Cross-posted on Film.com
For all of the criticism of this years Comic-Con for being more Hollywood than ever thanks to giant spectacle and the number of parties per night giving the number of panels per day a run for their money, what the Con is truly and still continues to be about is being overlooked - the connection between fan and property or artist. This year I saw more tears than in any year before, and not a single one was shed out of sadness. While this may have on the one hand been a year of bombast, it was also the year of joy and appreciation, and we thought we'd give you a rundown of the best of those sweet moments.
Twilight Does Some Good
The last ever "Twilight" panel managed to have one second that actually for a moment made me appreciate what the franchise has perhaps done for people. A male fan who somewhat resembles Taylor Lautner, took to the mic to have a "bro moment" with Lautner, thanking him for the inspiration to get in shape, losing almost 100 pounds so far. He asked for advice on how to stay in shape and whether or not Lautner cheats on his diet, to which Lautner gave the fan genuine advice. For some reason the positivity of that moment had at least one audience member getting misty eyes (read: me)
Fans Show Some Tim Burton Love
There were multiple moments of overwhelming sweetness during the "Frankenweenie" portion of the Disney panel. First, when a giant group of fans, each dressed as a different Burton movie came to the mic to ask a question, to which Burton exclaimed, "It's like my family came to see me!" Later, a girl at the mic was asking Burton how it felt to finish a project he started working on so many years ago and burst into tears, eliciting awes from the entire hall. Burton empathized with the young fan, "I feel like you do, when I think about it, I start to cry myself."
Firefly - We're All In This Together
Nothing beats the high emotions that took place at the end of the "Firefly" reunion panel. Being in that room for the reunion trumped pretty much anything else that happened during the entire weekend. The intangible energy alone was enough to bring any passer byer (if that was possible at Comic-Con) to tears. Although a few panelists got misty eyed during their entrances (Summer Glau most notably), everyone lost it at the end. When Joss Whedon was talking about what he would have changed about the end of Firefly had he known it was getting canceled, he said "We would have learned about Book and we would have learned about Inara and for some reason that's the question that's gonna make me cry? That's okay, you know what, that is a good last question." As Joss started to tear up, the audience showered him in applause. But it goes beyond that. Jeff Jensen, before wrapping the panel up, posed this question to Whedon, "What do the fans mean to you?" Already fighting back his emotions, Whedon had a hard time mustering up the strength to answer, which immediately cause Nathan Fillion to wipe his own eyes and inspired the audience to collectively scream "We love you!!!" After a few more moments, the audience packed to the brim with 4500 people took to their feet applauding Whedon, letting him know how much he means to us. As Whedon couldn't hold it together any longer, Glau leaned over and kissed his shoulder and the whole cast stood up with the audience, applauding Whedon right along with us. Now fully in tears, along with most of the cast, Whedon gave the following speech to the crowd, who stayed on their feet for the whole conclusion of the panel,
“Only an idiot would actually try to follow that with a sentence. When you come out of a great movie…you feel like you’re in that world. Like you come out of Brazil and suddenly everything is duct piping and…buerocracy and everyone's weird and everything's too much. You know, you come out of these certain things and the world has become that. When you’re telling a story, you are trying to connect to people in a particular way. It's not just about what you want to say, It’s about inviting them into a world and the way in which you guys have inhabited this world, this universe, have made you part of it, part of the story, you are living *in* Firefly, when I see you guys, I don’t think the show is off the air, I don't think there's a show, I think that's what the world is like. I think there’s spaceships, I think there's horses, I think it's going on in all of us — the story is alive.”
A whole lot more after the jump!
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