SDCC '15 – Recap Of Warner Bros Hall H Presentation

First up is the Man from U.N.C.L.E.  There's a trailer.  Because of the Hall H panorama screen set up, we get an immersive experience with a high action, kinetic animated timeline stylistically in line with 1960's/70's movie intros.  The trailer proper, however, falls flat.  The beats, set pieces, and dialogue all feel routine, perfunctory remake.  The film will maintain the cold war setting of the original TV series.  They say that good movies are never made; they are remade.  The same also holds true for bad movies.  I'll reserve judgement for when I see the whole movie, but I'm not hopeful.

Next is PAN, the latest reimagining of Peter Pan.  FIrst we see the briefest of sizzle reals showing a pirate ship flying around WWII era London.  The ship is being pursued by era appropriate fighter planes.  The ship then breaks the stratosphere and ends up in space, where we see a young boy teathered to the ship by his ankle.  We learn from the trailer that this is a prequel story, where Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and Pan (Levi Miller) are friends and Neverland is a dictatorship run by Blackbeard the pirate (Hugh Jackman) who kidnaps orphans and enslaves them in industrial era mines.  The movie details how Pan and Hook overthrow Blackbeard. and drifted apart in the process.  The movie looks incredible, Neverland is an immersive world constructed wholly of practical effects.  The actors interact with the background, not prior to it.  It looks like a place that actually exists.  Kids and adults alike will get something out of this.

Finally, dessert.  WB has brought IT!  Batman v, Superman AND Suicide Squad.  We start out with those famous Hall H wrap around screens showing production art for everything coming.  We see the Flash, we see Cyborg, and I couldn't take a single picture!  I will tell you that the Flash logo will not have a circle around it, but it still looks good.

Then we see the first ever trailer for Suicide Squad.  The trailer plays against an even more melancholy version of the BeeGee's "I Started a Joke". It starts out with a shadowy dinner amongst shadowy government intelligence types, lead by Amanda Waller.  They talk about the the need for an expendable group of criminals to perform dirty missions and allow for government deniability should the mission goes sour.  The trailer shows E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  We see Harley, we see Deadshot, and at the very end, we see Jared Leto's Joker.  I had my misgivings with the original photo of Juggalo Mr. J, but in the background of this film, it works and it works well.  David Ayer, director of the film describes this film as not "good vs. evil", but "bad vs. evil."  Take my money, please.

Next, we had the main event, Batman v. Superman, Dawn of Justice.  First, the trailer highlights.

-We see kryptonite and Zod's corpse.

– Bruce was present the day of the Superman v. Zod fight and Wayne Towers went down that day.

– We see some sort of black ops team with Superman shield arm bands taking down Batman in a desert setting.

From the panel itself, Zach Snyder says that, in this universe, Gotham and Metropolis are cities across the bay from each other, much like Oakland and San Francisco.

Ben Affleck also had a funny anecdote about meeting Christian Bale in a costume shop whilst they were both buying Batman costumes for their kids.  Affleck asked Bale for advice on playing Batman, to which he replied "Be sure you can piss in the suit.

More Hall H wonderful to come, see the gallery below and follow me @notacomplainer.