Comic-Con 2007

The Disney panel came to Comic-Con Hall H Saturday afternoon early to please. Disney offered an exclusive digital recreation of a scene from “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” as well as one of the first trailers for the film, which is the second of the C.S. Lewis series.

Via satellite, director Andrew Adamson introduced Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian while other crew members anchored ship in San Diego to bring a first look of the costumes and animals. While I am one of the very few who haven’t read the novels or seen the first film, the early footage made me wish I had. To the delight of the entire hall, the filmmakers announced their plans to have a new installment of the series out every May starting this coming year in 2008 with “Prince Caspian.”

After the Narnia presentation, a world premiere trailer was shown for “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets” that seemed to promise the same light-hearted action-adventure as the first, but with great cast additions such as Ed Harris and recent Oscar winner Helen Mirren.

The most impressive preview was saved for last and belonged to Disney Pixar’s newest project, “Wall-E.” Writer-director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”) prepared an extensive dog-and-pony show for the eager crowd, which included famed sound mixer Ben Burt, as well as a Comic-Con exclusive clip that showed an extended scene from the film (which “disintegrated” at the end to prove its exclusivity). Wall-E, a trash compactor left alone on earth sometime in the future to clean up the waste after humans move into space, seems like an odd concept, but one only Pixar could make work so well. The clip looked absolutely amazing and the plot, described as “a robot’s love to make the world go round” sounds like something truly original in what is sure to be another summer full of sequels.

– Kate Stanhope