What to expect from a scifi-western? by Tieka

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What to expect from a scifi-western?

POSTED BY: TIEKA
UPDATED: Monday, July 1, 2002 17:54
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VIEWED: 2690
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Thursday, June 27, 2002 7:52 AM

I've been thinking about Joss' comment about Firefly being a western--sci-fi-whatever show and I'm wondering what we can expect. So I broke it down into parts. I'm sure other people see things differently, so maybe we can get a good disscussion going.

Western
good guys wear white hats, bad guys wear black. ----Well at least the bad guys wear grey, but I haven't seen any hats on the good guys yet.

Horses---Yep, we got them

six-shooters---yes sirre, we got them too.

vast prairies and arid landscape---From the stills I've seen so far, there aren't any tropical trees!

small towns with one sherriff who may be drunk---Uh, haven't see that yet

scifi

a new alien every week with fresh latex---JW said there aren't going to be any.

anti-gravity without explanation ---It looks like this is covered too, but maybe there is an explanation

Captain gets a new space babe every week ---Somehow, I don't think we'll see this.

Annoying/cute robot---You have to have one! No indication yet that there will be one.

Seems like I'm just waiting for the small towns, robots and explanation of gravity.

So that's my blurb on the subject. What sort of expectations do you have, and are they being met yet?

Once you've been in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there. --Firefly script

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Thursday, June 27, 2002 9:31 AM

ZICSOFT

Quote:
Annoying/cute robot---You have to have one! No indication yet that there will be one.

This only applies to Star Wars ripoffs (Battlestar Gallactica, Buck Rogers). Cmdr Data doesn't count -- he was basically just a vaudeville Vulcan.

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Saturday, June 29, 2002 3:39 AM

PEAK

I would recommend everyone who want to read a really good SF-Western to read "Santiago" by Mike Resnick...

A really, really good bok...

//Peak

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Saturday, June 29, 2002 7:15 AM

ZICSOFT

Quote:
Originally posted by Peak:
I would recommend everyone who want to read a really good SF-Western to read "Santiago" by Mike Resnick...

A really, really good bok...

//Peak

Read an exceprt here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0812522567/
reader/7/ref=lib_dp_TT01/002-6993753-9908035#reader-link

Can't say I liked it. Looks to be exactly what I'm hoping Firefly will not be -- recycling Louis Lamour in a different setting.

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Saturday, June 29, 2002 9:40 AM

PEAK

Are you basing that on reading the book or reading the excerp?... Personally, I can't stand Louis L'amour.

"Santiago" has a lot of nice twist and turns on both the SF-genre and the western-genre...

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Saturday, June 29, 2002 10:55 AM

ZICSOFT

Actually, I haven't even read Louis Lamour. I think the only western I've ever read was Destry Rides Again. Seen a lot of TV and movie Westerns though.

I guess I was just finding a cute way to say if Firefly is to succeed for me, it has to do more for me than revive an old genre in a new setting. Resnick seems to lay on the concept "this is all a kind of myth-making" concept an inch thick, like a lot of other people who've read too much Joseph Campbell. I find that kind of writing supremely boring, an unimaginative way to recycle old material.

Of course, I'm in the minority on this. Lots of people like this kind of writing. But I don't. Fortunately for me, I don't think Joss Whedon does either.

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Monday, July 1, 2002 4:21 AM

TLSMITH1963

The only thing that bothers me from interviews I've read is the "no aliens" comment. I hope they aren't afraid to put aliens in the show because it will turn off mainstream viewers who think aliens are "too weird".

Otherwise, I think it's an interesting idea for a series, & since I'm really beginning to like Buffy, I can't wait to see what Whedon does this time.

Tammy

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Monday, July 1, 2002 6:37 AM

MOJOECA

A space show without aliens is very refreshing -- it's not done very much. In this show, they don't really seem like they'd fit. It's a show about humans, human drama, human history.

Besides, I always disliked the latex humonoid aliens of sci-fi, as if nose ridges and pointed ears are going to be the only distinguishing characteristics when we ever really meet E.T.

--- Joe

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Monday, July 1, 2002 7:27 AM

ZICSOFT

Quote:
Originally posted by tlsmith1963:
The only thing that bothers me from interviews I've read is the "no aliens" comment. I hope they aren't afraid to put aliens in the show because it will turn off mainstream viewers who think aliens are "too weird".

Ha! Rather the opposite. Every TV/movie space opera has latex aliens. It's a cliche. So of course Mister Whedon had to ditch them -- he hates cliches. His biggest success, Buffy, simply takes a standard horror movie cliche -- the clueless bimbo who stands around looking decorative until The Monster can get around to snuffing her -- and turns it on its head.

Firefly will be more of the same. It's being promoted as an "Anti-Trek" show. Now, I'm an old Star Trek fan, loved it since Kirk first beamed down to M-113 and confronted the Salt Monster. But the whole concept has gotten too stale. Even shows that tried to move away from Star Trek, like B5, really haven't been that original. Which is why I'm really looking forward to Firefly.

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Monday, July 1, 2002 9:42 AM

INARASNEWTOY

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Ha! Rather the opposite. Every TV/movie space opera has latex aliens. It's a cliche. So of course Mister Whedon had to ditch them -- he hates cliches. His biggest success, Buffy, simply takes a standard horror movie cliche -- the clueless bimbo who stands around looking decorative until The Monster can get around to snuffing her -- and turns it on its head.

Firefly will be more of the same. It's being promoted as an "Anti-Trek" show. Now, I'm an old Star Trek fan, loved it since Kirk first beamed down to M-113 and confronted the Salt Monster. But the whole concept has gotten too stale. Even shows that tried to move away from Star Trek, like B5, really haven't been that original. Which is why I'm really looking forward to Firefly.

Well, i liked B5 and i love shows like Star Trek and Farscape but i agree, it is time for something new and that is what it looks like Joss is trying to do here.

Can it work? I think it can, the only hurdles i have seen here is the tendancy to go TO FAR in the Western look (the horses, the six shooters, ETC).

INT

One evil at a time, that's the best i can do - Farscape

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Monday, July 1, 2002 2:48 PM

NOVAGRASS

Quote:
Originally posted by tlsmith1963:
The only thing that bothers me from interviews I've read is the "no aliens" comment. I hope they aren't afraid to put aliens in the show because it will turn off mainstream viewers who think aliens are "too weird".

Really, the chances are *so* incredibly minute that human society will *ever* encounter an intelligent alien race even if it exists for millions of years beyond now, that any show which involves aliens is technically science fantasy rather than science fiction.

I think that the lack of aliens may be a bit of a put off for mainstream fans, simply because it's not what they expect from a sci-fi show. I hope this isn't true, and I hope the absence of alien lifeforms will actually be a draw for the mainstream viewers, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I've been waiting for an alien-free sci-fi show for an incredibly long time. Sure, I love Star Trek, and I love the politics involved between the societies... but I don't view this as a viable vision of future. Firefly will be one of the first science fiction TV series that ditches most of sci-fi TV's cliches, and I'm extrordinarily glad that Joss Whedon, my long-time idol, is doing the show I've been waiting for for so long.

--Dylan Palmer, aka NoVaGrAsS--

This one's for Furyfire...

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Monday, July 1, 2002 3:20 PM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

Quote:
Originally posted by Novagrass:
Really, the chances are *so* incredibly minute that human society will *ever* encounter an intelligent alien race even if it exists for millions of years beyond now, that any show which involves aliens is technically science fantasy rather than science fiction.

The odds are even higher still that the alien lifeform will be a biped with Homosapien features.

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Monday, July 1, 2002 5:54 PM

ZICSOFT

Quote:
Originally posted by InarasNewToy:

Can it work? I think it can, the only hurdles i have seen here is the tendancy to go TO FAR in the Western look (the horses, the six shooters, ETC).

Well, I'm rather hoping that the the wild west thing is not just "a look". To boil down various opinions I've expressed at length in other threads: I'm guessing that the frontier planets, where most of the stories take place, are supposed to be trying to make do with technology they don't have to import from the industrial planets. So that means dusting off a lot of 19th century technology -- six-shooters, animal-based locomotion, etc.

I think the clothes are a case in point. When I first saw all those photos (which is how I found this site, thank you Haken) my first thought was that Whedon was just rebelling against the futuristic-for-its-own-sake costumes that sort of go with those latex aliens. But when you're doing "hard" science fiction (and that's what Whedon says he wants to do) every little detail like that says a lot about the world you're dreaming up. So I'm betting we'll hear people say things like, "Hey, don't you stock pants with force-field closure? Or at least a zipper? I hate button flies!" "Well pard, buttons are a lot cheaper because we make 'em on-planet. If you want zippers, I gotta order 'em from the Alliance worlds, and it'll cost ya. And don't even try to buy anything with a force field, the Alliance is very pariticular about who gets to buy that stuff!"

Well, probably not that detailed -- I can't just see people yawning and reaching for the remote. But you get the idea.

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