Serenity Pushed Back to September 285
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."
Dang... (Score:4, Insightful)
what else? (Score:4, Insightful)
Haw haw haw. (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to say it but the title is going to hurt (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not fair but its fact.
Re:Logic failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In Movie Speak (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it just means that they don't want to put what is currently a cult favorite against the marketing giant known as Star Wars. Remember, most people have never heard of Firefly, and when put against a major film release, it could easily be lost in the marketing blitz (although I personnally do not care if I ever see Episode III).
It is much better to give Serenity the best chance of exposure. People who never watched the show will not realize how truly great it is. Most people would probably rather watch Star Wars being a known commodity than take a chance with something new and strange.
Re:In Movie Speak (Score:3, Insightful)
Releasing two weeks before a movie that's bound to do $300 million domestic and appeals to the same broad demographic is bad. What's worse is the inevitable media coverage and advertising flood that will accompany Episode III, and that will be peaking right at the time you are trying to convince people to see your movie.
Re:Logic failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Logic failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Superb != Popular. The problem is that the networks need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. In the U.S., the majority of the television watching populace is not interested in a program that makes them think, hence the popularity of shows like Fear Factor and Oprah.
Re:Logic failure (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it was cancelled because Fox doesn't want another 800 pound gorrilla like the X-Files and the Simpsons. They want to keep a steady churn of new shows that will capture interest for a season or two. Then, before they become too entrenched with popularity and the actors/producers start looking for more money they can dump the show and put the next-new-thing on in it's place.
They know people will complain about the show being cancelled, but that they will also tune in to the new show just as eagerly as the old one.
They can't dump the Simpsons because that is the cornerstone of their image, but they would dump it in a heartbeat if they could.
Superb? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Logic failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because the Execs at FOX have NEVER blown a call on a tv series. Please! FOX has a rep in the industry for making bad calls about their shows. The show, 'Family Guy' was killed after about 3 seasons and then went on to be a massive hit on DVD. (I have heard that it is being considered to be picked up by cartoon network as a new series.)
It was cancelled because the majority of people did not think it was superb.
It was cancelled because nobody knew anything about it. It was repeatedly moved to differing timeslots (This is VERY bad for a shows ratings, in general), and they didn't even show the episodes in order. I'm not even sure that they aired the pilot episode that sets the whole story. (You can go read all the gory details about how it was mis-handeled on most firefly sites.)
so its probably pretty poor in the eys of most people.
No matter how good a show is, unless you properly support and market it, it will die. Everyone I have loaned my DVD to LOVED it, including people who aren't sci-fi fans. This isn't a case of the masses not liking something. This is a case of some stupid Fox execs that blew a call (Yet again).
Re:I sense something... (Score:5, Insightful)
*bites*
Aside from your remarkable counting ability, your desire to hide behind the shield of AC, and your obvious trollishness, I'll respond.
For people who grew up watching Star Trek, and then saw it utterly ruined after Gene died; for people who see modern television shows and gag in disgust; for anyone who lives the western or scifi in general...Firefly is for you. It was comical, serious, witty, thought provoking by turns. Its not the second coming or anything, but its a darn sight better than any other television scifi I can remember seeing in recent years. And despite diving in with multiple deep story arc possibilities, Fox did its usual* and killed it with crappy timeslots and mixing the episode order up.
You don't like it, thats your opinion. I don't get whats with you adolescents who feel the need to snipe at anyone and everyone who expresses an opinion about something simply to harass them.
*- Fox cannot let a good, innnovative show live unless it is the Simpsons, pretty much. Malcom in the Middle is trying hard to be added to that list IMO.
Re:Logic failure (Score:4, Insightful)
For example... Firefly was pulling in the same viewership or more as other shows that were not cancelled at the time. The reason it got axed... because it had much higher production costs then the reality TV shows that lasted.
Remember... $50k/week on fear factor is nothing compared to paying actors and writers in NBCs mind. Fox has caught on to this fact even more and has taken drops in ratings in order to save money in production costs and hence make more money.
So for this reason... good shows with good (sometimes even extraordinary ratings) get let go and we are left with reality TV drivel
Firefly was also placed in nasty timeslots to compete for viewership in that genre...
Re:My experiences with Firefly (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:My experiences with Firefly (Score:3, Insightful)
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. Glass houses...
Rewatch The Series (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:oh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
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! : )
Damnit, it's not like they're gonna Family Guy it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Take my love, take my land, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, it isn't... (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
Re:I sense something... (Score:5, Insightful)
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*.
Re:heh (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Take my love, take my land, (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:In Movie Speak (Score:1, Insightful)
Including selling his movies on DVD and NOT selling his movies on DVD.
As far as Firefly goes, pushing a movie from srpingtime to the Dead Zone of late September is almost NEVER a good thing.
Unless the movie is so good that it dominates all of the other weak releases that will be dumped into that part of the year.
Personally I don't understand the logic behind releasing a theatrical feature for a tc series that was cancelled after one season. Good or not, it didn't exactly have a chance to build a huge following beyond it's niche.
Back in my day a tv series [startrek.com] had to play succesfully in re-runs all over the world for several years, and spawn a huge fanbase before it warranted getting it's own theaterical release.
I think a mini-series or a several tv movies would have been a better idea instead.