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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.)
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.
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
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.
I think there is a fair chance that the sounds are just in the trailer. Trailers have to be flashy and exciting, and appeal to people who have never seen the show, and that means sound fx.
:-)
Once they're in the cinema watching the movie, THEN you have the time to introduce them to a world where space is silent and six-shooters go hand in hand with spaceships. Trying to do that in a trailer is risky. This is more of a USA thing, trailers elsewhere are a bit less action-focused. (The "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon DVD has the US trailer in addition to the normal trailer, watch them one after the other and you might think they're different movies
Definately see the series in some form or another before going to see the movie. The movie appears to deal with the whole back-story that was floating around since the first episode.
It's really a good series, but I know some that didn't like it. Personally I wasn't a big fan of it when it was first on TV, but I downloaded the first ep and got hooked. Bought the DVD boxed set the very next day.
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?
- the color scheme is very "cool" (color temprature... more blue), verses the much warmer scheme used in the series (more like the pallet from a western)
- 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..
- many more close-ups of the actors. The series usually tried to keep groups in frame.
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. In any case... I will be there.I heard that if this movie performs well, the studio will film the next two movies back-to-back or at the same time a la "The Matrix" sequels (only better I hope).
As far as a new series goes, although I really prefer that over a spread out movie series, I wouldn't look for that, at least until the movies play out, and then only with some drastic casting changes. Logically if these movies do really well, the cast will be properties considered too hot for series TV. One of the things I LIKED about "Firefly" was the fact that there was a careful "reveal" used on the characters. It definately left you wanting more. In a movie there isn't that much time, and you still have to include plot story and the obligitory "action", in order to make the movie stand on it's on merits. Another thing to look for is that if this movie is really successful, Joss himself will firmly movie into the "movie" realm, something that is kind of eluding him now.
It would ROCK if they used this series to bring back the old "serial" format and could crank out one every 6 or 8 months, or better yet, get picked up by HBO or Showtime for a monthly series, like "The Sopranos". Considering the attention to detail and quality for which HBO has been noted in it's series work, I think Joss would be in his element, and the abbreviated filming cycles would allow the actors plenty of time to work in other projects. AND the DVD marketing of the series episodes already have a proven path to market. The best of all worlds!
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...
Incase anybody is wondering, serving this used 129gb of bandwidth in the first hour alone.