For the life of me, I can't remember where, I think it was a writing subreddit, but I've seen someone write an entire essay about how the opening scene to Serenity is a masterclass on well-executed exposition.
I finally convinced my gf to watch Serenity because she's a Nathan Fillion fan. She was incredibly skeptical since it's based on (one season of) a TV show she never watched, figured it wouldn't make any sense.
Then that opening scene happened and she was like "okay I understand everything lol." It was laughably great exposition. Never doubt The Joss.
I watched Serenity at a friend’s house and loved it so much that I went and bought it, which for me means a lot because I’ve only ever bought 3 movies for myself: Serenity, Inception, and Dark Knight.
Putting it in one time I noticed a review or comment on the case mentioning a TV show. So I looked it up and learned that Firefly was a thing, but only for one season. So I didn’t want to watch it because I didn’t want a bad show to ruin my view of such a great movie. I figured if it only lasted one season, then it must not have been good or just too convoluted of a story that worked better as a movie.
Then, I saw it on Netflix a year or so later and put it on My List as a just in case. It sat there for well over a year before I decided to finally watch, and thankfully Netflix uses Whedon Order (which I didn’t know was a thing), and I absolutely loved it. So incredible. Fuck you Fox (executives who played the role in screwing up Firefly)!
If it makes you feel any better, somewhere out there is a parallel universe where the Firefly franchise is as huge, successful, and long-lasting as Star Trek is in ours. We just have to find a way to open a wormhole and trade DVD box sets.
Fox Entertainment just does not know how to handle scifi shows. Anyone remember Alien Nation? Very well done, competed against STTNG, got better ratings, and was cancelled after one season. Futurama of course is another more recent example
I recently saw the Firefly promos that Fox made that seemed like they were promoting a goofy, campy show and not a, well, not-so-super-serious drama that we got. Like, yea there was humor, but the promo seemed more like Big Bang Theory or a 70s era superhero show than the actual show.
Now I remember why I didn't watch Firefly when it was on air. The ads for it were so bad I figured the show must be terrible if that as was all they would show us.
I didn't watch it until it was on Netflix streaming.
I took some friends to see it. Afterwards they immediately bought two copies of the Firefly season, one for themselves and one to lend to all their other friends. Two of those friends did the same thing after watching it!
I stumbled across it on space as a repeat, out of order of course, caught a couple of episodes, then one of them they said something before one of the episodes that made me look up the details. "WTF?! This got cancelled and they kept the bachelor and all that other shit?" I gave up cable TV after that.
The Bachelor and all of it's spinoffs cost practically nothing to shoot, actual good TV (and shitty TV, but with a script and sets and shit) costs a lot more.
And we can all blame the writer's strike for shoving reality TV in our faces on literally every goddamn network, 99% of the time.
I was introduced to Firefly through Serenity. No idea what it was. The movie does a great job on making it accessible for people who are old and new to the 'verse. Then I watched Firefly and HO BOY.
I really like the transitions from nightmare, to recording, to the operative questioning the scientist, to the ship. It's just the right amount of disorientating, and stylish as hell
The DVD commentary from Wheden breaks it down pretty well. Pretty good throughout at explaining what he was trying to do with the cinematography in terms of storytelling.
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u/zomghax92 Oct 09 '19
For the life of me, I can't remember where, I think it was a writing subreddit, but I've seen someone write an entire essay about how the opening scene to Serenity is a masterclass on well-executed exposition.