It’s summertime in San Diego, and that means one thing: it’s time to get really excited to watch a bunch of ads! I mean it’s time to get really excited about Comic Con!

A bunch of cool trailers and news has been hitting recently, and I figured I’d throw up some thoughts on a few things that were of particular interest. I’m not going to attempt to cover everything; this will just be some quick reactions to a few of my favorite things so far.

Star Wars!

This movie called “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” premiered some stuff at Comic-Con, guys! 

Instead of a third trailer as was rumored for a few weeks, we got this behind the scenes featurette. That might be kind of disappointing at first, but honestly I enjoyed this way more. At this point I’ve personally seen enough from the movie, and we just got trailer two not too long ago, so getting a glimpse behind the scenes and seeing the pure joy that went into this film was far more enjoyable.

Not a whole lot was really revealed from this, except that everyone making Star Wars really really loves Star Wars, but we did get plenty of awesome looking creature designs like whatever the hell this god damn thing is.

Everything about this just feels so right. More than even the first two trailers, this thing just reeks of Star Wars, and all these physical sets look absolutely incredible. They’ve spent a lot of time emphasizing the practical effects in this film, but even after all these months, all the creatures and costumes still continue to impress.

This footage also shows our first glimpse at Princess Leia and C3P0 in action! Leia looks great, and the C3P0 footage was particularly exciting for me. Just the fact that we’re going to get new scenes of C3P0 saying dialogue I’ve never heard before is still kind of mindblowing.

Anyway, this thing comes out in December or something.

Ash vs. Evil Dead

This was honestly as exciting for me as the Star Wars trailers were. I mean Jesus Christ, Evil Dead is really back!

What an absolutely perfect trailer. They’ve hit the exact right tone with this, and it’s everything I would ever hope for out of a modern Evil Dead. I’m someone who always preferred the more straight-faced Evil Dead II to the downright comedic Army of Darkness, and while there’s a lot of comedy in this trailer, they seem to be striking a nice balance between horror and comedy. It’s not just the wacky slapstick and dumb jokes.

I still am a little concerned about how this will work as a series, as it seems like something that would function better as a one-off movie than a week to week thing. Is the gag of old Ash being really old and fighting zombies going to get tiring after a while? Are they going to be forced to stretch things out with side characters and plots we don’t care about when we just want the Ash/zombie action?

That remains to be seen, but regardless, this is still one of my most anticipated pieces of media this year. Hail to the king, baby!

P.S: I’m still dreaming that the 2013 Evil Dead remake can somehow work its way in here. That movie was fantastic and highly underrated, totally worthy of the Evil Dead name. Can Mia at least have one cameo appearance? Please?

Game of Thrones

*WARNING MAJOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON 5 SPOILERS INCOMING!*

Well, this panel was really awkward. Jon Snow’s return to Game of Thrones is becoming the worst kept secret in entertainment right now, but for some reason the showrunners are still committed to keeping up the facade. For this panel, absolutely nobody who would know anything about Jon showed up – not the Benioff and Weiss, not George R.R. Martin, and especially not Kit Harington. They’re really afraid of being caught in the lie.

But the cast clearly knows he’s coming back. Even if they don’t have any inside information yet, it’s just so obvious to everyone on Earth who knows anything about Game of Thrones. So this panel was a whole lot of people asking questions, the cast shrugging and say “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell you,” annnnnd scene.

But there was this one nice bit: a fan came up and, after a pretty cringy “Jon Snow knows nothing” joke that totally bombed, he asked Carice van Houten (Melisandre), “So ever hang out with Thoros of Myr and learn any cool tricks from him that might come in handy?” Her response was basically “Uh…yeah I can’t say anything.” She totally knows. WE’RE ON TO YOU, VAN HOUTEN.

Krampus

This is definitely my most anticipated horror movie of the year. Trick ‘r Treat is easily one of my favorite horror films of all time, and if Mike Dougherty can even remotely approach that greatness with Krampus, this is going to be something I’ll be watching over and over just as much as The Force Awakens.

Basically it sounds like this is going to be for Christmas what Trick ‘r Treat was for Halloween, following an evil Christmas demon who punishes kids for being bad. Oh, and it’s got Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman and David Koechner. If you don’t already want to see this, we just live in fundamentally different worlds.

There wasn’t a trailer or anything at Comic-Con, but we did get this display (above) which already captures the exact right tone I’d want out of this movie. In Dougherty we trust.

Tales of Halloween

While we’re on horror, we also got the first trailer for Tales of Halloween, which is shaping up to be like a new Creepshow mixed with Trick ‘r Treat. Nothing about that combination doesn’t appeal to me.

The movie follows 10 stories that all take place on Halloween night in the same town, kind of like Trick ‘r Treat except with 10 different directors. The trailer looks like a lot of fun, although maybe a bit cheesier than I expected. It seems to have more of the Creepshow schlock than the relative seriousness of Trick ‘r Treat or V/H/S.

Either way, the premise is awesome and most of this footage is pretty great, but the 10 different directors is definitely a concern. Lots of different teams putting shorts together with not much coordination has worked out before with V/H/S, but it’s also been a complete disaster with The ABCs of Death. On Trick ‘r Treat, having Michael Dougherty direct all the stories was a great decision, and it really felt like one cohesive movie. This has potential to feel really uneven, like a movie just jumping all over the place from good to crap.

It should either be a genuinely great horror anthology or merely an enjoyable crapfest, but either way, just having a horror film that actually takes place on Halloween is always a treat.

More soon! Go watch some Comic-Con, nerds!