JanJans Blog

Alle Jahre wieder sind wir (u. A.) dafür zuständig, auf dem Tomb Raider Meeting für Unterhaltung zu sorgen. Eigentlich passiert die Planung ja schon immer im Frühling, aber dieses Jahr war alles anders: Nachdem wir im Januar ja in Bielefeld waren, um uns das neue Haus anzuschauen, waren die die anderen der Meinung, dass das nicht ginge, weil zu teuer und überhaupt. Deswegen geht es dieses Jahr wieder nach Bad Emstal. Auch OK.

Problem war nur, dass wir unser Aktivitäten ja jetzt für Bielefeld geplant hatten. Deswegen, da Donnerstag ein Feiertag war und Freitag sowieso nix passiert, haben wir uns also zum Organisieren im Grischäfer getroffen, einem Hotel in Sand. Was wir geplant haben, das kann ich natürlich nicht verraten. Aber das Drumherum:

Auf der Hinfahrt sind wir auf den letzten 10 km Autobahn jedenfalls fast weg geschwommen, weil ein Gewitter mit Ausmaßen, wie ich sie schon lange nicht mehr gesehen habe, die ganze Fahrbahn unter Wasser gesetzt hat. Glücklicherweise war es von da an ziemlich trocken, sodass unsere Planungen nicht ins Wasser fielen.

In der Zeit, die wir uns selber als Freizeit zugestanden haben, sind wir dann fleißig durch die Büsche gekrochen und haben Caches gesammelt. Gibt einen ganzen Haufen Tradis da oben, teilweise sogar sehr schöne.

Die Rückfahrt war mir über die Autobahn zu blöd, deswegen sind wir quer durchs schöne Sauerland (über Winterberg) gegurkt. Wie sich herausstellt, ist das auch nicht langsamer als über die Autobahn (über Dortmund), weil da diverse Baustellen sind, jeweils ca 3 Stunden. Dafür sind es aber durch die Berge über 50 km weniger, das lohnt sich also schon.

Still in English Mode. Seems to last longer every year.

Saturday is the longest day of them all. Since we went to bed at an almost reasonable time we were ready to get back to the Maritim in time for Robert Picardos panel, which started at 9:30. Since that evening the river Rhine was supposed to be in flames (Rhein in Flammen, as every first Saturday of May), on all roads near the Rheinauen the right traffic lanes are closed and converted to parking spaces, because of the thousands of expected sightseers. (Is that the right word? Don't know, sounds strange to me.) Combined with about 3000+ FedCon attendees that is a sure recipe for traffic problems.

So we parked the car about 10 minutes away from the Maritim. Just as I entered the convention I suddenly remembered that my camera was still in its bag in the trunk. So much for being awake. Well, what the hell, I won't be seen without my trusty Nikon on any FedCon, so I had to go back to fetch it. Lucky me I had the time.

I arrived just in time for Bob's panel. Being questioned about what he said at the opening - in German -, he translated his speech about having successfully sabotaged Atlantis, which was cancelled shortly after his arrival, to English, and asked us if there weren't any German Sci-Fi shows he could do the same to. Then he sang a bit and talked about the relationship of the Doctor and Seven and that with Seven, who had been assimilated as a child and lost her humanity, his role was reversed to that with Kes, where she had been the mentor of humanity. Furthermore he talked about the character development of Woolsey from a single minded bureaucrat to a responsible leader.

Summer Glau was next. Regrettably she was a bit ill since she seems to suffer from Asthma and had a cold on top of that. Still she seems to be a nice person, not at all completely barking mad as on Serenity (as River Tam) or The 4400 (as Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic), and not as violent as on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, where she plays the role of a Terminator. (Haven't seen that one, so I couldn't do anything with the questions being raised about that.) She seemed a bit shy but that might have been due to her illness. She talked a bit about how she was cast by Joss Whedon for Firefly.

After that Marc Alaimo and Jeffrey Combs had the stage. Not to be outdone by John Billingsley, Jeffrey Combs entered the stage with his pants down. (As you can see in the photo, Marc looks like he's thinking: "See what I had to work with? No wonder Dukat went crazy!") After he put his pants back on the panel got more serious - but only just a bit.

Nana Visitor was on after that. She is still as energetic as I remember her from the last time she was at FedCon. She talked a bit about the Odo / Kira relationship and then went on to her role on Battlestar where she played a dying cancer patient who meets the president of the twelve colonies in the infirmary on board the Galactica.

Dominic Keating told us - again - that he personally dislikes Pineapple, in contrast to his character on Enterprise, and that he only enjoys it when he is in Jamaica - as part of a cool drink on the beach. Last time he was at FedCon someone in the audience actually bought him a pineapple, but not this year. Instead he got a bottle of German beer which he seemed to favour far more. But on stage he only drank coffee, probably because he was out all night partying. (It seemed he didn't like the flavour of German coffee, though he must have had three or four cups while holding his panel.)

Instead of watching Richard Hatch's second panel we went to stand in line for the autographs. It seems FedCon mainly consists of sitting around panels or waiting in line for something. Since our budget was limited - the Admiral alone was 40€ - and we already had most of the other guests signatures we thought it wouldn't take as long. But when we left the hall, there were already people standing as far as the back entrance. Which is completely pointless, as the weekend tickets always are called in by blocks of some hundert numbers. So we looked for the first person in line with a number higher than 300 - who had day ticket - and boldly merged where no one had merged before. I left Jana there to get some Photographs we had picked out yesterday that we had completely forgotten to buy. When we finally were inside we saluted the Admiral, who commented on our uniforms, and were almost thrown into the brig by the XO. Both were very friendly and talkative. Anyhow it took us almost two hours to get all signatures, because we had to stand in line again for those actors who were not in the "Holodeck".

After that we decided to take a little break, so instead of returning to the "Main Bridge", where Marc B. Lee held his trailer show, we looked for some of our FedCon acquaintances like Igi and finally got some fresh air after we browsed through the dealer room. We had our pictures taken outside the Maritim together with the other members of the Trek Dinner Bonn before we returned inside to present one of our t-shirts to Jonathan Woodward.

Luckily we had picked up on the fact that Christopher Judge and James Callis had switched panels. James Callis had to leave that evening - some said because he had to start filming on Monday, but Marc said in the closing on Sunday that his wife is expecting a baby, so he simply wanted to get home. However we ended up in the middle of the fan film "Der Zeitspiegel", an stop-motion movie made with the Enterprise Action Figures. Cool animation.

When James Callis entered the stage he told us something about Baltars relation with Number Six and his view on the whole Angels story arc. I can't remember anything specific because by that time I was almost asleep: Though I thought I had a good nights sleep the con had taken a heavy toll on me over the day.

My tiredness increased during the panel of Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson (from Eureka, which I have seen about half an episode of). Don't get me wrong, for a series I know nothing about it was a rather good panel, and both were rather entertaining, but as you can see, the pictures I took during this time are even more shaky than the rest. Somewhere half through the panel I decided to take a walk to wake me up again. This ended in getting a bowl of pasta from the snack bar outside the con area and two 0.2l bottles of Coke, just to wake me up. After that my brain started working again, at least as good as is possible with my brain.

The Costume Contest was as interesting as always. It is amazing how much time and effort these people put into their costumes. If only I had some free time (and were more skilled at art and stuff than I am) I would definitely like to participate. But none the less I enjoy watching what these people can do. Hats off! (I'm sorry I can't post more pictures in here, but this entry is long enough as it is. You can see more costume contest photos on our science fiction web page, where I put all my FedCon photos. Sorry about the pictures quality, I think I'll need a better camera some time in the near future. If only I had money like I have... cat hair. )

After finishing the costume contest we had a little visit from the Sarlacc Survivor Band, a Star Wars theme show band. They are loud! Reeeeealy loud! (Well, OK, they did it with playback, but that is probably just because of the crappy stage cabeling.) And they were rewarded with a big round of "Zugabe" shouts. Later on they were joined by an Kiss cover group, which was amazing as well. My ears are still bleeding!

By then it was time for another panel I really looked forward to: Christopher Judge, Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. He told us how he wanted to be a football player when he was younger. He said that he would not appear on the next Series, Stargate: Universe, not even on the first episode, though General O'Niell and Dr. Jackson will be in it, which is sad, but he seemed to be OK with it. The series will hopefully air in October this year.

Next up was Michael Hogan, playing Saul Tigh, the XO of the Battlestar Galactica. He still can't believe he's supposed to be a cylon, a thing that EJ already told us. He also talked about his character loosing an eye on the show which was to him as an actor like loosing half of what he can convey in terms of expressions and feelings, since he thought that on television the eyes are the most important asset. Apparently Ron D. Moore phoned him on day while the arc for the second season was developed and told him, that Saul would not leave New Caprica without some kind of visible scarring and that maybe he would lose an eye, which he thought was a joke. Furthermore he was asked about his role on The Little Vampire which he said he liked very much.

The last panel of the day was Mark Sheppard who insisted that he is the president of the twelve colonies. (A little season 4 spoiler. ) The conversation gradually shifted towards cats and dogs, with which he personally has no problems. He also talked a bit about 24 (which, again, I haven't seen - maybe I should watch more TV) as well as Dollhouse (Joss Whedon apparently said, after he was cast: "The name [Tanaka] stays!"). He also talked a bit about firefly, but I can't remember a thing about it.

Instead of going directly to the party we met with Jörg and went down to the Rheinauen to look at the fireworks. All the exploding rockets looked very nice. We joked that maybe Paramount should have sponsored the event, because then they could have put in an Enterprise or two to promote the next movie. Would have been nice, since many people around us were FedConners, who had made the 15 minutes walk from the Maritim.

The party awaited, but I was far too tired to enjoy any of that. I vaguely remember meeting Mark Sheppard in the bar, where he wondered where the heck Gerolstein is, because you can buy it everywhere in the world. The rest is a blur. I almost fell asleep on one of the couches standing around the foyer, a fact I regretted the next day as I had a very stiff neck and a headache from the draught. But all the others seemed to have a good time.

Problem was we couldn't leave early because of the heavy traffic that, as predicted, choked all the roads around the Maritim. So we had to stay till about 2 in the morning and even then we had to take a different autobahn, because there was only one of the three lanes open on the bridge over the Rhine.

Once upon a time.... After three wonderful days of FedCon - this year it seemed more like FrakCon - I'm still in "English Mode", so I should probably take advantage of this and write an English blog entry. (...as long as I turn on the auto correction this shouldn't be such a big problem.)

Actually it was four days, since we - Pete and Jörg and Jana and I - met on Thursday to go to this Italian restaurant (or is it a fast food thingy, I don't know) to get our "last supper" before a weekend of muesli bar diet. Most years it takes about a week after that for my stomach to stop hurting afterwards.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: Thursday we met Gowron himself while waiting in the check-in line. He was a bit more linty than I remembered him, but nonetheless he was just as drunken bloodthirsty as we all remember him! As always the check-in line for Con numbers 1 through 498 was the longest - with about 1.000 people in it. We thought it would be shorter than the years before because this was the first time we were able to check-in the day before the con, but obviously all the other people with numbers under 300 - and their friends and family - had the same idea. The first shock of this years FedCon was that we were supposed to be sitting in seat row A8, right at the main entrance to the hall, which we thought was not so good.

After eating we went home for a short night sleep. At 3:15 in the morning the frakking cat woke me and since we were wide awake after feeding her we decided to go and sit in the line for next years ticket. Some time after 4 o'clock in the morning we arrived and were pretty sure to be the first ones there, but, alas, "same procedure as every year, James", there were already four other persons waiting! The same people as last year, by the way. So, next year we will be numbers 5 and 6, not 43 and 44 as this year. I WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE!!!1 (Did I say this out loud? Sorry.) After that we were as tired as a dog, as we say in German (dict.leo.org says there is a similar expression "dog-tired" in English, is that true?), we could barely keep ourselves awake by laughing about the replacement guest star named "BLABLA" in the FedCon Programme Guide. Not even seeing all the stars coming from the press conference could really wake us up.

Richard Hatch held the first panel. Did he wear the same leather jacket as on the show? It surely looked like it. He talked about BSG - the old one and the new one and the differences between them. I can't remember much of it, because I was so tired.

Same goes for Max Grodenchik, who was next. He is one of the few actors who speak German at least a little bit, so he sang us a song about Leeta and Rom to an old folk tune (to which the name I can't remember at the moment). He is a funny guy who talked about how he and Armin Shimerman got the Ferengi roles on DS9 ("Have you looked around? We are the only short persons around!") and the way Rom was oppressed and exploited by his brother Quark but finally was able to overcome that and end up Grand Nagus.

The next was Richard Arnold's obligational FedCon panel. He answered all the usual questions about the franchise and showed us a short film on the live of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who sadly passed away in December last year, which was made for her memorial service. He, too, talked about the new movie scheduled to be released this week, and it looks like he has been a bit more involved than in the Star Trek incarnations before that. (BTW: Every single person who talked about the movie said it will be great. Weather that is because the studio told them all to say that or...? But I think it is interesting that no one said anything bad about the film, so we are all hoping for the best!)

The panel after that was Marc Alaimo's, who shared his opinion on Dukat and how he was not an evil character per se but that he had tried to give him enough depth to understand his motivation for all the bad things he did.

Next up was Jeffrey Combs, who has much to tell us because of his various roles on Star Trek (Brunt, Weyoun, Shran...). The one story I particularly remember is the one where he fooled Marc Alaimo with his Brunt-Ferengi-Mask.

The opening ceremony was a very special treat for all of us, because Paramount allowed FedCon to show the new trailer and about 25 Minutes of footage of the new movie! (There was so much security all over the place looking for cameras and people trying to take pictures or film the screen, that it was almost overkill - like, more security than actual attendees (Well, ok, I exaggerate, but you get my meaning) -, so I'd be surprised if someone actually managed to do it!) After that the opening was almost nothing more than a formality, because nothing can top that!

...except maybe for Edward James Olmos, the Admiral. He was one, if not the main reasons I was so excited this year. His entrance was accompanied by shouts of "So say we all!" and much applause. He talked about the attendance of himself and Mary McDonnell as well as series creators Ronald D. Moore and David Eick at the UN on March 29th. I have to say that EJ is a very charismatic actor with a long history of roles in TV series and movies, e.g. Miami Vice, to which there were a lot of questions.

The other top act(ress) of this years FedCon followed: Nichelle Nichols. She told us the (well known) story about her meeting Martin Luther King who told her to keep playing Uhura when she was considering quitting Star Trek. (Actually that was during the opening ceremony.) Then she talked about her passion for singing and sang us a little song ("When I grow up I want to be an old woman" - does anyone know who sang this originally? I only know the version by Michelle Shocked...) For a woman of 77 years she is a remarkable fit (and chatty) person who possesses the aura of a real star. She also talked about how when she was cast for the role of Uhura she was over here in the old world (there is something about skiing in Kitzbühl stuck to the back of my head) and that her agent actually had to convince her to come back to LA for the casting by buying her a first class ticket.

To lighten the mood, the last panel of the day was John Billingsley, who seems to need a knew pair of pants after this weekend. As always he had his wife Bonita Friedericy with him who tried to keep him in his pants but - sadly - she did not succeed. In the end they even managed to get Marc out of his pants.

By the end of the panel it was about 11 o'clock and we decided to skip the party to catch up on sleep we missed that morning. (Because of the fireworks - Rhein in Flammen - on Saturday we were expecting heavy traffic; so Saturday would be our party day.)

PS: Did I mention this was the first FedCon I dressed up for? About a month ago - after it was almost certain that the Admiral, as well as other BSG actors would be attending - Jana and I got ourselves an BSG outfit, consisting of olive trousers, a grey sleeveless t-shirt combined with a black tank top worn the other way around, so the backside is in front. As soon as I get the pictures from Steffi I'll post them here.

Well, now I have to get to the university, so the entries for Saturday and Sunday will have to wait 'till tomorrow.

PS: Pictures are online.