Slashdot Mirror
Serenity Trailer Finally Released
ShinyHat writes "Browncoats Rejoice! The trailer for Joss Whedon's Serenity, based on his unjustly cancelled Firefly television series, was released on the QuickTime Movie Trailers page. Thanks to its new September 30th release date it won't be completely overshadowed by Star Wars. Talk is, if the movie does well enough, Universal will pick it up for a second and third installment." (As promised.)
My girlfriend has been "geeking out" (her words, not mine) over the new website all day. She's even more excited about this than I am.
;)
Note to self: she's a keeper
I'm sitting on mine
...is here!
NOW!
:)
SERENITY NOW!
Finally
Serenity now!!!
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
I watched the show when it was on the air but was not that into it. But hey it was scifi on TV and the only other scifi worthy of watching was Farscape/.
I recently rented the whole series via netflix and enjoyed it even more the 2nd time around...
Looks good. I'll definately buy a ticket.
so does someone want to help me watch this on my linux laptop? usually i have had good luck with viewing the source and finding a link to the actually .mov file and using wget to download it and then playing it in mplayer.. but that doesn't seem to give me anything of value...
thanks
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity/ serenity_m480.mov
That trailer makes the Star Wars III trailer look like a stupid cartoon.
I'm so jacked up to see this, I'll probably skip "Revenge of the Sith" entirely and see "Serenity" one extra time with the eight bucks I save!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
ohhh finally, Serenity has come, Serenity has come. Ohhhhhh finally, Serenity has come, and a kingdom come!
Fullscreen Version (640x480)
"Unjust" is a subjective term. I'm a fan of a just society as most folks are, and so interested to understand the depth of injustice suffered by the group putting on the show.
But a botched delivery by the powers that be of a new series, leading to low ratings is not unjust. It is just a screwup it would seem.
When the new McFish Griddle Whopper flops because of poor marketing, is that also unjust to the McFish Griddle Whopper researcher? Seems like a stretch.
Just my 2 cents.
I might be wrong, but looks kinda cheesy, like one of those "Direct to Video" releases. Plus... A damsel in distress, and empire in pursuit. Where's the robot with "Help me, *static*! You're my only hope!". Knowle Rohrer. "This is going to be interesting" in trailer. Waaaahh... *runs away*
Hyperom.com
Why is there suddenly sounds in space?!?
OP Said:
"Firefly sucked, plain and simple.
Don't get your sci-fi-geek panties in a bunch, folks... Things don't get canceled because they're 'too good for TV', ok?"
Oh bullshit. Firefly was on FOX.
Does a little show by the name of "Family Guy" ring any bells?
huh huh huh huh huh - hyperventilates.
Good thing I have the series on DVD to hold me until the movie. I didn't see Shepard Book in the preview. I hope we learn more of his back story.
Philosophy.
it sounds like I should poke around the site more, but I was actually disappointed with the trailer. It basically made it look like another space action movie, with none of the unique characters or plotting or effects or [embarrassing Joss Whedon lust here] that made Firefly stand out so much. I have my fingers crossed that it's just marketing (or that I'm just in a crotchety mood), and the actual movie will be consistent with the show.
... maybe if Serenity works out they should release that episode as "Serenity: Episode 1".
In the meantime, I for one would gladly buy a movie ticket just to see the original double-length episode of Firefly in a theater
The music at the beginning of the trailer is Kasabian's song "Club Foot" --- and yes, the movie looks hot. Although the young-girl-fighting-people-using-Buffy-techniques- thing was a bit odd. Another downside: I have no idea what the movie is about. Although that could be good too.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Get the actual video file for the large version of the trailer.
I'll be in my bunk...
I'll grant that "unjust" isn't really the right word, but I'm having trouble coming up with a single adjective to "canceled" that explains to the uninformed that Firefly was canceled after being shown out of order (the pilot wasnt even first) and having its timeslot changed several times.
I do think it was "unjust" to treat Joss Whedon's work the way they did after he proved himself capable of producing a 7 season show (that there was a magazine devoted to) and a 5 season spinoff.
'cept, you never saw it, did you?
I have the dvd and getting the book right now from amazon.
What is the chance the it will be picked up on tv again?
I d/l'd the latest stable and beta koepi builds, but media player classic and windows media player still can't decode the video...am i missing something?
This is the first film for *years* I've actually wanted to go see before it was released... It's also probably going to be the first film *ever* I'll watch more than once at the cinema. Here's hoping some bright tv exec will decide to make another series... At least finish the plotline well, the cliffhanger at the end of series one is pretty much justification for murdering Fox executives on sight...
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
Watch right now if you're desperate to see the gang again. Don't even touch if you want to go in fresh. Joss himself said that it ain't shy, it gives away a lot if you know what to look for (and if you've seen the series, you know what kind of secrets remain to be revealed).
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
WHERE THE HELL IS BOOK?!
God.....
Damnit!
I want to know what the hell is up with BOOK! Who the hell is he?!
Son of a BITCH!
I mean... River is cute and all... you'd think they'd at least continue on with Book's character and give us fans some insight into his past.
I mean... please. The character "River" is so cliché. Book is a real enigma.
Fuck.
The trailer has sounds of ships racing around in space... aaaauuuuuughhh!
WTF! That was one of the refreshing aspects of the series... no sound in space. Yay! It made those scenes much more focused.
I hope that the trailer is just a fluke otherwise they can bite my shiny metal ass... I'll be saving my money.
If you are having trouble understanding the hype behind Serenity, then save yourself a lot of mindless opinioneering and just watch the show Firefly on DVD.
It is science fiction that never embarasses you for watching it.
The characters, the stories, the pacing, the dialogue, the delicious writing, and the utter commitment to quality are evident in every single scene of every single episode. Nobody's phoning anything in, and THAT is why Serenity is getting people excited. Not because George Lucas needs another burnished ivory walking stick.
That the special effects are the best ever gifted to a science fiction show (read: subtle, professional, photorealistic, and utterly seamless) is just icing on the cake.
I've never watched the TV show (although I've read a synopsis of the backstory), and the first thought I had when hearing that the rebels were called "browncoats" was that it was curious that they'd chosen a term with such loaded historical connotations (the "brownshirts" were the Sturmabteilung, i.e., the Storm troops, i.e., the private army of the Nazi party). My goal here isn't to be PC, but rather to ask those more steeped in the lore of the show whether there's been a discussion on why the show's creators chose this term.
-daniel
I for one welcome our new blue handed overlords!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I had not heard of the series Firefly and a friend highly recommended it so I obliged and borrowed the DVD. I plugged it in and it became a hit with me and my three kids. It is now a favorite, we all became hooked.
We loved the surprises and twists of the series and the trailer had some hints of it. We loved the gritty nature and the "western" feel. Can't afford fancy kick ass laser guns? Use regular 19th century handguns. Works for me. Do I use a scientific magnifying glass to look for blunders? No. I just sit back and enjoy and don't give a rats ass about that - leave that to others.
The mix of future and contemporary, sci-fi and western, redneckness and intelligence and humor and seriousness captivated me. Bring on the movie. A little breath of fresh air in the glut of shows that pass for TV entertainment.
I plan on watching the series late september and then checking out the movie. Will wait.
With a big rubber dick. I'll wait until it comes out on DVD and I can rent it.
THIS, however, is something I want to see on opening night.
If the movie does well enough, Universal will pick it up for a second and third installment.
Well duh! You make it sound like Hollywood is a bunch of good guys. I'm sure if movie does well, Universal will have a franchise to milk to death, and if it fails (or just underperforms) they will kick Joss to the curb without a second thought.
Direct Files
/ serenity_m240.mov
/ serenity_m320.mov
/ serenity_m480.mov
/ serenity_ifs2.mov
small
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
4.83 MB
Medium
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
8.5 MB
Large
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
21 MB
Full screen:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
41MB
man, i was so happy to see the series not have sound in space, and now the movie does? ugh, guess the 15-year-olds' tickets need to be sold...
:)
ugh..
if this movie is as good as the trailer makes it seem, at least we can get over the failure of h2g2 (i refuse to pay money for that, already knowing it's gonna suck)
I've noticed that, most of the time, when someone says they were modded down for "going against slashthink", what they really mean is... ...they were modded down for being gratuitously insulting.
...they spent a half hour carefully crafting a post that explained in lengthy detail why they didn't care about the story, and why anyone who did care about it was an idiot.
...their rebuttal was so riddled with factual inaccuracies that it undermined the point they were trying to make.
or
or
Of course, bad moderation happens, and bad moderators exist. But a solid 80% of the time, it's just people being shocked to learn that they're not a tenth as brilliant or convincing as they would like to think.
In your case, you're trying to make much of semantics, and going about it a little wrongheadedly. Since nobody but you called it a "shocking" or "brutal" injustice, you've apparently tried to blow our miffed feelings way out of proportion. Injustices come in a wide variety of sizes, from kicking the family dog to wholesale genocide.
Yeah, it was just a show. But it was a good show, and deserved better treatment than FOX gave it. I think the word "unjust" is apt.
YMMV, IANAL, PBUH.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
One of the coolest things about Firefly was the lack of sound in space. I certainly hope that they've only put the sounds in for the trailer, but somehow I doubt that. Here's hoping they haven't made too many more stylistic changes (because the show was already dripping with amazing style).
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Was anyone else bothered by the 'turning away' from the western aspect of the series? I kept an eye out when I heard the techno/industrial song, but all I caught was a glimpse or two of revolvers. I fully imagine that the movie will be true to the series, but I still feel a bit let down that I didn't hear "Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me" in the preview...
It's been running through my head ever since Joss said the trailer was coming...
Sigh...
(Still looks cool as heck though)
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
'alien ass'?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So, since I have not seen the series, should I rent them, or see the movie first?
I'm shutting down my 386/Windows 3.1 box and hitting the cineplex to see this trailer on a REAL big screen.
I promised myself that I wouldn't go see the movie after the way Fox yanked me around and then cancelled the series. But damn, this might be the only movie that gets me into a theater this year. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to a movie again. It's been so long, I thought they had forgotten how to make them interesting and exciting.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
One of the big selling points of Firefly was that sound doesn't travel in space, so the space scenes have no sound. It was soooo cool, I couldn't not watch it. I really hope someone in the know can tell me whether that crap is in the movie or if it's just in the trailer.
Firefly was far too good to remain on the air, sadly.
Right-click and choose save-as to download and save to your drive. Much easier than typing in the URL by hand.
That looks pretty damn cool. I wonder if I should go rent the firefly DVDs.
I remember being all excited about the TV show, but when I saw the premier
episode, it was a yawn fest. This movie looks like a must-see though.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Don't get me wrong, I liked the series, and this is one film that will persuade me to drag my ass to the cinema to endure the neck creaking, rustling, coughing and sweating, not to mention the washed out scratchy picture and unsatisfactory sound rendering; in order to see it before it premiers for real - on a disc I can play at home - on something a bit less agricultural, while I have a drink, but enough of my cinema pet hates rant :P
I have to take issue with this statement though - this vision of the future is hardly unique. In fact, it's a fairly standard issue vision of the future as proposed by Poul Anderson (Trader Team, The long night, Mirkheim etc), Marc Miller (Traveller et al), Bell & Braben (Elite) George Lucas (Star Wars), Harry Harrison (Rat series):-
Take sea going activities and extrapolate into space. Merchant ships, pirates, busy ports, adventure on the high, er.. volumes of near vacuum... and so on.
That said, it happens to be a vision I like - a working, slightly dirty and worn around the edges future filled with real looking objects - a vision that could be said to have been pioneered by Lucas, at least on screen.
I hope the soundtrack on that trailer isn't indicative though - cheap music will really feck this movie up. Using current pop output to score a film like this will date it in months.
In your case, you're trying to make much of semantics, and going about it a little wrongheadedly. Since nobody but you called it a "shocking" or "brutal" injustice, you've apparently tried to blow our miffed feelings way out of proportion. Injustices come in a wide variety of sizes, from kicking the family dog to wholesale genocide.
Jeesh, get a life, it's a Futurama quote, for crying out loud. Perhaps _you_ shouldn't be so thin skinned.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
It is by far the best sci-fi tv show ever. Joss had really got the hang of comedy one minute and grittyness the next and it makes for great tv.
It's a travesty that something this good gets canned while other rubbish gets endless seasons (everytime I see Mutent-X on late night tv there is a deep desire to strangle a tv exec).
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The purpose of the trailer is to get people who have never seen Firefly to go and see Serenity.
You are not the target audience. A bunch of stuff that makes sense to someone like you is a bunch of random crap that confuses the hell out of someone who only knows "it's some sci-fi flick".
WOOOHOOO!!!!!
Insert Pithy Quote here.
Why can't you be more like Lloyd Braun?
What royally sucked was that they put Firefly up against Farscape and the whole SciFriday thing on SciFi. That was a bad move. I wasn't smart enough at the time to record Firefly, but I did borrow the DVD's eventually. Good stuff, indeed.
The party's over
Okay, yes, the trailer implies that there are sounds in space in this version. 1) This is a trailer, not the final cut. There may be no sounds in space in the final version. 2) "No sounds in space" was more of a gimmick than anything else. Anyone who sees the reaver ship and Serenity passing each other extremely slowly - even though both ships would be moving extremely fast in order to get to a destination millions of miles away - knows that Firefly wasn't hard SF - I don't even think they established whether they had FTL tech or not. Ditching "no sounds in space" isn't a storybreaker. I mean, honestly, did you go and watch the original because it was silent? 3) Who is to say that the "space" scenes don't take place in some sort of atmosphere?
Someone who quotes Futurama is telling me to get a life. Incontrovertible proof: I'm about as lame as they come.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Crackers don't matter!
I agree with the other reply to your post. I think this has been trailerized for the general public. Also, I'm hoping that the sounds in space was a trailer thing too.
-prator
Someone pissed off about remarks concerning a TV show is amazed when someone quotes another TV show at them.
I've just walked into a Kevin Smith movie
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
The conflict before the movie is akin to the US Civil War. The colony planets (in a "state's rights" fashion) resist domination by the Alliance. (No slavery in the story though so no idealogical high ground for the Alliance).
The frontier is much like the American West after the Civil War. The Alliance is powerful but remote authority. Some of the main characters were rebels and wore brown (thus brown coats) much like some western characters (ie, the Outlaw Josey Wales) were former confederates.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
"I'm unarmed"
:-)
"Good!" [bang]
That was just for the fans, weren't it.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
I also thought about this when seeing the trailer. Then I remembered The Two Towers trailer using a remix of the theme song from Requiem for a Dream, which was a bitttt more techno than the LOTR soundtrack. Honestly, right now I'm not worried. Trailer makes it look rather good.
Kind of dissapointed to not have seen Book in the trailer, and only a few frames with Kayle (sp?), but you have to remember that 2 hours will not provide the same amount of room to develop 6-7 characters effectively. And Josh usually focuses on character in his series, going in depth about each one. So let him do his thing of focusing on key cast properly, and maybe we'll see more of the rest in other installments?
Hell... Maybe we'll get to see it back on TV one day? (I know I'm crossing my fingers, although Mr. Whedon has said he will not return Firefly to TV... money does make people change ideas, as seen with Family Guy.)
MHO. I probably have to see original series to get it, but that trailer did not strike me at all. I remember seeing Matrix trailers. They were breathtaking. It was like "Whoaaa, this is gonna be BIG!". I do not have that feeling now. In fact, "6th sense" and "The forgotten" trailers were more exciting (yeah, that may be apples to oranges, but I'm talking about overall impression).
my sstream of consciousness
I'd be much more excited.
I didn't see her in the trailer... but that doesnt necessarily mean she's not in the movie i guess.
He chu sheng za jiao de zang huo!
never mind, she's in there in the scene where they are all on the bridge 9.5 seconds into the trailer.
I'm a huge SF fan, although I tend to stick to books rather than TV. (I haven't been gripped by a SF TV series since B5.) I tried, really TRIED, to get into Firefly while it was on TV. I like Whedon a lot, and I was excited about Firefly. I set my VCR to record it every Friday.
Truth is, you know... It wasn't that good. I watched 4-5 episodes, and although the dialog was snappy, the characters felt flat, and the setting was give-and-take. The idea of a Western in space is good as a CONCEPT, if you transpose it intelligently. But in the case of Firefly, it felt really silly: people having Colt-type pistols, a lot of horses and wagons... It felt like the SF had no place in it at all, and was just dressing.
In short, I gave up on Firefly, not because of the schedule or the stupid TV execs, but because I just didn't like it all that much. It was sub-par. I'm sorry to say this, but in my opinion, Firefly could have made it despite the atrocious time slot IF it had been truly exceptional. They had everything against them, yes, but the series wasn't, say, 'X-Files Season 1 good' or 'Babylon 5 good' to survive these odds.
That being said, this trailer looks good, and even though I stopped watching Firefly, I want to see Serenity. I'm not expecting a lot from the movie, but it seems action-packed, well-done, and the dialog seems to be really good.
I understand why they toned down the Western stuff in the trailer, because it would look really silly to the people who haven't seen the series. I suspect it's all still in there. It sounds like the trailer is a success all around, because even as a non-fan, this movie sounds exciting.
looks nice, a tad hype;
'one of the top 10 movies you will see this year'
blah
blah
blah
ect.
IDCAEMCR
(i dont care about extraneous movie critic reviews)
ill probably watch it. I noticed a bit of a Death star in the background... some kind of metallic moon.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
MplayerPlugin destabilizes Firefox for me. Sure, the video plays fine, but later my browser will spontaneously crash. I can do it regularly and reliably if I choose File->Save at any time after MplayerPlugin has run.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Did Pheonix/Firebird/Firefox change it's name again?
I never watched Firefly when it was on TV but had heard so many good things about it I ordered it via Netflix. I still can't believe they cancelled that show, it was by far one of the best shows ever on TV. My wife, who isn't normally into scifi even got into it - I made her watch the first disk and she was hooked.
The movie looks awesome, from the trailer it looks like it will rehash some of the main plot from the TV series but the fact that the movie was even made is enough to set aside my complaints. Hopefully it does well enough to get some sequels made or perhaps even the series revived on TV.
blarg.
Please recall all Dupe Detector forces and stand down. Thank you.
Why is there suddenly sounds in space?!?
Have you never seen a movie trailer?
Other questions you might have asked: Why are things not happening in the same chronological sequence as they will in the movie? Why is it so short? Why is there catchy music tht won't end up in the movie?
Because: It's an advertisement, not the movie itself.
You think that silent shots of spacecrafts make Joe Sixpack want to shell out good money for movie tickets? They don't.
You can't take the sky from me...
(Let's dial up the old wayback machine...bzzt, brrrr-up... kading!)
Shh... there's Joss, working on an early manuscript:
JW (to self): These guys need a casual nickname... uh... rough riders... nah. What else has there been? Redcoats, bluebellies, brownshirts, blues, greys, black ninjas... let's try a color and article of clothing... red-gstring? eew, ick!... green-pants? (snorted laugh) Uh, brownpants... nope, that's almost worse. Brownshirt? nah, think that's the nazis. Ugh. Redcoats? Goldcoats? Nah, too real-estate and only an idiot would wear a gold uniform into battle. Greencoats? Nah, that's the manager at a holiday inn, isn't it?... greycoats? Not bad. Bluecoats? Browncoats? Browncoats. yeah, that'll do!
(alt version):
(Costumer) Hey, Joss, we have all these old brown jackets. Wanna use 'em?
(JW): Cool, rebel uniforms!!!
(alt alt version):
(JW): Heh, I could make that scruffy canvas jacket I wore in high school into a fashion statement!
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...)
Suspecting (without seeing the show) that, because the uniform nickname had the same color as Nazi brownshirts it is therefore laden with meaning, is pretty absurd. This would be even clearer for you after watching the series: a ragtag bunch of rural individualists that got their butts kicked by an empire in *no* way makes me think 'nazi'. At least not with respect to the losers.
To be fair, something minor like generic uniform colors aren't symbolism; if that sort of symbolism was intended, most authors would use other parallels/cues to reaffirm the symbolism. And there's plenty of other submaterial in Firefly, so why bother?
so, what joss whedon is making sure is that we know Mal shot first?... : P
"Unjustly cancelled"? It was Enterprise Meets Bonanza. It didn't get cancelled early enough.
Next you'll be lamenting the loss of Muppet Trek, aka Farscape. Good grief!
I have discovered a truly remarkable
Don't know if anything changed since then, but at the Firefly panel at Dragoncon last year, Nate and Jewel both said that this was the final firefly project (said it wasn't up to them)...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
THat was the blurb. Six rebels. I got a bit worried at first. In the trailer, the only ones I saw were: 1 - Mal 2 - Zoe 3 - Wash 4 - Jayne 5 - Dr Tams 6 - summer Now.. I know Kaylee is in the movie. She talked about it at Dragoncon last year (even noted how she was much thinner in the movie than in the TV show and was worried Josh would make her put it back on but he ended up letting it go). And I've read that Book was also signed for it. So I guess the six are Mal, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, Book and Kaylee, with that blurb not counting the other two.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Is it possible to mod someone down infinitely?
If so, I draw your attention to...parent.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
I'm going to go see it, and drool like all the rest of y'all, but...
Total length of all three movies, if they get made, in the best case: six hours. Total runtime of the three full seasons (or so) we'd have if Fox hadn't killed the show: fifty hours.
It'll be nice to see them all again, but the universe once promised is dead, and dead for good. This just makes it hurt a little more. There's a kind of world-building you can do in television that you can't do in movies. We won't be seeing any more of it.
For fuck's sake, just compare the best Babylon 5 eps to the TV movies. Some stories are better told in certain formats.
Just makes me so damn sad.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
As a troll you rate quite low.
Some points to help you troll better.
- There are no aliens in firefly.
- Of the girls in the show only one is a fighter and tends to use a gun.
- No one does crazy karate kicks and punches.
As someone else has already mentioned, it looks like the sound in space might be due to the ships being at the edge of the atmosphere - so sound will still be transmitted.
:)
And HGGTTG is NOT going to suck
Great trailer, but I swear that I hear zooming spaceships and gunshots ... in space. Argh. Maybe the studio dubbed it in for the trailer, but if there is sound in space in this movie, I'm sending out plenty of blue gloves and apples.
Ruin anything else from the series, but Firefly stands apart as one of the few (only?) shows/films/etc. which don't feature spaceships sounding like WW-II era bombers ... in SPACE!!!
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
A planet of unknown gravity.
A planet of unknown atospheric content (refractive qualities) or circumference.
Did you notice some of the burn trails on wings of the firefly "in space"?
I once successfully argued, "It only takes a little bit a gas to make a lot of noise" about the validity of sound effects next to the death star. How embarasing. :) Of course the rest of the SW space noise is bunk.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Even the train robbery episode, if i do recall had a maglev train, which was a nice tip of the hat to sci-fi and western themes.
intergalactic pimp much?
Right-hand is geeked out watching trailer
nuff said
I really tried to like this series, but the whole western theme really put me off. Now I like westerns set in 1800's, but it does not fly for my set in the future. I could not suspend my disbelief. Same for buffy or angel for me, so I guess I'm in the minority. I am wondering what the effect american culture will have on the future considering so many nations are going to be in space in the next 50 years. Looks like it will be a new frontier, but very different from a western:)... Pablo El Vagabundo
"Suspended disbelief" is another way to put it. You kinda have to do that to enjoy science fiction.
For those who have linux, this might help:
/ serenity_ifs2.mov
wget -U "User-Agent: iTunes/4.6 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.3)" http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
-- MicAttAck
Religon is an insult to human dignity.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Screw Star Wars Episode 3 With a big rubber dick. I'll wait until it comes out on DVD and I can rent it.
"That's my half-assed dad. You were mad enough to leave our house, but not mad enough to leave our property."
Somehow, I don't think Lucas is too concerned with someone "screwing SW3" by "only" renting it on DVD (and maybe buy it later).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, slavery is mentioned in at least one episode. In the opening bar room brawl of "The Train Job" Capt. Mal gets into a bar fight with a slaver, although not over the issue of slavery. Later Inara, attempting to get Mal and Zoe out of prison, refers to him as her indentured property. For those missin' out on a little American history, indentured servitude provided the northern states with alot immigrants and decent portion of the work force. Indentured servitude was effectively abolished at the same time slavery was. While the differences between slavery and indentured servitude are radical, don't believe that the North held the higher moral ground because it didn't rob people of their personal rights. The North held the moral high ground because of its treatment of people whose personal freedoms it had robbed.
In "Safe" when two members of the crew are kidnapped to be forced to join the population of a desperate mountain town, the local authorities don't react. Both these episodes touched on slavery enough to let us know that Yes, slavery did exist in the 'verse. However, considering that the Alliance was not going through great lengths to put a stop to it, I doubt that it was the cause of the strife between the Independence and the Alliance. Instead, I'm willing to bet the conflict was caused by unfair taxation and tariffs, and laws that favored the more industrialized planets closer to the core. While often ignored by high school history books, these were secondary issues that lead to the American Civil war, and would fit with Joss Whedon's using the Civil war as an insperation for the series.
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
was the one I didn't notice. =(
Am I the only one to notice the subtle reference to the Han Solo and Greedo's who shoots first mess that George Lucas created? Unlike Han Solo who did not (according to Lucas) shoot before he was shot at, Malcolm Reynolds will shoot an unarmed man. :)
Whether or not this is what actually happens in the movie, we'll just have to wait and see. But I think this reference is definitely not accidental!
Better be careful, though, she's got pop-ups.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Doesn't matter, +funny mods don't affect karma. I'd post non-AC for moderation but I'm no karma whore.
That's not the point.
Firefly doesn't have sounds in space. It's part of the "look". The series uses music to add atmosphere instead. It works, so shouldn't be changed.
have you read the reviews? heard how all the good dialog was mangled? see the trailer promotes mainly just slapstick?
... but not the easter bunny... that's a crock of ish.
zaphrod's got one head? i read somewhere the other head is in his nose? face it, man. it's gonna suck.
but, if it'll make ya feel any better... "it's going to be the best movie ever!" oh, and, "santa claus is real!"
Firefly doesn't have sounds in space. It's part of the "look". The series uses music to add atmosphere instead. It works, so shouldn't be changed.
It worked where it was used - in short bursts in the middle of a sequence that weren't the whole piece of the action. That might have changed for the film.
Am I the only one who noticed that there were sound effects in space? I really hope this is only in the trailer, and that the actual movie stays true to the series by removing the sound effects from the space scenes.
It was the first space scene sans engine noises, that first completely hooked me on Firefly. I couldn't believe someone writing sci-fi actually obeyed the laws of physics in this sense. And the soundlessness of it, filled instead with that guitar drawl, really lent a feeling of surrealness, and in fact, I thought it made space seem like a lot scarier place than any other sci-fi had ever managed -- the thought of being stranded out there, in utter silence, alone and forever, really got me.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Did I miss something in the trailer or is The Shepherd Book missing?
btw, ya, that's what i thought too - that they were on the edge of an atmosphere so that's where the sound came from, but i don't think that's it. they're way too far out, and the whole trailer shows outer space scenes making sound..
dunno man.
The Alliance is powerful but remote authority
That sounds more like the American War of Independence to me.
qntm.org
What I really want is the series back. The kind of character and story development you can do in movies is so limited compared to a TV series. There is no way it'll be the same. And anyway, I'd like to see the story continued from where the series left off.
And did anyone else think that the black bad guy in the trailer seemed a lot less impressive than the bad guy (on whom I suppose the movie one was based) from Objects In Space?
...at least according to IMDB.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0379786/
ShinyHat writes "Browncoats Rejoice! The trailer for Joss Whedon's Serenity, based on his unjustly cancelled Firefly television series
Funny - I thought that it was the networks' responsibility to cancel shows that didn't get "enough" viewership.
Guess times have changed. As long as grandma and some guy in a closet in Lithuania watch a show, they better not cancel it, or it's "unjust"...riiight...
Just another observation: Wasn't the town where Jayne was the local hero (Jaynestown?) full of indentured servants? What were they called, mudders? Basically didn't earn enough to repay their debts and monthly living costs, and so stayed perpetually in service to the local authority.
Kevin Smith who? Stop trying to alienate me with your obscure references to popular culture!
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Well fuck ME, folks! Ain't that trailer sumthin' else? I likes me some serous action so's it looks like Joss is gonna serve some up!
yeee-HAAW!
-PONA-
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
Yeah, man... I know. Firefly might have had great wit and flair and character, an immersive vision of an interesting future universe, but it didn't need all that - the ONE thing that made it was the fact that they had no sound in space.
I mean, wow - the genius it must have taken to think that up! the boldness! the cheek! to go against every sci fi preconception and cliche and instead present a world where sound didn't propagate across a vacuum! Wow. It blew me away. I used to just rewind the DVD so I could watch - and hear - those silent space bits over and over again...
Oh no, hang on. That's not true. I watched Firefly for the writing, the performances, and the plots. If (and I say IF) the film has sound in space, you know what? I reckon the plots and the characters will still be just as good.
Call me crazy...
... he is there.. for about 3 frames - behind Mal - about 1 minutte 57-58 seconds in.
Why they don't show him more, who knows, perhaps they think young people don't want to see movies with old people? Or perhaps I'm just cynical.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Oops. There's a mod down, since Firefly is on the "untouchable" list on Slashdot, right alongside Linux, HHGG, and Firefox.
My roomate just called to tell me the news. Apparently he was able to score 8 tickets for the Chicago showing.
I keep thinking that too, hoping against the impossible hope...
I'm so pathetic. But at least I'm not alone.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You can't take the sky from me...
"Some of the main characters were rebels and wore brown (thus brown coats) much like some western characters (ie, the Outlaw Josey Wales) were former confederates."
The costume reference that made me smile was that Serenity's ex-soldier ship captain/smuggler still wore his uniform pants.
Kind of like another sci-fi captain/smuggler I remember fondly from my youth; that guy's ship could make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, though--a bit faster than Serenity...
Seriously, a religious troll in your sig? That's great. To make it better, it's actually a "my God(s) is/are better than your God(s)" troll.
;)
Anyway, yea, I get upset about sound in space, because space doesn't have any fucking sound in it, because it's space.
Where there's no sound.
I watch very, very, little TV. Less than an hour per week this year and last, and only a little more before that. Firefly was one of a few exceptions to that, because it was so much better than than other shows that I actually wanted to watch it instead of doing other things. It wasn't perfect, but their clear willingness to try (silent space scenes among the elements) meant that it was worth my time.
Changing that now would be both a sell out and a different take on things completely.
My priorities are, of course, none of your business
'alien' ass?
As my point was, duh, there are no aliens in Firefly.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Also, revolvers are just cool:-)
> The frontier is much like the American West after the Civil War. The Alliance is powerful but remote authority. Some of the main characters were rebels and wore brown (thus brown coats) much like some western characters (ie, the Outlaw Josey Wales) were former confederates.
Mal = Jesse James
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Serenity in 156 days and counting...
You can't take the sky from me...
Sadly I did not see any evidence of the classic look from FireFly specifically:
the color scheme is very "cool" (color temprature... more blue), verses(sic) the much warmer scheme used in the series (more like the pallet from a western)
The outer planets have a warm colour tone.
The alliance planet have a cool, bluish hue: Rewatch "Ariel".
Same applies to the trailer, pay attention when a Reaver ship is chasing Mal and Jayne, and a Reaver shoots a circular saw at Mal, the colour tones are those of the outer planets: Warm, yellowish.
the series was famous for making special effect shots look like they were done with a hand-help camera: out of focus objects coming into focus, wild panning across the frame as if someone was trying to track with a moving object (rather than the perfect framing that is common), the point of view shaking with the "engine noise", etc..
Check out the shot of Serenity zooming above a blue planet during Mal's intro speech near the beginning of the trailer: The camera vibrates, the ship moves out of frame and the camera tracks it shakily... exactly like what you lament not seeing in the trailer.
many more close-ups of the actors. The series usually tried to keep groups in frame.
2 things: First of all, he's showing us fanboys closeup shots of our beloved characters (look folks: The gang's all here!).
Secondly, you have a very selective memory. Check out this site's excellent screenshot galleries to see that there were closeups of people all the time in the series. Why you erased that from your mind? I dunno.
I hope that the preview is not representative of the final work we will see in September in this regard... I liked those aspects of the series.
I hope the trailer is representative: I liked those aspects of the series and they're still there, if you look at what is actually shown in the trailer. Thank you.
You can't take the sky from me...
I've been looking through the trailer frame by fram e (Yes, I'm a browncoat. I can't wait until the movie comes out), and noticed that earth that was is a big part of it. There are at least 2 scenes where they're flying over it.
"Sometimes the most intelligent statement is the one that is left unsaid"
When Mal kicks one of Niska's minions into one of Serenity's engines?
God bless that man...
It's a sci-fi universe where even the whores can reject you. A Slashdotter's nightmare!
bittorrent of the entire firefly series.
This Land where the dinosaurs live.
I dunno about you, but when I watched "Ariel", I just HAD to yell out "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!".
I just had to : )
You can't take the sky from me...
hahah, awesome post.
a little tired, yes, but i didn't smell the sarcasm at all till the end there...
very nice, and good point.. still, cmon, you gotta hate the hollywood bastardization process... no?
not even a little?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People who've seen the rough cut in Sydney have commented (registration required) that the movie does not have sound in space. Also, the hand-held look and feel is there.
Can't wait to see for myself.
Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
zaphod suck so far by the looks, closer to Colin Farrell than Keith Richard and only 1 head!
Not Free SF Reader
ya, that's what i thought at first too, but they're _really_ far out there... i think most moviegoers wouldn't know what to think about a trailer w/o any space sound
:)
it's not a big deal, it was just cool to see a series try to show some respect for science
although, maybe i should let it go -- this isn't apollo 13, it's a scifi flic.
oh, hehe, please remember this thread, and let me know after you've seen H2G2 what ya thought. lemme know if you've read the books, cause that'll make a big difference in your opinion
cheers
yup yup. though if i was producer, and my options were a stupid CG second head like in Star Wars 1 or 2, or just say "well, the second head is in his nose"... i'd probably go with the latter. at least we can get over it in the beginning of the movie, rather than be forced to think about how fake the second head looked...
or they could just cast a two-headed actor... tho they're _really_ expensive, ya kno?
stupid looking second head part of the point though?
Not Free SF Reader
Actually, slavery is mentioned in at least one episode. In the opening bar room brawl of "The Train Job" Capt. Mal gets into a bar fight with a slaver, although not over the issue of slavery. Later Inara, attempting to get Mal and Zoe out of prison, refers to him as her indentured property. For those missin' out on a little American history, indentured servitude provided the northern states with alot immigrants and decent portion of the work force. Indentured servitude was effectively abolished at the same time slavery was. While the differences between slavery and indentured servitude are radical, don't believe that the North held the higher moral ground because it didn't rob people of their personal rights. The North held the moral high ground because of its treatment of people whose personal freedoms it had robbed.
IMHO, I think you gloss over the differences between slavery and indentured servatude far too much, to the deteriment of your point. To whit:
Slaves, unless freed, were slaves for life, and usually any children were as well. Indentured servants had a pre-determined condition for the length of their servatude (usually explict time frames, although sometimes full payment of a debt). Also their children
A person became a slave either by coercion or by birth. Indentured servants willfully entered into contracts with an employer.
Slaves were treated as property (like farm animals), and hand few if any legal rights. Indentured servants still regarded as people, even though their employers had control over things like what work they did, where they lived, what they wore, and even what they ate (the last three the employer usually helped provide anyway). However, they still had the bulk of the legal rights and privileges they had before, and those they didn't enjoy were only temporarily suspended.
The basic difference was that slavery reduced the slave to a non-person in a legal, social and even moral sense. That didn't happen to indentured servants. I'm sure there were employers that abused the privileges they had over indentured servants, but there were more protections and recourses available to abused indentured servants than to abuse slaves.
I don't know about them, but I saw H2G2 tonight and I was quite let down. Oh it had its funny moments... but they were just that, moments. The overall feel of the thing was just quite boring. I thought it was better than the original movie, but it just had so many dumb/"oh, ha.. ha.." moments... it didn't live up to my expectations, and I didn't even really have any major expectations. here's hoping serenity will come out better (though it can at least fall back on action rather than trying for a laugh the whole way through)...
(\(\
(^v^)
(")")
This is the cute vorpal bunny virus, copy to your sig or runaway, runaway in fear!
thx for the review.. i can't decide whether it's worth the $9 to go see h2g2... it'll probably be on rental in a few weeks if it's that awful :)
Apple has now made a high definition Serenity trailer available (for download!) for use with Quicktime 7.
The file is 108MB and it is in 1280x544 resolution.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
why is this crap trying to play in itunes?
Some people say a man is made out of mud
well a poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bone
and a mind that's weak
but a back thats strong
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
Picked up a shovel and I walked to the mine
I hauled Sixteen Tons of number 9 coal
And the straw-boss said, "Well, bless my soul"
You haul Sixteen Tons, whadaya get?
Another older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.