Yesterday afternoon, I picked up "Firefly." I just now finished watching "Objects in Space", the defacto series finale.
Wow. I never saw the show when it first aired, and while I heard the buzz, I never quite "got it" until I watched the show. Wow. I do mean, "WOW." Its so hard to find things to dislike about the show - the space meets western concept, the no sound effects in space shots, the zooming camera shots, and especially the resident hotty Kalee (yum yum).
I wish I had bought the box set back in December, but alas. So many questions about the show, so many things unresolved, FUCK YOU FOX. Who the hell was Book? Early said "He's no Shepard", and the guy always seemed to have the inside track on Alliance operations. And did those dudes with the blue hands and mysterious "Make You Die Slow-Slow Death" glowing wands remind anyone of the Gentlemen from Buffy's "Hush"?
Well ... here's hoping that just as the DVD release convinced Universal to greenlight a feature film, that the success (please?) of the film will convince someone to pick up the series.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
It certainly is a good show. I didn't watch it when it was on, either; maybe that's because it premiered on Fox about the same time as "Fastlane"...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I always thought that Book was a retired Alliance officer -- and probably a pretty senior officer at that. If you want to have the parallels, Book might even have been someone who fought against Mal and Zoe at the Battle of Serenity. After all, he got first-class medical treatment on an Alliance cruiser in "Safe"...
For some reason, River always creeped me out whenever she got into her "weirdo" moods. One of the best scenes was when, for a split second, I actually believed that she had somehow "melted away" and merged with the ship in "Objects in Space." Awesome sleight of hand there, how she slipped away and into Early's ship.
I watched "Firefly" every week, didn't miss a single episode (which was pretty hard seeing how FOX kept fucking with the schedule). One of the best sci-fi shows I've ever seen... great characters, great stories, and intriguing drama.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Horses for starships.....
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten: Horses for starships.....
i thought it was a rip off of Outlaw Star, myself...
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
NO GUTS NO GLORY!!
No, but Firefly is good. Really good. And cancelled. Bastards. Bloody bastards.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn." - Joss Whedon
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: I always thought that Book was a retired Alliance officer -- and probably a pretty senior officer at that.
Actually, thats was a pretty neat running gag/enigma/etc. It was interesting that they once had Jayne of all people commenting on how Book seemed to be an unexpected fount of criminal or military knowledge.
I think one of the best things about this show, is that they could do humourous episodes well. They didn't have to denigrate their own characters, have characters act unnaturally, or such. I can't really think of any other "serious" science fiction show that have pulled the same thing off.
Plus, its nice not having aliens or "high" technology around Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I had a thought on Book today. What if he's still working for the Alliance? What if his job is actually to make certain that Simon and River DON'T get apprehended by the Blue-Hand Crew? It would be possible that we might have an inter-agency "war" of sorts going on within the Alliance.
Also ... in the episode where the Alliance captain boards Serenity and takes on the survivor of the Reaver attack, did anyone else notice the colonel issue instructions to post a guard at the infirmary?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Egad... an inter-agency war sounds pretty creepy. The only thing that would be weird about that is the fact that Book was away on retreat during the one time the Blue Hand Group got close to Simon and River. Although I suppose that could be because Book didn't know that Simon was going to concoct his crazy scheme and Jayne was going to sell them out.
I dunno... something tells me that Book's genuine. His attitude and occasional revelations seem more of a guy who's hiding his past actions rather than hiding his present affiliations.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Y'know something that I never understood... What were those offhand references to "Earth-That-Was" supposed to mean? That there's no Earth in the 26th century? That it's changed so drastically that everyone commonly makes a distinction between Earth-of-the-Present and Earth-That-Was?
Anyone have any background information about what it was supposed to mean?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I was under the impression the planet was destroyed in some sort of nuclear holocaust, hence the "burn the land and boil the sea" bit in the opening titles. And since no one refers to Earth as BEING in the present (i.e., it's always "Earth that was") I think the basic assumption that the planet either doesn't exist anymore, or isn't habitable anymore, is the most likely.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, as per the rather tacked on introductory voice-over that the show had when being broadcast, Earth "got used up." The shadow puppet play in "Heart of Gold" is apparently about this, but seeing as it is only on screen for a few seconds, and is, well, a shadow puppet play, it isn't very richly detailed.
Posted by Flying Minister (Member # 1177) on :
Just as a side note, one of the men who played one of the "Hands of Blue" guys has had numerous appearances on Buffy and Angel. Not one of the Gentlemen, usually as one of the Council of Watchers hitman team sent after Faith.
As for Book, it's been bugging me ever since the monumental idiots who run FOX cancelled this show as to just who he was before he joined the crew. We saw the Alliance cruiser captain practically soil himself after checking Book's ID when Book was shot and the crew were asking for medical help.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I found a copy of the script for, I think, "The Message" on a fansite, and there was dialogue I didn't remember from the episode, which was someone asking Book (after the confrontation with Evil Sentinal Cop): "What kind of guy knows what to look for in a crooked cop? An ex-cop, or an ex-crooked cop?" And Book replies, "A little bit of both" or something along those lines.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Woah, what "introductory voice over"? What did it say? Glad it was cut ... was the "Ballad of Serenity" there at all?
Posted by Flying Minister (Member # 1177) on :
Really, that's entirely possible about the crooked cop thing. Although I was think along the lines of someone a little higher up in the military or something.
Now I'm just waiting for the movie. Hopefully Joss will tie up a couple of loose ends at least.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: Woah, what "introductory voice over"? What did it say? Glad it was cut ... was the "Ballad of Serenity" there at all?
I'm not sure what you mean by "Ballad of Serenity." The theme song? Because the credits were unchanged. It was just, when it was on, a little thing attached right before the show started. I don't really remember what it said, aside from the very first bit: "Here's how it is" or maybe "Here's how it was," hence the title of the making-of thing on the DVD. There were at least two different versions.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Sol: The "Ballad of Serenity" is the name Joss gave for the opening theme song.
And I don't remember all the words, but like Sol said, there was an opening voiceover before the teaser started -- it was done by Mal, describing the basic premise of the show. He finished up with "keep flying..." as the general goal for the crew.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
There were two, actually. The first was read by Book, and was rather standard - and strangely implied that all the action occured in a single solar system with *hundreds* of worlds. This was corrected in Mal's opening, a more colloquial speech that started with "Okay, here's how it works...". Much better IMO.
Additional - here's the first one.
"After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The Central Planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the war, many of the Independents who had fought and lost, drifted to the edges of the system far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggle to get by with the most basic technologies. A ship would bring you work. A gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: Find a crew, find a job, keep flying."
You can download the spoken version of both from here, apparently.
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
And at the risk of starting a debate on Firefly canon, of all things, the total number of colonized worlds is mentioned in the "Our Mrs. Reynolds" cutscene. 73, I think.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
I think the general consensus on the forums at fireflyfans.net is that there simply isn't enough information from its 15 or so hours of show to determine if they intended a one solar system show as Mark pointed out, or a multiple solar system show.
Of course it hardly matters, because the focus of the show is so much less...technical/fake fact-based than say, that Star Trek show.
It just doesn't really matter to the story.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Firefly canon? Firefly canon? Ye gods, preserve us! Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
If you're into the Gag-Reel extras, may I highly recommend downloading the more comprehensive version available here. Damn this is still a great show. It's a long shot, but I hope they do get picked up after the movie.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Me too, Balaam. On the commentary tracks, Whedon was talking (vaguely) about some of the plot arcs and when they were going to start on 'em, including a big revealing of what "Blue Sun" was all about in the 5th season.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Hey! I just started watching Firefly. I'm about 2/3rds through the set. This is now my favorite SF show after the original Star Trek (though I've never watched Buffy, Farscape, or anything else new in the last 10 years other than Trek). SF doesn't need aliens. Enterprise pales in comparison!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Dude, I wish I could "rediscover" Firefly for the first time ... I do indeed love the show!
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Congrats Masao. You've probably just watched my favorite episode: 'Out Of Gas' for the first time. I envy you for this. I find the third disk gets the most play of my set. Make sure you finish them before the movie comes out...
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Sooo...
What is the "real", story-causal chronological order of the episodes? Is there complete agreement?
"Serenity" of course would be the first, and "Heart of Gold" appears a likely candidate for the last (after all, Inara wasn't shown having left the ship in any episode, nor were Mal's new attitudes toward her reflected in them). Where would "Trash" and "The Message" go in causal terms, though? After "Our Mrs Reynolds", but apart from that?
What a great show! I just plain loved every aspect of it! Well, except perhaps for the "these zillion very confusing things happened in the last twelve episodes, and even though you don't have to be reminded of them for this episode to make sense, we'll use up these five minutes anyway" introductions...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Yeah, "Out of Gas" was pretty cool. I liked seeing how all the crew had come aboard the ship.
The only thing I'm not sure about this series is it's being set 500 years in the future. If I didn't know otherwise, I would've figured a couple of hundred years at most.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There isn't any confusion about the episode order, though. I mean, that is, in the DVD set they are packaged as chronologically structured.
(Where does the date come from, anyway? In the promotional material for the film they give a specific one, even: 2511, for the Battle of Serenity Valley. Is that in the scene cut from the pilot?)
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
No specific date is mentioned in the cut scenes from the pilot on the DVD. Don't know where that date comes from.
EDIT: Just found a transcription of the intro that includes the line "CHYRON READS: '2517 A.D.'" CHYRON is evidently a name brand of a character generator for subtitling, etc. which has become adopted as a term for a text overlay.
[ July 07, 2004, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Balaam Xumucane ]
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I think the apparent "lack" of visual advancement is deliberate to demonstrate the lack of technology on the frontier. The various scenes on the core worlds look a lot more advanced, to be sure.
But who's to say that jeans, printed T-shirts and suspenders won't go into and out of fashion several times over the next five centuries? Jeans have been around for over a century now and they haven't changed much in use or fashion.
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Good for you, Masao! Firefly is definitely one of the best!
(Minor spoilers ahead.)
I always thought that the DVD set's order was pretty much the chronological order of the episodes. My mind's a bit fuzzy on the specifics (haven't watched the episodes in a month or so), but didn't Inara say she was leaving at the end of "Heart of Gold"? Then there was that scene in "Objects in Space" where we got the impression that Inara was still planning to leave, but just not quite yet (because she hadn't told the crew). So I think that the order on the DVD set is correct.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I'm not going to read this thread anymore. I don't want any possibility of spoiling my virgin/naive viewing experience.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Pics from the set of the movie: Click me! Posted by MarianLH (Member # 1102) on :
Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay:
quote: Dude, I wish I could "rediscover" Firefly for the first time ... I do indeed love the show!
Live vicariously through me. I am now watching it for the first time, having seen only "The Train Job" when the show originally aired.
Yay for a public library that buys TV series DVDs! Support your local library.
Marian
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Marian,
I must tell you that the most amazing and just "who the fuck thought this up?" character is a woman (well, I don't know if you could call her that, although that's certainly how Jayne thinks of her) named Vera.
Her introduction is just TOP notch!
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Her introduction is just TOP notch!
I'll say. "Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly reaching a middle." Posted by MarianLH (Member # 1102) on :
That whole episode was hysterical. "If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back!" Hee!
Why is it, whenever sociopaths give their weapon a girl's name, it's always something like that? Vera, Elvira, Betsie...never something like Amanda or Julie. I was gratified to see Vera again in a later episode--nice that they kept continuity like that.
Marian
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
I watched it when it first aired, mostly because of the buzz around the Ex Isle forums about the show. I got the DVD's, called in sick the next day and watched all the episodes.
Glad it is getting a second chance in the movies.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Hang on. . . *checks*
quote:Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.*
No, nothing in there about Firefly DVDs so I guess we'll let you off.
* Yes, I know that's not really an official motto
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Oddly enough, I've never had mail delivered in the gloom of night. Nor have I ever heard of anyone who has.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Oddly enough, I've never had mail delivered in the gloom of night. Nor have I ever heard of anyone who has.
Haven't you heard of overnight delivery? Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
I work for the state, not the Post Office.
Out Motto is "Let's party till the next election!"
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
And we're gonna have fun, fun, fun 'til the Governor takes the funding away. . .
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Just recieved the DVD box set. I won't go into how good Firefly is, since that has already been covered in this thread. Although perhaps I'd like to say that I really appreciate the small details like the Chinese and the slightly off-beat English the characters speak.
Anyway.. the DVD box is cool. The commentary is very good, Nathan and Joss are funny guys. FOX are utter morons. I sincerely hope the movie is a success and sparks a rebirth, because this series deserves to have many more seasons.
[ July 29, 2004, 04:17 AM: Message edited by: Harry ]
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