolt of something electric to this story.

The new characters–and actors behind them–more than carry their weight.  Ismael Cruz Cordova (The Mandalorian, Sesame Street) is as compelling as any of the movie Elves as Arondir, here in detective mode, and his love interest Bronwyn, played by Nazinin Boniadi, has that same fire and strength Boniadi brought to Counterpart.  We won’t need a romantic parallel for Galadriel in the vein of Aragorn and Arwen if theirs is to be the romance of the series.  Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (played by Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Gloaming’s brilliant Markella Kavanaugh) is like a bubbling kettle of all four of the Hobbits from the movies as she gets in and out of trouble and comes upon a mysterious visitor in a place she is not supposed to be.

More expected in the series are brief scenes featuring what feels like a typical Elf leader via Benjamin Walker (Jessica Jones) as Gil-galad and a typical hairy Dwarf, played by Owain Arthur (Hinterland), who is the single actor of the series you’d swear played a Dwarf in one of the movies.  But just for fun or fan service it would have been great to see Dwarf women sporting beards and indistinguishable from the Dwarf men, as joked by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.  As for makeups and prosthetics, the team of creators–which actually includes artisans from Weta Workshop–have re-created the vile Orcs from the films perfectly.  Also, the dialogue and linguist experts have adapted something seamless for Middle-earth with the handling of the proto-Elf language, translated for viewers via sub-titles (Tolkien was, of course a master of language).  Some serious effort was given to mirroring real-world war issues visually and story-wise of the era between World War I and World War II, despite Tolkien’s proclamations parallels to those years weren’t intended.  The Roman Britain centurion overlord vibe of Arondir is also a nice touch, and other visual cues telegraph a Hitler-level menace is festering among the players.  As for special effects, a brief dragon attack scene may be the high point of the first two episodes.  Bigger event scenes are no doubt coming in later episodes.

What’s missing?  A Wizard, of course!  But we’ll need to wait and see if we’ll get one this season or in later seasons.

So give creators Patrick McKay and John D. Payne a hand for creating something unexpected and fresh, even if it’s not what you may expect, and even if it’s not as giant and epic as Peter Jackson’s films.  It holds promise to be among the top of TV’s fantasy efforts, maybe even approaching the magic of the most fantastical of them all, The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance.

We’re only two episodes in.  The remaining six episodes of the first season of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power arrive each Thursday, only on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform.