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Serenity Screenings Sell Out
DizzyEllie writes "Last Wednesday, Universal offered fans of Joss Whedon's Serenity the unique opportunity to screen an unfinished version of the movie in ten cities. This was originally intended to pull both fans and non-fans into the fold, but the screenings sold out so quickly (less than a day for all cities to sell-out, but reportably just a few minutes in a couple of locations), it is clear that only the hard-core fanbase will make it in. This seemed to be completely unexpected by Universal, as ads were appearing in newspapers after the sell out, and incentives for the fans to promote the screenings were removed. The screenings will be held in 10 cities on May 5. Serenity: The Official Movie Website" Definitely a unique promo thing. Shows serious stones too- I mean, if the movie sucked, they wouldn't dare do something like this. Hopefully someone will post a review for us on wednesday. And the rest of us suckers have to wait until September. Bah.
He is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and apparently the show Firefly which has a huge fan base yet I never even heard of it until it was cancelled and they announced they were making a movie out of it.
It was cancelled almost immediately after airing the first episodes.
Linux is not Windows
Quicktime 40 megs here:/ serenity_ifs2.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/serenity
ha, I figured out why they wanted this posted:
See the u=dizzyellie in the article link?
That's to get them credits when you sign up for the site to browse! SNEAKY! (wish I thought of it)
(credits let them get free t-shirts and posters and such)
Actually, there are already a few reviews out there from an Australian screening. Here's one...
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20089
Its by a big Whedon fan, so probably a little biast.
Character Names:
Captain: Mal(Malcom) (Former rebel. Wants to nail the space hooker)
Pilot: Wash
Engineer: Kaylee
Space Hooker: Inara
Stupid Muscle: Jayne
Female Muscle: Zoe (Wash's Wife, served with Mal in the revolution)
Doctor: Simon (River's Brother)
Preacher: Book
Psycho Chick: River
There's already been a couple of reviews to hit the net. Here is one of them based on a screening in Australia.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
It was 1 million pre-orders. It would have been higher, except that was the entire production run.
Oh, very nice with the Jubal Early reference. (for those non-shiny people reading, Jubal Early is a particularly interesting empathic bounty hunter who appeared on firefly, and liked making observations that end in "Does that seem right to you?") IOW, mod this guy up funny even more.
For to end yet again.
At their best, Buffy and Angel were filled with smart, funny writing. The shows presented interesting challenges: they could be funny, sad, scary, and romantic by turns, between episodes and within episodes. The performances were often quirky and interesting, and they liked to take chances: one episode of Buffy was done as a musical, another as a silent movie.
They did long story arcs. Not quite as long as on Babylon 5, but long enough to make each episode potentially fun to watch both on its own and as part of a contribution to a bigger story. For those who like such things, cool fight scenes and scary monster special effects. And it had a smart, independent but deeply flawed heroine who really could be a good role model for girls.
That's at their best, which was usually when Joss was in the driver's seat. They didn't always achieve that. Sometimes they'd be stupid. Sometimes the acting was terrible. Too often, they were just so-so: not bad as part of a longer story arc but not enough to make somebody dropping in for a single episode care very much.
As much as Joss loved his actors, and they do seem to be good people, most of them simply weren't very talented. But they were game to try whatever he threw at them, and that was often good enough for me.
So it's a little hard for me to say, "Here, see episode X and you'll understand." I'd say that too much of the first three seans of Angel were simply lame, and yet it got interesting just in time to get cancelled. Buffy was pretty hit-and-miss as well. I'd say that if you got friends to loan you the first couple of seasons of Buffy you might enjoy them.
That said, if you really want it boiled down to a single episode, try "Once More With Feeling", the famous musical episode. It's hardly representative, but it gives you a good view of the things that they were trying to accomplish on the show. It's late in the series, and there's a good deal of background it would take to know everything that's going on, but it might hook you.
Firefly, in my opinion, represented the best of Joss' work, with significantly better actors.
80mb ultra high res XVID trailer
It's 80mb. Well above DVD quality.
Needs Xvid. In linux, use mplayer -framedrop (you may also need "-vo x11" in linux if your graphics card doesn't handle very mad resolutions).
Also, whilst I've got your attention: I've seen the movie in London last month with the UK distributors (UIP), and it was freakin' brilliant.
Mal: Wants to nail Inara. Too much pride to admit it.
Wash: Ecstatic he gets to nail Zoe.
Kaylee: Wants to nail Simon. Annoyed he won't admit he wants her too.
Inara: Wants to nail Mal. Too "professional" to admit it.
Jayne: Wants to nail anything with boobs.
Zoe: Nails Wash regularly. May have nailed Mal in the past. Backstory hazy.
Simon: Wants to nail Kaylee. Too shy to admit it.
Book: Doesn't appear interested in nailing anybody.
River: Off in her own little world, so who knows?
It's actually a bit more impressive than that even as far as the DVD sales go.
One of the fansites has an Amazon tracker. From it, we get:
-- The show sold out of preorders on Amazon in three days in July 2003, never falling out of the top ten the whole time.
-- When it came available again in September, it went straight to number 1.
-- Excepting two days, it didn't fall out of the top 100 through the next July.
-- It's never been below 400 in the rankings.
Not bad for a show which only got half a season.
You left out the third possibility: the two (camera) shots were edited together like that just for the trailer, but in the movie there's more going on between those two shots.
It's not uncommon to splice together stuff for a trailer that never happens that way in the movie (or TV episode).
-- Alastair
Serenity: The Official Movie Website
FireFlyFans.net
http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/start
Test Screening-Early Reviews
Another Serenity Review
WonderCon Clip 128k.mov
WonderCon Clip 300k.mov
WonderCon Clip 700k.mov
WonderCon Clip 128k_wmv.asx
WonderCon Clip 300k_wmv.asx
WonderCon Clip 700k_wmv.asx
You realize Kaylee is the sweet, mild-mannered engineer who dresses badly and likes cutesy knicknacks, not the kung-fu chick, right? The kung-fu chick (who is an interesting study of mental illness and about as sexy as a rock) is actually Simon's sister.
I really hope they don't get together.
Test Screening-Early Reviews
Another Serenity Review