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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.
So, we like he MPAA and its members today?
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Firefly is a prime example of how Fox is populated by PHBs. Fabulous show, great concept .. and they show the episodes out of order and at random intervals so the audience just can't get into it. They could have capitalized on Farscape's cancellation [SciFi: A channel for SF fans run by PHBs], but nooooooooo!
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
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!
--
My god, man. If "Everybody Loves Raymond" (lies! The title is a LIE! I hate that fucking show) can go on for how long now?, then Firefly deserves a run at least as long as Buffy.
But, what do you expect? Great show, great premise, nice twist on typical plotlines, great writing, great "settings", great girls er actors and actresses.. It had all the recipes to be axed.
"Hey, this show is too good. Gotta give it the axe."
Remember, America doesn't want quality. We want convenience and entertainment that doesn't require thinking. Hence, Jackass.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
lower costs to own a DVD?
Are you kidding? With the exception of video games, DVDs represnt the best value in entertainment. What would *you* call a fair price to own a DVD?
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.
You sell out pre-orders by knowing how many copies the publisher is going to print, and of that number know how many copies you are going to be allocated and then discover that that number is less than the number of copies that people have pre-ordered. At that point you have two choices. Tell people that they are going to have to look elsewhere for copies, or tell the publisher that you would be happy to sell a lot more copies for them, perhaps even let them know that the number of copies they allocated to you went to pre-orders the first day, and well, it sure is nice doing business with people who have a product that our customers are interested in.
-Rusty
You never know...
1. They weren't the top female hierarchy. There was explicit prejudice against her and her profession. The guild was doing better than the equivalent profession today, but it's not like they were running things.
2. They were in disguise.
3. You're posting on Slashdot.
My video compression blog
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!
First of all she wasn't exactly a prostitute, but more importantly a companion is not the "top female in the social hierarchy", yes she ranks better than the semi-criminal/black-market/smuggler crew running around in their obsolete junker of a spacecraft, but that isn't exactly way up the social chain.
And second, depending on how you got to the planet you might well drive a chuckwagon pulled by a team of horses. Just because you got dropped off in a spaceship doesn't imply that you are rich, or that the spaceship deposited a set of modern machine tools with the colony.
A planet could be colonized much like Australia, a place to dump people that aren't wanted in the parent society. With a low level of trading between the parent planet and the colony, there wouldn't be much ability to import needed items, and maintaining or building up a technological society from near scratch isn't easy. You need a lot of energy, which you don't necessarily have, a lot of raw materials, and some expensive machining tools to even get as far as the 19th century tech.
The nice thing about horses and wagons is that horses are self reproducing, you don't need a tech base to fix them when they break or build new ones. And grass or hay is easier to get than petroleum, or electric generation, or fission/fusion. And wagons can be build and maintained with little more that basic hand word working tools.
Great! Finally a reason to get out of my bunk! : )
.sig:
(You need to have seen the series to get this)
P.S. Notice my
You can't take the sky from me...
The original was goofy, and somewhat likeable, but not exactly what I'd call "excellent".
Wheadon wrote the script for the original, and was pretty much horrified - or, at least, very disappointed - with the end result. When the opportunity came to turn the film into a series, he insisted on retaining ultimate creative control over the direction of the show. It was a smart move - he had great instincts, and the show rarely stumbled when he was responsible for the content. (Episodes written by others, on the other hand, didn't always turn out so well.)
If the guy responsible for both the movie and the series says that the series is much better than the original, I don't think it's so strange to agree with him.
Along with the original cast, 3 new members will be added to lure in the casual movie goer. The first new addition will be a stubborn and mean-spirited, yet loveable, robot named "Alvin." The 2nd character will be a 1-2' tall furry creature with a really "cute" name that always seems to get into trouble. The 3rd character will be a "superior" alien-being that will constantly remind the crew of their mistakes and point out the foolish of 80% of the captain's actions. This will help the movie attract more than just the show's 16-35 male demographic audience.
What the hell is a western and space fantasy doing on the same page?!
Yeah, most westerns are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. Whereas most sci-fi shows are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. I don't see how they are compatible.
A lot of people dont understand why Futurama got the axe while the Simpsons endure. They dont appreciate how much went into Futurama.
Adult Swim has been putting little factoids into their commercial bumpers about it. It cost something like 2 million dollars per episode. The opening sequence has something like a dozen layers of animation and took months to complete. The animation in Futurama was really above-par, with multilayered hand animated characters mixed in with CGI and special effects and whatnot. It was all so subtle, though, that people didnt get it.
Cartoon Network was negotiating with Groenig about continuing Futurama, but the price tag was just way to high. They'd have to animate it like any other cartoon, which would kill the shows feel and mood.
The good news, however, is that they've struck an agreement for new Family Guy episodes.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
I watched it, but...
I was willing to:
Most people aren't THAT dedicated to a completly new show.
And BTW, not only were people watching the show when it was on for free, but we also TOPPED OFF THE PREORDER LIMIT for the DVD in one day. Jeez, think about it for one second will ya...
You can't take the sky 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).