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Sci-Fi Media Movies

Serenity Pushed Back to September 285

Posted by CmdrTaco from the every-time dept.
iontyre writes "According to Joss Whedon and reported at fireflymovie.com the much anticipated feature film adaptation of the superb but canceled tv show Firefly has been delayed till September from its original April release to supposedly avoid too much genre competition."
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Serenity Pushed Back to September More

Serenity Pushed Back to September

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  • obligatory Seinfeld reference (Score:4, Funny)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:14PM (#10899689) Journal
    SERENITY NOW!!!!

  • Dang... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:16PM (#10899708)
    ...Firefly is really superb. Its a shame they are delaying its premier. Maybe people can argue that, but not that it's unique in its own kind. I really loved the western feeling, although it only lived 14 episodes :\ I wish they would have supported it instead of those brainless reality shows, etc.

  • what else? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:16PM (#10899716)
    so what else is supposed to pop up in april that would cause such a ruckus?

  • Take my love, take my land, (Score:5, Informative)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:17PM (#10899727)
    Take my release date too.

    Sigh. Firefly was a great series, though it took awhile to grow on people. I've been making my coworkers watch the series on DVD. After watching the first one their response is "So it's like a western in space?" A week later they hand back the DVDs with a glum face, asking "Why did they cancel it? That was a great show."
    • Let me sum up. It came on TV. The first two episodes sucked, and mostly everyone stopped watching it at that point. It got canceled.

      I was one of those that stopped watching it. If someone loans me the DVDs I'll watch them and give it a chance. Otherwise I could care less about it.

      • Re:Take my love, take my land, (Score:5, Informative)

        by Romeozulu ( 248240 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:43PM (#10900075)
        The first two episodes sucked

        The first two episodes where shown out of order. No wonder they didn't make any sense.
        • They were shown in order here in the UK, and *still* the majority of people I ask think it sucked (I think it sucked as well). And Im normally a guy who will sit through most things scifi.
          • They were shown in order here in the UK, and *still* the majority of people I ask think it sucked

            Yeah, but that's the UK. Westerns have always been more popular in the US. Ask most Americans*, and they'll tell you they think Red Dwarf sucked, for much the same reason (eg, it's just too different than anything they normally like).

            * I shouldn't have to point this out, but Slashdotters are not "most Americans". So you don't have to reply with "But I loved Red Dwarf. Kryton's the man!"
        • Absolutely; it was the last two episodes that sucked.

          'objects in space' I mean whats with that idiot bounty hunter??? Does he have a hearing problem or something? (When Reynolds asks him 'are you alliance?' he seems to think that he said 'are you a lion').

          And 'message' (IIRC the name of the episode) I just wish Jayne had killed that idiot of a dead guy straight away; it would have saved us a wasted episode.

          Firefly was great until the last 2 episodes IMO; its as if they knew they were going to be cancelle

          • Re:Take my love, take my land, (Score:4, Informative)

            by SamHill ( 9044 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:44PM (#10901906)

            Hmm. I'm not sure whether you're kidding or not.

            'objects in space' I mean whats with that idiot bounty hunter??? Does he have a hearing problem or something? (When Reynolds asks him 'are you alliance?' he seems to think that he said 'are you a lion').

            ``Objects in Space'' is awesome. Early has, well, some issues, which come out by the end of the episode. There's also amazing narrative tension -- is River dead or alive? Could she have really merged with the ship? What powers does she have?

            The conversation you mention was actually with Simon; Mal was already locked in his cabin, unconscious. Early's reply is classic: ``I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well, though... I have a mighty roar.''

            And the last line of the episode -- ``Well... Here I am.'' -- is right up there with ``No matter where you go, there you are.'' as a summary of existential philosophy.

        • Re:Take my love, take my land, (Score:4, Insightful)

          by SamHill ( 9044 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:37PM (#10901776)

          The first two episodes sucked

          The first two episodes where shown out of order. No wonder they didn't make any sense.

          But they still didn't suck. I admit, I wasn't completely taken with the show until the wondeful scene in which Mal gives the head henchman a chance to let bygones be bygones. He does the usual blustering ``I'll hunt you down across the galaxy'', and Mal's response is so amazingly uncliched I was an instant convert.

          And it only got better....

          As for making sense, well, I guess I'm used to reading books where you're tossed into the middle of a situation you're unfamiliar with -- characters with motivations that aren't obvious, a world that doesn't work quite the way you're used to, unfamiliar technologies, and so on. You just have to open up and absorb until it all starts to come together.

          Yup. Banks, Powers, Dickens... Good stuff.

  • I sense something... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pogle ( 71293 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:17PM (#10899729) Homepage
    As if millions of geeks suddenly cried out in anguish...

    *sigh* Hopefully it'll be worth the wait. My Firefly addiction needs more material!

    • Re:I sense something... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mclearn ( 86140 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:13PM (#10901447) Homepage
      You should sign up for the direct-to-dvd poll they're running over there http://www.fireflymovie.com/directdvd.html [fireflymovie.com]. I would honestly pay $6-9 per episode (probably closer to $6), which is approx. half the price of a movie ticket (given a 60 minute ep).

      Also, there is some interesting stuff on guerilla marketing. One of the best (and easiest) idea is to write "Firefly: Keep on Flying" on your dollar bills. People will inherently wonder what it's all about. Those saavy enough will plug it into Google and *bam*.

  • You can't take the Big Damn Movie from me.... (Score:3)

    by Futaba-chan ( 541818 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:17PM (#10899730)
    Rats. I've been eagerly looking forward to the Big Damn Movie (Serenity) ever since my friends dragooned me into watching the DVD set, but I'd rather see it succeed -- and the franchise survive long enough for Fox's rights to expire and the show to get back on some other network or cable outlet -- than to have it sink into the swamp and be forgotten.

  • My experiences with Firefly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Seek_1 ( 639070 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:19PM (#10899743)
    I'm posting this simply because I'd heard from a number of people that Firefly was worth watching, and want to continue to spread the word about it.

    ---

    I download the Firefly pilot. I watched it. I enjoyed it so much that I then got off my ass, ran down to Futureshop and picked up the DVD set (that afternoon) without a second thought.

    Not everyone may like this series, but I certainly did. Enough that even though I'd already downloaded a few of the episodes (without watching any but the first), I went out and bought the DVDs anyways, based on how good the first one was.

    And it's NOT Sci-fi. It's set in a sci-fi environment yes, but the show itself is not sci-fi themed. (ie, there's no alien-of-the-week-kinda-crap going on..)
    • It's set in a sci-fi environment yes, but the show itself is not sci-fi themed. (ie, there's no alien-of-the-week-kinda-crap going on..)

      alien-of-the-week has fsck-all to do with science fiction.
    • If you are opposed to alien-of-the-week plots then you will love the new Battlestar Galactica when it comes out in January. The first several shows have a 24 feel to them as there is constant tension that moves it along.

      Or you could cheat and download the episodes that have already aired in the UK...

    • Re:My experiences with Firefly (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:54PM (#10900208) Homepage Journal
      And it's NOT Sci-fi. It's set in a sci-fi environment yes, but the show itself is not sci-fi themed. (ie, there's no alien-of-the-week-kinda-crap going on..)

      That is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

      "Hey, guess what, none of Isaac Asimov's books were sci-fi! They didn't rely on the freak-of-the-week formu..."
      Sigh...

      Here's the thing: If you have people in a spaceship trying to escape the futur's extra-solar military dictatorship... there's a good chance it is in the realm of SCIENCE FICTION. They have terraformed alien worlds, flying cars, laser pistols, human organ trafficking, psychics, faster-than-light travel, etc.
      • "faster-than-light travel"

        No they don't. The Firefly universe is set in a single habitable/teraformable-body-rich system, colonized (pretty recently) by a seeder ship. Not that I dispute your point, but it goes to show how little emphesis it puts on the universe it's set in next to the characters who are in it.

        I find it amusing that Firefly gets a lot of flack for its western-in-space style, when the likes of Star Trek has a far more laughable and shallow portrayal of humanity and space in general. Gla


        • Characters talk about travelling between star systems, I believe. I remember lines and scenes about being in "deep space".

          They don't show any faster-than-light travel, but possibly that's just because it's boring.

          • They don't show any faster-than-light travel, but possibly that's just because it's boring.

            I think they did, but they didn't use the Star Trek "stars wooshing in the background" effect. There's quite a few shots of Serenity in deep space, going from one world to another.

            But we know absolutly nothing about its propuslsion systems, so its all conjecture for us!
        • I did a quick google search on 'firefly history,' 'firefly background' and 'firefly faster than light' and I could find no reference to the series being set in a single system. In fact, references to intergalactic war and reviews mentioning faster than light travel were pretty easy to find. There certainly seem to be far too many habitable planets for a single system. What are you basing this assertion on?

        • Re:My experiences with Firefly (Score:4, Informative)

          by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @02:55PM (#10901185) Homepage Journal
          No they don't. The Firefly universe is set in a single habitable/teraformable-body-rich system, colonized (pretty recently) by a seeder ship.

          No, its not.

          They frequently mention going to other systems (conveniently not saying "star" or "planetary" systems, thus feeding our argument). There is no indication that it is in a single solar system, and much to the contrary, there are a great number of planets, only a few of which were shown or mentioned in the show's half-season run.

          They never explained in depth the universe/propulsion, but I've seen your claim about this a few times (single solar system) and rewatching the DVDs gave me numerous mentions of travelling to distant stars, and nothing at all to imply a single star universe (except for the lack of outrightly saying that there are numerous stars, but lack of proof isn't proof of the contrary).

          Example: The "core worlds". You would have those all be the system's inner planets and moons? Makes no sense, they clearly talk about them as if they were the first colonies, with the outer systems being younger and poorer. With the power to go from world to world in a matter of days or weeks (depending), they are either going at near lightspeed in a single system, as you believe, or they have FTL and never got around to explaining it, because the characters were more important than the technical details in this show. Technobabble was kept to a minimum.

  • I waited for HL2... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nijika ( 525558 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:19PM (#10899747) Homepage Journal
    I can wait for this... oh yes.. I'm sure I'll be able to... [quitely rocking in my chair]

  • oh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by fulana_lover ( 652004 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:20PM (#10899755)
    Man how bad does your movie have to suck if you are scared of the next Star Wars?

    • Haw haw haw. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by NthDegree256 ( 219656 )
      You DO realize that no matter how badly Episode III sucks, it's still going to garner a massive box office take, right?

    • Re:oh oh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @02:16PM (#10900557) Homepage Journal
      Man how bad does your movie have to suck if you are scared of the next Star Wars?

      None at all.
      They aren't affraid of the next Star Wars, they are affraid of the next Star War's marketing, which you'll admit is a formidable beast the likes of which none of us would be happy to be pitted against.

      ph34r the marketing! PH34R IT! : )

  • See the TV Tome [tvtome.com] writeup. I'd never heard of it before TFSS, so I can't say anything about TV Tome's accuracy.

  • Noooo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:21PM (#10899780) Journal
    Joss, don't make me kick you into an engine...

    I WANT MY SPACEWHORES NOW!

  • I hate to say it but the title is going to hurt (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zed2K ( 313037 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:23PM (#10899804)
    more than help. A good title is everything. Serenity is not a good title for a movie. What is their target audience? I don't care how good it may or may not be, people are going to see the title Serenity on the movie listings and go, "huh? I don't want to see that, lets go see something else".

    Its not fair but its fact.

  • This is actually great news. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Doktor Memory ( 237313 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:26PM (#10899837) Journal
    "Mid-April release" usually means "disposable genre crap that the studio is rushing out early in hopes of making some money on the curiosity factor." Think "Bulletproof Monk" or "LXG".

    "Late September release" means "we think this is good and we expect to make some serious money on it and maybe we'll think about a sequel."
  • "That seem right to you?"
    (fand will recognize it) ... but, on the good news front, it gives me more time to work on my fan trailer i've been finishing...

    it's gonna be a hell of a movie, boys and girls...

    anyone wanna join me for a premiere in Dallas?
  • And I was hoping to have some peace and quiet by Christmas.
  • ... Insanity later....
  • The studio probably doesn't want it to get crushed by Star Wars the way Logan's Run was.

  • Superb? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tuxlove ( 316502 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @01:35PM (#10899966)
    I wouldn't use that word to describe Firefly. I thought it was mediocre, and somewhat forced. The space western aspect was a little over the top, clearly the result of some TV exec saying, "I know, let's mix genres and we'll have something new and fresh!" It was better than any sci-fi on TV at that time, except farscape, but that doesn't make it "superb".

    • Re:Superb? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually, the western aspects were based on Whedon reading Michael Shaara's Civil War book The Killer Angels about the Battle of Gettysburg.

      'Execs' of the type we all loathe were not involved at all in that aspect of the show. Sorry you didn't like Firefly.

    • The space western aspect was a little over the top

      A little over the top?
      You must have missed the episode where they used their spaceship to illegally transport a herd of cows then. Now THAT my friend is pushing the "space cowbow" theme WAY over the top (and of course you missed it, it either didn't air or aired in the middle of the night, who knows...Fox was being "creative" with the show's timeslot).

      clearly the result of some TV exec saying

      BZZZT!!!! Wrong.
      DESPITE of TV execs saying "does it have to b

  • Release pushed back? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'll be in my bunk.

  • Rewatch The Series (Score:3, Insightful)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @02:11PM (#10900484)
    I bought the series and rewatched it in the Directory's intended order. Before I thought the series was great, but rewatching it in proper order made it awesome. Fox should be ashamed.

  • heh (Score:2)

    by nomadic ( 141991 )
    I would have loved to watch Whedon try and pitch this to the studios. "Yes, see, it's based on a TV show that failed because of lack of viewers."

    • Re:heh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Experiment 626 ( 698257 )

      I would have loved to watch Whedon try and pitch this to the studios.

      It would hardly be the most difficult pitch Whedon has had to make. Anyone who can start with the utter crap "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie, convince network execs to make a TV series out of it, and then have the show go on to be a wild success must be doing something right. At least with Firefly there is a small but devoted fan base, and DVD sales that greatly surpassed expectations.

  • A smart move, really. I'm a big fan of firefly, and I know the movie's going to be good. However, if you pit it against the Star Wars series firefly will get squashed like it's namesake. It doesn't matter how BAD the Star Wars film will be, people will still go see the conclusion of their erstwhile favorite story, before taking a chance on a new film in the same genre. If Episode III actually turned out to be decent, then Serenity would be doomed. This is especially true since they're going for somewha

  • Damnit, it's not like they're gonna Family Guy it. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Grendel Drago ( 41496 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @02:33PM (#10900813) Homepage
    Remember how Family Guy was really funny? And how Fox, assclowns that they are, cancelled it (seems they like cancelling good shows that begin with 'F'---producers take note), but DVD sales were so unignorably good that Fox was convinced to start the series back up again?

    They're not going to do that with Firefly. No matter how successful the movie is. If it makes a ton---a ton---of money, we'll get a sequel. Maybe. But the story was meant to be told episodically, minor threads weaving subtly until they burst to the forefront. You can't do that in a movie; there's just not enough time. (See: Babylon 5.)

    This whole mess just depresses me so. Damn you, Fox.

    --grendel drago
    • Well this is true, but not for the reason you say.

      First off, Fox sold the movie rights to Universal, who in turn made the movie.

      However, part of the deal was that Universal couldn't create a TV series from the movie within X number of years (where X is undisclosed).

      None the less, Universal has more or less talked about making a trilogy if Serenity does well, particularly on opening weekend.

      • Why would Fox prevent Universal from making a TV version of Firefly? Clearly, Fox didn't want it; they rushed it off the air before they'd even aired all of the episodes.

        --grendel drago
  • from TFA:
    "And now they have seen it, and unless they're way better liars than I'm used to, they dug it. Actually, they dug it pretty large, which is a good sign since there's not a single finished effect in the film. There's no reworking the end, no reshoots, no "does it have to be in space?". It's just a marketing issue. Now you'll get to watch lots of trailers in the summer."

    studio execs dug it large. how often does that happen?

    i love the "does it have to be in space" comment, since i seem to recall one

  • Watch Battlestar Galactica Instead of Lamenting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @02:45PM (#10901038) Homepage
    Huge Firefly fan myself, and this news makes me sad. However, thanks to some "peers" of mine I've been watching the revamped Battlestar Galactica episodes and have been blown away. It's obvious that Whedon was not alone in his realist approach to science fiction. He was just one of the first of what appears to be a School of scifi reactionaries, creative TV people tired of the fantastic and generally ungrounded science fiction of Star Trek.

    The new BSG begins airing "officially" in January. What it lacks in wit and humor ala Firefly, it makes up for with amazing drama that rivals anything on ER or West Wing. I would not be surprised if it comes up for Emmy, and not just for special effects. Watch it to quell the pain of Firefly withdrawl, and you mind yourself nearly forgetting about Serenity. Nearly.
    • I second that wholeheartedly. Forget everything you know ...forget that there was another TV show with the same name back in the 70s. The new "Galactica" is a wonder. It's realistic and gritty and unrelentingly dark and SMART. It doesn't underestimate the intelligence of its audience. In one episode the lead cast used the jargon term "UNREP" repeatedly, and not once did anyone explain it. The audience was expected to just glork it from context.

      I'll say this, too: It's a show that would not have been made,

  • Hank Parnell of the Texas Mercury asserts that Fox deliberately killed Firefly for political reasons. Personally, I don't think Fox's politics had anything to do with it, but his article is entertaining. The complete essay is on fireflyfans.net [fireflyfans.net]. I copied the most inflammatory, er, interesting, excerpts below:

    They wanted to kill this show. I believe that, as surely as I do that the sun rises in the east...
    The conscious patterning of the Firefly milieu on the Confederate defeat that Whedon publicly stated was the case may have not set very well in the Yankee-dominated halls of Political Correctness that rules modern America, be they "liberal" or "conservative" ("neoconservative"; again, the two are virtually indistinguishable). Firefly was an unabashed post-Civil War space Western where the losers were the good guys; and everything about the series echoed that, from the desert settings of the frontier moons and planets, the costumes, the music, even the characters' patterns of speech. We knew who these people really were. They had no slavery to fight for, only the right of self-governance...
    Firefly, in its way, was, in this post 9-11 climate, almost downright seditious. The Alliance enforcers--the "bad guys"--were called "Feds." The attempt to unite and homogenize people was seen, by Firefly, as not a "good" thing; and yet it is the undeniable Zeitgeist of the modern age and behind every bit of mischief and misadventure in the world today...
    Nor do most people agree with Captain Reynolds' words (as quoted by Reverend Book in the episode "War Stories"), "The government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned."...Do not think that Firefly was not drawing allusions and parallels to our own society and its attendant beliefs, or that this implicit criticism went unnoticed by the powers-that-be...
    And Firefly made the case, through Reynolds, as persuasively as it has ever been made in American fiction, print, TV, film or otherwise, in my opinion, for the ultimate superiority of the rule of honor over the rule of law...For you see, the rule of honor demands what law must defer: individual responsibility, personal culpability, what is fair and what is just, of every man (and woman) who lives by it...And it is the greatest offense, the greatest affront, that Firefly could give to our vaunted modern age, and why, in my opinion, Fox never gave the show any kind of a chance.

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