“Yesteday’s roof-blowing was owed completely to Harrison Ford‘s first-ever appearance at Comic-Con to promote Jon Favreau‘s Cowboys & Aliens. It was a geek’s wet dream as Han Solo/Indiana Jones took to the stage at Hall H in handcuffs (which we all thought was making light of an earlier stabbing incident but was actually a pre-planned gag, as in Favreau had to drag Ford to the convention in shackles).” — reported by In Contention‘s Kris Tapley.

“The crowd was treated to close to 10 minutes of not just footage, but polished, well-mixed footage with great effects and a decent temp score. Earlier, Favreau said he wanted to make a straight western akin to John Ford or Sergio Leone. He said he looked at films like Predator and Aliens, examples of sci-fi blended with horror elements, rooting the material in a kind of reality. And that’s a good way to describe what we saw.

“The biggest set-piece was a full on alien spaceship attack in the middle of a mid-town showdown. It felt like War of the Worlds invading Unforgiven, and it worked. Hopefully the film can do for the hybrid western what Jonah Hex could not, but at the same time, I can’t help but recall the positive response to Jonah Hex footage at last year’s Con, so time will tell.”

Wells interjection: Comic-Con dog-and-pony shows are meaningless. The geeks will clap and howl like woo-woo dogs for just about anyone or anything.

Back to Tapley: “Still, it’s a heck of a nod from Favreau, who said that when he took on the project he knew he had to have something ready for the convention this year. He delivered, clearly grateful to the audience that helped start the buzz wave on his Iron Man franchise. And he plans to be back next year with more.”