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Serenity

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So my wife was away last week and I was bored, so I borrowed the Firefly DVDs from a friend of mine. I had heard the series was good and had it on my to watch list for a long time. It was interesting enough, though not up to all the hype it has had. It is ashame it was cancelled, I think it was a lot better than most the crap that comes on now. Anyway, I also borrowed the eh hem.. *avi file*.. of the movie Serenity and watched it. A couple of days ago I was at Wal-Mart and looking through the DVDs and saw the DVD and picked up the box to look at it. The first thing that struck me was the cover. There is a girl on the cover and she looks very little like any of the charecters in the film. I found that funny. I would take it she is either Inara or River, but doesn't look too much like either one. Has anyone else felt this way about the DVD cover art, or is it just me.

Now before you say "What the hell was the point of this topic?" I would say I am getting tired of circular political topics (thought I still find them entertaining for the most part) and all fifty of the game console threads and want to talk about something new.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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The girl on the box is River... I never thought it was supposed to be anyone else. Maybe you just looked at it funny.

Incidentally, Serenity is a great flick. It's too bad it didn't do well enough to justify a sequel.

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Yeah, River seems like the most reasonable guess, but no matter how I look at it, it does not strike me as River. River usually had straighter hair too, and a more calm look, even when she was going psycho she kept a creepily calm look about her.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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http://www.canmag.com/images/front/dvdnews/serenity.jpg


http://toutcute.com/images/river.tam.jpg

I concede that it is her, but I think she looks very different in the movie than on the DVD cover.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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The show is an awesome piece of work. It needed more time to reach the heights of awesomeness that it could have achieved. Stupid Fox Network.....fuckers ruined the best sci-fi show in years.

The chick on the Serenity cover is clearly River. What are you gents smoking? Pass is around please!!!
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Yeah, I agree it is her now. I saw the cover after I saw the film, and it just didn't seem that much like her.

I felt the first few episodes pushed the western aspect a little too far. The whole wild west thing on the outer colonies is a great idea, but at first it was too exagerated. After the first few episode I think they balanced it better, up until the whole whore house episode. That was painfully exagerated in my opinion, and that was probably the dumbest episode.

I liked the whole Chinese/English aspect. And the no aliens or robots. While watching the series I got this great urge to reinstall Escape Velocity: Override onto my computer (any Mac gamers here?).

Yeah, Fox kills the best shows. They were the ones who killed Futurama also. I think this could have evolved to be much more interesting. I am glade they were able to wrap it up with the film though. I think the film suffers from very little character introduction. You can tell they were aiming it at the fans of the series. Which is not a complaint, I like that for once a film was made with the fans in mind. Somebody could learn a lot from these guy. But in the end I think it probably hurt the movie as a whole as far as ticket sales and appealing to a wider audience.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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What really hurt was the marketing. It made it look like a generic, stupid rip off of the 'super-babe' genre. Most notably, the marketing made it essentially look like The Fifth Element with all the silly fun stuff removed.

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Firefly was fucking awesome.

Serentiy, while still a good flick, was not anywhere near as good as the series.

Firefly was not meant to be crammed into a 2 hour time space. The way the story was meant to progress was designed for hour long weekly installments.

Harrison Ford Has Pretty Much Given Up on His Son. Here's Why

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I totally agree with C3PX. The River on the cover of the movie, while not only being far too prominent when Mal is the main character, looks nothing like her. They went really heavy on the eye makeup while the "real" River has a much more natural look (thank goodness). It seems they were just trying to sell sexy.

And, yeah, as I've said before, Firefly is a great show. I disagree that the western motif was overused. I thought it was great, and I was disappointed that Serenity was overpowered with sci-fi without enough western to balance it out.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
And, yeah, as I've said before, Firefly is a great show. I disagree that the western motif was overused. I thought it was great, and I was disappointed that Serenity was overpowered with sci-fi without enough western to balance it out.


I agree. One thing I can't stand is how the sets for Serenity (the spaceship) were changed to be so cold and metal feeling now. Before the main hangar felt warm and inviting. In general there was too much of that sort of cold blue coloring everywhere in the film.

I also agree with Stinky about the original series being a lot better. C3PX mentioned that the movie didn't have enough introductions, but I think it had too much if you ask me. It was expecting new viewers to get caught up with everyone in a very short space of time and then supposedly care about the characters in the way a fan would, and there was no way that would have worked. The movie should have jumped straight into the drama and forgotten the damn introductions completely. Let new viewers enjoy the characters based upon their roles and nothing more. Then the movie would have been about awesome character interaction and drama. The series always had that perfect.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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The series was ok. Didn't give me a hard on like some of you guys, but it was ok.
I watched the film straight after watching the series, and to me it seemed like they just changed all the characters, so I really didn't get into it.
Should of gave it a few weeks in between really.

As for the cover, this is the version I have, and it's quite obvious who's who!

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000BLJGBC.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V57100437_.jpg

http://www.facebook.com/DirtyWookie

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It's the same picture of her.

I like this dvd cover:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/6657/serenity1kv1.jpg
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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Yeah, I like that last cover more too.

You guys are right, there was a short of half assed introduction, but I didn't feel it was enough for new viewers. Also Serenity was completely different inside, that bugged me alot since I too watch it back to back with the TV series. And they crammed the whole River Tam mystery into a two hour movie, when it was obvious from the TV series that it would be a slowly unraveled side story. I think the Western idea was brilliant, and it was ashame they tossed it out for the film. Perhaps it wasnt that it was too over done in the first few episodes, but that it took me a time to get used to it. Too me at first it felt very exagerated and unbelievable, but over all it works. This show is another example of Fox screwing a show over. They didn't even show the pilot episode until the very end. It is like they wanted it to fail. This was the same way with Futurama, it seems they killed it on purpose too.

Oh, and one last thing I really liked about the show. The camera work, it was brilliant. I love the variation of static cameras in all the alliance scenes, and the more unstable hand cameras for all the other scenes.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Well, to be perfectly honest, I've only seen a few episodes of the series, so I can't really say if Serenity is better or worse than Firefly, but I really enjoyed the episodes and the movie. For what it's worth to say that.

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Originally posted by: C3PX
I think the Western idea was brilliant, and it was ashame they tossed it out for the film.


You see, that's where I think the movie went most wrong, but in a general sense of the characters living ordinary, tough lives. You claim that introductions were needed, but I believe the series was most brilliant when the characters acted and behaved like themselves. When I got hooked on the series, I jumped into the third episode or so and needed no introductions to the characters because they were compelling, real, and down to earth in their own way. I thought it was awesome. You don't need introductions when you understand that the whole group of characters is comprised of ordinary people just like you and me. They're special in their own ways, just like everybody is, but in a general sense they have desires that everyone identifies with and that's where the show most excelled in my opinion.

If I had advised Joss Whedon, I would have told him not to worry about finishing any big story arcs and not to dwell on lengthy introductions to the firefly universe or the dire history of the main characters. Instead, it should have been a much more reserved and less apocalyptic storyline. One with plenty of action of course, and cool special effects, but one that was self contained for the most part and not complicated. Then, if he had wanted, he could have introduced new back-story hints and such, with the hope of potential sequels. Unfortunately, he was so focused on all of those large scale items that the drama didn't flow correctly (if you ask me) and the main characters didn't seem as authentic (at least not in the ways I remembered him writing them in the past).

Anyways, the western/sci-fi combination was a bit awkward, but the character interaction and the drama were always the pull of the show for me, so I could overlook those problems. And, even then, the combination was a very cool attempt at something different and I really came to love it after a while.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Yeah, I felt the movie characters were magnified larger than life counter parts to their TV selves. The TV charaters were more believable and more normal people who were lost in the flotsam and jetsam of the galaxy. They never have the fate of the universe on their shoudlers, but they are constantly having to save their own lives. The movie puts the fate of the universe in their hands, which I guess is what people want to see when they go to the movies.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Still, that's one of the most exciting and scariest elements of the movie to me. You've spent so long with them just trying to get by, just surviving, and then suddenly, you see them thrust into matters of importance that they really have no business getting into with greater risk than anything in the series, but they don't really have a choice. And I really enjoyed seeing everything go to hell. It was almost Empirestrikesbackian!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Well that was largely because they killed the show and the movie was the last chance the universe had at a second wind.

Would you really want to watch a Firefly movie that was essnetially an exstended episode? When you bring it to the big screen, you have to raise the stakes. Remember Transformers: The Movie?

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Still, that's one of the most exciting and scariest elements of the movie to me. You've spent so long with them just trying to get by, just surviving, and then suddenly, you see them thrust into matters of importance that they really have no business getting into with greater risk than anything in the series, but they don't really have a choice. And I really enjoyed seeing everything go to hell. It was almost Empirestrikesbackian!


Yeah, it was a real tearjerker when good old favorites from the series like "the twins" and "Mr. Universe" died.

I hate raised stakes. It's so predictable. My favorite TV-series-to-movie transition was with the Cowboy Bebop movie. It made no connections to any big story arcs and I liked it that way. It was fantastic.

Don't get me wrong, I liked how the world got a lot more desperate over the course of Serenity. However, I couldn't appreciate that drama because nothing had been established enough for me to truly care about it. There was nothing emotional to latch onto. Everything involving the conspiracy and "the operative" was overly glitzy and cold. If I had not seen the TV series first, I probably wouldn't have cared much about anything that happened.

I see no reason to worry about whether or not the show was going to continue or not. In an ultimate sense you can't let what-ifs guide art. It may have been the last chance to wrap everything up for the firefly universe, but why was there even a need to worry about something like that? Do things right. Show us more, not less. Lower the stakes if you need to.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I actually saw the movie before the series and I loved the movie. It actually made me want to watch the series.
1000 Word Migraine
www.1kwordmigraine.com

An off topic site for an off topic world!
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I thought the movie was very good. It just wasn't as good as it should have been.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I'm of the same opinion. Serenity was good, but not great. I think it's all in the production values, which were modest, but still reminded me of the same quality as Star Trek: Insurrection. Serenity just had a better story to tell and more action (and better characters). Joss shouldn't have directed. Really needed someone who was more a "cinema" caliber.
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Hehe, I just found this video:

Mosquito

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I always thought it was funny that Jayne shared a name with my aunt. Mosquito renames him Susan... the name of my other aunt.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.