Firefly Opening Narration

POSTED BY: p1nkispunk
UPDATED: Thursday, March 7, 2013 10:15
VIEWED: 32993
PAGE 1 of 1

P1NKISPUNK

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 6:58 PM (P)

Those of us who have only seen Firefly in DVD form have never heard the opening narration..I think I heard it starts "Here's how it was.."

Would someone be able to post a transcript of it?

"Ok..I'm confused..I'm angry..and I'm armed"

SNIPER

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 7:10 PM (P)

IMDB has the quotes I think, under their firefly page.

RHUTTNER

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 7:55 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by p1nkispunk:
Those of us who have only seen Firefly in DVD form have never heard the opening narration..I think I heard it starts "Here's how it was.."

Would someone be able to post a transcript of it?

"Ok..I'm confused..I'm angry..and I'm armed"

Here are the 3 openings, and a listing of which episodes had which version:

ttj - book
bw - book
omr - book
jt - book
oog - mal1
sd - mal1
safe - mal2, followed by previously
ariel - mal2
ws - none, starts with a previously
ois - none, starts with a previously
serenity - none

scifi uk airings:
hog - mal2
tm - none, starts with a previously
trash - none, starts with a previously

Mal1 : Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole
new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with the new technologies,
some not so much. Central Planets, them was formed the Alliance, waged
war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight
it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity. Got
a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher,
and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too, took his genius
sister out of some Alliance camp, so they're keeping a low profile.
You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.

Mal2 : Here's how it is: The Earth got used up, so we moved out and
terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with the
new technologies, some not so much. The Central Planets, them was
formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a
few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds,
captain of Serenity. Shes a transport ship, Firefly class. Got a good
crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher for some
reason, and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor too, took his
genius sister out of some Alliance camp, so they're keeping a low
profile, you understand. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care
what it is.

Book : After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and
hundreds of new Earths were terra formed and colonized. The central
planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join
under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the
War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the
edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people
struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would
bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was
simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying.

ZOL

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:07 PM (P)

I thought somebody did wome wav files of these openings, but I can`t seam to locate them.

Anyone?

Thanks.

Zol.

ZEEK

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:19 PM (P)

There were two btw. "Here's how it is" was the start of Mal's intro. Book had one to. His starts "After the Earth was used up" IIRC.

edit: Guess I got that post in a bit late. lol

MONTANAGIRL

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:13 PM (P)

Thank you! I didn't even know that there had been opening narration (having only seen Firefly on DVD) until I came here and other people mentioned it. It's nice to at least be able to read what the intros were and which eps they went with.

Now if someone only had a wav file, that would be really shiny.

Packer fans welcome.
All others tolerated.

WILDBILL

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 11:12 PM (P)

Got 'em. Try " http://www.wavsite.com/television.asp" Book's is under "The Train Job" and Mal's under "Safe".

CAITE

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 11:15 PM (P)

Well you learn something new everyday! I had no idea that there was ever an opening narration. I wonder why it's not included in the DVD version. Anyone know?

PBI

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 11:27 PM (P)

It wasn't included because the DVD has the shows in the correct sequence and the voice overs were done on the insistence of Fox so that viewers during the broadcast run (which was not in the corretc order) wouldn't get 'confused'. Which state they would not have been in had Fox broadcast all the shows and in the proper order.

Having said that, I too, wish they'd included at least Book's voice over, as I thought (and still think) that it meshes very well with the overall theme of the series. As for liking Mal's, well, not so much, personally :)

If you can survive death, you can probably survive almost anything.

MONTANAGIRL

Thursday, January 27, 2005 3:20 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
Got 'em. Try " http://www.wavsite.com/television.asp" Book's is under "The Train Job" and Mal's under "Safe".

You rule!

Packer fans welcome.
All others tolerated.

DARKJESTER

Thursday, January 27, 2005 3:28 AM (P)

Yes, there are three different ones. I chopped them from the broadcast episode files floating around the cortex, and have all three as mpg files on WinMX. You can download them whenever I'm logged on (they are 'Firefly - Book_intro.mpg', 'Firefly - Mal_intro.mpg' and 'Firefly - Mal_intro2.mpg', 6 to 8 megs each). Or e-mail me and we'll figure out a way to transfer them directly.

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

SGTGUMP

Thursday, January 27, 2005 4:28 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
Got 'em. Try " http://www.wavsite.com/television.asp" Book's is under "The Train Job" and Mal's under "Safe".

Thanks for the link. I also never saw Firefly on TV, hearing that was pure awesome.

BARRY

Thursday, January 27, 2005 10:21 AM (P)

Opening narration for the original version of Serenity:

The War to Unite the Planets was six years done, and the victorious Alliance was spreading its control further and futher thoughout the galaxy.

Those who had fought for independence and so bloodily lost had no choice but to live by Alliance law.

Some never would, and those few found themselves drifting -- flying to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, to the worlds less civilized, some barely settled, where the Alliance might not control their lives.

These were hard worlds, and work was where you found it. Those who got by lived by a simple creed: "Get a job, anywhere."

DMI

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 4:21 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
Got 'em. Try " http://www.wavsite.com/television.asp" Book's is under "The Train Job" and Mal's under "Safe".

That site doesn't seem to work anymore. Anyone else know where I can find these? I thought they'd be on youtube but all I can find is that comically bad unaired intro with Joss narrating. I wish they would have included these in the box sets.
-e

A blog on the struggles of an unpublished writer: http://www.blogiversity.org/blogs/dmi/default.aspx

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 6:54 PM (P)

The eps I've looked at on Hulu use 'em.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:30 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by DMI:
I wish they would have included these in the box sets.
-e

Ditto. Thanks for bumping this thread.

DMI

Thursday, February 19, 2009 4:29 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
The eps I've looked at on Hulu use 'em.

Sweet, there they are. I've never used Hulu before though, just heard a lot of hype about it. Man does it suck. It won't play for 10 seconds without stopping to buffer.
-e

A blog on the struggles of an unpublished writer: http://www.blogiversity.org/blogs/dmi/default.aspx

BRIGLAD

Thursday, February 19, 2009 5:46 PM (P)

How fast is your internet connection? I never get any buffer pauses. Of course I'm on a cable modem...

Brian

SCHISM

Monday, February 23, 2009 2:06 AM (P)

Well this is quite the revelation.
I had no idea.
It's interesting, cos I was talking to a few recent 'converts' and we all agreed that some pre-amble (like in the movie) would have been invaluable.
I watched the movie first, so knew, and I explained the history to the others so they knew. Otherwise picking it up as you went along would have made things a might difficult.
So were these narrations done over the opening credits?
Or during a black empty screen before the pre-title sequence?
Where exactly did they occur?

**edit**

Is this it?

ELSSICA

Friday, September 23, 2011 9:53 PM (P)

RHUTTNER, thanks for posting the narration! I put it on my blog and gave you credit, check it out!
http://thedailyentertainment.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/join-the-ranks/

MOOSE

Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:22 PM (P)

I love thread resurrections!
Another thing that I miss from the F*X broadcasts is the image of Serenity right before the ending credits start.

MISSTRESSAHARA

Saturday, September 24, 2011 11:07 PM (P)

I have these (plus all the episodes)taped on vhs (yes, there are some of us who still use em)
Fact is I taped all these when they aired on Space(Canada) before they came out on dvd, so I never went through the firefly dt's like so many other Browncoats.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
~~~~If I'm a bitch, life just got interesting.~~~~~

RIONAEIRE

Monday, September 26, 2011 4:37 AM (P)

Huzzah for someone who is still cool enough to use VHs! I still record stuff off TV with my VCR and I have lots of old VHS that I still watch and I'm proud of it. In my experience VHSes hold up way better than DVDs, I have a DVD that we've watched a handfull of times which already has a scratch in it, even though we aren't mean to our DVDs. Plus I can't tell you how many times we've gotten DVDs to rent and they're hopelessly busted, even my dad's secret cleaning technique fails to bring them 'round. So long live VHS!

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

MOOSE

Monday, September 26, 2011 1:43 PM (P)

My old friends...they got me through the dark times.

I'm in the process of burning them onto DVD. Its kinda cool watching them as they were originally broadcast, commercials and all.

BYTEMITE

Monday, September 26, 2011 2:00 PM (P)

That's weird, I have the opening narrations on my DVDs. Maybe it's just not on the Blue Ray version?

MOOSE

Monday, September 26, 2011 9:42 PM (P)

Huh. I've never heard of an official dvd set having the narrations on it. How long have you had it?

BYTEMITE

Monday, September 26, 2011 10:16 PM (P)

Not long, maybe about 2 years. It's not Blue Ray, I'd assume it's the same package most everyone has.

I guess I could be misremembering, I haven't watched my DVDs in a while and I did buy the episodes on itunes at the recommendation of a friend before I bought the DVD. I suppose I could have heard the narration there.

All I know is, I have heard them before, and I wasn't around when the episodes first aired.

MOOSE

Monday, September 26, 2011 11:41 PM (P)

Ah, must be the iTunes episodes. Haven't seen them myself, but IIRC those (and Hulu's) are the broadcast versions.

Was it bad that when you mentioned a dvd set with the narrations, my first thought was "must have, must have"

RYCE

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 12:05 AM (P)

The Netflix episodes have the narration too

No power in the 'verse can stop me!

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Saturday, January 28, 2012 10:40 PM (P)

I also want a copy with narration.
I have 4 sets of the DVDS, one BR.

I'd be willin' to buy a DVD copy of yours once you burn them.