The good thing about Auckland is the fact that whenever an event is coming to New Zealand you can be pretty sure it´s in Auckland. This time it was the science fiction and comic convention Armageddon. The convention itself is actually a New Zealand thing and it´s having its 10th anniversary this year but the guests were quite international. Although I watch Star Trek I wouldn´t call myself a Trekkie but what Armageddon had to offer sounded quite interesting even for me. They had a lot of video game consoles, comic book and model stands there. Apart from the new Xbox 360 I wasn´t really interested in that stuff. To my disappointment you weren´t able to try Microsoft´s next generation console yourself. All Microsoft Australia had to offer was a presentation that showed some scenes from first person shooters. The product manager said the Xbox 360 will be released beginning of next year in Australia. Someone should´ve told him that he´s in New Zealand…
Anyway, my real interest was actually in the Q&A panels with stars from different movies and TV series. It all started with a King Kong panel with three guys from Peter Jackson´s special effects department Weta Workshop/Digital. Although they weren´t allowed to show us any footage from the movie (apart from the trailer) they gave you interesting insights into the problems you´re facing during such a film production.
The next panel was with John Rhys-Davies, better known as the dwarf Gimli in Lord of the Rings as well Indiana Jones´ sidekick Sallah in Indy 1 and 3. As veteran stage actor who had played in more than hundred movies he had many cool stories to tell. When someone asked a question he got totally carried away but it was always interesting and funny. He couldn´t really tell anything new about Indy 4 but assured us that when it happens it will be the best Indy movie of all since Lucas, Spielberg and Ford wouldn´t do it for the money but for adding something new to the world of Indiana Jones. Ok, not really something new…It was interesting how he criticised his latest movie´s story and script without even mentioning the name. It was pretty clear that he was talking about the Dungeon Siege movie which is based on a Microsoft video game and produced/directed by the infamous Uwe Boll. This guy takes one popular video game after the other and turns them into really really bad movies.
After this panel there was another one with an actress from Star Trek: Next Generation (Gates MacFadden or Dr. Beverly Crusher for those who are interested) which was also quite interesting and entertaining. I wonder if the actors never get tired of answering the same questions over and over again. But from what they said they just love the contact with their fans and also to catch up with old friends and colleagues.
The last thing on my programme was a comedy show with Dean Haglund from X-Files. Now you might think either “Who the hell is Dean Haglund?” or “a comedy show?!”. To answer question one: Dean played this blonde, long haired computer geek Langly. He was part of The Lone Gunmen and helped Mulder and Scully out on a few mysteries. To answer question two: Man, this guy is really funny! He did kind of an improvised X-Files comedy show with some people from the audience and I must say that I haven´t had a such a good laugh for some time.
All in all it was a very good deal for just $15 (you can hear the German speaking…) and I would definitely go to another convention like this. But that doesn´t mean I´ll dress up in a Starfleet uniform the next time. I´ll leave that to the real die hard fans. And hey, how often can you say that you got poked by Boba Fett´s laser gun.
Last weekend I went down to