Anyone here a fan of Firefly?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I never did much care for FF. I guess I'm just not in its target market. I have never much liked those renegades/rebels/rogues type of characters, and when you've got a show where ALL the protagonists are exactly that, it's a big red-flag for me. Also, I do so hate Whedon-style dialogue, I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns...

In the end, I take myself, the world, and my preferred kind of sci-fi just way too seriously. Nobody in FF (well, none of the main characters, anyway) seems to take anything seriously, and that's why I can't relate to it. In the show's terms, I'm definitely more of a Purple Belly than a Browncoat (if I had to imagine myself as a character on the show, that's definitely what I would be).

That being said, I would definitely be interested in a re-telling of the existing episodes, but from the point of view of the Alliance. Trek comics did that awhile back with Blood Will Tell - a series of comics that retold certain TOS episodes that involved Klingons, but from the point of view OF the Klingons. I wonder how different some of those FF stories would have been if they had given the Alliance POV a chance to be told.

I will say that the one FF story I actively enjoyed is one which does not, technically, exist. I think it's an unproduced script - can't remember its title, but it's one where one of Mal's old cohorts from the browncoat days was going around killing people and blowing up Alliance settlements and all that. Mal finally corners him and says something like "It isn't war when they're not shooting at you. Then it's just plain murder." I rather enjoyed when he said that.

[tharpdevenport]

If you feel unsure to shell out for something you've never seen, try a few episodes on Hulu.com (if you don't live in hte U.S.A., I can't gurantee you'll be able to access them).

Asking us if it's worth watching, is very, very subjective. Some people hate "E.T.", some people actually like "Cleopatra 2525". You never know.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Loved it - one of my all-time favorite space shows, largely because the characters weren't dorky stereotypes addressing one another by rank all the time and they didn't bore me whenever they talked. Same goes for Farscape, for that matter. OTOH, if Babylon 5 epitomizes what you think this kind of show should aspire to, you might as well skip Firefly.

[The Wormhole]

ReadyAndWilling wrote:

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hey all, i was a huge fan of BTVS and Angel, but i never really looked into Firefly.

is this a show worth watching?

are there any robots and other sci-fi elements?

thanks

Yes, Firefly is worth watching.
No, there are no aliens or robots or space anomalies or time travel or any of that other sci-fi jazz.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Wormhole wrote:

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there are no aliens or robots or space anomalies or time travel or any of that other sci-fi jazz.

Another reason I didn't like it.

[The Wormhole]

You know, I'm usually the first guy looking for familiar space opera tropes in a show, in fact it's because of a lack of said tropes that I criticize SGU. But I can admit it is possible for a sci-fi show to be good without these elements, and that's Firefly.

[Kegg]

C_Miller wrote:

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I feel like Firefly is the Arrested Development of Sci Fi. Everyone who watched it loved it, yet not many people watched it.

You know I honestly feel like neither statement there is true.

The second one really depends how you define 'not many people'. Firefly was a series being talked up a lot on these forums before it was even aired; although I was not a Whedon fan I was cajoled into checking out the pilot episode for his new space opera yarn. Whedon was already pretty popular with a lot of Star Trek fans I knew for Buffy and Angel, and the creator of these pieces running off to do a space opera had already sent them into apoplexy. Like The Dark Knight much later, this is the sort of thing where you can actually partially trace the positive fan buzz to well before the title was even released. I even remember a couple of the arguments - notably, for the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", some people were down right furious about Book Shepherd's joke that deadpannedly connects people who talk in movie theatres with more serious crimes. The series has recieved continuous attention on these forums ever since and can easily be considered one of the most discussed non-Star Trek space opera titles on these forums.

But let's remove ourselves from the little bubble of space opera fandom for a moment. Is Firefly still so neglected? In general geekdom it's been my experience that more people have seen Firefly then, say, Babylon 5 or Farscape... and often it'll get more recogniton with a geek crowd even then Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica.

The series may have never been some big mainstream hit on the order of Lost, but Firefly is far, far from being one of those perennial unheard and unseen series.

And universally loved, well, I can again look at these boards, which back in the day had plenty of acrimony between Firefly fans and anti-fans, before the show as even cancelled... and all over again when the movie came out. And battled ceaselessly ever since. I dropped the series on its first run after "Our Mrs. Reynolds", subsequently checked the show out on DVD and reluctantly conceded that despite my biases and talking points, it can be considered an excellent series and one of the best space opera titles in recent years (and in general).

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Kegg wrote:

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And universally loved, well, I can again look at these boards, which back in the day had plenty of acrimony between Firefly fans and anti-fans, before the show as even cancelled... and all over again when the movie came out. And battled ceaselessly ever since.

That battle will never be won, and will never end. For *any* show, FF or not, there is always a war between its fans and those who are not fans. Sometimes this war is pleasant, sometimes not. But it must always exist.

To put it another way: No show is so good that somewhere, someone will not hate it; and none is so bad that there's no one who *likes* it. That's one of the few examples of a 'middle ground' that I personally believe in.

[Temis the Vorta]

Ha ha! I guess you have no idea how funny your thread title is.

It's like wandering into the Vatican and asking, "So! Anyone here Catholic?"

[Kegg]

The whole Browncoats thing was particularly hostile and wordy, although that's probably just marinated in my memory.

I mean I was on the firing lines of the Farscape war that... wasn't, when tha show was cancelled. If there was a big anti-reaction against Farscape other then myself I totally missed that boat.

I think it was the evangelical zeal of the Browncoats that irked me, but I dunno.

[tharpdevenport]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Yes, Firefly is worth watching.
No, there are no aliens or robots or space anomalies or time travel or any of that other sci-fi jazz.

I think a brief line from the first comic trilogy was maybe hinting at some kind of time anomally, which maybe sometime later Whedon might have done something with.


As far as I know, the Bluehand guys were robots/andriods (whatever), and the guards the Operative kills at thye beginning of "Serenity", seem to be as well.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Robots? I didn't get that angle. I don't think there's enough technology in the FF universe to build robots, anyway. I just thought they were weird humans. And probably all gone by the time of the movie anyway.

Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta wrote:

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Ha ha! I guess you have no idea how funny your thread title is.

It's like wandering into the Vatican and asking, "So! Anyone here Catholic?"

Or, using an analogy that I personally just made up, showing up in the bleachers at Fenway Park wearing something like this.

[RoJoHen]

TharpJingleport wrote:

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As far as I know, the Bluehand guys were robots/andriods (whatever), and the guards the Operative kills at thye beginning of "Serenity", seem to be as well.

Eh?

Pretty sure they were people.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I admit I wonder what "fruity oaty bars" taste like.

[zakkrusz]

Firefly is a fantastic, but all too short-lived show killed before it's time by network morons. The movie Serenity also rocks.