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First Clip from Firefly Movie to be Shown at Comic-Con
Snaller writes "It's almost a tradition. At Comic-Con a few years back, Joss Whedon showed a stunned audience the first clip from Serenity, the pilot for his new show Firefly. Although the movie isn't due to open until April 22nd next year, Whedon is ready to show the first clip from from Serenity, the motion picture based on the Firefly series. He'll do it this weekend at Comic-Con, also present will be the cast from the series/movie (all 9 actors), editor Lisa Lassek, special effects guru Loni Peristere and producer Chris Buchanan.
It will take place on Sunday July 25th, 1-2pm, Room 20, afterwards there will be a signing session in room 28DE.
This was reported on what used to be the official Fox board, by the user 'AffableChap' which has previously been confirmed to be Chris Buchanan."
Lets wait for something to happen three times before declaring it a part of our regular cultural fabric, eh?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.
..um, it's perhaps terribly ignorant and un-geeky, but what's a "Firefly Movie"?
Please oh please, not a bunch of kids on a mission to save earth (or something like that)
http://efil.blogspot.com/
I loved the series and I can't wait to see this. No doubt Joss will give us something that leaves us begging for more.
Meanwhile, a hint about my thoughts on Fox...
: We shall rule over all this show, and we shall call it... this show.
: I think we should call it your grave!
: Argh, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
: Raaaaaaaarghhhhhhh!
: Raaaaaaaarghhhhhhh!
(Apologies to Joss Whedon).
isn't Joss a girls name?
Jayne's a girls name
I'm having mixed feelings about the prospect of a full-blown Firefly movie. One side of me is skipping and jumping with joy, but my more skeptical side is wary of several things, even though I've learned to trust God^H^H^HJoss Whedon implicitly.
The original two-part pilot for Firefly was about the length of a full feature film, and yet it only introduced the characters, the universe and some of the backstory. The movie will have to do the introductions all over again, since I'm thinking they'll try to lure in more than just the fans of the TV series. How is the movie going to relate to the aired episodes? Is it a complete retelling? How much time will there be to tell a decent story that would satisfy an already-converted Firefly fan? Or how big a priority is that, anyway?
Maybe the film SHOULD be directed at the average moviegoer at the cost of mildly displeased fans. I mean, if the ultimate goal is to draw crowds large enough for the network to bring back the series (is it?), then maybe the hardcore fans should accept a "lesser" film than they'd hoped for, in the interest of this goal.
It remains to be seen how many compromises Whedon ends up making to cater to both interests: fans AND average moviegoers, many of whom may not have any prior contact to Firefly. I'm just afraid that the end result will be a film that tries to cater to so many various tastes and expectations that it ends up pleasing nobody.
I have no doubts that the movie will be entertaining and a pleasure to watch, at some level - it's just that I'm afraid I'll have to pretend the series never existed to feel that way.
Well, Whedon usually manages to surprise me positively, so in any case I remain carefully optimistic.
To be fair, the remake of Battlestar Galactica was pretty good. There were a couple of good story points compared to the original one like the lost colony not existing, betrayals. On the other hand Starbuck shouldn't be a woman. He's a womanizer, not a woman!
A space cowboy and a space priest walk into a bar...
...never mind.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
To many, Firefly actually confirmed that he could produce good TV outside of the "Buffy-verse". As with most Whedon productions, it included a mix of great characters, good interplay between them, and a polished mix of drama and comedy. He often seems to inspire love-him-or-hate-him reactions, but has declared in the past that he would rather produce something loved by 1,000 fans than liked by 1,000,000 (or something to that effect).
Firefly lacks some of the usual cliches in Sci-Fi (aliens, time-travel, etc) and I personally prefer it to most of the other stuff being produced. But each to his own I guess!
Wow. That sounds utterly rediculous, as you paint it. You reminded me of some of the cheesy anime films that get put on cartoon network (IMO).
But then, you kind of just described Star Wars, too. So it's all a matter of perspective. Not having seen the show, I can't comment directly.
I'm all for a good scifi film, though. Good scifi is too few and far between.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The movie is supposed to take place about 6 months after the series ended, and centers on a reaver attack on a planet, and a very very efficient alliance agent tracking down the doctor and his sister.
And it is indeed meant to be seen by everybody. That's the reason its going to be called "Serenity" and not Firefly. Universal felt that it wouldn't be good for business if people thought "oh its a movie based on a tv series i never saw, i probably won't know whats going on". So there apparently there won't be any references to the series.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I wonder if hollywood will ever wake up to the fact that sub-cultures and small fanbases can have nearly the same income potential as the large dis-intrested masses.
I for one am a HUGE firefly fan...i was skeptical of the show at first..western in space, BAH...
but after watching the show i was instantly hooked...the subtle char interactions and the real depth they are given makes for an incredible watch.
Wich brings me to my point...i love this show so much i would...no question...pay 150$ a year for a dvd set with the entire season on it, and I dont think i'm the only one out there that feels this way. I have no problem paying for somthing i enjoy...
Producing a high quality show like firefly and bringin it straight to dvd would definetly be risky...but i really belive it could pay off in the long run..based on the sales of the 1st season compilation we are talking multi millions in revenue.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
...present will be the cast from the series/movie (all 9 actors), editor Lisa Lassek, special effects guru Loni Peristere and producer Chris Buchanan. It will take place on Sunday July 25th, 1-2pm, Room 20, afterwards there will be a public lynching of the Fox executives who cancelled the show. Book your tickets early as this one's going to be a sell out.
This show was cancelled for a reason,
;)
The reason being that fox is run by a bunch of incompetent wankers.
it just wasn't good. In fact many people think its terrible.
No, not many people. Very few people actually. Its like Lord of the Rings: 99% of the people who actually watch it (try the DVD's and watch it in order) they love it. But for some reason, the tiny minority who does not like it aren't satisfied with simply accepting that tastes differ, but they have to vocally try and put it down every chance they get.
Weird that.
It'll be totally bad when Whedon gets his first Oscar
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'm sure this is going to make me unpopular, but here goes...
As much as I liked Firefly (and I liked it a lot) in almost every episode I watched I kept on thinking, "if Whedon wanted to do a Western, why did he set it in space"? I assume that it was to do with selling it to the studios, who wouldn't have bought a new "Wagon Train" or "Rawhide".
But really every plot could have been done just as easily in the 1870s rather than the 2700s (or whenever it was meant to be). The psychic girl could just as easily have been a mystic rather than surgically enhanced, most of the other characters (the preacher, the prostitute, the hard-bitten veteran) would be basically the same. Most of the plots would be exactly the same (e.g. the train robbery).
I think it would have been even better to just do a Western-set "historical" series (with fantasy elements) rather than shoehorn things into a far-future, science fictional setting. But probably the networks aren't buying Westerns any more (though there was that TV version of The Magnificent Seven a while back).
-- Nothing unusual happened today
> A space cowboy, a space priest, etc all in a very unrealistic setting
So... Which SF shows do you think have realistic settings?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
WOO HOO!
I have been going through the DVDs and at the end of each episode I think to myself "Damn you Fox! This is one of the best series I have seen in a long long time and ranks right up there with Band of Brothers in terms of TV quality. How could you have screwed this up?"
By looking at the air dates of the episodes and seeing how everything was played on TV out of order (it's a linear series, it's not a good idea to play a series that was written in order all jumbled up) I can understand how a whole lot of people would have just given up on in.
But thank goodness for the DVDs and if this movie is as good as the series I will be very excited come next spring.
I loved the series and I must say that any science fiction that respects the "no sound in space" rule gets additional kudos in my book.
(That would be SiChemist's Big Book O' Kudos for the curious.)
God is imaginary
Ok, I may get flamed into oblivion for this, but I'm genuinely curious, so:
What's the big draw of Firefly? I loved Buffy and Angel, but I just don't see why so many people seem so taken with Firefly. I saw all the eps that aired on TV and it just seems mediocre to me. Is it that I'm not a big western fan?
You mean like the hyper-realistic Star Trek $FLAVOR_OF_THE_DECADE? Maybe Farscape? Anything involving a Spaceship, aliens, languages that stopped evolving? Teleporters? Touch screen interfaces that never have fingerprints on them?
It's sci-fi, not a documentary. And while there are some minor plot elements that I still question (even as a huge fan of the show) overall Joss does a much better job of a painting a future universe than most ever have.
It seems that you haven't even watched the show. They aren't just "flying around in space", they are taking whatever job they can just so that they can continue to fly!
They make it painfully obvious that it IS expensive to run the ship, and that most of the time they are just scraping by. In fact in the pilot, they can't afford a replacement for a critical part, and it come back to haunt them further in the season. They are excited when the preacher has fresh vedgetables and spices. Because they generally eat crap.
Try actually watching the show, before criticizing. I looks like all the knowledge you gathered about the show came from a 30 second commerical you might have seen a few years ago.
It got cancelled after 1 complete season because Fox insisted on showing the episodes out of order in a timeslot that many other shows had already died in.
Since it hit DVD, it stuck at Amazon's number-1 slot (a pretty spectacular accomplishment in itself) and is perhaps one of the alltime best selling DVDs.
Seriously, go grab the first couple of episodes off a p2p network and if you like them buy the DVDs. The stories are entertaining and often insightful, the photography is excellent and the CGI is probably the best I've ever seen - you really do forget that the CGI scenes aren't real. (The CGI is all rendered as if it's shot with a handheld video camera, which fits in perfectly with the rest of the filming which is all done on handheld cameras - it really does make you feel like the camera man is right in the middle of real action.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Unlike Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Whedon use some obviously unrealistic settings in order to tell some very realistic stories about being human. Unlike almost all other TV which use some apparently realistic settings to tell very unrealistic stories about humans.
Firefly had the markings of a show that could have been great, had it not been for the interference from the network and the premature death.
I'll do my best to answer all of your well thought out questions
" That critical part wouldn't happen to be the engine, would it?"No. It would be the compression coil. Or catalyzer.I most certainly would understand if Mal said no to Kaylee asking for a new engine.
"You know, the roughly cylindrical device that looks like a giant turd wrapped in tinfoil and then squashed slightly?"I'm pretty familiar with how the engine looks in the show, but no. It's not the engine
"A tinfoil-covered turd that just spins slowly, like it's roasting on a spit? I suppose that's there to turn the propeller."Likely to turn the propeller, but no, it's not the enigne. Nice try though!
"The engine that they stretch an entire episode around, where they treat it like it's some redneck's V8 in his 22 yr old Firebird..."Teehee Firebird, Firefly! Nice!
"complete with airhead slut (who becomes the mechanic? Engineer? Scotty was an engineer, she's a monkey with a wrench.)."Well, I don't think any engine is complete without an airhead slut. After all, someone has to sit there and turn the handle to make the tin foil covered slow roasting turd spin the propeller. But in fact, this particular engine originally shipped with a surfer boy, who was later upgraded to an airhead slut. Not a bad upgrade I think.
"Josh Whedon's "great" space western is one part really bad scifi, one part bad western, with a pinch of bad acting."Don't forget a dash drama! Oh by the way Commander Troll, it's Joss, not Josh.
Its this kind of elitism that makes people wonder why theres so much shitty sci-fi out there
As compared to your obnoxious arrogance?
Sci-fi is popular and everywhere.
You're delusional. In terms of movie and book sales, scifi/fantasy comprise a very small portion of the total amount. Reason? *Most people don't care for scifi or fantasy*.
But once again you think your personal opinion is actual fact, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
In other words, glass housing is relative and you're setting yourself up for a fall defending some show, especially when TV entertainment is so very subjective.
And yet you have no problem screaming "Firefly sucks!" every chance you get. So which is it? Moron or hypocrite? Or both?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
as a response to many of the salient points raised in the smashing of this show I'd like to offer some arguments. Some have probably been mentioned in other posts, but these are mine and my reasoning alone
1. Western in space - anytime anyone sees the low slung pistol belt and horses, the comparison to a western will be made. Simply put, the same problems and attitudes with which the American frontier was settled, would translate into any "push in the bush". Tech level would drop to a point where it could be maintained on a local level, with various exceptions based on money/power. Sci-Fi references to this situation abound..."Ringworld" "Time enough for Love"
2. Incoherent story line - Fox producers didn't think that the original pilot had enough draw power to snag the target demographic so Joss and crew had to gin up the train job episode. Maybe a smarter move would have been to show the pilot as a movie first, but we'll never know. Also directly related to this , IMHO, is the fact they put the show in a timeslot that pretty much guaranteed that the demographic that the show would appeal to (intelligent non-teenagers under 50) would be unlikely to see, mostly because those folks usually aren't watching TV on a Friday night! Sunday's would have been better, ferchrissake!
3. Characters are one-dimensional. That's opinion, but I think that, just like in life, it takes time to really know a character, and just when you think you got them down, boom, here comes the curve ball. Mal's character went through the most changes, again IMHO, from reserved and sullen, to a likable, loyal rogue. River's tragic character didn't have time to properly develop and we only got hints at it, primarily from the last (in series not televised) episode. She went from pitiful and weak to downright scary powerful and it would have been interesting to see how the others in the group reacted to this new wrinkle. The preacher Book had a past obviously, ripe for exploration. Kayleigh's savant like talent for machinery and obvious need for acceptance was fully grounded in reality. Zoe could have been a great role model, loving and tender one minute, strong smart and able to kick @$$ the next. Jayne's full-on mercenary character is rooted in today's society(willing to sell out anyone to make a buck...remind you of the Fox network?). Simon and Wash's characters didn't have enough time to truly develop, but I suspect Wash was Joss's way of putting the viewer into the mix, plus the fact that he was the archtypical classclown of the group. The supporting characters and long story threads we re interesting to me. It showed that the writers were willing to invest as much time as the viewers. Niska and Saffron were different sides of the same coin and most of us "know" these characters in our lives. Add the ever present Alliance, with the Blue Sun corporation over sight, with the majoirty of the population going along with it as long as they get entertained, food on time, and creature comforts at the expense of freedom and a misguided sense of safety, and you've got an analogy to every powerful society ever concieved by man.
4. The comparisons to every other Sci-Fi space opera franchise ever. This isn't another iteration of Star Trek. Not knocking ST, but it did get preachy at times. Not star Wars, with it's convoluted sense of self. Farscape, interesting, but they kinda lost me early with the muppet character and the Alien for the sake of Alien tone. This was the story of humanity reaching the stars and bending them to it's will, for good or bad. That's what we do, we bend the environment around us to suit us. So it's only logical that we continue this practice into the future, not the "Prime Directive", which ignores the viral aspect of human behavior. This show takes the stance that man is his own worst enemy. And that, my friends, is damn interesting TV, much easier and more interesting than the "alien invader" scenario.
In closing, Firefly could have been the flagship series for Fo
>Cowboys doesn't seem quite right -- more kind of bandits.
Hmmm...Sidearms modeled after long-barreled cap and ball Smith and Wesson revolvers, worn low on the hip in gunslinger rigs, at least one episode where people are riding horses and wearing dusters and cowboy hats, they actually haul cows as cargo, and so on. Since I own horses and ride a lot, I don't see any of this as a bad thing. The Firefly universe is a bit seedy, but it works. You not only get westerns, but a bit of Dickens thrown in as well.As parent notes, the characters worked. The Ron Glass character was developing nicely, as was the very messed up River. And, I would be happy to sit for hours and watch Jewel Staite do anything, anything at all. Seriously too bad the show got cancelled. It had some real potential.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I'm not quite sure where to start with this. How about just a quick list of the many things you've got wrong. ONE - I never said that Vera was any kind of Glock. However, for the people (like you) who don't know how firearms work, this was an example illustrating the fact that firearms don't require environmental oxygen to work. TWO - Virtually no firearms today need to have an explosive charge. Gunpowder is not an explosive. It is, IIRC, a class B flammable solid, meaning that it supplies its own oxygen and will burn very fast even without environmental oxygen. In doing so, it releases large quantities of gas that propel the bullet. There is NO explosion. THREE - What makes me think that Vera wouldn't need air is that Vera is clearly an AR-pattern semi-auto rifle. Those don't need air today and it just strikes me as supremely wrong that a space-faring race would adopt technology more backward that wouldn't work in space if they didn't have to.
I could go on, but I hope I don't have to.
Despite all the deep thinking going on around here about cultural and philosophical stuff, the notion that multiple levels of technology can exist side-by-side where they are appropriate is the reason I thought the old west settings were being used. IOW, the outlying planets look like the old west because that's the level of technology they can self-sustain, given the way they're so poorly connected to the central planets. So if Vera looks like a given level of technology, why would that technology have undergone such a regressive evolution as to require environmental oxygen to function? It just makes no sense.
I for one will go see the movie.
Recently a friend loaned me the DVD set, so I got to watch them all in a row in the correct order.
Due to the time slot, I only saw one or two episodes on TV.
Sure there are problems with the show (later episodes gathered more and more) but I was genuinely entertained by it.
Plus, you gotta think that any show placed in the far distant future that shows Windows XP as the operating system running a dumpster is pretty cool.
[The "steal the laser" episode where Sapharron makes her second appearance. The dumpster they highjack to get the loot has windows on it's screen.]
Average Customer Review on amazon.com: ***** (5 stars out of 5) Based on 1054 reviews
"They've canceled the show but we're still here. What does that make us?" "Big Damn Junkies, Sir!" "Ain't we just"
You have the technology to go faster than light. You have the energy to take a ship out of a damn deep gravity well w/o sweating and you don't have the technology to breed cattle from embryos and you have to ship it around in a spaceship which is full of forementioned technology.
We have the technology to go faster than sound, we have the energy to take a ship out of the damn deep gravity well, we have the technology to breed cattle from frozen embryos.
Doesn't mean everyone has the budget for it.
Have you ever been faster than sound? Or out of the gravity well? Why not? You have the technology don't you?
You know that right now, on this planet, there are people eating genetically altered foods grown hydroponically while working on the latest fusion rector designs, while somewhere else, on this very planet, someone is planting rice, by hand, and worrying about the health of the family donkey? A donkey they need to get their rice to the market! What will they do if the donkey dies? Use a fusion reactor to move their rice from their crappy hand-built hovel to the market?
Similarly, you have a ship which can go in space but your "cowboy mates" still sit in 1850s kitchen to have their lunch.
It just doesn't work.
Yes, because, as soon as you invent FTL travel, you have no more need for a gorram kichen table.
Look at us now, its the 21st century, we have telecommunications satellites and doors that open by themselves when you walk up to them. No one, no where, uses wooden tables anymore!
Personal anecdote:
I once took a jet plane to mexico, from the airport I rode in an air conditioned pick-up to a comfy solar-powered fith-wheel trailer in a camp ground. There, I watched as vacheros (mexican cow boys) on horses hurded their cows to the nearby village.
According to your logic, this is impossible. If we have the technology for jet propulsion airplanes, therefore everyone on the planet is rich enough to afford all the latest technology and will therefore never EVER again ride on a horse (a self-replicating, self-refulling, edible, semi-autonomous all terrain vehicle) to herd cows (self replicating food sources that can be used as farm equipment AND that fertilises the very soil it uses to feed itself). As soon as a commercial spaceship goes on sale, WHAM, all of humanity stops herding cows.
I mean, as soon as someone invents something high-tech, humanity as a whole has no more use for its low-tech predecessors. Right?
And right now, as throughout all of history, some people live in high-tech luxury, while others have to run barefoot for hours to find barely-drinkable water. They think a fat insect is a feast. They struggle to scratch a living off the dry dirt they had the misfortune be born on, or were displaced to forcibly by well-armed thugs. This is reality: People are poor, people are uneducated, dirty, desperate, while others are rich, educated, comfortable and well fed. Any other setting is unrealistic. Having very rich people in one place and very poor people in another, THAT is realistic.
You can't take the sky from me...
And for those of you that are going to the SF Worldcon in Boston, there are two "Firefly" shows on the ballot for best dramatic work, short form. Rather than have them knock each other out of the voting, I'd like to see everyone concentrate their votes on "The Message," so that Joss can get the Hugo he should have gotten years ago for "Buffy." The other nominated episode, "Heart of Gold," wasn't written by Joss, and I don't think it's as good.
Also, in answer to the question "why set it in space?" Alan Tudyk answered that in a recent interview on NPR. Tudyk was being interviewed because he plays the robot in "I, Robot," and the interviewer (obviously a fellow sf fan) asked the question about "Firefly." According to Tudyk, it's a plot point. The cheapeast way to settle newly terraformed planets is to land some people on them with tools and horses, and leave them to their own devices. It also effectively gives the Blue Sun Corporation, which is paying for the terraforming and the transport of settlers, indentured serfs who are totally at their mercy.
dionwr (dee-uh-NOOR; it's Welsh)
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.
B5 was better because it got to tell its entire story and spawned two spin-off series (admittedly one only went one episode). SG1 is better because it's on what, season 7 now (?), plus it has a spin-off of its own. Firefly was off to a glorious start, and was cut down in its youth by rapacious suits who judge the quality of TV by demographics and ratings, not by production quality or artistic merit. I have no problem putting Joss Whedon up there with JMStraczinsky or the guy who created SG1 (can't remember his name!) as excellent storytellers. But "THE new voice"? Whedon was around for years before Firefly!
I just hope the movie (or movies) does well enough to give Firefly a second chance as a series.
-=+>txtracer<+=-
-Those who do not learn from history are doomed.
It also effectively gives the Blue Sun Corporation, which is paying for the terraforming and the transport of settlers, indentured serfs who are totally at their mercy.
Blue Sun Corp is probably also the people behind the government school that fucked up River's brain. Some of her "acting out" is against stuff with the Blue Sun emblem. The food cans that she peeled labels off of, for example. Jayne was wearing a Blue Sun t-shirt when she attacked him.
And of course, there's the blue hands men...