Slashdot Mirror
Watch the First 9 Minutes of Serenity
An anonymous reader writes "As reported on FireflyFans.net, Universal is attempting further promotion of the sci-fi action film Serenity by making the first 9 minutes of the movie available online. The clip contains the opening backstory that sets an Alliance assassin on the trail of the ship's crew; it's an effective hook. On Yahoo movies, Serenity is ranked as the number 1 film currently in theaters and is hanging in a top-ten spot in the highest rated movies of all time. Slashdot has previously covered Orson Scott Card's review, the film's opening, an interview with Joss Whedon, and much more. It's all out of love..."
The movie depends quite a bit on the overall backstory from the one season of the television show. If you haven't seen the show, it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.
Luckily "Firefly - The Complete Series" is available on DVD.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
"Unfortunately, the Operating System you are currently using is unsupported."
It gave enough backstory for my girlfriend (who never saw the series) to know what was going on, and even covered some stuff I missed in the series (like the setting being one big solar system, not interstellar).
I don't see the hype personally, sure it's an ok tv show but it's nothing special. Some nice looking girls, a few gags, some spaceships and that's about it. Better than most but not great.
Mod me as a troll if you like but I know there are a few people that think like this so *shrugs*
Here's the direct link to the video file, although I still don't know of a Linux player that can handle it:
http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/viv/3-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
The only shame I feel about this movie is that it is a gem released during such a mundane (IMHO) year for theatrical releases, so although it stands out from the 2005 crowd, that in itself unfortunately isn't saying much at all. Still, I'd recommend it very highly to those who havn't seen it yet. And if you are even a more moderate fan of the series, then what the hell are you waiting for? Gogogo.
One thing that did dissapoint me was the lack of the theme tune, unless I missed it, but I didn't hear even a snippet during the whole movie :-(
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Unfortunately, my operating system is unsupported, so they are safe this time.
Had you actually tried it, you'd have noticed that it's not a browser popup, it's a Java permissions popup, which is (correctly) not blocked by Safari.
Worked fine on my Safari with popup blocking. Hell, I actually had to use Safari because it wasn't working right on Firefox for Mac.
Already tried it; it just says 'data', so file doesn't know about it. I've tried it with a number of players so far (xine, mplayer, realplayer, even Windows Media Player running under Codeweavers' crossover) and none of them can read it.
My guess is that it's an mpeg wrapped up in some sort of drm that requires their encryption key to play it.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
1) The
2) There's a Java archive (jar) on the page that is automatically selected for Windows or OS X that has a file extension of
3) Inside the Java archive is a Java applet, PlayerApplet.class, that apparently does nothing but act as a proxy for another file inside the class, a DLL file in the Windows version, probably something similar in the Linux version
Looks like we're out of luck.
Dlugar
[1] There are actually four files which you can find here:
http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/p
http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/p
http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/p
http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/p
They're each JAR files (which are basically just zip files) so the more enterprising can download them and figure out exactly what they do.
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
The format comes from Vividas, and while this page says they support Linux, they seem to mean it in the sense that you might be able to run their Java player under Linux if you're lucky.
Well though you shouldn't be moded flaimbaite you clearly don't understand Firefly or Serenity.
"I never feel convinced that any of the effort by the 'good side' or the 'bad side' is significantly important to those characters."
Thats kind of the point. Its not about the good and the bad. These guys are frickin mercenaries. They kill people for money. Who is suppose to be the good guys???? Its about surviving. Its about life. Not some holy war where they uphold only the most noble of virtues. The characters are more then one-dimensional. They arent good, they arent bad, they are people. They have flaws and they face problems and dilemmas. They over come them but sometimes they dont. Should everything be so perfect and nice where even the smallest of actions changes the balance of the never-ending war of good vs. evil? No, because thats not how life works. This isnt star wars, where the good triumphs. This is something more and the characters are unique. Its not a monolithic story line like most Sci-Fis are, so I can see why you have a hard time understanding the story and characters.
Wheldon is a master story teller, and I am really enjoying his work. I saw Firefly last weekend and immediatly went on a hard target search for Firefly this weekend. Watched the entire series, and am blown away. I never know TV could be this good. Too good to continue I guess :(
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Can play it under linux :D
n dex.html
l ayer_script.inc would be the place to look - playPressed() would be the function. Getting it called as playPressed('http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Se renity/viv/3929_Serenity_720.viv',true) would do the trick (2nd arg inidicates whether to play in a window or not.
Install wine (winehq.org)
Install ie6 with tool from http://sidenet.ddo.jp/winetips/config.html
(Possibly install dcom98. Not sure if its essential or not.)
Start ie.
Change security settings (Internet Options -> Security) to allow installation of unsigned activex controls
Go to the site http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/i
You'll get a dialog telling you to install a jre. Cancel.
Say yes to installation and execution of anything activex related.
Click on Dial up.
Watch the movie in its window.
The fullscreen options (low, med, high) give me an error about unavailable display modes. I'd love to know if it is possible to get this playing the higher res versions in a window, but my javascript/webdev fu is weak. http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/p
(Alternatively, a patch for wine that sorts out the screen mode problem would possibly do the trick).
IFilm now has the first nine minutes available in three other formats: streaming Windows Media, QuickTime and Real Player
Are those more accessible to your OS?
I also tried running this on linux and got the same message. However, if you go to the website http://www.vividas.com/support/, and look under system requirements, it says that Vividas will run under Linux using WINE emulation if you have 192MB RAM, Pentium III or better CPU 450MHz or better CPU clock speed and an Accelerated Graphics card, with at least 4MB of memory. Its still in testing, however.
8 .html for more details.
This isn't an example of a company ignoring the linux community. This is an example of a company trying to control distribution by using a proprietary format. It took over my entire desktop while playing...couldn't quit out of it until it finished...must be some sort of DRM scheme.
I think they would have been better off using a normal format...but this appears to be an industry format: http://www.akamai.com/en/html/about/press/press51
You can take off your tin-foil hat now.