OT: Movies You Have Seen Lately

Hunpecked · #1 July 5th, 2006, 09:15 PM

I really wanted to like the Firefly series, with its appealing cast, frequent humor, and underdog characters. But come on, we're hundreds of years in the future, we have FTL travel & artificial gravity, and our heroes earn their living transporting a couple dozen CATTLE from world to world? The government has terraformed numerous "moons" (no doubt at tremendous expense) into excellent replicas of a barren desert with (apparently) Earth gravity and then plants 'em with refugees from a John Wayne western? The ship is propelled at interstellar speeds by a rotating kettle tended by a high school dropout?

The movie, at least, had a bigger budget and more action, but was no more believable than the series, e.g. the interstellar superweapon played by a wisp of a girl that even Truman Capote could *****-slap into next week. I can see how such a quirky show could gather a small, dedicated fan base, but there's no need for conspiracy theories to explain its lack of general appeal.

BTW, rather than trying to pound his round peg into a square sci-fi hole, I've always thought that Wheadon should have set his story in the past, e.g. the late 1700s to early 1800s American coast, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean. Reynolds could be an American Tory (i.e. on the losing side of the American war for independence) forced off his land by the victorious Patriots, now earning a semi-legitimate living as a merchant captain, smuggler, and privateer. He could be master of a beat-up sloop named Serenity (after his lost plantation?), he could have the same scruffy crew (including women), and he could get into all the sword fights he wanted (did I mention that the Firefly series included a freakin' sword fight?).

Atrocities · #2 July 5th, 2006, 10:26 PM

Hunpecked, you missed the whole point of the series, there is no point to trying to make you understand. Either you got the series, or you didn't.

I do hope that Joss's next television effort will work out.. sounds interesting if not anything else.

Slynky · #3 July 5th, 2006, 11:26 PM

I've never stood here and suggested for a single moment that Firefly/Serenity was a technical masterpiece, hunpecked. I mean, correct in all aspects of what we could expect in technology and future developments.

You know, lots of people enjoy James Bond movies and they enjoy a huge box office take. Talk about stupid things that could never happen! And then, there's the blockbuster movies like Die Hard, Mission Impossible (which is mostly anything impossible!), and even more stupid [censored] like, "Armeggedon" and its hit cast doing impossible [censored] on an asteroid. Give me a break! HIT movies often fail to meet technical political correctness and succeed in the box office.

NOW, to the story liine: IF YOU WATCHED! The premise is that the Alliance needed a place to settle as Earth was getting full. Here comes the terraforming. NOT that each terraforming exercise was to convert a rock into a paradise...it was to convert a planet into something livable. THEN, after terraforming and sending colonist out, the Alliance tended to forget the poor wretches on the outskirts. THAT'S supposed to signify the difference in tech from the central core to the forgotten colonists on the outskirts. Hence the rebellion. Hence the need for basic human needs like food (cattle) and medicine.

Was/is it technically perfect? No. But does it do it as well as all the other [censored] I mentioned? Hell yes!

The mechanic you seem to dwell on? Not much different than the apparent inate abilities of several other heroes in movies...like Star Wars. I took it as an ability to understand mechanics and space travel/engines as Tiger Woods has to a golf club.

Want to really get truthful? Then try the successful series of Star Trek where people spent a few minutes splicing a few wires together and increased warp speed twice over. Or how Wesley (a kid) save the crew many times over. Was it a hit (though really ridiculous)? Hell yes!

So, get off your high horse. Go look at a lot of successful pieces of "space pablum" and give Joss the same amount of fair assessment as you have the others.

Finally, character development in Serenity/Firefly exceeds the range of that achieved by Star Wars (really, if you go do your homework, sci-fi pulp made to a movie). The characters in Firefly/Serenity tug a bit more at your heart and emotions than Star Wars ever did. I don't remember ever getting a swelled throat at any character in SW. Or Star Trek.

Joss has made, NOT a masterpiece, but a damned good series/movie that makes you visit every gamut of what a viewer should want: Excitement, plot, secrets, emotions, and sadness. Mal is the BEST representation of a ship's captain as I can remember. Name me one better!

Black_Knyght · #4 July 5th, 2006, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:
Hunpecked, you missed the whole point of the series, there is no point to trying to make you understand. Either you got the series, or you didn't.

I do hope that Joss's next television effort will work out.. sounds interesting if not anything else.

I gotta go with AT on this one, Hunpecked. Reread everything you wrote, and give it a moment's thought. The point of the ENTIRE show is in there.

Slynky · #5 July 5th, 2006, 11:52 PM

And then, there's the quoted passages where Lucas surpasses any notion of professional courtesy and calls Joss the equivalent of an wannabe hack. From what I know about human nature, if someone REALLY is a waste of a writer, other writers don't give a [censored]. BUT, when someone is a real threat to your "kingodm" and ego, you do what all the childish kids do, you say negative things about them.

Hun, you need to take a dose of real life and come up for air. Develop a bit of cynicism...you'll find it more truthful than a pair of Star Wars "rose colored glasses".

Hunpecked · #6 July 6th, 2006, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Black_Knyght said:

I gotta go with AT on this one, Hunpecked. Reread everything you wrote, and give it a moment's thought. The point of the ENTIRE show is in there.

Funny, I thought the point of the show was to make money.

Hunpecked · #7 July 6th, 2006, 03:17 PM

Several posters have leaped to the defense of the Firefly series, claiming I've "missed the point" of the show. Unfortunately these people seem to have missed my point: yes, I didn't "get" the show, but guess what? Neither did a lot of others. THAT is why the series was cancelled after half a season and that's why the movie tanked. There's no need to invoke conspiracy theories to explain the demise of an unpopular show.

As for the "realism" issue, yes, Firefly is probably no more "unrealistic" than Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica (don't get me started), or Armageddon, the movie that set out to prove Hollywood could make a film even worse than Deep Impact, and succeeeded.

But a story that stretches the audience's credulity has to have something else for people to "get", and unfortunately Firefly doesn't seem to have that, at least for most people.

Slynky · #8 July 6th, 2006, 05:20 PM

It's easy for a person who doesn't care about a particular show to not care much about why it was canceled. For those who do care, we looked for the reasons. Having talked with the cast and participating in many other places on the Internet furnishing info, I can say I honestly believe there were "those" who wanted to see the show fail/removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly...vision_series)

Scroll down to "Cancelation".

Be sure to click on footnote #5 for information that contradicts your insinuation that the show didn't have much of an audience.

Speaking of cancelation, I might point out that Fox almost canceled 24, which, for this year, is the most nominated for Emmy awards. So, whether or not Fox cancels something is no indication, apparently, of its quality. It's all about making money fast. If it isn't made fast enough, then don't "get behind" the series and push it, NO, by all means, just cancel it! One other factor (my own opinion that I've not seen written anwyhere else) that may have added to the decision to cancel the series is the onslaught of visual pablum known to all the TV masses as "reality programming" which people hungered for in droves and which the networks could produce for "pennies" compared to a series employing actual known actors. Why spend a million an episode when you could spend 100K per episode and make more money? Dumbass people would watch ANYTHING in the "reality" genre.

And, the Lucas factor in the whole thing? I tend to believe where there is smoke, there's quite a liklihood of fire. After reading an excerpt of Lucas' VERY unprofessional comments about Joss' ability, I would catagorize Lucas as very likely to have had a hand in seeing the series fail. After all, IF a person is talentless and you have no worries BECAUSE he is talentless, you don't even bother your busy schedule to spend time discussing it. But, you have to wonder why someone goes out of his way to practice a bit of character assassination for a person who "competes" directly in your "arena". I think it's because he knows Joss has something that people like and he worried about his "hold" on the space genre being challenged.

Baron Munchausen · #9 July 6th, 2006, 07:07 PM

You do have to wonder if the decision to take the 'Star Wars' universe into television had something to do with the recent boom in television SciFi. If so, then surely he would use his leverage to squash a competing show right under the same corporate umbrella.

Caduceus · #10 July 6th, 2006, 10:14 PM

Fox also had Space:Above and Beyond cancelled after one season. A show that I really enjoyed, so I feel your pain with Firefly.

I don't care if Lucas likes or doesn't like Wheadon. For the studio, it is all about dollars. If it doesn't sell advertising space, forget it. This was several years before Lucas considered bringing Star Wars to television, so I don't buy that arguement unless he has a ten-year plan (which they may... "We'll release the ORIGINAL version of SW with the SPECIAL EDITION in 2008 on HD-DVD!!").

You can bet if Wheadon had made a movie that grossed $150M after costing $40M to make, there'd be a sequel in the works.

The show may have been shut down due to influence, I can't see the links on the wikipedia so they could be to Martha Stewart reruns (TV Guide). But nobody has shown that the movie wasn't promoted. It was HEAVILY promoted to the markets that would theoretically find it appealing - SciFi channel, sporting events and wrestling on TV, I saw an ad in Entertainment Weekly, there was a feature on TV Guide. It simply didn't make money because it didn't have a wide appeal for whatever reason.

I watched one show, the first one that was on, and decided that I liked it, but never saw the second episode because I thought it wasn't going to make it.