Comic-Con 2008 - First day

Attended three panel discussions.

The Gene Roddenberry Legacy: Roddenberry in the 21st Century

Hosted by Gene Roddenberry's son Rod, with Trevor Roth, COO of Roddenberry Productions, and Paul Keller, editor of a feature documentary that firm is creating, Trek Nation.

Discussed Gene Roddenberry's philosophy, that he imbued it into everything he did in television, and how Roddenberry productions is bringing it into the 21st century. In addition to talking about the documentary, also discussed two web-based comics that are hosted by Roddenberry.com, Gene's Journal and Rod and Barry.

And to wrap up the hour, they revealed a large object that had been sitting in the front of the room covered during the session: a functioning replica of the captain's chair from the original Star Trek series. It was announced this chair would be given away to Roddenberry.com's member of the year.

30th Anniversary Battlestar Galactica Panel

Hosted by Richard Hatch, who was Captain Apollo on the original Battlestar Galactica ("BG" for the rest of this post), and Tom Zarek on the current version. With Bear McCreary, music composer for the current series; Tom DeSanto, a producer who had been involved with development of a proposed BG series that would have been a continuation of the original series, and Dr. Kevin Grazier, science consultant for the current series.

Interesting discussion of both the original and current versions of BG. Included a development video for the proposed series mentioned above. It was explained the story would have taken place 20 years after the end of the original series, with the humans believing they had evaded the Cylons permanently, and having given up the search for Earth to established a successful new colony.

There was also a very funny video from Bear McCreary spoofing his role as music composer for the current series.

Science Fiction That Will Change Your Life

Hosted by science fiction blog io9.com. Panel was composed of three of io9's editors, Annalee Newitz, Graeme McMillian, and Charlie Jane Anders; and author Austin Grossman, and Patrick Lee, editor of Sci-Fi Wire.

The panelists each spoke at length about works of science fiction that had inspired them to change perceptions or how they approach life.

Here are my photos from the first day.