San Diego Comic-Con officially starts today, but io9 has already checked out some of the activations popping up to entertain fans. We visited Paramount+’s Lodge, Adult Swim’s “Pirate Parrrty,” and “Enter the Forbidden Zone: The Planet of the Apes Experience.” Here’s just some of what we spotted!
First up, you can see a couple of glimpses of Paramount+’s Lodge, a ski lodge riff stuffed with stations themed around different Paramount projects, including a custom Star Trek t-shirt stand and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza parlor. (It was also jammed with fans; this is a popular one!) It’s located at Happy Does, 340 Fifth Ave in San Diego; if reservations are available you can snag them here.
Then, the Adult Swim “Pirate Parrrty” is an outdoor attraction (look for it on the green space behind the convention center, on Fifth Avenue Landing and Convention Way—you can’t miss it) filled with games (alas, the Mr. Nimbus Dunk Tank was not yet up and running) and slightly harrowing “rides” (the Rick and Morty Cthulhu Battle involves climbing a rope ladder into a monster’s… mouth?).
There’s also a big stage that will be sharing first-look screenings and more throughout the con; go here to learn more.
And, finally, “Enter the Forbidden Zone: The Planet of the Apes Experience” is located within the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center (just across the street from the convention center, at 200 W. Harbor Drive), and it’s got a range of props, costumes, and other mementos from the long-running sci-fi series, including a few from the 1968 original and its 1970 sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
The exhibit leans more heavily on the recent films, especially this year’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but Tim Burton’s 2001 entry also has a presence. At the press preview, we also got to meet a Harris’s hawk, similar to those used to help create the CG birds of prey that appear in the 2024 movie.
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