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Whedon Calls Death Knell For Firefly
Ant writes "Entertainment Weekly is reporting on the end of Firefly." From the article: "Alas, Whedon's fond memories are also tainted by Serenity's status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal's best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. 'In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,' says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets -- and he's moving on."
Or a question really, then a thought.
:(
Why go straight to a movie? Why not back to television. With a movie you only have one chance at redemption. With a series you have several. Make a few more episodes, get picked up by the SciFi channel and let it ride. I loved the Firefly series, but I didn't care for the movie. Yeah, it had great parts (so do some ugly hookers), but overall it both sucked and blowed!!
I guess I will be looking for that made for TV movie of Angel. And don't tell me it will never happen, because I already know.
I guess that stuff like this is the reason they make scotch.
I mean, announce the death the day the DVD comes out? DVD sales of the show was what picked it back up in the first place...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
...I already have the "Firefly" DVD and I will be buying the "Serenity" DVD today after work.
Hmmmm. You don't think they timed this, do you?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Dammit! I was hoping Firefly would be the perfect test-case for the iTunes episode-selling model. I think its perfect for situations like this - if the fans really want it, they can vote directly with their dollars, and the hell with the myopic networks. Alas, a little too late it would seem.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
But, Serenity was not all it could, or should have been.
The series had a lot of potential, and in trying to please too many folks, the movie lacked the ability to measure up to it.
I saw it once, and would rather watch the episodes of the TV show...
-merlyn
Oh come on, he happens to make this statement on the very day the DVD is set to be released? Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me... If the DVD sales are amazing - and they might be, considering the cult status of the show - he can then announce a miraculous comeback.
Personally, I liked the show, I really liked the movie, and I can see why both failed in the financial sense (bad marketing for both, episodes out of order and plot development much too slow in the show).
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"It was a leaf on the wind." *CRUNCH*
Somewhere, where fictional characters continue to live on after their creator has let them go, Malcolm Reynolds is punching someone in the face.
I came here for a good argument
"...despite Universal's best marketing efforts..."
Sorry to say they must not have marketed hard enough. I watch more than my share of TV and don't recognize the movie title.
If indeed that is the best they can do; me thinks they should get a new ad agency...
Sci-Fi is about breaking the constraints and tired plots of conventional stories. This means fantastic things like aliens, robots, artificial intelligence and time travel. Not rehashing the stale concept that the rest of the universe really isn't so different from home and we'll never really evolve past the emotions and biases we've got right now.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Lost is mass marketed. Firefly/Serenity had a nitch following. Sadly, mass market wins out these days. It may have been a good show but it just didn't catch with the masses.
It is this decades babylon 5. It just didn't last as long.
Evolution or ID?
Is that a joke? Lost gives you a few mysteries at a time? When lost does give an answer, it opens up 10 more questions, and doesn't even really answer the question. Here are some examples.
Who is desmond, the french lady, and ethan?
What is the really big thing in the woods?
What is with the numbers?
How is hurley not losing any weight?
That is just a small sampling of unknowns. I have never seen firefly so you may be joking but your complaint is what I am starting to dislike about lost.
Pardon my ignorance if I didn't get the sarcasm.
I guess you can stop the signal :(.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Fox had the rights to the TV show and would not allow it to be made. Universal optioned the rights to a movie but couldn't use the name Firefly which is why they used the name "Serenity".
It would've been wonderful for more episodes of the show but the moguls wouldn't have it.
Ah well, it was a great show and it was fun while it lasted. I've got no regrets for supporting the show as much as I had.
You can't take the sky from me.
I guess that's the difference.. I couldn't watch Lost because I thought the writers were just spoon-feeding the audience. I thought Lost was the worst writing I'd ever seen, down there with Buffy and Angel.
My opinion of Firefly was that it was briliantly written, excellent *realistic* dialogue, and very witty.
I'm also of the opinion that most other SF shows are crap. Finally Firefly gave us a show that was action-packed from beginning to end, unlike those shows that wallow in political "intrigue" trying to make some clever statement about life. Sod that!
Action is where it's at; Firefly and Serenity had it in spades.
This is a sad day indeed, but I hold out hope that comic books will continue the tale of our favourite crew.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
C'mon, there are all kinds of equally, or more entertaining shows.
Huh? What the hell are you on?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think of Firefly as the TV version of Christ's second coming, but what exists on TV that's worth watching? And what shows exist in sufficient quantity to warrant the "all kinds of" label?
Whenever I flip through the major network stations, all I see is new reality shows and faceless "family dramas". Surely you're not suggesting anyone watch that crap?
Only new show this season I watched completely was HBO's Rome, and it wasn't so much because it is a great show, I'm just a fan of all things Roman. When new episodes pop up in on demand I'll watch Mythbusters as well. Other than that.. TV is absolute crap.
Even Joss' comments must be taken with a grain of salt. I sincerly doubt that this will be the end of Firefly - considering that currenty, Amazon.com ranks Serenity as the #1 selling DVD, with the complete Firefly series coming in at #6 (again). DVD sales on this franchise are through the roof, and have been the fulcrum upon which the future of the franchise balances.
Call me what you will, but I don't think we've heard the last of this yet.
But of course, I could be wrong...
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
...that the movie only made $25m, and that marketing is being blamed. I saw the movie almost as soon as it came out because I had seen the trailer and was hooked - I had never heard of 'Firefly' until I read about the movie (I don't watch much TV). I really thought it was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, even though I still haven't seen an episode of 'Firefly' and I'm ambivalent about 'Buffy' at best, so you can't call me a Whedonite. Shows what I know.
NeverEndingBillboard.com
NeverEndingBillboard.com
It's not going to be Firefly but eventually we're going to see something that does fit into the niche that I see so many Firefly fans (I refuse to call you people "Browncoats") wishing their show could get into. That would be the "paid for by the fans" niche which I think we're heading for with some property eventually. Look at the fan made stuff being done for Star Trek New Voyages right now and think about how cheaply that's being made. Then look at the estimates for what it was going to cost those poor misguided bastards who wanted to finance another season of Enterprise. Somewhere in between those two numbers (much closer to the New Voyages price I'm sure) is going to be the spot where fans pay for their show.
Production values won't be what you'd like them to be but they'll be damned close. Actors will get (low paying) work on these shows and some of them will go on to bigger and better things. It will be like a step below working in soaps or something.
Firefly won't be the show that does this because it's owned by Fox and so you can't keep it alive without paying them. This business model doesn't allow for that or, at the very least it doesn't allow for it on the scale that Fox is expecting bank. It'll be more like Open Source Television.
Fans of Science Fiction should just get together and cut the studios out. It needs to be an original story. Nothing studio owned will work. The guys getting traffic doing Star Trek episodes for free are the place to start. If people can get together and make fan based shows like New Voyages then they can use that as a stepping stone to an original story Sci-Fi pay per episode series.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
This article has been linked to a lot over the past few days on various Firefly/Serenity boards. The quotes from Joss have clearly been taken out of context, a quick read-through of the other interviews he's given over the past few days show this. He's found closure because he got to tell the story he wanted to tell from the beginning. But he's said that if he had the chance to tell another story in the 'verse he turn right around and do it. Specifically, he's hinted that another movie would reveal that bounty hunter Jubal Early from the last episode of Firefly is very much alive. I'm a Browncoat but I don't stick my fingers in my ears and go "lalala I can't hear you" when people suggest the franchise has come to an end. But this article is simply trolling. FYI, Joss has confirmed that he's going to write another series of Serenity comics, and has been saying for months that the DVD sales of Serenity will determine whether the franchise will be seen on screens (big or small) in the future. EW are just quoting Joss out of context to stir up some contraversy. I for one am very unimpressed.
I hope that 'Universal's best marketing efforts' were better in other countries, here in New Zealand I saw not one mention of Serenity in any advertising media at all.
If I had not watched the series on DVD and followed the talk about the movie on the web, I would probably not have known it was even being produced.
Sadly on its opening night in my region there were only 12 other people in the theatre... at least it was quiet.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
This is a fairly misleading headline/summary/article stub. In (numerous) interviews over the past week or so, Joss says in most of them that any future Firefly/Serenity-age would depend on the DVD sales being particularly big.
"It would depend on huge numbers from the DVD," writer/director Whedon allows. "Obviously, we are still shy of making our money back from the box office. But we are within shouting distance. Still, it would have to blow up pretty huge for a sequel to be called for.
"Mind you, stranger things have happened. And they do seem to happen to me. So it's not like I'm shutting the door." -- Toronto Star interview
"The, um, the movie is finished. And the story is told. The world is not finished. There's more to tell, but that's always the case with everything I do and whether I get the chance to tell [it] or not it is up to somebody else. So I made sure that this movie had completion and didn't feel like a glorified prequel. It's its own piece and it wraps everything up. I have a sense of closure that I never had, and I can walk away satisfied. But if somebody tells me not to walk away, I'll turn right back around." -- Comcast Movies interview
This EW article seems to take the stance that since Whedon is working on projects other than Firefly/Serenity and is taking a realistic view towards their finances, he clearly has abandoned them, despite the fact that his other projects have been in the pipe for some time.
We won't make it and we can't take the chance that someone else will make it, it will be a success and we will be shown to have made yet another bad decision.
If we don't want it no-one can have it.
Actually, it's more like "We won't make it, and we won't allow anyone else to make it, because it's ours. We don't care that it might make or lose money for someone else. It's our football, and nobody else gets to play with it."
This is the standard attitude among publishers of pretty much anything.
Sadly, it had a LOT of competition for screen time. It was only in theaters for a few weeks, which didn't give it much time for repeat viewers to build up sales. I remember wanting to go see it for a 4th time, and it wasn't playing anywhere, AND it wasn't in the cheap theaters yet either, that was weird.
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Fox is the poster child for why the movie studios have problems. They had an executive who "didn't get it" with Family Guy ruin the original series by actively sabotaging its timing slots. Then it sells over a million DVD sets after Cartoon Network picks it up and does reruns. With Firefly, they put the damn series out of order and wonder why it failed miserably. A little hard to follow a linear story line without a linear scheduling... assholes.
Some people think that a la carte cable is bad for consumers, but I'd gladly pay $30 for Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, the History Channel and MusicChoice. That'd be only $20 less than full digital cable, and if they'd throw in a "Sci-Fi 2, 3, 4" like they have with MTV, I'd glady go up to $40. The TV and movie studios are phenominally stupid, such as the case of Firefly where they spent obscene amounts of money producing it only to let some executive rip the sequence to shreds for shits and giggles.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I never really got into Buffy though I often saw it and enjoyed it, especially the "Grrr...argh" zombie at the end of every episode. Same with Angel, though I thought that was a much better show but only caught a few episodes. I heard Firefly was a good show and thought "what the hell" and bought the DVD, loved it. Until I watched it I didn't even know who Joss Whedon was, or that the show was made by the guy who made Buffy and Angel. "all" the computer nerds and sci-fi geeks (I'm one myself, what of it?) didn't jump on because of Joss, so stop throwing around accusations like we only love it because of its creator because that's gorram bullshit.
Firefly is obviously not a huge hit.
Firefly the series is the 6th most popular DVD sale at Amazon.com and Serenity is the most popular DVD sale on Amazon.com today. How do you define a hit?
"despite Universal's best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million."
I call bullshit on this one. Most people I know never heard of the movie. When I went to the theater, there was no movie poster nor a listing on the Marque. The screen number that it was showing in, rather than having a lit sign over the number, had a hand written tag taped to the light, and this is no "small" theater. This was the largest in the area.
I'm not even going to defend the movie, because it had it's critics, but it's certainly far better in many ways to other very popular films this year, and it had a psychotic fanbase. The fact that I know several Firefly fans that didn't even KNOW the movie had already come and gone before they found out about the DVD just further goes toward making me think their "best marketing efforts" were utter rubbish.
If I were the the paranoid type I'd say Hollywood intentionally made it a point to show fans with this movie that yelling loudly about the things you want to see will get you what you want. They tell YOU what you're going to watch, not the other way around. It's the only way they can use the media to brainwash the masses. It just doesn't work as well when we actually get some say so in the matter.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Sci Fi is not owned by Fox, it is owned by NBC.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
My 2 year old LOVES that theme song. Maybe because he has Cerebal Palsy, and one of the few words in his vocabulary so far is "Me". We sing together every Friday when it comes on Sci-Fi channel; he shouts "ME" in time with the song.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I honestly can't remember the last time a Universal film did well. Even King Kong (which I saw today and is overlong and indulgent) is taking in below expectation. Warner and Disney and Fox all have their successes, but Universal and Paramount have both been struggling recently.
Serenity got near to no publicity here. I go to the cinema most weeks through the Summer and only knew thw film was coming out because I read Slashdot and PA. Universal really didn't do their job here.
If Firefly doesn't stop now, then how else are we going to have Firefly: The Next Generation here in twenty years, complete with the new River/Jane-daughter wise-cracking empath, a male companion, a cyborg mechanic, and the psychotic-chained-up Reaver named "Thudd" for comedic relief?
It was poorly planned. They tried to keep too many secrets from the audience, which just wound up making the show hard to get attached to. Compare it to lost: lost only gives you a few mysteries at a time, and always wraps up a few before delivering the next batch. Firefly really needed better writers and better planning.
You couldn't be more wrong. I've seen both shows. Lost has mediocre writing and weak character development. I have not seen a single innovative element to the writing of Lost. Firefly had excellent and innovative writing, including some of the the best examples of characters not understanding one another without dumbing it down so much as to seem unbelievable.
The reason Lost is a success and Firefly is not is because Lost is marketed to hell and back by some fairly sharp people. Firefly was intentionally sabotaged by executives with a grudge. Do you really think Lost would be a success if they aired the episodes out of order and changed the time it was on three times during it's first season, and they pre-empted it with sports multiple times?
Before seeing it, I was hoping Serenity would have done better so wed get sequels or maybe even have Firefly come back to TV (although I never really beleived the latter would ever happen)
That said, after seeing Serenity, I felt it is a great ending to Firefly.
The big dark secret of the Alliance was revealed (although im sure there are others, and this finally explains the reevers), they're no longer going after Simon and River. We find out a bunch of stuff about River. River finally has a real place in the crew (as the new pilot) and it seems she is less insane now that the truth about the reevers was revealed
While I'd love to find out more about Book, it seems pretty clear he was like the assassin in the movie before he became a shephard, i still feel Serenity was a good ending and it left me satisfied.
The only part im sad about is it seems Joss had plans for 2 more and if thats true then there must have been more plot to explore but now we'll never know
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/Pedant Off
couldn't use the name Firefly which is why they used the name "Serenity".
If you listen carefully, you'll notice that the word 'Firefly' isn't said at all in the film.
:-). Yeah, but hey, that name still conjours up flying motorcycles for me, and that was the one series that wasn't named Battlestar.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
He robbed from the rich, and gave to the poor
:) )
Stood up to the man, and gave him what for
Our love for him now ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne!
(sorry - you sing your song, I'll sing mine
I spent the evening flickering into your darkness.
By the way, I never saw Buffy or Angel
You, my friend, are lucky. I guess I was too old when they came out to see them as anything but LCD pandering.
Joss Whedon really came into his own when he made Firefly. Hopefully its financial tanking doesn't set him on a backslide.
If only pigs had wings
:)
Come on, what kind of browncoat are you? The appropriate responses would be:
"If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak right now."
or:
"If only I had a magical wish-granting plank."
fortune-firefly is your friend.
I spent the evening flickering into your darkness.
As Tolkein once noted in his essay "On Fairy Stories", if you have to suspend disbelief, the author failed. The true test of a good story, Tolkein argued, is that you shouldn't have to suspend anything. It should feel real to you, at least to the point where things "just make sense". Lengthy technobabble and explanations shouldn't be necessary.
Again, though, most of this is equally true, no matter what the setting. When the setting is exceptionally difficult, expensive or unusual, therefore, the setting has to be relevent. Asimov's Foundation series could not work in a Wild West setting. The original Star Wars trilogy uses space to express enormity - something no other setting could provide - so whilst the story is a fairly trivial quest in and of itself, it couldn't carry the range of expression in any other setting. The Matrix is also a fairly trivial quest, but requires the deformable, maliable nature of virtual reality in order to cover the metaphysics of the story. It simply couldn't work anywhere else.
Serenity, on the other hand, had nothing new in it and required nothing from the setting. The story looked like a simple mesh of a cowboys-and-indians western with Matrix-style combat, Libertarian vs. The Evil Commies politics, and stole the "alien enemy" from an Asimov short story.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Which mysteries have they wrapped up exactly? Do we know what the island is? No. Do we know why there are polar bears there? No. Do we know who The Others are? No. And these are all mysteries that were introduced in the first season.
Lost is pretty popular and I used to like it a lot, but I stopped watching because the writers NEVER resolve anything of real importance.
Firefly, OTOH, was cancelled before they had the chance to pay off any of their setups.
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
Two words: Battlestar Galactica.
Of course, Serenity was *in* BG.
see: http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=15563
-=Maggie Leber=-
I'll bite - Yes the show flopped in its original run, but the circumstances in which this occured were more than stacked against it. The two-hour pilot (which explained many of the elements in Firefly's complicated world) was cut, episodes were shown out of order and were consistantly prempted by other broadcasts; it almost seemed like the powers at FOX wanted it to be canceled from the get-go.
Strong DVD sales of Firefly were part of the reason that Serenity was ever filmed in the first place. Personally I only caught one episode when it aired (and never thought much of it), but was hooked once seeing it as it should have aired on DVD.
Firefly DVD sales made the series popular and should be the baseline of its "success". Anyone who bought the series on DVD already was "bothered" to go out, spend $30-40 on the boxed set and then bring them home. Although movie sales were lackluster, it certainly wasn't a flop (actually $38m in 7 weeks not $25m as stated in the summary). What will make up for even those profits will most likely again be DVD sales, which Whedon stated in an interview.
30 characters are fine for a s
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4966&cid=11336 63
This is straight from Joss himself on Whedonesque: All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had 'closure', what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it. But so we're clear once and for all: If you read a quote saying "I'd love to do more in this 'verse with these actors in any medium" all I'm saying is that Nathan has a turnipy odor. It's not his fault, he doesn't eat a lot of them but everyone else in the cast noticed it and tht's not really something I'm prepared to deal with any more. And Jewel said outright she wouldn't do scenes with him except stuff like the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER funeral scene which was outside in a high SPOILER wind. So if I do manage to find another incarnation for my beloved creation, it will have been totally against my will. I hope that clears everything up. Oh, and when I say I want to do a Spike movie, it means I have a bunion on my toe. -joss (by which I mean Tim) (no, actually me.) joss | December 21, 02:12 CET You see? EW can stop stirring up contraversy and just bugger off for all I care.
Do you *really* want to have a whole long discussion about this here? Well, I have no self-control so I'm going to go for it
1. If anything I felt that it showed the core audience that this was not an episode of a TV series, where much could be expected to end up the same at the end as at the beginning.
I suppose that's valid, but people campaigned hard to get Firefly back. Serenity was not Firefly. For some people that's fine. For others it's not fine: the loved Firefly and they missed those aspects of it that they had fallen in love with. The most quoted aspect is warmth. The show, and the ship itself, seemed colder in the movie. And for others it's just main characters. You don't kill Han Solo off in A New Hope because the character is so great for the movie. Killing him off in Return of the Jedi would have been a bummer, but not nearly as bad a decision.
I don't see how new viewers can have been a factor in the decision to let them die. New viewers would have gotten the same effect of seriousness if new characters had been added and then killed. There was no way to add anymore new characters, Wheddon had a hard enough time getting all of the essential cast in (some say he failed at that, but with 9 characters to introduce again I think he did well). So in order for the show to be a Hollywood action flick with an ensemble case, SOMEONE had to die. That's the formula, and in the sense that making this a Hollywood action flick is for the newbies, killing Wash as part of that final-action tension-raising plot tool was definately for those newbies.
2. Also, River had been shown as having a 'super weapon' mode in the Firefly series, where she closed her eyes and killed three armed troops with three shots in about one second, so the movie was not 'turning' her into something new.
In this case you're preaching to the choir. I personally LOVED that scene - it brings a lump to my throat every time River says "My turn" and then goes off and kicks major Reaver butt. Plus the action sequences are just incredible with her - some of the best I've ever seen. I was just trying to add that for the sake of completeness because I know a lot of fans disliked it. And they have a point too, it would have been hard to have had characters like Jayn and Zoe matter so much as the hired muscle now that River the kick-ass assasin can do more damage than both of them combined. And any attempt to have limited her powers would have seemed a little too artificial and comic-bookish. She just recovered from being nut-case, how are they going to make her be one again?
All in all I had a really hard time liking the movie because of what happened to Wash. But that was because I wanted to see more movies. I was hoping the movie would do well and they'd relaunch the series. Or try something genuinely ground-breaking and do direct-to-DVD episodes. But the movie was sweet, and now that it's the conclusion to the series I like it even more.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Talk about a flashback. This was the most common thing I heard on the boards "they live in a dangerous world and killing wash made that world more realistic".
But I think that's really superficial. First of all, realism isn't the goal of entertainment. Realism is boring - we spend 1/3 our lives unconcious. That's real. Try that for a movie. When people say they want a movie to be "real" they mean they want it to be an immersive experience. This is something that fans of schindler's list and braveheart have in common with fans of the original star wars: we all want the movies to SEEM real, but not really be real.
And so the problem with killing Wash to me was that it DIDN'T help immerse me in the world. We've already seen one village decimated by reavers, the recording of another woman raped to death by reavers, AN ENTIRE F***ING PLANET where everyone's dead, every one the crew has ever met has died, one of the crew die, a lot of extra people die, and we're about to see Mr. Universe die. Oh and by the way the captain has threatened to start shooting his own crew. So for me, anyway, the whole "dangerous world" point had already been made.
What really bugs me, however, is that people act as though realism means people dying. How many people die in a real war? That are shot, I mean. In Iraq there's like what, 9 injured that survive to every one that dies? And yet in movies it's binary. You are shot and you either live or you die. So to me it seems amazingly hollow and superficial to be like "people dying is realistic". No, people GETTING HURT is realistic. When was the last time you saw a show or a movie where a main character got hurt and had to learn to live with the disability. I mean aside from the sub-genre where that IS the plot most characters exist in this crazy world where you're alive or you're dead. Could Wash have been paralyzed, lost an arm or a leg? THAT would have been realistic and challenging - but the truth is that that's not what we want in our movies - no matter how dark of a tone we're after.
I'm not desperately trying to say "why did they have to kill him", I'm saying that a world where bullets either kill you or you make a full recovery is just as escapist as a world where none of the hero's die. I would like to see a movie, this or any other, where a character suffers a serioues, permenant injury and the show goes on. That's not the whole plot, he never recovers, he just learns to live with the disability and the rest of the characters learn to deal with it.
In America we all avidly follow the body count in Iraq, but when we see someone without a limb or in a wheelchair we either stare or look away and in the end go back to our escapist world where you're either whole or gone. That's not reality at all.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Seriously, I remember when the first previews came out, and every time I tried to talk to anyone who was lucky enough to see it, when I asked them about it, all I got was a ashen-faced forlorn look. Evenually, when you learn that they kill off several characters, you can't help but think...WTF was Whedon smoking?
Okay, I'm the last person to feel like we need to have cushy Star Trek rules where everyone lives that's a main character and only nameless red shirts die. I'm perfectly fine with major characters getting axed in a series...although you always hope it happens on the writer's terms and not because one of the actors dies (so sad, West Wing). But killing off a main character to fans is the like charging $20,000 on your credit card. That better be a damn spectactual investment that pays dividends in the long run that make up the cost. Otherwise, you've left a real goodwill vacuum.
Personally, I was I think most upset that Shepard Book was killed off. He was a great character, an walking apparent contradiction between his current peacemaker role and apparently some military past life (showing his ID card to the Alliance doctors to get someone medical treatment). The character Book gave a nice calm anchor to provide sage advice and comfort. Who would take his place? Is Jayne going to wax poetic when they face some great evil? So, killing of Book...which I would totally accept on its own...was a really ballsy move. The only way to make up for it would be to introduce a new "father figure" or similar replacement. But the movie didn't do that, or even hint at it.
Then they killed off Mr. Universe or whatever his name was, and a host of virtually every other bit character from the original series. This is the salt-the-earth style I'm talking about. Maybe none of those characters were worth a spit, but they were established coordinates on the Firefly roadmap. The movie only really introduced one new location, and it was devoid of human inhabitants. So it's like Firefly might as well be alone in the galaxy as far as relative relationships. If the movie had done well and a new series was greenlighted...it would have literally been like day one having to introduce a raft of new characters to replace all of the ones you wastefully killed off. Again, it could be done, but...only if the payoff is worth it.
And finally, killing off Wash. And doing in the most offhanded, insulting "ooga boogy" way possible. "Well I guess we're all OKAYAAAAAAAAAAHOMG (die)" That was just crap writing. And Zoe who was willing to storm the citiadel of some well armed private army to save him, just turned and walked away leaving his corpse to well known reaver necrophiliacs? One person who saw and early screened said..."I would have totally bought his death 100% if like at his gravesite Zoe had calmed cut off her ring finger with wedding ring and left it on his grave" I totally agree. It was like he was a total minor character in how his death was handled. And, maybe he wasn't a major character, but his marriage to Zoe had to at least elevate him higher than Simon, River, or even Jewel.
So, in my opinion, what killed Firefly is that as a mainstream movie, it didn't have the trite happy ending that the mainstream wants. And as a fan movie, it burned a season worth of fan goodwill for absolutely no reason at all. It had the plot of a mid-season extended episode, but it had the resolution of a series finale. And so, that's what it became. As a true Firefly fan...I honestly don't know if I would want whatever Firefly series would have had to follow that movie. If I were to close my eyes and dream at all now, it will be for a Firefly prequel about the war and the history Browncoats.
Firefly, in the end, was like Cowboy Bebop...an amazing ride, but written in such a way that when its over...its over.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Is here. His comment begins "All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight"
Actually, it's more like "We won't make it, and we won't allow anyone else to make it, because it's ours. We don't care that it might make or lose money for someone else. It's our football, and nobody else gets to play with it."
Come on. It sucks that the show is dead, but Mr. Whedon did make a deal, and he did make a lot of money. When Josh sold Firefly to Fox he was just coming from Buffy and Angel, both very succesful (Buffy more so, of course.) I guarantee his deal was for six figures, if not seven. Universal probably got a better deal since the show wasn't so much of a hit, but it probably wasn't cheap to negotiate either. He could have held out for an option that returns the property back to him after a period of inactivity (though the major studios may or may not have gone for that.) Or better yet, he could have gone to Sci-Fi or another cable channel in the first place and got a deal that would have been more to his favor-- and put the show on in a place that would have a better chance of nurturing it, where a small but loyal fan base could carry a show. If he really felt this was a story that must be told he could have arranged for independant financing, produced the film himself and held on to all of the rights. He did not do that. He went for the major studio money and made a fair deal on their terms, knowing full well that the stakes are higher and most ideas don't make it. Yes, it's theirs and they can say what the future of Firefly/Serenity is... But the studios did invest quite a bit of money and time into productions that had a chance and failed. Why should they be expected to give back the rights? Because a relatively small fan base wants them to? Does Whedon even want them back?
Did the studios give the property a fair shake? Fox didn't, IMHO, but at least it was on the air for a while, which is more than most good ideas can say. Universal promoted it pretty heavily but it still tanked. Maybe this is just an idea that wasn't meant to find a mass audience. Anyway, Whedon's a creative guy, I'm sure he has more projects in the works.
This little blurb seems completely contrary to
http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027 and
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22059 (look towards bottom of article).
The only part im sad about is it seems Joss had plans for 2 more and if thats true then there must have been more plot to explore but now we'll never know
This reminds me of something which others here might find amusing... after having recently watched the Firefly episodes, the episode commentaries, and the movie, I somehow got the half-baked idea that Inara is a vampire, or a succubus, or some other sort of supernatural creature. Whedon's other shows, Buffy and Angel, are pretty obviously in the same universe, but there's nothing solid tying Firefly to that same universe... or is there?
The evidence I collected is pretty poor/circumstantial, but as a whole it's rather interesting to muse about, I think:
* In the "Out of Gas" episode, there's a scene where the doctor (Simon) and Inara are chatting about their inevitable demise. On the commentary the director of that episode mentions that there was a clue to something about Inara which didn't get expanded on in the show. During this scene the following dialog takes place:
Inara: I love this ship. I have from the first moment I saw it.
Simon: I just don't want to die on it.
Inara: I don't want to die at all.
I might be imagining things, but IMHO Inara sounds kind of sinister when she says that, as if she really doesn't plan on dying.
* I might be wrong on this, but I can't recall any time that Inara appears outside in the sun with exposed skin. The one time I recall her being outside was in "Trash," where she appears outside wearing a veil. (Now that I think about it though, there might be an exception in "Shindig" during the duel...)
* In the pilot, when Firefly passes by Reavers and everybody thinks they're about to die, Inara pulls out a little case which looks like a suicide kit. In the commentary the director says it's not a suicide kit, but actually a secret about Inara which would've been revealed later. It doesn't look like the sort of weapon you'd use to fight off Reavers, so perhaps it's something supernatural?
* In the commentary, one of the directors mentions how Inara was supposed to be played in a way which showed her as having more wisdom than someone her age to have, wisdom beyond her years. This could just mean that she's smart, but could also have other connotations.
* In Serenity, Inara fights using a weapon which rapidly switches between being a bow and a crossbow. The rapid switching is probably a blooper, but in any case, a bow/crossbow is a pretty anachronistic weapon, even for Firefly.
So yeah, the "evidence" I have is pretty fragmentary, and there's alternative explanations for just about all of it. It's pretty obvious though that Whedon had some sort of deep, dark secret in Inara's past that he didn't have a chance to reveal. What are your thoughts? Can anyone else think of things to support/refute this?
You date a girlfriend geeky enough to appreciate Firefly. You've never heard of it.
1) You are not a geek. You do not belong here. Stop reading stuff from this website. Go to Kuroshin or Technocrat. Shoo.
2) You do not deserve your girlfriend. Smurfs need to date Smurfette, you on the other hand can easily get by on standard issue female.
Oh, why am I falling for this ruse? Your girlfriend obviously only exists in your Sybillike mind.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Here's the full text of Joss's own reply:
It was my understanding that the main actors all signed contracts for up to 3 movies.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Don't Panic!
It appears that Joss was taken way out of context.
http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027
Here's the direct link to that wonderful statement: http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027#101124
"Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
There's more to it than that. If you've been involved with the industry then you know that personal politics, whims, and downright mean-spiritedness have a great deal to do with cancellations and refusals to sell as well. This is an industry where profit often *isn't* the bottom line and where individuals will often torpedo working projects to push a personal agenda, or simply to stick it to someone they don't like.
For example, it's a rather well-known (in the industry) fact that "Dark Angel" wasn't cancelled due to ratings but because a certain powerful executive (a woman who still works in the business) harbored a very public hatred of Jessica Alba. Public in the sense of that it made the rounds in business as a recurring bit of gossip, not public in the sense that you, Joe Smith, know about it. She made it one of her primary goals to sink that show any way she could. What's mildly amusing about this is that she's acquired a reputation for doing this sort of thing, and at least a half-dozen cancellations are attributed to her vindictiveness because the shows featured a woman she didn't like. Not that she doesn't like Ms. Alba because of some unpleasant personal interaction (they've never met, to my knowledge), but because Ms. Alba is extraordinarily gorgeous - and she despises gorgeous women. Especially strong-willed gorgeous women, and most of all strong-willed gorgeous women that fellow male executives drool over and talk about to each other within the range of this vipers hearing.
No names, but her pecadillos have reached the point where a bit of google searching can turn up the very same info I've just related, along with some of the shows that've been on her hit list (apart from "Dark Angel").
This is not an unusual thing. Many shows do just fine ratings-wise, yet get cancelled despite the fact that they make money. The reasons are usually rooted in the malicious behavior of executives more enamored of power than of money. Others are appalling (e.g., "Enterprise") but are kept because someone on the show (in this case, Berman) knows where some very, very embarrassing bodies are buried.
When it comes to television, don't attribute to stupidity what can instead be ascribed to petty evil. Nine times of out ten the reasons are firmly rooted in petty evil.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Entertainment Weekly may be calling Serenity a failure and Joss Wheedon may be washing his hands of this project, but that doesn't change the fact that out of two Blockbusters and a Hollywood video in my town, none of them had copies to rent. All were checked out today...
Look at the three Whedon television shows (Serenity included) and you will see one glaring detail.
If there is one thing that Joss loves to do, it's to get people really engrossed in the characters and then kill them off. Both Buffy and Angel have each died twice and many other side characters have bit the big one in many ways; some very touching and others just pointless.
Joss even teased us with Mal's death in the movie back in June 2004.
Without advance spoilers, I watched the movie knowing full well that some of the beloved crew would not be coming out alive. The deaths in the movie could be used to convey a sense of realism; the idea that everyone dies, even loved ones. They could also just be included because Joss is a sadist and never got to kill anyone when the show was on TV.
it's good storytelling. You can't tease viewers with life or death situations if your main characters are invulnerable. Wash's death was gut wrenching to fans but it also set up the final part of the movie where you really had no clue if they were going to make it. That, my friend, is why they died.
Funny, I just watched "Shindig" last night. In the dueling scene, they were outside but under the shade of some large trees. I don't know the rules for Vampires in Whedon's universe so I don't know if that supports your theory or not.
Now my thoughts: Whedon definitely made the "Companions" very alluring and mysterious. They had this great political power or is it an upper hand (in "Shindig" she rotorts to the guy who Mal beats in the duel "It doesn't work like that! You will never have the services of another Companion ever again" (big time paraphrase)? In the begining of that episode, she was in a filthy bar filled with shady folks sitting up on a stool looking very regal. One would think that would be very bad place for a hot upper class woman to be sitting, and she was very relaxed with no worries. Does this mean she's got some upper hand (super weapon, powers, just being a certified companion makes people lay off?) or does it mean that she is relaxed when Mal is around to protect her or does it mean she isn't very bright? Probably not the last one.
Anyway, she was an interesting character with a lot of potential for where it could go (I never thought about your suggestion before which goes to show that potential) and she will make a great Wonder Woman if Whedon decideds to cast her.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
Wash was Joss Whedon's proxy in the cast. He looked like a young Joss Whedon, talked like him, had his attitude, and got all the funniest lines.
In short, that character was the author's voice.
Killing Wash established that "all bets are off." It was just about the last thing any fan of the show expected, and Whedon had to do something on that scale of unexpected tragedy to change the tone and make it clear that you weren't just watching a two-hour TV epdisode and paying eight bucks to do so.
It's also typical of Whedon's M.O. Everything you said so far throughout these threads sounds exactly like the complaints of thousands of angry lesbians which erupted when Tara (Willow's girlfriend) was shot in Season 7 of Buffy. "It wasn't needed" "the show will be weaker now" "it seemed meaningless to the story." Heck, do a global replace of "Wash" with "Tara" and throw in a little whining about how big media hates real lesbians, and your posts would fit right in to the whine-fests from back then.
News Flash: Whedon is not only willing to kill off well-loved characters, he's actually eager for the chance to do so. He's an evil god who never wants his creations to be happy. Bear that in mind when watching anything he makes.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I can see the point about how killing Wash increased tension. I just think that that's an overly simplistic analysis. That's the trouble I get into on these messageboards (and msg boards in general). You score points by being fast and witty - not by trying to really see intricate details. So I'm not arguing that "killing off nice characters is bad" or that "tension and suspense don't matter".
I'm just trying to say that if you think about it carefully and weigh the benefits of killing Wash to the cost - I think it was a bad decision.
First, I think it was a bad decision in the specific sense:
Honestly I really think Simon should have died. I think that would made a much better story. He's already a kind of Messiah-figure to River by giving up his life (his job, family, wealth and status) to try and give her back her life (her sanity). The pieces are all in place for a final sacrifice. It would have been far more poignant - especially in demonstrating that while River may be able to kill hordes of Reavers she lacked the power to save her brother in the end. I think that's a much richer path that the film could have taken.
Furthermore I don't think Simon was an integral part of the crew. He was a fun character, but most of what made him a good character was his caretaking for River - and that was now over. Sure as a doc he'd be useful, but as a character I felt he'd run his course.
Now my second objection. Not only do I object specifically to the decison, but I object to it because of the larger philosophical implications.
You see it may have been more realistic to kill Wash because "anyone can die", but we don't go to see movies to see random. We go to see the complete oposite. We want to see form, symetry, plot and narrative - all of these things are the OPPOSITE of random. If we interpret realistic to mean "like it would happen in real life" we're going to lose what we like about movies - the fact that they are NARRATIVES for what we don't like about real life - that it's utterly meaningless at the core. I don't want meaningless movies, I want movies that HAVE meaning.
Imagine going to a movie where every pixel of every frame was randomly generated. That's "real". Or, if you think that's too much, imagine going to a movie where they just stuck camera glasses on a guy, taped for 2 hours, and put it on the screen. As an experimental flick it would be really interesting - there'd be stuff to talk about what it does to our perception of art. Now imagine that those were the ONLY movies made. Pretty soon it's not so interesting.
And so I'm opposed to "realism" in the sense of "shit happens". There's a place for that in the movie - but in order for it to be good I think you need to place the "shit happens" in the framework of a narrative.
That's one of our greatest challenges as humans - finding a framework for our lives. I think existentially speaking we're not "finding" so much as "creating". We impose our own narrative on our own lives day by day and moment by moment - creating meaning in what we do. We create meaning and we invest it in our lives, friendships, memories, possessions and aspirations. None of those things exist in the "real" world, but they do exist in our narratives. That's how meaning gets into life. And I think that sometimes we fail to make sense of things that happen to us, and art's greatest calling is try and succeed where we may have failed - to show that meaning survives all that life can throw at it. If art has lost meaning, than it ceases to be art. If art has lost the ability to convey meaning than it ceases to be art and becomes "pseudo-intellectual masturbation" intead (read the quote at end of post!).
If you take the opposite approach and give up and see that meaning doesn't matter - then where does that take you? In Serenity it takes you to killing Wash and thinking it was a great idea. But you still like killing Wash because it happens in the greater context of meaning. Wash was somebody
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Well, in Serenity she is in the sunlight; also, having a vamipre or something supernatural(mystic) really doesn't fit in. :-)
;-)
.
Although, an "Inara" _is_ the Hindu goddess of rain and lightning and the Japanese god(dess) of rice/food
From what you have pointed out I would think more along the lines of genetic experiments/modifications(*).
Stuff like this is mentioned in the series (not only River), it could easily explain old-age-but-young-looking and could also tie in nicely with the "Blue Sun" storyline.
Also, maybe this isn't something special to Inara but that the companion training in general isn't only about candles, tea, pillows and seduction but also some genetic enhancements..
And I woudn't think that much about the (cross)bow with the rocket-powered bolts/arrows because it also fits that Inara uses weapons that are - compared to the guns of the crew - some more modern (although bow, it is an electronic enhanced bow) and stylish.
In fact, in the series (the scene you referenced at the end of "Trash") she also is the only one of the crew using a modern weapon (that little "ladylike" laser gun).
(*) Using that suicide kit will probably turn her into Ms. Hyde
In general, I dislike sci-fi that says "this is utopian" and/or "this is despotic". Sci-fi, for me, is about projecting ahead. Extrapolating. (No wonder I liked that novel.) If I want to listen to worshipful praise, there are plenty of channels that specialize in that. As for demonizing, there's always CSPAN. If the far distant future is a rehash of a Nader speech, it might be a good thing nobody has perfected cryogenics.
Oh, I expect that the far distant future really will have elements of libertarian thought. It'll also have elements of socialist thought, communist thought, feudal thought, conservative thought, etc. Same as our politics of today have elements of the political systems of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and elements of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. We tend to build on what we have, which means not only will we still keep what we have (or how would we build on it?) but what we have will not keep still (we're a species of sub-creators, impermanence is the essence of our being, change is the only constant).
Few things are wholly wrong, even less is wholly right, black-and-white thinking is a greater source of evil than any specific system. Any system can be made to work, with sufficient effort. Rigid thinking and bipolar societies are incapable of long-term survival, no matter what the effort.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)