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Monday, July 16, 2012

Oscars 2013: Profile of Warner Bros.

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July 16, 2012


 

Oscars 2013: Profile of Warner Bros.
The only major to distribute best pic Oscar winners over the past decade bets on Batman's farewell, Ben's direction, Clint's return, and two beloved literary classics.


 
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How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the Cheap

July 16th, 2012Top Story

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the Cheap

By Adam Dachis

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapMovie tickets are becoming more and more expensive, and with quick home releases there are fewer reasons to make a trip to the theater. You may get an enormous screen and high quality sound, but you can also have that in your home for a lot less than you'd think. With a little extra work and know-how, you can put a movie theater in your home on the cheap.

About six years ago I had a terrible day at work—on my birthday. When I finally left the office full of stress and frustration, I only had one purpose: I was going to make an irresponsible impulse purchase to try and make my day suck just a little less. I took the subway to Best Buy, found an inexpensive 720p DLP projector (~$1000), and put it on my credit card. While I can't recommend this method to anyone else, it was the start of a great new project: putting together a movie theater in my home.

This was back in 2006 when prices on HD projectors were just starting to decline. Nowadays you can pick up one that's as good as mine for a lot less money. It's not the only thing you'll need—a good screen and sound system are important, too—but you can easily assemble a pretty killer home movie theater for as little as $1,000. In this post, we're going to take a look at how.

Step One: Choose Your Hardware

Buying a projector, a screen, and a good pair of speakers isn't cheap, but the total cost isn't much higher than a similar setup with a good flatscreen television. You can always spend more for better quality, but it's not necessary. We're only going to talk about awesome projectors (and other necessary components). Mine projector is six years old and is worth about $400-500 today, but it's been so good I've had no need to upgrade. If you've got some freedom to spend, we'll talk about options that are worth the extra cash. If not, don't worry—it'll be great nonetheless.

The Projector

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapAt the time of this writing, the Optoma HD66 is one of the best deals you can get on an HD projector. It's currently priced at about $535, is extremely bright (it offers 2,500 lumens, which is good enough for viewing in daylight), has a very long lamp life (up to 4,000 hours), and uses inexpensive replacement lamps (only about $130 at the moment). The downside is that it's 720p, but I'd argue that's not as important as you might think. While you'll probably be able to tell the difference between a 720p and 1080p picture projected at a size of somewhere between 80 and 120 inches no matter where you're sitting (unless it's across the street), 720p still looks very good. It can be tempting to pay more for that extra detail, but I think you'd be surprised by how satisfying it looks. If you do want 1080p, however, the Optoma HD20 will give it to you. Its projection isn't as bright (1700 lumens) and it costs about $300 more, but that'll get you nearly the same projector with 1080p.

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapIf you're willing to spend a little more money, the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 ($1,278 at the time of this writing) is a great option. It offers 1080p, a fair amount of brightness (2,000 lumens), and is widely considered to be one of the best budget home theater projects you can buy (see Projector Central, PC Magazine, and Projector Reviews for evidence). Aside from the stellar image quality, the Epson 8530 offers a few distinct advantages over the Optoma options: it uses 3LCD instead of DLP projection (DLP can cause a rainbow effect for a small subset of viewers) and offers lens shift features. This may not seem like much, but when you're setting up your projector you'll find that aligning its image with the screen is one of the most frustrating parts. Lens shift does what the name implies—it allows you to shift the lens so your projector doesn't have to be mounted in a single, specifically perfect location. This added flexibility is often worth the extra money, especially if you're mounting the projector from an unusual angle or far distance.

Again, any of these projectors will provide a great image. I still use a 1,000 lumen, 720p DLP projector and I'm very happy with it six years later. Whether you're aiming for cheap or have a little extra to spend, you'll be pleased with what you get.

The Screen

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapPicking out a screen is a bit easier than picking out a projector, as you really only have a couple of choices: a pull-down screen (that you can roll up like a window shade) or a fixed frame screen that's always visible. Either is fine. I chose a pull-down screen because it was cheaper at the time, but a fixed frame screen tends to look a lot nicer. You should expect to spend around $200-300 and have room for a screen that's at least 90 inches (while many will be 100 inches or larger). Yes, all these screens are pretty enormous—but that's the point! You're making a home movie theater. You'll need to choose one that fits your home best, but here are a few examples to get you started:

One last thing to note is that some screens will claim to offer enhanced contrast. This is generally accurate, but the effectiveness of the claim varies. As with anything, be sure to read reviews and see how others have responded to the screen's quality before purchasing.

The Speakers

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapSound is an important element of the home theater, and the speakers you choose can make or break the experience. That said, we could put together an entire post on home theater audio but it's just not the focus here. Instead, we're going to address the issues projectors pose when sound comes into the mix and leave the speaker buying guide to Gizmodo.

Unlike a TV, the primary speakers aren't going to be next to the projector. Instead, they're going to be across the room. That means you're going to have to run a wire from the projector (or sound source) to the location of your speakers. If you don't have a good way of stealthily running an audio cable across the room, one surprisingly effective solution is the Audioengine W1 wireless audio transmitter. Using it means you're foregoing the option of surround sound, which may be important to you, but the W1 is exceptionally easy to set up and actually sounds really good. You just plug them both into power—and they're powered by USB—and connect the output to the transmitter and the input to the receiver. This is a very simple solution to an annoying cable problem and it only costs $100. Audioengine also offers a variety of great stereo speakers (like these), so if you're not looking for a surround sound system they're a good place to start.

The other problem with sound is that you'll likely have multiple sources connected to the projector but the projector won't handle switching sound between them. That means you need to swap sound inputs separately. You can get an expensive system, or you can just pick up a simple AV input switcher like this one and call it a day. You could spend more money, but you don't have to.

The Media Center

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapEverything we've looked at so far doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't have something capable of playing a movie. That may just involve as little as buying a Blu-ray player or as much as building a home theater PC (and installing XBMC or Plex). If you just want a Blu-ray player you should have no problem finding one of those on your own, but if you want to put together a home theater PC you have plenty of options. Jailbreaking the Apple TV 2 and installing XBMC is a great, simple, $99 solution. If you want to spend a bit more and get additional features, you can do what I did: build a hackintosh mini. You don't actually have to make it a Hackintosh—you can always run Windows or Linux on the same hardware. Since my build is a little out-of-date, here's a more recent option that'll work with the operating system of your choice:

If you want to save some money, you can buy less RAM, swap in a slower (compatible) processor, purchase a smaller hard drive, and so on. If you're planning to make this build a hackintosh, be sure to check out the tonymacx86 forum post from which it originated.

Mounting the Projector and Screen

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapOne of the hardest parts of owning a projector is the setup. I'm not going to downplay it: the process sucks. It's time consuming, difficult, and frustrating. That said, the results are worth it and you get better at hooking it every time (if you even have to do it more than once). I've moved my projector an unfortunate total of five times since I bought it and what took me several hours initially now takes about 20 minutes.

What You'll Need

Before we jump into the setup, let's talk about what you're going to need:

  • An electric screwdriver or drill with a Phillips screwdriver head (trust me, you don't want to do this manually)
  • A level
  • A stud finder
  • A ceiling mount for your projector or just a shelf you can mount to the wall. (Ceiling mounts are much harder to install, so I highly recommend the shelf route.)
  • Any materials needed to hang your projector screen. What you'll need will vary from screen to screen (and sometimes be included with the one you purchase), but may be as simple as a couple of metal wall hooks that are rated to hold a good 60 lbs. or so.
  • Optional (but highly recommended): a friend to help.

Make Your Calculations

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapWith all of that together, you're just about ready to get started. Before you dive in, you're going to want to make a few calculations to figure out where your projector's image is going to land, how big it will be, if there will be any distortion, and so on. If this sounds like an absolutely miserable task, don't worry—Epson offers an online distance calculator that can handle all the math for you. It even shows you an image of what everything will look like. Make use of this tool before you do anything else. It'll help you mount in the right spot and prevent you from placing the projector too close or too far away.

Put it All Together

How to Put a Movie Theater in Your Home on the CheapOnce you've got your calculations figured out, just follow these steps to get the job done:

  1. (Hopefully) with a friend, hold the screen up on the wall in the location where you want it. Use the level to make sure it isn't crooked, then use a pencil to mark on the wall where the corners of the screen rest. (If you're mounting your screen with hooks, just mark where the hooks will go.)
  2. Use the stud finder to find the nearest studs in the wall. If your proposed location overlaps the necessary studs, you're good to go. If not, adjust the screen's positioning based on the location of the studs in the wall.
  3. Go ahead and mount the screen on the wall. If you're mounting with hooks, just install the hooks and hang the screen. If you're using a specialized mount, follow the instructions it came with. For pull-down screens, pull them down so they're visible. This will help you align the projector in the next steps.
  4. Plug in the projector and turn it on. Lift it up towards the ceiling—approximately where you expect it to live—and aim it at the screen. Get a basic idea of where the projector needs to be to hit the screen and mark that area with a pencil on the wall. (If your calculations were right, this shouldn't take much work.)
  5. If you're using a shelf, install the shelf on the wall around the X you marked in the previous step. When finished, set the projector on top of it and see how well it aligns. You'll be able to make adjustments—especially if you purchased a model with lens shifting—so don't worry if it isn't perfect. If you're using a ceiling mount to attach the projector to the ceiling, use the X as a guide mark to horizontally align the mounting device. Once you know your position, follow the included instructions to attach it to the ceiling. (Note: this is only if you're mounting in the back of the room and not in the middle. Mounting in the middle means you'll have cables hanging down from the projector in a bad place unless you route them through the ceiling. That's a tough job, and a little bit beyond this guide.)
  6. Place the projector on the shelf or attach it to the ceiling mount. Turn it on and line it up as best you can. If you're using a shelf, you may want to consider using double-sided tape or sticky mounting squares to help hold the projector in place. Although you may not notice it initially, it will move over time and so it helps to encourage it not to. Also, don't forget to zoom the lens and focus it so you get the image size and clarity you want.
  7. Once you're physically aligned, adjust the picture settings so the image will fit your screen better. If you have lens shift on your projector, this will be pretty simple. If not, you should have keystone settings that will let you warp the picture a little bit to correct any distortion caused by the angle of projection.

Now you're good to go! Sure, it isn't the easiest process, but once you get the hang of it you won't spend a bunch of time figuring out the perfect alignment—you'll just know. Also, expect to make mistakes. Having a little spackle around for a few holes you drilled in the wrong place can't hurt. Despite the frustrations and mistakes, the important thing to remember is that when you are finished, you will essentially have a movie theater in your house. It turned out to be one of the best accidental decisions I've made. Chances are you'll love it, too.

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Just Because You Don't Like a Study Doesn't Mean It Is Wrong

July 16th, 2012Top Story

Just Because You Don't Like a Study Doesn't Mean It Is Wrong

By Hamilton Nolan

Just Because You Don't Like a Study Doesn't Mean It Is WrongLast week, the blog world picked up an LA Times news story about a scientific study that had just been published in an academic journal, Communication, Culture and Critique. The title of the study: "Women (Not) Watching Women: Leisure Time, Television, and Implications for Televised Coverage of Women's Sports."

The LAT's headline: "Wives watch sports for husband's sake, study reports." A representative sarcastic blog headline: "Fun Fact: Girls Only Like Sports to Impress Boys!" And therein lies the complete breakdown in the communication chain.

Neither journalists nor bloggers are scientists (usually). Even many science beat writers at top-tier publications lack the scientific expertise to independently analyze and interpret the myriad academic studies that flow forth from the world of science. This is okay. Most people who went to school long enough to be scientists are scientists, not news writers. Someone who writes news stories or blog posts about scientific studies is not required to have a Ph.D. in every scientific field. They are only required to know how to find someone who does know the answers to relevant questions to speak to, or, even simpler, to be able to accurately translate the meaning of a study into language that everyone can understand. Nobody expects bloggers to be so scientifically savvy that they can independently spot scientific or mathematical errors. People do not turn to general-interest news writers and bloggers for savvy scientific analysis. This is not a job requirement for bloggers. You just have to be able to say what something says. You can joke about it. You can speculate on what it means. (Or, as I did, you can go steadfastly absurd in order to tacitly acknowledge that you are not a scientific authority.) But you can't make it say something that it doesn't.

Perhaps it was the LAT's definitive and wildly oversimplified headline that started the downhill unscientific snowball. The Atlantic Wire weighed in with "Do Wives Really Only Watch Sports Because of Their Husbands?" questioning whether a study with only 19 participants could say something definitive. (Spoiler: no, although that did not stop the LAT's headline writer.) Woman-centric blogs like Jezebel and XO Jane went on to mock the study as "stupid" and "TOTAL BULLSHIT."

Was it really possible that a 21-page double-blind, peer-reviewed academic study with 80 separate cited sources could be so TOTALLY BULLSHIT that a typical non-Ph.D. non-scientist writing on a blog could dismiss it out of hand simply by considering what they believed its conclusions to be? I decided to ask Erin Whiteside, a Ph.D and assistant professor of Communications at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, one of the study's two authors (and a "regular Gawker and Jezebel reader," sadly). You may be surprised to learn that it appears that the media and meta-media, through a combination of laziness, sensationalism, and ignorance, may have misstated the results of a scientific study!

"I would like to point out that nowhere in the paper do we assert that *All women watch sports to be with their husbands," Whiteside told me. "As you mention, feminist blogs have been critiquing the study, (and I would, too, based on what they think the findings say) but it is based in feminist theory and very much thinking about gender roles and the production of gendered subjectivities through everyday interactions (including watching sports) in the home. What we do say is that many of the women we talked to said they love watching sports because of the teams they favor, but *also like watching sports because it is a time to connect with their families. We expand on this point in the paper."

In the paper! The paper itself, it turns out, is much more nuanced and reasonable than it summary in the newspaper. It notes that while female participation in sports is up, women's sports leagues still have trouble drawing spectators. Why? What a good question for an academic research project, right? The paper delves into patterns of media coverage, gender theory, and academic theories in search of answers. The study's authors conducted focus groups with women in order to get a sense of what they themselves had to say. It is, all in all, a better-researched, better-sourced, and far more labor-intensive piece of work than any blog post that has ever been written on any scientific topic.

As to the much-criticized fact that the study used a relatively small number of women, Whiteside explained: "This is a qualitative project — hence group interviews with 19 women— as opposed to a wide-scale survey using a random sample. The strength of such an approach is it allows a researcher to go beyond describing a given social phenomena (e.g. women's sports lack a fan base) to explaining it. In fact, research that begins from the standpoint and everyday experiences of women is often considered a feminist approach to research (as opposed to male-centric modes 'discovery') because it privileges women's voices and experiences in the production of knowledge." Whiteside says that while standard numerical quantitative studies are based on set categories of identity (age, gender, etc.), "Our study thinks about how those identity categories are created... I would argue that identity categories are inherently restrictive and a product of power relations; once we assign an identity to a person, there is an expectation toward behavior. This is admittedly an abstract concept and difficult to report in a 300-word story, especially in a world in which measurable, objectively observed data is considered most worthy. This latter point reveals how epistemology (philosophy about what counts as knowledge) may figure into women's oppression. Although feminists hedge from assigning one method as THE feminist method, many would argue that qualitative research in the form of interviews, etc. can be feminist in that it situates the production of knowledge in women's everyday experiences and in their own voices."

Cruel irony. Not only were the purposes and conclusions of this study mischaracterized, but that mischaracterization led to widespread derision from feminist blogs over methodologies that were explicitly feminist in nature. It is useful, when we decide to offhandedly offer our uninformed analysis about a study, to reflect upon the fact that the author of the study has probably already considered all of these objections—which are, after all, usually little more than the first knee-jerk reaction that pops into our heads. Whiteside, for example, is a Ph.D and an academic and is of course aware that it is impossible to generalize from 19 women to the entire world. "Applying any research 'finding' to a wider population is only* appropriate when the study draws from a random sample that is sufficiently representative of that wider population– which we did not do, nor try to do," she says. "But, again, our goal was not to describe a social trend at a meta-level but to interpret it, something for which qualitative research provides an especially useful toolkit."

It is possible for scientific or academic research studies to be wrong. But they must be wrong for a reason. The fact that their conclusions just rub us the wrong way is not a reason. It is possible that our instincts have been proven wrong, by the science at hand. It is also possible, as we have seen, that we do not actually understand the science at hand—possibly because we're relying on a secondhand interpretation of it, which has been misstated or exaggerated or twisted in some way. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that we have spotted what the professionals could not, due to our own incisive brilliance, as professional writers.

Sometimes it's better to just stick to jokes.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

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The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!

July 16th, 2012Top Story

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!

By Charlie Jane Anders

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Comic Con is the pop culture Thunderdome. Every year, studios bring dozens of their massively expensive properties to the San Diego Convention Center, and only some will emerge with victory. Comic Con can't make or break a project — but it can generate tons of buzz, which is a priceless commodity. So which movies and TV shows did the most important tastemakers, the fans, seem to love or hate this year?

Here's our list of the biggest buzz winners and losers of Comic Con 2012.

Top image: Getty Images.

Obviously, there's nothing scientific about this list. This is based on our own subjective impressions, plus walking the floor and having hundreds of conversations with randomly selected fans and other journalist-types. We also trawled the internet for people's tweets and reactions to stuff. This is us sticking a finger in the wind.

And it bears repeating: a movie can win at Comic Con and still lose at the box office. Comic Con buzz doesn't guarantee anything — just ask Scott Pilgrim. (Although, I think John Carter might have gotten a lot more early buzz going if it had had a Comic Con panel last year.)


Losers

After Earth

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Will Smith and M. Night Shyamalan team up for a new post-apocalyptic movie that's obviously meant to be a vehicle for Smith's son Jaden. But neither Smith nor Shyamalan showed up for the panel, which happened in a smaller room instead of Hall H. (If you're going to have a panel for the new Will Smith movie, it really ought to be big, or not happen at all.) And After Earth's overcomplicated mythology came across as both contrived and awkward, with fans shaking their heads in confusion and consternation.

The Host

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Stephenie Meyer's only non-Twilight book was a huge bestseller, and we actually kinda liked it. And director Andrew Niccol, who's adapting this novel, is one of our favorite film-makers — yes, even after Now. But the first clips from this movie seemed to fall really flat — we didn't hear anybody buzzing about them afterwards, not even the Twilight fans. The notion that Melanie, whose body is possessed by an alien parasite, will be shouting her "thoughts" at the alien in a voiceover, seemed really silly. And Meyer seemed a bit too emphatic that she won't be writing any sequels to her novel — which leaves a ton of stuff up in the air, and probably means no movie sequels, either. (On the other hand, the Twilight footage was boss, even if you didn't like Breaking Dawn Part 1.)

666 Park Avenue

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Sorry, Flocke. The show about an evil Terry O'Quinn corrupting the residents of a fancy Manhattan apartment building seemed to land with a pronounced thud. Maybe it's the fact that there aren't really any memorable characters in the first hour, or that it's not clear what the arc is, other than "everybody gets seduced into evil by the apartment building Devil." In any case, the only thing we heard people saying about this show was that it seemed kind of bland. Even New Yorkers who envied that amazing real estate.

Jackie Chan

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Every year, there's a living legend who goes into Hall H unprepared, and this year it was Jackie Chan. He was following some of the biggest panels of the year, and almost everybody stayed to see what Chan had brought from his new movie Chinese 12 Zodiac. Since we'd all heard this was a return to traditional action movies, using whatever objects were handy to wreak havoc, we were excited — but Chan brought no new footage and seemed not to want to say much about the movie. He was mostly interested in ragging on the fans who came up to ask questions.

Resident Evil: Retribution

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!This is the fifth Resident Evil movie, and the burden was on the film-makers to explain why this series is still continuing. What aspect of the games, or of the zombie apocalypse, have they failed to capture in the first four films, that they really want to get at this time around? Sadly, the footage felt more of the same, and the panel was utterly forgettable. Literally — as in, people who were in Hall H for this panel didn't remember much about it afterwards. On the plus side, there was tons of insane viral marketing for this film, including all those severed human limbs being handed out.

Oz: The Great and Powerful

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Sam Raimi is one of our favorite directors — but nobody seemed excited about his Wizard of Oz prequel, featuring James Franco as the Wizard. Even after we saw there were flying monkeys. Maybe it's the fact that it's the tired "total jerk goes on a journey and grows to be the hero everybody thinks he is" story. Or maybe it's just the fact that the footage looked a bit too Avatar-ish, mixed with a dash of Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Or maybe it's just that nobody was clamoring for a Wizard of Oz prequel focusing on the wizard, specifically.

The Lone Ranger

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Meanwhile, this is a project that already had terrible buzz before coming to Comic Con — and the fact that they rolled the footage in the middle of a popular panel, without explaining what it was first, was clearly aimed at creating a huge sensation and changing the story. And... it just didn't work. It's not as if this movie's buzz got any worse coming out of Comic Con, but it didn't get any better, either. Johnny Depp looked just as silly as Tonto as you'd expect from the still photos, and the action looked incredibly generic and boring.

The Vampire Diaries

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!We yield to nobody in our burning love of The Vampire Diaries — and we're super excited about the new season, what with the huge changes that happened in the last season finale. But there's no doubt TVD blew a huge opportunity at Comic Con — the show had a panel in Ballroom 20, right before True Blood, so the room was packed with True Blood fans. Fangbangers really ought to be fans of TVD, if they're not already. Sadly, everyone I talked to agreed the Vampire Diaries panel was one of the most boring at the con, with the stars just joking amongst themselves. "Panel is boring as all hell," tweeted S_Monro. "The Vampire Diaries panel is DUMB, tbh," tweeted IllusiaNation.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!The Turtles put on a full-court press at Comic Con — with a truck handing out hats, and free comics and other shwag everywhere. And given that their movie future is up in the air, with the Michael Bay-produced reboot apparently in limbo, reminding people of their existence was a good idea. But the TMNT animated reboot didn't win people over — it's great that it's a retelling of the original series, but then they threw in some bizarre character changes. And the cartoony footage didn't match the style of the art they claimed they were trying to live up to. The animated series seemed to want to rope in older fans, but then the actual product seemed like it was only for small kids.

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Some of the worst buzz went to this animated movie filling in the gaps between the second and third Mass Effect games — which premiered its trailer at Comic Con. The overall response was pretty damning. Kristin Bomba tweeted, "I honestly can't believe FUNi showed that awful Mass Effect Paragon Lost trailer at SDCC. Boring and badly narrated. WTH?" Forbes' Carol Pinchefsky wrote, "I was really looking forward more Mass Effect…but then I saw the trailer. Sadly, the animation isn't very polished. (I'm thinking 1990s work.)"


Winners

John Scalzi

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!His novel Redshirts came out pretty recently, and it was one of the main things we heard people randomly buzzing about — the io9 panel on "science fiction that can change your life" turned into a fight over who loved Redshirts more. And he was everywhere, doing signings and panels, and performing at W00tstock with Patrick Rothfuss.
And the recent announcement of a new Old Man's War novel was also on people's minds.

Dredd

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!They screened the entire movie at SDCC, and reaped the rewards. People were going nuts for the ultra-violence and surprising cleverness in this dystopian cop movie, not to mention Lena Headey's psychotic turn as the villain Ma-Ma. And the fact that Karl Urban successfully pranked everybody with his "new Star Trek footage" trick, paradoxically, helped too. This film was on people's minds a lot — and actually lived up to the hype.

Marvel Studios

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!There's no way around it — we almost want to make Iron Man 3, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy three separate items on this list. Marvel basically owned the con, with a nonstop razzle-dazzle spectacle. Even if you'd been in line for Hall H and then sitting in Hall H for a collective 24 hours straight, the sight of Ant-Man using his size-changing to beat up goons, and Robert Downey Jr. dancing in character as Tony Stark, was an amazing thrill. To the extent that anybody was questioning whether Marvel could follow up the Avengers' success with more excitement, they more than silenced the doubters.

Arrow

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!This Batman Begins-inspired reboot of Green Arrow charmed the heck out of everyone we talked to — star Steven Arnell is pretty much the perfect mix of cuteness and darkness for superhero show on The CW. Anybody who was thinking of this show as Smallville Year 11 came away from Comic Con with a clear sense that this show has its own distinct identity — and it looks like being a fun ride.

Looper

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!With Joseph Gordon-Levitt on board, this movie already looked like a huge winner — but the new footage at Comic Con just blew everybody away. And the "noir time travel crime movie" concept seemed to be winning people over. With Dark Knight Rises just around the corner, I overheard more than one conversation about JGL owning the con — and Looper was the main beneficiary of this.

The Walking Dead

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Even if people went into the con with mixed feelings about last season, the new footage seemed to silence any misgivings. The first glimpse of Michonne and the Governor was every bit as great as you'd hope — and it seemed pretty clear that the new season was going to be a lot more dark and relentless. At a con with tons of zombie stuff including a zombie race and various zombie flash mobs, the main piece of zombie culture that people seemed stoked about was Walking Dead.

The Hobbit

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!We saw so much footage from this movie, and it was all so gorgeous — and Martin Freeman really did own the role of Bilbo Baggins. The scenes where Bilbo is talking to Gollum and Gandalf were just so beautifully acted and compelling, it swept you along. And even after all the years Peter Jackson and his collaborators have been working on Tolkien adaptations, they still glowed with love and excitement for Middle Earth. Oh, and the display of the huge Troll statues on the Floor also pretty much won the Con.

Revolution

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!The other new TV show that seemed to get people most excited was this post-apocalyptic adventure, where everything electrical on Earth stops working. Thanks to some pretty heavy marketing, including the side of the Hilton hotel covered by a poster, this show was on people's minds. And anyone who saw the pilot screening was left with no doubt that Supernatural creator Eric Kripke had worked his magic a second time. This is a fun, fast-paced show that manages to steer clear of the usual post-apocalyptic tropes.

Pacific Rim

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!All Guillermo del Toro has to do is get on stage and start swearing, and he's already won Comic Con. Pretty much. But there's no denying that the footage of massive, huge, giant robots punching enormous monsters was epic. I was dying to be able to freeze-frame those clips and stare at every detail of the armor and the monsters' snaggle-tooth faces. The notion that we were the only ones who'd be seeing anything of this movie until the end of the year... people were pretty much transported with excitement.

Godzilla

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!Unlike Lone Ranger, this is one surprise screening that worked — the glimpse of Godzilla trashing a city did absolutely everything you wanted it to do. And Godzilla looked absolutely massive and powerful, able to take down entire buildings with one sweep of his claw. This was this year's Tron Legacy moment: surprise footage that got everyone talking for days afterwards.

Legend of Korra

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!This was an example of a show whose panel was largely attended by people waiting for other stuff — and a bunch of people were blown away by the tons of concept art. And by the live script reading, in character, of the show's pilot. People actually got up on the mic and said they'd never seen Korra, but now they were going to start watching. This is what happens when you show amazing stuff and give newbies a great taste of the show's world. Plus Comic Con was just packed with amazing Korra cosplay! It was the cartoon that ruled as much as Adventure Time did last year.

Elysium

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!District 9 dominated Comic Con two years in a row — one year with clever bathroom signs, the next with a full screening. So it's not surprising that director Neill Blomkamp won over the con again, with Elysium. But the fact that this movie's footage looked so fresh and amazing, and the dystopian future seemed so carefully thought out, really kicked people's asses. Plus the concept art at the movie's booth was incredible.

Firefly

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!It's not like Joss Whedon's cowboy space opera needed more fanatical devotion — it's pretty much already the Pope of TV and movie franchises. But the 10-year reunion panel was the hot ticket of Comic Con, and both the stars and audience members were in tears. This was one of the most emotional, intense events of the con, and it made everybody remember all over again why we all love Firefly so much, and why it was such an important show.

Neuro Kitty Ears

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!The $100 brain-controlled cat ears were one of the big hits of the con — everywhere we went, people were wearing them.

Image Comics

The Biggest Winners and Losers of Comic Con 2012!DC scored one win with the Sandman prequel announcement, while Marvel Comics mostly underwhelmed people with bland panels. But meanwhile, Image made a huge splash, with a slew of announcements — they nabbed a ton of talent that normally only runs with the Big Two, including Matt Fraction, Greg Rucka, Joe Casey, Darick Robertson, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Howard Chaykin, Chris Roberson and James Robinson. Whilce Portacio's Non-Humans sounds awesome, and so does Happy, Robertson's collaboration with Grant Morrison.

Thanks to Lauren, Meredith, Cyriaque, Keith, Evan, Owen, Michael, Annalee and everyone else who helped!

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