# Firefly bores me...



## JoeGKushner (Jan 8, 2005)

Well, I've finally managed to squeeze in some time to watch the first two disks of Firefly and boy, what a yawnfest.

"It's smuggles in space with cowboy backdrops and slow as hell action. Yippie."

Mark me down as one big "meh."


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## Krieg (Jan 8, 2005)

So?


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## Umbran (Jan 8, 2005)

If you want action, go watch Stallone or Schwartzenegger.  

If you want character and development, watch Firefly.


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## Lazybones (Jan 8, 2005)

I disagree, but different strokes for different folks. Some of us like it a lot. I've showed it to several people who don't really like most sci-fi, who enjoyed it. I enjoy it because:

1) the sci-fi strikes me as more "authentic" than most Star Trek-ish stuff
2) the depth of the characters and their interactions
3) the nature of the humor (not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it; for instance busted out laughing for several minutes in "The Train Job" when Mal just kicked the Tough Bad Guy into the engine intake).
4) the fact that the episodes are linked/interrelated and that there are developments that run throughout the entire season arc. I would have really liked to have seen how some of the big issues were addressed in later seasons.


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## Mercule (Jan 8, 2005)

When I saw it on TV, I liked it, but didn't get too excited about it.  I was marginally bummed when it was cancelled, but only in that "well, there's another sci-fi show thrown to the wolves" way.  

My sister-in-law picked up the DVD collection, though, and I borrowed it.  Seeing things again, I'm really ticked that Fox cancelled it.  It was great.

Short form:  It grows on you after a while.


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## KaintheSeeker (Jan 8, 2005)

Firefly and Futurama were two puzzling things about Fox. Never understood it

You have two creative talents who have proven themselves Savvy on what the public wants. And you do the very thing you don't do with the other show, you mess with it. I heard that Futurama got a lot of flack and mid level execs trying to 'fix' it.

And Firefly got the same thing. I mean.. they made the SECOND ep come out first because they thought the pilot was boring. 

Never understood why execs got to meddle. 

Of course I don't understand why reality tv takes off like it does.


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## CrusaderX (Jan 8, 2005)

I watched Firefly when it first aired, and it didn't impress me.  It was _ok_, but far from great.  I thought Buffy, Angel, 24, Alias, Smallville, and John Doe (didn't that follow Firefly on Friday nights?) were alot more entertaining.  And the oh-so-wise prostitute with the heart of gold (insert eye-rolling smile here) was one of the biggest walking cliches I've ever seen.


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## Klaus (Jan 8, 2005)

CrusaderX said:
			
		

> I watched Firefly when it first aired, and it didn't impress me.  It was _ok_, but far from great.  I thought Buffy, Angel, 24, Alias, Smallville, and John Doe (didn't that follow Firefly on Friday nights?) were alot more entertaining.  And the oh-so-wise prostitute with the heart of gold (insert eye-rolling smile here) was one of the biggest walking cliches I've ever seen.



 Ah! But Inara was not only the prostitute-with-heart-of-gold cliché. She was actually the only character in the ship that had a good reputation, and worked as the diplomatic liaison with the upper crust of the planetary society, so the crew could get jobs from them!


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 8, 2005)

Well, maybe the whole show is just too... simple for me.

Captain whose mean but loves his crew and will go out of his way to protect them? Check.

Companion in love with catpain and has heart of gold? Check.

Mean mercenary who looks like he'll betray his crew but doesn't? Check.

Rich boy put into poor situation and having to deal with it? Check.

The pilot and his wife haven't really done anything yet in the first two disks. Do they ever?

Crazy character who can do things no one else can but is crazy so isn't a fully viable character? Check.

Relationships that take forever to resolve and actually do something? Check.

Barfights in multiple episodes that show the captain is bitter about losing the war? Check.

The characters are boring. It's like every cliche that could be had was put in here. Don't get me wrong. Some of the dialouge is fantastic. Some of the scenes are fantastic.

But realistic technology? In some weird type of future setting that has pistols still as opposed to something else? No DNA scanning? I see that they're going with the outer planets to avoid having the problem real hard sci-fi brings to a setting, but it's just too boring. The technology only does something when it needs to. Otherwise it might as well not exist.


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## Umbran (Jan 8, 2005)

KaintheSeeker said:
			
		

> And Firefly got the same thing. I mean.. they made the SECOND ep come out first because they thought the pilot was boring.




Not quite.  _The Train Job_ was not the second episode.  It was written specifically to be a new pilot when the execs decided that a two-hour pilot was expecting too much from the audience.


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## KaintheSeeker (Jan 8, 2005)

Point of fact on the DVD, either in commentary or one of the little interviews, Joss Whedon said the Train Robbery wasn't the orignal pilot.


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## Mercule (Jan 8, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> But realistic technology? In some weird type of future setting that has pistols still as opposed to something else? No DNA scanning? I see that they're going with the outer planets to avoid having the problem real hard sci-fi brings to a setting, but it's just too boring. The technology only does something when it needs to. Otherwise it might as well not exist.




The Alliance/core planets had good tech and all the trimmings of a "real" sci-fi show.  I thought the western bit in the outer areas was both an interesting stylistic thing and a reasonable result of humanity over-expanding/over-expending itself.


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## The Other Librarian (Jan 8, 2005)

I love the show, but do agree it starts a little slow.  But if you're 2 disks in, the best is ahead.  I think it starts hitting it's stride with "Out of Gas" "Ariel" and "War Stories".  OOG I think is the first.


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## KaintheSeeker (Jan 8, 2005)

"Out of Gas" is my personal favorite. Without a doubt one of the 3 best in the series.


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 8, 2005)

That's good to hear. I'm not saying that I'm completely disgusted with it, but man, the talk on En World was like, "It's better than Babylon 5 and all the Star Trek series put together!"


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## reapersaurus (Jan 9, 2005)

Yep - very ovverated series, in my opinion.

Just never did anything for me - all those points that were listed are right on, and it's intriguing that noone has attempted to refute them yet.

I guess if those characters are interesting to you, than it's an interesting show (since it's "all about the character development.")

Each to their own, naturally.


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## Chun-tzu (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> That's good to hear. I'm not saying that I'm completely disgusted with it, but man, the talk on En World was like, "It's better than Babylon 5 and all the Star Trek series put together!"




The boards are acting buggy right now (due to the upgrade I'm sure), so I can't read your original post, only the rest of the thread.  But from the rest of what's been posted, I have to point out that there are tons of Star Trek TNG and DS9 episodes, Babylon 5 episodes, and Buffy TVS episodes that bore me silly.  And I really like all those series.  I'd rank Firefly among the best, and the great tragedy was the unfulfilled potential of the show (which, hopefully, will turn around once the movie hits the big screen).

Remember, all of these shows had story arcs that, once things got going, you were hooked.  But that can't happen until the groundwork has been properly laid.


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## mattcolville (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> That's good to hear. I'm not saying that I'm completely disgusted with it, but man, the talk on En World was like, "It's better than Babylon 5 and all the Star Trek series put together!"




In my experience, most sci-fi shows get canceled because they're not very good TV, and most fans are uncritical.


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## Umbran (Jan 9, 2005)

reapersaurus said:
			
		

> Just never did anything for me - all those points that were listed are right on, and it's intriguing that noone has attempted to refute them yet.




Well, one of them can clearly be refuted, but that would constitute a spoiler:



Spoiler



Jayne does betray members of the crew at one point, but he doesn't get away with it, and Mal nearly shoves him out an airlock for it.



As for the rest - why should we refute them?  It has been said that in fiction there is nothing new under the sun.  And that is largely true.  Everything can be reduced to a cliche, if you're of a mind to do that.  And if you reduce a character to a single sentence specifically designed to make them sound cliched, of course you'll find what you're looking for.


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## Lazybones (Jan 9, 2005)

Not going to refute your specific critiques, because it basically comes down to being subjective; I liked the characters, you found them cliche. Heck if you want to get into cliches just read any genre fiction (I remember recently posting in the "Farm Boy Saves the World" thread discussing fantasy novels, and I've been thinking about how much drama relies upon repetitive themes). The Firefly characters had enough nuance so that I was usually surprised by what happened in each episode, and I enjoy that. 

Ditto with the tech: I found the dichotomy between prosperous high-tech inner worlds and poor outer worlds believable (especially a few years after a major interstellar war), you didn't. I knew I was going to enjoy the show when I saw the first episode and the characters were in space, and it was _silent_. Sure there was stuff I found annoying, like the deep space flyby of the Reaver ship, but the dialogue and characters caught me up and really drew me into the series.

Apropos of nothing, I'm one of three DMs running groups in Neverwinter Nights campaigns set in the Firefly universe at www.neverwinterconnections.com. Another fan did a total conversion of the game to run in the Firefly universe; if you've played NWN and are interested in something different, check it out at http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1080769905000.shtml (note: it's not a single-player mod, but a campaign requiring a DM).


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## Acid_crash (Jan 9, 2005)

For me the show is very exciting and fresh...and I didn't like Buffy or Angel (I think I saw a total of 7 Angel episodes and 4 for Buffy...although Hush was one killer episode and, to me, couldn't be topped).

Sure there is a prostitute, but it's LEGAL as long as they are signed and trained to become one.

Sure there is an engineer, but its a WOMAN who knows everything there is to know about the ship...and if you get to see the episode that shows how she gets the job, you'll be laughing your butt off.   

Sure we have a captain who acts tough but cares for his crew, but woas to anyone that attempts to mess with his crew, or his ship.  Just ask the guy he kicked through the Engine.    Great tv.

I love it.  I dislike Fox...for now until SW3 comes out.  

Plus, he was able to take to different genres...Western and Sci-fi, blend them into one unit, and it came out very, very well.  It's a shame he wasn't able to finish it, but I think that we will see a whole lot more of this crew in the future.    If Serenity does well, all the actors are signed on to do two more movies, and I think we will see the tv show on tv again, someday.  Those are my hopes, and dreams, and I don't care if anybody feels differently.  *sniff*  This show is cool!


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## Nellisir (Jan 9, 2005)

I've started watching the Firefly DVDs somewhat haphazardly (not alot of time to really sit down in front of the TV the last few months), and I rather like it.  It's at least a different take on the old cliches, unlike the repetitive Stargate SG-1 (which I don't mind watching) or Star Trek shows (which I do mind watching). It's not Farscape, but it's better than most of the sf drek that gets put on tv.I'd like to see a considered, intelligent comparison of Farscape and Firefly by someone knowledgeable in sci-fi standards and norms.  That would be interesting reading.

Cheers
Nell.


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## Umbran (Jan 9, 2005)

Lazybones said:
			
		

> Ditto with the tech: I found the dichotomy between prosperous high-tech inner worlds and poor outer worlds believable (especially a few years after a major interstellar war), you didn't.




Yeah, I'm not sure what's unbelieveable there.  Even on our single planet, we've got a large spread of tech available in different areas.  Some places have electricity and VCRs and microwave ovens, and refrigeration in every home, and other places still plow dirt using draft animals.  Why should it be different on a larger scale?


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## PhoenixDarkDirk (Jan 9, 2005)

CrusaderX said:
			
		

> John Doe (didn't that follow Firefly on Friday nights?)




It did, and I think it was canceled a little more annoyingly than Firefly which at least didn't have a cliffhanger at the end of the last episode.

I noticed that of the four dramas Fox started that year, not one got a second season.


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2005)

I find it funny that the people in this thread that don't like the show are the same ones I never agree with at all in any of their preferred TV/movie choices. At least I'm consistent.


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## Captain Tagon (Jan 9, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I find it funny that the people in this thread that don't like the show are the same ones I never agree with at all in any of their preferred TV/movie choices. At least I'm consistent.





Strange, there's almost no one on here I consistently agree with. But I'm a fickle oddball so who knows.

For the record, I like Firefly but after watching it the second time through I thought it was only decent. Lost some of the magic for me for some reason. And I tried showing it to several of my friends and it bored them all to tears.


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## Wombat (Jan 9, 2005)

reapersaurus said:
			
		

> Yep - very ovverated series, in my opinion.




Having watched the dvds (never having seen it on the small screen, due to no tv), I have to agree with this statement.

I mean, it was okay, but nothing much more than that.  I really can't see what all the fuss is about.


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## Kesh (Jan 9, 2005)

I bought the _Firefly_ boxed set before Christmas.

... I should watch it sometime.


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## Ranger REG (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> But realistic technology? In some weird type of future setting that has pistols still as opposed to something else? No DNA scanning? I see that they're going with the outer planets to avoid having the problem real hard sci-fi brings to a setting, but it's just too boring. The technology only does something when it needs to. Otherwise it might as well not exist.



Well, it's not squeaky-clean _Star Trek._ Even _Star Wars_ have a backward planet that uses "slugthrowers."

To me, it's a _Traveller_-type show.


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## Psychic Warrior (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Well, maybe the whole show is just too... simple for me.
> 
> Captain whose mean but loves his crew and will go out of his way to protect them? Check.




Except when he tries to kill one of his own crew for betraying them.



> Companion in love with catpain and has heart of gold? Check.




Except when she decides to leave the ship because of her fellings towards Mal.



> Mean mercenary who looks like he'll betray his crew but doesn't? Check.




Except when he does betray his own crew.



> Rich boy put into poor situation and having to deal with it? Check.




This is sucha broad "cliche" that it is impossible to deal with it.  I could use this same arguement for every Star Trek character too, y'know.



> The pilot and his wife haven't really done anything yet in the first two disks. Do they ever?




There are 8 main characters.  You do expect a lot from 6 episodes.  In other words - yes they do get some excellent scene time.



> Crazy character who can do things no one else can but is crazy so isn't a fully viable character? Check.




Except when her 'craziness' saves the entire crew - because she wasn't truly 'crazy' to begin with.



> Relationships that take forever to resolve and actually do something? Check.




Holy crap you really do expect a lot from 6 episodes!   Maybe it should have a had a Star Trek 'reset' button at the end of each show.  And Babylon 5's romance between Delenn and Sheridan took nearly an entire season to develop - _that_ must have irritated you, too!



> Barfights in multiple episodes that show the captain is bitter about losing the war? Check.




I remember one bar fight that came as a direct result of Mal being on the losing side of the war.  Perhaps there were more but I can't find the espidoes.



> The characters are boring. It's like every cliche that could be had was put in here. Don't get me wrong. Some of the dialouge is fantastic. Some of the scenes are fantastic.




This is opinion.  You have yours.  I have mine.


> But realistic technology? In some weird type of future setting that has pistols still as opposed to something else?




See this was one thing I really liked about the show.  Despite the high tech spaceships and such they are still struggling with their own poverty and being on the fringe of society.  In Ariel you get to see high tech weaponry - but it isn't as relable as a  good old fashion slug thrower.  Face it guns like we have today are probably going to be around in one form or another for many decades simply because there are A) a lot fo them and B) the fastest way to kill something is with a large dose of kinetic energy.  The fastest and cheapest way to deliver that energy is with a bullet.  Fast.  Cheap.  I realyl don't think everything sci-fi has to have impossible to explain ray guns (see Classic Traveller for another example of slug throwing weapons.  Hell even Games Workshops' Space Marines use 'bolters' that use a caseless exploding bullet)



> No DNA scanning? I see that they're going with the outer planets to avoid having the problem real hard sci-fi brings to a setting, but it's just too boring. The technology only does something when it needs to. Otherwise it might as well not exist.




Watch the episode Ariel.  Firefly handles high tech just fine (and you get your DNA scanning too).


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## Mystery Man (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Mark me down as one big "meh."




 You can say that again. I tried watching it while it was on the air and it bored me silly. I was actually silly as all get out for an hour after watching this show.


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## Klaus (Jan 9, 2005)

As for the "rich boy in a tough situation and having to deal with it":

He's not *rich*. He was rich, and educated, and never a dandy. He was a brillian surgeon and had an intention to truly live up to his code and save lives. But he throws it all away to help his only sister. And when he needs the help of the crew to get her treatment, they *refuse*! He has to use his genius-level brain to cook up a way for the crew-help to be profitable. By *stealing medical supplies*!!!

What a doc!


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## Frostmarrow (Jan 9, 2005)

Psychic Warrior said:
			
		

> Hell even Games Workshops' Space Marines use 'bolters' that use a caseless exploding bullet)




Please. Bolts are self-propelled miniature rockets. Man, get a grip.

I agree on everything else you say, though.


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2005)

I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.


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## Bobitron (Jan 9, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.




Good point there. 

Let's be honest, people, nearly any show has its share of cliches. I like the ongoing, drawn out relationships and the fact that each character's story isn't worn on their sleeve in the first episode. 

I thought Firefly was amazing.


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## DMScott (Jan 9, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.




I'm not much of a Firefly fan - I thought it was OK, but not worth setting time aside for on a Friday night before it got cancelled; apparently I was far from alone in that category. I'm a huge fan of old westerns. Part of the reason I didn't think Firefly was anything special was because the sci-fi/western link has been explored many times, and Joss Whedon et al really didn't add anything.

It really seemed to me that with Firefly Whedon was just riding on reputation and hoping that'd be enough. Turned out it wasn't. C'est la vie.


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## Wombat (Jan 9, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.





Well, I'm kinda "meh" on Sergio as well -- the only Clint Eastwood film that I regularly enjoy is _High Plains Drifter_.  And the Wild West/Sci-Fi connection felt forced and, often, terribly silly.  To me, it felt as if the creators/writers hadn't really settled on what genre they wanted to write, so split the difference and came up with a show that was nae fisshe, nae fowle, nae gude redde herryinge.  But that's just a personal taste.


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## reapersaurus (Jan 9, 2005)

I'm glad you asked that, Pcat:

I'm not a fan of Westerns at all. 
They are relics of a time I do not like to see or read about (probably the same reason I wasn't impressed with The Dark Tower).
In my eyes, the genre is too dominated by a gun.

Firefly had that going against it, but also the irrational combination of space-age technology and Westerns. 
Westerns are inherently low technology. Space travel is inherently high technology. 
To combine the two is fundamentally flawed, in my opinion.


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Jan 9, 2005)

reapersaurus said:
			
		

> Westerns are inherently low technology.




 Well, maybe compared to today, but the world of the 1860s - 1880s was a time of explosive techonological development, much of which laid the building blocks and expectations for the modern world.  Transcontinental railroads, the telegraph, dyanmite, you name it.  Hell, weapon technology alone changed almost every year.  Look at the state of the art during the Civil War to the years just after it - you went from muzzle-loaders to cap-and-ball to shells to the friggin' gatling gun.

 To my way of thinking, if you want to look at how rapid technological advancements completely alter civilization, the post-Civil War era isn't a bad period to look to.


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 9, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.




Let's see... on my shelf...

Hang 'em High

Unforgiven (probably one of the best westerns out there)

Young Guns

Young Guns II

The Quick & The Dead

The Man w/No Name Trilogy

Django/Django Returns

Kung Fu

How the West Was Won

Once Upon A Time in the West

etc... etc... etc...


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2005)

I take it back about disagreeing with you on every movie.  

Thanks for the quick answer, everyone. I really appreciate it, although the only thing I've concluded for sure is that tastes differ.


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## drnuncheon (Jan 9, 2005)

Keep in mind, I've only seen the first disc of Firefly - the rest are on the Netflix queue.

You're right, the characters are "cliches" at first, although a better term would be "archetypes".  That's something Whedon does deliberately, I think, because it happened in the beginning of Buffy as well.  (Willow was the "nerd", Cordelia the "stuck up socialite", Xander the "clown")  It lets you get a quick grip on the characters so you can get right into the show.  But they don't stay cliches - he develops them into real people as the show goes on.  Cordy's greatly changed and becomes a much more developed character by the time she leaves Buffy, and changes even more during Angel.  I'm betting the same happens on Firefly.

I mean, really, he's got to introduce what, 9 or 10 characters, _and_ their personal subplots _and_ the main plots of the episodes (which also need to be resolved).  You just can't do that in 3 hours, or 6 hours. I could reduce the LOTR characters to one-line "cliches" if I wanted to, and they had what, 10+ hours with the Extended Edition?

J


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 9, 2005)

Another thing that bothered me was the fake swearing. Either do it and bleep it or leave it alone. That just seemed fake and added for a little 'attitude' and it didn't take with me.


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## Darth Shoju (Jan 9, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Another thing that bothered me was the fake swearing. Either do it and bleep it or leave it alone. That just seemed fake and added for a little 'attitude' and it didn't take with me.




 I thought they were swearing in Mandarin? Then again, it could be babble disguised as Mandarin for all I know.


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## mojo1701 (Jan 10, 2005)

reapersaurus said:
			
		

> To combine the two is fundamentally flawed, in my opinion.




*cough*Wild Wild West*cough*


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## Cthulhudrew (Jan 10, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.




Myself, I love westerns- many of them. Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns are my favorites, though I do like some of the 'classics' of the genre, such as 'High Noon', 'The Searchers', and several others. There are a lot of westerns I don't like, though. To me, it isn't about being a western, so much as the stories and characters.

For example, while I liked the "Train Job" (the first aired episode of Firefly), I didn't love it, and only continued to watch the series because I had such high hopes for it. A couple of the episodes were "meh" to me (like "Jaynestown" on first viewing), but as the series progressed, it became that much more enjoyable to me- because of what was going on with the series- the character development, the developing storyline, etc. My favorite episode, "Out of Gas" isn't really a western at all. It's not exactly sci-fi, either- it's just a good story. 

In short, I guess what I'm saying is that there is probably a pretty high correspondence between "western" lovers and "firefly" lovers, though I don't know if you could point to that as the "defining" quality that makes people love or hate firefly.


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## Chun-tzu (Jan 10, 2005)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm curious: people who didn't care for Firefly, how do you feel about old westerns like Sergio Leone movies?  I'm wondering if there's a connection with folks who have exposure and a fondness for the genre.




I never used to care for Westerns as a genre.  Seen a few Western movies, but none that ranked as favorites.  I've since become much more open to the Western, after 3 things:

1. Firefly - The Western elements worked for me.
2. Blaze of Glory #1-4 - 4-part comic book mini-series written by John Ostrander starring Marvel's Western heroes.  This story was fantastic.
3. The Magnificent Seven - which I watched since it was based on Seven Samurai

So, I got interested in the Western from my exposure through sci-fi, comics, and samurai movies.

John Ostrander said something interesting once (in an interview or a foreword) about how the Western genre is far from dead, but that it's been co-opted by other genres.  For example, "exploring the new frontier" is now sci-fi, although it came from Westerns.


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## Elf Witch (Jan 10, 2005)

Both my roommate and I really like Firefly and are eagerly waiting for the movie. As for liking westerns I grew up on them especially the TV westerns and to this day I still enjoy reruns of The Big Valley, High Chapparal, Lancer and some of the more modern ones like Paradise and Lonsome Dove. 

My roommate does not like westerns other than Alias Smith and Jones and Wild Wild West. She is far more picking than I am when it comes to Sf as well she likes DS9 and Farscape, TOS, Babylon 5 before Sheridan came in. I like almost everything.

So I don't know what this says about why we like Firefly so much.   

I liked because it was different not your clean SF show. I liked the low tech things could break down any minute feel of the show. And I liked the characters and I knew from watching Buffy and Angel that we were just starting to scratch the surface with these guys.


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## Rackhir (Jan 10, 2005)

I fall into the "Eh..." group. I haven't exactly seen the entire series, but the 3-4 episodes I have seen never impressed me though most of my friends seem to worship the show.


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## Piratecat (Jan 10, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> *cough*Wild Wild West*cough*




Like he said, fundamentally flawed.  

They're swearing in Chinese, incidentally... pretty good swears as well.


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## LightPhoenix (Jan 10, 2005)

You know, I was watching Firely with a friend of mine, and I couldn't help feel that the pilot did drag along.  Say what you want about Fox mucking up the show, but I now definitely feel that they were spot on about the pilot.  The rest of mucking... not so much.


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## Thorin Stoutfoot (Jan 10, 2005)

Darth Shoju said:
			
		

> I thought they were swearing in Mandarin? Then again, it could be babble disguised as Mandarin for all I know.



It is Mandarin, but their language experts (if they can be called that) need a hard spanking. As a native speaker, most of the spoken Chinese was either incomprehensible or so badly enunciated that it could hardly be recognized. Sure, it's hard to teach a tonal language, but the result on firefly did not deserve even an "E" for effort.

The cursing is just that, cursing. Most of it "G" rated, and nothing that would make my mother blush. (When they first see "Serenity" they say this is a piece of rubbish. That's about as mean as the cursing gets. I could probably produce more Mandarin cuss words at will) 

That said, the show is pretty good, and I'll probably go see the movie.


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## Krieg (Jan 10, 2005)

Thorin Stoutfoot said:
			
		

> As a native speaker, most of the spoken Chinese was either incomprehensible or so badly enunciated that it could hardly be recognized.




Combine English & Mandarin speakers into a single culture & fast forward a couple of hundred years.

Do you think you will be able to understand what they are saying 90% of the time? 

Try reading Olde English sometime.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 10, 2005)

Krieg said:
			
		

> Combine English & Mandarin speakers into a single culture & fast forward a couple of hundred years.



End Result: Chinatown.   

Kind makes you wonder how the New York lingo from Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn evolved.

Just Kidding.


----------



## Arnwyn (Jan 10, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Another thing that bothered me was the fake swearing. Either do it and bleep it or leave it alone. That just seemed fake and added for a little 'attitude' and it didn't take with me.



Yeah, because they bleep swearing on television dramas all the time... And just FYI, another language != "fake".

In any case, this is clearly different strokes sort of thing. Nothing is ever enjoyable to everyone all the time.


----------



## drnuncheon (Jan 10, 2005)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Yeah, because they bleep swearing on television dramas all the time... And just FYI, another language != "fake".




 I thought he was referring to them saying 'goram' instead of, ah, "gosh darn" (to make it grandma safe).  I don't think that's Mandarin.

 J


----------



## Mallus (Jan 10, 2005)

JoeG... can I ask what SF television you _do_ like?

I can easily see being unimpressed with Firefly as an SF fan. Firely is SF solely by virtue of being set in the future (in space). It didn't employ any of the major SF themes/motifs, no angsting about rapid cultural/technological change, no invoking then de-fanging the Armageddon, no 'what's the role of man in the universe after we meet more sentient races with funny noses, not even one uppity AI demanding to treated as a person... It was about struggling with being _us_, right now[/i]. 

It could have been set aboard a boat in Thailand , or in the real Old West, or any boarderland place between the First and Third Worlds.

But not liking the characters (or at least respecting what Whedon did with them, and the actors portrayals)? So much of the dialogue was wonderful, and not just in Whedon's trademark clever-clever way. It cleanly and quickly delineated --what is it-- 8 primary characters? That's no mean feat. Plus moved each self-contained yet interwoven story along. I've never seen a show that was simulaneously as entertaining and efficient.

And I think what Firefly's (rather enthusiastic) supporters are reacting to is the way Firefly was good at what so many SF shows are bad at; to whit, character development and the creation of believable conflicts. Consider how awful B5 was at the day-to-day interplay between the human characters, I loved the show, but found most of the spoken dialogue outside of the certain aliens and the speechmaking to be embarrassing. B5 was often great _in theory_, but lousy in execution. 

Or consider the later incarnations of Trek, which replaced real dramatic conflict with a dull, predeterminded game of "What would Starfleet do" (later DS9 excpeted, of course)?


----------



## mojo1701 (Jan 10, 2005)

Mallus said:
			
		

> "What would Starfleet do"[...]?




I ask myself that every day. WWSD?


----------



## JoeGKushner (Jan 10, 2005)

I'm all over the place on sci-fi but note, that I don't think all of the episodes are great and some of them are just nostalgic.

Star Trek Enterprise and latter parts of Deep Space 9 (hated Voyager and haven't watched Enterprise)

Babylon 5 (hey look, aliens in a sci-fi setting... how about that!)

Star Gate I can take or leave, although I did enjoy the movie.

Speaking of movies...

Event Horizion

Alien (and Aliens)

Cowboy Bebop (anime but in space setting)

2001 (talk about a bore fest, but some good stuff there)

Star Wars (mostly nostalgia. Comics, cartoons, and novels have been done better than the crap Lucas has hoisted on us lately.)


----------



## Mallus (Jan 10, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> I ask myself that every day. WWSD?



Hey, do you think there's money it? We could start by selling little bracelets and tee-shirts, then move on to whole big line of merch...


----------



## mojo1701 (Jan 10, 2005)

Mallus said:
			
		

> Hey, do you think there's money it? We could start by selling little bracelets and tee-shirts, then move on to whole big line of merch...




I call president and copyright holder!

"What Would Starfleet Do?" t-shirts aren't bad. I'm not much of a designer, but...


----------



## Mallus (Jan 10, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> I call president and copyright holder!



Darnit!


> I'm not much of a designer, but...



I know plenty of good graphic designers.

But what we really need are good lawyers.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 10, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Another thing that bothered me was the fake swearing. Either do it and bleep it or leave it alone. That just seemed fake and added for a little 'attitude' and it didn't take with me.




Hm.  I'm just the opposite.  I personally find modern colloquialisms to be dreadfully annoying in my far-future sci-fi.  I can accept that the basic language needs to be the same for me to understand it, but I would prefer there be some coloring to make it clear that it isnt' exactly the same time.

What counts as a swear says a great deal about the culture.  If it's a different time, it should be a different culture, and thus different foul language.


----------



## Morrus (Jan 10, 2005)

I enjoyed Firefly immensely.  Looking forward to the movie.

 As for Westerns - I like a lot of the Clint Eastwood style Westerns (The Outlaw Josey Wales is fantastic!); I can't stand John Wayne style Westerns.

 Sci-fi - not a fan of Star Trek.  Loved Babylon 5 (well, until the final season when it got boring).  Don't watch Farscape, Stargate, etc, but may well like 'em if I got round to giving them a fair chance.  

 The things I like most about Firefly are the down-to-earthness of it (none of that clinical hospital style Star Trek stuff; no aiming a magic ray at someone or something to solve a problem or heal an injury as they do in Star Trek all the time), and the dialogue, which has the same qualities as Buffy/Angel.  Big surprise there!


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 10, 2005)

What's with the hate on squeaky-clean _Star Trek_? Are we that cynical that there is no such thing as utopia these days, or at least try to think about it?

Or they lack Rimmer?


----------



## Thorin Stoutfoot (Jan 11, 2005)

Krieg said:
			
		

> Combine English & Mandarin speakers into a single culture & fast forward a couple of hundred years.
> 
> Do you think you will be able to understand what they are saying 90% of the time?
> 
> Try reading Olde English sometime.



That's the thing. The written Chinese on the show was completely, 100% correct! Someone did their job there, but apparently the speech experts did not bother to hold up their end. And then you view the commentary and realize that the makers of the show actually thought they were being true to spoken Mandarin (!!!), and you realize that somebody didn't quite earn their salary there.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 11, 2005)

I watched a couple of episodes of Firefly and had the "meh" reaction myself.  I'd watch it if I was in front of the TV and didn't have anything better to do, but I would't plan my evening around it or anything like that.  Maybe it's the Wheadon style dialog that seems to grate on my nerves so much like it does in Buffy and Angel and Astonishing X-Men.   I never gave it much thought I just said, "meh" and moved on. 

P.S. I love westerns.


----------



## Thornir Alekeg (Jan 11, 2005)

I loved Firefly from the first time I saw it.  Something about it captured me right away and it only got better as I watched more.  I was disappointed when it was cancelled because I felt there was so much potential for incredible storytelling.  I look forward to the movie, but hate the fact that I have to wait months for more and probably years (at best) before we get any more after that.

I don't feel any need to justify why I enjoy the show as much as I do, it is just the way I feel.

...but those of you who don't agree that this show was fantastic obviously are wrong   

[aside] I had an literature teacher in High School who failed about half the class after we were given an assignment to write about the images and feelings evoked from a particular poem.  If we did not see or feel the same things as the teacher, he marked our responses as "incorrect." [/aside]


----------



## Teflon Billy (Jan 12, 2005)

I love *Firefly*. I think it is one of the best TV shows I have ever seen. I love the fact that every time they have the opportunity to use a cliche, they go the exact opposite direction. 

The dialogue is amazing, the characters grow, and my god if it doesn't look and feel almost exaxtly like a game of *Traveller*.

And, spoiler here for Joe----> 



Spoiler



Jayne (the Mercenary) in fact _does_ sell them out


----------



## jester47 (Jan 12, 2005)

reapersaurus said:
			
		

> Firefly had that going against it, but also the irrational combination of space-age technology and Westerns.
> Westerns are inherently low technology. Space travel is inherently high technology.
> To combine the two is fundamentally flawed, in my opinion.




The way I see it, is the western corrolary actually does make sense.  In westerns New York is high tech.  Tombstone is not.  

They were trying to do this with Firefly.  The colony worlds are not high tech.  The developed worlds are.  The developed worlds look futureistic, the colony worlds are similar to westerns.  

The problem with a lot of westerns is that they do not go into the big cities.  If someone made a western that told it like it was, that is showed New York and then took you out to the west, you would have the same feeling of inherent flaws.  

Take for example that Arthur Conan Doyle, Billy the Kidd, Many US civil war generals, Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein, Kaiser Willhelm II, Teddy Roosevelt, Geronimo, Nicolai Tesla,  Doc Holiday, Thomas Edison, Pancho Villa and Wyatt Earp were all contemporaries.  That is there were years where all these people were alive simultaneously.  WWI is not that far removed from the Wild West and both are very close to Victorian England.  Most people do not associate these as the same time period, even though they were.  

Aaron.


----------



## jester47 (Jan 12, 2005)

I can't stand star trek post TNG.  TOS was in my mind the best.  I really hate the future utopia sociological crap that gets put up there now.  What TNG called a moral delima was nothing compared to what Kirk and Spock had to deal with.  The technology that bones had was good but it couldn't fix everything.  That was cool.  The Borg is an almost direct rip off of the Cybermen.  I am surprised that they did not rip off the Daleks.  Perhaps they did and I just didn't see it.  TOS was cool. TNG was cute.  The only thing cool about TNG was picard, and somtimes data.  B5 would be cool if it was not CG and cardboard sets.  It just looked really fake to me.  

Firefly kicks that touchy feely liberal utopia into the engine.  

I really don't understand why all the sci-fi has to have that "star trek crap" as Lister calls it.  DS9 got better, but not enough.  

Red Dwarf, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, The New Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, these are sci-fi

A.


----------



## Rackhir (Jan 12, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> What's with the hate on squeaky-clean _Star Trek_? Are we that cynical that there is no such thing as utopia these days, or at least try to think about it?
> 
> Or they lack Rimmer?




This is a whole nother thread just in and of it's self. If you REALLY want to get into this, I'd just start a new thread.



			
				Jester 47 said:
			
		

> The Borg is an almost direct rip off of the Cybermen. I am surprised that they did not rip off the Daleks.




I always thought they were a rippoff of Captain Power and the soldiers of the Future. They also had a lot of equipment hanging off them for no good reason.


----------



## Nellisir (Jan 12, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Hm. I'm just the opposite. I personally find modern colloquialisms to be dreadfully annoying in my far-future sci-fi. I can accept that the basic language needs to be the same for me to understand it, but I would prefer there be some coloring to make it clear that it isnt' exactly the same time.
> 
> What counts as a swear says a great deal about the culture. If it's a different time, it should be a different culture, and thus different foul language.




One of the great things, IMO, about Farscape were the English idioms that were creeping into the aliens' language.  It slowly escalated over the seasons, and was clearly deliberate.
Cheers
Nell.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 12, 2005)

Nellisir said:
			
		

> One of the great things, IMO, about Farscape were the English idioms that were creeping into the aliens' language.  It slowly escalated over the seasons, and was clearly deliberate.




Yes, and it was a two-way street, as the human certainly picked up the alien idiom quickly enough.  In this case, at least, the contemporary idiom had a reasonable source - a contemporary man.  If Chriton had not come from today's Earth, it would have annoyed the heck out of me.


----------



## Mallus (Jan 13, 2005)

jester47 said:
			
		

> Red Dwarf, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, The New Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, these are sci-fi



How, exactly, are you defining sci-fi?

Red Dwarf was a parody of SF (albeit a great one that occassionally did SF better than supposdely serious shows).

Cowboy Bebop was arguably more more about music and French New-Wave cinema's take on American film-noir than traditional SF themes... but it did a good job creating a hodge-podge post-William Gibson SF universe...

Firefly is SF only because it takes place in space. It couldn't care less about any of the major SF themes. If its about anything, its an examination of several stock adventure fiction characters re-imagined as actual human beings...

New Galactica looks good. And its about 4 hours long in the States, so I'm not entirely sure what its about yet. But it is probably SF...

Dr. Who was on for how many years? Sure its SF, and just about everything else...


----------



## jester47 (Jan 14, 2005)

Mallus said:
			
		

> How, exactly, are you defining sci-fi?
> 
> Red Dwarf was a parody of SF (albeit a great one that occassionally did SF better than supposdely serious shows).
> 
> ...



You know, I don't think I ever really finished that sentence...  Now I am having the devil of a time remembering what my thought was when I wrote that...

Hrm.  Well, I will just say that I meant:  --List of shows--  are sci-fi shows that are not so annoyingly optimistic about humanity, and as a result come off as more interesting. 

I find "Hard" sci fi to be very boring.  I find space adventure (cowboy bebop, Firefly) and space fantasy (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica) to be much more interesting.  

Aaron


----------



## Beretta (Jan 14, 2005)

An excellent show. It's airing in Australia now (didn't think it would make it since it was cancelled; considering the fact that it's on at 12am I guess it may as well not have).

Watched the DVDs in one sitting - and I'm glad I did. A good dose of humour, action and character development. It's a bloody shame that it got cancelled, and I'm very much hoping that it gets box office success so that more tv series are made.

As for Sci-Fi/Westerns - not huge on either. The only Star Trek I watched was the original. Didn't watch B5, Farscape etc. 

But this show struck a chord with me. It was like a book where I wanted to see what happens next. I wanted to know more about the characters. Particularly the Shepard after the encounter with the bounty hunter in the last episode. I knew there was something about him from the beginning, and was waiting for the other shoe to drop throughout the entire thing. I was pretty steamed that I might not find out what was going on there when the final episode finished.

I think the best thing about Firefly was that they were more concerned with themselves and their survival over any moralistic b/s (mostly - train robbery the exception). If you crossed them you got kicked into an engine intake, potentially ejected from an airlock etc. It had a 'dark' undercurrent which came off almost like anti-heroism. It was a refreshing change of pace from the usual Good Guys vs Bad Guys that seems to run at the core of most other tv shows.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 14, 2005)

jester47 said:
			
		

> I find "Hard" sci fi to be very boring.




I have a hard time tinking of even a single TV series that could really be classified as hard sci-fi.  The problemwith the hard stuff is that it's a pain to write, in that you really need someone checking your science.


----------



## MrFilthyIke (Jan 14, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Mark me down as one big "meh."




You a masochist Joe?  Bashing Firefly amon geeks like us?  You must want to be flamed and told you're wrong.


----------



## WizarDru (Jan 14, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I have a hard time tinking of even a single TV series that could really be classified as hard sci-fi. The problemwith the hard stuff is that it's a pain to write, in that you really need someone checking your science.




 I can think of one (but only one): the BBC's much-overlooked and throughly excellent  StarCops, one of the few series that actually seemed to understand the ramifications of technology, and showed a logical progression.  The main characters handheld device "Box" was highly predictive of PDA/cell-phone convergence devices.  Not bad for *1987*.

 Overall, though, most shows cover their butts by setting show far enough in the future that they can claim super-science, and let it slide.  Babylon 5 tried to stay reasonably close to real-world physics and science, with a few noticable exceptions (such as Psionics).  Generally, 'Hard' SF is extremely hard to do, and even harder to make interesting to non-wireheads.


----------



## jasamcarl (Jan 14, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> That's good to hear. I'm not saying that I'm completely disgusted with it, but man, the talk on En World was like, "It's better than Babylon 5 and all the Star Trek series put together!"




'better than.." those series isn't saying much at all. garbage.


----------



## Rackhir (Jan 14, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> 'better than.." those series isn't saying much at all. garbage.




Manners! Remember the rules specifically forbid discusion of religion...

It's also rather more polite to say "I thought they were garbage", than "They are Garbage". The first is expressing an opinion, which is perfectly fine. The second is a blanket statement, which is much more insulting and in your face.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 14, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> 'better than.." those series isn't saying much at all. garbage.




Right.  Now, would you care to discuss _why_ you came to that conclusion?  

You are certainly welcome to have your opinion.  However, when given without any foundation or reasons, such flat statements are not constructive, and do nothing to add to the conversation.


----------



## jester47 (Jan 15, 2005)

I will have to admit, StarCops was really good.  But I think it was good in that they put in as much to making the science right as they did to making the dramas interesting.  

When I spoke of Hard SF I was refering to literature. 

Aaron.


----------



## jasamcarl (Jan 15, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Right.  Now, would you care to discuss _why_ you came to that conclusion?
> 
> You are certainly welcome to have your opinion.  However, when given without any foundation or reasons, such flat statements are not constructive, and do nothing to add to the conversation.




I shouldn't have to provide a lucid explanation for every opinion, especially when there are others who are presumably reading this and take the same opinion for granted. For those sorts it is constructive, because it asks them, "Do you really want to make a descision about seeing Firefly based on the word of a guy who thought those two underwritten, flatly acted, stale, silly franchises represent some sort of higher standard for T.V. and cinema?"

Now, I haven't actually seen Firefly, and i generally thought Buffy was overrated, so I may actually agree with him. And the original points seem well considered and sincere. But that comparison threw me for a loop.


----------



## Krieg (Jan 15, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> I shouldn't have to provide a lucid explanation for every opinion, especially when there are others who are presumably reading this and take the same opinion for granted.




True....unless of course you actually want your opinions to be taken seriously.

JoeG followed up his initial post with an explanation of why he came to his conclusion. I may agree agree with his conclusion, but at least he showed how he arrived at it.


----------



## Felix (Jan 15, 2005)

*Re: Mandarin and the horrible pronunciation.*

I am not a native Mandarin speaker, but after living in Beijing for a while a blind chinese woman from Fujian thought I was a beijing native until I told her otherwise. Seriously. Meaning, she couldn't understand my Beijing gutter-talk. Heh. 

Aaaanyways, what I'm trying to say is that my Mandarin was pretty good. But when I was hanging out with my American friends, we would sprinkle chinese into our conversation. "Sui bian", "Wu suo wei" and "Tao yan" were favorites of mine, but when I said them in the middle of an English sentence, it came out sounding something like what they say in Firefly... meaning the pronunciation was pretty bad.

So I thought the chinese cursing was wicked cool in that regard... because I could relate to using chinese sprinkled in my English and not have it sound like bona-fide chinese. Maybe that's the diff twixt seeing it as a native speaker and a second-language speaker.

Oh, and Jayne is absolutely my favorite character. Good bless Chaotic Evil Fighters! Woo!


----------



## Ferret (Jan 15, 2005)

I'll put it this way: I'm *aching* to watch the next disk.


----------



## mojo1701 (Jan 15, 2005)

Ferret said:
			
		

> I'll put it this way: I'm *aching* to watch the next disk.




I think you should go see a doctor about that.


----------



## jasamcarl (Jan 16, 2005)

Krieg said:
			
		

> True....unless of course you actually want your opinions to be taken seriously.
> 
> JoeG followed up his initial post with an explanation of why he came to his conclusion. I may agree agree with his conclusion, but at least he showed how he arrived at it.




The thing is...it will be taken seriously by those who agree with me. Besides which my low opinion of said series wasn't even the point of my post. Some people are way too sensitive. I can see this type of response if I had stated the Earth is flat, but that Star Trek and Babylon 5 were bad series......hmmmmmmm...

That said, if i ever have too much time, i'll be sure to detail my argument against the shows, the honor of whose fans i besmirched so. Will that make you guys feel better?


----------



## Mallus (Jan 16, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> but that Star Trek and Babylon 5 were bad series



Just out of curiosity, what do you consider good SF? 

Its always interesting to me to hear what other people enjoy, especially when it differs from what I do. If you don't find things of interest in B5 and the various incarnations of Trek (which collectively cover a huge amount of ground), what do you like, SF-wise?


----------



## jasamcarl (Jan 16, 2005)

Mallus said:
			
		

> Just out of curiosity, what do you consider good SF?
> 
> Its always interesting to me to hear what other people enjoy, especially when it differs from what I do. If you don't find things of interest in B5 and the various incarnations of Trek (which collectively cover a huge amount of ground), what do you like, SF-wise?




I dislike their execution moreso than their premise, in that I think that the dialogue is often rapped in too much exposition and the acting, (with a couple of notable exceptions in Star Trek) to be pretty thin. That said, I also tend to find the material itself irrelevant, Trek with its old school idealism and Babylon 5 (from what I've seen of it) with it convoluted, pointless intrigue.

In terms of shows that I like that happen to be sci-fi....Farscape's first few seasons come to mind. I like to think of it as OZ in space. The fantasy was used to add a sense of the surreal wandering both to the viewer and to the human protagonist..It's like 'Lost in Space' only it lives up to its premise in a non-campy way. 

Do the (non-mythology) X-File episodes count as sci-fi?


----------



## Umbran (Jan 16, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> The thing is...it will be taken seriously by those who agree with me.




Yes, but on hte other hand, the people who agree with you aren't really in need of your opinion, now are they?  You aren't sharing with them any ideas they didn't already have.  That's why I called it non-constructive - because it didn't really add anything to the discussion.

And please, refrain from your claims to know that people's honor was besmirched.  In an internet forum, we don't have good access to the motivations of others.  Some of us simply find negativity without accompanying intelligent discussion to be worse than useless.

I would say that many of the non-mythology episodes of The X-Files count as sci-fi.  And individually, they may be decently written and acted.  But collectively they have a big weakness - repetition and lack of character growth or change.  Mulder is always the believer, and Scully always the skeptic, and Scully is always wrong...

The thing that one must remember about Trek - it isn't _supposed_ to be what we'd call standard drama.  It is more akin to a (sometimes thinly veiled) morality play, crossed with the speculation inherent in speculative fiction.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 16, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> In terms of shows that I like that happen to be sci-fi....Farscape's first few seasons come to mind. I like to think of it as OZ in space. The fantasy was used to add a sense of the surreal wandering both to the viewer and to the human protagonist..It's like 'Lost in Space' only it lives up to its premise in a non-campy way.
> 
> Do the (non-mythology) X-File episodes count as sci-fi?



Meh. Not my kind of sci-fi, but to each his or her own.

-- a Trekkie and _B5_ fan (owner of newly purchased _B5_ RPG bundle).


----------



## GreyOne (Jan 16, 2005)

I'm of the opinion that Firefly was the best apce-sci-fi ever made for television.  The idea of tying the west and space together is fantastic.  What is space besides the next frontier?  

The acting, dialogue, production values and sheer attention to detail and love put into the series was amazing, and honestly, I just do not understand how these characteristics of the show are not recognized.

As to the opinion that the show is clicheed, well that just boggles my mind.  In just a few episodes of development, all of these characters are changed from their archtypes to fascinating, well-rounded characters (apart from perhaps Book who didn't get as much development).


----------



## jasamcarl (Jan 16, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Yes, but on hte other hand, the people who agree with you aren't really in need of your opinion, now are they?  You aren't sharing with them any ideas they didn't already have.  That's why I called it non-constructive - because it didn't really add anything to the discussion.
> 
> And please, refrain from your claims to know that people's honor was besmirched.  In an internet forum, we don't have good access to the motivations of others.  Some of us simply find negativity without accompanying intelligent discussion to be worse than useless.
> 
> ...




Sure they needed to know. They needed to know so that they could take the posters opinion into context. Or so i assumed in the few seconds i gave to considering whether or not to post.

As to the standard you set, I'll be sure to interrogate any negative opinion you have conscerning, oh, a gaming supplement when I'm not satisfied with the reasons you provide. You better start typing out the rough drafts now!!! 

As to the X-Files, no it didn't have anything in the way of character growth, but its virtue was that it didn't really try, but was instead merely competently acted and directed and amounted to the very least a mood peace. 

Can't say the same about Trek. Of course i understand that they are intended to be morality dramas, the problem being that they aren't at all subtle and very few of the situations are at all believable or relevant, being wrapped up in overdone canon. That, combined with the one dimensional characters , tends to rob the stories of any real dramatic tension. They are always more the sketches of an idea than a fleshed out final product...and the ideas aren't even all that original, being conscerned mostly with usually one sided arguments in favor freedom, equality, and meritocracy (no possible contradictions amongst those, no sirey!!)


----------



## Umbran (Jan 16, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> As to the standard you set, I'll be sure to interrogate any negative opinion you have conscerning, oh, a gaming supplement when I'm not satisfied with the reasons you provide. You better start typing out the rough drafts now!!!




I think, in general, in this regard I practice what I preach, so I'm not terribly frightened of your wrath   Note that I didn't ask for volumes, just some reasons behind your opinions.  A couple fo sentences would've done the trick.



> As to the X-Files, no it didn't have anything in the way of character growth, but its virtue was that it didn't really try, but was instead merely competently acted and directed and amounted to the very least a mood peace.




A mood piece, where every example sets essentially the same mood?  Why make a series instead of a movie, then?  While I liked the X-Files a lot, the monotony tended to wear a bit.



> Can't say the same about Trek.




Actually, I could, especially in the cases of Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart.  



> Of course i understand that they are intended to be morality dramas, the problem being that they aren't at all subtle and very few of the situations are at all believable or relevant...




Believeable?  From a morality play?  Go back and take a look at some of the archetypal original Greek morality plays - they are where we get the term _deus ex machina_.  Believeability isn't a part of the genre.  Neither is subtlety, really.  Morality plays generally wind up as moral sledgehammers.  If they're too subtle, the audience may not twig to the point the play is trying to make.  Doubly so when you've only got 40 minutes of screen time to make your case.

Relevance is, of course, subjective.  What seems irrelevant to you may be the center of my existance.  The most recent example - _Enterprise_'s vulcan story arc - was pretty darned relevant to some real-world politics.



> That, combined with the one dimensional characters, tends to rob the stories of any real dramatic tension.




See the point on subtlety, above.  Morality plays are not supposed to have the most complicated of characters, because they'd get in the way of the play.  



> They are always more the sketches of an idea than a fleshed out final product...and the ideas aren't even all that original




Considering the volumes of philosophy that have been produced over the centuries, I find the requirement that modern morality plays be original to be unrealistic.  It's downright contraditctory to your wish that they be relevant!  Truely new stuff would by definition be unrelated to our lives, and thus irrelevant to us.

And it isn't like The X-Files were original at the least.  They traded upon conspiracy theory and urban legend - all old stories.   



> being conscerned mostly with usually one sided arguments in favor freedom, equality, and meritocracy (no possible contradictions amongst those, no sirey!!)




Yeah, well, that particular tidbit would quickly get far too close to politics and/or religion, so I'll let it be.


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## jasamcarl (Jan 16, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I think, in general, in this regard I practice what I preach, so I'm not terribly frightened of your wrath   Note that I didn't ask for volumes, just some reasons behind your opinions.  A couple fo sentences would've done the trick.




*So all you wanted was a couple of vague, token points to take my opinion out of the realm of 'ceaseless negativity'? Now if that wouldn't be pointless. Besides which you ignored by justification for the original post.

You think you can live up to the standard you set here? Good, then I expect you to call out any one sentence statement on the boards that go along the lines of "I didn't like it." Whether that apply to game supplements and whether or not you agree with the final assesment. Because quiete frankly you are less upset with my brief statement of dislike that the fact that i disliked Star Trek. You are frankly being dishonest. *


[/QUOTE]A mood piece, where every example sets essentially the same mood?  Why make a series instead of a movie, then?  While I liked the X-Files a lot, the monotony tended to wear a bit.[/QUOTE]

*Why do they make more than one horror movie? More than one tragicomedy? Chamber drama? Because most people don't watch similar movies back to back and thus can appreciate having the option of evoking that mood at their convenience without all the details being exactly the same and robbing them of that mood. That was just silly.*



[/QUOTE]Actually, I could, especially in the cases of Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart.[/QUOTE] 

*Patrick Stewart was actually one of my two exceptions along with Colm Meaney, an underrated Irish character acter who always makes me crack a smile. Unfortunatly, they don't get all the airtime and even they are forced to mouth some truly crapulant dialogue.*

[/QUOTE]Believeable?  From a morality play?  Go back and take a look at some of the archetypal original Greek morality plays - they are where we get the term _deus ex machina_.  Believeability isn't a part of the genre.  Neither is subtlety, really.  Morality plays generally wind up as moral sledgehammers.  If they're too subtle, the audience may not twig to the point the play is trying to make.  Doubly so when you've only got 40 minutes of screen time to make your case.

Relevance is, of course, subjective.  What seems irrelevant to you may be the center of my existance.  The most recent example - _Enterprise_'s vulcan story arc - was pretty darned relevant to some real-world politics.



See the point on subtlety, above.  Morality plays are not supposed to have the most complicated of characters, because they'd get in the way of the play.[/QUOTE]

*Yes, and today traditional morality plays would be considered underwritten and, in my opinion, not particularly fitting for modern mediums like television and film. And i never said that the show wasn't a (stale) genre excercise, but merely that that was precisly the reason i disliked it. I haven't seen the episode you are referring to, but I'll take your word for it.*


[/QUOTE]Considering the volumes of philosophy that have been produced over the centuries, I find the requirement that modern morality plays be original to be unrealistic.  It's downright contraditctory to your wish that they be relevant!  Truely new stuff would by definition be unrelated to our lives, and thus irrelevant to us.[/QUOTE]

*Don't be silly. An idea is not unoriginal if it is relevant. Good ideas are by definition relevant. By that definition, there have been no original ideas in a long time. But to clarify, unoriginal in this context means as in the medium of television, film, or popular culture in general. Trek's themes are insanly derivitave.*

[/QUOTE]And it isn't like The X-Files were original at the least.  They traded upon conspiracy theory and urban legend - all old stories.[/QUOTE]

*No, but it had the advantages i have listed earlier, and it implemented those urban legends in an original way.*

[/QUOTE]Yeah, well, that particular tidbit would quickly get far too close to politics and/or religion, so I'll let it be.[/QUOTE]

*Yes, it could, but its hard to discuss a show whose one hook (besides the convoluted backdrop) are its ideas without discussing the validity of those ideas. This is literally all Trek has.*


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## Umbran (Jan 16, 2005)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> So all you wanted was a couple of vague, token points to take my opinion out of the realm of 'ceaseless negativity'? Now if that wouldn't be pointless.




"Ceaselss negativity"?  I never said (or thought) your opinion was in the realm of "ceaseless negativity".  Those aren't my words, or my thoughts.  



> You think you can live up to the standard you set here? Good, then I expect you to call out any one sentence statement on the boards that go along the lines of "I didn't like it."




Um, no.  That's not what "practice what I preach" means.  If I went around giving one-sentence opinions myself, then you'd have a case on me.  But failing to catch every single case of someone else doing so doesn't mean I'm not living up to my stated standards.  Sorry.



> Because quiete frankly you are less upset with my brief statement of dislike that the fact that i disliked Star Trek. You are frankly being dishonest.




Wow.  I didn't think you were such a horribly rude person. 

Simply put, you are not the Great Kreskin, and have no proven psychic powers or ability to read minds ove the internet.  You are not in a position to make a claim that I am lying.  And in doing so, you show that you won't keep to civil conversation, and will choose to accuse and insult another person rather than simply keep to the subject.  Bad form.  Bad enough that you've made it clear that you aren't interested in discussion.


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## mojo1701 (Jan 16, 2005)

This is gonna end badly. Of course, it makes no difference to me, since I didn't watch FireFly regularly, but I did catch an episode. Wasn't bad, but can't comment further without seeing it.

See? THAT's what you do in a situation like this.


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## jasamcarl (Jan 16, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> "Ceaselss negativity"?  I never said (or thought) your opinion was in the realm of "ceaseless negativity".  Those aren't my words, or my thoughts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




No,  but being selective in your criticism is. So here is how I will call you on it. If I ever see you post in a thread where there are one sentence criticisms of ANYTHING and you fail to bring it up, I'll helpfully point them out to you. If you conveniently drop out of the thread time and time again..well..that would be pretty consistent with my hunch.


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## Krieg (Jan 16, 2005)

What were we talking about again?

Oh yeah...

Joe, did you ever manage to watch anymore of Firefly?...and if so, is your opinion still pretty much the same?


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## Richards (Jan 17, 2005)

I've decided I'm going to count backwards 14 weeks from the release of _Serenity_ and watch an episode a week, every Friday, to get me all ready for the movie.  I can hardly wait until September now...this is going to be great!

Johnathan


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## jasamcarl (Jan 17, 2005)

Ouch..can't believe i wrote that.

I apologize Umbran.


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 18, 2005)

I have finished watching it.

Overall I give it 2.5 stars.

Too many characters and most of them were too sketchy. That might've been cured in future episodes but it was weak of the director/creator to think he had all that time to flesh the material out. They could've went with the original crew and kept the doctor, his sister, and the sheperd out of the whole first season and worked on fleshing out the core crew more. I still have no grasp of the personality/style of the pilot or his wife, outside of him being a good pilot and her being an old work friend of the captain. Heck, even the mercenary didn't seem to have much depth to him although he did seem to be developing some.

Spoiler Space...

The big betryal on disk three was exceptionaly weak. He betrays two people who've caused trouble for everyone and from a woman whose stabbed him. Heck, a real betrayal would've been him giving up the Firefly and it's crew as opposed to the two strangers of the crew. Just my opinion though.

The Heart of Gold episode was a nice tribute to good old Seven Samurai or the western version where a smaller force faces a larger force but really didn't showcase the characters having any intelligence. The real trick would've been having the merc stay in town, when the big speech is given, assassinate the guy from across town, and lie low as opposed to getting involved in a shoot out where they know they're outgunned. Military intellignece once again shows it's an oxymoron.


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## GreyOne (Jan 19, 2005)

Did you give yourself that custom title?


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## maddman75 (Jan 19, 2005)

KaintheSeeker said:
			
		

> Of course I don't understand why reality tv takes off like it does.




Reality TV takes off not because people watch it in droves, but because it is an order of magnitude cheaper to produce.  Therefore an relatively unwatched reality show (but still good enough to get a few sponsors) is far more profitable than a reasonably successful regular show.  The first (that I know of) major reality show was the Real World on MTV.  They wanted to do a teenage/early 20s soap, and were told that if they could do it without having writers, paid actors, or a real set they could do it.  So the reality concept was born.

I watched the first three seasons, then lost interest.  Reality TV for me was 'been-there, done-that' about a decade ago.

Firefly was another in a long tradition of shows on Fox that were too good to stay on the air.  I hope Joss steers clear of them in the future, should he return to TV.


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## Pielorinho (Jan 19, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> I still have no grasp of the personality/style of the pilot or his wife, outside of him being a good pilot and her being an old work friend of the captain. Heck, even the mercenary didn't seem to have much depth to him although he did seem to be developing some.




Really?  I though the episode where Wash and Mal get captured really illuminates both Wash's and Zoe's personalities, as well as shedding insight on that weird relationship triangle and the tensions therein.  I knew more about Wash & Zoe at the end of that episode than I knew about a Star Trek character after a full season.

Wash, as a character:
* Is a damn good pilot.
* Is very gentle and sensitive when he's not in the pilot's seat.
* Loves being goofy.
* Adores his wife.
* Is insecure about his lack of manliness.
* Doesn't realize that his wife is aware of, and exasperated by, this insecurity.
* Resents Mal's manliness, and resents his reliance on it.

I could give you a similar list for Zoe, derived mostly but not exclusively from that episode.



> The big betryal on disk three was exceptionaly weak. He betrays two people who've caused trouble for everyone and from a woman whose stabbed him. Heck, a real betrayal would've been him giving up the Firefly and it's crew as opposed to the two strangers of the crew. Just my opinion though.




Again, I had just the opposite reaction.  Jayne is in awe of Mal:  Mal is smarter than he is, more powerful than he is (inasmuch as Mal can lead other people), and just as hardcore as he is.  Jayne's struggle on the show is figuring out what it means to follow a man like Mal, and what he must become to be worthy of this.  Had Jayne betrayed all of Serenity, it would've been out of character for him.

As it was, he was able to rationalize the betrayal in his mind, and the genius of the episode was that you could sort of sympathize with what he did--like you said, he'd gotten stabbed by River just prior to the betrayal.  And yet what he did was monstrous and stupid.  Jayne may be hardcore, but he's no planner, no Macchiavelli:  the captain sees through this justifiable, horrific betrayal with no difficulty at all.  And you get the airlock scene, one of my favorite bits from the whole series.  Jayne's spark of self-awareness, the spasmodic pulse of a newborn morality, is beautiful to watch.

Long ago I had a writing teacher tell me that the perfect ending to a story was completely unpredictable and totally inevitable.  The end to that episode was both.  I loved it.

Again, just my opinion.

Daniel


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## GreyOne (Jan 19, 2005)

Daniel, I think your opinion is spot on.


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