Firefly

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They might well. And I'll push Trash, the episode Schraf left off her list of awesome episodes. It's the one where Saffron shows up again.

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Yeah, Saffron.No shit you think it's one of the best episodes.

Well, yeah, that's why Crash needs to see Ariel.

No shit, indeed. True.This message has been edited by [Dan's Clever Alias], 04-27-2005 04:39 PM

Serenity Trailer

A friend of mine just pointed me to the following online tidbit. Trying to not put too much stock in it before getting better confirmation."According to an interview with Alan Tudyk, this is the first movie in a three-picture Firefly contract with Universal."

Oh, I'm such a pathetic fan that I knew this a long time ago.Of course, what we REALLY want is for some TV executive to see the movie and say, "Hey, this would be a GREAT concept for a television series! Let's go give Whedon a 8 year contract and full creative freedom!"

It's possible that TV execs are watching this pretty carefully. From what I understand, (and my source is the internet at large, so take it with several grains of salt) DVD sales on more than a few shows are causing networks to scratch their heads and think, "I don't get it. Why did we cancel this, again?"The big one is Family Guy, but from what I hear, Firefly's up there too.

Just as a heads-up, Dr. J... I'm stealing your avatar for livejournal. It's too wonderful to not do so.

alrighty

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*not an actual doctor

Got the missing disc today. Rectified the "haven't seen all the eps" situation.Really liked "Trash", but I'm a sucker for capers. (I love Elmore Leonard novels.) "Ariel" was cool - guess they saved the story behind the spooky guys that can make your brain bleed for the second season - but, like a lot of the other episodes, there's these little science gaffs that make me think Joss isn't taking the science-fiction aspect seriously. (That and the fact that we still don't have any idea where they are. Every show they stop at some random planet, with no indication of the spacial relationship to the last one, and every planet looks like someplace in northen California.)Also, can we all stop pretending that we don't already know River's little "secret"? I was onto it in the first episode. They were making psychic ninja assassins for the government. Duh! The only "mystery" is why Joss thinks we're so stupid that he's going to be able to string us along with this until the second or third season without us figuring it out. It's all so predictable and trite that there's no sense of revelation whatsoever when Joss finally deigns to throw us a bone. (As opposed to shows like Carnivale where the revelations do seem, well, revelatory.) No offense but maybe that's why it was canceled so quickly. He needs to be a lot less stingy with the plot. The way he does it, it's obviously a cynical technique to get the studios to sign for subesquent seasons.I think Joss underestimates his audience. We can handle a lot of plot, a lot of things happening per episode. We're intelligent people.

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Also, can we all stop pretending that we don't already know River's little "secret"? I was onto it in the first episode. They were making psychic ninja assassins for the government.

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Sorry, I had no idea until War Stories.

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Every show they stop at some random planet, with no indication of the spacial relationship to the last one, and every planet looks like someplace in northen California.)

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Well, you have core planets that are civilized and rim planets which are not.And why does it matter what the relationships are between the planets. I could care less about that.Oh, and you forgot about their trip to the cold, snowy planet in "The Message", and also their visit to the muddy, swampy planet in Jaynestown. Also please recall that the planets are "terraformed" which I took to mean that they were somehow engineered to make habitable to humans. Lastly, what kind of budget do you think he had, anyway? It's not like he could go on location to a jungle or the antarctic or something.

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He needs to be a lot less stingy with the plot. The way he does it, it's obviously a cynical technique to get the studios to sign for subesquent seasons.

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I think Joss underestimates his audience. We can handle a lot of plot, a lot of things happening per episode. We're intelligent people.

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Well, if you give a lot away at once, then there's less chance for misdirection.And besides, there's a lot to be said for drawing out fun over a long time, revealing mystery bit by bit.Why don't you ask Mrs. Crashfrog about that? If you had watched Buffy or Angel you would realize that Whedon is "Mr. Revelation" and "Mr. Misdirection". He is notorious for unexpected twists and turns in the plot that come when you least expect them, especially for the season ending epidoses which usually result in major "Shit, holy crap, can you believe that. OH, NO?!" moments.OTOH, Whedon was constantly under pressure by the studios to make Buffy and Angel less Arc driven and have many more stand-alone episodes, so your accusation that he is "being stingy" with the Arc plot is really not accurate, because making lots of stand-alone episodes was the opposite to what Whedon probably wanted to be doing.Remember, Firefly is one half of it's first season.Go rent Season 4 of Angel and see if you have any idea what is going on in most of the episodes.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-01-2005 11:04 AM

Core of what? Rim of what? Ha ha! Conveinient, that. Much like the invisible, omnipresent "universal translators" of Star Trek et al. Oh, well. I'm hardly in a position to complain about the reality of making TV shows. Nonetheless it's things like this that I think the fans ignore or conveiniently forget when they breathlessly exclaim that Firefly is some kind of revolution in TV sci-fi. It's just more of the same, to me.I was certainly entertained, though. It was well worth the rental fee, and I'll probably catch the movie.Oh, btw, sorry that it took me so long to get to this. There was a big fire at my apartment building and the wife and I are temprarily homeless. Luckily we're well-insured so we should be fine. Probably not going to be posting here much for a week or two. Take it easy! (And get renters insurance if you rent and don't have it. It only takes one douchebag messing around with a candle to burn out your apartment.)

I saw Serenity last night at a special sneak peek. I am a fan of Whedon, though no apologist (his work fulfills and infuriates me simulatneously) I have never seen Firefly (hope to pick up the DVDs soon) as I wanted to wait and go in "cold" to this film. The version was not finalized, it had some temporary "placeholder" special effects and bits of score from other movies.I have to say that the movie is, overall, a success. The strength is, as usual for Whedon's stuff, in the interaction between the characters. I'd never met these characters before last night and became enamored with them pretty quickly. The writing is (for the most part) efficient in developing their relationships quickly and then deepening them later. The setpieces are relatively hit or miss but one towards the beginning hits so well that it pretty much won me over for the rest of the movie.As a Firefly virgin, I wish Whedon could've spent more time developing the political landscape of the universe he's created here. Some elements of the plot hinge on political ramifications of actions and I felt I was waaaaay behind the learning curve at certain points in the movie, being unsure as to why some things were as big a deal as the characters felt them.I had a very good time watching this and can't wait to see the show now.Any questions from Firefly fans? I'd be happy to talk more about it either here or in email.

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Core of what? Rim of what?

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We don't know yet.(first half of first season is all we got)They make reference sevral times to "Earth that Was", but this is never explained, except in a commentary in which it's mentioned that Earth is "post-apoctalyptic" and uninhabitable.

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Ha ha! Conveinient, that. Much like the invisible, omnipresent "universal translators" of Star Trek et al. Oh, well. I'm hardly in a position to complain about the reality of making TV shows.

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Yeah, just like all space shows or movies have some kind of convenient technology to mimic Earth's gravity inside a spaceship.Exactly.

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Nonetheless it's things like this that I think the fans ignore or conveiniently forget when they breathlessly exclaim that Firefly is some kind of revolution in TV sci-fi. It's just more of the same, to me.

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I don't think that Firefly is a revelation to the "sci" part of sci-fi, and I am sorry if I ever gave the impression that I thought it was.I really don't think that the sci-fi part is the point. It's the characters, relationships and the plot ark that are the point, with just enough special effects and action to make things fun.

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I was certainly entertained, though. It was well worth the rental fee, and I'll probably catch the movie.

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Oh, btw, sorry that it took me so long to get to this. There was a big fire at my apartment building and the wife and I are temprarily homeless. Luckily we're well-insured so we should be fine. Probably not going to be posting here much for a week or two. Take it easy! (And get renters insurance if you rent and don't have it. It only takes one douchebag messing around with a candle to burn out your apartment.)

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Got the insurance, got the fire-proof valuables box, got the escape plan for us and the kitties.How is the home-finding and/or clean up going?

Hey all,Been gone for a while, lots of things going on... not least of which was the development of a website dealing with deal-of-the-day offers. Hope this isn't considered spam, but I noticed today that FYE.com is offering the Firefly series (complete) on DVD for $12 after rebate, TODAY ONLY.When I saw Firefly, I immediately thought of this thread, schraf, and crash. So... do with it what you will, but thought I'd let you guys know.Here's the FYE URL:
FYEAnd here's the website that I got the offer from:
Review - DoD TrackerTake care all,
Ben