New Bad Firefly Review on Amazon (really bad!) by rklenseth

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

New Bad Firefly Review on Amazon (really bad!)

POSTED BY: RKLENSETH
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 17:37
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 6388
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Saturday, May 8, 2004 4:44 PM

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY!, May 8, 2004
Reviewer: viewer from Hell
I bought the series on DVD after being reccomended it by a Sci-Fi geek friend of mine, and I regretted doing so after watching about two episodes. I found that for the most part the plots were worthless, the dialogue was dull and unoriginal, the characters were flat and stereotype, and much of the material was totally unaccepptable for science-fiction television (In one episode the crew defends a hore-house, I mean, come on!!!). Please, do not purchase this show! A far better alternative is Star Trek: The Next Generation, which delves into some real awsome subject matter and explores issues in a way Firefly could never hope to.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Saturday, May 8, 2004 4:47 PM

RKLENSETH

Note that the only thing that this person has reviewed otherwise is Star Trek the Next Generation.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Saturday, May 8, 2004 5:09 PM

DARKJESTER

A hore-house? Or was it a hoar-house? Maybe a war-house? We all know how much Jayne loves all that warring...
Sorry, cheap shots, but such an EASY target....! LOL

MAL "You only gotta scare him."
JAYNE "Pain is scary..."

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Saturday, May 8, 2004 5:20 PM

SHINY

Okay folks, you know the drill...if you haven't yet submitted a review for Firefly, go to amazon and DO IT NOW! :) Let's get this nasty idiot's review off the first page.

Please help Haken keep this site running by occasionally clicking on some of the sponsored ad links on the side of the page!

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Saturday, May 8, 2004 8:28 PM

HARDWARE

My review:

= Not your average space show
Reviewer: Hardware from New Castle, DE United States
Have you ever noticed how every space show involves military organizations? Star Trek in all it's infinite, moldy incarnations has all the crew in spiffy uniforms. Apparently nobody in the Federation ever gets dirty. The decks and walls of their spaceships are always sparkling clean without anyone every having to lift a finger to perform menial labor.
Now how about a little reality? This is accessible science fiction. The characters in this show are worried about getting a job to buy fuel and food. Let's call it blue collar science fiction. There are no forehead-of-the-week aliens. There are no ambassadors. No phaser banks. The ship looks like a working freighter, lived in.

The characters, oh the characters. They are well written, rounded characters who are flawed, mostly in subtle ways. They don't all get like each other, but they all get along. Just like 9 people in a house would. In only 15 hours of video the cast and crew of Firefly manage to suck you in. This is the best science fiction show in the last 20 years and possibly the best show on Fox the season it aired. I don't know what they were thinking when they exiled it to Friday nights, but nobody has ever proven the existence of a network executive's brain.

Buy it, watch it, enjoy it.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 2:03 AM

MAYDAY

Ok a few cheap shots in here but what do you expect?

From the creator of Buffy and Angel comes a third series, FIREFLY. What's there to know, well it's set 500 years in the future, where the Earths resources have been used up, so a whole new verse full or planets and moons have been terraformed to support the human race, some are rich with new technologies, some not so much....
The series is amazing, it takes charecter-driven stories, with an ensemble cast, fantastic script writing, award winning special effects and then adds that little bit of "Wheadon Wit", that fan of Buffy and Angel are all too familiar with.

Basically it's an intelligent SciFi drama with moments of intense levity.....If your looking for somthing that doesn't treat you like a four-year-old ("STar Trek - The Next Generation", for example), buy this DVD NOW!!!

Can you tell from that that I think Star Trek is inane, spoon-fed pivel aimed at children with all the substance of steam?

Jayne:> Don't know these folk and don't much care to neither...
Mal:> They're whores.
Jayne:> I'm in!

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 9:26 AM

MALICIOUS

Hardware!!

I live in Bear, DE! Hello fellow fan!

Mal-licious

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 10:19 AM

SGTGUMP

Can anyone really take her seriously, she doesn't even know how to spell.

"Jayne! You're scaring the women." -Zoe

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 10:35 AM

DAELUS

That reviewer obviously is one of those reality-tv lovers. Plus if she(?) disliked it that much, why did she watch up to the second last episode?(probably watched the last one too). I don't understand how people can dislike 'Firefly', it's like not liking food.

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 10:43 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Whats so bad about defending a whore house anyway? Seems to me that even Homer Simpson did that once in an episode of The Simpsons. ( did it with quite a hilarious musical number too..hee hee)

I guess that because Firefly did not have *aliens with huge ears, bumpy bald heads, or could transform themselves into a janitors bucket, it wasn't REAL sci fi.

I bet this person is pining away for the return of Mutant X.

* And before you say it, dead Bessy don't count as an alien.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 11:11 AM

GHOLA

Please people not everyone's going to like Firefly you don't have to treat them like they're incredibly stupid believe it or not some people have different opinions. So what he couldn't spell whore right how many people here ever have a reason to spell whore outside of firefly?

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Sunday, May 9, 2004 11:20 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Ummm... I guess the reason for knowing how to spell a word would be for when you use it in a sentence? Sure, there are typos, folks often type while in a hurry , or when tired, etc... We need not resort to becoming Spelling Nazis, for goodness sake.

Unless it has to do w/ a anti Firefly poster on an Amazon review board.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:24 PM

HARDWARE

Quote:
Originally posted by Malicious:
Hardware!!

I live in Bear, DE! Hello fellow fan!

Mal-licious

Well hi there fellow first stater!

Now if we can convince the other science fiction fan in Delaware to join us browncoats it'll be unanimous!

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

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Tuesday, May 11, 2004 10:02 PM

DAEDALUS

To be perfectly honest, I have to try and put the foot down on all the Trek-bashin fun over here (try). See, Star Trek was really my intro to sci-fi, and overall, I think it deserves some respect and reverance. Yes, the Original Series is rather a joke by some of today's (and yesterday's) standards; but let's remember that it started something miraculous, if not perfected it. Liking the show is kind of irrelevant, because good or bad - it set a standard, and really did go 'where no man had gone before'. While we now laugh at bumpy foreheads and space-babes, they were actual aliens with culture, personality, and intrigue (Often 1 sided intrigue). Cheese factor aside, it layed the foundation.

Next, we have the best, and worst series: the aforementioned Next Gen. There was god-aweful episodes, bad acting, and it WAS painfully 80's, but again, lets look at the positive. When Next Gen. was good, it was GREAT. Tremendous plotlines, cool alien design, and overall neat politics and alien civs. made for some really interesting episodes. While Firefly fans (myself DEFINATELY included) have a tendency to say ' ship's too clean!' 'get down and dirty' 'nothing dynamic ever happens' we have to look at the setting of the show. This isn't the relatable future, this isn't the near future, this is the FAR future; and so things are very different. WE have supposedly ascended to the point where we roam the massive universe just to 'see what we can see' so to speak. We learn, we thrive, but our days of rugers are over. Star Trek often mentions a time of violence and unrest that tore us apart, but we are supposedly past that, and the show shifts its focus from 'space as an exercise in necessity' to 'space as an excercise in majesty'. The whole show is based around the AWE and MYSTERIES awaiting us. By that time, cleaning the ship with a mop would be rather destructive to the ambience. I know the ship has an overdeveloped "comfort zone", but the two are just different shows.

(DS9 was too flawed, and we don't talk about voyager)

The Next series I watched was Farscape, and in a way, it was a breath of fresh air. Better show then the two mentioned Star Treks? Yes, but again very different. I can still say overall that farscape was much better, but I can't trash Next Gen. completely. I remember one NG episode where a captain is of a race that speaks only in reference to their bible/myth book. This man wants to make successful alien conflict so badly that he detains both himself and Picard on a planet with a huge monster like one of the myths. Although the captain is gored by the beast at the end, you feel pride for his sacrifice, and because of it, two species form a relationship that would have been otherwise impossible. Star Trek introduced me to TV SCI-FI, taught me many things, and made me think and imagine. Although Firefly succeeds both Farscape and Star Trek (In ways I'm sure you all know), they both still hold a special place in me for playing their part, and playing it well. (Mostly played well in the case of NG

)

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Tuesday, May 11, 2004 10:27 PM

Tsk, tsk Daedalus--you go to all the trouble to defend Star Trek (thank you for that by the way, I agree that Star Trek should get more respect then it gets) and then put down DS9.

Your reasoning was that it 'was flawed', but by your own admission all of Star Trek has been flawed. DS9 is in my opinion one of the most brilliant shows on TV that stands up almost to the level of Farscape and Firefly (my two favorite Sci-fi shows). It took the themes of Star Trek and actually put them to the test. It said "Yeah, people are better in the future--but what does war do to that?". You specificly defend TNG on the basis of its intellegent political situation, but DS9 really perfected that. The Bajorians, the Klingons, the Cardasins, the Dominion--the relationship between these races was constantly shifting throughout the show. It had one of the most well layered villans of any show I've ever seen (including Firefly) in the character of Dukat who was brilliantly potrayed. The main characters were dynamic throughout the show's run, thier relationships changed, and while they were still Star Trek characters--they still made mistakes.

How can you call any show that had episodes like "Duet", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Embisary", etc, anything less then what it was: one of the best shows on TV, and in some ways the best Star Trek period.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 4:46 AM

CYBERSNARK

I gotta agree with Ax.

Also, look at where they are "now."

TOS ended by making the jump to movies. Basically TOS writ large. After the movies (in the Lost Era books), things get interesting.

TNG did the same thing.

Voyager ended with the sound of a guillotine (seriously, listen closely when the credits card comes up and chokes off the music). The ship'll almost inevitably be refit, the crew'll probably end up disbanded (the ex-Maquis can retire and repopulate the former DMZ, the remaining crew get new assignments, Paris & Torres retire to raise their baby, Janeway gets stuck behind a desk). The end.

DS9 closed, but didn't end. The station is still there, but now with Col. Kira in charge. New crew will be rotated in to replace anyone who's leaving (O'Brien, Odo, Sisko, Worf, and someone finally realized that they need another science officer since Ezri isn't doing Jadzia's job

). The novel series continues after the finale, and actually continues the story in new and wild directions (Quark/Ro shippage! Kira's crisis of faith! A friendly Jem'Hadar! A heroic Cardassian! A new "Starfleet Captain" character who's not actually a Captain, and has to take orders from Kira! And finally, a whole group of returning old characters!)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 6:17 AM

HARPIE

Quote:
Originally posted by Mayday:

Basically it's an intelligent SciFi drama with moments of intense levity.....If your looking for somthing that doesn't treat you like a four-year-old ("STar Trek - The Next Generation", for example), buy this DVD NOW!!!

Can you tell from that that I think Star Trek is inane, spoon-fed pivel aimed at children with all the substance of steam?

TNG, and Star Trek in general, is a vision of the future we would all like to see..humans are not separated by race, religion, etc. Why is that so wrong? Because of its popularity, TNG paved the way for the great SciFi that's on the air now. The Whedon series may not have been given a chance to grow if it had not been for Star Trek.

Trekkie,Browncoat,Leaper,MSTie

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 6:57 AM

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

Quote:
Originally posted by Harpie:
Quote:
Originally posted by Mayday:

Basically it's an intelligent SciFi drama with moments of intense levity.....If your looking for somthing that doesn't treat you like a four-year-old ("STar Trek - The Next Generation", for example), buy this DVD NOW!!!

Can you tell from that that I think Star Trek is inane, spoon-fed pivel aimed at children with all the substance of steam?

TNG, and Star Trek in general, is a vision of the future we would all like to see..humans are not separated by race, religion, etc. Why is that so wrong? Because of its popularity, TNG paved the way for the great SciFi that's on the air now. The Whedon series may not have been given a chance to grow if it had not been for Star Trek.

Trekkie,Browncoat,Leaper,MSTie

But this series was not given the chance to grow!

hmph thanks a lot star trek!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
MAL: This is my scrap of nowhere. You go on and find your own.
SAFFRON: You can't just leave me here, on this
lifeless piece of crap moon...
MAL: Sure I can.
SAFFRON: I'll die.
MAL: Well, as a courtesy, you might start
getting busy on that, cause all this
chatter ain't doin' me any kindness.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 8:51 AM

INSIGHT SPINNER

ACT -- don't REACT!!

Whoa whoa whoa, there Mayday and everyone else reacting to that awful review. You are welcome to hate Trek, but don't hate all over the Amazon reviews -- it's bad form and makes us look small.

I think you failed to read what was really going on for the reviewer cited by our Browncoat colleague. It is not so much a Trek lover as a moral poser and hater of anything that goes against their personal/religious/adopted doctrine. No doubt, this person was irked by some of the things that we find most interesting about FF.

Imagine how this sits with you if you are not a thinking person -- a whore is relabeled Companion and elevated to having high status within society. [This person probably has no knowledge of the role of women as temple dancers, etc. etc. in our "real" human history.]

Our heros are criminals and thugs. [The crimes they commit -- or don't -- become examples of the depraved state of society run amok and not vehicles to allow us to be brought into the characters and relationships. Violence is portrayed as the ultimate solution (even for that preacher and the crazy girl!!).]

Religon is eschewed or corrupted or cast aside and the portrayals of human evil are show to excess. [Not only did they make those who believe in chapter and verse scripture look like witch hunters, the preacher is being corrupted and the crazy girl is defiling the holy word...maybe she IS a witch and the show creator is in league with demons....]

And...if that wasn't bad enough, there be Lesbians!! [Oh...you get the point already!!]

Really...I think this person is one who is totally devoted to a particular moral viewpoint and would reject anything that crossed that viewpoint.

I agree we should add more good reviews, but for this type of person, it is better to ignore them, because they neither share our taste, nor are likely smart enough to grasp why we like Firefly or that we can like it without wishing to live the same way. (remember, Joss hates guns, be we've got guns aplenty in Firefly.)

Firefly is Art and Entertainment -- some aren't going to like it. some will hate it. It is up to us to help find those who might like it and introduce them to the show and 'verse. The lovers among them will naturally join our ranks.

Pant, pant...must stop typing.

Sorry for any typos...I don't much cotton to editing my posts except as I go along.

BTW, I'm originally an LA ghetto girl, so as a kid I only had heard of "hos" not "whores" and had a devil of a time trying to figure out their relationship to gardening.

insight spinner
__________

Just an object. It doesn't mean what you think....

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 9:15 AM

TRACER

i didn't want the double post :( delete this please please kind admin

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 9:16 AM

TRACER

Quote:
Originally posted by rklenseth:
(In one episode the crew defends a hore-house, I mean, come on!!!). Please, do not purchase this show! A far better alternative is Star Trek: The Next Generation, which delves into some real awsome subject matter and explores issues in a way Firefly could never hope to.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

lol erm three things about that review...
1. ain't it whore-house
2.Star Trek TNG ... enough said really
3."a geek" he's in denial (and thats not the river either) if he thinks he looks cool with his Star Trek TNG T-shirt on.

i could really lay into TNG but i just don't want to go there...lowers myself to the reviewers level.
i suppose he wants Mal wearing a pastie on his forehead at least and Kaylee with some half crazed visor.

cough gimp cough cough
damn my cough.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 9:18 AM

MALICIOUS

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Ever try to get a Delawarean to do something he/she didn't have a mind to do in the first place? Nigh on impossible. Oh, well.

Planning on going to the BDM next year? I will start at Glasgow, then go to Stanton, then in Newark...by then it will be summer, so my next stop will be in Rehoboth.

Soooo looking forward to it.

Mal-licious

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 10:05 AM

ANNIK

Quote:
Originally posted by insight spinner:
ACT -- don't REACT!!

Pant, pant...must stop typing.

Sorry for any typos...I don't much cotton to editing my posts except as I go along.

BTW, I'm originally an LA ghetto girl, so as a kid I only had heard of "hos" not "whores" and had a devil of a time trying to figure out their relationship to gardening.

insight spinner

LOL! Fabulous response and I *love* your description of the hos and gardening. Living close to the local strip has ofttimes led me to consider opening our very own Heart of Gold ... perhaps I can convince our police that we're a private gardening club?

... plowing furrows ... oh my!

Cheers,
Annik
... my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 4:34 PM

INSIGHT SPINNER

Quote:
Originally posted by annik:
Quote:
Originally posted by insight spinner:
ACT -- don't REACT!!

LOL! Fabulous response and I *love* your description of the hos and gardening. Living close to the local strip has ofttimes led me to consider opening our very own Heart of Gold ... perhaps I can convince our police that we're a private gardening club?

... plowing furrows ... oh my!

Cheers,
Annik
... my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.

And...I think Book could find an appropriate quote in the good book for your endeavor about men and women and plows -- if River hasn't already edited it. LOL!

insight spinner
__________

Just an object. It doesn't mean what you think....

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 5:14 PM

DAEDALUS

Damn... I knew that would come back to haunt me.

After watching all of DS9 and loving a good deal of it, I really shouldn't have said what I did, so I appologize. It's really a matter of two things:
a) Didn't want to write another paragraph

b) I'm a tad vindictive about some of the creators' choices towards the show

I see it like this: You're totally right about the politics - mostly awesome, with great characters, and superbly designed alien races. My beef comes in where they go back and IMO wreck a lot of this. Number 1, they keep the whole Bajor thing going on too long. I know it was a tortured, occupied, and cool mystic place; but I became so tired of someone whining about Bajor in every decision. Number 2, alien mockery. They went to all the trouble of fleshing-out the ferrengi into a full blown race (With Arman Shimerman doing a *great* job IMO) and then do some horrific 'Ferrengi' episodes that turn them into a joke (Dominion get some of this too) - and not a good Jayne style one either. Finally, some one-dimensional characters really detract from the show. Things are ultimately saved by exceptional ones like Dukat Garrack, and Bashir, and admittedly the Cardassians remained cool to the last, but I just found these flaws overpowering. Often something that would start out great would dollop on the cheese-factor later on and have me cringing. Akward love stories never helped.

Bottom line: Yeah, I owe them an appology, but I still say that the flaws are a little overpowering as a whole. The series certainly has its glorious, shining moments, but overall, the tone gets messed with. I always found Next Generation to be easier to forgive, because overall, I liked the crew and ship. DS9 had times when I thought: 'hmmm Kira = Bitchy Merc-Gone-Fed, O'Brian = good-hearted Irish drunkard, Rom + Nog = bumbling fools that disgrace the show

etc. Next Gen may have used Q in excess, but they never pulled a Grand Negus humiliation act on him (The rennaissance phaser-dogs was close).

BTW, Hi!

I've been lurking these boards for a while, and have come to love this site, and the seemingly very cool people that populate it. If I rant on too much, please slap me and i'll stop.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 5:32 PM

EBONEZER

...just think to yourself, "Its just TV! We should really just relax!"

-----------------------------------
We do the hard thespian, so you don't have to.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 5:37 PM

GUNHAND

Quote:
Originally posted by ebonezer:
...just think to yourself, "Its just TV! We should really just relax!"

-----------------------------------
We do the hard thespian, so you don't have to.

That would be logical though, can't have logic interfering with cherished beliefs.

Yeah I know I haven't even argued any, because I fear winding up looking like this over some of my own deeply held Star Trek ones...

So I just sorta read and resist...hehe.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

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