Convention Fans

I have a quick set of convention news blurbs to share before I head out for some much needed vacation time. That’s right, Convention Fans will be taking a break for Thanksgiving. You can expect new entries beginning Monday.

This edition of Convention News Blurbs include links to stories about Road Warrior Weekend, a brand new Invader Zim convention, and more.  As always, if you have convention news to share, please feel free to send us a link or a press release. We’re always happy to share news about conventions!

1. Liz Ohanesian Ventures Out to Road Warrior Weekend

If you read my blog regularly, you know I’m a big fan of LA Weekly’s Liz Ohanesian. This past weekend she headed out to Road Warrior Weekend, which she described to me as “a cross between a fandom convention and Burning Man, all based on Mad Max.” She also said that “it was the craziest, most exciting fan event I’ve seen yet.” Below are links to her coverage of the event. Be sure to check it out!

1. Post-Apocalyptic Party: Road Warrior Weekend Brings Mad Max Fans to the High Desert
2. Ever Wanted to Drive an Interceptor or Fly a Gyrocopter? You Could Have at Road Warrior Weekend
3. Road Warrior Weekend
4. Mad Max: Babes and Bikes
5. Music for the Wasteland: Our Post-Apocalyptic Playlist

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Large cities tend to have numerous fandom conventions that occur throughout the year, and New York City is no exception. However, with there being so many weekends in a year, you’d think each convention would have its own moment in the sun. That won’t be true for New York Comic Con (NYCC) and Big Apple Comic-Con in 2010. For some reason we can’t quite fathom, the two conventions will be occurring on the same weekend in 2010: Oct. 7-10.

This may not bode well for Big Apple Comic-Con, seeing as how NYCC is now one of the largest conventions in the United States (77,000 in in attendance). Of course, bigger doesn’t always mean better, which may drive fans to choose to spend their hard earned dollars at Big Apple Comic-Con instead.

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I really wanted to write a glowing review of the “Star Trek“ Family Guy episode. But I have admit it: I was disappointed in Family Guy’s much hyped Star Trek: The Next Generation episode (technically titled “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven“). I had been waiting for it ever since Wil Wheaton (or if you watched the episode: “Whhil Whheaton”) posted about the episode back in September 2007. My mistake was watching the promotional video that Fox put out about a week before the episode aired. Almost all of the scenes with the Next Gen cast were in that promo video. Granted, not every single second was, but it was damn close.

I guess what I don’t understand is why the Star Trek portion of the episode wasn’t the A story? Why bother going through the trouble to get the entire Next Gen cast together to voice themselves, if their scenes were going to be relegated to the B story? There was so much potential for hilarity, and I felt like some of that was wasted.

Now, don’t get me wrong. What I did see was very funny and I loved it (especially the Tasha Yar scene that wasn’t in the promo video). My complaint is that I had already seen most of it in a preview, and that there wasn’t more. Most of the members of the cast had some great lines (Brent Spiner cracks me up!). I also really appreciate the fact that these actors can have such a great sense of humor about the whole fandom thing, and go on a show like Family Guy.  So…kudos to the cast of The Next Generation for coming together and giving the fans a really good laugh.

As for the “A plot” with Meg and Brian, I’ve seen a few Trek fans complaining about Family Guy lampooning Christians. I have to wonder if a lot of these Star Trek fans had never seen Family Guy before, and only watched it on Sunday because of the Trek content. To them, I say this: The show is an equal opportunity offender. Don’t worry, they have gone after all religions with equal zeal. You really should watch the show more often. Trust me.

P.S. Star Wars fans got the Family Guy episode “Blue Harvest.” Can we get an episode based on Wrath of Khan?!

Apparently Brent Spiner isn’t the only one with a Patrick Stewart impression. Although, personally, I think Brent Spiner’s is a little better. But yes, Jonathan Frakes, Commander William T. Riker himself, also has an impression of the illustrious Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

The video below is from Creation’s Grand Slam 2006 convention. It’s a short video, but includes a great little story about a scene Jonathan did with Patrick on the bridge, where Patrick makes a very Alan Rickman/Galaxy Quest style comment about how he used to be a Shakespearean actor. There’s also a comment about Marina (Deanna Troi) Sirtis’ boobs.

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This second video of Frakes is from Fan Expo 2007. The first part is a discussion about Trek tech. The end is him doing another Patrick Stewart impression, and again giving Patrick a hard time about his Shakespearean “serious actor” background.

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As always, if you have your own videos or stories to share, post a comment! Your video and story could be featured!

I decided to end the official “Brent Spiner” week of Convention Fans with the story of how I met the man behind our favorite android. Since it’s a rather quick story, I’m also throwing in my experiences meeting Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker) and Gates McFadden (Beverly Crusher), since I met them all right in a row at Dragon*con a few years back.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Brent is an odd guy, but a funny guy. When I first met him, I was admittedly a bit weirded out by his sense of humor and demeanor. I had patiently waited in the autograph line, and when it was finally my turn to approach his table, I selected the photo I wanted signed, and said hello.  I asked him to please sign it to Kelly (my name). He looked at me for a moment, and with a deadly serious tone said: “Kelly? You know Kelly is traditionally a man’s name? And a last name? You could have been born Kelly Kelly.”

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