Pixar’s Inside Out is that is both the weirdest and the most universal movie the studio has ever made. It’s from the mind of Pete Docter, who’s brainstormed one of the most conceptually out-there movies in the studio’s history, a coming-of-age story like no other that stands as one of Pixar’s very best offerings.

Inside Out goes smaller than Pixar’s ever gone before; smaller than Toy Story, smaller than Ratatouille, even smaller than A Bug’s Life. It takes us inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, who’s piloted by five adorable sprites bouncing around a Star Trek-inspired command center inside her head. Each of them personifies one of Riley’s primary emotions: Joy is played by Amy Poehler, Sadness by Phyllis Smith, Anger by Lewis Black, Fear by Bill Hader and Disgust by Mindy Kaling. (They all fill their roles perfectly, though Smith’s performance is particularly outstanding.)

The story’s outer layer follows Riley as she goes through a common childhood dilemma: she’s been uprooted from her hometown in Minnesota to move to a stuffy, two-story fixer-upper in San Francisco with her mom (Diane Lane) and dad (Kyle MacLachlan), who hopes to get his start-up off the ground. She goes through all the crises associated with this kind of adjustment period you’d expect, but the film’s primary concern is the chaos that ensues in her candy-colored “headquarters.”

To this point, Joy’s been the captain of the ship, helping to fill Riley’s head with happy memories represented by golden orbs that pop into the control room like glowing gumdrops on a conveyor belt. But due to Riley’s sudden, upsetting change of environment, the control room begins to look more like a panic room.  Sadness feels a sudden urge to take the reins as her blue orbs begin popping into the control room instead of the Joy’s golden ones. Joy tries her best to suppress sadness’ takeover, but when an accident flings both of them out of the control room, Riley’s world is thrown into disarray. While Anger, Fear and Disgust jostle and compete back in the control room, Joy and Sadness try to find a way back home as they traverse the outer reaches of Riley’s headspace.

Emotionally, Inside Out gets pretty turbulent. As things begin to break down inside Riley’s mind, we see her slowly descend into depression in the outside world, mourning the loss of her old friends, her hockey team, her old house, and a time when her parents didn’t bicker so much. It’s likely that audience members who haven’t reached Riley’s age yet won’t recognize the gravity of certain scenes of desperation and loneliness, but Docter and co-director Ronnie del Carmen handle much more sensitive, layered issues than in most of Pixar’s previous work.

The movie’s mostly a comedy, though, with the cast providing some big laughs to go along with the endless string of visual gags. Erratic, twisted humor is provided by Richard Kind, who voices Bing Bong, Riley’s childhood imaginary friend who’s been pushed to the back of her mind, doomed to a vagabond existence. The wide range of emotion covered by this character was a welcome surprise.

Though designed to appeal to mainstream audiences, Inside Out is audacious because it dares to visualize cognitive experiences, like when songs get stuck in your head, how long-term memory works, where dreams come from, and why we forget imaginary friends. The craftsmen at Pixar manage to represent these complex mental inner-workings in inventive ways, like a long-term memory night crew who discard Riley’s least valuable memories as she sleeps (piano lessons get the boot, save for “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul.”) These concepts are clever and often hilarious, and I have no idea how Pixar got them to fit together so perfectly to make up such a cohesive mental ecosystem, but there’s more to them than that.

From the “Train of Thought” to “Dream Productions,” a film studio in charge of amusing Riley as she sleeps, every little piece of the world Pixar’s created represents a piece of us. All of us. We feel connected to the characters because they exist within us already. We know them. They way they jockey for position in Riley’s head? We feel that competition play out inside us every day of our lives. That’s the key to Inside Out‘s power. It’s recognition, empathy, consolation, acceptance; everyone on the planet can relate to this movie. This isn’t a story about Riley’s brain. We don’t see talking synapses or blood vessels or grey matter. This story is about Riley’s mind. In other words, it’s a story about the nature of feeling.

Colorful, detailed and stylized, the imagery churned out by Pixar is jaw-dropping as usual. Design is the strong suit, though, as the surface-level aesthetics don’t quite have the richness or texture of movies like Toy Story 3 and Up. The scenes outside Riley’s head look phenomenal, but the “inside” scenes look too sterile and clinical, resembling more of a Dreamworks or Disney Animation aesthetic. (That’s a minor, minor knock, as those two studios have produced some terrific-looking work.)

The movie’s most glaring weakness is the Disgust character, who largely feels inconsequential. Kaling is fine in the role, going all-out diva, but Disgust is easily the least defined character of the five mains. Another stumble is the movie’s middle section, which feels slightly bloated. Joy and Sadness visit some amazing places on their way back home, but their journey feels too linear. These lapses in excellence are fleeting, though, as the sheer magnitude of Docter and Pixar’s ambition and imagination burns bright in every piece of character and set design, making it hard not to get swept up at any given moment.

The patented Pixar “big idea” here is that we must express and be in tune with our emotions because they’re what connect us with others. It’s a legitimately profound message, and though it can be argued that it’s just plain common sense, to see these psychological maneuverings play out on-screen forces you to take a look back at all the times you’ve pushed others away, or went back on a promise, or ran away from a difficult situation, all because you insisted on keeping your emotions locked up. Inside Out encourages us to open the floodgates.

On Conan O’Brien‘s final appearance as the host of the Tonight Show (a dream gig he gave up to preserve his integrity), the emotional Late Night legend made one request of his young fans: “Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere.” It was concise, it was poignant, and it was from the heart. Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland has a message similarly meant to galvanize young people to be more optimistic, specifically about the future of our planet. But the road it takes to get there is so long and twisty and convoluted that the message is sapped of all its power. In 130 minutes, Tomorrowland fails to do what Conan did in seven seconds.

Bird’s second foray into the world of live-action filmmaking (after Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) is a certifiable disappointment. It’s a preachy, low-stakes affair that only halfway delivers on its promise of shiny, futuristic spectacle; when the film’s dreary central mystery story becomes its prime focus, fun falls by the wayside in favor of thinly veiled patronization. Tomorrowland is a didactic indictment on the world’s pessimists, complainers and slouches who, according to Bird and co-writer Damon Lindelof, will be the planet’s death-bringers, ushering in the apocalypse. Yeesh.

The filmmakers’ intentions are good, but man is this movie overbearing. Bird and Lindelof seem to get caught up in the idea that Tomorrowland needs to be as culturally and socially relevant and as possible. “This movie needs to be important,” I can hear them saying. “It needs to change the world!” If they had spent more time making the movie more fun and entertaining rather than “important,” a better time would have been had by all and their big ideas would have shone through brighter. They try to dazzle and inspire by showing us a limitless future full of excitement and brave technology, but when their haughty finger-wagging takes over, it feels like we’re sitting in on a lecture at a chalkboard.

The film’s opener is a bumbling dud. George Clooney, playing a crotchety old scientist named Frank Walker, addresses the camera directly, recounting the extraordinary series of events from his boyhood that led him to Tomorrowland, a sort of dreamers’ utopia existing in a parallel universe, built by the brightest minds in history as a place for big thinkers to unleash their true potential. We flash back to the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York (a stunning recreation), where a young Frank hopes to wow the crowds by entering into an inventors’ competition with his homemade jet-pack. He’s denied admittance, though, by a sniveling, arrogant judge (Hugh Laurie) who’s got “big bad” written on his forehead from the moment we see him. A young, freckle-faced girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) takes a liking to Frank (he’s gobsmacked, too) and sneaks him an extraordinary pin with a “T” on it that gains him entry to Tomorrowland.

The fleeting glimpses of Tomorrowland we get early in the movie are the best bits. The art direction is wonderful. We see miraculous things like petri dish-shaped swimming pools impossibly suspended in mid-air, with people diving into them and popping out of the bottom, only to land in another pool hovering several feet underneath. There’s a hulking, helpful robot that gives Frank a thumbs-up after fixing his broken jet-pack (a fun nod to Bird’s The Iron Giant), flying vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and sleek-looking towers reaching up to the stars.

Then, sadly, the cool stuff gets cut off as the story’s timeline fractures again, jumping to the present day where we follow a second protagonist, a teenage tech whiz with a rebel attitude named Casey (Britt Robertson). Through little acts of sabotage, she delays the dismantling of a NASA launch pad in her hometown of Cape Canaveral. Her focused devotion to such a futile endeavor makes her a perfect candidate for Plus Ultra, the group that populates Tomorrowland, and so one of the “T” pins mysteriously comes into her possession. We learn that it’s none other than Athena (who hasn’t aged a day, suspiciously) whose mission it is to recruit thinkers like Casey for Plus Ultra. After an explosive tussle with deadly robots disguised as geeky game store owners and a lot of driving, the two find Frank, now an old grouch exiled from Tomorrowland, living in a creaky old house decked out with futuristic gizmos. After another run-in with deadly robots, Casey and Athena convince Frank to take them back to the future. Er, I mean, Tomorrowland. Back to Tomorrowland.

While a lot of the visual tricks and set pieces are inventive and unconventional (a flashy-looking “time bomb” particularly tickled my fancy), the action overall feels kinda, well, weird. Everything moves a little too fast, and the camerawork and staging is so frenzied that we always feel one step behind. Things get disturbing, too, when the robots start shooting people with laser guns that dematerialize them, reducing them to thousands of bits of human remains. It’s off-putting to see these random acts of murder come and go so casually. Even the robots (who look like people) get literally torn to shreds by the booby traps in Frank’s house. One of them gets its face mangled by Casey when she bludgeons it over and over with a baseball bat. It’s like watching a blood-less version of Saw, and it gets really, really uncomfortable.

Frank’s arc plays out like you’d expect, with Casey and Athena re-igniting in the old grump the can-do spirit he lost as a boy. Clooney’s really good at his job (he constantly growls, “Ah, hell!” to sell us on his crankiness, and it works), but there’s nothing performance we can take home with us. Robertson sells the visual effects well with her open-jawed looks of astonishment (Jennifer Lawrence has become a grandmaster at this). But she, like Clooney, doesn’t go above and beyond her call of duty. Cassidy, the youngest cast member, is the only actor in the movie who excels, delivering her lines with as much maturity and poise as Clooney and Laurie. Sometimes you’ll see her standing in the background or on the side of the frame, reacting to Clooney and Robertson’s banter with looks of concern or amusement or sadness: In these small moments, she’s the best thing on the screen. That’s saying a lot.

Tomorrowland is all about bigness. It’s full of big ideas, big-budget visual effects, big-time action, and a great, big chin (his name is George). Why in the world, then, does it feel so goddamn small? It’s an issue of scale; while the movie starts off with sense of grandeur, reveling in the joy of imagination and ingenuity, the story’s scale progressively shrinks, to the point where, by the finale, the fate of two worlds is being fought over by four white people in a claustrophobic, computer generated room. I specify them as being white because I think it’s offensive that a film which claims to have a global message (at the end we see a montage of dreamers of all ethnicities looking to the sky with a glimmer in their eye; where were they in the rest of the film?!) suggests that the world can be a brighter place, but only once the human race’s potential is unlocked by caucasian geniuses.

The doomsday device that drives the film’s narrative is a machine on top of a tower that essentially spreads fear and cynicism across the world, poisoning our fragile minds. It’s a barely disguised skewering of modern media and news outlets, and ironically, it’s comes across like an off-base observation of the new generation’s collective intellect and temperament. Young people these days do have a troublingly romantic fascination with the idea of a dystopian future, but they’re not helplessly susceptible idiots. There’s a difference between cynicism and skepticism, and I don’t believe young people are little emo sacks of inaction Bird and Lindelof seem to suggest they are by making the movie’s messaging so blunt and condescending.

It hurts me that Bird, a storyteller near and dear to my heart, has produced such a clunker of a film. Tomorrowland fits into his filmography only to the extent that it’s about people striving to maximize their potential, a thread that runs throughout all his work. In almost every other respect, it’s uncharacteristically messy, contrived and ideologically confused. Optimism is key, though, and I sincerely hope Bird’s next offering will reflect the greatness he showed in The Incredibles, The Iron Giant and Ratatouille. Onwards and upwards, I suppose.

Fairytales are meant to be passed down. With each new generation comes a new opportunity to share the fantastical stories that served to shape the moral make-up of so many before. Disney has made a new, live-action Cinderella movie, and I feel compelled to make this clear: I don’t believe new renderings of classic tales need to be the best version of all to justify their existence. Sometimes revisiting a familiar tale told by new storytellers, with their own, unique artistic philosophy, is good enough, especially for new batches of eager youngsters.

That being said, modern retellings like the 2015 Cinderella (directed by Kenneth Branagh, whose last Disney project, Thor, I liked very much) are still subject to the grand question: Is the damn movie any good or not? The short answer is, yes, it’s very good. It’s an enchanting, well-acted, snark-less rendition of the classic European folk tale with a radiant actress filling the glass slippers (Lily James) and ridiculously ravishing costumes that’ll make girls across the world lose their little minds. Is this the very best version of Cinderella? Unfortunately not: some odd design choices, unbalanced characterizations, and overall dearth of innovation stop it a few notches short of greatness. But those girls losing their little minds? They won’t care about that stuff one bit once they see James descend the stairs at the royal ball in that sparkling, ethereal, bluer-than-blue (seriously, how did they get it so blue?) dress.

But it’s not just Ella’s dress; there are tons of dresses! Cate Blanchett gets to wear a stunning emerald number as the brooding, evil stepmother; Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger (what a name, huh?) get draped in some of the most hilariously gaudy material you’ve ever seen this side of a Cosby sweater as the dreadful step-sisters; and Helena Bonham Carter, as the Fairy Godmother, is a vision in astral white. Costume designer Sandy Powell really outdid herself with the incredible costume design, which is so detailed and whimsical and magical you may lose your mind even if you aren’t a young girl (guilty). This is a Disney princess movie, after all, and boy did Powell bring the goods.

Children’s movies these days are typically either too cloying or too mean-spirited for my taste. Cinderella, however, strikes a nice balance. The script, by Chris Weitz (About a Boy), isn’t done in by sugariness; when Ella’s stomped on and ripped apart by her wretched step-mother and step-siblings, it’s rightly dismal and infuriating (Blanchett is ruthless; James is resilient). But even more impressively, the film doesn’t resort to sarcasm, irony, or cheap zingers to make it more palatable to millennial pessimists who scoff at the mere sight of bright colors and even brighter smiles on the big screen. Tonally, everything is calibrated just right, making for a smooth, steady ride.

The biggest disappointment is that Branagh’s vision of Cinderella is in narrative lockstep with Disney’s original take, the only non-aesthetic updates being some minor character expansions. Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) plays the strapping prince, whose aging father (Derek Jacobi) may be in his final days. Madden’s prince has a more significant, rounded presence than the cartoon version (who was essentially a walking plot device), readying himself for the burden of the throne as he scours the land for the girl of his dreams. (In a nice twist, Ella doesn’t realize he’s royalty when they first meet in the woods on horseback.) Jacobi maximizes his short time on-screen, making a lasting impression as the kind, sagacious, good-humored king in just a handful of scenes. Blanchett’s step-mother is given a little more emotional depth this time around, flirting with sympathy in a key scene in which she all-but chokes up when Ella tearfully asks why she torments her so. Both Jacobi and Blanchett could have been utilized better, particularly the former, who damn near steals the show.

It’s always astonishing to me, in a cultural landscape so caustic it’s scary, when an actor can embody pure virtue and positivity and make it feel sincere, or even attractive. There’s nothing much to fault about James’ performance; she’s a classic heroine, exuding compassion, strength, and patience in her darkest hours. Some may mistake Ella’s optimism for saccharine, outdated sentimentality, but let’s remember: this is a 19th century English period piece. If you expect all your princesses to be funny and witty and talk like Tina Fey, go watch Frozen instead. Anna and Elsa are great, but Ella’s old-school.

Branagh’s always brought out the best in his actors, and Cinderella is no misstep in that facet of his legacy. The writing isn’t always all that great: As Ella’s mother (Hayley Atwell) says goodbye for the last time on her death bed, she coos, “Where there is kindness, there is goodness. And where there is goodness, there is magic.” It’s a bit of a clunky line, of which there are a handful in the film, but Branagh makes sure his actors sound as genuine as possible.

A live-action Disney movie without flashy CGI bravura shots littered throughout would be a dream come true, but sadly, Cinderella doesn’t break the trend. Bonham Carter’s sole scene in the film (she also narrates), the obligatory pumpkin transformation scene, looks exactly as sterile and weightless as you’d expect from a big-budget Mouse-House production. The worst part, though, is the transformation of a lizard into one of Ella’s coachman. Once fully morphed, the lizard-man is one of the most hideous-looking things I’ve seen in recent memory. He’s a man, but with sickly, grey-green skin, lines of little razor-sharp teeth, and nightmarish reptilian eyes. Good god is he terrifying, and in no way does this abomination belong in a children’s movie. Thankfully, this is an isolated incident. Ella’s best friends, her pack of tiny computer-animated mice, are the most convincing effect in the movie, and are actually pretty cute.

Branagh’s never been a slugger when it comes to visual stylings, and he pretty much plays it safe here as per usual. There are a few exceptions: a thrilling 3-second see-saw-tilted shot of Ella sprinting through a beautifully baroque room in the royal castle; a motif involving Ella and the prince always spinning around each other in a lovers’ spiral, the same visual poetry used so masterfully by Max Ophüls in The Earrings of Madame de…. But otherwise, the camera movement and placement is unimaginative, though far from inadequate.

You’ll find few surprises in Branagh’s rendition of the diamond-in-the-rough classic. But there are dozens of fairytale deconstructions out there, leaving plenty of room for faithful retellings, especially when they’re as polished and openhearted as Cinderella. Adult viewers’ enjoyment of the film depends on the expectations they bring to the table, but young ones will find true joy falling in love with the sooty princess-in-training for the first time.

Disney dropped two major announcements on Thursday at their annual meeting of shareholders.

First, that the release date for Star Wars: Episode VIII has been set for May 26, 2017. They also shared that there will be a stand alone movie, Rogue One, set in the Star Wars universe that will be out on December 16, 2016 and (as we already know) directed by Gareth Edwards.

Also confirmed will be the official making of a sequel to Frozen, although they have yet to announce a release date or any other production details. All that’s known is that the first film’s directors, Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck are working on the project with producer Peter Del Vecho. The announcement of a sequel is no real surprise knowing the success of the original Oscar Award-winning film, but it’s good news for Frozen fans nonetheless.

On another note, shareholders had the opportunity to propose new policies and ideas to Disney’s CEO Bob Iger who responded to one such question that he will ban smoking from films marketed to kids…sad, maybe, that that needed to be stated. However, he won’t necessarily lobby for other production companies to follow suit.

All in all, it seemed to be a pretty productive meeting.

We’ll just leave you with this tweet from Kristen Bell:

Dreams really do come 2!!! #FROZEN2 #itsofficial pic.twitter.com/qF6qTQlnqi

— Kristen Bell (@IMKristenBell) March 12, 2015

With Disney bringing to life Maleficent in 2014, Cinderella in 2015, and all of Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass, The Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast set for 2016, one might wonder what other tricks they might have up their sleeve—and the answer would be…a live-action Dumbo?

Of the classic Disney cartoons, Dumbo might be the strangest one of them all, and the most intriguing as to how exactly they are going to do it. Who else to bring on board, in that case, then the ever-odd master-of-the-strange Tim Burton himself? Having collaborated for Alice in Wonderland in 2010, this will definitely be an intriguing pairing.

Known best for the highly popular but always divisive Transformers franchise, screenwriter Ehren Kruger has already written the script and will be producing it with Justin Springer, who was behind Tron: Legacy and Oblivion.

It’s hard not to picture that poor little elephant flying through a lot of futuristic explosions with those two at the helm, but we’re excited for what’s to come! Though, it’s a little strange to consider what Burton could do with that childhood-scarring, acid-trip of a dancing elephant scene.

So Way Too Indie is about to become Way Too Geeky for a few days next week as we cover the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego.

While we both decry and yet embrace the infiltration of Hollywood at a convention created for devoted comic fans, we revel in the chance to get our movie news AND pop-culture fix all at the same time. I, Ananda, have painstakingly gone through the schedule of events (and OMG there are a lot) to find all those movie-related panels to (try to) attend so that WTI readers get all the juicy pop-culturey news they deserve.

Here are the Top 10 things Way Too Indie can’t wait to see and hear about at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con:

10 – Sony Pictures Panel

(Thursday, 12:30, Indigo Ballroom)

Feeding into our nostalgia is a first look at Goosebumps starring Jack Black and directed by Rob Letterman. Jack and Rob will both be on hand to talk about the film and discuss Black’s turn as the legendary author himself, R.L. Stine. The film is slated for August 7, 2015. Director Chris Columbus will also attend, showing audiences a sneak peek at upcoming Adam Sandler film Pixels also set to début next year.

9 – Radius-TWC Previews Horns and Everly

(Friday, 3pm, Hall H)

Daniel Radcliffe will be on-hand along with co-star Juno Temple to chat about Horns and début the film’s movie trailer. Directed by Alexandre Aja and based on Joe Hill’s dark novel, the film already looks like Radcliffe is tapping into the Voldemort spectrum of evil for his tortured protagonist. Additionally, Salma Hayek will introduce footage from Everly where she plays a woman protecting her family from assassins sent by her ex, a mob boss. We’ve also been promised other news on upcoming Radius titles.

8 – 20th Century Fox Presentation

(Friday, 4:20, Hall H)

While there is no formal description of what Fox will be covering they did release to press that talent will be on hand for The Maze Runner, Book of Life, Hitman: Agent 47, Let’s Be Cops, and Kingsman: The Secret Service. So we can expect to hear about all of those, but not a peep about next June’s new Fantastic Four reboot. Maybe because they know die-hard comic audiences at this convention are not entirely thrilled with director Josh Trank’s casting choices and avant-garde vision for the film, namely his suggestion that his cast not bother even reading the comics. At any rate YA fav The Maze Runner should draw a crowd, and Channing Tatum, a voice in Book of Life, will likely cause swooning. Personally Colin Firth, from Kingsman: The Secret Service, is the more likely candidate to cause this girl to swoon.

7 – Warner Bros. Pictures Panel

(Saturday, 10am, Hall H)

Saturday starts off with a bang, getting one of the most anticipated panels out of the way first thing. Always big presenters at the convention, Warner Bros. will provide a look at three major upcoming films: Jupiter Ascending, Mad Max: Fury Road (we’d better see Tom Hardy), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. After its pushed back release date the latest Wachowski sibling film is what we most want to hear about, though the Mad Max reboot may also be worth a look. However, The Hobbit exhausted us two years ago. Yawn.

6 – The Giver

(Thursday, 1:30, Hall H)

A novel with a huge fan base, especially those of us forced to read Lois Lowry’s The Giver in school as children, the film adaptation has generated huge amounts of buzz. With a fantastic cast (oh, please show up Meryl Streep) we can’t wait to see exclusive footage from the film which premieres in August. The trailer has already shown it looks pretty fantastic.

5 – Paramount Panel

(Thursday, 3pm, Hall H)

No news on what they will discuss but we’re hoping there is something on Interstellar, Chris Nolan’s new film to be released in November. Also likely are plugs for Hercules (which comes out the very next day) and the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We hope they know their audience and don’t bother with Hot Tub Time Machine 2. And if we’re really lucky there might be some small clues about next summer’s Terminator: Genesis.

4 – Goonies Never Say Die

(Thursday, 6pm, Indigo Ballroom)

Goonies cast members will be on hand to discuss the newly announced Goonies sequel. Surprise guests are guaranteed and plenty of discussion on how this cult-favorite film has stood the test of time. The child in us is literally jumping up and down in anticipation.

3 – The Musk of Tusk – An Evening with Kevin Smith

(Friday, 6:35pm, Hall H)

We’ll definitely be getting a trailer for Kevin Smith’s new monster horror film Tusk, his first film in three years. It was announced yesterday the film will be released September 19. Also guaranteed is hilarious discussion as anyone who listens to Smith’s SModcast podcast already knows. Speaking of the podcast, Tusk was first envisioned in an episode of the show and follows a journalist who encounters a worldwide adventurer and becomes the plaything of a deranged killer. The film stars Justin Long, Michael Parks, Genesis Rodriguez and Haley Joel Osment and we know Rodriguez and Osment will be at the panel.

2 – Legendary Pictures Panel

(Saturday, 12:25pm, Hall H)

Guaranteed are a look at Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming horror gothic-romance Crimson Peak as well as a look at new found-footage horror-thriller As Above/So Below. The latter is already rather uninspiring after releasing a ho-hum trailer but we wouldn’t mind if Guillermo del Toro took up all the time. Crimson Peak sounds quite promising, with del Toro saying his intentions were to make a film in the vein of the horror greats, The Exorcist, The Shining, and The Omen. A classic ghost story sounds like exactly what we need in the sea of found-footage out there in Horror-land. And if he wanted to go on to talk about Pacific Rim 2, we’d be more than happy to hear all about it! No clue if there will be enough info yet to discuss Godzilla 2, we completely understand director Gareth Edwards might be a little overwhelmed with that little Star Wars spinoff film he’s prepping for.

1 – Marvel Studios Panel

(Saturday, 5:30pm, Hall H)

Always the benchmark of Comic-Con we expect plenty from Marvel’s presentation. For starters they are likely to give us some special guest appearances and footage from Guardians of the Galaxy as a last push before it’s August 1 release. Also pretty much guaranteed is info on Avengers: Age of Ultron including some cast members and hopefully a sneak peek or two at footage. Marvel’s had a busy week with announcements about their universe, especially major changes for The Avengers as Thor is now a woman, Captain America is getting a comic reboot in “The All-New Captain America” where the Falcon takes over as the Captain, and then Iron Man gets back to his darker Tony Stark roots in “Superior Iron Man”. No clue how this will effect the film franchise, but I’m sure we can expect a reboot in a few years depending on how audiences take to the new personalities/sexes/identities. Otherwise, announcements around Ant Man, due for a release next summer, are also likely despite Edgar Wright’s abandonment of the project. Peyton Reed (who is also signed on to direct the screen version of comic book The Fifth Beatle) is now set to direct and the film just might have a chance of keeping up its momentum.

Notable Absences

Where the heck is Disney, Lucasfilm, and Lionsgate? Apparently Lionsgate thinks The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 doesn’t need the added publicity, because they are blowing off Comic-Con this year. They are probably right. Obviously Lucasfilm doesn’t think it has enough to talk about yet in regards to Star Wars Episode VII. And apparently Disney didn’t feel like coming out to promote their first Disney-Marvel animated collaboration Big Hero 6 (which just debuted a trailer). Also no George Clooney to chat about Tomorrowland, the film based on the area of Disney’s theme park, and no Pixar which means nothing on Inside Out. Maybe Disney is skipping out in an attempt to push people to D23, their exclusive Disney convention?

At any rate, be sure to stay tuned to Way Too Indie for up to the minute coverage throughout Comic-Con as we battle the lines and cosplayers to get all the juicy tidbits.

The first trailer for Disney and Marvel‘s first animated collaboration, Big Hero 6, reveals an adorable representation of the comic series’ synthetic robot, Baymax. The trailer, which is really more of a clip, shows boy genius Hiro going to the San Fransokyo (a mythical San Francisco-Tokyo mash-up city) police department to report an attack from a kabuki-masked man with microbots. No sign in this initial trailer of the rest of the Big Hero 6 team, but already we can tell Disney has put its funny, family-friendly mark on this Japanese-style comic book series.

Disney fans will especially freak over a Frozen easter egg in the trailer. The film comes out in theaters November 7 in the U.S.