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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?"
Wow, this news sure is late for Slashdot. It came out a few weeks ago, I think.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if firefly sells enough to come back. I heard that fox started thinking about bringing Family Guy back after its DVD sales did so well, so maybe there is a real chance for Firefly.
features including Josh singing the Firefly theme. Well.. I *WAS* going to go buy it..
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
I'm still working my way through the commentary tracks, but this set is nicely put together.
Everybody has gone their separate ways, so we won't see a second season, but at one point in the commentary they said they didn't want to spill all of the beans in case there is a Firefly movie.
But I want to know all of the beans! There were so many good story lines to take advantage of, but were never explained!
Or, you could just get it right and call him Joss Whedon. Either way.
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
While latter-era Buffy and Angel both suffered with Whedon being stretched too thin, the man has a real gift for dialogue, comedy, and story arcs. He's not without flaw, but I'd rather see his worst work than 99% of the shows on the air these days. Any sensible studio executive ("invisible pink unicorn") would say, "Star Trek sucks now ... how about making it work for the fans for once?" I have my as-yet-unwatched Firefly DVDs waiting for the holiday break. I bought them sight-unseen, if that tells you anything about what I think his talent is.
I have to admit, I wasn't really drawn into the story that much when it was on the air (and I guess I would qualify as a major Whedon fan).
However, I think a major part of the reason for this could have been the poorly chosen episodes that Fox decided to air. I think if the first two episodes in the series had been aired first, rather than last, it would have made a lot more sense to the fans.
The extras are good, the stories are good, and at least in my opinion, it's a lot better than the 'Battlestar Galactica' mini-series. Plus, it has the added advantage of being both inexpensive (especially compared to the Star Trek series), and complete (no other seasons to buy at a later date).
So I recommend it to any Sci-Fi fan, it's a great addition to any collection, especially if you are a Buffy or Angel fan, if only because the commentary by Mutant Enemy veterans (Like Joss), has a lot of tiny insights into those shows as well.
Dr. Wu
Yes, There's Gas In The Car
I think if Fox had decided to show the 2 hour Pilot, it might have lasted longer.
I think the quality of the Episodes got better as the show progressed. I really liked "Out Of Gas" and "Trash" (which was never aired).
Anyhow, maybe UPN or SciFi would pick it up. It was a different show and I enjoyed it.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
There is an easter egg of Adam Baldwin (Jayne) singing the whole "Hero of Canton" song from Jaynestown on the dvds.
Throw in disc four that has the special features menu on it, and I think it's on the second special features menu. You just have to highlight the bottom left option and hit left again, and it will highlight a little thing on the side. Sorry I can't be more precise I don't have the info handy, it's not too hard to find with a minor bit of fiddling.
-hero.
1. Excellent characters
:-)
2. Amazing story development
3. Best special effects, bar none
4. A space captain who isn't a wus. (e.g. In the pilot, a bad guy is holding the teenage girl captive while evil space cannibals are approaching. The captain arrives in the middle of the hostage situation, and instead of negotiating, he - without missing a step - simply shoots the guy, picks up his body and throws it out the rear cargo entrance so they can take off.)
5. NO FSCKING "techno babble". No bloody deflector dishes, transporters, hyperspace gizmos, exotic particles, gravity wave engines or anything else.
6. No sound in space.
7. Soft title music that gets stuck in your head and won't let go.
8. An interesting back-story. (e.g. the episode "Out of Gas")
9. You can't take the sky from me...
Go to suprnova.org (no typo) and download "Our Dear Mrs. Reynolds". You'll be hooked, I guarantee.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
I heard that Firefly was going to be a western in space. Sure enough, when I watched the first episode, it was about the gang robbing a train, western style. I thought my worst fears were realized as this is the type of science fiction I hate most.
Take any western and change the indians to aliens. Changes the horses and stagecoaches to spaceships. Presto! You have instant sci-fi. I felt that way through exactly one episode. By the third one, I was hooked on an amazing show.
It looks to me like someone at Fox wanted to sink the show. You run it on Friday night (kiss of death), show the worst episode first, and then don't bother to show the first episode until much later in the season.
"Anyway, my original point; bringing back a series after it's been cancelled is unnatural"
It worked for Star Trek.
I rented the disks from Netflix because I'm a big Buffy and Angel fan after having got into both series years after they debuted. I never even heard of Firefly until after it was cancelled.
So I rented it just to see what all the hub bub was about. As I watched the first two parter, I was thinking, no wonder this got cancelled, it's kinda boring. But I forced myself to finish watching the rest of the disk.
I'm glad I did. I found that I started to care what happened to each character as I watched more episodes. While I was indifferent at first, by the time I wrapped up Disk 4, I was almost solemnly putting the disk back in its sleeve to mail back to Netflix.
It's a good show and worth giving it the time to win you over. Too bad Fox didn't do that. I don't think it'll come back as a series again, certainly not on Fox, but they are working on a movie (probably TV movie).
So what's the deal about good SciFi shows getting cancelled? Farscape was a fantastic show, certainly worthy of more seasons. I think Firefly had some longevity to it, too. Just think, if they hadn't given Buffy more than 13 episodes... There'd be no Witchblade, no Dark Angel, no Bird of Prey, no ActionSciFi Show with buttkicking chicks!
Asd they say, it takes money to make money. Be willing to give these shows a chance!
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...
First, the swearing is as lame as it was in Farscape.
/. editors cut one sentence from my statement: The Chu shie fook executes at the Fox network were Sha gwa to cancel this show. And I thought that was the sentence that would get this article posted :)
:)
I haven't seen Farscape so I don't know about its swearing. The swearing in Firefly was actually Chinese. Joss's idea was that in the future the only two superpowers that survive are the United States and China, and thus everyone knows both English and Chinese. (But reserve the Chinese for the swearing for the ease of the audience I assume.)
Incidently, the
The cool thing about swearing in Chinese is that they could get away with saying stuff that the censors would otherwise never allow. It is kinda like Kenny on South Park, where you can read between the lines to guess what they said. Except in this case you could potentially look up what they are actually saying. The downside is the actors were not exactly fluent in Chinese and people who are would probably not understand them.
Second, the commercial breaks are very obvious. Looking at most of them, it would take very little to make the transitions a little smoother.
I think Joss did this deliberately. At least in the pilot (the real one that didn't air until the last broadcast) after a shot of the Reavers' ship he wanted a pause for tension. He said they couldn't have 2 seconds of black, because the computers would automatically cut to commercial. How he got by this is he used the darkest gray that wouldn't trigger the cue for commercial.
And one of these days, I will figure out whether Inara or Kaylee is hotter.
I guess that depends on whether you like geek girls. Kaylee is clearly a geek. And she looks hot with engine grease on her face.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
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.
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...