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Joss Whedon's Firefly Coming To The Big Screen
lhouk281 writes "According to this article in the Hollywood Reporter, Universal is turning Firefly into a movie. Firefly lives!" This show deserved a chance to run a full season. If this comes out, I'll sure be there opening weekend.
While we're on the subject, how about a Buffy movie? One that's based on the series, and thus actually good.
I only got to see two episodes of Firefly. Pity, I did enjoy it. It just wasn't on at a time when I could remember to sit down and watch it, and I still have to build a linux PVR... so it got missed.
How many episodes were made, anyhow? It really was a rather entertaining little show. Perhaps a bit too geek-targeted in some ways for the majority of society, but certainly fun.
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
Anyone know when the first "season" is coming out on DVD?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Not quite. We have a split personality over the matter - Some people like the MPAA, some people hate them, and some people hate them, but like a lot of the stuff they produce.
I'm in the third category. The MPAA does some pretty nasty stuff, but I do like what they produce. I want to encourage them to continue making these things whilst discouraging them from trying to take away my rights.
Everytime I get interested in a program, it gets cancelled, usually without closure. Sometimes the cancellation occurs on a cliff-hanger, like "John Doe". That's a clear indication that the studios have no respect for the viewers; why should I have any respect for them? If they are not going to make a multi-year commitment, why should I?
Firefly, FarScape, John Doe are all recent casualties. I'm pissed. I've decided to drop back, and wait for a few seasons before I start watching any new program. If it doesn't survive, then at least I wasn't impacted. If it's getting good buzz after a few seasons, then I'll watch the reruns or DVD to catch up.
If this means that new shows won't get done, that's fine too. I'm old enough to know there are better things I should be spending my time on anyway (even /. qualifies in that regard). :-)
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
What amazingly good news. Woot! For any who've not yet seen it, be sure to pick up the DVD of the first (and only, grumble) season when it hits the shelves this December. The DVD *will* have the unaired episodes and lots of commentary and gag reels and all shown in the correct order (Fox sucks so bad it isn't funny). Amazon was pre-soldout last I checked. For any who don't know why Firefly didn't make it, one phrase should answer it "Fox are Idiots". The idiots at Fox preempted the show for sports programming more for over half of it's episodes. Then there was the 2-hour premiere which cost something like 6 million dollars. The premiere introduced all the characters and set the story. Fox execs decided they didn't want to show the premiere first, they wanted it to be the 10th episode of the season. and had to be reworked into a "flashback episode" for that context... What a bunch of wankers, but we all know that already. The article says Universal bought a rights transfer from Fox, perhaps they'll never again influence anything to do with it. One can only hope that when the movie is successful they'll give thought to bringing back the show. A movie is nice and all, and it's Great that Firefly is back. But a movie will only give us 2 hours of Firefly a year. Compared to the 15 or more hours a year of Firefly we'd have if the TV show comes back. More = better. WOOT
...Fox's "Lame Reality Shows" are:
A- VERY cheap to produce, and...
B- Get VERY high ratings.
Those two things add up to huge profit for Fox. Sci-Fi is, by its nature, expensive to produce, with a fairly limited audience. Fox is there to make money, not make an artistic statement. They're less pretentious than the other networks in that regard. And major networks don't view sci-fi seriously or artistically anyway. The original Star Trek only got on the air because NBC and Desilu thought they were getting a laser shoot-em-up, or as Gene Roddenberry put it, "Wagontrain in Space".
Sci-Fi will always be a harder sell than "normal" dramas or reality tv because of the expense. Rendering technology has made it cheaper, but it's still a long ways off from being cost competitive. It's just easier and cheaper to produce another "When Rabid Ferrets Attack" or "The Gay Show".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Prostitutes will never be the top females in the social hierarchy of any civilization.
No, but they can be socially acceptable.
If you fly a spaceship to colonize a new planet, you will never have to drive a chuckwagon pulled by a team of horses to get across a babbling brook on that planet.
Why not? It's a great solution for a resource-poor world far from normal shipping lanes. The Wild West aspect of Firefly is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's not entirely ridiculous.
Swearing in Chinese is geeky.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Besides, consider the back story that has the Chinese becoming so influential that their language becomes the lingua franca of a starfaring civilization. Lots of room for prequels here.
Most good shows don't start to click until at least the 2nd season.
That was one of the more intriguing bits about the series for me -- the characters were already very good. The actors really seemed to be enjoying the show and doing a great job of breathing life into their characters. It was well written, and the plots were engaging. The big plot was just getting started when FOX cut them... even with the movie, we may never know where the show would have taken us.
I am very happy to hear that they are at least going to try to get the entire cast on board. It was the full ensemble that really made the show work.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
I would like to point out that, as I see it, the only network on the planet that is properly marketting itself to an audience of nerds is Cartoon Network. Adult Swim is such a great idea, and it's run in such a refreshingly honest manner that I sometimes catch myself watching stuff I don't even like *cough* Inuyasha *cough* *cough*.
Realize to a lot of people, we're just people with money. They couldn't care less about our culture or lifestyle, so long as we watch their dumb tv shows. They come up with an idea for a market segment, one they aren't a part of, and appeal to the stereotype, not real people. This is how you can have a channel like G4, and have it be a colossal failure. Earth to MBA: gamers already know the Konami code. They don't need a team of fresh faced multiethnic twentysomethings on a stage somewhere screaming it at them. But they might watch a show with in depth strategies from experts, interviews with developers and reviews that weren't paid off...
Of course, this is nothing new. Lifetime, MTV, VH1, even BET, have all made their niche appealing to the LCD of their particular market. Which makes me wonder what Williams' Street has done to be given the freedom to do something new and interesting...
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Everyone repeat after me...YOUR DOLLAR IS YOUR VOTE
There is really only two other solutions. The first is to have adequate "voice" by your strategic position in the industry to force the MPAA (or anyone else for that matter) to consider your views... hopefully you will provide factual evidence and thus focus on education not manipulation. This of course is still a "vote of the dollar" but here you seem to have more vote per dollar (and more dollars, heh).
The other solution is legal. By supporting lobbying and specific laws and politicians you can bring about a legal enforcement of your views. Perhaps you can even claim it is "leveling the playing field" as that often sounds very attractive. Sadly, this leveling is more like what you get from a 20 megaton nuclear detonation at the optimal distance above the surface. That means that you destroy the landscape and people resulting in not only striking out at IndustryX (MPAA here) but will enable shifty politicians and lawyers to use those VERY SAME laws to end up making the situation worse for choice and freedom.
I urge you to vote with your dollar. Sure picketing and boycotting sound nice and give certain people a warm and fuzzy that is not from their latte. However, even if you discount the hypocrisy of many of those people and focus on results you find that in the end you must speak the language of business... MONEY. Boycotting only works in a very well controlled situation... movies are not one of these unless you can get about 30 percent of people to NOT go to, support, buy DVD's, or anything related to movies that could help them.... NOTHING.
Basically, I invite everyone to not justify their actions and instead act on principle. If you are not that against what the MPAA is doing then go ahead and watch as many movies as you want confident in your giving that vote of approval to the MPAA. If however you cherish your freedoms and rights then stop being a coward and do something about it. Spend less time making excuses and calling those who have different opinions then you (i.e. that don't have a problem with MPAA) pig-fuckers and maybe just maybe you will start seeing some change.
As an investor it is HIGHLY infuriating. (you can include "as an employee" here as well) As I mentioned in a post above... your dollar is your vote. Remember that when you get pissed at the stupidity you witness in business ask yourself if you helped create it.
Oh, and one thing... don't confuse (or let yourself be confused by those who say this) the situation of being angry at a particular programming choice and that of obviously making a bad business decision. I have often been on the receiving end of decisions that were not favorable to me... however it was clear after a bit of thought and observation that I was in the minority. The real issue is when you have your major money maker and cancel it or as mentioned you take ANY show and simply mangle it so that you drive away revenue.
Remember this bit of wisdom by Scott Adams, "Why are stupid managers there? Because they were themselves hired by stupid management" Until you break the chain then this will not magically go away. There is little incentive for managers with business sense. The drive is for buzz and other superficial element compliance. Yet here we have the problem of perceived causal relationships. If a PHB is around and money flows then his PHB will see it as a sign of good management. Trends and actual cause and effect analysis will be ignored.
Personally this failure to do the job of an executive would lead me to fire them. I am glad I am a small company with no bloat. If anyone I outsourced to pulled this crap they would immediately be without money from me.
For example: "If there's one thing the Buffy Powers That Be should have learned by now, it's that you can't stifle demand by choking the supply. When The WB pulled 'Graduation Day, Part 2' off the air in June, 1999, because of Columbine, fans got bootleg tapes from Canada (with creator Joss Whedon's blessing, no less)" (From here)
I.e. Joss Whedon actually sanctioned copyright violation by fans in at least one case (admittedly there were exceptional circumstances).
SAaB was a better show than Firefly and suffered the same Fox-ian treatment that lead to it's demise. Where is our movie? I guess, we'll just settle for Firefly being resurrected.
Something intelligent here.
I kinda agree, I live in the uk but I really got into John Doe last season, it hasn't been shown here (not on terrestial anyway, maybe on sky) I was downloading over the internet.
Now don't get me wrong, JD isn't shakespeare, it is in fact a fairly silly concept for a show. However it was well acted and some of the writing was brilliant (considering the contraints of the show's story).
Anyway, one thing we are not used to in the uk is tv series ending it's run on a cliff hanger when there is little chance of it's return. Maybe it 's because we make 6 shows in a series as opposed to 20+. I can understand why the program makers would do this tho in the compettive entertainment industry of american television. I guess in the case of john doe they were obviously hoping that a cliffhanger would help persuade the network to recomission the show.
But for a viewer it is all just pointless, why did they bother making the show in the first place ?.
And most importantly....
What did digger have to do with the phoenix group ?
Look at Star Trek's history.
There's still hope.
Get off my launchpad!