Slashdot Mirror
Official Firefly Movie Web Site Launched
The Orange Hatter writes "The official Universal Pictures web site for the Firefly Movie 'Serenity' is up. It includes a blog, message board, opportunites to get point for Firefly swag, and lots of other fun stuff. Check it out."
There are html, css, and 508 validators.
There should be a slashdot validator for pages: The likelihood that if slashdotted, your pages will take your server down for the count.
"Piter, too, is dead."
And of course the mods miss the blaitant spam. Submitter is getting points for every slashdot clickthru.
Non spammy link in 3..2..1...http://www.serenitymovie.com/
symetrix. We are building a religion, a limited edition.
It appears the website appeared just in the nick of time. What do you suppose that makes the designers? Big Damn Heroes! Ain't they just?
I also reply below your current threshold.
The Firefly series rocks .. at least the episodes I've seen.
Will they continue to record the series?
I really have another userid as well
And you people claim to be fans....
Slashdot brought the website down faster than Fox took down the tv show! Now I still can't get my Joss fix....
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
How do you /. the web site of a major motion picture? You'd think they could afford the bandwidth/horsepower.
Can't wait for the movie, though. I've got to get my DVD set of the series back and watch it again. I've loaned it out -- doing my part to extend the fan base.
Software Wars
It was fox that dropped the series ? See not a mozilla joke in sight
Doh
Point yer browsin' gear here for news and discussion, including recent blogs by Nathan ("Mal") and Jewel ("Kaylee") from the set.
And by dint of shameless grovelling the webmaster has just wangled himself a part as an extra on the movie! Kudos.
Lets just hope this doesn't get swated out of the air like the series did.
I just want to know who dusty-whatever is so I can beat the stupid right out of him.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
When will they learn?
That's what the movie is about. Oh, and they give you little cardboard puzzle pieces in the lobby. Enjoy the show!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I didn't watch any of the episodes on Fox because I hadn't even discovered Buffy yet. 6 seasons of DVD Buffy later (waiting for the 7th), we buy Firefly's DVD set and were really impressed.
Firefly, the series, has the usual Joss Whedan good characters interacting in interesting ways.
Apparently they didn't show the pilot first on Fox and I can't imagine how that could have worked. The 2 hour pilot (also called Serenity) is a must see and its CGI special effects are surprisingly good.
15 episodes (pilot + 13) + extras.
Strongly Recommended!
See title. All the summaries seem to point to that but that seems odd.
I'm not sure how I feel about that, either way.
But the time travel, unless we are traveling in time and not space, is the overused plot device of the past ten or 15 years. Enterprise sucks because that is the basis of the whole show, and hopefully they can compensate for the mistake. B5 was nearly fatally wounded by it's misuse of the time line.
But Firefly concentrates on the basics. The relationships. The flawed characters. The goal of living life the best you can. You don't have people floating willy nilly in and out of time. You don't have have people going back and forth in time so that the writers can cowardly destroy a ship at the beginning of the episode only to have it resurrected at the end. All you have is a totally unbelievable ship floating throughout a totally unbelievable universe with totally unbelievable characters. Just like real life.
This is also why Battlestar Galactica was so cool.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Sure you can! "Bad Joss Taipan!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Shockwave required before you can see anything on their worthless page. Same with the "Ghost in the Shell 2" page.
How hard is it to design a page that is usable by EVERYONE? Not hard at all and yet here we have examples of two groups that couldn't pull it off. Are web designers like these born stupid or do they learn it in school?
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
When was the last time you waited for a movie to come out and it was good?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Maybe the answer is an entirely new distribution channel like Mark Cuban's HDNet. Whedon should not be burdened with product placements and FOX-style scorecarding.
Congratulations on getting to be an extra. Went to the page, went to guerrilla marketing, and tried to look the money and forum link. In camino got an error on both, too many redirects. May not be your site, but something seems like it is broken.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
When Firefly was still on the air, Fox played it Friday nights, about 8ish if I recall. Even though I liked the one or two episodes I caught, I missed most of the season because I was never at home Friday night to watch TV. Classic Fox - just like airing Futurama on Sundays after sports events that ALWAYS run over time. Bah.
Taken from imdb...
The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, "Serenity." He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family -- squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal. When Mal takes on two new passengers -- a young doctor and his unstable, telepathic sister -- he gets much more than he bargained for. The pair are fugitives from the coalition dominating the universe, who will stop at nothing to reclaim the girl. The crew that was once used to skimming the outskirts of the galaxy unnoticed find themselves caught between the unstoppable military force of the Universal Alliance and the horrific, cannibalistic fury of the Reavers, savages who roam the very edge of space. Hunted by vastly different enemies, they begin to discover that the greatest danger to them may be on board "Serenity" herself.
Is finally being listed in the cast. I've always thought Book was one of the more interesting characters of the show.
Take my love
Take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care
I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out
To the black tell 'em I ain't coming back
Burn the land
And boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
Have no place
I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me
This is one of the catchiest show songs I have heard in a long time. I remember thinking it was kind of a weird song for a space show the first episode of Firefly I ever saw. Pretty soon I found myself singing along.
I can't wait to see the movie!!!
Yeah, i think it won some award too...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
No, it's not my site - I'm not affiliated with it in any way, which unfortunately means I don't get to be an extra. Maybe they should hold a competition; you know, send in a picture of some piece of land/sea which doesn't deserve to be burned/boiled...
Odd that you're having Camino problems - it's still zippy even after being linked to on /., and has always worked fine for me (Moz 1.6).
I think you have it all wrong. This was simply one of the best shows on TV period. Not simply best Sci-fi show, best show overall.
/. but I had to on this. Go see this movie. You won't be sorry.
I made several other people fans of the show by just letting borrow my DVDs. These are female, non-geeks who hate anything sci-fi who simply love the show and were shocked that it had been cancelled.
I don't know if you actually watched the show but it was the western motiff was just a small part of the show and only played a part in some of the episodes.
The dialog cheesy and cookie cutter characters? Come on!! The dialog is great and very original. The characters were also unique. We had a legal prostitute, former military soldier (low rank, not a general of anything) turned business man, gorgeous amazonian warrior, not entirely loyal hired muscle, former minister looking for his way, very feminine female mechanic, dorky, talented pilot who landed the amazon and a weakly, gifted
doctor who risked everything to save his sister.
I don't know about you, but that is an extremely original group of characters thrown together in a very plausible way. I have never watched Cowboy beebop so I can't comment on that. What I can do is comment on is the quality of this show.
I never post on
Aaron Friedel
And it's Cowboy Bebop that has the cookie-cutter characters, not Firefly. Firefly's characters are among the deepest I've seen on any television show, ever. That's why it's audience has grown--even as FOX railroaded it off-the-air.
I highly recommend a second viewing of the show on DVD, starting with the proper pilot episode, which never aired. You need to give this show another chance.
You say you're "calling it right now" and that this is going to be a "flop of titanic proportions"? Whew! I'll take that bet as far as you like. This movie may not reign supreme at the box office, but it will outperform on DVD, just as the series has.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
See above post on why the NeuroTypical just don't get the show. The whole point was a centrally controling military/industrial complex wins a big war and makes the rest of the world poor, including a part of itself. Replace planets with Europe/Canada/United States (after WWII) or the North in the Civil War, and you've got the REAL plot line. The rest is just surface story to bring out the deeper character development and commentary on the evil corporatists who seek to turn even human life itself to their goals (not sure what those goals are yet- I've yet to watch the DVDs but caught every episode Fox broadcast. WHY did they need to rip away that girl's ability to shield herself emotionally? What purpose did that serve?)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
But you have a point. ;)
:)
A friend of mine discribed he feeled insulted and scammed after seeing the day after tomorrow
But hey. That's the power of the media (which can and will be bought). Look at a program like Idols. The whole concept is to create a mediahype and to profit from the spinn-off.
Same thing with Bush by the way. In the aspect of using the media to influence the people.
And how can media be independent if they depend on their income (generated by their advertisers).
So if the advertisers fay a movie is good the media say 'how high'.
Don't don't don't believe the hype. Wait 'till you hear the first reactions from your friends. Then you'll know if it was worth waiting for it
Privacy is terrorism.
I was at Universal Studios Hollywood on Tuesday. During the studio tour (where you drive around on the busses) we went through a "quiet zone" where they were filming several movies. Right beside the Jurassic Park ride was the set of Serenity, and who was right outside the set? None other then Nathan Fillion, the Captain himself.
Although I don't subscribe to the obsessive-fan mantra, being a huge fan of Firefly and seeing him, dressed in his usual captain garb, was the highlight of the day for me.
I really hope the new movie does well, but either way, we've kept flying.
http://www.serenitymovie.com/blog/index.php
Criticism of the mix of high tech space stuff and low tech western stuff strikes me as silly, when all you have to do is look around in the real world, and you'll see a far wider range in technology levels on just this one planet than they showed in the whole Firefly galaxy.
It's good that the site has such a short, easy-to-remember URL.
The shareholder is always right.
If you can stomach anime at all, you'll probably like Cowboy Beebop. It's just similar enough in tone to Firefly to be interesting (but not enough to make Firefly "a ripoff").
Ever since I found out the cute engineer girl is married i lost all interest in the show. Sigh..
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Firefly is not a nerd-science sci-fi show, there is no techno babble, just really good scripting, and real characters.
Don't go into it thinking its all about space ships, technobabble and special effects, its not.
Its a set of really good stories,(think the good the bad and the ugly in space) told against a backdrop that happens to be sci-fi.
In fact I think that is the mark of good sci-fi, (at least in print, most film adaptations suffer somewhat), the story is the important thing, the science part is just a way of looking at the human conditon through a different lens, and enabling new and interesting questions to be asked.
I think it is probably the best science fiction series that has been aired on tv... which was probably why it was canned so quickly
I was wondering why the site was so sluggish and timing out with errors.... slashdotting underway! *g*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
former minister looking for his way
Not so sure about that part of you watch some of it. I got the impression that there was alot more to the character after they used his ID in one of the episodes and were let free
What's wrong with these people?
sic transit gloria mundi
Sounds like good future name for Phoenix, Firefly 1.0?
Not to dismaiss anything you wrote..... (really I do agree) but....
> but that is an extremely original group of characters
I suppose if your experience with science fiction has been centered around movies and the tube, it is extremely original. Hell, even if you don't limit it to science fiction.
Ads are broken.
For a second there I thought that Mozilla had changed the name of their browser again...
Then I thought, "A movie based on a browser? That can't be right..."
Then I remembered that Firefly is the show that got Dark Angel's timeslot when DA got cancelled.
So I think my brain has caught up with the current train of thought, but I've never actually watched Firefly, so I can't really comment on that part of it. I guess I'll have to borrow my friend's DVDs before the movie comes out.
use http://www.serenitymovie.com/
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okThe unofficial site is worth more of a look that the official one.
The official one seems to be mostly flash or something. I click on Synopsis and it gives a popup that I can't scroll using my mouse or keyboard. You have to click on little arrows to get it for scroll.
What the (explicatives deleted) is wrong with the (more deleted) web designers?????
I ran a check with http://validator.w3.org/ and it found 22 violations. OK this is the first time I used this tool but there is hardly any content on this site.
Then again, this really isn't suprising. It seems most official movie web sites suck.
Howdy Doodly Doo!
Anybody want some Toast?
By no means did I mean that that was all there was to the Book character. I do believe he was a very religious man in the show. That does not mean he did not have a life before he found his religion. That is what is good about these characters. The depth behind them. The fact that we are even talking about it is a good thing. How often do you talk about the layers of captians Sisko(DS9) or Sheridan(B5)?
Aaron Friedel
>Criticism of the mix of high tech space stuff and low tech western stuff strikes me as silly..
I agree. Think about it this way: Imagine if you were going to colonize another planet, that was earthlike in enviromnent. Which would you rather bring with you: A car, or a horse? A car requires a replenishable source of gasoline, a mechanic, new tires now and then, belts, hoses, wiring... a car is not viable outside a civilization that can support it. A horse, on the other hand, just needs some room to run and some plants to graze on. In the same token, would you rather have a knife or a laser pistol that runs on Duracells?
I think Joss Wheadon was right on when he predicted that colonization would result in a return to older technologies... or at least not throwing away the tried and true.
Yes! This is the new name for your favourite browser!!
I tried all the DVD stores in Brisbane Australia. No Firefly released or planned to be released in Australia.
Firefly not released in Australia (Region 4). Store guy recommened downloading it off the intenet.
Anyone seen Region 4 DVD of the series available.
BTW; it has also not been shown on TV here either.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
No doubt about it. Take a look at the list of the top 10 members on the center left side of the page. serenitymovie.com
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Where Firefly is "gritty western" style, Bebop is "gritty urban" style. The grittiness is about the only similarity, but the characters of both series do have about equal depth, if you want to mark that as a similarity.
If you liked one you'll like the other.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
The "Companion" thing is a little bit strange. I think the idea is that it is a cultural thing that has spread from Chinese, or possibly Japanese, culture, but it still doesn't quite make sense.
In traditional Japan, Geishas (who should not be confused with prostitutes) were and are revered members of society. They basically act as hostesses, and their special talent was conversing with men in a culture where men's and women's lives did not intersect and where men and women did not talk together. They are also entertainers, performing traditional music and dance. The word means something like "artist." And yes, some of them do/did have "special" men friends, but the relationship is earned by the man, not bought. If you want to read an explanation of this that has not been sensationalized into soft porn, I recommend Geisha by anthropologist Liza Dalby.
In China, also, there were courtesans of varying status. Some were little better than prostitutes, but others-- the especially lovely and talented-- were of very high social status indeed. It is important to understand that the culture was not like our puritanical one. A girl would be chosen for a life as a courtesan when she was very young and would spend years training for her job. Becoming a courtesan was not something they had a choice about, and so being a courtesan was not associated with immorality as it would be in our culture. A really high-class courtesan would be supremely well educated, and again, a major part of her job was to be a hostess and an excellent conversationalist.
This idea is not limited to Asia. In ancient Greece (a culture in which men would seal the door of the house with sealing wax so as to be certain that their wife did not go out and talk to anyone while they were gone), married women were basically owned by their husbands and were not allowed to learn to read or write. One of those ancient Greek guys, I can't remember who, made a remark that homosexual love was normal because how could you have anything in common with the incredibly uneducated women of their culture-- he found all women unlovable because of their lack of sophistication. (To avoid overgeneralization, remember that the Spartan women were better treated and had higher status.) However, there were "Hetaera," who again were educated courtesans who enjoyed social freedoms denied to most women. Like Geishas, they were hostesses, and would wind up as the mistresses of powerful men who spent no small effort winning their affection.
However, even though courtesans with high social status like the "Companions" in Firefly have existed in history, they tend to exist in cultures where there is a big gap between male and female society and very well-defined gender roles. But the world of Firefly is very egalitarian, it doesn't make sense. I thought perhaps only the border worlds were egalitarian, but that society in the Core planets tended to keep its women in harem-like seclusion. But once we see episodes involving Core planets, that theory is blown out of the water. The only thing that I can think of is that perhaps in the world of Firefly, the art of "companionship" has developed to the point that people seek out those who are really good at it just as we seek out people who play musical instruments or sing really well so we can see them perform. Could "companions" be superstars of a kind of performance art? It's the only thing that makes sense to me.
Sorry for long post.
*** Possible Spoiler Warning ***
It is possible that he is using the identity of Shepherd as a cover for being a secret agent or something.
*** Possible Spoiler Warning ***
Howdy Doodly Doo!
Anybody want some Toast?
Exactly. Let's not forget the economics. There are laser guns, it's only that rich people have them. Why? I suppose they are too expesive for low class people that lives in the outer side of the galaxy.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
However there are pieces of sci-fi whose purpose is to introduce a new scientific concept by way of a story. Think The Fountains of Paradise. Also some of the best sci-fi stories are those who analyze/show the effects of some new invention, scientific discovery, etc. on society. So far I've found these exclusively in text.
If you're out of the X-Men loop, (or never in it in the first place), Issue 1 does a decent job of setting up the situation and characters, though it does make more sense if you've been following the recent story lines. Hopefully I'll get to check out Firefly soon, since his comic writing reflects well on him.
"I think that when you become a Republican, you don't get to score any more." -- Butt-head
Yet...somehow proving my point...
*bows*
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
While I wish them all the luck in whatever world they inhabit, the series was drekkish. The characters were seemingly handcrafted for conflict and dichotomy to the point that it's almost Jerry Springerish out there. Everyone's volatile, all the relationships are strained and uncooperative, etc. It's just an easy way of drawing and maintaining plot tension through antagonism. Plus, you get the added bonus of knowing without a shadow of a doubt that they're never, ever going to kill off a character until they've run a few seasons down the pipe and determined viewer reaction. You're somehow telling me this fanatically incompatible hodge-podge of critically-massed character constructs sticks together like glue? Pshaw. It was vaguely believable in the Star Trek incarnations, due to there being a quasi-miltary reason for being aboard a common vessel, but on some smuggler's run-down ship?
You want to impress me with this show, kill the captain in the third episode, have a struggle for possession of the ship itself (which costs namable characters' lives), and follow plot from there. Three episodes later, blow up the ship forever, strand them on a planet where they're dirt poor and unable to run from their pasts and chase their futures. Plus, they have to get a new ship. Have transient characters which are awesome and cool and leave for no explainable reason in episode 12 or so. They just say, "this is my stop", and hop off. Lather, rinse, repeat. One last beef: artificial gravity. Either lose it, or base the thing on a planet and never leave it.
Calling a group of cool, quirky characters delving into their personal problems while embroiled in an epic struggle on a single ship where "down" is always the floor "innovative" is a bit dumb.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Until it dies, or gets ill... Actually, what I would bring is a car with cheap, easily replacable parts. And I would not bring horses but use the local fauna, if possible. There has to be local fauna if it's an earth-like environment: the fauna shapes the environment. In the same token, would you rather have a knife or a laser pistol that runs on Duracells?
A laser pistol that runs on solar power. And a knife.
Personally I thought it was weird that the colonists copied the old west in detail, including weapon design, outfits, and entourage. I was relieved to see a whorehouse covered in solar cells in one episode.
All that said, I think it is silly to critisize an SF premise, whatever it is. It's a premise. As long as the authors do not deviate from it, you should accept it.
> The series seemed to confuse the NeuroTypicals ... ... ...
;)
>out there.
>It just went right over his head.
>so obviously the great number of boobs who would
>fall for "Joe Millionaire" and other Fox Reality
>shows just weren't smart enough to get Joss
>Whedan.
>And thus we're stuck watching the idiocy they CAN
>understand.
But how do you really feel?
An easy to maintain car is far more reliable than a horse. There's a million things that can go wrong with a biological organism that you can't hope to fix.
But with a simple car, and a fair bit of nohow, you could run that thing reliably for years.
Now one thing that horses do that cars don't is reproduce....
I love Joss Whedon's shows. I have seen every Buffy and Angel episode, as well as Firefly before it got scrapped... this movie is someting I have been hoping for for a while, so when I found out it was going to be a reality, I was ecstatic to say the least.
:)
But now misgivings are starting to creep into my idle mind... is it just me, or does ANY movie with one of the Baldwins in it suddenly become B material at best? I certainly hope it doesnt happen with this one.
But take a look around the local video store, and see how many truely bad B movies that ALL of the Baldwin brothers star in... they are like Hollywood whores... anything for a buck.
Heh... maybe the Canadians will bomb them
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
yahoo has movie times?
Not Free SF Reader
Cars don't have a built in self-repair mechanism either.
Yeah, but you can't take two cars, a bottle of wine and candles and make a whole load of minis from them...
Firefly movie? A movie based on another Mozilla Fire* browser rename?
Serenity Now!
90% Professional Slacker
WHY did they need to rip away that girl's ability to shield herself emotionally? What purpose did that serve?
Well it was because they were trying to experiement on an idea to create psychics, and she (Summer) was the guinea pig. By not being able to shield emotions, she would feel everything, including things that WOULD happen.
from imbd;
Biography for
Adam Baldwin
Height
6' 4" (1.93 m)
Trivia
No relation to the Baldwin brothers.
And actually he is a very funny aspect of the
series.
Cars are only useful where there are roads.
Horses can navigate a FAR greater range of terrain than any wheeled vehicle.
And a pair of horses can produce more horses.
As for the technology divide in the show, I think it's right on. We have places on this planet where people ride from village to village with a satellite phone and make money allowing others to make calls.
- Jasen.
This link is personalized for an affiliate to track the amount of visits from Slashdot to the firefly site. The link submitter is most likely profitting from our traffic.
Err... So?
Of course, it will work perfectly well with IE because IE does not honor the Content-Type header as it must according to the HTTP RFC and instead sniffs the content out and renders according to its findings. The RFC permits that if and only if the Content-Type header is omitted; any other situation it must not do it. IE treats "text/plain" as the empty string (i.e. IE doesn't know what "if and only if" means).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
That's exactly what I was meaning.
It's great that each character had such depth. And Book being a secret agent or something,
There were hints there, but unless he was from some 5th column in the corp trying to protect the doc & sister, then why would a spy hang around with this lot ?
There's only one thing that makes the crew / ship 'too small time' to be bothered with.
They're also hard SF set on a small spacecraft with crews that walk the edges of legality (on Beebop, the near edge, on Firefly, the far edge). Not only gritty, they're both quite dark in a pessimistic sort of way (though Beebop is DARK, and Firefly is only Buffy-dark). They have a number of similarities in tone, though there're pretty marked differences as well. I'd certainly consider them closer to one another than either is to e.g. *Pitch Black* or *Alien*.
Can you tell I've been working on data structures in C lately?
Oh! Harder! malloc() me harder!