Serenity Ticket Sales Hurt By Broken Rule? by two

People need to adjust their attention to the ART, not vica versa. I like 2001, and I like Star Wars. Both feature different ends of the editing spectrum.
Look at Superman & Lethal Weapon 2- the editing pace varies in those flicks QUITE a bit.
Movies that do not jar you in any significant way in terms of pacing are just comfortable neural candy. Does that seem right to you?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 1:43 PM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Two, you've made assertions of this type before, and every time you do I will reply thusly.

Serenity's failure at the box office was not because people did not like what they saw on the screen, (editing, character fates, whatever) but rather because there were not enough people that paid to see it in the first place.

You can dislike it and say whatever you want about the film, but as a long-time student of motion pictures I can tell you that without a doubt in my mind Joss hit a home run on his first try in the big leagues. In fact the editing was one of the best things about it.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 1:56 PM

FEARTHEBUNNYMAN

Yah I had never even heard of Serenity until a couple years ago. Lack of marketing, lack of familiarity with the show it came from (which also had no marketing - I don't recall hearing a thing about Firefly when it was on either) is what killed the box office. POS films have huge box offices all the time b/c they market the heck out of them and people will go see something they've heard of regardless of quality. If no one hears about or film or TV show they aren't going to buy a ticket when they are at the theater deciding what to see, and they obviously won't know to go out of their way to see it in the first place.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 2:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
In fact the editing was one of the best things about it.

Lisa is great, no?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 2:44 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Nah, I don't buy it.

Lack of marketing and trying a little too hard to bridge between devoted and would-be browncoats didn't help, there's a couple places where if you hadn't seen the series, you were gonna be a bit lost - but for the budget and effort it was a damned nice try.

As for that "theory" - yanno, that's the stupidity behind something that annoys me greatly, cause a lot of mainstream music (especially club-mix) is computer-produced with similar software, and theoretically, IF that concept is true, it should sell like hotcakes.

But it don't.

Not because of "piracy" or poor marketing, but because it's got no heart, no fire, it's nothing but a stale drone of homogenized go-se, and while you might get the horde of pre-programmed teeny boppers to buy it if you shill it hard enough, IT DOESN'T ROCK.

Gene Simmons had to lecture one potential replacement Guitarist for KISS, that yes, wild riffs sound kinda cool here and there, but music, art, really, is about human expression, not skill and speed, and if you put heart, soul and decent lyrics behind a standard issue 4/4, you can make it rock the house, versus your angry bee guitar solo with no spirit at all cause you're just tryin too hard to impress.

I mean, according to this theory, throwing down a C-D-E Power Riff should send people running for the exits...

They don't seem to be headed for the exit to me, how bout you ?
THAT is art, it's rooted in our humanity, something computers do not, and never likely will, have - try having your computer engage an audience like this, neh ?

So!
*snaps fingers*
THAT for your precious theory!

-Frem

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 3:01 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Two, you've made assertions of this type before, and every time you do I will reply thusly.

Serenity's failure at the box office was not because people did not like what they saw on the screen, (editing, character fates, whatever) but rather because there were not enough people that paid to see it in the first place.

You can dislike it and say whatever you want about the film, but as a long-time student of motion pictures I can tell you that without a doubt in my mind Joss hit a home run on his first try in the big leagues. In fact the editing was one of the best things about it.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

I'm two and I loved Serenity. I saw it 4 times at the theatre, twice as many times as my next most frequently seen movie, StarWars, the one reissued in 1990's. I was buying friends tickets and meals so they would come and see Serenity with me. I thought it odd that my friends were not as impressed with the movie. They enlightened to me, which is what friends do.

ecgordon, you don't know what think you know. Joss hit a double, not a home run. Don't get carried away with love for Serenity.

Serenity was Joss Whedon's very first movie as a director. He was a beginner. StarWars was not George Lucas' first major film. Lucas worked and reworked the early and very bad StarWars scripts over and over for years to make a beauty. Joss Whedon had several movie scripts before Serenity. It shows because he got his finished in months. Great script, too, different than what got made. That 190 page script had a serious trimming because of the small budget. Small production budget, small advertisement budget and small audience kind of all go together.

ecgordon, exclusively for you I painstakingly took a xerox of Joss Whedon's script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, and turned it into an Adobe Reader pdf file. Go and Read:
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

That script would have cost twice as much to make, but it would have been a smashing hit. We would be seeing Serenity 3 this summer, if only there had been more money in the Universal Pictures budget for Serenity...

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 3:11 PM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

I've read the original script but I don't agree it is a better one. My argument was that the editing cannot be what doomed Serenity because there were not enough people who saw it who would have disliked the editing enough to spread negative word about the film. Serenity failed solely because not enough people saw it in the theater. Period. Exclamation Point! Underlined. Got that now?

And Serenity is better than Star Wars in many ways, just not box office appeal.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 4:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
I've read the original script but I don't agree it is a better one. My argument was that the editing cannot be what doomed Serenity because there were not enough people who saw it who would have disliked the editing enough to spread negative word about the film. Serenity failed solely because not enough people saw it in the theater. Period. Exclamation Point! Underlined. Got that now?

And Serenity is better than Star Wars in many ways, just not box office appeal.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

Your argument (Serenity failed to make enough money because people did not spend enough money buying tickets) is called a tautology. Sadly, I'm home on a Saturday night, so I can argue. From wiki: In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice. It is often regarded as a fault of style...

A few things that my friends who are smarter than me didn't like about Serenity. Some of these problems could have been fixed with more money.

1) Jayne walking on his leg after being speared by Reavers. Myriam, who spent a week in the hospital after breaking a bone there, said she couldn't believe it.
2) The Operative's pinch of death on Doctor Mathias' love-handle. That pinch doesn't exist because nobody's body works like that, unless they are aliens.
3) Mal's quick-draw on the Operative: Afterward, why did Mal turn his back on the Operative? Why not kill the Op immediately? Even dumb me noticed the first time I saw the movie. If you read the original 190 page script you will see why Mal was forced by his location to turn his back. Budget restraints changed the setting. Mal and the Op were so close Mal could spit in the Op's face! The script should have been revised or more money should have been used to build a bigger set.
4) Jayne's drunken plan to put River on the shuttle. Who would believe that the shuttle will be able to speed away faster than Serenity can follow? The original 190 page script had a much more sensible and exciting plan for Jayne to give River to the Alliance.
5) Once the Alliance had their guns on River, the story ended 30 seconds later. It can't end now! That's too rushed! It needed to be stretched out another minute because this is the best part of the movie. I wrote how I would do it while keeping the ending exactly the same: http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=12835
It would cost more money, but the better the ending, the more tickets sold.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 5:43 PM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Talk about a tautology. You can spin it any way you like, but I know my opinion is sufficient for me. You are saying that not enough people bought tickets to Serenity because it didn't adhere to the most efficient editing structure. How would they know that if they hadn't seen it, and if they saw it they must have bought a ticket, right?

Check back through the thread and see how many people agreed with you. In order for your theory to be correct many people who were dissatisfied with the film would have had to bad-mouth it to many others, or its faults would had to have been pointed out in negative critical reviews. At the time of its release Serenity had something like a 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so most reviews were positive.

The fact of the matter is that not enough people were aware of Firefly, and thus not enough anticipating Serenity, or else they knew Firefly had been canceled and figured it couldn't be a very good story. You must be aware that a lot of current Firefly/Serenity fans didn't come aboard until after the BDM was released to DVD, and had not been aware of the series until then as well.

How could people not like the film and not buy tickets for it due to bad editing if they didn't see it in the theater to begin with? You have not answered that question yet.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010 8:24 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Brainwashing formula does work on the masses of sheeple, who only watch it one time. Trance state allows NLP of subliminals.

Intelligent students, however, look deeper, and often.

I still say Fox sabotaged it due to MKULTRA content, and forshadowing of the NWO's merger of USA and Commie China. Fox is 1/2 owned by Commie China since 1999, when Rupert Murdoch married Deng Wen Di.

River was successfully deprogrammed and was a succesful whistleblower, topics that are generally verboten. Whistleblowers are supposed to die horrible deaths, to deter future whistleblowing (Manchurian Candidate, which was purchased and blacklisted by CIA/Mafiosi Frank Sinatra). CIA's Project Monarch slaves are supposed to die at age 30, or remain sleepers. Deprogrammed, they raise heck like Cathy O'Brien. Mind control, and how to beat it, is Joss' fav script...

Hollywood is funded for its predictive programming, which now is about the End Of The World, extinction of the human race, and rise of the New World Odor global dictatorship. Serenity killed the NWO, something that's not supposed to happen. Can't be givin hope to the unwashed masses. Especially with seccession a daily topic in the news today. The South just might rise again! Even Justice Scalia mentioned it this week, threatening Civil War if States quit the Union.

The only reason FF and Serenity were allowed to exist was because they do stick to the script of predictive programming. But they deviated enough to get spanked by the studios.

This same game is played in every workplace. Try talking polyticks to bosses and customers and see how soon you get fired, passed over for promotion, or assigned a dead-end job.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 4:41 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
...You have not answered that question yet.

I'm too cocksure to answer. Someone else already wrote the answer. Read “Second guessing Serenity” at
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing-continu
ed.html This explains how movies work.

Joss Whedon could learn from James Cameron's mistakes. There are reasons why Avatar cost seven times more than Serenity to make. It wasn't just the 3D technology and motion capture. It cost what Serenity cost to fix what got screwed up in Cameron's Avatar script.

Avatar had some gut churning/vomit inducing mistakes. These got fixed late in the production. If the mistakes hadn't been removed, they would have hurt ticket sales. Imagine a rental car that has a cat turd on the rear passenger seat. Wouldn't you return to the clerk and ask for another car? I hope you would not ignore it, even if you're not sitting on the tiny turd. To some people, little things like that make a big difference in rental cars and movies. You can still see the mistakes that could have been left in the finished Avatar movie, but weren't, by reading http://www.foxscreenings.com/media/pdf/JamesCameronAVATAR.pdf
Page 136 WAINFLEET cuts Tsu’tey's queue off near the base. Very nasty.
TSU’TEY SCREAMS in agony, his nervous system exploding on overload.
Page 143 Trudy dies in kamikaze run. I have a low opinion of kamikazes. The Japanese would admire it, but who else would?
These are mistakes that James Cameron could have ignored by pretending everything was good enough and it is the audience's fault when his movie brings in only $800,000,000 around the world because of the ( mixed metaphor ) cat turds still in the back seat of Avatar. Joss Whedon could learn from James Cameron's corrected mistakes.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 4:55 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Side issue -

I think the advertising for TBDM left something to be desired. Bus stop poster ads would have been a perfect fit for some of the major markets, big cities and major university areas where much of the population uses mass transit.

Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 5:10 AM

EVILDINOSAUR

I disagree, the opening shot to Serenity is one of my favorite shots in any move ever. I love how unique it is. When I go to the movies, I'm not looking to see the same thing that I've seen hundreds of times before, maybe that's why I don't care for most of the crap thats in the theaters these days, Avatar included.

"Haha, mine is an evil laugh."

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 5:47 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Your argument (Serenity failed to make enough money because people did not spend enough money buying tickets) is called a tautology.

...while you are looking up big words on Wikipedia, perhaps you should also look up "straw man":

Quote:
To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

The actual argument (from ecgordon) was:

Quote:

Serenity's failure at the box office was not because people did not like what they saw on the screen, (editing, character fates, whatever) but rather because there were not enough people that paid to see it in the first place.

Serenity was a hard sell (based on a canceled TV series, no big-name actors) and the studio failed to promote it vigorously enough outside the Firefly fanbase. Where they did promote it, they relied too much on "By the creator of Buffy and Angel" (which many potential punters would see as kids shows) and (in the UK, at least) the posters made it look like "Buffy in space" and although there were a few TV ads, they stopped as soon as the film was actually released (duh!) - c.f. the latest teen gross-out comedy where you'll see TV ads showing people coming out of the cinema raving about it.

My (admittedly high-risk) solution would have been to stick with the original release date and put it up against Star Wars III in the summer - then encourage the media to pick up the "David vs. Golliath" angle and turn it into a "story".

There's a reason why they don't release big films in November...

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 5:57 AM

DALILABA

Can I just say that when I saw Serenity on opening night there were only about 15 people in the theater. I never saw any adds for it on TV, and although it did get good reviews,there was very little buzz in the media.
Poor marketing killed Serenity.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 6:16 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by EvilDinosaur:
I disagree, the opening shot to Serenity is one of my favorite shots in any move ever. I love how unique it is. When I go to the movies, I'm not looking to see the same thing that I've seen hundreds of times before, maybe that's why I don't care for most of the crap thats in the theaters these days, Avatar included.

"Haha, mine is an evil laugh."

Was that the Universal Studios world symbol changing into a real earth with spaceships being launched? I liked that but I liked much better the first scene with Serenity approaching the atmosphere, trailing flames. Everything before that was a "Previously on Firefly" recap of past episodes. This was the true beginning of Serenity.

Me and the critics don't think Avatar is crap.
The Rotten Egg rating and Worldwide box office:
94% Good Hair $4,154,249
89% Zombieland $102,053,484
82% Avatar $2,394,949,760
81% Serenity $38,869,464
20% Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $835,274,255

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 6:18 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by dalilaba:
Can I just say that when I saw Serenity on opening night there were only about 15 people in the theater. I never saw any adds for it on TV, and although it did get good reviews,there was very little buzz in the media.
Poor marketing killed Serenity.

You should read “Second guessing Serenity” at
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing-continu
ed.html which explains:
A lot of comments on my earlier post and on Whedonesque claim that Serenity underperformed because of bad marketing.

I have to disagree. $25M box office means the film got out there. There were enough people who saw it for it to have great word of mouth, had they felt like telling their friends. Much as I am a huge fan of Joss, and the Jossverse, and Firefly, the movie did not work that well for the mainstream audience. Or it would have been a sleeper hit.

You can say (and some do), "Anecdotally, non-Browncoats liked the movie." But either they did not like it enough to recommend it to other Firefly non-fans; or when they told you they liked it, they were just being nice.

Great marketing gets you a great opening weekend. It cannot make a flop into a hit. (Film marketers like to point to a great opening weekend, followed by a severe drop-off, as evidence that they successfully sold a piece of crap. Any fool can market a good movie.)

To a certain extent, bad marketing on a good movie means that the theaters will bump the movie, and it can get squeezed out of the marketplace. But exhibitors make a much higher percentage of box office the longer a movie runs. If I remember correctly, the movie theater gives the studio 50% of the opening weekend's take, but eventually the percentage works its way down to as low as 10%. That gives theater owners a huge incentive to support a sleeper. Serenity was out there for at least a month; certainly long enough for word of mouth to reverse any failure to get the cast on Leno, or any weaknesses in the trailer, or what have you.

Everyone likes to blame weak marketing when their film flops. But 20th Century Fox famously "dumped" a little movie called Star Wars, and it was not until the overwhelming audience reaction in a few college towns (like Cambridge, MA) that they mounted a decent ad campaign. (I knew a guy who managed a theater in Harvard Square. Fox had so little faith in the movie they refused to let him hold the movie over after the preview screenings. He mortgaged his house and bought Fox stock. He knew. They didn't.) If a half million people see your film opening weekend, you can't blame marketing for its subsequent failure. How many people saw The Full Monty on opening weekend? Was it even a hundred thousand? It went on to make a hundred million dollars.

Whether Serenity is a good movie or not is a matter of taste; probably it has a lot to do with your tolerance of, or love for, space opera. It's also a matter of perspective. Blade Runner flopped but has become a classic, casting a spell on two decades worth of dystopian futures. If Serenity winds up influencing science fiction movies to come, then we can say that it was a great movie even if it didn't blow the roof off the box office. However, if you believe that it "ought to have been" a popular movie, and failed only because the studio didn't back Joss, then you are misunderstanding the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience. Writers (and their fans) are not entitled to say "They ought to have liked it." Or, if they do, it's just not useful. It's like a comedian who says, "Well, I was just over their heads." If they don't laugh, it's not funny.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice. It is often regarded as a fault of style...

LOL, is the English lesson over for today?
Wow, a little knowledge is certainly a dangerous thing, eh?

Serenity failed because of TWO things. As Ec stated, not enough ticket sales. Then there's the Blade Runner syndrome. Did peeps bounce out of the theatre all revved up & happy? No. Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back had been the first Star Wars movie. The series would have ended right there.

Serenity was a phenomenal flick. Just poorly advertised & a little dark.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:

How could people not like the film and not buy tickets for it due to bad editing if they didn't see it in the theater to begin with?

They must have checked on http/isthisfilmeditedbythenumbers.com

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:42 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

... Serenity was a phenomenal flick. Just poorly advertised & a little dark.
The laughing Chrisisall

And Avatar wasn't “dark”? Did the fluorescent colors confuse you? Did you notice all those people that died? They had names. They weren't just “Red Shirt #1 to #99” Did you notice that Jake's brother died violently? Did you notice that Jake did not wake up from his coma? Did you notice that Dr. Grace Augustine died doing what Jake was doing at the end of Avatar? In StarWars, did you notice that Luke's aunt and uncle were burnt corpses? All those pilots shot down attacking the Death Star? I'm fairly sure you are not suppose to forget the deaths. That is what makes the victory sweet. Otherwise the victory in the movie is as unimportant as a victory in a high school football game, ten years later.

Calling Serenity “dark” doesn't explain low ticket sales for Serenity.

And it is a childish myth that poor marketing doomed Serenity. “Second guessing Serenity” at
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing-continu
ed.html
Everyone likes to blame weak marketing when their film flops. But 20th Century Fox famously "dumped" a little movie called Star Wars, and it was not until the overwhelming audience reaction in a few college towns (like Cambridge, MA) that they mounted a decent ad campaign. (I knew a guy who managed a theater in Harvard Square. Fox had so little faith in the movie they refused to let him hold the movie over after the preview screenings. He mortgaged his house and bought Fox stock. He knew. They didn't.) If a half million people see your film [Serenity] opening weekend, you can't blame marketing for its subsequent failure. How many people saw The Full Monty on opening weekend? Was it even a hundred thousand? It went on to make a hundred million dollars.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:

And Avatar wasn't “dark”?

No. Because it sent you out of the theatre HAPPY.

Quote:

And it is a childish myth that poor marketing doomed Serenity.

And it's a childish belief on your part that you alone possess all the answers.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:50 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:

And Avatar wasn't “dark”?
No. Because it sent you out of the theatre HAPPY.
Quote:

And it is a childish myth that poor marketing doomed Serenity.
And it's a childish belief on your part that you alone possess all the answers.

The laughing Chrisisall

It's not me with the answers. It is Alex Epstein. Go look at his blog.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:56 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back had been the first Star Wars movie. The series would have ended right there.

For that matter, imagine if the original "Star Wars" had been pulled from cinemas after only a few weeks...

...or what if Star Wars had come out after DVDs and widescreen TVs. Would people have queued to see it time and time again if they'd known that the DVD would be out in a few months?

Of course, what we don't know is exactly how much money Serenity made on DVD. Or how many Firefly DVD sets it sold (they certainly shot back up the Amazon charts when the movie came out). Of course, the Firefly DVD money would have gone to Fox, not Universal - had it been otherwise I suspect that we'd have seen Serenity 2.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 8:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
It's not me with the answers. It is Alex Epstein. Go look at his blog.

Oh, so it's your leader's ideas you express.
Sorry, free-thinkers here. Sheep would be elsewhere.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 8:18 AM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

An after the fact assessment of Serenity's failure at the box office cannot tell us why people did not go to see it initially. I read many reviews before the fact and I don't recall one of them mentioning an editing issue, in fact many had very good things to say about the opening sequences.

The only other thing I'm gonna say on the subject is something I've already said. Look back through the thread and see how many people agreed with you (or your impeccable source) and how many agreed with me.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 8:27 AM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Okay, I lied. I'm gonna say one more thing.

Two, for someone who says they liked Serenity and bought many tickets to see it for yourself and others, you seem to be going out of your way to say bad things about it and why it underperformed.

Four and a half years after its release is hardly the time to be harping on this. What the fuck difference does it make now? It's not like Uni is going to give Joss the chance to go back and edit his film for re-release, and I am positive he wouldn't do that even if they wanted him to. He has stated on numerous occasions that Serenity as released on September 30, 2005 is the film as he wanted it to be. Let's leave it at that.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 9:35 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
It's not me with the answers. It is Alex Epstein. Go look at his blog.

Oh, so it's your leader's ideas you express.
Sorry, free-thinkers here. Sheep would be elsewhere.

The laughing Chrisisall

Alex Epstein is not my leader. He does write screenplays that are produced. His opinion counts for something because he has experience in the movies. You can actually know the man. http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/

Epstein wrote about Serenity
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing.html
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing-continu
ed.html

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 9:38 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
... What the fuck difference does it make now?...

You are tired and cranky today. For chrisisall, google lists 5,060 entries at fireflyfans.net For ecgordon, 2,390
Why not rest your fingers? You don't have much to show for all that effort. It is not in your profiles:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=chrisisall
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=ecgordon

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 11:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Alex Epstein is not my leader. He does write screenplays that are produced. His opinion counts for something because he has experience in the movies.

Umm.... have you SEEN any of the (4) movies he's written?

No, I didn't thinks so. Most peeps haven't.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 11:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
For chrisisall, google lists 5,060 entries at fireflyfans.net For ecgordon, 2,390
Why not rest your fingers? You don't have much to show for all that effort. It is not in your profiles:

I'm gonna take the liberty of speaking for Ec here as well as myself and offer up a polite *effue*.

BTW, YOUR profile leads me to believe you have no life at all outside hating on Serenity...

Quote:
two
The 190 page Serenity script where Wash lives is at www.mediafire.com/two

Also, the Joss Whedon script is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf

Second guessing Serenity is at
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/07/second-guessing-continu
ed.html

Shall I take THIS as all you are as well?

See how polite I'm being? I think I've grown.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 1:28 PM

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
You are tired and cranky today.

I used the F word for emphasis. Even though there have been other unrelated things happening today to make me a bit cranky, you certainly have made it much easier to get totally pissed off.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 3:19 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Alex Epstein is not my leader. He does write screenplays that are produced. His opinion counts for something because he has experience in the movies.
Umm.... have you SEEN any of the (4) movies he's written?

No, I didn't thinks so. Most peeps haven't.

The laughing Chrisisall

I saw Epstein's Bon Cop, Bad Cop [2006] on a disc from Netflix www.imdb.com/title/tt0479647/
A cop-buddy movie in Canada. 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, $12,735,126
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10007333-bon_cop_bad_cop/
www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=boncopbadcop.htm

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 4:09 PM

GWEK

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back had been the first Star Wars movie. The series would have ended right there.

I must respectfully disagree. When I saw Star Wars in 1977, I loved the movie and hoped that the series would continue. When I saw ESB in 1980, I loved the movie and NEEDED for the series to continue. In my lifetime, I don't think there has been ANY piece of fiction (movie, TV show, book, comic, whatever) that stoked the fires like ESB.

Now, on the main point... At this point, does it much matter when SERENITY failed? What matters is that it DID fail, and that we've been denied sequels. :(

All the discussion in the world will not change the box office take.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 4:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GWEK:

I must respectfully disagree.

My point was, that The Original Star Wars movie was SO upbeat at the end, that the darkness of TESB could be tolerated.
Coming seemingly out of nowhere to most movie-goers, Serenity was an immediate downer, and word-of-mouth recommendations to folk wanting nothing but a good time might have been a little thin.
The solid fan-base was there, but the new-to-the-Verse peeps were flimsy at best.
IMO.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 5:15 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

On a completely unrelated to this discussion note

Chris knows what I mean

now back you regularly scheduled movie conversation

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 5:20 PM

GWEK

Yeah, I got your point. I don't necessarily see the comparison, though. I think the "darkness" of ESB is "tolerable" because it's a better movie.

The very existence of SERENITY of an amazing feat (done the impossible, indeed), but the movie that resulted was hampered by having to serve two totally different audiences in two different ways (both the hard-core fans and those who had never heard of FIREFLY). By dividing its attention, it does a decent job, but not a spectacular one.

I would further posit that SERENITY's failure (as well as that of FIREFLY) has a lot to do with timing. While SOME movies are timeless, the fantastic black-and-white universe of STAR WARS would not have faired partcularly well in, say, 1985 (nor would the world have been ready for Quentin Tarantino). I have a strong inkling that if FIREFLY were on the air today, it would do much better when the American audience of 2010 than with the American audience of 2002.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:23 PM

Nope. The theory might apply if lots of people had seen the movie, and didn't like it. But that's not the case. Not many saw it, and thus could not be effected by the editing of the film.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Monday, February 22, 2010 4:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Two, for someone who says they liked Serenity and bought many tickets to see it for yourself and others, you seem to be going out of your way to say bad things about it and why it underperformed.

Four and a half years after its release is hardly the time to be harping on this. What ... difference does it make now?...

Why am I critical of Serenity?
Imagine I am chauffeuring Serenity, Joss Whedon's precocious 5 year old child, to her first day at her new school. As she waves bye-bye to her Daddy, I tell her to take off the Jayne Hat. “It is hot outside, dear,” I'll say. I don't say that the other children will mock her hat. Serenity is the same adorable child that Joss created, but without a hat she looks better. Before I let Serenity out of the limousine at school, I help her blow her cute little nose. What a beautiful child. But those green boogers... Yikes!

Joss pays me what my critical service is worth. Nothing. If you love Serenity way too much, you don't notice her snot or her goofy hat. For some reason I visualize little Serenity Whedon to look like Summer Glau when she was five.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 22, 2010 7:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by GWEK:

I must respectfully disagree.
My point was, that The Original Star Wars movie was SO upbeat at the end, that the darkness of TESB could be tolerated.
Coming seemingly out of nowhere to most movie-goers, Serenity was an immediate downer, and word-of-mouth recommendations to folk wanting nothing but a good time might have been a little thin.
The solid fan-base was there, but the new-to-the-Verse peeps were flimsy at best.
IMO.

The laughing Chrisisall

That tracks more to the marketing than the film itself, though.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Monday, February 22, 2010 7:59 AM

Story, let's say Wash lived, and the broadwaved message destroyed the Alliance Parliament, and our BDH's got medals from the new, freedom & independence-loving government...
Tell me THAT wouldn't have caused more ticket sales.

Happy-happy sells IMO.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Monday, February 22, 2010 9:05 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Story, let's say Wash lived, and the broadwaved message destroyed the Alliance Parliament, and our BDH's got medals from the new, freedom & independence-loving government...
Tell me THAT wouldn't have caused more ticket sales.

Happy-happy sells IMO.

The laughing Chrisisall

Believability sells better than happy-happy.

If you refuse to acknowledge that making a movie more believable means more tickets sold, stop reading now. Go away. Never come back. If you believe that Avatar would have sold as many tickets if the animation techniques were used from Disney's Pinocchio 70th Anniversary Edition, please stop reading.

The Operative kills three men in front of Doctor Mathias' nervous young female intern, then he tells the intern, “I'll need all the logs on behavioral modification triggers.” Do you believe she really is going to be able to do that after 3 murders? You know perfectly well that a real intern will piss herself and faint dead away. I would after seeing my boss and two security guards cut down with a sword. All by itself, the security guard's loud gunshot noise indoors would loosen my bowels. (Maybe if the Operative quietly killed only my obnoxious boss, I'd be cheering, but you get my point.)

The movie audience senses subconsciously that nobody acts like the Operative expects the intern to act -- able to find River's records and extract what the Operative needs. Here is how the screenplay could have fixed the intern problem and, as a bonus, the Operative turns into a bigger, badder bad-ass, which also means more tickets sold.

The movie changes when Doctor Mathias sarcastically says, “Unfortunately I forgot to bring a sword.”
The Operative replies, “We should continue in private. I have a message from Parliament exclusively for you.” I love sneaky villains.
Doctor Mathias says to the intern, “Bring tea.” She exists. The Operative and Doctor close the conference door with the bodyguards outside.
The Operative kills Doctor Mathias.
The Operative opens the conference room door. He is holding the bloody sword. The bodyguards draw guns.
The Operative intimidates the guards. “This secret facility is closed. You will never work again if it becomes known that Doctor Mathias died while you were protecting him.”
If you don't like excessive violence, both guards put away their guns. There can be some non-verbal interplay between the guards as they decide money is more important than loyalty or duty... Or one guard puts away his gun and the Operative kills the other guard. Your preference.
The Operative tells a guard, “Treat Doctor Mathias' body with respect. He was a good man. Make it look accidental.” They lock the door on the conference room. The intern returns with tea for the Operative, who then says, “I'll need all the logs on behavioral modification triggers.” The movie continues as before.

I am volunteering to be script doctor for Serenity 2 . I work for free. Just to see the script before production starts is reward enough.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 22, 2010 10:14 AM

That re-write would work well for a Bond movie, I suppose.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Monday, February 22, 2010 10:35 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
That re-write would work well for a Bond movie, I suppose.

The laughing Chrisisall

Hurray for me! You must believe I could be a script doctor for Serenity 2 because the last James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, made $586,090,727 Worldwide. I will not let you down if I get the doctoring job. I promise that because Serenity 2 makes a fortune, it will be immediately followed by a Serenity 3 !!! www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=jamesbond22.htm

And Quantum of Solace did not have a happy ending but made money, Money, MONEY, anyway.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 22, 2010 11:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:

And Quantum of Solace did not have a happy ending but made money, Money, MONEY, anyway.

LOL, you dolt! MOONRAKER made money, MONEY.

Okay, you're like, nineteen, right? C'mon, right?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Monday, February 22, 2010 11:37 AM

STEGASAURUS

Unfortunately, Two, you suffer from the same problem that many movie-goers and fans of certain franchises have: you seem to think you can do a better job of telling a story than the original creator can.

Here's the thing. You can't. It's not your story to tell - it's Joss's, so you'll never tell it better. Everyone that I know that has seen either Firefly or Serenity have either enjoyed or loved the stories. Of course, taking into account that birds of a feather and all that, I realize not everyone will have a positive reaction like those I know, and you seem to fall into that category.

Dislike the story teller/telling if that's your choice, but understand that on the fan sites, you will be little more than an annoyance than an enlightened individual with something important to say.

That's just my 2cp though.

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Monday, February 22, 2010 12:14 PM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Do you believe she really is going to be able to do that after 3 murders?

I think she's going to try really hard to avoid becoming #4. Whether her pants remained dry will remain a mystery because It Wasn't That Sort Of Film.

In other news, "realistically" in every big-box-office action movie that ever was, the entire cast - including the hero - should be in clinical shock before the end of the first reel.

Quote:

The movie changes when Doctor Mathias sarcastically says, “Unfortunately I forgot to bring a sword.”
The Operative replies, “We should continue in private.

Yeah, because that is so more cool than the Op pulling an actual sword just as the doctor finishes that sentence.

Quote:

I have a message from Parliament exclusively for you.” I love sneaky villains.
Doctor Mathias says to the intern, “Bring tea.” etc. etc. etc. waffle. waffle.

Zzzzz...

come on, we haven't even had the credits yet!

Hey! was it you who wrote the "Story So Far" crawl for Star Wars Episode 1?

Quote:

I am volunteering to be script doctor for Serenity 2 .

Methinks not. I was about to say that you might have a promising future as a Fox executive, but I wouldn't stoop quite that low

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Monday, February 22, 2010 12:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Story, let's say Wash lived, and the broadwaved message destroyed the Alliance Parliament, and our BDH's got medals from the new, freedom & independence-loving government...
Tell me THAT wouldn't have caused more ticket sales.

Happy-happy sells IMO.

The laughing Chrisisall

I highly doubt it. I don't know anyone, whether they had seen the series or not, who was badmouthing the movie as they left. There was no "it's depressing" bad word of mouth problem. It had decent word-of-mouth. And a happy ending doesn't mean a thing if no one is interested enough to show up and see it. That was where the problem lay - there was not enough interest from non-browncoats at the time or release. The ending has nothing to do with that.

Plus, that ending would have been less suspenseful (had Wash lived) and rather silly - the idea of a message instantly destroying an entire government and a blatant Star Wars rip-off to wrap it up. Other than the fan-service of Wash-lives, it would have likely led to poorer word of mouth amongst fans.

Of course, Two's theory is just as off. The opening scene wasn't a problem either, anyone who saw it was already there by then. And I have to question Two's logic, applying his/her own reaction as universal, plus assuming a history or lack of it from the woman in question.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Monday, February 22, 2010 12:28 PM