Anyone here a fan of Firefly?

[Forbin]

It was the best thing since sliced bread.

Seriously.

I loved almost every moment of it, and it sometimes angers me that I'll never get to see more episodes.

[tharpdevenport]

Jolly Ole Saint RoJo wrote:

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Eh?

Pretty sure they were people.

Whedon's written/cannon frist trilogy, as I recall, shoes the Bluehands to not be human, when Simon attacks when with -- as I recall -- an exercise bar with weights on it.

And in the film when the Operative stabs one of the guards with a swords, you see it short circuits with sounds (and I think a little spark) and shake like he's malfuctioned.

[Trent Roman]

Adore Firefly, despite a rocky start. And having seen all episodes--and in the intended order--even those early episodes sparkle with characterization now. Or perhaps there's just so little of it that every hour is precious. I rewatch the series and the movie about once a year, and am always thrilled when I do so.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[ElimParra]

A great series cut short by a stupid network. I love the reference in Big Bang Theory to Firefly.

[The Wormhole]

TharpJingleport wrote:

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Whedon's written/cannon frist trilogy, as I recall, shoes the Bluehands to not be human, when Simon attacks when with -- as I recall -- an exercise bar with weights on it.

And in the film when the Operative stabs one of the guards with a swords, you see it short circuits with sounds (and I think a little spark) and shake like he's malfuctioned.

All I remember from that comic is that we find out the Blue Hands in fact wear some sort of blue body suit under their clothes. As for the guy the Operative stabbed in the movie, I thought the sword sliced where he kept his gun holstered, and that's what we saw spark? And indeed, I thought the guy was trying to reach for his gun when he was stabbed.

[RoJoHen]

The Wormhole wrote:

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All I remember from that comic is that we find out the Blue Hands in fact wear some sort of blue body suit under their clothes. As for the guy the Operative stabbed in the movie, I thought the sword sliced where he kept his gun holstered, and that's what we saw spark? And indeed, I thought the guy was trying to reach for his gun when he was stabbed.

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. It never even crossed my mind that they were androids.

[Cutter John]

To me FF is the closest you're likely to find to 'hard' SF on real tv. The technology and social situation seems perfectly plausible with no evil robots, psychic powers, or aliens. I'm sure Wedon had an arc in mind. He just didn't have a chance to get into it in the time he had.

Personally I don't understand how anyone could hate this show. But thats just me I guess.

[Myasishchev]

^Killer robots are probably a lot more "hard" than infantry fighting decisive actions in wars that involves orbital bombardments. I mean, what the hell was that thing in the first episode? A WWII-style AAA emplacement that shot lasers? Though I wonder how crappy contemporary war fiction will get when it really is solely UAVs fighting other UAVs and the occasional orphanage.

Edit: hold on a second! No psychic powers?

Anyway, great show, but really I'm not at all sure how much longevity it could have had if it had stayed on. (The Young Han Solo Chronicles? No way that could get old.) I'm actually pretty happy--from a critical standpoint--with how the movie ended it.

[stj]

The characters were mostly Western stereotypes who mostly talked like a Joss Whedon post, including savage Indians. The more educated or urban the characters, the more contemptible or villainous they were. (The only significant exception was a "girl" who spouted the dreariest mad libs imaginable.) The background, social, political or physical, made no sense whatsoever. The characters did not often interact with each other. They gave no hint they existed offscreen. They merely alternated spouting one liners. The hero kicked a prisoner into a jet engine in the first episode, which shows how sophisticated the humor was. Nevertheless, on one level the show was meant to be quite serious!

The series was quite obviously about how a handful of die hard Confederates ended up winning the Civil War after all. The movie Serenity jumped into the first stage of the end game.

[Kegg]

You know I like Firefly but in no sense is it the hardest sci-fi TV show ou there. It's just sci-fi that drops a lot of space opera conventions, emphasises grit, has no sound in space and throws in some Western conventions.

stj wrote:

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The hero kicked a prisoner into a jet engine in the first episode, which shows how sophisticated the humor was.

Mm. It was moments like that and "Our Mrs. Richards" hat caused me to drop it originally. Whedon can get a little too smug for my liking.

The series was quite obviously about how a handful of die hard Confederates ended up winning the Civil War after all. The movie Serenity jumped into the first stage of the end game.

Confederates expunged of all the negative connotations of slavery, that is, recasting the war as a simple statist centrism-versus-individualism.

And boy do Americans love their rugged individualists.

[stj]

^^^Racists commonly insist that the Civil War was about states' rights, constitutionalism or anything but slavery. Whedon's expunging just embodied the apologetics of groups like the Conservative Citizens' Council (which began in the Sixties as a white citizens' council.

[Skywalker]

I think the Browncoats in Firefly had more in common with the American Colonies in the Revolutionary War than they did the Confederate States in the Civil War. They were fighting to keep their planets free from what they viewed as a tyrannical, power-hungry government, not to break free of a pact into which they willingly entered in order to preserve an outdated and inhumane economic system because they were afraid the government was going to take it away from them.

[DigificWriter]

I'm a huge fan of Firefly (anyone who needs proof can just look at my signature, which contains a link to a virtual continuation of the series that myself and several others worked on and are starting to resume work on), and consider it to be one of my top 5 favorite television series of all time.

Answering the question about robots, they do in fact exist within the FF universe, but we only ever saw one such creature: Mr. Universe's 'lovebot' wife, Lenore, introduced in the series' feature-length film sequel/continuation, 'Serenity'.

I'd also like to adamantly disagree with the idea that the Alliance itself was meant to be portrayed as 'evil'; there's a distinct difference between an organization or group being set up as the antagonists of a television series or novel, and said organization or group being portrayed as evil. The Alliance is an example of the former, but not the latter, something that Joss himself specifically points out during some of his commentaries for the series, particularly his commentary for what he considers to be the series' finale, 'Objects in Space', in which he explains in great detail his motivations behind creating the series and the ways in which it represents his philosophies about life and the world in general.

[Myasishchev]

Well, after Serenity, there's not much argument that the Alliance isn't evil. I mean, they wiped out a planet (by accident, granted) and then covered it up. That's pretty evil.

And prior to that, they were still portrayed as being pretty heavily into human experimentation at least as bad as MK-ULTRA.

[DigificWriter]

^ If you thought the Alliance was evil after the events of Serenity, then you missed the point of what Joss was trying to say, and what I said in my post above yours. The Alliance's actions in covering up their involvement in the creation of the Reavers was misguided, certainly, and caused more harm than it prevented, but it was not inherently evil.