B
Boss Spearman
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BTW Drizzt, I really enjoyed the Dark Elf books.
"Serenity"--a gun slinging libertarian western in space (SPOILERS)
- Thread starter Cosmoline
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I got the dvd for Christmas this afternoon and already watched it twice. I had no previous experience with Firefly, and boy was I surprised. This is certainly top 5 material for the year, and I hope to see the story carried on by Whedon in the form of another season or another feature.
Awesome!!! Now I'm going over to the "guns of" thread to spend another hour or so catching up on that one...
Awesome!!! Now I'm going over to the "guns of" thread to spend another hour or so catching up on that one...
Borachon
Member
Buy the Firefly series DVD collection. It's $29.99 on Amazon.com. If you liked Serenity then I promise you'll love the series. And get your friends to like it too. Fans of the show are trying to buy as much Firefly stuff as we can so some network will re-do the show and start new episodes. Maybe Sci-Fi channel.
Bruce333
Member
+1Borachon said:
Byron Quick
Moderator In Memoriam
Got the DVD of Firefly a few weeks ago.
The description of River's genius early on is almost word for word what Mark Twain wrote of Joan of Arc.
When will the DVD of the movie be released?
The description of River's genius early on is almost word for word what Mark Twain wrote of Joan of Arc.
When will the DVD of the movie be released?
Silver Bullet
Member
Serenity on DVD was released five days ago. Where've you been ? 
Last I checked, it was number 1 on Amazon.com's DVD sales list.
Last I checked, it was number 1 on Amazon.com's DVD sales list.
Silver Bullet
Member
Yup. "Serenity" is still #1, and the "Firefly" DVD set is #4.
I sure hope this bodes well for a movie sequel; better yet, a renewed television season.
Zoe: “And I'm not so afraid of losing something that I won't try havin' it.”
I sure hope this bodes well for a movie sequel; better yet, a renewed television season.
Zoe: “And I'm not so afraid of losing something that I won't try havin' it.”
bogie
Member
Cosmoline said:HSO--you have to get into the spirit of firefly guns. It's the sort of spirit that leads one to put tactical lights and red dot scopes on leverguns. Something I'm planning to do to the Marlin 1894 I've got on order
Heh... One of my favorite non-accurate rifles is my little Winchester .357 lever gun... 16" barrel, not much heavier than a pistol, and MUCH more accurate. I've been semi-looking for a way to mount a dot sight on it...
I rented and watched Serenity today.
Kaylee, yum.
Firearms were interesting, I really want the good Captains handgun,,,,,whatever it is.
I saw the Firefly series and still find some of the plotting as confused and rambling.
A good movie anyway.
Kaylee, yum.
Firearms were interesting, I really want the good Captains handgun,,,,,whatever it is.
I saw the Firefly series and still find some of the plotting as confused and rambling.
A good movie anyway.
Silver Bullet
Member
Let's talk about it ! Between all of us we can probably sort it out.
I didn't find anything confusing; maybe that means I wasn't paying enough attention.
Cosmoline
Member
Part of the problem is, we only got to see the first part of the first season before it was axed. Whedon is a big fan of very long story arcs. So as far as the big picture, you won't really know what's going on until the second season and the main threads won't be fully resolved till the very end. You can see in "Serenity" a whole bunch of story lines, from the "Mr. Universe" character to "Miranda" that would have been played out over many shows and many seasons at TV pacing.
IndianaDean
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Some were confused by Fox's butchering of Firefly because they didn't show the episodes in order. Who has ever heard of a tv company being that arrogant/ignorant?
Strings
Member
I honestly wonder if they weren't trying to prove that Joss isn't all that good, tell ya the truth...
IndianaDean
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If they were, they received a sound defeat.
I got the Serenity DVD and watched it this afternoon. I loved the series but the movie is outstanding. They did a really nice job of showing the Fox Network's front office that they were way wrong. Hope the sales are enough to justify a second and third movie.
IndianaDean said:
You must not watch much TV. It's actually happened quite frequently. Look at Star Trek. Heck, Andromeda season 5.
riverdog said:
Sorry to disappoint you, but the box office and DVD sales were insufficient for another movie or continuation of the series.
Strings
Member
>Sorry to disappoint you, but the box office and DVD sales were insufficient for another movie or continuation of the series.<
and this is based on?
From what I've heard, most of the movies released around the time of Serenity fairly well tanked at the box office. And I've been hearing from a few places that it's flyin' off the shelves...
and this is based on?
From what I've heard, most of the movies released around the time of Serenity fairly well tanked at the box office. And I've been hearing from a few places that it's flyin' off the shelves...
Radagast
Member
Josh Whedon stated that the studio told him the movie needed to make 40 million at the box office to justify a sequel. The final take was around 24 million.
IndianaDean
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Firethorn said:
Can't stand Star Trek (other than the original, and Deep Space 9), but I did watch Andromeda. I thought it was a very good series. Yeah, you're right about season 5, even though I still liked it.
Oh, and you're right. Other than the Stargate series' on Scifi, I do not watch any series on television. My viewing pretty much just runs the gamut of the Military Channel, History Channel, Science Channel, History International, The Learning Channel and occasionally Animal Planet.
Firefly was (is) my favorite of the defunct shows, followed by Dark Angel.
Cosmoline
Member
Hunter Rose said:
By all accounts the network heads HATED the show with a deep passion. Whedon got it going on the substantial cred he'd build up doing "Buffy" and "Angel," but they fought him every step of the way and absolutely wanted it to bomb. The horses made them mad, the quirky low-tech science fiction setting made them mad, the western theme made them mad.
Justin
Moderator Emeritus
Cosmoline, I bet I can offer up a couple of reasons why:
1) Money
2) Money
3) Money
The two most expensive television genres to produce are sci-fi and period peices. Firefly blended both, so now you've got to hire on set horse-wranglers and post-production 3d animators.
This is, incidentally, the reason for why reality shows are so popular with the networks, yet so universally loathed by anyone with taste. You don't have to pay writers and actors, let alone special effects artists and animal experts. A reality show with moderate ratings will have a higher profit margin than a highly-rated drama.
The story and setting aren't something that's been seen before, and require the viewer to be open to a quirky and (as mentioned before) expensive concept. To the standard exec in a suit, Firefly simply doesn't have the instant hook and familiarity that is inherent in a sitcom, cop drama, lawyer drama, or even Star Trek-esque scifi show.
Very little product placement advertising opportunities. With so many people using TiVo to skip right past the advertisements, the big shiny thing in advertising is to do product placement. For a reality show, this is cake. Just watch any episode of "American Idol." Same goes for sitcoms and dramas.
But how do you discreetly place a product ad on the set of a show that takes place 500 years in the future? (Well, maybe I'm overstating this. The Blue Sun Corporation seemed to have their logo placed all over the show. )
I think Firefly would have been a hit, and probably quite profitable. But not profitable enough.
1) Money
2) Money
3) Money
The two most expensive television genres to produce are sci-fi and period peices. Firefly blended both, so now you've got to hire on set horse-wranglers and post-production 3d animators.
This is, incidentally, the reason for why reality shows are so popular with the networks, yet so universally loathed by anyone with taste. You don't have to pay writers and actors, let alone special effects artists and animal experts. A reality show with moderate ratings will have a higher profit margin than a highly-rated drama.
The story and setting aren't something that's been seen before, and require the viewer to be open to a quirky and (as mentioned before) expensive concept. To the standard exec in a suit, Firefly simply doesn't have the instant hook and familiarity that is inherent in a sitcom, cop drama, lawyer drama, or even Star Trek-esque scifi show.
Very little product placement advertising opportunities. With so many people using TiVo to skip right past the advertisements, the big shiny thing in advertising is to do product placement. For a reality show, this is cake. Just watch any episode of "American Idol." Same goes for sitcoms and dramas.
But how do you discreetly place a product ad on the set of a show that takes place 500 years in the future? (Well, maybe I'm overstating this. The Blue Sun Corporation seemed to have their logo placed all over the show.
)I think Firefly would have been a hit, and probably quite profitable. But not profitable enough.
Cosmoline
Member
Certainly, that's a factor. But contrary to conventional wisdom it isn't ALL about money. The prejudices and attitudes of the network brass play a role, and can keep a show with cruddy ratings alive for many seasons or kill a show with great potential. Seinfeld, for example, didn't take off until the fourth season. But the brass absolutely loved the show and Jerry, so they kept it afloat in a nice bracket that allowed it to develop its following over the years.
Internal network politics, esp. when it comes to getting you a good timeslot, matters a great deal. If the network heads had really taken a shine to "Firefly," they would have found a good timeslot for it and let it develop an audience instead of cancelling it.
I think money was more of a factor in cancelling "Farscape," for example. Those guys just kept going into the red and making mega-expensive episodes. "Firefly" was nowhere near as expensive per episode. There are few laser beams, no alien beings to create, limited sound effects (space is dead silent in the series) and the sets can be as simple as the ship plus an empty field east of town. That's as cheap as it gets! Horse wranglers are far, far, far less expensive than they geeks who make the laser beams or the teams of makeup artists who create alien beings. That's one reason Hollywood loved Westerns for so long--you can make them with some guys, a couple quarter horses, a few prop guns you already own and a producer's back yard up in the mountains. Even the "Firefly" costumes were cheap. They look like my closet. Lots of old Filson and Carhartts.
I also suspect the freewheeling politics of "Firefly" rubbed the network the wrong way. There's a reason so few TV shows have a libertarian bent--the Hollywood elite instinctively fear it.
Internal network politics, esp. when it comes to getting you a good timeslot, matters a great deal. If the network heads had really taken a shine to "Firefly," they would have found a good timeslot for it and let it develop an audience instead of cancelling it.
I think money was more of a factor in cancelling "Farscape," for example. Those guys just kept going into the red and making mega-expensive episodes. "Firefly" was nowhere near as expensive per episode. There are few laser beams, no alien beings to create, limited sound effects (space is dead silent in the series) and the sets can be as simple as the ship plus an empty field east of town. That's as cheap as it gets! Horse wranglers are far, far, far less expensive than they geeks who make the laser beams or the teams of makeup artists who create alien beings. That's one reason Hollywood loved Westerns for so long--you can make them with some guys, a couple quarter horses, a few prop guns you already own and a producer's back yard up in the mountains. Even the "Firefly" costumes were cheap. They look like my closet. Lots of old Filson and Carhartts.
I also suspect the freewheeling politics of "Firefly" rubbed the network the wrong way. There's a reason so few TV shows have a libertarian bent--the Hollywood elite instinctively fear it.
riverdog said:
TNT picked up Babylon 5, not the Sci-Fi channel, and helped kill the franchise (or at least, put it into extreme hibernation). Sci-Fi just got the syndication rights to the show.
You may have been thinking of Sliders. Sci-Fi bought that one from Fox and kept it going.
Yep, you're right, it was TNT, then Sci-Fi got broadcast rights from TNT. It would be nice if one of them picked it up. Now that Summer Glau can do more than act like a doped up head case and use her skills as part of the crew, it would be interesting. The last scene with her and Mal on the bridge flying Serenity was just a taste.
Whatever, my guess is that it's over -- 14 episodes and a movie.
Whatever, my guess is that it's over -- 14 episodes and a movie.
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