So I watched the movie with and without commentary. I didn’t see it in the theatre.
There were a couple of things I expected but didn’t see:
Is it just me, or was there no mention of Blue Sun at all? It turned up all over the place in the series, so I was looking for it.
Johnny Angel I was expecting the same revelation about Book’s background.
Meanwhile, I did at least find an easter egg. There may be more, since I’m not all that great in finding them. It’s the extended version of the “Japanese” commercial that sets River off, along with an explanation from Whedon on how it came about. Cute. I would’ve preferred explanations to the above though.
Oh, the easter egg is on the main menu and you and you select the left arrow key from “play movie” to get to it in case anyone hadn’t found it.
Before the movie appeared in theatres, a local store was selling Serenity action figures - 2 different Mals, 1 reaver and 1 Jayne- but that’s the only official merchandise I’ve seen other than the comic books. I bought a Mal doll… er… action figure. But his clothes are painted on. So disappointing!
I watched it last night. I also kinda missed Blue Sun. Particularly the blue glove guys.
At one point, it looked like Serenity released a bunch of Cry Babies, but they didn’t call them that, did they?
Someone explain the subliminal cartoon commercial to me. The assassin guy kills the researcher for exposing 12 high-ranking officials to a Reader (River). He doesn’t care about secrets, just keeping them. He’s been informed anything classified River may have picked up is probably buried under layers of psychosis. So what does he do? He sends out a subliminal message designed to activate River’s memories of Miranda?
Another thing. I’ll have to rewatch, but I didn’t quite get how Mal got the Reaver fleet to follow them into a battle with the Alliance. Were the Reavers just chasing them?
Where were the Alliance cruisers? I wanted to see one. Always wanted to know what one could do if confronted with Reavers.
Anyone notice during the space battle, there was one ship that attached a cable to another ship, then started swinging it around really fast? What a strange little thing to do.
I think the idea was to get her to cause a ruckus so it showed up on police tapes, etc. It would pinpoint just where she was, so he could come find her.
He sends out a subliminal message designed to kick River over into berserker mode, simply in order to flush her out. (“In other news today, a waifish teenage girl flipped out and killed seventeen people in a bar on Planet X.” “Aha! She’s on Planet X!”) Apparently this also somehow short-circuited something in River’s no doubt now very oddly wired brain and brought up her memories of Miranda, but I’m pretty sure that was an unintentional side effect of the Operative’s plan.
Yup. He goaded the Reavers into chasing Serenity, knowing that Reavers are sufficiently bug-fuck crazy that if he could stay ahead of them and not get caught and then lead them into the middle of the Alliance fleet he knew would be waiting for him at Mr. Universe’s planet, the Reavers would attack the Alliance. Like getting a pack of rabid dogs to chase you then leading them into the enemy’s hideout.
I don’t remember Blue Sun. Guess I need to watch the Firefly DVD again. Was that a Blue Sun logo on one dead guy’s shirt? It was blue, whatever it was.
Joss calls them that in the commentary.
That’s the impression I got. Joss was pleased with himself for coming up with that ion cloud to hide the Reaver ships for awhile.
I thought there was a good shot of one in the big space battle, but things were moving and blowing up so fast, it was hard to tell.
That was awesome, as was the two Reaver ships tearing another ship apart. Damn, those guys are cold-blooded.
Inertia in a weightless environment is my educated guess as to why that happened. I noticed it both times I watched and actually thought it was a really nice touch.
Without reviewing the series DVDs, I believe that there was a Blue Sun logo somewhere pointed out in the commentaries, and at one point Jayne has on a Blue Sun t-shirt. They suggest it was supposed to be a big deal in the commentaries, but they don’t say what that deal was, nor do they explain it all in the commentaries. So, until they pick up the series again, it’s just a big tease. But that doesn’t stop people from producing pirated BlueSun merchandise. It would appear that somebody stands to make money on Firefly fans’ desire for memorabilia, yet the people who actually own the copyright aren’t even trying to get a piece of it. I mean, I’ve got that collector gene, or whatever it is that causes people to buy such crap, and I’d love to support the franchise.
But I digest.
Again, just from memory:
Mal: Cry, baby, cry.
Wash: Make your mama sigh.
[Oil drum labeled Cry Baby with masking tape and antennas and shit sticking out floats out of a hatch in Serenity]
My impression was that he was aware that it was a bit of a contrivance, but he didn’t care because it got him that dramatic reveal. I loved the reveal, but the contrivance still bothers me.
Past All Reason wrote:
Of course, not everything that’s there is what the auteur intended. I mean, intention is a pretty good clue, but many writers find that richness of their works arise outside of their control. The more stuff you have rattling around in your brain, the more will come out when you think you’re writing about something else.
Levdrakon wrote:
In science fiction (and possibly in real life – feel free to hip me on that point) ships have these transponders that constantly tell other ships “Here’s who I am and where I am.” These are assumed to also transmit things like emergency distress calls. So, they were probably pretty much the same as Cry Babies, only with the ability to travel. And the Cry Babies seemed to make the signal look far away from the scene of the crime.
When Mal is giving his Big Damn Hero speech on Miranda, aboard Serenity, Jayne says “Shepherd Book told me, ‘If you can’t do somethin’ right…’” And then he takes a swig of what is apparently Blue Sun Brand whiskey, since that’s the logo on the outside of the bottle.
Oh, and on that outtake, that kid is “takin’ a dirt nap with the baby Jesus.”
One thing I’ve neglected to mention is Inara’s face when the Operative first approaches her. A proper, welcoming, warm Companion smile melts to “Oh shit” in three seconds with the faintest twitch of a muscle. Really nicely played.
That gag reel seems no longer available at the links on that page. Anybody got a current one (aside from Hello Cowgirl, which is low-quality and broken into 4 parts)?
I was just over at Amazon… Serenity is still their #1 DVD title. But more amazingly, the Firefly box set is back up to #3 on their best seller’s list. To me, that suggests that a lot of people have rented Serenity and liked it so much that they’re buying the Firefly box set.
It’ll be interesting to see how Firefly sells after Christmas. It’s hard to believe that the box set for a TV show that only ran half a season is still in the top 5 sellers three years after its release.
I also noticed that our local big box electronic stores now have large amounts of shelf space for Firefly and Serenity. A year ago it was almost impossible to find the box set locally. If all these stores are putting it front-and-center, it must be selling well everywhere.
I find it hard to believe that this franchise will just die out now, after all the evidence that it’s really something special. I would not at all be surprised to see a sequel or a revival of the TV show. How often are properties this valuable just abandoned?
Just curious, there are many websites that will tell you how movies are doing at the box office, but are there any websites that can tell you how DVD sales are doing?
We can only hope. Having just watched the movie for the third time with Whedon’s commentary, it struck me once again just how much everyone involved seems to love “Firefly.” And now I’m itchin’ for new stories from the 'verse.
I dunno about that… During the “Let’s tell the newbies what’s going on” part, Mal yells, “Eight months- eight months you’ve been on this boat…” It’s possible I’m confusing it with on of the episodes, though.
Having just watched the movie for the third time with Whedon’s commentary, it struck me once again just how much everyone involved seems to love “Firefly.” And now I’m itchin’ for new stories from the 'verse.