Slashdot Mirror
New International Serenity Trailer Released
Tenken writes "The international Serenity trailer has just popped up online and it looks to be even shinier than the first. This new trailer doesn't really spell out the plot of the film as explicitly as the first one, but for that reason it may play better with fans. Chiwetel Ejiofor's "Operative" character is also shaping up to be one of those memorable Whedon villains along the lines of Jubal Early from the episode "Objects in Space.""
IMDB: http://imdb.com/title/tt0379786/f 052ec99e36f/index.html
MirrorDot: http://mirrordot.org/stories/cf80588bb543b2334180
Another version of the trailer can be found at Apple - Trailers: Serenity.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Good. I hate watching trailers that give away too much of the film. The worse is when it's a particularly bad film and you realize that all the good parts were IN the trailer.
I got to 35%, when everyone else here on /. noticed the trailer too...and my work has Bittorrent blocked...
*sigh*, so, here I am, downloading at a whopping 5k/s.
Of all the days to stop taking methamphetamines...
I'm part of the team that produces The Signal, the only podcast in the 'verse totally dedicated to Firefly. http://www.serenityfirefly.com. The response from listners has just been amazing. We had to switch providers 12 hours after launch because of bandwidth problems. I'm sure the international trailer is about to have the same problems. Serenity is definitely one to keep your eyes out for even if you never saw the TV show.
Early: "You know, with the exception of one deadly and unpredictable midget, this girl is the smallest cargo I've ever had to transport. Yet by far the most troublesome. Does that seem right to you?"
Simon: "What'd he do?"
Early: "Who?"
Simon: "The midget."
Early: "Arson. Little man loved fire."
Don't forget, the Sci-Fi channel has picked up Firefly. They will be airing the orginal series, in the correct order, starting tomarrow (Friday) at 6pm central time.
-Daniel
KD5UZZ
www.w5yj.org
You must have seen the premier on Fox - like I did. I was bored senseless, turned it off and never watched again.
Until, just a few months back, I gave in to all of my geek friends telling me how amazing it is and bought the DVDs. It's amazing.
The problem with the show as I (and I assume, you) originally viewed it was that Fox showed the series out of order - the episode we saw had no context. We didn't know anything about the characters, universe, or meta-story.
Rent/Buy the DVDs and watch them in order - you'll be glad you did.
-gary
Zoe: "You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?"
Mal: "What? Come on, seriously, Zoe. Whaddya think?"
Zoe: "Honestly, sir? I think you got robbed."
Mal: "Robbed? What? No. What do you mean?"
Zoe: "It's a piece of fei-oo." [fei-oo. = junk]
Mal: "Fei-oo? Okay, she won't be winning any beauty contests anytime soon.
But she's solid. Ship like this, be with ya 'til the day you die."
Zoe: "Cause it's a deathtrap."
Point of interest. Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine.
1. Each successive screening has been better than the previous. They're still in post-production and they're still improving stuff.
They probably have a relatively small advertising budget. So,
2. You don't want to compete with the summer blockbusters - because you don't want to compete with their advertising budget. So you schedule a fall release to not compete with them.
3. You want to magnify your small $ as much as possible. So you release trailers on RELEVANT movies that interested people are going to see. And you do what you can to make your fans advertise for you for free/cheap.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
over a show that couldn't even make it through one season?
I certainly hope you're not saying that a show being canceled means it isn't good. All of my favorite shows have been canceled (at least once): Wonderfalls, Futurama, Farscape, Family Guy, and (though not officially) The Inside. Instead of these shows we have shows like So You Think You Can Dance. Cancelation != poor quality.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
What I really liked about the show is that the characters aren't tired "bad boys", but instead is a revival of "The Han Who Shot First" and his adventures in the outer rim territories, his dealings with the Hutts, the rabble he associated with... Yes they run outside the law, but it's refreshing to see situations where there's no clear "sheep" answer to a situation. Case in point: Train Job - the crew has a choice to make and neither outcome is very attractive - good vs. evil is much less exciting than evil vs. worse evil! It's this complexity that I miss about the series.
Hello, my name is LqqkOut and I am a fanboy.
-- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!
Shame on Fox for screwing it up like they did, but the premiere left me with no desire to see what the rest of the season was like. I don't think I'd even waste a selection getting it from Netflix at this point.
But that's just it - you didn't see the "premier", you saw the episode Fox showed first - big difference. It's like starting LotR with the Two Towers and blaming Tolkien because the story doesn't make sense.
Look at it this way; by watching Firefly (as mentioned above, showing on Sci-Fi (didn't know that, thanks)) what you'll really be doing is thumbing your noses at the marketing idiots at Fox who were sure they knew how best to "position" the show, against the wishes of the creative folks.
-gary
blarg.
A couple things:
A Firefly-fan friend of mine already saw the movie. He was very apprehensive after seing the trailers, and left quite, quite pleased with the movie (and has had to resist spoiling it for me).
Unrealistic fight scenes
How many fight scenes did you see in firefly? Or are you judging a movie and the series that it is based on from a few seconds of (barfight?) scene in a trailer?
utterly anachronistic one-liners
Actually, some of the best parts of Firefly are where one-liners would have been used in most shows, but weren't. For example, Mal's "huh.." after the discovery of River.
cookie cutter set and ship design
Firefly actually stands out in that they built the entire ship set as one complete piece.
queue the messianic character
Are you referring to River or Mal? If you're referring to River, I think the Bible would have been a lot more interesting with Jesus talking about how quickly the human body can be drained of blood given adequate vacuuming systems, claiming that he's a ship, speaking incoherently, and threatening to kill people with his brain.
Point of interest. Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine.
They recommend Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace if you're ending up liking this movie.
:-) ( or maybe the question should be frased -- how the algorithm doesn't work ;-) )
Wow...
Hmm, I wonder how that algorithm works anyway, if it's automated.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I reproduced this twice -
WinXP SP2, QT 6.5.2, about 9/10 of the way through the movie, firefox hangs up, and I had to kill it with Task Manager.
Recommend a separate download, and play outside of the browser.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
and
The new battlestar Galactica is full of space ships, people shooting guns and hot chicks doing kung-fu. And it's even on the Sci Fi channel.
If you haven't seen it before, you should check out the old BBC sci-fi "Blake's 7" -- now, there was a show full of "bad boys". The concept was that Blake, a freedom fighter up against a corrupt interstellar Federation, gathered together a crew of pirates and thieves to pursue freedom. But the actor playing Blake left the show after the first season; so, one of the thieves took over the ship after that. :)
Now, that became a show without a truly clear sense of good vs. evil. The main characters occasionally did the "right" thing for the right reasons, often for the wrong reasons, and sometimes didn't accomplish anything good at all! It made things quite interesting...
--John
September is still a very weak month for moviegoing in general, which is why it tends to be reserved for what are called "soft" movies.
Perfect example of such a film is "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" which was released on 9/17. It went on to gross ~$60 million worldwide boxoffice, with a production budget of about 70 million (the budget was actually closer to 100 because of CGI cost overruns).
It was originally scheduled to be released in the summer, but it would have been crushed. With little competition it was unable to earn back its budget domestically.
Serenity's production budget is listed at $40 million. This means its marketing budget is somewhere around $20-25 million, probably... Let's assume $65 million as the figure in question.
The film has to double its budget (assuming equitable split between exhibitor and distributor, which isn't always the case) in box office receipts to ensure zero risk for Universal at stage one of the revenue stream. It has to earn $130 million at the box office in OCTOBER! That's a stretch.
So what is more likely is that Universal is willing to take a loss on box office, which they are conceding by moving it to September so that they can get all the box office revenue possible (less competition). Geeks are loyal DVD purchasers, so they are banking on DVD sales to not only offset any loss, but for DVD sales themselves to buck the trend of flattening DVD sales as the DVD market matures.
No one releases a press release stating that they think their movie is going to fail, so refering to one in this instance doesn't amount to much. Also, other films released early summer, with established stars and directors (for example: Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom and Ridley Scott) failed miserably... with much bigger marketing budgets and the entire summer audience to cater to.
un burrito me trampeó.
I've seen the preview, and I have to say I disagree with the parent on some grounds, but not all.
Whedon is formulaic, but formulaic like Silverado or Raiders of the Lost Ark were. He knows the genre and he knows what buttons to push and he tries to push all of them. That means he needs interesting plot twists and unexpected surprises, but it also means the audience knows that the "thump in the dark" is really a cat, and when they calm down the bad guys jumps out at you anyway.
For example, this film has two characters that go in two completely different directions. One is, I think, indispensible to the plot. Interesting and dark and different. We need like this one. The other was totally forgettable. I think they created that one just to be sacrificed. That is formula too. You need cannon fodder so the hero can look heroic.
Bottom line: Hollywood is about the money. They don't make what won't sell. Oddball may be artisically cool, but it goes straight to video, then the Late Late Show two weeks later. Whedon is making stuff that sells, and is getting as close to the edge as he dares.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.