Any Firefly fans here ? For those who don’t know (and that included me four months ago), Firefly was a science-fiction television series back in 2002. It was cancelled after the first season, but due to strong buyer response to the DVD set, Universal bought the movie rights. On September 30 the movie Serenity, with the same story line, characters, and actors, was launched on the big screen. This takes place 500 years in the future. Mal and Zoe were on the losing side for a war for independence (the totalitarian Alliance won). Rather than assimilate into “civilization”, Mal bought a cargo ship, hired a small crew, and now ekes out a living on the edges of the Alliance’s empire by running cargo (both legal and illegal) and occasionally robbing from the Alliance. Complicating things are two passengers, a doctor and his sister. The sister was formerly a captive of the Alliance, and the Alliance enhanced some of her abnormal abilities (including reading minds) to turn her into a weapon. The Alliance is trying to track her down to bring her back. This show has a strong libertarian philosophy (“Some folks don’t like to be meddled with”), an original concept, sharp and sometimes witty dialog (“I guess my days of not taking Jayne seriously are coming to a middle”), compelling characters (“Shoot first and ask questions ... don’t ask questions!”), and a space ship of Firefly Class named Serenity. As some reviewers have noted, the crew talks like they’re auditioning for Bonanza but they cuss in Chinese. The television episodes feel more western than sci-fi. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which present-day political party the Alliance most resembles (hint: both of them). Other viewers’ comments are here: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808583132/user and here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/usercomments
The first nine minutes of the movie can be seen here: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2681478?htv=12&htv=12&htv=12&htv=12 Skip past the opening screen ad, and then click on the green "Watch Now" button.
If you never saw the series, can you still enjoy the movie? Is it a continuation of the series or a stand alone film??
You can still enjoy the movie. The storyline is continuing from the series, but it doesn't much build on it in the sense of the series having numerous events that you need to know to understand the movie. Also, the movie does do a bit of backstory on the character for whom the plot revolves around (the doctor's sister, River). You can get a lot of info from the movie site here: http://www.serenitymovie.com/ although you have to do a bit of poking around to figure out where all the info is tucked away. As in my first post, two soldiers on the losing side for independence acquire a space ship, a crew, and go foraging in mostly illegal fashion to live their lives free from the Alliance. In the series, the importance of the two passengers (Simon and River) is not immediately apparent. It is only as the series progresses that River's importance to the Alliance gets slowly revealed, along with her unexpected combat skills. By the end of the series the crew understands that River is a danger to them both from being pursued by the Alliance and by her previously unknown combat skills coupled with her lack of self-control due to side-effects from the Alliance's "experiments." The movie starts from there. It's the only movie I've seen this year (or in quite a few years) that I want to see again on the big screen.
Man this thread has 50 something views at this point. I wonder how many views a Babylon 5 thread would get. Not that I ever watch anything else but MasterPiece Theatre.
Funny thing. After reading this, I went in to catch tonights Earl and what do I see....An ad for Firefly on the sci-fi channel. Seems the series is back on Fridays.
Sci-Fi channel is showing reruns of the 2002 episodes. I read that 14 episodes were made in 2002 (including a 2-hour pilot) for a total of 15 hours worth, but that Fox only showed 11 of the episodes, and didn't show them in the correct order. Here's a small description of the four DVD set: http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60033036&trkid=189530 You have to scroll down to near the bottom.
Got my DVD set in the mail today. Turns out that Fox showed them in the following sequence: 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 1; never did show episodes 11, 12, 13. #1 is the two hour pilot. Most networks understand that a pilot is supposed to be shown first. fireflyfans.net members (I am not one) rated the various episodes, best to worst, as follows: 12, 14, 1, 9, 6, 11, 7, 10, 8, 4, 22, 3, 5, 13, with average scores ranging from 9.33 to 7.57 out of 10.00. But, they're all fun. They vary in the seriousness of the episode. Some are tense and edgy, and some are played mostly for laughs.
I have seen the movie and I must say if they brought the series back I would be hard pressed not to watch.
Well, if you want more, you can buy or rent the DVD set covering the 2002 season. I would have to say I enjoyed the 15 hours of the series more than the 2 hours of the movie. The movie is a fast-paced roller-coaster, and it’s great fun, but it doesn’t take time for some of the subtleties and nuances of the series. For example, the series will make sly references to an entity known as Blue Sun, such as one episode where Jayne is wearing a Blue Sun t-shirt. Except for maybe River, the characters seem largely unseeing or indifferent to the Blue Sun references. However, the implication of the sum of the references seems to be that the Blue Sun is a secret evil corporation, possibly pulling the strings in the background. The writer of the series was probably intending to develop that connection in the television seasons to follow, but never got the chance when Fox cancelled after just one season.
I enjoyed the continuity. I recall one episode where one character mentions having a job transporting a load of cattle. In the opening scene of the next episode, they are unloading a herd of steers from the cargo bay. (It's also funny to see that on a sci-fi show...how often do you see cattle on space ships?) Also, the writing was believable enough to be unpredictable. That one episode where Mal put Jayne in the airlock...sheesh! I really, really did not know whether Mal was going to kill him. Very tense. But more than anything else, I liked the funny dialogue. (Zoe: "This is something the captain has to do for himself." Mal, in mortal combat: "Mff..no it's not!!" Zoe, surprised: "Oh!" [blam, blam, blam] )
How about the following dialog between Wash and Mal on the bridge of the ship: Wash: “I think it’s going to get interesting.” Mal: “Define 'interesting'.” Wash: “As in ‘Oh god. Oh god. We’re going to die’,” (spoken matter-of-factly; no emphatic exclamation).
