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Independents Push For Second Firefly Season
ovanklot writes "It seems that Brilliant Screen Entertainment is looking to see if there is an audience for a second season of the science fiction show FireFly.
From the article: 'It's possible that subscribers may choose one of three playback options; monthly DVD deliveries, TV On-Demand using your cable or satellite provider, or computer viewing via Streaming Download.'" They are asking folks to fill out a short survey to gather demographics for support in their efforts to get Fox to release the show to them. The site also stresses that they want neither money nor confidential personal information.
Buncha cowardly, inbred piss pots...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The absolute best fans can hope for at this point is a straight-to-dvd 2nd season release.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's about time that production companies considered DVD subscriptions.
FOX (or any other major network, for that matter) will NEVER release the rights to any of their shows. The X-Files 2 has been in talks for years but nothing has been moving because Chris Carter is fighting for control over the franchise from FOX. The big networks have all the chips; for what possible reason would they give that up? Unless you're going to drop a huge pile of money on their desk, you are not going to accomplish anything. The television industry is just as greedy as the music industry. You wouldn't expect Warner Brothers Music to give up control of "their" music; why would you expect them to give up control of "their" show or movie? The studios make a lot of profit from selling old shows, music, and movies. They are not going to give that up.
Seriously - do these guys have any standing, any connection, any track record that would lead anyone to suspect that they could actually produce the show? And do they have any connection with Whedon and company that would indicate that Whedon would *let* them produce it?
I've never seen Firefly and I probably wouldn't be that interested in it, but I'd rather encourage people to fight for what they want, than sit back and spout pointless cynicism.
http://whedonesque.com/comments/9347
The absolute best fans can hope for at this point is a straight-to-dvd 2nd season release.
That sounds significantly better than a TV release to me!
If Firefly is judged on actual sales instead of some idiot at a studio imagining that some lesser show would fare better in the same time slot, then FireFly will do pretty well - as evidenced by DVD sales thus far.
Frankly I could stand to have TV as we know it disbanded and just buy all entertainment either online or via DVD. I would not miss these archaic things we call "channels" whatsoever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't see this as anything more than a larger level fanboy effort.
You mean like the one that managed to get a major motion picture created from thin air?
This is the age of large level fanboy efforts actually gaining traction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, the latest Whedon interview has him saying that he was misquoted in his immediately previous interview. All he said was that the movie provided closure to the dangling plot threads from the truncated first season. He also said that there are other stories he'd like to tell.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Oh God, oh God, please bring back Firefly and we can continue to live!
I've never seen Firefly and I probably wouldn't be that interested in it, but I'd rather encourage people to fight for what they want, than sit back and spout pointless cynicism.
Bffft, but that takes effort and doesn't provide me with instant gratification or a false sense of superiority. What fun is that?
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
And that's what made it great. When Wash died, it hurt. When Amidala died in Revenge of the Sith, I was looking at my watch. That's the difference between a skilled writer, and tired hack. For all Serenity/Firefly is fantasy, it was interesting to me because of it's unpredictability. Wash was a cool character, and it was a testament to the actor, and Whedon's skills at characterisation that it hurt so much. But it also upped the stakes for the rest of the characters. Hey, if Wash could die, what about the rest of them? All bets were off and I was on the edge of my seat. I was half dreading a "Blake's 7"/Hamlet ending with them all dead.
I have seen some of it, and I found it awful, but I'd *still* like to see something like this happen because:
1) I'm not the only person in the universe - just because I don't like something doesn't mean that I should be opposed to other people having it, especially since...
2) I don't have to watch it.
3) This type of model - DVD subscription or something - might get applied to something I *do* like.
4) It's kind of funny when people who are fans quote the show at me and I look at them blankly - fans are always surprised when they discover that someone like me is a non-fan.
So good luck.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Very relevant, and far more detailed, links:
e wtopic.php?p=50254
e wtopic.php?t=1580
"Investigating FireflySeason2 dot com":
http://www.serenitymovie.org/browncoats/forums/vi
FireflySeason2.com's founder, Mr. Ace Underhill, responds and explains:
http://www.serenitymovie.org/browncoats/forums/vi
The Whedonesque thread surveying the brouhaha:
http://whedonesque.com/comments/9347
The Trade Paperback of the 3 Serenity comics by Dark Horse is coming out 2/01/06
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http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=
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I've been thinking about how a viewer-funded TV show could generate additional income without requiring copyright to protect future profits. One way I came up with would be fan-paid trips to the set, and even fan-paid walk on appearances.
I've offered to US$500 to sponsor another season of Firefly. I'd likely pay US$2000 to get my name in the credits somewhere. I've done it at museums and other sponsorship activities -- not out of altruism but out of pure ego.
I'm not a browncoat, but I do love the show. I bought the DVD set before watching the TV show or even hearing about it anywhere, and it sat in the shrink wrap for months. Once I watched it (after 2 false starts) I realized that we need the first viewer-produced show.
I'd love to see Firefly v.2 be Whedon's real trial into seeing what one could do with an Open Source style show. Honestly, the costs of doing a show differently than a la Hollywood could bring in way more income without having to require people actually pay for the show. Let us produce it (meaning pay for it), let it be freely downloaded by the masses (maybe give it to the sponsor/producers first though and let them give it away to friends and family and then throw it online).
I think it would be very interesting to see how it goes. Of course Whedon would never allow it, but I'd put my money where my mouth is to get it going and the best way to generate interest is to offer it as the first big major production given away, with the full rights to the characters and name in the public domain. Imagine the fan fiction that could come out of it if the production company also offered to add fan-fic vignettes into the actual "official" episodes. Render your own battle scenes, video tape your own bar cut scenes, whatever. Want it in the show? Send it to us. Help us keep the show alive with your cash, while you're at it.
Serenity/Firefly is the most anarcho-capitalist plotline I've ever seen. I'd love to see freedom in the next production, not just in the plotline.
I wrote in my profile that I consider a 40-minute episode of Firefly at least as valuable as a full-fare ticket to a movie, which would make a 22-episode season of new shows worth about $200 to me.
There are thousands of people like me out there. The signal will not be stopped.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
"As if sitting in front of a computer isn't enough, your going to go home and watch tv? Get a life." ... said the guy named P3NIS_CLEAVER on Slashdot.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I don't necessarily hate TV itself, I more just hate the way it is run these days. It's very distracting to have the action interrupted every 30 minutes for 10-15 minutes of advertising. Networks seem incapable of keeping shows on at a consistant time throughout their run, with gaps in the middle of seasons and shows run out of order, and even then they leap all over the schedule so you have to be eagerly monitoring your TV guide to make sure you don't miss it.
If they didn't have the advertising (charge more for cable!) and would keep a show on at a consistant time every week for an entire season I wouldn't mind so much. However, since TV can't provide me with the viewing experience I want, DVD makes a much better alternative, and one I'm certainly willing to pay for to get the ability to control my own viewing schedule and to watch entire episodes uninterrupted at my leisure. The only thing it's lacking is the ability to try the first episode before plonking down the cash for the rest; I took that gamble for Firefly at Christmas and it was worth it, but it'd be nice to be able to buy online an episode to watch before I decide whether I want to buy the DVD. From what the captions on TV shows have been telling me recently, some shows are now available for download on iTunes, which is a start.
Thanks for humoring me.
I've since been told that if I were to start with the first episode instead, I'd like it more - something about a train robbery? - because it shows more of the "real" show.
Yes, that is likely the case. The pilot, while intended to introduce the characters and the setting, also set out to convey the laid-back Western attitude of the Southwest United States -- very much the attitude of most frontiersmen, which these characters are. I can see how that would seem glacially slow to someone not used that.
The later episodes didn't deal with that much, mostly because they had to tell a story in a shorter amount of time, and so the slower pace was sacrificed to move the story along. I watched the pilot last, and found it to be very enjoyable, because I was already familiar with the characters, and it was nice to see their origins on screen.
I've also found that the vast majority of shows, regardless of genre, don't really "work" until about the 4th or 5th episode. By then, the writers are familiar enough with the mythology to work within it, and the actors are comfortable enough with each other to make things seem more natural. This is why I am so disappointed when shows are cancelled after only 3 or 4 episodes; they never even had a chance to succeed.
As to the question of Joss Whedon's dialog: my guess is that his dialog style is strictly a "love it or hate it" proposition. Personally, I have never really enjoyed the dialog in his other shows (Buffy and Angel), but for some reason the dialog in Firefly struck a chord with me. This is not Star Trek, where everyone is highly educated at the Starfleet Academy before they are let anywhere near a starship. The crew of Serenity are more like truckers: their speech is crude, colorful, and full of colloquialisms, which, this being 500 years in the future, will be nothing like ours. I like it, but others will not. A similar phenomenon is the dialog in Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. I find it very difficult to listen to, since the rapid-fire delivery seems very contrived, silly, and way too rehearsed. However, lots of people swear by it, and enjoy it very much.
My suspicion is that if the dialog style bothered you, you will not enjoy the rest of the series. However, I would encourage you to watch it anyway (or a few episodes, at least), and give it a proper chance. Joss Whedon's strengths lie in his ability to develop a character over many episodes, and create a wholly convincing mythology for his characters to exist in, continuity included. Both of those require the viewer to see more than one episode to appreciate.
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