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Firefly: A Special Feature
Philip B. Gaines writes "Philip B. Gaines announces the completion of an independent multimedia commentary project, "Firefly: A Special Feature", a DVD based on the FOX television series created by Joss Whedon. A free examination copy of the project is available for those willing to provide feedback about this media experiment. "Firefly: A Special Feature" is a 3.5 hour multi-module review of Whedon's innovative space western series. The interactive review features a variety of interpretive and analytical components--all intended to further discussion of this seriously underappreciated show. The bottom line of the project is dialogue, not promotion. If you have seen "Firefly" before and found it intriguing--or even if you haven't--this project will make you think, argue, and perhaps even learn a bit. For "Firefly: A Special Feature", I have acted as writer, video/sound editor, and media producer, working with complete independence from the producers of the show or anyone else whose influence might bias the analysis. Plans are underway to do this kind of project again, so I would appreciate feedback on all levels. See the website for a formal description of the project Email pbgaines@pbgaines.com for a copy of the DVD."
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
What was the last thing that went through the firefly's mind when he hit the spaceship's windshield?
I mean, I'm glad that this isn't a DVD with fan fiction style sex scenes and unplausible dialogue, but fan documentary? Is that any better?
--- http://foo.ca
Congrats on working with a great series that should have had a bit longer time on the air for people to get used to it.
;-P
And congrats on the free ad space
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Mm. If it's wrong to want slashdot to have news instead of unpaid ads - then I don't want to be right.
How many angry readers will you censor by modding them down until you realized that you placed a disguised advert as an article?
.
I liked Firefly a lot, and was pretty pissed off at the mental midgets at FOX for replacing it with that vacuous teen cop show.
You apparently haven't been wathcing Fox for that long then. These are the same folks who canceled Married With Children (probably the best satire of the American family ever on TV) becuase it wasn't "family-friendly" but who think that 7th Heaven and similar shows reflect actual American families.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
"Advertising pretending to be news... again..."
If it's interesting to people, so what?
"Derp de derp."
There were actually 13 episodes. The first 10 were aired in the states, while the last 3 were in the UK. Fox has to be blamed for its low Neilsen ratings since it aired the episodes out of order which probably confused the audience.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
...Science Fiction shows ever put on television (imho). At first, I didn't think I could get use to the "space cowboy" feel, but this show was absolutely fantastic. It was a much more realistic look at what a potential "space wandering" humanity could become (when comparing to something like Star Trek). The cast and acting was great, the episodes, plots, and storyline, all very intriguing. It still completely shocks me that Fox took it off the air. Several friends of mine and myself still wallow in frustration as to why it ever got taken off the air.
I highly recommend picking the series up on DVD, available at Amazon Dec.9.
java guy, tech blog...
An "analysis" written by fans - or even worse, a fan - is generally guaranteed to be uncritical garbage. As far as I'm concerned if you're going to produce/consume masturbation material about a show/series, stick to fanfics stay away from slashdot. This seems like a good place to start for Philip and Hemos .
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
'Space Above and Beyond', which was quite an excellent SciFi show, it lasted something like one and a half to two and a half seasons before having the plug pulled on it.
It used revolutionary (for television) special effects for the space scenes. If I am not mistaken, I believe that it was the first to use computer generated graphics for the entirety of the space scenes, from the large cruiser/carrier the space marines were using to the sleek starfighters that that marines were using...
The stories were rather compelling as well. Especially with the whole back history of the clone warriors and the human-looking androids. It's to bad that they ended the whole show as it was beginning to really grow... (I feel that most shows take a good two to three seasons to really get their legs and start running...)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
it was decent scifi and so a lot of slashdot readers were instant fans, myself included. the universe was not the sanitary one of star trek nor the mystical one of starwars. it was a universe where technology hadn't been humanities savior, and there was enough of it to see that it probably never would. the universe had limited resources: fuel, food, etc. the universe required the characters to be people who did what it took to survive. this allowed for them to be interesting characters without requiring they be jedi or android. the firefly's crew was made up of prositutes, priests, and even the captain killed at least one "bad guy" in cold blood. i didn't watch every episode, but the few i caught i really enjoyed.
The commentary lasts longer than the actual television series! I thought Firefly was actually an OK show. Not great, but not trash either. It's definately better than "The OC" though. What a crock of shit. .2 * "The Family Guy".
I don't get why all you geeks ejaculate for Firefly. I'll admit it was an interesting show, but not nearly as good as you all make it out to be. Personally, I think Andy Richter's show was 100 times better. On a scale of "The OC" to "The Family Guy", I would give Firefly about
By the way, the scale is logarithmic, so "Andy Richter Controls The Universe" != 20 * "The Family Guy".
One of the unaired episodes of Fire Fly is on Space tonight at 8pm EST it's called Trash.
Space is a Canadian Si-Fi\Fantasy Station.
Never Underestimate A Human Being
As seen with family guy, if a cancled series released on DVD gets a high volume of sales, producers start to catch on that they made a mistake .
I know I'll be purchasing my copy when it becomes available! It really was an interesting show, a departure from the typical StarTrek/Babylon5 mushy sci-fi.
Serenity, Part 1
Serenity, Part 2
The Train Job
Bushwhacked
Shindig
Safe
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Ariel
War Stories
Heart of Gold
Objects in Space
Trash
The Message
"Advertising is per se not interesting. If it were interesting it WOULD be news and thus no advertising would be necessary. The two are mutually exclusive."
Forgive me if in my sleep depraved state I misunderstand your point, but an advertisement can be interesting without it being mutually exclusive.
"Derp de derp."
Oh damn. I was hoping for a documentary that exposed brain-dead MIT Media Lab dotcom ventures.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Call me crazy, but I felt the whole space cowboy theme was a little much. I watched it, but I don't feel the angst that so many fellow slashdotters feel for its removal. What I do share is the angst of what they replaced it with. They went from mediocre to just plain crap.
Now when they pulled Greg The Bunny, that really pissed me off!
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
1. Unlike Star Trek, Farscape, and Battlestar Galactica, there was no sound in outer space.
There are more differences, but I only need one to show that you didn't think very hard, so I'll stop there.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm a huge Firefly fan, and was pretty eager to see what this project would be like. Sadly, if the "What is Firefly" multimedia project that's available on the website is any indication, the project is going to be little more than a revisiting of a fan's favourite clips along with a voiceover filled with harsh invective and "woe is the world for the cancellation of Firefly!" mopings.
The show was, IMHO, very unique. It took me a while to get around the mix of high and low tech, and I think it took the writers a while to work it through, too, but by the end of its run, it had done an admirable job of building a believable future society where frontiersmen had to do what was "right" without benefit of the law's judgement. I wish that the voiceover focused more on how the show espoused classic Libretarian ideals in an easily consumable medium instead of simply whining about how it was "the best show on television" and "too ahead of its time for FOX executives." The latter gripes are subjective and weaken any analysis of what actually made the show worth watching in the first place.
It is too bad about "Firefly" not receiving the support it needed from Fox, because I've noticed something about ALL of Whedon's series. The first season is just the setup.
If there had only been one season of "Buffy," no one would remember it now. The first season has some good lines and is solidly done, but what made the show special was how Whedon developed the characters and situations he'd established in that first year.
"Angel" was much the same. The first season set the ground rules, and then he started to screw with them.
I enjoyed the episodes we saw of "Firefly," but what I really miss is seeing how it would get fiddled with, as the series progressed.
Make a man a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
What makes Firefly worth watching is that it's a well written, well acted, and well-directed show, featuring production values that were about as good as you are likely to see on TV, and story arcs which were entertaining to follow.
That said, there were differences. Firefly paid much closer attention to physics than any TV sci-fi I've ever seen, and had a very rich back-story that easilly stands up against B5 or Farscape. It was certainly an order of magnitude better than either of the last two Star Trek series to emerge from Paramount. When the DVD set comes out next month, borrow it from a friend or something and see for yourself.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Philip was kind enough to send me a copy of his DVD project a week and a half ago, and while I have yet to finish watching what is unarguably a massive project, everything I've watched so far is fantastic commentary. He exhibits extremely strong character analysis (essential for any discussion of Firefly) and is acutely aware of a plethora of layered subtleties in the show that I somehow completely missed, even having rewatched the episodes time and time again. Pay (if he's asking for money at all) whatever he's asking for material and/or S&H, because the project is well worth it. What I've watched of the DVD I've walked away from having an even greater appreciation for Firefly, and I didn't think that was possible.
Hopefully someone "up there" (that is to say, Whedon) will notice Philip's exemplary work and integrate it into the mythos somehow, because it deserves nothing less. Highly recommended.
You know, you don't have to do a DVD of your own to put in your own commentaries on films. The guy's site mentions he was inspired by Ebert's Dark City track--well, another idea Ebert had, and one that's even been covered by Slashdot in the distant past though I lack the time to dig up the URL for the story, is DVDTracks, a site that hosts do-it-yourself commentaries recorded as MP3s, meant to be downloaded and played simultaneously with the DVDs. I've even done one myself, for the Miyazaki movie Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro , and it was great fun.
There's a lot of other great stuff there, too. Check it out.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Like it or don't like it, thats for each person to decide. Firefly hooked me with the first episode aired in the us. Can you imagine anyone at starfleet running the badguy through a warp engine on purpose? The actors were settled in thier roles much better than any other first season show I know of. The characters backgrounds and motivations were hinted at just enough to make you want to know more about all of them. And when you found out more, it just made you want to find out even more. I actually don't watch shows much, and I certainly don't watch to reward 'innovation'. When I watch, I want entertainment. Sometimes that comes from novelty, sometimes familiarity. Sometimes lots of different things at the same time. The only thing I think sucked about firefly was its getting canned.
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.
Not too familiar with the Fudge rules, but there is a "western"-like space faring rpg in various incarnations:
;)
Classic Traveller at http://www.farfuture.net/
GURPS Traveller at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/
d20 Traveller at http://www.travellerrpg.com/T20/
easy framework to mod and expand on; lot's of material, fan based and commerical. my fave is Classic, 'cause I already have the little black books. two d6 is all ya need for Classic!
Sci-fi is relegated to too much of a niche compared to other forms of entertainment. Movies can afford fantasy and sci-fi special effects but even there most "sci-fi" is a glorified action or war movie which people can relate to.
People want to relate to what they are watching. A sci-fi movie or TV show can do well if you manage to explain the technology and the world without bogging down the plot and by creating a plot and characters people can get into.
Firefly was too good. It created a whole new world, but it tried to make it familiar by throwing in a very very clever wild west element. It was so subtle it didn't seem camp, just a light seasoning that made me believe "hey, its possible!"
The problem was it was centuries in the future, there is no America, no Russia, no islamic fundamentalists, and no cute teens agonizing over frivolous issues. Not enough people in the US like sci fi enough to make it successful beyond UPN or the sci-fi channel. It's a demand thing, and it sucks.
And to be honest, its not because people are frivolous or stupid or just want the same old thing. It's quite simply because perfectly nice and reasonable people just don't relate to sci-fi.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Jesus Christ on crutches, let me clue you in : HOMER did it all first in the fucking Odyssey. What is this nerd hangup over so-called originality? If that is your metric then Star Trek (three words: Hornblower in space) and, yes, especially that horridly acted, insipidly plotted, wannabe Wagontrain piece of third rate bantha shit Battlestar Galactica were the worst about lifting homeric themes directly. Farscape was a sight better, but really: The Fugitive... in space... with more guns and boobies!
I liked Firefly not because it was original - I consider it Mark Miller's Traveller on TV - but because it was ballsy. For everyone who ever wanted Picard to just beam some annoying Ferengi twit into the nearest star, Firefly payed off in the first ep. But if you want something fairly original and different (for TV, scifi literature has treaded this ground repeatedly) how 'bout: no aliens?
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
For me what made it different, worlds different, than any other TV science fiction is that it actually had decent writing, well developed characters and something more humanly interesting to do than 'save the universe from the forces of darkness'. This was different because it was about an unheralded struggle to get by, something a little closer to home for most of us than the epic space opera we usually see. Not that epic space opera is bad, I'm just talking about what's different with Firefly, and what makes it special for so many of us.
Actually you've touched on exactly what I liked most about Firefly. The story of Serenity was about 'real' people. They weren't super-heroes in elastic suits fighting rubber suited aliens bent on human genocide. The stories didn't feature bigger and bigger weapons followed by bigger and bigger explosions.... (yawn).. How much of those do we need anyway. Firefly sustained and incredible hour of television drama on the simply premise of a minor engine malfuntion. That's drama. Admittedly, this draws a different audience than than the boom-boom action adventure stuff, and if anything, that's what Fox didn't get. They tried to sell it as some kind of kiddie show when it is just so much more than that. Look at the message boards. Firefly draws people of all ages, heck even girls like it! Just because this broke the mold on the epic 'splosions that you like doesn't mean it wasn't great, quite the contrary.