Cardinal23RK · @Cardinal23RK
18th Mar 2012 from Twitlonger
Okay, finally back home & settled, so I can re-cap my WonderCon experience!
First, I want to say that I didn't go to Calif for WonderCon. My youngest sister is a sophmore in high school and for the past few years, her and I go to SoCal during her spring break & fall break to just hang out. Its a 5-6hr drive from Phoenix and I'm always down for roadtrips! Our trips are always very laid back, non-touristy trips where we just drive around and explore and find new shops and restaurants to enjoy and hang out at the beach. So I had this trip planned for months now and we were originally going to come home on Friday but when I found out about the swath panel at WC we decided to stay an extra day & get tix to go since we are already there and thought it would be a cool experience! My exact words were "watch, if we DON'T go then Kristen will show up unexpectedly and I'll kick myself and wallow in regrets!" Lol!
So we had an awesome time on our trip and checked out of our hotel at 11am and drove to Anaheim. Its about 45-50 miles from where we stay. Traffic was a bitch cuz it was pouring. And traffic was an extra bitch in Anaheim cuz of WonderCon on top of all the weekend Disneyland traffic. We finally parked & rushed to the convention center in the freezing rain and got our badges and made our way up to the 3rd floor where the panels were in the ballroom. We were met with a huge fucking line! There was probably about 400 people in front of us and it was 1:15 at this point. I was like I'm seriously going to just go and cry in the rain if we don't get in in time!
But we did! So yay! We got in a little before 2. The Abe Lincoln Vamp Hunter panel was just finishing up & we got to see the trailer. Then the Promethus panel started and when Charlize came out for it I was like holy shit! She is totally going to come out for swath too! And then I got that feeling that Kristen would be there too but didn't want to get my hopes up.
Charlize was beautiful & funny as always.
They took a break & the lights came up before the Universal time slot. People got up to leave or move around so we scored waaaay better seats. Much closer to the stage & right in front of one of the giant screens. Good stuff!
Then they announced the Universal films panels; swath & battleship. Swath got a much louder cheer & crowd response! :)
Ben Lyons came out and introduced Rupert Sanders (who is a cutie btw, plus I'm a sucker for accents lol) and he talked for a few and then they said special "guests" and I was like ooooh! Guests as in PLURAL! And that's when I knew Kristen was there. Ben announced Charlize and then Kristen and my sister and I got all crazy excited lol! Kristen got a huge cheer and she looked absolutely beautiful! Decked out in her man's shirt & her cool Balenciaga jacket. Charlize is just naturally more outgoing and loud and a "life of the party" type and I think that works well with Kristen's more introverted side. She definitely seems excited about swath and she just looked really happy overall. Her answers were great and her and Charlize sorta "aww'd" at the cute kids that asked questions and had a nice rapport. I loved her "perish by horse" comment and when she got defensive when that stupid girl tried to shit-talk Bella/Twi when she asked her question.
Rupert said he did a 5 min cut of the film to show us and it was amazing. I think I briefly entered fangirl heaven. Lol! It seriously looks soooooooo fucking awesome! And we got a lot of Snow White in the clip. Kristen nailed the english accent, its perfect! I imagine Rob is a little proud & smug that she nailed it so perfectly! It also made me realize that my fake english accent I do all the time is actually total shit. Haha!
My sister took like 50 pix, mostly of the screen I think. She emailed them to me but I haven't had a chance to look at them yet as we hit the road as soon as the swath panel ended.
When we were walking out, there was a black suv in the restricted vehicle area that was turning around to leave and the chick in the front seat had long brown hair & was wearing a black leather jacket and she was texting on her phone. We both thought it looked like Kristen but we didn't get a good look at her face, so I can't be sure.
One thing that really struck me, from the crowd response to Kristen, and to swath in general, is that she really is just a big fucking deal; yet she is so incredibly sweet and normal and humble. Its really amazing to see and it was a profound thing for me. I knew all this, but to see it in person was special.
As a big fan, it made me incredibly happy and proud.
I couldn't be more excited for swath and after today, I love Kristen even more. It was super cool of her to come out and do this, especially in bad traffic and cold rain and its not exactly close to home for her. She is absolutely amazing!
Deciding to extend our trip by a day and go to WonderCon was a great decision and I'm so happy we did it and I my face hurts from all the smiling I've done today! :)
PS: I took 3 really crappy vids on my phone that I won't even bother uploading since better quality vids of the full panel are up already. Also, there are now lots of good quality pix up but when I take a look at my sister's pix later tonight or tomorrow, I'll upload anything worthwhile!