Serenity

[uup2it]

WOOT 1 hr till I get to see this movie TOTALLY pumped for it!!

[El_Vago]

Jesus christ did that movie mess with my mind.

[Swarfy]

GOOD MOVIE! I just can't believe they killed B and W (only doing initails for those who haven't seent he movie....) I also wasn't expecting the end, however it was funny when I saw River's head poke down and look... heheheheheh

Overall, Great story line, (as usual) Good effects, and great acting. I'm crossing my fingers for a sequal. (PLEASE! OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!)

A spoiler is a spoiler is a spoiler. Use the tag. -Raph

[$tormin]

Overall, Great story line, (as usual) Good effects, and great acting. I'm crossing my fingers for a sequal. (PLEASE! OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!)


I am hoping the movie is sucessful enough for those SOB's at fox to get the show going again :|
It was an awesome show, but randomly replacing it with a rerun of happy gilmore or baseball in addition to its horrible timeslot showed that fox wanted it dead from the get-go.

[Swarfy]

I agree with ya. I didn't even know about this show until i met my Fiance. He opened my eyes. I am DEFINATLY going ot buy this movie when it comes out on DVD.

And if this goes as well as Joss is hopeing, There will be anews story about a Fox Exec. being thrown out a 60th floor window.

[Remban]

Firefly is currently on SciFi Fridays, not sure if they are making new episodes or not.(think that was the series that the movie was made for)

[$tormin]

Yeah, that's the show and no it was cancelled first season because of not high enough viewership. Mostly owing to fox channel switching firefly out for bad movies or sports events randomly and its bad friday timeslot.

Edit: They also showed the episodes badly out of order too.

[Trumble]

Yeah Fox has such a great history of canceling great shows before their time, keeping the totaly low brow ones, and then keeping past greats running way too long. I think the problem with good shows on Fox is that no one who enjoys interesting entertainment watches Fox, and then once it goes to DvD it goes super platinum, and the Fox execs sit around scratching their heads.

Sorry I kind of got off the point, but I don't like what fox does to good shows.

[Breandan]

Sci fi has the rights to it, and there is a rumour that, if the movie does as well as they hope, they will drop a check in front of Joss Wheedon with so many zeros that he will gleefully start the series back up on Sci Fi channel. Considering the successes they have had with picking up Stargate SG1, Battlestar Galactica, and even Farscape, they are making bank and they know good investments when they see them.

[Elenial]

To quote Family Guy because they summed up fox very well with the following:

Peter: Everybody I've got bad news. We've been cancelled.

Lois: Oh no Peter! How could they do that?

Peter: Well unfortuantely Lois, there's just no more room on the schedule. We just gotta accept the fact that FOX has to make room for terrific shows like Dark Angel, Titus, Undeclared, Action, That 80's Show, Wonder Falls, Fast Lane, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Skin, Girl's Club, Cracking Up, The Pitts, Firefly, Get Real, Freaky Links, Wanda At Large, Costello, The Lone Gunman, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Normal Ohio, Pasadena, Harsh Realm, Keen Eddy, The Street, American Embassy, Cedric The Entertainer, The Tick, Louie, And Greg The Bunny....

Lois: Is there no hope?

Peter: Well I suppose if ALL those shows go down the tubes we might have a shot.

[NerfTheWarmech]

I was just about to post that bit too.


But I can't believe you actually listed all the shows. That was almost 2 minutes I think. I was laughing hysterically before they even got to the punchline.

[Melroc]

Every time I hear the name of this movie, I think of Georges father yelling "SERENITY NOW!"



I was going to see this movie tonight!


But we decided lord of war over it.

[Martel]

There's not much I can say about the film that won't spoil it, so I'll just say this:

Serenity is in 2005 what Star Wars was in 1977.

'Nuff said.

[Breandan]

Serenity is in 2005 what Star Wars was in 1977. Let's bloody well hope so, because I am DAMN picky about my sci-fi, and this series has a place in my heart that few series ever could.... that and I had the biggest crush on Jewel Staite :D

[ykkir]

[quote=Martel].... that and I had the biggest crush on Jewel Staite :D

You aren't the only one Breandan, I've had a crush on her since her days on Space Cases (I loved that show when I was a kid)

I'm going to see the movie tonight, I had planned on seeing it Yesterday, but for some reason I couldn't stay awake enough to get in the car and drive.

[Breandan]

I've had a crush on her since her days on Space Cases (I loved that show when I was a kid)she was a wee bit too young for me to be gettin' a crush on at that point... :wink:

The funny thing, and people who watched the series might notice this, is that she had to gain 20 lbs to play Kaylee in the series (proof that women look better with a little bit of padding, and not walking skeletons like Kate Moss, but this comic* (http://catmydog.keenspace.com/d/20050418.html) illustrates that better than I can), but she didn't regain it for the movie, so she will look a bit on the thinner side :-(

The strange thing about Morrena Bacarin, who plays the Companion, is that she looks so damn familiar, like she has been in a lot of movies, but when you check her filmography, hardly anything. She just has one of those faces that looks like she is supposed to be a major film star I guess :-)

*links to Edible Dirt, language warning

[Kallysti]

Saw it last night.

I cannot ever remember a movie that I had such incredible expectations for not only meet those expectations but far exceed them. Not since I was a child has any movie held me in its spell for so long (and that last time was the original Star Wars trilogy movies). I stayed enthralled for many many hours afterwards.

Thank you, Joss. And the entire crew. From the bottom of my heart, for the short time you gave me where I was almost a child again. I don't care how stupid and sappy I sound... lovestruck probably? I mean every word. It's true. It was that good.

A friend of mine (a film student and wonderful storyteller himself) said that Serenity is the movie you get when you make a film with love. A love of storytelling, of taking folks on an incredible journey. Joss Whedon loves his work, well and truly loves writing and storytelling and does a DAMN fine job of it. I wish I could use a stronger word for how highly I think of the job he does but nothing comes to mind, I don't have a word for it. Tears sprung to my eyes several times throughout.

Just...wow.

(btw, my b/f has the biggest crush on Jewel, too, hehe. Me? I literally swoon every time I see Nathan Fillion. I have for a while, actually. And we both have loved Firefly from the very beginning.)

There was a rumor for over a year on the fan sites about Book and Wash dying in the movie, but my jaw still dropped when I saw... "I am a leaf on the wind..." and then there was no more of him.

And tears came to my eyes when River gave the line about how Simon always took care of her and now it's time to take care of him and jumped out and did just that. She's so beautiful, graceful, and somehow sexless, almost, like an angel of death or vengence.

And I held my breath, literally, the entire ride through the field of Reavers. Both ways but especially the first.

[Kaylen]

Pretty much all my thoughts were written by Kallysti.

I also watched the R. Tam security tapes (http://session416.com/) before the movie. Watch them in the order they were released. There were a few references to them in the movie.

I went with my girlfriend and two other friends, and when we left (we went to the last matinee on account of us not being overburdened with cash) there was an actual long line just for Serenity. They even had a sign printed to designate it. It reminded me of Episode III.

Unfortunately no theater in town is giving it more than five showings a day, and this is in Houston.

[Gavin Darkhart]

Firefly as a series was doomed from day one.

Not though because of mismanagement by Fox. actualy this time it actually was the writing and productions fault IMO. while it was a great show if watched in sequence with no skipped episodes the moment you missed an episode, you were screwed untill you could find someone who taped it to catch up again on what is going on. The plot line over the course of hte one season was simply too overpowering. the individual episodes themselves, viewed alone made little sense and lacked the punch to grab a new watcher and keep them watching.

So, in teh end the only people watching the series were people that hadn't missed any episodes and had been watchign since the pilot launched. which overall made for a very small audiance.

[NerfTheWarmech]

Then how do you explain the success of Lost, or 24, or Arrested Development, which makes major changes on every week?

In my opinion, there were quite a few stand alone episodes in the series. The overall plotline tended to be no more than most dramas.

[Kallysti]

Fox did show the Firefly episodes out of order, unlike those others. (And they never showed the pilot, either.) But that's hardly the fault of the series ;)

[YuriPup]

Know it, see it, love it. That is all I have to say...

Well other than I am fan boi enough to have taken Friday off and seen it twice.. 11 AM and 9:45 PM. It didn't loose anything for having been seen twice.

And no way I won't own this on DVD.

[Gavin Darkhart]

*sigh*
ok the reasoning folks hate to hear, since you asked.

Firefly was marketed as a TV series, targeted at males age 18-25. all the advertising lead people to believe when they turned to it they would see a series like any other evening slot show your basic Star Trek rip off. What they got instead was Bonanza meets Startrek in a seriel format like All My Children, or some other day time drama.

Males age 18-25 don't watch day time TV, they are not used to serials, they ned to be expecting a serial or they don't come back.

This is why Firefly's primary audiance was tested out to be primary Females, 18-35 instead of the expected males. Because the show failed to draw its target audiance it was considered and technically was a failure.

Joss should have just made movies out of it to begin with, men can deal with movies that have beginnings, middles, and endings, where things are not back to normal at the end of every movie. Males 18-25 don't deal well with evolving plotlines between episodes of TV shows.

which is why 24, Lost and so forth target Female audiances, not male.

[Darth Lorax]

Then how do you explain the success of Lost, or 24, or Arrested Development, which makes major changes on every week?
Digital Video Recorders

There is no excuse for missing an episode of your favorite show. On second thought there's no excuse for watching any but your favorite shows.

[Kallysti]

Perhaps it didn't attract enough of it's target audience. However, Fox didn't even try, they did show things out of order (I can consult my dvd set and list it for you if you really want, it's not hard to gleen from those, just a lengthy bit of typing I don't feel like doing). So even if enough of it's target audience didn't watch, even more of them (and others, who were not their "target") were probably driven off by confusion from that.

In addition to not showing them in order, Fox also changed it's time slot 3 times in the course of 14 episodes. They also didn't properly advertise it. When they did show previews, the thing they kept showing on their previews was the pilot episode, you know the introductory thing that a lot of shows have to help them get the point across? Fox showed that as the very last thing. Like an afterthought, when the show had already been announced as cancelled. Now, maybe their target audience isn't the one who'd watch a serial religiously but don't tell me that Fox's mismanagement did not play a big part :P

(Done arguing, don't want to break the Easy Ways, and I'm probably close. Unless you want an actual list of the episodes' order and then the corresponding order Fox showed them in, or any other kind of clarification. But beyond that, I'm done here.)

[Gavin Darkhart]

not sure why you're argueing in the first place. like I said it's a well made serial, I even own and have watched through a couple of times the boxed set, its only problem was that its target audiance doesn't generally watch serials.

[tremor3258]

Firefly was probably before its time. Lost and the others showed it could work, and Fox would perhaps be a bit kinder to it.

Now, the movie. Like the series, only bigger. Very, very good action movie. Not Casablanca by any means, but... wow.

[roger]

I never heard of the serie until the movie released since i dont have cable :(

But my friends convinced me to give it a shot,they told me it was a mix of westernish/sci fi genre similar to the anime trigun&cowboy bebop with a touch of starwars hansolo's wannabe falcon's crew.So it indeed picked my curiosity and i went to see it just for a laugh.And boy i got hooked on this roller coster ride movie,excellent flick.The only grip i got with the movie is that it end to shortly,i wanted more! =p

I guess fox shot themselves in the foot by canceling this tv serie since the movie is very good.

[junior]

Firefly was probably before its time. Lost and the others showed it could work, and Fox would perhaps be a bit kinder to it.



Babylon 5 showed it could work.

:wink:

And then Crusade showed how to screw it all up.

[Amanty]

Babylon 5 showed it could work.

And then Crusade showed how to screw it all up.

lol, so very very true. At the time B5 was one of the best thought out shows on television. That was one show I wish would have never ended. It was my absolute favorite television show until the day Battlestar Galactica came out. Now I have a new love. :D

[tremor3258]

Babylon 5 showed it could work.

:wink:



Touche. Though it wasn't on broadcast its last year either.

Okay, "In between serials with mainstream maybe" maybe? "Dry moment?"

Eh, maybe I'll think of something after I go out to see the movie again (Was busy watching the DVDs, checking if the ship's logo was indeed there.. .it is, but very much so less prominent and dully colored. At some point, Mal had enough cash they could afford a touch up)

[junior]

Babylon 5 showed it could work.

:wink:



Touche. Though it wasn't on broadcast its last year either.



Not really a touche. The other lesson I pointed out (i.e. Crusade) shows the problems that Firefly experienced. Specifically, taking a show that was the baby of the writer, and that had a lot of fan expectations, and then experiencing the problems that occur when the network executives start trying to tell the writer how to do his job.

Crusade's most well-known network problems were -

1.) Episodes out of order
2.) Network attempts to make the show more "exciting" (i.e. more sex and violence)
3.) Interfering even in the costumes (uniforms) that the actors wore



There may have been others, but these are what I remember.


Does that list look familiar? Presumeably not #3, but particularly #1?

Apparently the networks never learn.


On the other hand, I hope that JMS never tries to revive Crusade and take it to the 2 hour format. I can't say I've been overly impressed with the 3 B5 movies I've seen...

^^;;

[Dilorenzo]

Saw this on Sunday. Despite my typical show of Bravado and manliness, I cried. Not going into why, and, in fact, I'm going to pretend I didn't just type that.

I checked the numbers, and last check, it was at $18 million. It was made for circa $30 million. Not sure exactly what nnumber it'd have to reach to be considered a success (and therefore have a return to the series, or even a sequel to the film), but I remember reading somewhere that 3 times the budget returned at the box office is the "magic number", if you will- the number at which the movie is considered to be a true success.

My hope is that it'll pick up sales on DVD, but all that means is a longer wait to see what the future is for the Serenity Crew.

Either way, even if this was goodbye to the crew, our final hoorah, it was a damned good one.

[akira1423]

$39mil was the budget for the movie, and three times that is what would practically guarantee a sequel (I think it was even signed as a three movie deal, they just won't get made if the first doesn't cash in). $80mil, or twice the budget, usually gives about a 50/50 chance of a second movie being made. It is currently up to $19mil (as of Monday's box office) in the US, and a total of $22.7mil worldwide. These aren't exactly stellar results, especially for the US numbers, and it will probably be dropped from most theatres this coming weekend in favor of newer releases. So take family and friends to go see it this week if you haven't; Serenity is worth seeing on the big screen.

On another money note, because of the remarkable fanbase that this movie has, many have predicted that it will do almost one-to-one sales between opening night tickets and the DVD release. Hopefully this will turn into a Donnie Darko or a Boondock Saints, neither did well in the theatres (Boondock Saints is one of the top losers of all times in terms of production costs vs. box office), but anyone who is anyone has seen them on DVD.

As we Browncoats say: Keep flyin,
Dave

[Breandan]

Saw it tonight, kicked butt, nuff said :-)

[Insomniac]

We just saw it last night...had to wait for hubby to be able to go see it. :D It was awesome...we're going to see it again with my brother and his wife this weekend....

I've gotta say, though:

I don't really see how they could continue the show without Book and Wash...especially Wash. That really sucked bigtime. I didn't cry when Wash died...I cried when Zoe went psycho, that's exactly what I would have done.

[Iiliani Seadream]

I wasn't even going to go and see this, even though I am a sci fi fan, my boyfriend wanted to see it and I went with him

It's been a very long time since I came out of a cinema saying anything other than 'that was ok'.
I came out from seeing this film in a kind of daze, going 'That was brilliant! I think I'll go see it again next weekend'.
Seriously, it has been a long time since a film came along that is a good as this one, I can't think of anything as good since The Matrix.

[Cobble]

I saw it on DvD last night. Now, I am not the hugest of sci-fi fans but the buzz on this movie being so good made me get the DvD and I am always open on a new experience. That said I am very unfamiliar with the tv show as well, never seen it at all.

I have to say I loved it. I am not going to rehash everything thats already been said but there was a large issue that I didnt like at all. I just couldnt get around it in my head.

The reavers were created by that drug on miranda meant to reduce peoples aggression. In the reavers case it did the opposite making them insane and raging humans that killed and ate all in thier way. My problem is that they dont fight each other and are capable of operation complicated spaceships and seem semi organized. This means there is some measure of control which kinda goes against how they are explained.

This didnt ruin the movie by any means, I just didnt understand.

[Breandan]

The reavers were created by that drug on miranda meant to reduce peoples aggression. In the reavers case it did the opposite making them insane and raging humans that killed and ate all in thier way. My problem is that they dont fight each other and are capable of operation complicated spaceships and seem semi organized. This means there is some measure of control which kinda goes against how they are explained.

This didnt ruin the movie by any means, I just didnt understand.

That I can explain :-)

Their aggression is heightened, but it does not reduce them to animalistic behaviour. They are still thinking human beings, just thinking human beings with the most sadistic, brutal, aggressive parts of their nature brought to the fore. Hence why instead of mindlessly killing everything, they are cunning sadists about it. If they had been reduced to animalistic behaviour, they would simply kill each other and everything around them till they were all dead. Instead, they hunt their prey, which are humans not affected as they are, and **** them while eating them alive in order to inflict the most brutal, sadistic, torment they can. In one of the episodes, they tied a man down and held his eyes open, making him watch as they raped, tortured, and ate every man, woman, and child aboard the ship he was on, and then left him alive, lost in his own torment. They are the ultimate sadists, not animals, and thus their thinking is still intact. As for why they don't kill one another, well, who says they don't? 10% of the population went mad, that would still be millions of Reavers, yet there are nowhere near that many seen or implied. Thus, it stands to reason that they fight amongst themselves brutally, and then hammer out a pack-mentality hierarchy, seeing uninfected humans as prey, and themselves as the hunters. Hence why they chase whenever anyone runs.

[Darth Lorax]

I just got a hold of a copy the other day. Why didn't anyone tell me this movie was freakin' awesome?! :wink:

Seriously, I've been a big Buffy and Angel fan for a few years but I never could catch Firefly on TV. I think it was a conspiracy to put it in a bad time slot. But now I can said with conviction that "Joss Whedon is my master now." (http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20050510) In my opinion Joss Whedon has what George Lucas lost.

[Strikesfirmly]

Serenity goes where DS9 should have taken Star Trek - to the reality outside the intricate network of Utopia.

Planets and star systems may one day band together for 'mutual scientific and defensive benefits' but what the writers of Trek, even Rodenberry, never got is that doing so doesn't make Space any smaller.


That being said; a neat movie, with mostly believable technology surrounding a very realistic setting and character driven plot. And no aliens but the ones we make ourselves.

Only thing I disliked; FTL extra-solar communications. :/ But thats just me lol.

[Breandan]

Only thing I disliked; FTL extra-solar communications. err... they didn't have extrasolar comms, everything takes place in the same star system. There's what's called the Cortex, which is lightspeed or faster, as they only are able to contact in real-time at relatively short ranges (i.e., near the planet or moon's orbit), but everything in the movie and series takes place within the same solar system. The planets and moons were all terraformed, using atmospheric processors descended from technology they used to try to save Earth, and through gravity lenses that stabilize gravity and amplify sunlight to be at the same general levels system-wide. All of this technology is on the books as theoretically doable within a century, which would fit, as the generation ships that left the United States and China to found the colonies left at the end of the 21st century.

[Trumble]

I saw it a while ago with my ex, it was pretty good, but I think maybe I needed to have seen the other stuff from the saga to appreciate it.

Of course I thought the same thing about Hitch-hikers, but after going out and reading everything Douglass Adamas has published, I realized it was just a crappy movie.

[Strikesfirmly]

err... they didn't have extrasolar comms, everything takes place in the same star system.
Wow, gonna have to rewatch anyways but obviously missed that part. Or was it something expounded upon more in the series?

I take it they moved the major moons into their own orbits and altered the paths of the other worlds?


<-- Has no TV hookup. Going on 12 years or so now.

[Lirren]

I finally got to see Serenity tonight and WOW! I'm really impressed. Now I want to get the series even more. However
OMG, WASH! I was giggling at his "I am a leaf" and then WHAM! I literally sat there with my mouth hanging open because I just couldn't believe they did that.

[Kallysti]

I finally got to see Serenity tonight and WOW! I'm really impressed. Now I want to get the series even more. However
OMG, WASH! I was giggling at his "I am a leaf" and then WHAM! I literally sat there with my mouth hanging open because I just couldn't believe they did that.

Me too, Lirren. Me too. Though I'd heard rumors almost a year before hand.

[Joshua412]

Only problem i had with the movie was the ships Uncanny likeness of a chicken... seriously watch it you will laugh. mainly the scene when theyre going to raid the town and the reavers show up

cluck, Cluck cluck.... BBBBGAAAAAWKKK!!

[ExExEl]

I wanted to see Serenity when it first came out, as a friend had suggestd it too me, but never got around to it. So when I went to america earlier this year, I bought the dvd, and one night after we were all themeparked out, sat down and watched it... Loved it! went to walmart the next day and bought the all the episdoes on dvd aswell. Just finished watching them yesterday. It really was one of, if not the best tv series I've watched in a long time, it had high, lows, a roller coaster of action, comedy even a bit of romance. One second laughing, next (if I wasn't such a tough guy! *looks around*) crying.

I want to go find the exec in fox.. and either kick him in the teeth, or sit him down and make him watch all of the episodes and the movie. then ask him why?

and although its been mentioned already.. why oh why did you kill people, loved those charcters :(

[Breandan]

Joss is planning on reviving the series, especially after watching how the movie did, but Sci Fi needs to yank the rights from whoever has them currently to do so.

[EvilPetRock]

Edited several posts to fix spoilers- the Evil Pet Rock

[Kallysti]

Doesn't look like it (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=1&id=34383), Brean... though he could always change his mind I guess.

Whedon previously told USA Today that he still hopes to tell more stories set in Serenity's futuristic universe, though Firefly as it was is dead.

I'd be interested in other stories or different characters in the same 'verse, though. Especially if Joss is involved :)

[WipeOut]

***SPOILER***

Great movie. Unfortunately, it ruined the whole story line for me. Those of you who did not have the opportunity to see the shows prior to seeing the movie probably won't be able to relate to this. How can you justify killing off Wash??? He was a leaf in the wind!!! It's just not right! He was one of the highlights through the series...and to kill him off was wrong, to kill him in such a way that it brought Buffy to the front of the mind is just downright amoral.

Phenomenal series...great movie, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.