Understanding the Real Opportunity by Browncoat555

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Understanding the Real Opportunity

POSTED BY: BROWNCOAT555
UPDATED: Friday, October 20, 2006 06:34
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VIEWED: 1647
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Thursday, October 19, 2006 1:33 PM

Folks (and Joss if you are out there),

I believe Firefly is some of the best television ever made. It is gritty and cerebral at the same time. The episodes have closure and yet there is time for a main story to meander through the series.

All of this you all know. But as good as the show was, I would ask that we not get too sidetracked on the Malcolm Reynolds story arc. As I see it, Mal and Company are now in an epic story that would be best played out on the silver screen...Mal and Company can never return to the small screen (the story is now at an epic level and two key crewmembers have died).

But whether Mal and Company ever return to the silver screen is of secondary concern. The real opportunity here is to realize what Joss has put on the table: THE SETTING ITSELF!!!

That's right, even more so than the new Battlestar Galactica, the Firefly universe is, arguably, the first plausible, extrasolar, sci-fi setting...teraforming every rock to be a facsimile of Earth, no aliens, no light speed jumps (everything is in one solar system), and (for the most part) no ray guns, just good old firearms. All of this makes for an incredibly high immersion factor and low-fantasy feel.

Just as the Star Trek universe gave birth to 5 subfranchises, the Firefly universe could host any number of shows...you could have anything: cop shows, soaps, spy shows, P.I. shows...ANYTHING. The setting is that good.

I really did not mind the shades of grey that Firefly confronted you with but I don't think mainstream audiences were entirely comfortable with the protagonists being thieves and whores.
Firefly was just too different to be a commercial success.

BUT THE SETTING HAS POTENTIAL ON THE SMALL SCREEN.
DON'T LET THIS SETTING DIE!!! IT MUST LIVE ON IN SOME FASHION!!! It is the best sci-fi setting to date.

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Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:15 PM

ZZETTA13

One of the reasons I feel the show has touched such a cord with folk is the reality that as the human race moves forward (500 years) there are things that don't change and in some cases actually move backward. The rim planets have only progressed to the point of the early days of the old west. Yet there may at some point be a hovercraft flying among the horses and cattle. Very fun and interesting entertainment.

Z

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Friday, October 20, 2006 1:52 AM

BROWNCOAT555

absolutely right ZZETA. the Firefly 'verse is all about the more things change, the more things stay the same.

it is a story of humanity...not the anamoly of the week.

that is why I say, I don't care if the next small screen production has little or nothing to do with Mal and Company....heck, let it be a show like CSI....just don't let that setting die...it's just too good.

it is the best extrasolar sci-fi setting to date.

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Friday, October 20, 2006 1:59 AM

DESKTOPHIPPIE

I don't see that happening. Mostly because it's Joss' universe and he simply doesn't do those kinds of shows. His argument is that he wants to do shows that 100 people love, not that 1000 people like. He doesn't want to do cop shows or lawyer shows or anything like that - he wants to create characters that change the way people see the world. And I have to say I agree with him. I don't need Firefly to be mainsteam - Buffy wasn't - I just need it to be there.

More graphics and animations available at www.desktophippie.com

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Friday, October 20, 2006 2:11 AM

BROWNCOAT555

Quote:
Originally posted by DesktopHippie:
I don't see that happening. Mostly because it's Joss' universe and he simply doesn't do those kinds of shows. His argument is that he wants to do shows that 100 people love, not that 1000 people like. He doesn't want to do cop shows or lawyer shows or anything like that - he wants to create characters that change the way people see the world. And I have to say I agree with him. I don't need Firefly to be mainsteam - Buffy wasn't - I just need it to be there.

don't get me wrong, I don't want it to be a vanilla show just ported over to his universe. no, Joss will find a way to put his signature on it.

all I am saying is that, if the next show is a little more mainstream than Firefly, I could live with it. what I don't want to live with is the end of this wonderful little 'verse of his.

Mal and Company, while they can never return as the main cast on the small screen, could still appear as cameos in the new show. Mal might end up as the governor of a small border moon, etc.

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Friday, October 20, 2006 4:28 AM

ATIGDNG

i don't agree that they couldn't return to the small screen. Sure they showed everyone miranda, but all they did was get more attention from the Alliance, and paralament are the only ones who know that anyway. personally I hope they come as a tv series.

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Friday, October 20, 2006 5:15 AM

FOLLOWMAL

Quote:
Originally posted by Browncoat555:
>>>snip<<< what I don't want to live with is the end of this wonderful little 'verse of his.

Mal and Company, while they can never return as the main cast on the small screen, could still appear as cameos in the new show. Mal might end up as the governor of a small border moon, etc.
>>>snip<<<

I don't want to live with the end of this wonderful 'Verse either.

That being said...

Firefly/Serneity is character driven and for some of us the same characters are intrinsic to our enjoyment of the show. I fully believe that Joss could write a soap opera in space, use different characters and base it in our 'Verse and I'd watch it, but I don't want that. I want Mal and company on our shiny ship.

I care about Mal and Zoe and Inara and Kaylee and Simon and River and even Jayne,
yeah.. well..Jayne.

I want to know what happens to them. Big screen or little screen.

Mal a governor? Can he govern from Serenity?

"You hold. Hold 'til I get back." Mal
Go to www.bigdamnthankyou.com and check it out!

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Friday, October 20, 2006 6:34 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

I don't think the chance of it on the small screen is gone. (As in, I do not think it has lost its ability to work there.) For two completely unrelated reasons.

The first is that if you are right, and it has become irrevocably epic then the small screen is the place epics fit. Individual movies are not epic, they can give the impression of epic the same way a well-made Italian restaurant can give the impression of Italy, but movies can not pull off epic. But you can not fit Italy in a restaurant and you can not fit an epic story into two hours. That's the reason that Lord of the Rings takes 11 hours and 22 minutes to watch. That's the reason that Sci-Fi didn't try to make Taken into a movie but instead went with a 14 hour 37 minute mini-series.

If you want to be epic (as opposed to gently hint at epic) you need to either be able to say, "I'm going to make several movies not all of which have endings," which is risky beyond reason, or take it to TV.

The second, far more important reason is this:

They can go back. There is no law that states that once one does something important they then need to keep on changing the world day after day after day. (Actually common practice says that you need to avoid doing that and tone it down otherwise you lose your zero point and get all screwy.)

If the movie did it's job, and I'm fairly sure it did, you should care about the characters. Not care about the characters when they're saving the world (er... verse) but actually care about them. If you do then scale doesn't matter. That is, by the way, the difference between character driven things and story/setting/plot/idea/[more or less anything else] driven things.

It's a simple question really, would you care if the crew starved to death? If the answer is yes then you care about their lives regardless of scale, if the answer is no then I am wrong and you are right. They can't go back to non-epicness.

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On a side note, in Life, the Universe, and Everything Arthur Dent and his friends saved the entire universe from destruction. It is hard to get more epic than that. The next book, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, is entirely about Arthur courting a girl with brief bits involving Ford and Marvin. The world is not at risk, the universe is not at risk, there is nothing major happening in any portion of the book. It is, more or less, as far from epic as you can get.

There was no problem in abrupt transition from as epic as possible to as far from epic as possible.

I suppose you could argue that is because those are humorous, but I think it is more about the difference in scale, and the fact that there really is none.

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