The Browncoats Rise Again

The Original, One and Only, Hippy of Death writes "There's an interesting read posted on The Weekly Standard website talking about Joss Whedon and the unusual marketing campaign he is waging for the upcoming Serenity/Firefly movie." From the article: "It was ignored and abandoned, and the story should end there--but it doesn't. Because the people who made the show and the people who saw the show--which is, roughly, the same number of people--fell in love with it a little bit. Too much to let it go. . . . In Hollywood, people like that are called unrealistic, quixotic, obsessive. In my world, they're called Browncoats."

Re:Just saw a preview a couple of days ago ...

[pHatidic]

treating us as part of the effort of making the movie instead of $TARGET_DEMOGRAPHIC -- is really damn cool.

You don't think Whedon knows this? People who want to feel like they are involved in the making of the movie ARE the demographic Whedon is going after.

Re:Brownstains?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this not a troll? You're posting to bitch about a show you don't like, and it's fairly obvious that you don't really want to be convinced to watch the movie. If you're any kind of geek, at least one of your friends, assuming you have them, should be willing to loan you the DVDs.

It's perfectly fine not to like something popular, but it doesn't make you special, and whining about it is just bothersome. I like Windows, but I don't go into Linux threads to complain, I just don't read them.

Re:Brownstains?

[Tx]

If you've only seen one episode, see a couple more. Rent the series DVD, or if you're really tight, download a couple of episodes ("The Train Job" or "Our Mrs Reynolds" perhaps). If you're so convinced that it's not worth watching that you won't invest the time to see a couple more episodes and decide for yourself, then nothing anyone says here is likely to convince you. On the other hand if you're going to be open minded about it, an hour or two of your time watching what I think is some of the best tv sci-fi ever can't be that painful, even if you don't end up liking yourself.

This isn't really a new thing...

[Dinosaur Neil]

Once upon a time, there was a TV show that was very popular with the geek crowd. It was cancelled two seasons in, then resurrected for one final season (in the worst time slot possible). The fans refused to keep quiet, so four years later the studio created a really bland animated version of the show. That didn't shut them up either; fans still demanded more. Ten years after the show went off the air, a theatrical movie was released. Even though it was a special effects showcase loosely held together with an unlikely plot and really wooden acting, it was financially successful enough that Paramount studios finally gave in and decided that they'd let the fans shower them with money for the next twenty-five years.

I think it's great that Joss found a way to bring back Firefly, but I wonder if the press is taking this serisously is because they've burnt themselves out from thirty-five years of mocking the people who kept Star Trek alive (after a fashion).

Re:This isn't really a new thing...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

So far, the reaction hasn't been mockery, but rather interest and a degree of respect for Whedon and the fans for pulling it off.

A big part of it, I think, is that there isn't (yet, and hopefully won't be) the same cult-like display that the worst of the Star Trek crowd puts on (and which then turns into a stereotype of everyone who likes ST, regardless of whether or not they're fanatics.) You know, we're not seeing people having Firefly weddings and insisting that they have a Constitutional right to wear their brown coats at work and, for God's sake, getting cosmetic surgery to make them look more like characters on the show. As long as we don't display that degree of kookiness, I think it'll be all right.

The word on the street

[jfengel]

I haven't seen the rough cut myself, but several friends have, and they're all wildly enthusiastic about it. As in, enthusiastic enough to see it again, for money, when it comes out in a few months.

There's just one thing which bothers me...

[Mac Degger]

...and that is the fact that, even if the movie bombs [as the article points out, but even moreso if the movie does well], it will send FOX the message that there's nothing [fiscally] wrong with totally buggering up the handling of a series.

Re:B5 and FF

[2short]

"It's a western set in space, a conceit I know some people didn't care for"

Personally, it's not the conceit I don't care for. I just don't care for westerns. I like SciFi, and watched a bunch of Firefly, but concluded it's not, as billed by some, a Sci-Fi Western. It's a Western. The props are Sci-fi, but the premises, stories and charachters are all western.

I've no problem with other people liking it. I just don't think you should expect others to if you are basing that expectation on whether they like Trek or Babylon 5. It would be more relevant to ask if they liked Bonanza or The Magnificent Seven.

um..... no.

[kiliwongo]

I just dont see this thing taking off in the way fans (?) would like it to. The reasoning being mainly that most often what fans would like to happen usually isnt what they get. Such was the case with HHGG. Also personally, looking at the concept behind firefly I just dont see it becoming the "buffy" of scifi. People shouldnt forget that most of the audience that made buffy the tv juggernaut that it was were girls between the ages of 13 and 18. Creating a teeny-bopper soap opera in space simply for the sake that its in space doesnt make a concept unique or necessarily a good idea. Normally I would stand up for the scifi entertainment community but taking into account my taste for quality and fresh ideas I just dont see serenity/firefly becoming the phenomenon fans wish it to be. sorry guys.

Re:B5 and FF

[julesh]

What have Confederates got to do with it? The sci-fi part is pretty much an excuse for having characters on the losing side of a civil war *without* them being Confederates. Look at the politics they talk about: it is _nothing like_ the same as the cause of the American Civil war.