LAX Stargate Con, November 2010
Okay, so the con report's a week late. Hey, at least I got to it! :P
Last week I drove out to LAX for Creation's annual Stargate convention, which was being run alongside conventions for Farscape and the Whedonverse (Buffy, Firefly/Serenity, etc.). Let's face it, I'm shallow. I went to see Joe Flanigan, so let's get right down to business.
As I think most are aware by now, Joe has finally joined the Dark Side and gotten on Twitter, and the Twitternation insanity started even before Joe got on stage, as he failed to appear right away when he was announced. The MC quipped to the audience that Joe was tweeting backstage, to roars of laughter all around, and it all went downhill (in a good way!) from there!
Joe, as always, was looking deliciously rumpled in that "I just rolled out of bed and put on yesterday's clothing" sort of way... There are men who would pay thousands of dollars to have stylists do what Joe does naturally, and they wouldn't look even a quarter as good as he does.
Apparently, one of the VIP ticket holders had made a calendar of pictures of Joe that she gave to him backstage to auction off to help his friend Sarah Geary, who's suffering from ALS. Joe started his time on stage giving us an update on Sarah's condition; she can no longer speak, and things are starting to build up to the inevitable end, but she's still in good spirits and is really touched by the support from Joe's fans. Joe auctioned the calendar off at the end of the Q&A, trying to do that really rapidfire auctioneer voice (and not very well, which made it even funnier), and at one point even said that he felt like a hooker, which really left everyone howling! The calendar (which Joe promised to personalize with a letter to the winning bidder) went for $225. Joe inspires us to be our best. :)
Anyway, to the questions! First up was a query on the state of Joe's beekeeping project. That discussion eventually devolved into Joe's ambitions to be a honey tycoon and use his honey money to buy the Stargate franchise, all inspired by a Halloween night trip out to Paul Allen's megayacht complete with basketball courts, mini submarines, a recording studio, and every luxury one can think of. Joe even joked about shooting the Atlantis movie on Allen's yacht, and further mentioned that he's met with someone who's a part of the investor group that bought MGM. Work those connections, Joe!
Another question was on Joe's appearances on the Jace Hall show; Joe definitely wants to get back to that ongoing little story with the V suit and a further joke about getting the entire Atlantis cast on. Now that'd be something to see!
Joe talked quite a bit about his latest project, the backdoor pilot "Best Laid Plans," which he said is set to air on FOX on January 8 of next year (mark your calendars, that's a Saturday!). It turns out the show is being produced by Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart! Instead of simply buying commercial time during network-created shows, they've teamed up to buy whole time slots from the networks and produce their own shows. Joe was very impressed by the way that they basically stayed out of the way of the production and let them make a great little movie. Which led into another discussion of the situation with Stargate and the movies and the way that Atlantis's cancellation was handled (in fact, this came up more than once during the Q&A). Joe still doesn't know when or if the Atlantis movie will ever happen; he'd like it to happen, but he is still mystified as to how those in charge of a successful franchise would choose to not continue it, citing "ego and vanity" as getting in the way of getting things done. This got touched on again later when someone else asked about what Joe did to piss off Joe Mallozzi on his blog. Joe looked a little bewildered at that and went into how he (Flanigan) is the laziest man in the world, and hating someone takes too much energy, citing how Canadians seem to get angry in a different way than Americans (they go off and get angry in private, we just blow up in public). He admits there's a part of him that's like Sheppard in that he doesn't do well with authority. Cycled again into how vanity and ego 'destroyed a lot' and talked about how the show had run for so long with the same people that corruption crept in and control became more important than quality. He also says he tried to read Mallozzi's blog and got bored with all the food talk. *snorts*
Joe also spoke of another recent project, "The Other Side," which he filmed over in Ireland for SyFy. Apparently, it turned quite a bit more into a comedy than it was scripted as, and both Joe and the director were trying to sell it as a comedy to some reluctant SyFy execs who just don't understand The Flan.
Someone else asked a question about whether the off-screen political discussions between Joe (who is a staunch Republican) and Torri Higginson (who's, well, not) filtered into scenes between Sheppard and Weir and added to the tension between their characters. Joe poked a bit of fun at Torri's 'conspiracy theories,' and said that while he's in many ways a free spirit like she is, he's also a skeptic. (Apparently, it's been erroneously reported elsewhere that Joe said that George W. Bush was the stupidest guy in the world; that's not correct. Joe was mocking how anyone could think that Bush was stupid, and yet at the same time believe that Bush was trying to take over the world.) Joe also said that he loves Torri and misses her a lot. (Well darnit, Joe, get a project where the two of you can work together again, silly!)
On the subject of Twitter, Joe said that his agent encouraged him to do it as a way to get information out to the fans about signings, appearances and the like. He loves Twitter, because he can be crazy, but he also likes how tweets are nice and short. (must be his 'I'm the laziest man in the world' head rearing again!) He mentioned how someone tried to get him to sign up to do product endorsements on Twitter after seeing how many followers he had; he thought it was crap because he'd have to stop being outrageous. So the only thing we'll ever see him selling online is his honey.
Joe was asked about the horrors of the Disney World trip. Apparently they got a VIP guided behind the scenes tour, and he recounted all the fire stations and security he saw; Disney World security is "insane" in his words. Lamented the lack of alcohol in the park and vowed that he's never going back. Famous last words, Joe! LOL!
One person asked him two unrelated questions, about where one could go skateboarding on Atlantis, and about that Athosian greeting where you touch your heads and wouldn't it be a bad idea in a society where there's head lice? Joe immediately zeroed in on the Athosian greeting question, asking if we'd noticed that they only did it once (hmm, he must've forgotten The Return). Joe said it was because of the head lice that they got rid of it, hahahah. He went on to say that he always thought the head touch thing was weird and awkward and never liked it. As for skateboarding on Atlantis, there were 'tons of places to skate on Atlantis!' Joe always tried to get surf/skate references into the show, and said he likes the absurdity of Sheppard bringing a skateboard to Atlantis. He also wanted to do a sort of tribute to MASH by having Sheppard keep a distillery in his room, so that all the characters could come over to his room to do dressed-down scenes. Then the discussion segued into the giant stack of insurance waivers he had to sign when he started working on Atlantis, agreeing to not do any of the cool but sometimes dangerous active sports he does (surfing, skiing, skateboarding, rock climbing, etc.) so he started skating around the lot just to drive everyone nuts. That's our Joe!
Also quite a bit of talking about drinking... beer (with tales of Joe's dad and family loyalty to Budweiser), and of course, his favorite scotch (Lagavulin 16 year... good stuff).
At the end of Joe's Q&A, I ran off to a quick lunch, got back in time to scope the vendors' room one last time, then caught the tail end of Andee Frizzell's Q&A (where she was talking about some of the antics she and her gal pals have gotten into when staying at hotels... don't ask me, I missed most of it, LOL.).
Next up was a Q&A with Doug Murray, who is one of the writers of the new Stargate comic books being published by Dynamite Comics. It turned out Murray was actually doing double duty as our master-of-ceremonies/announcer for the day; he's done some work with Creation before, apparently. He started out by giving us an update on the status of the comics; the main comic line is delayed due to MGM's stipulations in the contract; Dynamite has to publish issues for SG-1, Atlantis and Universe simultaneously, and the first issue (#0) has to have stories from all three. The SG-1 and Atlantis stories are done (right down to the artwork), but MGM has not approved a Universe story yet. Universe's storylines are so tightly woven, and characters keep getting axed so frequently, that it's been hard to find a point at which to set a story that won't potentially come into conflict with the TV series. It's compounded by the fact that MGM won't give Dynamite any scripts, writers bible, etc. to work with. Ouch.
But in the absence of an ongoing comic series, the writers (primarily Murray, along with Chuck Dixon, who will be heading the SG-1 comics), are working on miniseries focused on one particular character. Murray has done one on Daniel Jackson (the fourth issue was scheduled to come out last Tuesday, so it should be on the shelves now), centered around Daniel going on a solo trip off-world in search of a 'treasure planet' alluded to in a Mesopotamian pottery fragment that an SGC soldier recently returned from Iraq dug up and brought to Daniel's attention. Dixon is working on a miniseries for Vala Mal Doran (issue #2 is out), and there are two more miniseries, one on Samantha Carter and another on Daniel, waiting in the wings for next year.
Murray also apologized in advance for the artwork in the comics, calling it 'horrible.' As the assumption is that tie-in comics like Stargate won't sell more than 10,000-15,000 copies, the artwork is farmed out to the lowest bidder, many of whom work in different cities and sometimes even different countries. Everything is put together over the internet, sent over to China to be printed, then shipped back to the U.S. for distribution. Apparently the guy doing the artwork for the Daniel miniseries has never seen the show and is working from a couple of promotional photos. *headdesk* Doug, I feel your pain, man.
As to what Murray has planned for the Atlantis comic series, the first four-issue arc is going to pick up right where Enemy at the Gate left off, with everyone going on vacation. LOL! McKay and Keller are going to go on one of those 'theme vacations'... to Dracula's castle. Where they find a body drained of blood. Naturally, they suspect the Wraith, and chaos ensues. I've gotta say, that one sounds like a load of cracktastic fun, and I'm rather annoyed that we won't get to see it for a while. Curse you, SGU!
I asked a question about the possibility of getting Elizabeth Weir back at some point; Murray responded that it's something he's definitely thought of (and in interviews done at the time of Dynamite's announcement that they had gotten the Stargate license at Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego, he specifically mentioned that the Replicators were still out there, and he wanted to do more with them, so it sounds like he's got something in mind!). He also went on to mention that he wanted to do something with "Sheppard's girlfriend." He didn't mention names, but I'm assuming he meant Larrin, as he had spoken of her before in reference to Sheppard in those same interviews from Comic-Con 2009.
But again, all of that is contingent on getting the main comic line started; once the first four-issue arc is complete, the fifth issue will be a 'can episode' type story, set on Atlantis while it's en route back to Pegasus (it looks like Murray may have designed this arrangement to fit in with the script for Extinction; we'll see how that turns out). Then there will be another four-issue arc in Pegasus, though Murray didn't go into specific details on what that arc might be about, and he stated that he really hasn't done any planning for stories beyond the second arc, because of the situation with the Universe comic line.
I had a hard time hearing some of the other questions; the room pretty much cleared out after Andee's Q&A (I think they were all either getting photo ops with Andee or checking out programming for the other two cons), so no one in the audience was using the microphones when asking questions (and none of them really knew how to project their voices... argh). So it wasn't always possible to get the full context of the discussion going on, though Murray repeated a lot of what he'd already said. In any event, the Q&A wrapped about fifteen minutes early, and I was off for the mad drive home, as I had another commitment that evening. Yeah, that's right, no Michael Shanks for me! *pouts* Maybe next time.
Last week I drove out to LAX for Creation's annual Stargate convention, which was being run alongside conventions for Farscape and the Whedonverse (Buffy, Firefly/Serenity, etc.). Let's face it, I'm shallow. I went to see Joe Flanigan, so let's get right down to business.
As I think most are aware by now, Joe has finally joined the Dark Side and gotten on Twitter, and the Twitternation insanity started even before Joe got on stage, as he failed to appear right away when he was announced. The MC quipped to the audience that Joe was tweeting backstage, to roars of laughter all around, and it all went downhill (in a good way!) from there!
Joe, as always, was looking deliciously rumpled in that "I just rolled out of bed and put on yesterday's clothing" sort of way... There are men who would pay thousands of dollars to have stylists do what Joe does naturally, and they wouldn't look even a quarter as good as he does.
Apparently, one of the VIP ticket holders had made a calendar of pictures of Joe that she gave to him backstage to auction off to help his friend Sarah Geary, who's suffering from ALS. Joe started his time on stage giving us an update on Sarah's condition; she can no longer speak, and things are starting to build up to the inevitable end, but she's still in good spirits and is really touched by the support from Joe's fans. Joe auctioned the calendar off at the end of the Q&A, trying to do that really rapidfire auctioneer voice (and not very well, which made it even funnier), and at one point even said that he felt like a hooker, which really left everyone howling! The calendar (which Joe promised to personalize with a letter to the winning bidder) went for $225. Joe inspires us to be our best. :)
Anyway, to the questions! First up was a query on the state of Joe's beekeeping project. That discussion eventually devolved into Joe's ambitions to be a honey tycoon and use his honey money to buy the Stargate franchise, all inspired by a Halloween night trip out to Paul Allen's megayacht complete with basketball courts, mini submarines, a recording studio, and every luxury one can think of. Joe even joked about shooting the Atlantis movie on Allen's yacht, and further mentioned that he's met with someone who's a part of the investor group that bought MGM. Work those connections, Joe!
Another question was on Joe's appearances on the Jace Hall show; Joe definitely wants to get back to that ongoing little story with the V suit and a further joke about getting the entire Atlantis cast on. Now that'd be something to see!
Joe talked quite a bit about his latest project, the backdoor pilot "Best Laid Plans," which he said is set to air on FOX on January 8 of next year (mark your calendars, that's a Saturday!). It turns out the show is being produced by Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart! Instead of simply buying commercial time during network-created shows, they've teamed up to buy whole time slots from the networks and produce their own shows. Joe was very impressed by the way that they basically stayed out of the way of the production and let them make a great little movie. Which led into another discussion of the situation with Stargate and the movies and the way that Atlantis's cancellation was handled (in fact, this came up more than once during the Q&A). Joe still doesn't know when or if the Atlantis movie will ever happen; he'd like it to happen, but he is still mystified as to how those in charge of a successful franchise would choose to not continue it, citing "ego and vanity" as getting in the way of getting things done. This got touched on again later when someone else asked about what Joe did to piss off Joe Mallozzi on his blog. Joe looked a little bewildered at that and went into how he (Flanigan) is the laziest man in the world, and hating someone takes too much energy, citing how Canadians seem to get angry in a different way than Americans (they go off and get angry in private, we just blow up in public). He admits there's a part of him that's like Sheppard in that he doesn't do well with authority. Cycled again into how vanity and ego 'destroyed a lot' and talked about how the show had run for so long with the same people that corruption crept in and control became more important than quality. He also says he tried to read Mallozzi's blog and got bored with all the food talk. *snorts*
Joe also spoke of another recent project, "The Other Side," which he filmed over in Ireland for SyFy. Apparently, it turned quite a bit more into a comedy than it was scripted as, and both Joe and the director were trying to sell it as a comedy to some reluctant SyFy execs who just don't understand The Flan.
Someone else asked a question about whether the off-screen political discussions between Joe (who is a staunch Republican) and Torri Higginson (who's, well, not) filtered into scenes between Sheppard and Weir and added to the tension between their characters. Joe poked a bit of fun at Torri's 'conspiracy theories,' and said that while he's in many ways a free spirit like she is, he's also a skeptic. (Apparently, it's been erroneously reported elsewhere that Joe said that George W. Bush was the stupidest guy in the world; that's not correct. Joe was mocking how anyone could think that Bush was stupid, and yet at the same time believe that Bush was trying to take over the world.) Joe also said that he loves Torri and misses her a lot. (Well darnit, Joe, get a project where the two of you can work together again, silly!)
On the subject of Twitter, Joe said that his agent encouraged him to do it as a way to get information out to the fans about signings, appearances and the like. He loves Twitter, because he can be crazy, but he also likes how tweets are nice and short. (must be his 'I'm the laziest man in the world' head rearing again!) He mentioned how someone tried to get him to sign up to do product endorsements on Twitter after seeing how many followers he had; he thought it was crap because he'd have to stop being outrageous. So the only thing we'll ever see him selling online is his honey.
Joe was asked about the horrors of the Disney World trip. Apparently they got a VIP guided behind the scenes tour, and he recounted all the fire stations and security he saw; Disney World security is "insane" in his words. Lamented the lack of alcohol in the park and vowed that he's never going back. Famous last words, Joe! LOL!
One person asked him two unrelated questions, about where one could go skateboarding on Atlantis, and about that Athosian greeting where you touch your heads and wouldn't it be a bad idea in a society where there's head lice? Joe immediately zeroed in on the Athosian greeting question, asking if we'd noticed that they only did it once (hmm, he must've forgotten The Return). Joe said it was because of the head lice that they got rid of it, hahahah. He went on to say that he always thought the head touch thing was weird and awkward and never liked it. As for skateboarding on Atlantis, there were 'tons of places to skate on Atlantis!' Joe always tried to get surf/skate references into the show, and said he likes the absurdity of Sheppard bringing a skateboard to Atlantis. He also wanted to do a sort of tribute to MASH by having Sheppard keep a distillery in his room, so that all the characters could come over to his room to do dressed-down scenes. Then the discussion segued into the giant stack of insurance waivers he had to sign when he started working on Atlantis, agreeing to not do any of the cool but sometimes dangerous active sports he does (surfing, skiing, skateboarding, rock climbing, etc.) so he started skating around the lot just to drive everyone nuts. That's our Joe!
Also quite a bit of talking about drinking... beer (with tales of Joe's dad and family loyalty to Budweiser), and of course, his favorite scotch (Lagavulin 16 year... good stuff).
At the end of Joe's Q&A, I ran off to a quick lunch, got back in time to scope the vendors' room one last time, then caught the tail end of Andee Frizzell's Q&A (where she was talking about some of the antics she and her gal pals have gotten into when staying at hotels... don't ask me, I missed most of it, LOL.).
Next up was a Q&A with Doug Murray, who is one of the writers of the new Stargate comic books being published by Dynamite Comics. It turned out Murray was actually doing double duty as our master-of-ceremonies/announcer for the day; he's done some work with Creation before, apparently. He started out by giving us an update on the status of the comics; the main comic line is delayed due to MGM's stipulations in the contract; Dynamite has to publish issues for SG-1, Atlantis and Universe simultaneously, and the first issue (#0) has to have stories from all three. The SG-1 and Atlantis stories are done (right down to the artwork), but MGM has not approved a Universe story yet. Universe's storylines are so tightly woven, and characters keep getting axed so frequently, that it's been hard to find a point at which to set a story that won't potentially come into conflict with the TV series. It's compounded by the fact that MGM won't give Dynamite any scripts, writers bible, etc. to work with. Ouch.
But in the absence of an ongoing comic series, the writers (primarily Murray, along with Chuck Dixon, who will be heading the SG-1 comics), are working on miniseries focused on one particular character. Murray has done one on Daniel Jackson (the fourth issue was scheduled to come out last Tuesday, so it should be on the shelves now), centered around Daniel going on a solo trip off-world in search of a 'treasure planet' alluded to in a Mesopotamian pottery fragment that an SGC soldier recently returned from Iraq dug up and brought to Daniel's attention. Dixon is working on a miniseries for Vala Mal Doran (issue #2 is out), and there are two more miniseries, one on Samantha Carter and another on Daniel, waiting in the wings for next year.
Murray also apologized in advance for the artwork in the comics, calling it 'horrible.' As the assumption is that tie-in comics like Stargate won't sell more than 10,000-15,000 copies, the artwork is farmed out to the lowest bidder, many of whom work in different cities and sometimes even different countries. Everything is put together over the internet, sent over to China to be printed, then shipped back to the U.S. for distribution. Apparently the guy doing the artwork for the Daniel miniseries has never seen the show and is working from a couple of promotional photos. *headdesk* Doug, I feel your pain, man.
As to what Murray has planned for the Atlantis comic series, the first four-issue arc is going to pick up right where Enemy at the Gate left off, with everyone going on vacation. LOL! McKay and Keller are going to go on one of those 'theme vacations'... to Dracula's castle. Where they find a body drained of blood. Naturally, they suspect the Wraith, and chaos ensues. I've gotta say, that one sounds like a load of cracktastic fun, and I'm rather annoyed that we won't get to see it for a while. Curse you, SGU!
I asked a question about the possibility of getting Elizabeth Weir back at some point; Murray responded that it's something he's definitely thought of (and in interviews done at the time of Dynamite's announcement that they had gotten the Stargate license at Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego, he specifically mentioned that the Replicators were still out there, and he wanted to do more with them, so it sounds like he's got something in mind!). He also went on to mention that he wanted to do something with "Sheppard's girlfriend." He didn't mention names, but I'm assuming he meant Larrin, as he had spoken of her before in reference to Sheppard in those same interviews from Comic-Con 2009.
But again, all of that is contingent on getting the main comic line started; once the first four-issue arc is complete, the fifth issue will be a 'can episode' type story, set on Atlantis while it's en route back to Pegasus (it looks like Murray may have designed this arrangement to fit in with the script for Extinction; we'll see how that turns out). Then there will be another four-issue arc in Pegasus, though Murray didn't go into specific details on what that arc might be about, and he stated that he really hasn't done any planning for stories beyond the second arc, because of the situation with the Universe comic line.
I had a hard time hearing some of the other questions; the room pretty much cleared out after Andee's Q&A (I think they were all either getting photo ops with Andee or checking out programming for the other two cons), so no one in the audience was using the microphones when asking questions (and none of them really knew how to project their voices... argh). So it wasn't always possible to get the full context of the discussion going on, though Murray repeated a lot of what he'd already said. In any event, the Q&A wrapped about fifteen minutes early, and I was off for the mad drive home, as I had another commitment that evening. Yeah, that's right, no Michael Shanks for me! *pouts* Maybe next time.