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locker_monsterThere was no way the expo was going to top last year, so I think they focused on making a better show. No lock outs this time. Actually, it seemed to move pretty well Friday and Saturday. Lots of crowds, obviously, but they kept everyone moving in an orderly fashion.
Friday
So, parade day. I talked a bit about it already. The one downside to being in the parade? You don't get to see it. I couldn't see who was ahead of us and who was behind us. It sounded like John Barrowman had a lot of fun in the Torchwood convertible. The Doctor Who cosplayers were behind a DeLoren, kind of ironic, and inside said DeLoren was the Mayor. Yup, the Mayor of the city is a geek. :-) I saw a bunch of photographers swoop in to take his picture. We had some fun walking through the downtown. Whenever we had to stop, to let the C-trains through, we would shout "Allons-y!" just as the line started moving again. Sigh, good times.
Oh, and Ian McDiarmid, Emperor Palpatine, was also at the opening ceremonies. They had the Imperial March playing when he walked out. When he was handed the mic, he said, "Okay, Storm Troopers, cut the music" and the music actually cut out. :-) I'm sure it was rehearsed but it was still funny. It made me picture a band of Storm Troopers with instruments. And apparently this was his third con ever. When they said rare convention appearance, they really meant it.
Oh yeah, and here's a photo of some of the Doctor Who cosplayers with the Mayor (who is also a big Doctor Who fan):
There were more of us, but everyone sort of scattered after the opening ceremonies.
When I finally got down to the grounds, I got John Barrowman to sign my 50th anniversary Doctor Who calendar and you know what? Captain Jack is nowhere to be found in it. The nerve! I said to him he could sign September or October, Nine and Ten's months respectively, and he settled on September. I got Sylvester McCoy to sign the calendar, too. July, of course. I'm glad I brought my own thing to sign. When I got there, they had already run out of photos. I considered getting Eve Myles and Gareth David Lloyd and Mark Sheppard to sign, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Though, I wish I had the chance to chat with Eve Myles. She voiced a character in Dragon Age 2 that I really loved.
So my Stargate Atlantis bag now has the signatures of the original four cast members of Stargate SG-1. Whoo!
I suppose if they get more Stargate related guests to come, I'll probably get it signed, but I'm happy with what I have. Oh, and I was so tongue-tied, or possibly really tired, that I couldn't even pronounce Vancouver correctly when Richard Dean Anderson asked me where I got the bag from. :-P
Saturday
Started the day by getting Nathan's autograph. First in line. :-) The line filled up pretty fast; it was amazing. I got my Dr. Horrible DVD and my Serenity comic signed.
Since the comic has a bunch of signatures already, Nathan asked me who was there and who was missing and I managed not to babble like a fool. I'm only short four cast members now! I'm also running out of room. Nathan looked unsure of where to sign. I nearly suggested he sign over Inara's face.
I sat through a Misha Collins panel before the Torchwood one. I don't care about Supernatural so I just sat there and listened to fan girls ask Misha questions.
Ah, the Torchwood panel. That was the first time John Barrowman dropped his trousers. I'm not sure what prompted it or maybe that's just John in a nutshell. Sadly, I didn't get a picture, but I'm sure there are pictures out there on the Internet. I laughed a lot during that panel. Someone asked John what it was like to kiss James Marsters and apparently James didn't like his stubble. There was also an amusing story of how Gareth David Lloyd knocked himself out on a bar bell, one in a pub to announce last call, during the filming of "Countrycide". The pub has now raised the bell so no one else can have the same accident. And I'm glad the panel had a moderator who knew what they were talking about. There were some panels where the moderator didn't seem that in to it. Hopefully video of the panel ends up on YouTube. You have to see it; explaining it in words doesn't cut it.
I sat through a panel on Stan Lee just because there was nothing else to do. He's pretty spry for, like, 80 I think is how old he is. Or is it 90? He talked about his cameo in Iron Man 3, which was supposed to be longer; I guess it was cut down for time. So the cameo is supposed to be funnier than how it now appears. He also mentioned he was off to film his Amazing Spider-Man 2 cameo soon. And he only writes when someone pays him to. Honest, those were his own words. The rest of time, he doesn't think about creating new characters.
I left after that to meet up with my sister so we could see Mark Meer. For reasons I won't go in to, I met Mark Meer on my own. For those not in the know, Mark Meer voices Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect video game series. Now, he's not my Shepard, I played Fem!Shep for all my playthroughs, but he's still Commander Shepard so I had to meet him. He was a guest last year, but it was just too busy and I missed out, but not this year. For $20, he basically did anything. Sign my game? Sure. Sign a free photo of Shepard with Shepard's infamous "I should leave" line written on it? Why not! Photo? Awesome, let's do one! Seriously, he was willing to do anything. A guy a few spots ahead of me got Mark Meer to record a variation on Shepard's "I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite store on the Citadel" line for his radio show.
I didn't ask him to pose; he just did it naturally. I also loved the fact that he was wearing a Mass Effect hoodie.
I ran off to my Nathan Fillion photo-op after that. The line was so big, they had to put everyone outside of the building. Thank goodness it was nice and sunny out. Finally met up with my sister and as you saw, we got our photo. They changed photo-op companies this year, so the digital copy was e-mailed as soon as they scanned the a bar code on the photo. Awesome!
More running was involved to get back to see a mini Stargate SG-1 reunion panel. Michael Shank's flight from Vancouver was delayed for some reason so it looked like he had literally just stepped off of the plane. He and Richard Dean Anderson had a good time, but RDA sort of rambled and said, "What was the question?" a lot. I think half of the time he was joking and half of the time he wasn't. And apparently RDA has a rule of thumb when it comes to dialogue. If a line of dialogue is longer than his thumb, he won't say it. So that's why Jack doesn't say much on SG-1. :-D
I stayed for Eliza Dushku's panel, though I originally hadn't planned to. The moderator was a professor from some local university, but his questions were so academic that they were kind of boring. It was a blessing when they opened it up to the floor. I honestly don't remember that much about Eliza's panel. She was there at the expo with Rick Fox, her boyfriend, and they ended up sharing a table, which was kind of funny.
Oh, and John Barrowman met Nathan Fillion back in the guests' green room and posted the picture on Instragram. He admitted the next day that he totally fanboy'd when he met Nathan. Awe. So much pretty in one picture.
And for the curious, a full length picture of my Kaylee costume:
I opted for her every day look as opposed to her iconic outfit from "Serenity" mostly because I couldn't find a teal Chinese jacket. And it was an easy costume to make, too. All you need is a pair of coveralls and boom, that's like 95% of the costume done.
I ran into one Kaylee on Saturday when I went to get to Mark Meer's autograph. I walked over there just to be like, "Whoo, another Kaylee!" and the girl was all, "Let's take a picture together!"
That's the cool things about cons. Total strangers can meet and chat and it's not weird because you have something in common. I saw more Kaylees on Sunday, but by that point I just wanted to wear normal clothes. It's kind of neat to see other people's interpretation on the costume. I can't say this definitively, but I think I was the only one to stain the coveralls. It's hard to see in the pictures, but I used shoe polish as a stand in for oil. It's a minor detail, but it makes the costume look more lived in.
Sunday
Sylvester McCoy was my first panel of the day (which you can watch in its entirety here). He was a hoot. I wished someone had asked him to play the spoons. That would have been awesome. He obviously talked about this time as Seven and he, too, thought that the question mark jumper was a bit much. He also mentioned how he got the part of Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit. I totally didn't realize that he was up for the part of Bilbo back when they were making The Lord of the Rings. He was the number two choice. And our cold weather completely baffled him when he arrived. It sounded like he arrived a few days before the expo, so he was able to walk around downtown. This was still during our cold snap and he was totally freaked out by how no one was outside; everyone was inside using the +15 system to get around. Yup, that's Canada for you.
John Barrowman had a solo panel after that (full video here). Yup, he dropped trou a second time. Well, it was a half dropped trou; he didn't go for the whole butt shot this time. Sundays are always the hardest day of a con. It's the last day and everyone's tired, but John was so full of energy. He had an amusing story about how he found out about Jack being the Face of Boe. He and David Tennant are such fanboys from the sound of things. I really wish Jack was back for the 50th anniversary, just so he and David can hang out again.
One highlight of the Game of Thrones panel? Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey were so blown away by how huge the room was - it used to be where the Flames played their hockey games before the Saddledome was built - that they asked for alcohol. So a runner dashed out at one point with two cans of beer. :-)
Ah, Nathan. You know what I love about him? Besides the fact that he's so handsome and funny and awesome? He's Canadian. He knows what it's like to live in this province. This was a homecoming for him. I hope he went home to Edmonton after the expo was over. Sadly, it snowed here in Alberta the next day, so if he did go home, he went home to snow.
Oh, so before the expo he tweeted about how people should start their questions to him. And two people actually did it! It was so funny. I'm sure some of the crowd was like, "What? Nathan saved that lady's grandmother from choking on a walnut?" I think it was a cute way to break the ice and to get a few laughs. He talked about one awesome scene that was deleted from a recent episode of Castle. It's the episode where they find the dead boy at that sci-fi conventoin. At one point, Castle was supposed to bump in to a group of three guys dressed like Mal, Caleb, and Captain Hammer and Castle would have been all befuddled. I hope the scene makes it onto the DVD.
The absolute last panel of my day was Richard Dean Anderson. He talked mostly about his MacGyver days, but seeing as the show aired 25 years ago, his memory was a little fuzzy. Again he was all over the place, but it was fun, too. He brought up one gag they did on MacGyver I had totally forgotten about, with Mac escaping in a coffin that turns into a jet ski, and he thought it was so ridiculous. Not in a negative way, but yeah, completely implausible.
I haven't checked all of the panels, but this site has some of them for free if anyone is curious. The really good ones you have to pay for, sadly. I think the expo was like the second con to use this site. So far, it's not bad. It's not the same as being there, obviously, but it's still cool. For me, it's neat, because I couldn't make all of the panels I wanted to see, so I can sort of catch up now.
Once again, a full weekend, but no major mishaps. But I do feel like there's not much to look forward to now. The expo has done pretty well bringing in actors from my fandoms. Definitely need more Doctor Who, though. They had a good start this year, but more please. :-)
Friday
So, parade day. I talked a bit about it already. The one downside to being in the parade? You don't get to see it. I couldn't see who was ahead of us and who was behind us. It sounded like John Barrowman had a lot of fun in the Torchwood convertible. The Doctor Who cosplayers were behind a DeLoren, kind of ironic, and inside said DeLoren was the Mayor. Yup, the Mayor of the city is a geek. :-) I saw a bunch of photographers swoop in to take his picture. We had some fun walking through the downtown. Whenever we had to stop, to let the C-trains through, we would shout "Allons-y!" just as the line started moving again. Sigh, good times.
Oh, and Ian McDiarmid, Emperor Palpatine, was also at the opening ceremonies. They had the Imperial March playing when he walked out. When he was handed the mic, he said, "Okay, Storm Troopers, cut the music" and the music actually cut out. :-) I'm sure it was rehearsed but it was still funny. It made me picture a band of Storm Troopers with instruments. And apparently this was his third con ever. When they said rare convention appearance, they really meant it.
Oh yeah, and here's a photo of some of the Doctor Who cosplayers with the Mayor (who is also a big Doctor Who fan):
There were more of us, but everyone sort of scattered after the opening ceremonies.
When I finally got down to the grounds, I got John Barrowman to sign my 50th anniversary Doctor Who calendar and you know what? Captain Jack is nowhere to be found in it. The nerve! I said to him he could sign September or October, Nine and Ten's months respectively, and he settled on September. I got Sylvester McCoy to sign the calendar, too. July, of course. I'm glad I brought my own thing to sign. When I got there, they had already run out of photos. I considered getting Eve Myles and Gareth David Lloyd and Mark Sheppard to sign, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Though, I wish I had the chance to chat with Eve Myles. She voiced a character in Dragon Age 2 that I really loved.
So my Stargate Atlantis bag now has the signatures of the original four cast members of Stargate SG-1. Whoo!
I suppose if they get more Stargate related guests to come, I'll probably get it signed, but I'm happy with what I have. Oh, and I was so tongue-tied, or possibly really tired, that I couldn't even pronounce Vancouver correctly when Richard Dean Anderson asked me where I got the bag from. :-P
Saturday
Started the day by getting Nathan's autograph. First in line. :-) The line filled up pretty fast; it was amazing. I got my Dr. Horrible DVD and my Serenity comic signed.
Since the comic has a bunch of signatures already, Nathan asked me who was there and who was missing and I managed not to babble like a fool. I'm only short four cast members now! I'm also running out of room. Nathan looked unsure of where to sign. I nearly suggested he sign over Inara's face.
I sat through a Misha Collins panel before the Torchwood one. I don't care about Supernatural so I just sat there and listened to fan girls ask Misha questions.
Ah, the Torchwood panel. That was the first time John Barrowman dropped his trousers. I'm not sure what prompted it or maybe that's just John in a nutshell. Sadly, I didn't get a picture, but I'm sure there are pictures out there on the Internet. I laughed a lot during that panel. Someone asked John what it was like to kiss James Marsters and apparently James didn't like his stubble. There was also an amusing story of how Gareth David Lloyd knocked himself out on a bar bell, one in a pub to announce last call, during the filming of "Countrycide". The pub has now raised the bell so no one else can have the same accident. And I'm glad the panel had a moderator who knew what they were talking about. There were some panels where the moderator didn't seem that in to it. Hopefully video of the panel ends up on YouTube. You have to see it; explaining it in words doesn't cut it.
I sat through a panel on Stan Lee just because there was nothing else to do. He's pretty spry for, like, 80 I think is how old he is. Or is it 90? He talked about his cameo in Iron Man 3, which was supposed to be longer; I guess it was cut down for time. So the cameo is supposed to be funnier than how it now appears. He also mentioned he was off to film his Amazing Spider-Man 2 cameo soon. And he only writes when someone pays him to. Honest, those were his own words. The rest of time, he doesn't think about creating new characters.
I left after that to meet up with my sister so we could see Mark Meer. For reasons I won't go in to, I met Mark Meer on my own. For those not in the know, Mark Meer voices Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect video game series. Now, he's not my Shepard, I played Fem!Shep for all my playthroughs, but he's still Commander Shepard so I had to meet him. He was a guest last year, but it was just too busy and I missed out, but not this year. For $20, he basically did anything. Sign my game? Sure. Sign a free photo of Shepard with Shepard's infamous "I should leave" line written on it? Why not! Photo? Awesome, let's do one! Seriously, he was willing to do anything. A guy a few spots ahead of me got Mark Meer to record a variation on Shepard's "I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite store on the Citadel" line for his radio show.
I didn't ask him to pose; he just did it naturally. I also loved the fact that he was wearing a Mass Effect hoodie.
I ran off to my Nathan Fillion photo-op after that. The line was so big, they had to put everyone outside of the building. Thank goodness it was nice and sunny out. Finally met up with my sister and as you saw, we got our photo. They changed photo-op companies this year, so the digital copy was e-mailed as soon as they scanned the a bar code on the photo. Awesome!
More running was involved to get back to see a mini Stargate SG-1 reunion panel. Michael Shank's flight from Vancouver was delayed for some reason so it looked like he had literally just stepped off of the plane. He and Richard Dean Anderson had a good time, but RDA sort of rambled and said, "What was the question?" a lot. I think half of the time he was joking and half of the time he wasn't. And apparently RDA has a rule of thumb when it comes to dialogue. If a line of dialogue is longer than his thumb, he won't say it. So that's why Jack doesn't say much on SG-1. :-D
I stayed for Eliza Dushku's panel, though I originally hadn't planned to. The moderator was a professor from some local university, but his questions were so academic that they were kind of boring. It was a blessing when they opened it up to the floor. I honestly don't remember that much about Eliza's panel. She was there at the expo with Rick Fox, her boyfriend, and they ended up sharing a table, which was kind of funny.
Oh, and John Barrowman met Nathan Fillion back in the guests' green room and posted the picture on Instragram. He admitted the next day that he totally fanboy'd when he met Nathan. Awe. So much pretty in one picture.
And for the curious, a full length picture of my Kaylee costume:
I opted for her every day look as opposed to her iconic outfit from "Serenity" mostly because I couldn't find a teal Chinese jacket. And it was an easy costume to make, too. All you need is a pair of coveralls and boom, that's like 95% of the costume done.
I ran into one Kaylee on Saturday when I went to get to Mark Meer's autograph. I walked over there just to be like, "Whoo, another Kaylee!" and the girl was all, "Let's take a picture together!"
That's the cool things about cons. Total strangers can meet and chat and it's not weird because you have something in common. I saw more Kaylees on Sunday, but by that point I just wanted to wear normal clothes. It's kind of neat to see other people's interpretation on the costume. I can't say this definitively, but I think I was the only one to stain the coveralls. It's hard to see in the pictures, but I used shoe polish as a stand in for oil. It's a minor detail, but it makes the costume look more lived in.
Sunday
Sylvester McCoy was my first panel of the day (which you can watch in its entirety here). He was a hoot. I wished someone had asked him to play the spoons. That would have been awesome. He obviously talked about this time as Seven and he, too, thought that the question mark jumper was a bit much. He also mentioned how he got the part of Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit. I totally didn't realize that he was up for the part of Bilbo back when they were making The Lord of the Rings. He was the number two choice. And our cold weather completely baffled him when he arrived. It sounded like he arrived a few days before the expo, so he was able to walk around downtown. This was still during our cold snap and he was totally freaked out by how no one was outside; everyone was inside using the +15 system to get around. Yup, that's Canada for you.
John Barrowman had a solo panel after that (full video here). Yup, he dropped trou a second time. Well, it was a half dropped trou; he didn't go for the whole butt shot this time. Sundays are always the hardest day of a con. It's the last day and everyone's tired, but John was so full of energy. He had an amusing story about how he found out about Jack being the Face of Boe. He and David Tennant are such fanboys from the sound of things. I really wish Jack was back for the 50th anniversary, just so he and David can hang out again.
One highlight of the Game of Thrones panel? Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey were so blown away by how huge the room was - it used to be where the Flames played their hockey games before the Saddledome was built - that they asked for alcohol. So a runner dashed out at one point with two cans of beer. :-)
Ah, Nathan. You know what I love about him? Besides the fact that he's so handsome and funny and awesome? He's Canadian. He knows what it's like to live in this province. This was a homecoming for him. I hope he went home to Edmonton after the expo was over. Sadly, it snowed here in Alberta the next day, so if he did go home, he went home to snow.
Oh, so before the expo he tweeted about how people should start their questions to him. And two people actually did it! It was so funny. I'm sure some of the crowd was like, "What? Nathan saved that lady's grandmother from choking on a walnut?" I think it was a cute way to break the ice and to get a few laughs. He talked about one awesome scene that was deleted from a recent episode of Castle. It's the episode where they find the dead boy at that sci-fi conventoin. At one point, Castle was supposed to bump in to a group of three guys dressed like Mal, Caleb, and Captain Hammer and Castle would have been all befuddled. I hope the scene makes it onto the DVD.
The absolute last panel of my day was Richard Dean Anderson. He talked mostly about his MacGyver days, but seeing as the show aired 25 years ago, his memory was a little fuzzy. Again he was all over the place, but it was fun, too. He brought up one gag they did on MacGyver I had totally forgotten about, with Mac escaping in a coffin that turns into a jet ski, and he thought it was so ridiculous. Not in a negative way, but yeah, completely implausible.
I haven't checked all of the panels, but this site has some of them for free if anyone is curious. The really good ones you have to pay for, sadly. I think the expo was like the second con to use this site. So far, it's not bad. It's not the same as being there, obviously, but it's still cool. For me, it's neat, because I couldn't make all of the panels I wanted to see, so I can sort of catch up now.
Once again, a full weekend, but no major mishaps. But I do feel like there's not much to look forward to now. The expo has done pretty well bringing in actors from my fandoms. Definitely need more Doctor Who, though. They had a good start this year, but more please. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 06:29 am (UTC)I adore that photo you linked of John Barrowman and Nathan Fillion. It's the Captains Tightpants!
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 11:53 pm (UTC)I wonder if Nathan knew who John was. John had a funny story about meeting Carrie Fisher at the expo and she had no idea who he was.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 09:08 pm (UTC)Nathan's coming here, too! Woot!
Finally Canada's getting some love!
So, I guess it's safe to say I'm going to Fan Expo this year. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 09:12 pm (UTC)We're also getting Morena again.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 11:25 pm (UTC)Somewhere on Natha's Twitter he invited Morena to come do cons with him, so maybe Toronto was her taking him up on that invite.
Aw, you're going to have a great time then.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-23 01:52 am (UTC)I agree with you, though -- we definitely need more Doctor Who here!!
no subject
Date: 2013-10-24 12:55 am (UTC)I've been going to CCEE for, gosh, seven years now, I think. The first one I went to was in the Red and White Club at McMahon stadium. I was so stoked when they got Nathan to attend this year. And he went home to Edmonton right after. Aw....
But yes, more Doctor Who guests, please! Still, I met a great group of fans this year and I can't wait to see them all again in April.