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The Browncoats Rise Again
The Original, One and Only, Hippy of Death writes "There's an interesting read posted on The Weekly Standard website talking about Joss Whedon and the unusual marketing campaign he is waging for the upcoming Serenity/Firefly movie." From the article: "It was ignored and abandoned, and the story should end there--but it doesn't. Because the people who made the show and the people who saw the show--which is, roughly, the same number of people--fell in love with it a little bit. Too much to let it go. . . . In Hollywood, people like that are called unrealistic, quixotic, obsessive. In my world, they're called Browncoats."
... and yeah, pretty much everything the article says is right. (How often does that happen?) The crowd was much less over the top than, say, the stereotypical Star Wars / Star Trek / LOTR opening night crowd; very few costumes. We were there to see the movie, and we did, and we walked out grinning from ear to ear. It's great stuff.
Oh, it's not perfect yet (lots of editing still to be done, I think) but it was still, in its unfinished form, the best movie I've seen in a long time. And the fact that Whedon et al. are actually paying attention to the fans -- treating us as part of the effort of making the movie instead of $TARGET_DEMOGRAPHIC -- is really damn cool.
It occurs to me that what's happening with Firefly/Serenity is very similar to what happened with Star Trek way back when. The fans basically kept alive what was originally considered a failed series for over ten years between the cancellation of the series and the greenlight for the first movie. We should count ourselves lucky that things moved faster this time around.
Anyway. This is some of the best storytelling you'll ever see on screen. Don't miss it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I really liked it until the last 3 or 4 minutes.
I hope that they change the ending before the final release.
Having the bad guy behave the way he did at the end cheapened the whole 'believe in something' theme that they were trying to push throughout the movie.
It was totally weak for the guy to change his entire world view based on one unsubstantiated news clip.
Other than that, I thought that movie kicked ass.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
I thought a long time about what I'd seen after a four hour drive home from a preview showing, and the main thought I came up with is this. We live in very uncertain times and the main attraction of Firefly that inspired its cult following was the comfort of a family that would weather all dangers. That comfort is gone in this movie. It is a GREAT movie, but it somewhat lacks the core quality that drew people to Firefly in the first place. SO, whether this is just a better than average movie release or the beginning of the pop cultural phenom the fans had hoped it would be remains to be seen.
I promise not to troll. I've seen exactly one episode in its entirety, the one they play backwards with the captain being shot. I've seen bits and pieces of maybe another 2 episodes.
From what I've seen, I wasn't impressed at all, not even a little. Maybe It was the worst of the entire series, short lived as it was. I'll even admit there is 1 B5 episode out there, that if it was the first I had seen, well, it would have been the last.
That said, this marketing campaign doesn't seem all that great. I'm assuming that those of you that have loved the show (and I know you're out there, I once went from 2 to -1, Troll in 30 some seconds on a Firefly story) will go see it no matter what. Marketing exists for people like me. I like science fiction, but need some encouragement to want to see this movie.
Anyone care to try explaining to me what's so great about it, without sounding like you just converted to a cult 2 weeks ago?
First of all, serenity doesn't care about technobabble, which was increasingly my pet peeve with 'trek.
"The engine is dead." "Well, go 'n fix it, damn it."
Second of all, the universe is incredibly well thought out. It's a universe that actually feels like It Hasn't Been Done Before which this day and age is rare.
Third... It's funny. damn funny. Characterization is awesome, and the use of humor is on the highest level of Whedonness. I remember having diet coke come up my nose when in episode "Jaynestown" the locals on one planet started their tribute to Jayne. (This makes more sense if you see the whole episode - Jayne's not really one you'd expect to have a tribute written for.)
I could go on, but I'm a horrible rambler, so that's it for now.
I had never seen the Firefly series and a friend told me about the Serenity screening (http://www.cantstopthesignal.com/). I went to it not expecting much and not knowing anything of the story. It turns out you don't need to know anything about the series to enjoy this movie. The screening was a great story it was already a well done movie. I enjoyed the movie so much I bought the series on DVD the next day.
When Serenity comes out do yourself a favor and watch this movie. I share many similar interests with other people here on Slashdot and I feel that many of the nerds here will like it.
"Tempt not a desperate man" - Willy S.
Fox delibrately purchases sci-fi series so it can shoot them in the foot. Which it did to Firefly. It was delibrately destroyed, played in the wrong order, preempted by random shit, not promoted at all.
It's not the least bit surprising you hadn't heard of it.
It had the potential to be the next Buffy, minus the weird image problem Buffy has to this day. Get rid of the silly name, get rid of the silly premise, get rid of the much mocked manner of speakage, keep the important concepts. Instead of the 'best show you're not watching', maybe people would watch it. (And there were a lot of Buffy fans to pull in. Except, of course, Fox never purchased any ads during Buffy or Angel to actually locate them. Not that ads would do any good when you move the damn show around.)
Or it could have been the next Star Trek, written by someone who actually understands characters and plot. (The next next Star Trek, I guess, as B5 would be the next one.)
Or, hell, fans would have settled for a cult classic.
Instead the show got cancelled before all the episodes ever aired. It is possibly unique in TV history for being canceled before the pilot aired, because they showed the episodes out of order.
The only reason anyone heard of it is that fans pestered the studio for months. Not to renew the series, which is hopeless, but to release the DVDs....which they then proceeded to purchase like madmen. They didn't manage to break any records I'm aware of, but they did manage to convince the studio the movie would sell.
And people like it for different reasons, so it's nearly impossible to explain.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It was fun to watch everyone in our theater checking their cell phones prior to the movie starting. We're in one of the most densely populated areas on the east coast, but apparantly "Service not available" was all anyone got. Folks all around us kept commenting on it as they switched their phones off.
Yes, that's right - at the fan preview, somehow they managed to stop the signal.
Peace,
-McD
"Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." -- Calvin