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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..."
Come on now, it's obvious to me that Serenity's fans are boosting the review averages all over the place. Nothing wrong about that, but keep that in mind. Best film of all time?? Let's get serious here, it's a good 2 hours of entertainment, nothing earth shattering here.
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.
As with the majority of slashdot posters on here, I am a total sci-fi junkie, but does Serenity really qualify to be within the top 10 movies of all time? Granted, this is a yahoo poll and probably was saturated by people so desperate for anything with a futuristic theme they're willing to hump a movie which was written by a guy who make a witch turn lesbian in another show with declining ratings.
I seriously cannot understand what is so great and original about this movie. Sci-fi meets cowboy theme has already been stretched in 26 episodes (plus a movie) of Cowboy Bebop.
I don't even see Bladerunner on this Yahoo top 10 of all time list. Dune? Seriously, are you going to tell me Serenity is better than Bladerunner?
Why would they react any differently than they have been? They've known that the internet is a great advertising medium, and this is just another way of advertising. They're still going to be against the distribution of the whole movie, though.
I don't see their position changing at all.
Not all nerds want to hear about MS, Linux, New Case Mods, Ham Radio Operators, New Space Probes, Creating Life Out of Amino Acids, Monkeys Learning How To Fly, Reconstructing the 1918 Influenza, etc, etc. But a lot do, or would, if it were to happen. Guess what? Slashdot tries to cater to them all, at least to some extent. Is every single nerd going to be thrilled with every single story? No. Oh well. Are there going to be a slew of nerds out there getting pissed because they're hearing too much about any of the above, including Serenity? Yes. But guess what? Bitching about it won't change a fucking thing. I'm not sure what to tell you if you really don't like it other than a: do it yourself, b: go somewhere else; or c: create a firefox plugin to strip out stories that contain whatever-words-you-don't-want-to-hear-about.
I'm not saying you can't bitch, I'm just saying you're wasting your time, and unless you get some sort of thrill out of playing the down-modded martyr, in the end, it's not going to be worth it.
But, hey, do what you want.
Okay.
I'm one of those people who reads slashdot regularly, runs linux on his computer, and has NOT watched the show Firefly and did NOT go see the movie the week it opened.
However, I do love sci-fi, I just never took the opportunity to get hooked on this show. (I have enough vices already!)
In any case, look: Advertising, after a movie has been released, is to encourage those who have not seen the movie or may not have been following it so closely but who _might_ be interested, to fork out the $10 and go check it out. I admit, the trailer was sort of interesting but nothing that really grabbed my attention. Mostly it's the hype I've read on this website that has kept me interested, and is what is making me want to go see it. I have no idea about the Firefly story, but since everyone seems to think it's so amazing I might be pursuaded to go see it, especially with a little enticement like showing me the first few minutes of the movie.
Now. I run linux. So I can't watch this "teaser". Let me repeat: I AM PRECISELY THE TARGET AUDIENCE for this advertisement, and yet the message I get when I actually make the effort of clicking on the link and going to the website to check it out is: You can't watch this, your operating system is not supported. This is not something that happens by accident. They are ACTIVELY dissuading linux users from watching the teaser. I had to click "view source" just to find the file, and I'm downloading it, but I realize it's very unlikely I'll be able to watch it. They are publishing in some stupid non-standard format. And for what reason? I can't think of a single one. They are giving it away for FREE, why would they be worried about copyright? At the VERY least, if you don't want to get into weird IP battles by using "frowned upon" formats like DivX (though I don't see the problem with OSS formats like Xvid), publish it in straight MPEG, even if it's low resolution, but my goodness, don't DENY your target audience the ability to watch it.
Whoever is in charge of marketing has no clue.
As it is, I still don't know if I'll bother going to see it, especially considering how expensive the theaters are these days and how little time I have.
If only I could watch the teaser...
It finished downloading by the time I typed this out. And look, mplayer and VLC are both out of luck.