According to MacRumors.com, there's a company called Navio that has reversed-engineered Apple's DRM, and some movie studios are signing up to use it as an alternative to the iTMS.
So we were discussing recent sci-fi after lunch, and one of my co-workers said, "You know what was really good? It had...a bunch of no-names; at least to me, they were no-names. Ser... Sere..."
We had been discussing television shows, so that's where my mind was, but then another co-worker answered, "Serenity!"
"Yes," she said. "That was really good."
The other co-worker told her to check out the TV series, and she said she didn't even know it was a TV series.
"Wow!" I said. "I've never met anyone like you! Someone who just stumbled across the movie and thought it was awesome without even knowing about the series."
They do exist! I thought it was very cool. Another one of my co-workers also remembered having seen it, and she hadn't known it was a TV series either.
(Random note: the first co-worker also really liked that one series about the living ship ("Farscape!" I said), although she thought the later episodes were much better than the middle episodes, which, huh.)
My aunt saw the movie without knowing about the series, because she recognized Joss' name from Buffy and Angel. Then, of course, she loved it and went back to the TV series.
I saw some - er, not exit polls, as I shouldn't see them - statistics which said 45% of people polled who came out of one of the UK theatrical screenings didn't know there was a series to go with it. Which isn't a surprise here, as although the movie performed best in the UK, Firefly never actually aired on a proper network here.
I ran into about 4 people at my work who saw Serenity, and not one of them knew about the series.
It reached outside the fan audience - the official US Universal stats show opening weekend fans accounted for 50% of the audience.
It was very hard - for me - objectively to look at Serenity and not associate it with the online audience. Certainly, though, around release week in the UK I got a good peak at how average people looked at it.
I remember being stood next to the red carpet setup in London, listening to the tourists walking by. One couple pointed up at the GIANT Summer Glau 'River' poster plastered over the cinema, and the man said "Cool! Didn't know they've made a Buffy movie!".
I was stood on the carpet for, uhm, about 4 hours, and spent most of the time talking to tourists who kept asking who was in the movie. Upon being told; "Uhm, nobody famous. Yet." they all lost interested and walked off.
My dad watched Serenity with us last night. He loved every second of it, despite never having even heard of Firefly before.
I know it has been mentioned a bajillion times, but I just watched Cowboy Bebop for the first time last night.
The similarities to Firefly in music and the ship, um, shape, were the only two things that struck me as equivalent. And maybe the sketchy profession...although, bounty hunters have their own show...
Not sure I'm going to fall in love with Bebop nearly to the degree I did Firefly.
Cowboy Bebop didn't nearly do it for me the way Firefly did. I only watched about a disc and a half before giving them back to the labmate who'd loaned them.
I'm not much into anime. I liked Cowboy Bebop, but it was definitely like, not love, for me.
My daughter had friend staying with her for a while who was all into anime. I'd watch some of it with him and it was kinda interesting, but not engrossing to me. I can see how some would like it, just not my style.
