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Firefly Coming to DVD
Kaypro writes "According to the scoop over at Ain't it Cool, it seems that Fox has decided that there's not enough viewers to keep the Firefly series on the air, but somehow there's enough fans to make money off DVD sales. Go figure. Included in the set will be the entire season plus unaired episodes and the original pilot in full 16:9 format. Extras I assume are included as well. No release date has been set as of yet." The missing episodes will be nice. In order will be nice. Such a good show. The last couple of episodes were just awesome.
I know a lot of people were put off by the first few episodes not being that great. Personally, I liked the entire series, I was just not around much while it was on. I just can't understand why they would put it on during a Friday night.
Can someone explain the demographic they are shooting for with that time-slot?
Stop and think about it for a second.
Cost to produce new TV shows and air them? Lots
Cost to release existing shows on a cheap meduim? Not a lot.
It's very simple.
I had made a comment that the issue isn't that Fox couldn't/wasn't doing well with Firefly, it was that Fox new that reality T.V. had more bang for the buck. Since it appears that Fox tried to tell Joss what do to and he wouldn't, they were more than prepared to tank the show in favor of all this rubbish that has been coming down the pike. Producing a DVD for an "unviable" series I think proves that Fox knew full well the series had and has a following.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
I see a lot of people knocking 'Firefly' around. They call it a ripoff or not entertaining enough or confusing. Wake up and smell the cow manure blended with starship exhaust.
What isn't a ripoff these days? Most creators of art even take the time to admit and thank those that influenced their work. Space westerns have been around much longer than, oh say 'Cowboy Bebop' for example. Robert Heinlein and other authors have explored that genre before. So what? If an old idea is done well, it can bring enjoyment to new people.
It may not be interesting enough to you. Everyone is entitled to their opinions ('specialy if they're congruent with mine). I find it quite interesting however. Science fiction blended with sociological aspects appeals to quite a lot of people. Remember, it was fringe groups that got many science fiction shows the recognition they deserve. Examples: 'The X-Files', 'Farscape', 'Buffy', just to name a few of the more recent.
Confusing? Okay, I don't have a better answer for this. You're confused and you read Slashdot? Do you have an interpreter?
Fox didn't handle Firefly particularly well but I'm sort of doubtful that was the reason for its demise at the end of the day.
Seriously? You don't think that airing it on alternating weeks on a random time slot (8pm, 12:05am, 12:20am) is the reason for its demise?
How about airing episodes out of order so that they would talk about stuff that was supposed to have happened but we haven't seen yet.
How about hyping the girl in the box for a whole summer and then cancelling the series before even ever showing the girl-in-a-box pilot?
Someone at Fox wanted that show to fail. I dunno what they were shooting in their veins at the time, but they did everything in their power to make that show fail (12:20am! I kid you not!).
You can't take the sky from me...
It's always the same pattern:
"[TV Show/Movie] is a complete and utter ripoff of [some TV show or movie or book the fanboy irrationally obsessed about]" as if the latter was the first ever made with the themes or ideas in question.
You see, to fanboys, there is no history existing before the moment they saw the show/movie they consider the archetype. The entertainment universe simply cam into being fully formed at that moment.
Dude, I dug Bebop, enough to shell out semiserious cash for the special eidition DVD boxed set, but Bebop and Firefly are completely distinct shows.
Is Trigun a ripoff of Bebpo or vice versa?
It's like someone I know claiming the PS2 game Xenosaga is a Stargate ripooff because both start with the unearthing of ancient alien tech on Earth. He's a Stargate fanboy, so the idea of ancient alien tech on Earth came into being with that movie. Forget the fact that H.P. Lovecraft was exploring that idea in the 1930's, and the fact that Xenosaga then leaps 4000 years into the future and has nothing to do with Stargate's story. To him, Xemosaga is a Stargate ripoff because of a single common theme in the opening scenes.
Nathan Fillon, who played Captain Reynolds, signed for a pilot on another show in the fall. So I think that pretty much puts the final nail in the coffin.
But I think you're overestimating the importance of this. Fox already has these episodes in the can. It has nothing to lose by releasing them on DVD.
Staking the success of a brand new season on DVD sales would be a huge risk.
It's really very sad and disturbing. Fox honestly seems to develop some of the best and most original shows that hit TV these days, along with some of the absolute worst crap. Why do they nearly always choose the crap over the good stuff?
Firefly is a great example. Do I have to mention Futurama? What about Andy Richter being taken off the air for this godawful crap "The Pits"?
*Sigh*.
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq
Freedom, well depending on how you define this, we used to have this, though we have significanlty less now than we did two years ago and are looking at even less. We're actually going to get Big Brother watching us pretty damned soon(TIAO), and I personally can't think of anything less free than that, especially since we're not even getting anything in return.
Wealth, well you can get wealth if you're born into the right family, or if you luck out, and assuming you measure wealth entirely by unecessary material objects. Of course this wealth comes at the price of making sure that at least several hundred other people don't get any of that wealth. Capitalism survives because it's likethe lottery, it offers people an astronomically low chance of upward social mobility which keeps the poor in line while not upsetting the rich.
Progress may as well be wiped off the list immediately since it's both hard to define and hard to place a value on, one man's progress is another's degeneration.
best of the best is merely American arogance, if you don't think there's anything wrong with America, then you've got to look around at the world outside you.
As for your arguments against socialism, we aren't all that far from the first two(though we're slaves to the protection of "democracy and freedom", neither of which we really have), we're in an economic recession which sort of implies at least temporarily the last two
That's not to say socialism is the answer either, Marxism is just as based on rampant materialism as capitalism is, and yes of course several millions of people have been murdered by communist systems, as they have by fascist systems, monarchic systems, and even supposedly democratic systems, people aren't terribly nice to each other. Nor does Marxist socialism actually exist now or previously in it's theorized form anywhere on the globe. That said, Marxism though it is certainly a failed ideology, it is a step in the right direction(if you don't believe this, look at how many socialist style reforms have been introduced into the united states and how many of your freedoms depend on those, particularly economically). There is value in working towards the good of the many rather than solely for your own gain, just as there is value in having the state play a much larger role in protecting the people from the economic excesses of big buisness.
I personally have almost zero faith in my own(American) politcal system, and just about the same amount in that of other countries.
Sorry missed a hit, soma comes from the book brave new world by Aldous Huxley. If you had read said book, it critiques a society which places primary emphasis on physical enjoyment and consumption and was a critique not of Socialism or Communism, but of the future of capitalist and in particularAmerican society. That is all.
Agreed, that show kicked ass.
I signed up for a "fan club" over it, something I've never been a member of. Ever. In my entire (30 something) life. I don't even like TV, I'm only a moderate fan of sci-fi, but this show was so good overall I actually wrote a snail-mail to Fox (email too of course).
So good in fact that I procured the aired episodes via pirate channels, something I've never done for music or movies. Not out of some moral obligation, mind you, I've just had better things to do than shuffle around the net looking for crap to fill my brain with or waste my money on. As it is I got horrible copies (including the weather alerts and ghosting of the signal from whomever recorded it) - and I've watched them twice.
In fact, I've had a hard time finding anyone who DIDN'T like it -- at least for those who saw it since they jerked the schedule around so much. I know it was expensive to produce (2 mil per episode), but it had better ratings that the X-Files' first season (a show I only caught by accident). And that was with the scheduling snafu's... says something about the show and it's ability to flourish if given half a chance.
Another note, I've heard even FOX knows they screwed up, they just think it's too late to save now. In any case, yeah, I'll pick up clean copies. Bastards.
Sgt_Jake