So, how was your summer? Mine was fun. Saw some fish. Went mad with hunger. Hallucinated a whole bunch.

Angel ,'Conviction (1)'


Firefly 4: Also, we can kill you with our brains  

Discussion of the Mutant Enemy series, Firefly, the ensuing movie Serenity, and other projects in that universe. Like the other show threads, anything broadcast in the US is fine; spoilers are verboten and will be deleted if found.


Polter-Cow - Sep 27, 2005 5:34:15 pm PDT #5147 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Inside Serenity on SciFi is pretty good. Stay far away if you're spoiler-averse.

It's saving on my DVR so I can watch it after seeing the movie!

I noticed that the head cop said "You mean my reward for apprehending the three fugitives" (emphasis added).

Oh, oh! I also discovered the head cop = Dave Brass!!


Emily - Sep 27, 2005 6:19:57 pm PDT #5148 of 10001
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

I really wanted to watch it, but New!NotEmily!Roommate was watching the Red Sox (er, also not Valerie, but the notation kind of stuck).


tommyrot - Sep 27, 2005 6:55:47 pm PDT #5149 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

From MSNBC: Can a failed TV show spawn a successful film?

Huh. I wonder what that could be about....

Vaugely spoilery, as to the general focus of the film. Quotes from Joss and some of the actors.


Kate P. - Sep 27, 2005 7:14:31 pm PDT #5150 of 10001
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love

Fillion: You are? This is awkward.

Heh. I almost tagged this when I first read it. It's a fun interview. And now that I've read what ita posted in Natter about meeting him at the premiere, I can safely say my Fillion-crush is bigger than ever.


Volans - Sep 27, 2005 9:48:17 pm PDT #5151 of 10001
move out and draw fire

It often leaves the viewer to infer meaning from context, and that puts Firefly in a league all its own: it assumes a degree of intelligence on the part of the audience that few shows dare to try to get away with.

But unlike some other shows that TRY to do this, Firefly never did it with the story. I've been trying to watch more recent well-respected shows, and I find myself unable to follow the characters' paths through the story. I'm consistently asking "How did she figure that out? Why did he decide to do that? What clued him in? Is she suddenly psychic?"

With Firefly, the characters were real enough that I never had trouble following their actions and reactions as they created/experienced the story. It wasn't all laid out on a platter, to be sure (What's Book's background? What exactly tipped Mal off that Jayne sold them out? Is Simon gay?), but it was real, and thus the work I put into watching Firefly was rewarded.

Shows that try to copy the "Don't explain everything" need to have a better understanding of when you can and can't do that.


Mr. Broom - Sep 27, 2005 11:05:39 pm PDT #5152 of 10001
"When I look at people that I would like to feel have been a mentor or an inspiring kind of archetype of what I'd love to see my career eventually be mentioned as a footnote for in the same paragraph, it would be, like, Bowie." ~Trent Reznor

I noticed that the head cop said "You mean my reward for apprehending the three fugitives" (emphasis added).
I assumed that it meant he was adding Jayne as an accomplice.


Kristen - Sep 28, 2005 12:53:13 am PDT #5153 of 10001

A nice interview with Chris Buchanan is up at Development-Hell.com. He also (very) briefly mentions the project he's working on with Tim.


Tom Scola - Sep 28, 2005 2:56:01 am PDT #5154 of 10001
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

Can a failed TV show spawn a successful film?

Police Squad.


Frankenbuddha - Sep 28, 2005 2:59:04 am PDT #5155 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"

Serenity not doing well at Rotten Tomatoes (currently 57%).

It's up to 63% today (no longer in the "Rotten" category). Plus, there are only 8 reviews being counted toward that %.

This one from Slant brings up one point I am concerned about (but can't unknow the show, so to speak):

The storyline is fairly easy enough to follow, but you get a sense that the movie needs to be seen within the context of the show; not only is there an overwhelming feeling that the events in the film take place in the middle of something much bigger, but Whedon assumes his audience is familiar enough with the Serenity crew that he can skimp on the niceties of character development. What we have here, then, is a bunch of galaxy-bouncing rebels whose relationships to one another are as thin as cardboard and whose existential struggles are reduced to pat one-word signifiers like Love and Pride.

But then he follows it up with this, and makes me wonder if we saw the same movie:

From the awkward pacing of the thing to the Star Trek-style design of ship interiors and the Jetsons-meets-Flintstones décor of earthbound edifices, this is UPN-style storytelling and aesthetics trying to pass as serious filmmaking.

He goes on to say some very positive things on some of the plot specifics, but the above just sounds like a cheap shot at the Buffyverse shows.


§ ita § - Sep 28, 2005 5:19:49 am PDT #5156 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Hie thee to B'cacy, since a discussion on where movie talk goes after the 30th has just started there.

So far, the options are -- in Spoilers for a couple months, or in here blackfont after the 17th of October.