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Firefly DVD Set Released
Richard M. Nixon writes "As previously reported the DVD set for Joss Whedon's ill fated Western/Space Opera is now available. The DVD has all 11 episodes that aired, 3 episodes that didn't air, commentary on 7 episodes, and lots of bonus features including Joss singing the Firefly theme. It would make a nice Christmas gift for any Whedon fan who has not already run out and bought it. If DVD Sales are good enough, could we see a second season?"
Bought it for my daughter for Christmas a week ago. Looking foreward to seeing the three un-aired episodes.
And to think they took this off and left "Everyone Loves Raymond" on. Now they're wondering why we don't watch TV...
RB
Whoa.... Saying it sucked was insightful? More like deluded. Firefly was the best piece of TV to come out in a long, long time. It is too bad that some people were too used to crap to enjoy it.
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
Why does there always have to be this "1% of the population liked it so bring it back" mentality!?
Granted the US has a bigger problem with pulling good progs that the UK, but people seem to have a short attention span regarding series. For instance, I'd prefer Red Dwarf back more than anything else, but I'd like it sort of how it was around series 3... and that's not gonna happen... things like this naturally fade away, you can't bring them back (Galactica) without incurring the wrath of die-hard fans of the original.
Anyway, my original point; bringing back a series after it's been cancelled is unnatural - it's in the same basket as school reunions. Sort of like "if you got on with people, you'd still know them anyway". Bringing back programmes after they've been cancelled goes against the space/time fabric and is just weird."Bring it back, cos I liked it!" - doesn't really strike me as a good reason. Bring it back because it has promise sounds a hell of a lot better.
So Firefly fans, just buy the DVD, be happy with it, and look forward to the next syndicated, 'we borrowed the Firefly series 2 scripts', space-opera, otherwise you might end up with a Galactica; a sci-fi prog that reminds you how crap the world has become since the 70's. Then, and only then, will you realise how bad it can really get...
Just make more episodes and sell DVDs on ebay!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What's so good about it? I've never seen an episode, so would someone care to enlighten me?
It's a sci-fi show that isn't. It doesn't feature grand space battles or bumpy headed aliens of the week. Instead it has great dialogue, character development, a tight-knit cast, and *gasp* continuity. Contrast this with Star Trek.
"...but no one can be bothered to do a good science fiction series."
What are your criteria for a science fiction series to be "good"?
Personally I thought Firefly was an excellent series. It had interesting characters with complex motivations and interactions, good pacing, beautiful sets, gratuitous violence, and an intriguing and believeable universe. I'm somewhat baffled as to how anyone could seriously characterize it as "juvenile Saturday morning" given all of these elements.
If you're not just a troll, perhaps you'd like to discuss this further?
Oh, how soon they forget.
X-Files was on Friday at 9 pm for many a year. And it thrived very well there.
and politically incorrect. Go ahead and mod this post as flamebait, because here's a short excerpt from an opinion piece about why Firefly was really cancelled. Link appears after the excerpt:
w .fireflyfans.net/feature.asp?f=39
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"Firefly's greatest transgressions against the modern American Statist Quo, however, were in my estimation twofold and related...this was not the mindlessly smarmy "optimistic" vision of the future that is Star Trek...Firefly, in its way, was, in this post 9-11 climate, almost downright seditious. The Alliance enforcers--the "bad guys"--were called "Feds." The attempt to unite and homogenize people was seen, by Firefly, as not a "good" thing...nor do most people agree with Captain Reynolds' words, "The government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned."...Do not think that Firefly was not drawing allusions and parallels to our own society and its attendant beliefs, or that this implicit criticism went unnoticed by the powers-that-be...But most of all, living "beyond the law" as Reynolds and his crew had to, the moral universe of Firefly depended not on the "rule of law," but on its much-maligned and deliberately-misunderstood alternative, the rule of honor...And Firefly made the case...for the ultimate superiority of the rule of honor over the rule of law--at least...For you see, the rule of honor demands what law must defer: individual responsibility, personal culpability, what is fair and what is just, of every man (and woman) who lives by it.
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http://ww
for this alone it deserves recognition. Every other sci-fi show or movie out there has the do the big laser battles thing. Every single one tosses physics out the window so they can have Tie-Fighters screaming by and super big explosions. Firefly alone does a space battle the way it should be done. Untterly quiet and creepy. The scene from 'Our Mr. Reynolds' with Jayne firing his gun inside of a spare spacesuit (Because duh, explosions require oxygen) was awesome.
Throw on top of that great writing and characters with depth, and you've got one of the best shows of the last decade. But there will always be people who write it off as a space western, so I suggest you see for yourself. Download and ep or two and if you like it buy the boxset.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I loved them all. I am not as much of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, or of Angel for that matter. Firefly, on the other hand, resonated with me for some reason, and I'll try to put them into words.
The reason I liked the series is because it shows that there is nothing new under the sun. People in the future will remain people, with all their faults and flaws. Long after we're gone people will still be killing each other, stealing from each other, trying to rule, trying to escape, trying to make a living. I believe Firefly went far beyond many science fiction stories in portraying this. Far too many sci-fi shows are utopian in nature, and with the notable exception of Babylon 5, nearly all of them fall into this trap. Slavery existed before, and still exists today. It is unlikely that this particular scourge will be eliminated totally in the future and may make a return. Likewise, the related concept of indentured servitude is one which make make a comback, for better or worse. People tend to dwell on the evil of slavery while forgetting that indenturing allowed the Americas to be colonized. And, as happened before the line between them became blurred, and this was portrayed (a little) in the show. The whole concept of migration, colonization, rebellion, and pacification were used as setting. For a television show, this is unusally broad.
Firefly showed the good with the bad, in that of the individual as well as the whole of humanity. The characters, of course, are no exception. They each have positive and negative traits, show weakness at times as well as strength. Furthermore, they showed different kinds of weaknesses and strenghts, where most science fiction and fantasy tend to ascribe one key skill and fatal flaw per character. Spock had a heroically big brain or Heracles had heroically big muscles. Characters on Firefly were not necessarily good at things one would expect. Sure, they had their skills, but there were nuances, suprises even. How many times on Star Trek did Wesley solve a science problem or Worf handled a matter of honor. (As an aside let me say to Wil if he reads my post I hold him blameless. He didn't write the character) One thing that Whedon is good at doing is taking television characters in unexpected directions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, bet at least he is unafraid to change his characters through the story.
The technology in Firefly is another aspect which contrasts it from other science fiction stories. Some stories are all about the technology, often Star Trek fell into this, and others the technology is not the story at all. My example there would be Star Wars which is more fantasy than sci-fi. Firefly walked a different path, showing different levels of technology used by different people. On Star Trek the Feds have one level of technology and science, some worlds are more primitive, and some mysterious races possess more. Firefly wasn't afraid to show that people would natually have more or less. More or less money and resources, and theremore more or less fancy tech. There are haves and have-nots, and sometimes the most sophisticated technology is not the most reliable.
Lastly, I would like to say a science fiction show absent of aliens is a treat. Turning humans into monsters shows unusual insight into the human condition. That humans could become aliens has been explored, but its nice to see a television show reach new, or rarely trod ground.
All of this adds up to a uniquely entertaining show. I rarely make time for television, but I found myself eagerly waiting for Firefly to come on. I wish the Sci-Fi Channel would pick it up, but alas, it is now the Stargate Channel.
Here's my own take on FIREFLY and the DVD:''34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
9 faces looking into the black, seeing 9 different things, July 23, 2003
Reviewer: Blair A. Petterson
I despise television. I even gave it up last year, and now only see a few shows a friend and I watch together. "The West Wing". "24". "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
Until last fall. Then I saw "Firefly", named somewhat whimsically about a cargo ship whose end lights up when it accelerates. But this is no flashy futuristic show about technical wonders, but rather a very nitty-gritty character study of nine very individual people.
Joss Whedon, who created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", had an idea for a science fiction show unique to that "Southern California born/spent time in Britain as a teenager" background of his: He read a book about the ground level grunts of the American Civil War called "The Rebel Angels" and wanted to do a TV series about the people who didn't make the history books: the people history stepped on. He wanted to do a story set in a future about a ship and where it went. Not a vast engine of war or a great vessel of exploration and diplomacy, but an old tramp steamer of a ship, so small it didn't even have a mounted gun, that made its way through thick and thin by taking any job, anywhere, no questions asked.
The nine people on board the Firefly-class ship "Serenity" aren't rich, famous, particularly smart or particularly gifted, for the most part. They all have pasts, and not all of them are comfortable about talking about themselves. They live in the aftermath of a major war that lead to the forceable unification of all of humanity, and not all of them were on the same side. The ship's name, "Serenity" is that of the climactic battle of that war, and they find themselves still trapped psychologically in a war that ended six years before. They have doubts, fears, old pains and new concerns, like where their next job is coming from and whether they'll live through it, because the few people that can hire them and will hire them have scant concern for ethics, the law or good manners. Sometimes your employer is more dangerous to you than the law you're trying to avoid.
And this is a show about the outskirts: there are laser guns, hoverships and advanced technology, but few can afford them. Big Dumb Bullets are still cheaper than Flashy Powered Blasters, and on the frontier reliability is more important than fashion, particularly when the other fellow has a habit of firing first. A horse will do you better than a powersled if you have lots of grasslands but no repair facilities or money to pay. A man dressed like a cowboy may have artificial organs and a revolver, or own a space station and need to pick up advanced medicines or even transfer a herd of cows. "Serenity" flies between the Core worlds of advanced technology and the newly terraformed Rim worlds, where people are grateful to have a wooden roof overhead.
It is this peculiar mix of the old and new that fascinates those looking for the unexpected: the comically serious and the deadly comical. Any given episode will shift you from adventure to terror, farce to drama, slapstick to deep thought and a sense of "boy, I didn't see THAT coming" without a sense that no-one is at the wheel, or that the screenwriter is merely playing with your expectations. More importantly, there are no "cheats": every action more deeply reveals the characters and who they are becoming. Unlike the broadcasts, this DVD shows the episodes, including three new ones, in their intended order.
"Firefly" is seldom what it first appears to be, either in terms of appearance or behaviour. No plot works out as expected, and people can surprise you. Joss Whedon indicated that "Buffy" was about growing up, "Angel" is about getting to work and "Firefly" is about being grown up and the choices you have to make as an adult. It's not like any other show you've seen: a story of the nine people who find themselves on board
Why would 'Open Source Movie Making' automatically be better than Hollywood's current trend of designing by committe?
Because in Hollywood, only one entity can "own" the title, and as such, only one "official" version can be released. (ignoring for the moment, director's cuts, edits for television, restorations for DVDs, etc.) In such a collaborative process, everybody thrashes it out until there's consensus - or until someone in charge puts their foot down.
In an open source environment, everybody thrashes it out until there's consensus - or until somebody decides to fork. Even better, you can get people who use the project as a springboard to something totally different. A cast and crew doing an "open source" movie might conceivably spawn dozens of movies and shorts, from all sorts of genres, just based on the same actors and footage.
If you don't believe me, take a look at the shorts spawned from the footage of the star wars kid. And this was just based on some joke footage. Imagine what you could piece together if you had some input into what to shoot? Along those same lines, Roger Corman (the B movie king) made a career out of reusing footage other people had tossed (or reusing footage that he and his crew had shot from other movies). You probably won't get Academy Award material out of it, but then again, the big movie studios spend millions of dollars a year to deliver crap...
The parent complained that "Everybody Loves Raymond" is belittling to men, and it gets marked Flamebait? How? Why?
Raymond (and "According to Jim", and "My Wife and Kids", and "8 Simple Rules" while Jon Ritter was still alive, and just about every other "family" show on these days) gets most of its laughs from the foibles and follies of a mostly inept father/husband. If the character of Raymond were a woman, NOW and other womens' groups would be screaming bloody murder, and rightly so. But since the dufuses of these shows are all men, we're expected to laugh along with everyone else.
Again, I ask, Why? Why should men be made the butt of every joke on TV? Why should husbands and fathers be portrayed as lazy, stupid, untrustworthy fools? What ever happened to "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best"? The only halfway decent father figure on TV these days is Red from "The 70's Show", and he's an ass most of the time.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
spaceships landing in the wild west and being met with men on horses. It was an inconsistent and totally implausible view of the future.
How so?
We have supersonic planes, and people travelling on donkeys right now.
I have personally been on a jet plane and then met people who were actually travelling on horseback soon after: They were vacheros in Mexico (cowboys) bringing their cattle to a corrida.
By your logic, this is impossible, because if people can use a plane or an helicopter, then they will not plausibly choose to use horses instead.
Well, you know what? Only horse could have taken them the way they went, uneven terrain, over hills and through streams and jungle (They were taking those cows to a small fishing village, deep in the middle of nowhere). The horses find their own fuel on the way, snaking on plants, driking water. No modern vehicle would have done...none that mexicans in the cattle-care buisness could afford.
So yeah, in the future, just like today, people from rich countries (planets) will use high-tech vehicles (jet plane/jet-engine equipped spaceship) to go meet people in poor countries (planets) who can only afford low-tech, self-replicating, biodegradable, edible, semi-autonomous self-refuling transportation.
I wish my car could go fuel up by itself...then again, it runs much faster.
You can't take the sky from me...