The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time panel at WonderCon began with producer Jerry Bruckheimer taking the stage for what it turned out was his very first comic book convention appearance ever.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruckheimer introduced the "Siege on Alamut" sequence, noting it involved Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince Dasten being relegating to the back of his people's attacking force -- while his brothers lead at the front -- but not accepting that and coming up with his own plan.
The sequence begins with Dasten, accompanied by a group of men, going to the tall side wall of Alamut. Dasten holds onto the front of a long pole and runs forward towards the wall, and then straight up it – with a group of soldiers holding the back of the pole and pushing it forward and up, helping him get up the wall. With the pole raised as high as it will go, Dasten's men begin shooting arrows right above him, one after the other, which he grabs a hold of and uses to continue to climb to the top of the wall. At the top, Dasten silently waits for a moment, as a guard walks down a corridor, past an open window – only for Dasten to reach his arm through and grab the guy by the head, smashing him against the wall and knocking him out. He then lowers a rope to bring his men up with him.
As soldiers begin to realize they have invaders, Dasten and his men begin to battle them, with Dasten showing off plenty of impressive, agile actions, including swinging down from a rope, leaping great distances and running up and off of walls, all while wielding two blades.
The sequence ends with Dasten being attacked by an enemy on a horse, wielding a spear. When the horse rider chases Dasten into a tunnel, Dasten runs up the side of the tunnel and leaps onto the rider, knocking him off. As the two fight on the ground, the rider drops an object wrapped in red cloth, and when Dasten defeats him, he goes over to the object and unwraps it – and sees it's an oddly shaped dagger. Yep, The Dagger of Time.
After Bruckheimer was joined on stage by director Mike Newell, Gyllenhaal and Prince's original game creator, Jordan Mechner. Newell noted that the idea they took with the Dagger of Time and how it would look visually to use it was that it was essentially disintegrating your body and then rebuilding it.
They then introduced a second sequence, which had Dasten and Tamina (Gemma Arterton) talking at night, standing by their horses. While Dasten is in the midst of insisting he didn't kill his father, Tamina begins to act very amorous towards him – only for it to turn out it's a ruse, as she attempts to grab the dagger from his belt. When he shoves her away, she grabs a sword from her horse and attacks him and they begin to fight, only for him to touch the top of the blade's handle. We see Dasten's hand begin to look like it's on fire and is crumbling into sand, which rises up his arm and onto his entire body, which Dasten stands in shock watching happen to him – while we simultaneously see him continuing to fight Tamina.
Suddenly Dasten finds himself re-living the moment when Tamina first went for the blade, but he's do disoriented that this time, she manages to cut him with her sword across his chest. This time though, Dasten purposely pushes the bottom of the handle, and Tamina cries out, "No!" when she realizes what he's about to do. When he's again back in his own body, when Tamina is going to try to take the dagger, he stops her completely this time, saying he won't let her try that "again", which confuses her. He then realizes what the dagger is doing, allowing the user to go back in time, with no one but that person aware of it - and what a powerful weapon that is.
The use of the dagger in the film looks to be very fun – an interesting way of putting the "next life" concept from many games (including of course Prince of Persia itself) into a movie, though Dasten doesn't seem to be able to completely die here and re-do things, as much as get hurt and re-do things.
A montage was then shown of many moments from the film, including one where a large snake is attacking Dasten and he uses the dagger to get the better of the snake, and some huge action sequences, which included a structure collapsing and more impressive acts from Dasten - Gyllenhaal noted during the panel that he learned parkour for the film, and it shows.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opens in theaters May 28, 2010