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Sci-Fi Media Movies

Serenity Trailer Out Tuesday 251

Posted by Zonk from the you-can't-take-the-sky-from-me dept.
SiliconEntity writes "Joss Whedon's movie Serenity, based on his much-loved but short-lived TV series Firefly, will have an official trailer out on Tuesday, according to an announcement from Joss: 'EXCLUSIVELY on Apple movie trailers (and linked through this site as well of course) will be a small, medium, large or FULLSCREEN trailer for Serenity the major motion movie. Yeah, THE trailer. And the following Friday said trailer hits theaters. Which theaters? Until I get confirmation you'll have to guess, but I'm betting you can.'"
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Serenity Trailer Out Tuesday More

Serenity Trailer Out Tuesday

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  • So is Serenity the movie adaptation of Firefly? Having never seen Firefly, I have to ask what the movie is about.

    I've heard that Firefly is the Sci-fi fan's latest wet dream. But not getting Fox up here at the North Pole, I have to wonder what the attraction is.

    The link doesn't seem to be working for me.

    • Space Western (Score:4, Informative)

      by Torgen ( 582411 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:48AM (#12328875) Homepage
      The short (and not very detailed) explanation is a "Space Western." But that's not doing the series justice. Like so many other innovative series, Firefly was sandbagged by network execs that have the same level of comprehension as Paris Hilton. They nixed the pilot that explained who everyone was and set up the situation, so everyone was confused as hell. The suits then used that as justification to kill the series in favor of Queen Latifah's latest vehicle, or whatever. Google for it, and you'll find plenty of info.
    • they do not want people to think they can't see it if they never saw the series. from what i remember, it will take place a few months after the series left off, but it will be done so somebody knowing nothing about the series will understand.

      you can watch the trailer tuesday and see what you think. plenty of people go see movies based on a trailer and reviews.... maybe it's something you will like and maybe not.

      the series really was derailed by the execs. i don't know if it would have lasted anyway being
    • "So is Serenity the movie adaptation of Firefly? Having never seen Firefly, I have to ask what the movie is about."

      What?!?! I call shennanigans! How is it possible for a slashdotter, by definition a subset of the greater set "uber-geeks", is wholly ignorant of Firefly? Get thee hence to a Netflix subscription or Amazon DVD order page, you pseudo-geek, and prove thyself worthy!

    • Re:Complaint about the writeup (Score:5, Insightful)

      by magarity ( 164372 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:36PM (#12330932)
      I've heard that Firefly is the Sci-fi fan's latest wet dream

      Yes, because it is:
      1. Black box. There is no rambling techno-babble. Fixing the ship in Firefly is no more technical than Han Solo wrestling with some kind of wrench in a bundle of wires while telling Chewie to put "that one here, that one there."
      2. Same goes for driving the ship, how the ship gets from one solar system to another in a reasonable time frame, how one model ship goes faster than another, etc. The pilot just pushes on the controls and the characters just walk down the loading ramp on a new planet in the next scene. Sometimes the Captain worries about affording enough the (apropriately generic named) "fuel".
      3. Good sci-fi is not about techno-babble in repairing the ship or moving the characters from one place to another. Good sci-fi is about human society in new situations. What other genres offers more variety of places in which to imagine humans trying to get along than sci-fi since the entire galaxy (universe) can be used? It's when sci-fi focuses on the people that it becomes excellent. There are no aliens, no bumpy forehead people, bored omnipotent beings, etc, etc in Firefly. Good sci-fi doesn't need those things, if done properly. And Firefly is exceptionally well written in that regard.
      • Neeyala: We were regaining dimensionality when our ships collided and must've been subjected to a massive burst of photonic distortion. Once the phaztillon generator is repaired, we'll dose ourselves and hope your living ship doesn't interfere with the non-thermal dimensional forces.
        Aeryn Sun (to John): Do you understand any of those words?
        John Crichton: Yeah, I watched all kinds of Star Trek, it's just the order that they're in.
        ^^
    • I have to ask what the movie is about.

      Its a film about people in trouble. Try it, It's good.

  • Movies a better medium for Joss now? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CCelebornn ( 829849 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:44AM (#12328852)
    He created Buffy then its spinoff Angel: both doing well, especially the former. Now every TV exec will be expecting him to produce shows that pull in the kind of audiences the likes of Buffy did. Firefly was a victim of that: here at least, the first few episodes didn't bring in the ratings, so the rest of the series got put together in a muddled order and just wasn't given a chance. After being burned by this experience, at least with a movie he gets to write a script and a story that WILL get shown in its entirety.

    • Re:Movies a better medium for Joss now? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by carlhirsch ( 87880 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:47AM (#12328872) Homepage
      I'd say comics are a better medium for Joss. I mean, have you read Astonishing X-men?

    • I doubt it. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eddy ( 18759 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:51AM (#12328895) Homepage Journal

      I really doubt it, I do.

      Joss likes to tell stories about people, and the interesting thing is people who change. I've never found movies to be the best medium for that. There's just not enough time to get the audience to bond with the character at A and experience the complete transistion to B. I like series where it sort of starts out slow and change come creeping up on you.

      I loved it in Angel how Wesley moved from being this uptight unintentionally (from his PoV) funny character, to a dark and gruesome killer, ready to do whatever it takes -- pretty much apexing with him taking an axe to the body of his former lover.

    • Re:Movies a better medium for Joss now? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NOLAChief ( 646613 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @11:09AM (#12328982)
      Firefly didn't pull the same audiences as buffy for 4 major reasons, none of them having to do with the skill of Joss Whedon: 1. the Friday night timeslot it was put in virtually guarantees a lack of audience to begin with. Granted there are some examples of shows that survived such slots (like X-Files), but coupled with: 2. the intense lack of promotion that Fox gave the show, 3. the fact that they began airing and promptly preempting it for the MLB playoffs, and 4. the fact they decided to show it out of order, FOX pretty much made sure it was DOA. The first I'd ever heard of the show anywhere was here on /. I watched the first episode and liked it, though, try as I might I couldn't always catch it because it was a crapshoot as to whether it was on (I missed "Jaynestown" the first time around that way.)

      For what I think he has in mind for the story of Firefly, he won't be able to tell it properly in a movie or even a handful of movies. IIRC, he's said himself that he hopes the movie will cause some (non-FOX) exec to realize, "Hey, this will make a good TV show."

      • 5. It's a western. My wife and her best friend, both of which were HUGE Buffy fans, had no interest at all. "It's a western. Who cares." My personal belief is that, yes, those other factors contributed, but the fact that it was such a genre-bending show was the biggest. Western fans wouldn't watch because it was sci-fi, and sci-fi fans wouldn't watch because it was a western. (I wouldn't have watched, except that it was Joss)

        All that being said, why the hell are they putting out a trailer now? The mo
    • It wasn't given a chance (or aired in the right order) from the get-go. The pilot episode didn't even air until the show had already been cancelled.

    • Firefly was a victim of that: here at least, the first few episodes didn't bring in the ratings, so the rest of the series got put together in a muddled order and just wasn't given a chance.

      No, the muddle started even before the first episode went on the air. The first episode made was a two-hour thing that introduced the characters and the backstory. It didn't get shown until 3 months after the show premiered and the decision had already been made to cancel.

      At least the official decision. There's a lot

    • ....Firefly had better ratings than Buffy and Angel (combined!), but it was on a different network - they had much greater expectations...

  • EXCLUSIVELY (Score:5, Funny)

    by saboola ( 655522 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:44AM (#12328857)
    It's EXCLUSIVELY in FULLSCREEN this SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY. THE trailer. Get your tickets now.... TO THE MAX, EXTREME!

    • Re:EXCLUSIVELY (Score:5, Funny)

      by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:49AM (#12328883) Homepage Journal

      "You'll pay for a whole seat but only use the edge"!
      Thats what I remember from the advert which I pissed my pants over when watching the Simpons and that was the words to hype up a show for Truckasorous or something.
      • The quote you're thinking of was in Bart the Daredevil [snpp.com] (the one where Bart attempts to jump Springfield Gorge on his skateboard), but I don't recall them using the "only need the edge" line. Google seems to back me up on this..

        Here's the full quote, according to Google:

        TV Announcer 1: Plus the amazing...
        TV Announcer 2: The outstanding...
        TV Announcer 3: The unbelievable...
        All 3: Truckasaurus!!
        TV Announcer 2: Twenty tons and four stories of car-crunching, fire-breathing prehistoric insanity!
        TV Announ

    • "If you don't see this you BETTER BE DEAD, OR IN JAIL. And if you're in jail, BREAK OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT..."

  • Caution: Trailer has SPOILERS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Exp315 ( 851386 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:51AM (#12328896)
    Joss also warned in that post that the trailer has major spoilers for Firefly fans who are familiar with the TV series and would prefer to see the movie unspoiled. For what it's worth, Firefly is one of the better SF series ever made. For one thing, spaceships don't make whooshing or rumbling sounds - scenes in space are completely silent. :-)

    • silence is cheap (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:14PM (#12329841)
      For one thing, spaceships don't make whooshing or rumbling sounds - scenes in space are completely silent. :-)

      My cousin does sound mixes for movies, and pointed out that all those sound effects are actually a pretty significant budget item in special effects-heavy movies. Whether it was part of the calculation or not, they actually saved a bunch of money by doing it that way.

      I like to think that was on purpose -- I'm definitely prepared to give Joss credit for being clever in more than one way at a time. And for the record, in a symbolic way at least I get sad for the world every time I remember that Firefly was cancelled. Groups of people with that much talent who like what they're doing that much shouldn't be broken up over money.

      And babies should never die and no one you love should ever stop loving you back and war sucks too, I guess. It's just one of those things ...
      • I like to think that was on purpose

        To me, I thought that was pretty clear when I watched the DVDs. The first episode had a large scene where they did space right; no sound and things moved realistically. Having watched the whole thing, I got the impression that with that scene, they were trying to tell their audience that they were going to do hard science fiction, not normal TV science fiction.
        • My punctuation was bad in that last post -- what I was trying to say was, "They actually saved a lot of money by not having sound in space. I like to think saving money was on purpose." Of course the no sound thing was on purpose. The effects were very sophisticated, like the handheld camera and imperfect zoom and so on. I just admire film styles slightly more if they actually make life easier for the filmmakers *while* making it a better show for the viewers -- like the way El Mariachi got complements for
    • In my experience the space scenes in Firefly are generally suffused with a pleasant acoustic guitar-based country and western soundtrack, but your point is taken.

  • Trailer attached to... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Malfourmed ( 633699 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @11:00AM (#12328943) Homepage
    It's likely that the Serenity trailer will be attached to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

  • Say it together now (Score:5, Funny)

    by rechelon ( 719515 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @11:07AM (#12328973) Homepage
    Shiny!

  • firefly... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    one of the reasons the tv show didn't go well is that it was played in a confusing order. the show has a logical flow which the dvds are shown in... but on tv it was all mixed around.
    wouldn't it be confusing if they played the PILOT of all things last? well, that is exactly what fox did. they also rearranged other eps. it did themselves quite a disservice.

    and yeah... it is odd seeing a sci-fi western, but it certainly hasn't been done like this before. its hard enough doing sci-fi on a low budget.
    • one of the reasons the tv show didn't go well is that it was played in a confusing order. the show has a logical flow which the dvds are shown in... but on tv it was all mixed around.

      Don't worry, fans of Firefly will not be dissapointed. The first 30 minutes of the show will be played last, while the last 30 minutes will be played first. And they'll throw in some commercials, and announcements for other movies at the bottom of the screen halfway through the movie. Just so it feels like the television sho
  • I just want to know what the f_ck is up with Ron Glass' character, "Shepherd Book". I mean, who the hell is he?

    How many preachers carry an ident-card that gets them royal treatment at an Alliance Cruiser?

    • Re:Can't wait for the movie... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gulthek ( 12570 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:49PM (#12329666) Homepage Journal
      Or know criminal psychopaths by name. Or can identity guns used by analyzing their burn patterns. Or know a lot about a lot of shady things.

      You know that Book was probably a made-up on the spot name right? When Kaylee asks him his name he looks at the book in his hand and says, "Book...yes, my name is Book." Kind of odd. He's probably someone in law enforcement, except that I don't think even cops get that kind of treatment. So my favorite theory is that he's an alliance general (or high military), specifically one that orchestrated the battle for Serenity Valley. After the war he checked into the Abbey to start a life of peace. Then got to feeling that he needed to make some kind of amends. At the spaceport on Persephone he was looking at the ships, but he was searching for Serenity.
      • So my favorite theory is that he's an alliance general (or high military), specifically one that orchestrated the battle for Serenity Valley...

        I'm convinced!

        That's the best Firefly conspiracy theory I've ever heard.. had I mod points, you'd get +1 Insightful.

      • Re:Can't wait for the movie... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NOLAChief ( 646613 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @05:28PM (#12331747)
        That's pretty much what I was thinking. He either commanded the Alliance forces at Serenity Valley or was involved in action immediately after. Maybe he ran a prison camp. That might make an interesting connection to Mal and Zoe. We know they were ordered to "lay down arms." What we don't know is if they were captured and treated as prisoners of war or as "enemy combatants." If Book's a war criminal who found God, well, that could be an interesting day when Mal and Zoe find out.

        Good eyes, BTW. I did not pick up on him looking at the book. Here's one for you to look for. In "Trash" when Kaylee's reprogramming the garbage drone, the screen looks like it's displaying a Windows 9x install with a wizard open. Coincidence? Cost savings? Or is Joss a Linux/Mac geek? I can see their slogan in 500 years. "Windows...It Just Works...As A Garbage Disposal."

        • Whoa, I totally didn't catch that. Time to spin up the DVDs again and, as long as I have them out, rip them for easy viewing.

          Maybe I'll make a note of all the places I see "Blue Sun". Did you catch that Jayne was, for the first time, wearing a "Blue Sun" t-shirt when River slashed his chest with the knife? She then says, "He looks better in red." Creepy. I suspect, but am not positive, that the cans River was tearing the labels off of were Blue Sun products.

    • Re:Can't wait for the movie... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jmelloy ( 460671 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:51PM (#12329677) Homepage
      In the commentary for Objects in Space, Joss Whedon comments that the bounty hunter takes people out in the most efficient way possible for their characters. (Something he didn't realize until his wife pointed it out.)

      So
      He beats up Mal.
      He threatens to rape Kaylee.
      He uses logic on Simon.

      And the clincher ...

      He comes at Book from behind, when Book is distracted, and knocks him out as fast as possible. He also comments, "That's no Shepherd."

      Answer your question?

  • Firefly is so good... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jiminez ( 698621 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:46PM (#12329644)
    ...the world gets excited not about the film, not about the trailer for a film, no... we're excited about an announcement of a trailer for a film. Hot diggity, it's that good.
  • SERENITY NNNNOOOOOOWWWWW
  • From the announcement:
    But close scrutiny will definitely learn you much of what's to come. (Anakin TOTALLY goes evil.)
    I hate it when directors let crucial plot points slip like this. I just wish he hadn't said anything.

    He's ruined the whole movie for me.

  • Language Coup (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) * on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:22PM (#12330416) Homepage Journal
    How lucky for the movie industry, that they get to refer to their advertisements using a word other than the hate-laden "advertisement."

  • It's not really a western (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DingerX ( 847589 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @05:35PM (#12331794) Journal
    Dunno about Serenity, but it's interesting finding people trying to come to grips with Firefly.

    First, I'll say that I've seen maybe 3 episodes of Buffy tops, and never seen Angel. I can't stand the silly prosthetics and nonsense of Babylon 5, and frankly haven't enjoyed much science fiction television lately. I happened to tune into to Firefly for Bushwacked, and saw maybe 4 episodes broadcast before it was pulled. Since then I bought the DVD set and have watched it religiously. It's just damn good, and I haven't met anyone whose seen (or to whom I've shown) the show who has found it anything less than great fun.

    Enough about me.
    Folks around here seem to be posting a bunch of things about Firefly, and they don't quite seem to have "gotten it".
    Yes, Firefly is a science-fiction show.
    Science-fiction often gets used on television and in movies to explore irreal circumstances: time travel, the nature of reality, how many lines of probable-sounding technobabble an actor can read with a straight face. Firefly didn't do that. Firefly used science fiction as a= means to bridge several traditional genres of action entertainment: Submarine Movies, Heist films, and yes, some westerns. At times, the plot is lifted from somewhere else: Unforgiven and Silent Running are both "borrowed" for episodes.
    Like your 'Star Trek'-class show, the cast of Firefly play characters who are good at what they do; but they're not superheroes, and they're working neither for high-sounding ideals, nor for a faceless bureaucracy. Sure, there are times when the show slipped into cliche; almost always it would then wink and subvert tradition.
    And yeah, as science fiction and on television, it's about as light entertainment as you can get. Don't get all worked up about it; but yeah, I gotta say I'm excited, but slightly apprehensive. Can they actually get 9 characters to work convincingly in a 2-hour movie?

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