Serenity / Firefly Fans

[gyusher]

I bought the movie "Serenity" last night. I guess you had better be a "Firefly" fan to get the most from it but I did enjoy it. A bit over the top in a couple places but that's SciFi I recon. Looking at it from a series point of view the movie was great however as a stand alone movie it leaves a little to be desired.

Sad to see the loss of a couple characters. Not sure where they are going with this but my hope is that they continue the series.

All in all a great movie for me but put that cast together in a "Firefly" show and I am going to love it regardless.

[Jack G]

Yea, you really needed to be a fan to appreciate the movie. There was too much info lacking for anyone who hasn't seen the series, to fully get it.
No, there probably won't be anymore firefly movies. JHoss is now working on another project, suposedly, Wonderwoman.
Jack

[M Jarve]

I finally saw the movie last night, and thought it was pretty darn good. Many TV -> big-screen transitions don't stay as true to the series, especially when it comes to sci-fi. I had borrowed the complete Firefly series on DVD from a friend a couple of months ago, and I got the DVD collection myself for Christmas. Now I just need to buy Serenity for myself, and I'll be set.

It was disappointing to see the one character die, especially since they never really got into his background (it will remain a mystery I guess, though I have my suspicions about it...).

I would not be surprised, however, if there is another movie made. ArsTechnica ran an article about that some time ago, and both the Sci-Fi channel and Fox were toying with the idea of a direct to DVD movie. They were going to gauge response to the Serenity DVD release before making a decision, though.

[Army]

I got the Serenity DVD for christmas, and thoroughly enjoyed it last night. I caught a number of the Firefly episodes and think you gentlemens comments are right on the money. If you haven't seen Firefly the movie didn't really go into enough detail as far as the relationships. Especially concerning the characters that died and or the love interests.

I hope they continue with either another movie or more tv episodes. That and I really liked the music played in the background of the tv episodes :thmbsp:

[Texas42]

I have the movie Serenity, but haven't watched it. I also have never seen the Firefly series. With this in mind, should I get the series first and watch it before the movie, or vice versa?

[Army]

The movie would IMO make more sense if you watched the series first.

The series would give you a better perspective on how all the crew members interact and the relationships between them.

[Charivari]

I received this movie for Christmas as well and I must say that I rather enjoyed it. Having never seen the series, though I wanted to, but could never catch it, I went into watching this movie with no background knowledge and had no problem. There were a few jumpy moments, but nothing that couldn't be extrapolated from various quips made by characters at other times.

Sure, it's quite formulaic and predictable, feeling more like an extended TV episode over a theatrical movie, but I felt that it's well enough done that you can suspend such feelings and just plain enjoy it.

- JP

[fuzzyuu]

Being a huge fan of the show, I have to say I was a little bit disapointed. It just didn't seems as fantastic as the show. Also, I was under the assumption that the serise would continue, but I later found out that it would not, which would explain much of the story in the movie. Also, for those who are fans, there are comic books out there that tell the story of what happens between the end of the show and the movie. But I do have to say, it helpd true to the show, which is really refreshing.

[Donny]

Firefly was a good show. I had never heard of it till I read this thread ,to bad it ended so soon with only 14 episodes. Thanks to the movie the series did have an ending of sorts.

[Holst]

Inspired by this thread I bought the DVD, I loved it, my wife hated it. I've since bought the Firefly DVD, my wife watched the pilot episodes last night and changed her tune, she now wants to see the whole series and watch the movie again.
A real space western, you'd think they'd have tried this in the 60's with all the wild shows they came up with then. The closest was Warren Oats on "Lost in Space" as the space cowboy "Hap".

[daveshel]

I posted this little review on the Browncoats forum (now defunct) after seeing a test screening last September. I saw it again. I liked it less the second time.

"I'm not a huge fan of the cinema, although I do watch my share of movies on DVD. But even removing the annoyances of the theater experience does not entirely quell my criticism of the output of Hollywood. Suffice it to say I am a bigger fan of stories and characters than I am of sensationalism. I love to read, but find it so addictive and time-consuming that I tend to avoid it day-to-day and save it for vacations and special occasions. I have been known to become passionate about the characters and stories I have met on the small screen: it is relatively easy to fit sixty minutes of drama into my life. (Don't tell Madison Avenue that I am usually out of the room during the commercials.)

So when I heard that Firefly was coming to the big screen, my positive reaction to the benefits of enhanced production capabilities was tempered with fear that the things I liked about Firefly would get lost in sensationalism. And my viewing of a special advanced screening of Serenity has proven that my fears were justified.

What was it I liked about Firefly? The premise was good, and served as a vehicle to integrate an interesting story line with an unlikely mix of characters that came together as an ensemble of undeniable synergy. But one of the things Whedon had accomplished in the original episodes was a subtlety that took the edge off of the violence and harsh unreality of life in the outer reaches of the 'verse.

And this was the first thing to bother me about Serenity. It hit me in the pursuit scene where Jayne's leg wound is overblown and gratuitous in ways that Whedon would have been unable to do on the small screen, but that did nothing to enhance the story. Before that point it was like seeing old friends again. There was a lot that was well executed: the dialog was exceptional, with maybe even more humor and anachronistic quirkiness than the original eps. The performances were excellent, although Fillion brought a little more edge and desperation to Reynolds than was useful. It was like he had to take himself a bit more seriously on the big screen. The music was well done, although I was hoping they would use the song, maybe even with some verses. I guess the special effects were good, although they didn't too much for me, and occasionally got in the way. The vehicular density when they crossed among the Reavers on the way to Miranda then again when they drew the Reavers into confrontation with the Alliance forces was beyond credibility, and the action in the latter scene was busy and overblown.

But the thing that really bothered me about Serenity was Wash getting killed. I found it a bit severe when the Alliance started killing off everybody who had ever harbored our friends, but it served the story. I found it extreme when they got Shepherd Book, but it was justifiable in terms of motivating the characters: again, it served the story. But they didn't need to kill Wash. The director's thing is to get a reaction from the audience, and this he clearly accomplished. But other than getting our attention, what does the death of this character accomplish for the story?

As I understand it, there will be two more movies. It is hard for me to imagine how breaking up an ensemble cast will serve the ongoing story. Wash added a lot to the group dynamic, and gave balance to Zoe. What is Whedon thinking? And while I was glad to see he didn't pull a Chris Carter and avoid the major story arc, I fear that he may have resolved too much. Since he killed opportunity to delve into the Shepherd's incongruous past and explained why the Alliance was after River, what is left? I'm going to need more than the sexual tension between Mal and Inara. I wonder if The Operative can drive.

If I can speak for more than one Firefly fan, we didn't need the big screen or the surround sound to make this boat float. If the cost of seeing our beloved characters released from the confines of television formatting is getting them killed and turned into Die Hard 14, it isn't worth it."

[bully]

I only caught Firefly on SciFi channel, but being "into" science fiction, I thoroughly enjoyed the series. Where can I get the dvd of the series?
I bought the dvd of Serenity and enjoyed it, but I admit I'll need to watch it again because I fell asleep while watching. I seem to do that a lot watching movies because I get so comfortable.

[jackson]

I bought the Firefly DVD set a while back after seeing a couple, and my friend telling me it was on sale. I watched it on my 77" front projection set and it was amazing. The charactors are great, the plots are great, sets and effects A+. Fox deserves a beating for canceling it. My projector just died so now I have to wait untill I fix it to watch the movie argh ! :)

[missing_eric]

I bought the Firefly DVD set a while back after seeing a couple, and my friend telling me it was on sale. I watched it on my 77" front projection set and it was amazing. The charactors are great, the plots are great, sets and effects A+. Fox deserves a beating for canceling it. My projector just died so now I have to wait untill I fix it to watch the movie argh ! :)


I totally agree..I just bought the set also after seeing a few..Fox is Stupid!!!! :nono:

[soundmotor]

My wife gave me the Firefly box set for Christmas.

Incredible, really just incredible.

Fox desrves far more than a beating for cancelling what may have been the best sci-fi series on TV; ever!

[Holst]

Fox desrves far more than a beating for cancelling what may have been the best sci-fi series on TV; ever!

Ditto! After I watched the whole set I found that it's one of those things you can't explain to someone else. You just have to watch it. And it's more than SciFi, it's just great story telling. Like Josh Whedon described it, it's our everyday world, just skewed a bit.

Sadly, thanks to Fox, we don't know how the story ends.

[Texas42]

Hi, I have the movie "Serenity" but haven't watched it yet. Should I get and watch the series first? Is the movie a prequel or is it supposed to be after the series?

[ohskigod]

supposed to be around 6 months after the series end. cant remember where I read it though.

I have the Firefly DVD set as well and have watched half the episodes, great series, stunned it was cancelled. was it just not getting ratings?

[markthefixer]

Hi, I have the movie "Serenity" but haven't watched it yet. Should I get and watch the series first? Is the movie a prequel or is it supposed to be after the series?

My $0.02 worth: watch the series FIRST, while the movie can stand alone, it spoils things in the series if you want to watch the series. I did it that way and I wish I hadn't.

[soundmotor]

Hi, I have the movie "Serenity" but haven't watched it yet. Should I get and watch the series first? Is the movie a prequel or is it supposed to be after the series?

In many ways and taken as a whole, the series is better than the movie! Things are not forced and why things are the way they are have been slowly revealed as they became relevant to the story. The series does not suffer the "Must have conclusion in 90 minutes" dilemma. Don't get me wrong, Serenity is great, just freakin' great. I have not watched it in a few months but plan to once I get through the last few shows of Firefly. But before I say any more,

No Serenity Spoilers!

So now that the series is readily available, I'd say watch it first as you have the option to do so. Serenity absolutely hooked me without knowing much about anything, the series however has blown me away. Seeing it after you have watched the series will likely be a better experience. I wish that was how I had seen it.

As to why it failed, I'll repeat what I've read that makes the most sense. The series was aired out of sequence with an emphasis on action driven episodes coming earlier than they should have. Fox wanted another Buffy and was not willing to let the series unfold sequentially which is how it was designed. Instead, each show had to stand on its own and they don't completely. You need to have the context of an earlier episode where something significant happened. The second inexplicable point is that not only were they shown out of sequence, FOX kept changing the night they were shown on. I saw 1 episode in 2002 and never could find it again. I gave up on it but so many did not and are the ones to thank for the fact that Serenity even got made. Some of this may be folklore but it is pretty much what I've read everywhere the topic is raised.

I've also come to understand that there is a letter writing campaign that may crack open the doors for SciFi to show the complete series in its correct sequence. I'll post the data later if anyone cares to write one. The out the door date for this is 12/30. The thinking is the series would pick up new viewers which may lead to newly produced episodes released to DVD or as a semi-regular mini-series. I've never been much of a letter writer, especially to ask for more of a commercial, ad driven venue. But I have written one as did my wife & 2 kids when I told them about it. You see, on their own they became fans as well. I am actually stunned that I have become a fairly rapid fan without prompting. I'm 45 fer chrissakes! You are a rapid fan of awaking on your own each morning, not a discontinued scifi series.

The Force is strong in this one!

:tresbon:

[CJ_S]

I watched the movie first and thought it was pretty good, then i went out and bought the series dvd's. After watching the series the movie did seem better after watching it again but i still enjoy the series episodes more. Shame it didn't last that long but it seems like none of the tv shows i like do. But then ones i can't stand seem to last forever.

[soundmotor]

Here is the sample letter you'd mail by tomorrow. Short, sweet, & to the point. The rationale behind it is to get SciFi to rerun the series which would likely spawn new viewers. In turn, that might spawn.....who knows?

I'm sending one, it may be futile, but as SciFi says, "If".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonnie Hammer, President
NBC Universal | Sci Fi Channel
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY
10020

Subject: Programming Suggestion for Summer, 2007

To the Sci/Fi Programming Staff:

Please consider adding Firefly for the Summer 2007 season.

Sincerely yours,

xxxxxxxxx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The follow-up is on January 2nd. Send an e-mail to feedback@scifi.com restating that Firefly be added to the Summer 2007 programming.

That's it!

[simplynuts]

I saw Serenitiy awhile back with my 16 year old. We saw Firefly as a a dvd set first. It made sense to see the series first because you lost the identity and interplay of the characters on Serenity.We watched it all on a 7 foot diagonal projector image in a home theater setup we had to run a marathon becuase it was so good. We wqant the series renewed or a few more movies based on the characters. One of the better scifi westerns I have seen in a long time.

[soundmotor]

We want the series renewed or a few more movies based on the characters. One of the better scifi westerns I have seen in a long time.

Send your letter young man!

:music:

[bjarmson]

Ahh yes, "Firefly/Serenity," the Fox network braintrust (and I'm definitely using the term sarcastically) really missed the mark on this one. Here was a series with with a longterm future (penned by a guy, Joss Whedon, who already had two hugely successful series—Buffy and Angel—to his credit). So what did Fox do? First they refused to show the two part introduction (a great episode), because it supposedly didn't have enough action (instead, it was shown at the end of the series run). This forced Joss (and his co-producer/writer Tim Minear) to have to write "The Train Job" in course of a weekend. Then they preempted shows for the baseball playoffs and World Series. At the same time they ran shows out of order. Anyone vaguely familiar with Joss's other series would realize that Joss always writes with a longterm arc in mind, but not the idiots at Fox. So 14 episodes into the series (3 of which were never aired), Fox canceled the series because of low ratings/network incompetency. A true shame since this was a series that hit the ground running; the cast meshed right from the first and was getting better with every episode, the writing was consistently good (with about a half dozen great episodes out of the 14 and a couple that were as good as it gets), and the show was just beginning to delve into the mysteries that permutated within the group and the greater "verse" they inhabited.
A couple of years later, along comes "Serenity," in which Joss tries to wrap up the series arc in 2 hours rather than 10 (or perhaps 100). That the movie is as good as it is (would that any of the Star Wars oeuvre had writing of this caliber or acting this good) is a minor miracle (though perhaps not given someone of Whedon's talents). Since he had only 2 hours to wrap up the story to some degree of satisfaction, certain characters were shorted in screen time and relationships were truncated (Mal and Inara's, Zoe and Wash's, Book's with the crew). Yet for all this it is still a great movie. To get the most out of it watch "Firefly" and then "Serenity."
SPOILER ALERT
As for Wash's death near the end of "Serenity," Joss has never been hesitant to kill characters. It was probably partly to show that anyone could die, and that maybe everyone would, as well as for a real world consideration (I think Alan Tudyk, "Wash," refused to sign a 3 movie commitment). Anyone familiar with Joss's work should know that while his characters inhabit strange "verses," they act like real people (albeit with amazing adventures and sometimes superpowers) and occasionally die for no apparent reason (as happens in life).
A great, if too short, arc of what could have been the best science fiction series ever. Here's hoping we will return to the "verse" sometime in the future (if Joss ever is freed of what is becoming a "vapormovie," the seemingly endless preproduction work/writing on "WonderWoman").

[soundmotor]

Ahh yes, "Firefly/Serenity," the Fox network braintrust (and I'm definitely using the term sarcastically) really missed the mark on this one. Here was a series with with a longterm future (penned by a guy, Joss Whedon, who already had two hugely successful series—Buffy and Angel—to his credit). So what did Fox do? First they refused to show the two part introduction (a great episode), because it supposedly didn't have enough action (instead, it was shown at the end of the series run). This forced Joss (and his co-producer/writer Tim Minear) to have to write "The Train Job" in course of a weekend. Then they preempted shows for the baseball playoffs and World Series. At the same time they ran shows out of order. Anyone vaguely familiar with Joss's other series would realize that Joss always writes with a longterm arc in mind, but not the idiots at Fox. So 14 episodes into the series (3 of which were never aired), Fox canceled the series because of low ratings/network incompetency. A true shame since this was a series that hit the ground running; the cast meshed right from the first and was getting better with every episode, the writing was consistently good (with about a half dozen great episodes out of the 14 and a couple that were as good as it gets), and the show was just beginning to delve into the mysteries that permutated within the group and the greater "verse" they inhabited.
A couple of years later, along comes "Serenity," in which Joss tries to wrap up the series arc in 2 hours rather than 10 (or perhaps 100). That the movie is as good as it is (would that any of the Star Wars oeuvre had writing of this caliber or acting this good) is a minor miracle (though perhaps not given someone of Whedon's talents). Since he had only 2 hours to wrap up the story to some degree of satisfaction, certain characters were shorted in screen time and relationships were truncated (Mal and Inara's, Zoe and Wash's, Book's with the crew). Yet for all this it is still a great movie. To get the most out of it watch "Firefly" and then "Serenity."
SPOILER ALERT
As for Wash's death near the end of "Serenity," Joss has never been hesitant to kill characters. It was probably partly to show that anyone could die, and that maybe everyone would, as well as for a real world consideration (I think Alan Tudyk, "Wash," refused to sign a 3 movie commitment). Anyone familiar with Joss's work should know that while his characters inhabit strange "verses," they act like real people (albeit with amazing adventures and sometimes superpowers) and occasionally die for no apparent reason (as happens in life).
A great, if too short, arc of what could have been the best science fiction series ever. Here's hoping we will return to the "verse" sometime in the future (if Joss ever is freed of what is becoming a "vapormovie," the seemingly endless preproduction work/writing on "WonderWoman").

^^^

Yeah, pretty much.....

:tears:

[Holst]

I think Alan Tudyk, "Wash," refused to sign a 3 movie commitment

I read that a planned next movie would be about events before "Serenity", starting off with something shocking and then revealing why certain characters had to be killed off.

Somethin like "my guess" Book was on the other side at Serenity Valley and that's why he turned down passage on that other ship and kept walking until he found Serenity in the pilot movie.

[bully]

I did get the movie, and a week or so ago bought the complete series. I really like the show. Amazon.com.

[soundmotor]

I did get the movie, and a week or so ago bought the complete series. I really like the show. Amazon.com.

The damn shame is when you start watching the show in the order it was intended to air by Whedon. All the trackbacks make sense as things are referenced in later episodes that happened way before. Without the correct chronology none of that makes sense which is pretty much what happened when it was aired originally.

I got the box set for Christmas as I had enjoyed Serenity. After the 5th or 6th epsiode I was saying "Wow, this is really good.". By episode 10 however I was getting depressed that I was coming to the end of them. However, the Firefly box set remains in Amazon's Top 50. Amazing for a series that is 5 years dead! I'm hoping for another movie even if it is straight to DVD. The show had a terrific mix of characters that worked like they'd known each other for years; from the very first show.

:thmbsp:

[ozmoid]

By episode 10 however I was getting depressed that I was coming to the end of them. However, the Firefly box set remains in Amazon's Top 50. Amazing for a series that is 5 years dead! I'm hoping for another movie even if it is straight to DVD. The show had a terrific mix of characters that worked like they'd known each other for years; from the very first show.

My sentiments exactly! We were "hooked" from the very first aired episode, and chased the series all over the schedule to try and keep up.

As seems to be the usual network reaction, any show demonstrating exceptional writing, talent, and an intelligent, engaging storyline is doomed. I was surprised it lasted as long as it did. :sigh: