Anyone here a fan of Firefly?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There are no androids in Firefly/Serenity other than Mr Universe's love bot, and the visual suggestions to be found onscreen do not suggest that its range of physical capabilities were much greater than those of a toy. A sex toy, but a toy nonetheless.

[Satyrquaze]

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

SEE IT.

[Leroy]

Huge fan of Firefly it's too bad there isn't enough interest to revive the series, spin it off, or have another movie. Well worth anyone's time imo.

[The Wormhole]

It probably is just as well Firefly had a limited run. As a result, all our memories of the show are positive ones. If it had continued as a series and gotten say seven seasons we'd probably be having discussions like "Firefly should have ended after that awesome fourth season. It totally jumped the shark in season five."

[Forbin]

Kegg wrote:

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Because nobody's combined space opera and westerns before. Heck, I've seen people argue that space opera is just a natural outgrowth of the western genre (I'd never go that far, mind.)

Firefly was a Joss Whedon genre mashup, I enjoyed it for what it was but it was neither new per se nor (given we're talking Whedon here) unexpected.

Okay, let's amend my statement to "new, unexpected and unconventional on American TV." I'm thinking Fox execs never saw Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Blake's 7, or realize what Star Wars' roots are. Likewise a majority of US couch potatoes.

[Sakrysta]

Huge Browncoat here. Loved the show from the moment Zoe threw dirt in the guy's face in "The Train Job." Watched all the episodes first run, and was devastated when the show was cancelled. The fandom was a great ride, and I have fond memories of the aftermath, all the art, fanfic, & filk, the announcement of and antipation for the movie, all the conventions & interactions with the stars, even the fans that got to be extras in the movie. It's a great memory I will always cherish.

I honestly don't know how the show would read to a new viewer without the fandom to buoy it up. I actually haven't watched the show in a long time - I think I overdosed a little bit.

[tharpdevenport]

Any overseeing government that hires Operatives to hunt down and kill people against it, and create people to spy on others mentally and be a super solider, can't be all good. And most certainly there's nothing "misguided" about how the Reavers were created; they wanted a compliant people who bend to their will, and tried chemical agents into us subversively to get the results.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

TharpJingleport wrote:

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Any overseeing government that hires Operatives to hunt down and kill people against it, and create people to spy on others mentally and be a super solider, can't be all good.

And there's proof that the entire Alliance was responsible for either of these things, is there?

And most certainly there's nothing "misguided" about how the Reavers were created; they wanted a compliant people who bend to their will

No, the Alliance didn't want that. They only wanted to pacify people - calm them down, make them less aggressive and violent. Not entirely a bad thing, on the face of it...

[Kegg]

Forbin wrote:

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Okay, let's amend my statement to "new, unexpected and unconventional on American TV." I'm thinking Fox execs never saw Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Blake's 7, or realize what Star Wars' roots are. Likewise a majority of US couch potatoes.

Oh no.

I meant American stuff chiefly. The 'space western' is as old as the 1930s, at least, with its origins in the pulpy paperback of the day - and more pertinently, there's the Western elements incorporated prominently into successful space operas like Star Trek and Star Wars. Whedon just shears the same idea of the thin veneer of sci-fi spectacle that was usually overlaid onto the western concept.

And of course there's the influence of actual Westerns to consider. Whedon has conceded his own fondness of western TV growing up as a major influence on how Firefly was shaped.

[RandyS]

No, why would I be a fan of bugs??

[Trent Roman]

I don't know how Joss can say that his Alliance wasn't villainous (to sidestep the metaphysics of 'evil'). We didn't just see the Alliance from the perspective of the Serenity crew; there were scenes with only Alliance personel interacting, and what we see of them then is altogether in keeping with the callous and totalitarian picture that Mal likes to paint. Most every institution and individual encountered is corrupt, venal, motivated by self-interest, blithe disregard for human life, blindly applies a harsh notion of justice, and generally cares for nothing but their own comfort and advancement. Even a seemingly decent fellow like Mr. Tam was willing to sacrifice his children to maintain his social standing, never mind save his own hide; Alliance culture appears to be one of pure egotism. And then there's waging war for no apparent reason (certainly not humanitarian, given what is permitted under Alliance rule) other than the application of power and control, torturing little girls to turn them into assassins, performing dangerous medical experiments on an entire planet's worth of people then unleashing a bloody swathe of murder to cover it up, etc. The Alliance is not terribly nuanced, nor is it ethically neutral.

Really, one way of looking at Firefly is like a right-wing civil war: don't-tread-on-me libertarians versus interventionist, authoritarian neocons. And although the show's nominal hero clearly belongs to one camp, just as it wasn't shy about the excesses of government, nor was the show shy about illustrating the brutality of life without government. If there's no body politic to make the rules, then the guy without the most money or the biggest gun makes the rules.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[SG-17]

Honestly I never liked Firefly. It felt like they were trying to make a live-action version of Cowboy Bebop and failed.

[DigificWriter]

Joss never denied that the Alliance was meant to be antagonistic; he merely denied that they were meant to be 'the evil empire' (to use the words spoken directly by the Operative in Serenity); there are many things that the Alliance did that were abhorrent, but they were not done with deliberate malicious or evil intent.

If you need further proof that the Alliance, although antagonistic and misguided, was not an inherently evil organization, compare it to Wolfram and Hart, and I guarantee that you'll see the difference between truly evil actions (those of W&H) and the actions of the Alliance.