Montreal Comiccon 2018

This past weekend was Montreal Comiccon 2018, its 10th anniversary. The events were pretty awesome and there was so much to see in terms of cosplayers, Q&A, gaming panels and gaming zones of all kinds in general. I was about to get a media pass representing Game Warp/That Moment In which is always cool! With that said, its also the first year that I went for all three days!

If you missed the Montreal Comiccon 2018 Haul post yesterday, you can check it out HERE.

Sit tight because here is the complete 3 day recap so it might take a little while! I’m going to have a mosaic gallery for the cosplay at the end of the post if that is what you are interested.

Day 1

Fridays are the short days at the conference and also the day that I tend to catch up with a lot of the stuff that needs to be done. More time consuming bits. This year’s Friday was extremely relaxed. Only one panel to catch so the first thing I always do is to scout out the layout of the exhibition floor, you know where the Indie Game Zone and Playstation, Nintendo, Artist Gallery, Comics and other Vendors, etc. I am horrible at reading maps so forget about the map to find where I was, I’m much better of doing landmarks and remembering where to maneuver from there. Hence, that strategy.

With that said, the first order of business for the media is of course, the Indie Game Zone! There was over 30 games. Some booths, or maybe a good majority of it was stuff I’ve seen before. I don’t cover it all here but I do over at That Moment In for Game Warp so I do head out to almost all the gaming events in Montreal. However, there were some cool new titles to see and whatever I didn’t finish, I left for Saturday.

You can find the full Indie Game Zone Recap HERE.

After that was heading off to the panel that wrapped up the day on Shadow of the Tomb Raider! There was a demo and new info and whatnot to get a good idea of what to expect. I was excited for it before the panel and lets just say, I’m feeling so much more confident and even more enthusiastic about it now.

You can see the panel recap HERE!

If you do speak French, I’m editing the panel audio that I recorded so people can listen to it. I have to cut out a part of it mostly because I’m not sure the restrictions so going to keep it safe and not put it up at all. Its going to be on Game Warp so you can check us out or subscribe if you’d like to make sure to not miss that or any other content there. Our channel is right HERE.

Day 2

Day 2 had a lovely twist of event as my husband who originally planned on going on Sunday went on Saturday instead. We went to check out the remaining Indie Game Zone games that I had to cover and showed him some games to try that I thought that he would enjoy. After really just walking around the Artist Alley and showing him some art I thought would be lovely for our house and his opinion on the whole thing, we went off to the only panel for the day, Gotham Q&A with guests David Mazouz, Ben McKenzie and Morena Baccarin. I’ll have a recap linked at the bottom of the post after Sunday’s bulk of Q&A panels.

We also went to browse the Playstation, Nintendo and Dreamhack Gaming Zone booths. You can find the recap of that HERE.

Day 3

Moving onto the final day of Montreal Comiccon, it was all about panels. I had 3 back to back panels.

Danny Trejo Q&A

The panel was Danny Trejo who is an icon in his own genre and pretty much has crossed all kinds of different movies in the many years he has been in the busy. It was a fantastic panel with so much fun and entertaining moments.

Pom Klementieff Q&A

Next up was the panel for Pom Klementieff who has gained a lot of fame for her role as Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and Avengers: Infinity War. The panel was mostly questions regarding those roles except for a few in her performances in French or independent films.

Jennifer Morrison Q&A

Finally, the last panel of the day was the one I was looking forward to the most because I’m such a huge fan of Once Upon a Time and it was Jennifer Morrison’s Q&A. Her fans of quite diverse as there were also there for How I Met Your Mother and of course, House. It was a lot of great moments here.

For the recaps of all the Q&A panels listed up, all four are recapped right HERE.

COSPLAY

Here you go! Can you figure out all the cosplays here?

This wraps up the Montreal Comiccon 2018 recap!

Predators (2010)

I can’t remember when I had this comments discussion with Java Girl but somehow in that conversation in one of the posts, I ended promising that I’d watch Predators.  Her blog is Java Girl’s Life and she runs a lovely little blog, with her most recent addition of weekly comics on her life and movie reviews, etc.  Its really fun and you should check it out if you haven’t already.

I’m one of those late bloomers.  My boyfriend introduced me to a lot of these movies like the Alien movies and then shortly after the Predator movies in the last few years.  Its kind of a running joke between me and my boyfriend that I refer to the Predator movie as Arnold versus the moving leaf.  Obviously that had to do with the lack of effects back then and the whole not so effective camouflage along with the not so high quality TV that I have.  Either way, point being, I did like the movie Predator (not so much the sequels) so I was hesitant for this one.  But I said I’d do it so better late than never, right? Let’s check it out!

Director: Nimrod Antal

Cast: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Louis Ozawa Changchien

A group of fighters/misfits: doctor, military, mercenary, criminal, yakuza, drug lord, etc, all wake up in free fall and manage to open their parachute in time to land safely in the middle of an unknown jungle.  They soon realize that they are on another planet and that they are being hunted by an unknown group of species.  They must find a way to survive and escape together before the creatures, and especially the alien predators, catch and kill them.

Its kind of weird but I feel slightly the same towards this sequel as I did for the 300: Rise of the Empire one that I reviewed a few days ago HERE! After so many, Predator 2 and AVP, Predators was probably not really  a necessity and actually its not even really a sequel as it does a lot that pays tribute to the first one.  However, it is a sequel as it makes a point to show that its set later on and talks about the original’s end results. This time around, its not just ONE predator but its multiple.  Maybe they were taking a lesson from the success of Aliens, who knows, right?

Still, thinking back to the meh-ness of Predator 2 and the disastrous AVP, I really had a decently at times intense and thrilling time with Predators.  I’m not exactly sure of the casting choices here.  There is no doubt that Adrien Brody is a fantastic actor but somehow I have this issue with tough guys have low, raspy voices.  I don’t even know how to describe it anymore.  Of course, that voices probably is more macho than using his original voice.  It also comes with the face that I can’t actually view him as a mercenary.  Still, he proves that he’s put in a lot of physical work to get a muscular body and tough guy act down.  Plus, the group itself is an odd mix but somehow works well enough off of each other.  Although, no one can quite replace Arnold’s one liners, this one does have some silly dialogue. The character’s also build a rather tense environment but crack a few sarcastic comments (that made me laugh at least).

Overall, Predators takes a few ideas from the first one and wraps it into a sequel where they are trapped and become prey to predators when this group has predator instincts as well from their own training.  There’s some silly dialogue and a really oddball group but somehow sometime works alright for me.  There’s some decent tension built despite the obvious overload of people in the group calling for a lack of character development and connection.  Still, it works and thats what counts! 🙂  Maybe it was just because it took me by surprise that they finally got a sequel right.  Sometimes, its good to go into a movie blind, right?

Have you seen Predators? What do you think of this sequel? Is it worthy or necessary? Are you a fan of the Predator series?