D23 Expo

Rocky from Sin City Film Review Crew had an opportunity to attend the D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday, here is the review.  Hey everyone I'm going to tell you how it went, well it's definitely not Comic Con but if you are a major Disney fan it's the perfect event for you.  Myself and several friends arrived at the convention center about 4:45am and got on line with the other D23 members.   According to the D23 website if you are a D23 member you'll be granted early access to the venue before the general public, well that was somewhat true the main event of the day was the presentation of the Walt Disney Studios featuring Marvel Studios which was bringing The Avengers.   We stood online from 5:00am to 9:00am then we were escorted inside, now once inside we were herded like cattle into these lines where we had surrender.....no wait let rephrase that, they confiscated our cellphones, still cameras and any all recording devices.  Ok I understand the video cameras but still cameras?  Ok fine I had to deal with that headache so they took my still camera, cellphone and ID and they gave a green claim ticket now my friends had different color claim tickets also they had to put up with that headache as well.  Once that was over we were then herded into another line where we waited another hour next to the loudest speaker playing Radio Disney pop music......God the agony.  At approximately 10:00am....I think??   I didn't have my cellphone and I didn't wear a watch so I'm guessing on the time we were escorted into the D23 Arena once inside we were seated about 20 rows from the stage one of the staff member who was really nice and the most honest one there said that we might be able to move up.  Now the seats that were roped off cost about $500-$1000 and sometimes those people don't show up......WRONG!!!  They showed up and we were screwed.....Oh Well.  We sat through the animation stuff and some of it was cool seeing the celebrity voice talent like Sarah Silverman, Jon Cryer, Billy Crystal and others in person was nice, then they celebrated the 25th  Anniversary of Pixar by showing some upcoming projects and giving us cupcakes I won't complain about the taste but at least they were free.  The next presentation was Walt Disney Studios and they brought some footage from upcoming projects like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and The Muppets.   Seeing The Muppets again was a bright spot also seeing Jason Segel, Kermit and Miss Piggy took me back.  The next presentation was John Carter this a film adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.  Ok the Director Andrew Stanton basically was reading off a teleprompter and there was a delay so he was sort of flustered at times during his presentation, but what was really bad was the footage.   It was so uninteresting and honestly boring that I tuned it out.  The final presentation was Marvel Studios The Avengers.  Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige talked about sitting in the D23 audience last year and he said that the film had two more weeks of shooting to go and then he presented us 4 minutes of footage of the film.  We all had a complete Nerdgasm seeing that footage, then Feige brought out some of the cast from the film he started with Tom Hiddleston(Loki), Colby Smolders(S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill), Jeremy Renner(Clint Barton/Hawkeye), Scarlett Johansson(Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth(Thor), and Robert Downey Jr(Tony Stark/Iron Man) who got the biggest, and loudest standing ovation.  Robert made a funny comment about visiting his parents here in Anaheim and said "would we like to see the footage again" the crowd pretty much shouted yes and they showed the footage again.  Once the footage was over they left, the entire time they were there was all of maybe 8 minutes total.   Speaking time 30 seconds.....Priceless.  Now getting out of the arena was a gigantic cluster fuck there was no organization it was everyone for themselves it took me about 40 minutes to get to the table and another 15 minutes to get to the right person and another 5 minutes to get my stuff.  This was the worst experience I have ever been through I will not be attending any other D23 expos because of the complete lack of organization the floor was not enticing as a matter of fact it was boring.  Maybe Disney should learn a thing or two from Comic Con and honestly that one isn't that well organized either.