Slashdot Mirror
Serenity Pushed Back to September
iontyre writes "According to Joss Whedon and reported at fireflymovie.com the much anticipated feature film adaptation of the superb but canceled tv show Firefly has been delayed till September from its original April release to supposedly avoid too much genre competition."
...Firefly is really superb. Its a shame they are delaying its premier. Maybe people can argue that, but not that it's unique in its own kind. I really loved the western feeling, although it only lived 14 episodes :\ I wish they would have supported it instead of those brainless reality shows, etc.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
so what else is supposed to pop up in april that would cause such a ruckus?
You DO realize that no matter how badly Episode III sucks, it's still going to garner a massive box office take, right?
more than help. A good title is everything. Serenity is not a good title for a movie. What is their target audience? I don't care how good it may or may not be, people are going to see the title Serenity on the movie listings and go, "huh? I don't want to see that, lets go see something else".
Its not fair but its fact.
I like how your signature mocks the lack of individualism in the world, while the text of your post clings to the majority opinion.
No, it just means that they don't want to put what is currently a cult favorite against the marketing giant known as Star Wars. Remember, most people have never heard of Firefly, and when put against a major film release, it could easily be lost in the marketing blitz (although I personnally do not care if I ever see Episode III).
It is much better to give Serenity the best chance of exposure. People who never watched the show will not realize how truly great it is. Most people would probably rather watch Star Wars being a known commodity than take a chance with something new and strange.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
No, it doesn't, necessarily. In this case, it's recognition that while you may have a good movie, it's based on a niche market that you hope to expand (in this case, fans of Firefly, who weren't significant enough to keep a TV show from being cancelled.) You move bad movies to October/November, or February/March.
Releasing two weeks before a movie that's bound to do $300 million domestic and appeals to the same broad demographic is bad. What's worse is the inevitable media coverage and advertising flood that will accompany Episode III, and that will be peaking right at the time you are trying to convince people to see your movie.
Your logic only follows if the measure of a piece of art is entirely based on its popularity during a specified timeframe. There are plenty of examples, across mediums and throughout history, in which works have been ill-received initially, or by certain groups of people. This does not indicated that they are any "less good". Additionally, the unique nature of Firefly probably guarantees that it will take time to be accepted by the general populace. As geeks, we tend to thing of the majority as fairly ill-opinionated and ill-informed (and that's putting our general consensus nicely). Given time and exposure, I guarantee that a lot of people will come to like Firefly and its derivative works. Just look at all the posts by people saying "My friends made me watch it. At first I thought it was kinda dumb/weird/not what I'm into, but after becoming addicted I can say this is a great show!". So I think it's a little premature to say the show isn't superb. It just didn't generate superb Nielsens. DISCLAIMER: I think Firefly is f'ing awesome.
If was superb it would not have been cancelled, and the studio would be only to happy to milk it for revenue.
Superb != Popular. The problem is that the networks need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. In the U.S., the majority of the television watching populace is not interested in a program that makes them think, hence the popularity of shows like Fear Factor and Oprah.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
If was superb it would not have been cancelled
No, it was cancelled because Fox doesn't want another 800 pound gorrilla like the X-Files and the Simpsons. They want to keep a steady churn of new shows that will capture interest for a season or two. Then, before they become too entrenched with popularity and the actors/producers start looking for more money they can dump the show and put the next-new-thing on in it's place.
They know people will complain about the show being cancelled, but that they will also tune in to the new show just as eagerly as the old one.
They can't dump the Simpsons because that is the cornerstone of their image, but they would dump it in a heartbeat if they could.
-----
Pretty Bad Privacy (PBP) Public Key
6
I wouldn't use that word to describe Firefly. I thought it was mediocre, and somewhat forced. The space western aspect was a little over the top, clearly the result of some TV exec saying, "I know, let's mix genres and we'll have something new and fresh!" It was better than any sci-fi on TV at that time, except farscape, but that doesn't make it "superb".
If was superb it would not have been cancelled
Yeah, because the Execs at FOX have NEVER blown a call on a tv series. Please! FOX has a rep in the industry for making bad calls about their shows. The show, 'Family Guy' was killed after about 3 seasons and then went on to be a massive hit on DVD. (I have heard that it is being considered to be picked up by cartoon network as a new series.)
It was cancelled because the majority of people did not think it was superb.
It was cancelled because nobody knew anything about it. It was repeatedly moved to differing timeslots (This is VERY bad for a shows ratings, in general), and they didn't even show the episodes in order. I'm not even sure that they aired the pilot episode that sets the whole story. (You can go read all the gory details about how it was mis-handeled on most firefly sites.)
so its probably pretty poor in the eys of most people.
No matter how good a show is, unless you properly support and market it, it will die. Everyone I have loaned my DVD to LOVED it, including people who aren't sci-fi fans. This isn't a case of the masses not liking something. This is a case of some stupid Fox execs that blew a call (Yet again).
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
*eyes troll*
*bites*
Aside from your remarkable counting ability, your desire to hide behind the shield of AC, and your obvious trollishness, I'll respond.
For people who grew up watching Star Trek, and then saw it utterly ruined after Gene died; for people who see modern television shows and gag in disgust; for anyone who lives the western or scifi in general...Firefly is for you. It was comical, serious, witty, thought provoking by turns. Its not the second coming or anything, but its a darn sight better than any other television scifi I can remember seeing in recent years. And despite diving in with multiple deep story arc possibilities, Fox did its usual* and killed it with crappy timeslots and mixing the episode order up.
You don't like it, thats your opinion. I don't get whats with you adolescents who feel the need to snipe at anyone and everyone who expresses an opinion about something simply to harass them.
*- Fox cannot let a good, innnovative show live unless it is the Simpsons, pretty much. Malcom in the Middle is trying hard to be added to that list IMO.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Ahh... but majority does not rule in TV land, unless you are talking about majority of money.
For example... Firefly was pulling in the same viewership or more as other shows that were not cancelled at the time. The reason it got axed... because it had much higher production costs then the reality TV shows that lasted.
Remember... $50k/week on fear factor is nothing compared to paying actors and writers in NBCs mind. Fox has caught on to this fact even more and has taken drops in ratings in order to save money in production costs and hence make more money.
So for this reason... good shows with good (sometimes even extraordinary ratings) get let go and we are left with reality TV drivel
Firefly was also placed in nasty timeslots to compete for viewership in that genre...
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
And it's NOT Sci-fi. It's set in a sci-fi environment yes, but the show itself is not sci-fi themed. (ie, there's no alien-of-the-week-kinda-crap going on..)
That is the stupidest thing I have ever read.
"Hey, guess what, none of Isaac Asimov's books were sci-fi! They didn't rely on the freak-of-the-week formu..."
Sigh...
Here's the thing: If you have people in a spaceship trying to escape the futur's extra-solar military dictatorship... there's a good chance it is in the realm of SCIENCE FICTION. They have terraformed alien worlds, flying cars, laser pistols, human organ trafficking, psychics, faster-than-light travel, etc.
You can't take the sky from me...
"faster-than-light travel"
No they don't. The Firefly universe is set in a single habitable/teraformable-body-rich system, colonized (pretty recently) by a seeder ship. Not that I dispute your point, but it goes to show how little emphesis it puts on the universe it's set in next to the characters who are in it.
I find it amusing that Firefly gets a lot of flack for its western-in-space style, when the likes of Star Trek has a far more laughable and shallow portrayal of humanity and space in general. Glass houses...
I bought the series and rewatched it in the Directory's intended order. Before I thought the series was great, but rewatching it in proper order made it awesome. Fox should be ashamed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Man how bad does your movie have to suck if you are scared of the next Star Wars?
None at all.
They aren't affraid of the next Star Wars, they are affraid of the next Star War's marketing, which you'll admit is a formidable beast the likes of which none of us would be happy to be pitted against.
ph34r the marketing! PH34R IT! : )
You can't take the sky from me...
Remember how Family Guy was really funny? And how Fox, assclowns that they are, cancelled it (seems they like cancelling good shows that begin with 'F'---producers take note), but DVD sales were so unignorably good that Fox was convinced to start the series back up again?
They're not going to do that with Firefly. No matter how successful the movie is. If it makes a ton---a ton---of money, we'll get a sequel. Maybe. But the story was meant to be told episodically, minor threads weaving subtly until they burst to the forefront. You can't do that in a movie; there's just not enough time. (See: Babylon 5.)
This whole mess just depresses me so. Damn you, Fox.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I love it when people can't distinguish between "it sucks" and "I didn't like it". Or, as is more often the case, "I didn't understand it".
hinderfreude ('hin-dur-"froi-d&), n. The feeling of joy derived from being in the way.
They don't show any faster-than-light travel, but possibly that's just because it's boring.
I think they did, but they didn't use the Star Trek "stars wooshing in the background" effect. There's quite a few shots of Serenity in deep space, going from one world to another.
But we know absolutly nothing about its propuslsion systems, so its all conjecture for us!
You can't take the sky from me...
Also, there is some interesting stuff on guerilla marketing. One of the best (and easiest) idea is to write "Firefly: Keep on Flying" on your dollar bills. People will inherently wonder what it's all about. Those saavy enough will plug it into Google and *bam*.
I would have loved to watch Whedon try and pitch this to the studios.
It would hardly be the most difficult pitch Whedon has had to make. Anyone who can start with the utter crap "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie, convince network execs to make a TV series out of it, and then have the show go on to be a wild success must be doing something right. At least with Firefly there is a small but devoted fan base, and DVD sales that greatly surpassed expectations.
The first two episodes sucked
The first two episodes where shown out of order. No wonder they didn't make any sense.
But they still didn't suck. I admit, I wasn't completely taken with the show until the wondeful scene in which Mal gives the head henchman a chance to let bygones be bygones. He does the usual blustering ``I'll hunt you down across the galaxy'', and Mal's response is so amazingly uncliched I was an instant convert.
And it only got better....
As for making sense, well, I guess I'm used to reading books where you're tossed into the middle of a situation you're unfamiliar with -- characters with motivations that aren't obvious, a world that doesn't work quite the way you're used to, unfamiliar technologies, and so on. You just have to open up and absorb until it all starts to come together.
Yup. Banks, Powers, Dickens... Good stuff.
Including selling his movies on DVD and NOT selling his movies on DVD.
As far as Firefly goes, pushing a movie from srpingtime to the Dead Zone of late September is almost NEVER a good thing.
Unless the movie is so good that it dominates all of the other weak releases that will be dumped into that part of the year.
Personally I don't understand the logic behind releasing a theatrical feature for a tc series that was cancelled after one season. Good or not, it didn't exactly have a chance to build a huge following beyond it's niche.
Back in my day a tv series had to play succesfully in re-runs all over the world for several years, and spawn a huge fanbase before it warranted getting it's own theaterical release.
I think a mini-series or a several tv movies would have been a better idea instead.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.