FOG! Attends The 52nd Annual Saturn Awards!

The Saturn Awards is the official ceremony of The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The Academy annually recognizes film and television artists who’ve created some of the best genre entertainment in the world.

Last Sunday, February 2nd, I attended the 52nd Annual Award Ceremony last Sunday, an evening of fantastic chaos for those of us covering this epic event. It’s nearly useless to plan it out, you just have to go with it.

Despite being crammed in like sardines on the red carpet, it was fun working with our neighbors to maximize our one on one times with the attendees. We all dressed up for the occasion too, my trusted counterpart photographer Virginia Hall and I wore a matching space tie and scarf.

We watched in anticipation as the first attendees slowly made their way towards us. Among them, Dr. Peter Weller, there as a presenter, star of two of the most iconic ci-Fi films of the 1980’s; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension and RoboCop.

What an eccentric fellow. I loved him.

After the briefest of introductions, he got called away, but made it a point to remember my name and promised to come back, and that he did. I asked the good doctor what made 80’s films so special?

My mistake. He’s more of a student of 70’s cinema, Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin in particular. However, what really speaks to Dr. Weller is post war Italian cinema. Federico Fellini’s Open City (1945) and La Strada (1954) are his jam. In fact, he teaches a course on Italian Neo-Realism Cinema.

As a film nerd, I truly enjoyed our conversation.

So many greats and legends appeared before us, but some like Adam Nimoy, Sam Witwer and Martin Kove had to pass us by because we were engaged.

At one point I found Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman standing in front of me.

He was there as a presenter. I lead with mentioning that I have Ice Pirates on BluRay. He quickly shot back, “So do I.” That put a huge smile on my face. Asking him about what he looks for in a role, after a pause, his response was, “unapologetic characters. I’m not the person to play a middle grey character.”

So true.

His Hellboy co-star Doug Jones who played Abe Sapien was there, as always, sporting parts of character wardrobe he’s acquired over the years.

We talked mostly about a film we saw together for the first time at Dances With Films this past year called Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox. What an amazingly fun and deep film!! Directed by Stimson Sneed and co-staring Saturn Awards presenter Joel McHale. A must see whenever it comes to streaming. As a testament to Doug’s character, he offered, and followed through, to moderate the film’s San Diego Comic-Con Panel.

When asked, he would also love to see Hellboy remade as a Muppet Movie. Animal would make a great Hellboy! Doug is truly a delightful human being.

There are legends, and then there are Legends.

As soon as I saw him, I gestured for Bob Gale, co-writer of the Back to the Future series, to come talk to me. He was there for the George Pal Memorial Award. Don’t get me started on how much I love The Time Machine.

I’m a writing nerd, and Bob was happy to talk shop. I asked him about the first incarnation of the beloved time machine, which was a nuclear-powered refrigerator. As he and Bob Zemeckis were planning the film, they quickly realized it would have been too cumbersome, story and production-wise, for Doc Brown to have to forklift the fridge into a pickup truck to take places. With John DeLorean, maker of the DeLorean in the news, the DeLorean time machine was born.

Though, leave it to me to talk to the screenwriter of such a prolific film to argue about what the protagonist, Marty McFly wants in the first film. While Bob says, “to go home.”

I argue that he wants to play in a band in front of his school. Which he does, albeit 30 years too early.

Lea Thompson, Lorraine of the Back to the Future series, was right behind Bob Gale. So kind and grateful that she’s been a part of something that has withstood the test of time and resonates generation after generation.

I honestly didn’t have any questions planned for Henry Thomas who famously played Elliot in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

For whatever reason, I wanted to tell him that I had only ever seen E.T. once, and was so traumatized by E.T.’s death scene that I could never watch it again.

He totally understood.

Then I remembered that I had done a job recently with E.T. gaffer Jim Plannette and his studio teacher Adria Later. That sparked a genuine conversation about old times. When asked which of his movies he’d like to see remade as a Lego movie, he said “Legends of the Fall. But, how would they do the hair?”

I started in animation in my early career.

So when Disney 2D animator Andreas Deja, who was presenting, was available, I just had to find out what he was up to.

Andreas is responsible for designing and animating Disney’s most evil villains which include The Lion King’s Scar, Beauty and the Beast’s Gaston and Aladdin’s Jafar. I’m talking the iconic animated originals, not the live action remakes. Andreas passion for 2D never left him and last year he finished up a half hour short film called Mushuka due to hit streaming this year.

I’m a big fan of the Netflix series Cobra Kai, so I was delighted to chat with series lead Xolo Mariduena, who played Miguel. However, we talked more about Blue Beetle and the character’s future. Xolo was able to say that he’s involved with an animated series and the hopes are that Blue Beetle will be integrated back into the DC live action universe.

We also had a brief discussion about Blue Beetle’s writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, asking Xolo if he had seen the short film that got Gareth the Blue Beetle job, Contrapelo. “Of course,” he replied excitedly. If you can find Contrapelo online, watch it. Xolo and I agree that it’s a gold standard for short films.

Talking about and with writers is a re-occurring theme with me. The screenplay makes the film. That’s why I was happy to talk with several writers throughout the red-carpet event.

The creators and writers of Cobra Kai were there in full force, Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, lifelong friends who have been obsessed with The Karate Kid and William Zabka since childhood. A reminder that not all obsessions lead to ruin.

Dave Holstein, writer of Inside Out 2 and Jeff Herman, producer of The Wild Robot, were competing against each other for best animated feature. Both wonderful films. Both wonderful interviews. The highlight of both was my partner Vee chiming in because she’s a psychiatric NP in real life and appreciated the effort that both filmmakers put into their films, with extensive research, to create relatable and complex characters for their respective movies.

Jeff Herman and The Wild Robot won. A detail I learned from Jeff afterwards was that the evolution of Roz, both in emotional tone and movement, subtly becoming more human on both fronts as the film progressed from sequence to sequence was a challenge.

Shout out to Picard: Season 2 writer Marc Bernardin for a great chat about both of us getting shot down in the 90’s for our Star Trek: DS9 and Voyager pitches.

Speaking of Star Trek, there were many great interviews, but none as fun as taking on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actors Ethan Peck, Christina Chong, and Melissa Navia all at once. Spock, La’an Noonien-Singh, and Lt. Erica Ortegas respectively. What a trio!

First, I had to shake Ethan Peck’s hand. Mission accomplished, told him I have now achieved the Tri-Spockta; I’ve met all three Spocks! I was on the set of the very last job that the great Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner ever filmed together.

Ethan, Christina and Melissa were indeed friends, jumping in to add to any particular answer and apologizing to me if they were cutting anyone off. We are all in agreement about Strange New Worlds’ feminine roles in a way that demonstrate strength and resilience, staying true to the pioneering spirit of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.

I asked Ethan about his take on Spock. I pointed out that I enjoyed the curious naivety he puts into his young interpretation and wondered if there was a particular plan to evolve his Spock into the more seasoned Leonard Nimoy version. “I have a secret for you. I’ve been trying to do Leonard Nimoy the while time” he said with a twinkle in his eye. Then, sharing credit with characteristic humility, he said it’s all in the writing too.

After the ceremony, we got to talk with Ethan and Christina informally at the after party. I asked Christina if she could give some advice to my daughter who is a background performer in New York City about getting that first on-camera speaking roll. She happily obliged saying that you have to believe you’re going to get the part.

Lastly on the red carpet was a surprise appearance by Dominic Keating who played Lt. Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise. I’ve recently caught a few episodes of D-Con Chamber, the podcast he does with Conner Trinneer. They’re quite good.

However, for some reason, Dominic and I quickly fell into commiserating about our Star Trek pitches getting passed over as well.

I really love the Star Trek Family.

I was mildly disappointed not to see some attendees on the red carpet such as Mark Hamil, Nicolas Cage and LeVar Burton. However, I would see them later. We also just missed Lifetime Achievement recipient William Shatner, more on him later.

The red carpet finished; we were whisked away to the press room to await the winners.

This is the third year that The Saturn Awards have been steamed on ElectricNOW and the first year to be broadcast on The Roku Channel, so we had the ceremony on a monitor while we waited.

Although Colin Farrell was awarded for his excellent performance in The Penguin television series, he did not come to meet the press. I was disappointed because in his acceptance speech he specifically mentioned about how his mom threw away his Millennium Falcon and TWO Tie Fighters. The kind of pain only a true nerd could understand.

Award recipients came and went.

Mark Hamill was one of them for his guest appearance in The Fall of the House of Usher.

Superman Tyler Hoechlin, Lois Lane Bitsie Tulloch, Shogun’s Hiroyuki Sanada and the amazing Laurence Fishburne, all award recipients, made an appearance for photos.

Sanada and Fishburne took questions with Laurence giving another beautiful tribute to late great Lance Reddick, the namesake of his award.

Presenter Missi Pyle, character actress from Galaxy Quest and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, made an appearance for photos.

Admit it. Galaxy Quest is a special movie.

After taking a photo with the press corps, Virginia got to tell Missi that she was her favorite alien. Missi smiled and gave her the Galaxy Quest salute and bow. Virginia beamed and reciprocated.

Though I missed him on the red carpet, George Pal Memorial Award recipient Christopher Lloyd, the incredible Doc Brown, joined fellow recipients Lea Thompson and Bob Gale for a Q&A with the press.

Mr. Gale was such a fan of George Pal’s films that he was genuinely touched. Bob also mentioned that Back to the Future was passed over forty two times because “time travel movies don’t do well.”

Lloyd recounted a story of hanging out with Huey Lewis on a music video set before the first Back to the Future film came out. Huey asked him if he thought the movie was going to be anything. Chris didn’t know. No one knew.

Now, Christopher Lloyd is humbled by the fact that young children today are still discovering the film series and are captivated by it.

Best film music recipient Danny Elfman for Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice regaled us with stories about sneaking off with his friends to see Sci-Fi and monster B-movies when he was very young and about his mother dropping him off to see The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix’s last performance.

Last of the night; Denis Villeneuve, Best Director recipient for Dune: Part Two.

His takes on Dune are works of art.

That wasn’t it for us! I have a writer pal on The Bad Batch which took home an award for Best Animated Series. He invited us to the afterparty, and our adventures continued.

Tyler Hoechlin and Bitsie Tulloch were hanging together, just chatting with folks. As anyone who knows our Editor-in-Chief, Stefan Blitz, he’s a huge Superman fan and will happily discuss Superman & Lois at length, and often proclaims that Hoechlin and Tulloch delivered his favorite performances of Clark and Lois in any medium.  A detail that I shared with the duo who responded with a message to Stefan:

Also hanging around was Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez.

We talked shop more than anything else, but I couldn’t help but mention to him my claim to fame; I photographed the animated Scott Free logo that appears at the beginning of his film. I geeked him out.

Looking back on the whirlwind day, the most inspiring moment of the evening was undoubtedly delivered by Lifetime Achievement Award recipient William Shatner.

After he received his award, he came to the press to answer questions.  I’ve had the privilege of working with Bill on several occasions and knew from experience that I had to choose my question wisely. I preambled. I illustrated that Star Trek has always been about change and finding one’s way, especially the films, especially Captain Kirk. I asked this prolific actor how going into space changed William Shatner, the person.

Shatner pointed out that he gets asked that question a lot. A tad bit of a letdown. But his answer brought the room to hypnotized focus nevertheless.

He said he could spend an hour talking about the experience. As an avid lover of nature, he was able to see everything that was ever important to him in one single view. And when he returned to Earth, he experienced grief. Grief over what are we’re doing to ourselves and doing to the planet. The experience hardened his resolve to impress upon us all that we, collectively as a species, must be good stewards to not only the only home we’ve ever known, but to ourselves.

William Shatner. True legend.

For a complete list of winners, click HERE