I rented “Serenity” based on your raves. Everyone in the family thought it was shiny, and two of us watched it twice in the same day!

Then I went to Amazon and ordered the “Firefly” DVD set as well as the “Serenity” DVD.

Looking forward to the UPS man’s arrival…

Nesus: Dude, you are 200 hundred years old and are traveling faster than light in the company of two aliens!

Larry Niven rules too.

I have heard this comment, too. To some extent this is true, to some extent less so. For instance, Star Wars can be boiled down to a story that does not require space, space ships, blasters, and light sabers at all. If the droids are converted into fairies or elves or such and the rest of the aliens are recast as fantasy beings, and the context shifted to a fantasy medieval world, the story could be played out in that setting just fine. However, it wouldn’t b Star Wars.

The quote was trying to differentiate “science fiction” from “space fantasy”. It’s really a semantical argument over subsets of what is loosely termed Science Fiction.

Star Wars would be “space fantasy”. Sure the story is spacey, but the space isn’t essential to the story, only to the framing of the story. Whereas an example of “science fiction” might be Larry Niven’s works like The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton or the Ringworld series. The ARM stories are a collection of SF mysteries involving a detective who handles a particular type of crime involving technology and, in particular, organ theft. When Niven created the story, he proposed the idea that the need for organ donations would outpace the supply, so a black market would arise (along with some very vicious legal means). The ARM stories all rely heavily on some thing or concept that is SF, such as the organ donation plot, or one that involves a strange machine that slows time. Those stories would not be possible without the SF element. Same with Ringworld – the stories are about the setting.

One can arbitrarily assign value to “science fiction” over “space fantasy” if one feels the need. To me they’re a related genre with different purposes and different means and different styles. Enjoy them or not.

And that is typical of Whedon dialogue.

Wash: “Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.”
Zoë: “We live in a space ship, dear.”
Wash: “… So?”

No, but you have no taste.

>Also, why are people calling it SF? Is it just because of the props?

Science Fiction, or SF, covers a broad range of subjects. The most loosely based definition places SF and Fantasy into a category described as Speculative Fiction – stories that play “what if?” Alternative History fits in this category, though it can be argued if Alernative History is a separate subcategory or a style that can be either subcategory.

What sets of SF as a major subdivision of Spec Fic from Fantasy is the predominant relationship of future/space/technology as key elements of the story. Here’s the rub – SF has numerous subcategories that span a broad swath. Each subcategory has it’s own little label that only some people know, and the subdivisions sometimes get characterized by their detractors rather than their admirers. Thus, for instace, you have the “space opera”, and all the attendant disdain by one crowd for a romping adventure that another crowd finds enthralling.

Other subcategories include “hard SF” (i.e. solid grounding in contemporary science with some projection into the future), military SF (i.e. Weber’s Honor Harrington series – space warfare where space “technology” is predominant, sort of Tom Clancy in space), space romance (yeah, they do that, too), and probably a myriad of other types I’m neglecting. For some people, as long as the setting is in some indefinite future in space, that is SF.

Firefly is at least as much SF as Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5.

memoryman Said:
>I’m from the UK and haven’t heard of Firefly. What’s it about?

Briefly, Firefly is a “space western”, an adventure story set in the future where Earth was used up and destroyed, so humanity colonized a new star system with numerous habitable/terraformed planets and moons. The central worlds colonized first developed their economic base and boomed, while the outer planets are wilder, and at a much lower economic base with the subsequent mix of high and low tech. Thus the mix of SF elements of space ships with western elements of six-shooters and horses. The story centers on a dodgy small independent freighter captain and his crew of misfits, doing whatever odd (and often illegal) activities they can to earn a living and stay free of Big Brother (okay, Joss doesn’t call it Big Brother, you get the reference). The crew has a tough chick fighter; a funny ace pilot; a backwater hick engineer with a knack for machines; a somewhat dense gunslinger who isn’t quite trustworthy; a formerly rich trauma surgeon on the run from the law because of his sister; the said teen-aged sister who was brilliant and then used by the government for experiments in mind control and manipulation until rescued by her brother; and an itenerant priest/reverend/shepherd that has a mysterious past.

One might describe the show as the best of the original Star Wars psyched up with the social commentary from the best of Star Trek, with the witty dialog and fun situations drawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (it is, after all, from Joss Whedon). One might describe Malcom Reynolds (the captain) as the Han Solo that shot first, and didn’t bother negotiating with Greedo first. One might suggest that Serenity is the beat-up bucket-of-bolts freighter that looks like a beat-up bucket-of-bolts that the Millennium Falcon was supposed to be. Just look at Serenity’s engine – a whirling pile of junk, held together by baling wire and duct tape (and some might say love).

Firefly was an exciting and fun space romp, with Joss Whedon’s flair for witty dialog and strange fortunes. The show wasn’t given the best treatment by Fox, and admittedly was odd enough to need care it wasn’t given to establish an audience. Heck, the biggest thing Fox did to kill the show was not even show the premiere movie, and started with the third episode. Then they managed to skip a few episodes along the way, even though Firefly is much like Buffy in that there was an overarching storyline that the episodes contributed to. Skipping episodes skipped pieces in that overarching story. Not quite as bad as Babylon 5, but more than your average Star Trek. Of course another thing that Fox did to ensure the audience could never develop was move the show around or randomly skip weeks so no audience could consistently find the show.

The Bad Astronomer Said:
>Well, we watched the movie “Serenity” last night, and in truth I am disappointed. It was a shadow of the TV show. While it was better than most movies I have seen recently, the TV show set the bar pretty high, and the movie limboed under it. I might do a longer review as a blog entry at some point. The bottom line is that the movie felt like something Whedon wanted to take a whole season to say, but was forced to do in 2 hours.

That is a fair criticism. The movie suffered from compressing a long story into a short time and then having to provide enough of the backstory that newcomers could catch up. Another criticism is that the ending was a little bit “hasn’t he already done that?” He also made some choices that he might not have done with the show in order to make the movie more dramatic. However, it’s Joss Whedon, so that’s not certain. I still really enjoyed it and felt it was a very good movie. And I second what Donnie B. said about repeated viewing. Many elements of foreshadowing and filmwork are more poignant on second viewing. (“Da** you, Joss Whedon!”)

Some info on why, if Gene Wilder is a god, Roald Dahl must be Richard Dawkins can be found here.

Well, okay, it’s the writer, producers and director who are to blame, but Wilder collaborated, even if ignorantly. And Dahl was supposedly appalled at the casting – he wanted Spike Milligan to be Willy Wonka.

I agree that Gene Wilder was a much better Wonka than Johnny Depp. But I liked 2005′s version of the movie much better. I read the book many times, and it was great to finally have a version of the movie that followed the book. If you could just transport Wilder’s Wonka into the new movie, it would be perfect! My favorite parts were the Oompa Loompa productions. LOL funny!

Gene Wilder was very funny in his heyday. Young Frankstein probably was his pinnacle, but he was great in a number of movies.

I’ll second what Donnie B. said above and add that Serenity has an even bigger impact if you’ve watched the series through a couple of times or more.

I’d like to suggest that you give Serenity another viewing. It holds up well to repeated exposure, and you’ll probably notice a lot of things you missed on the first go. While I agree that it’s not the TV series, I truly love the movie on its own terms.

Memoryman, you either need to get Sky TV or read SFX. “Firefly” was what Joss Whedon did after Buffy TVS. I’ve seen neither the TV series nor the film, but have read good things about both. And I shall eventually get them on DVD.

I’ve not seen either of the Chocolate Factory movies, but I prefer Johnny Depp over Gene Wilder (Gene Wilder – “Young Frankenstein” was a very high high point, “Stir Crazy” a very low low point. Johnny Depp – “Benny and Joon”, “Edward Scissorhands”, ’nuff said).

And “Firefly”? Rocks. Absolutely.

CJSF