Serenity based on Starhunter 2300 "Siren's Song"? by Vexem

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Serenity based on Starhunter 2300 "Siren's Song"?

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POSTED BY: VEXEM
UPDATED: Friday, May 13, 2011 06:28
SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/kQbZ92
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Friday, April 29, 2011 6:17 PM

I wanted to post on this and found this old thread:
http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=24622

Starhunter (Starhunter 2300) "Siren's Song" lists an original air date of 11/22/2000 according to Hulu.

Additional data:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340491/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0021091/filmoseries#tt0250750

Basically you have a somewhat odd kung-fu wielding female that is trying to get to Miranda where some bad experiments went wrong and FUBARed the local population.

Given that this Starhunter episode predates Firefly by 2 years and Serenity by 5 years, it is hard to believe that there is not some kind of link. If the similarities are mostly or entirely coincidence, then that is kinda wild and makes me wonder if there is some common source that both writers drew inspiration from - some story, fable, or other show that might be interesting to check out.

I meant to investigate the credits of Serenity to look for any links, but did not get to it yet. The Starhunter episode was written by Nelu Ghiran and directed by Patrick Malakian. Producers and other seemingly key people were Le Sabre, Danial D'or, G. Philip Jackson, Stefan Jones, Suzanne Chapman, and Elaine Scott.

In the old thread a few people were saying that Starhunter ripped off Firefly / Serenity, but as I stated above Starhunter predates even Firefly by several years.

As far as characters: the core characters in Starhunter do seem similar to Mal, Zoe, and Kaylee. The Percy character seems even cuter than Kaylee (IMO, especially in "Peer Pressure" when the ship AI generates holograms of her dancing).

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Sunday, May 8, 2011 12:52 PM

PASSENGER

Well... IMDb says this show was aired an year letter 2003-2004, and probably the list in the the Tanya Allen's profile is wrong. About the Serenity thing you might be right, though i've heard Joss had that (Miranda and stuff) idea from the very beginning.

Anyway i will try Starhunter for sure. :-) Thanks for sharing.

------------------------
I did some digging to figure out what was with the strange years, and it came out the first season was indeed aired 2000-2001. So you might be right. :-)

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 5:43 PM

VEXEM

The copyright at end of the episode's credits is 2000, so IMDB has it wrong.

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Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:31 AM

BYTEMITE

They both draw from the Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World, which is about science being used to create a perfectly pacified population. All three have the science go wrong in different ways, however.

In Brave New World, the society itself is dystopic because it reduces human potential into banality.

In Serenity, the experimental population becomes too pacified and die off, except for a resistant portion of the population.

Starhunter sounds like it involves clones and aliens, and the cloning part of it seems more along the lines of a organ harvesting plot.

It also has Raiders, but I can't find out much about them. It sounds like they don't have THAT much in common with Reavers... Seeing how they raised a main character as opposed to eating them.

"Oh brave new world, that has such people in it" ~ The quote that inspired the dystopian novel, said by the character Miranda, The Tempest, Shakespeare.

So basically, it's a common literary reference, and doesn't necessarily imply one story ripped off another. Toss a dart and you'll find the name Miranda used as a sci-fi reference SOMEWHERE.

As for the characters... They're archetypes.

The ship captain trying to escape the pain of civilization and his memories has been around since Captain Nemo. A roguish chaotic good type criminal hero fighting abuse of authority has been around since before Robin Hood; a space ship robin hood type captain has been around since Han Solo and maybe earlier. The perky female mechanic evolved from the calm and stoic bridge bunny eye candy in an effort to give women more interesting and active roles. These ideas are ubiquitous, you could accuse people of ripping off others but they're part of the foundation of the literary genre.

Eventually at some point ideas have to become fair game for other people to put their own twist on it without it being called a rip-off. Otherwise nothing new would ever be written.

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Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:37 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by Vexem:
The copyright at end of the episode's credits is 2000, so IMDB has it wrong.

Not necessarily. The copyright date would be from when it was completed. It may have aired long after that. (ETA: Though after checking around, it does seem that you have the correct date)

I had the DVDs of the series, but found it so terrible that I only made it through 2 episodes before I gave up and gave it away.

"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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Friday, May 13, 2011 6:28 AM

1EYEDCAT

Quote:
Originally posted by Vexem:
As far as characters: the core characters in Starhunter do seem similar to Mal, Zoe, and Kaylee.

You can trace the origins of the Firefly crew back as far as Joss Whedon's script for Alien: Resurrection in 1997. That movie featured a mercenary crew that included a girl mechanic, a Jayne-like character, a captain romantically
involved with his pilot and a Black first mate. The last 3 could easily morph into Mal, Wash and Zoe. Clearly, Firefly had been germinating in Whedon's mind for some time. The similarities could be put down to the common influences on much science fiction film; e.g., Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner.

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