Obviously, you didn’t drop acid and see it.
Of course, I didn’t either.
I’m sorry. I totally even knew there are some people watching the episode for the first time along with these threads. I’ll contact the mods. I’m really embarrassed.
There’s usually music in Firefly too. I’m positive there was a simple fiddle tune in the “Let’s moon them!” scene. Not too sure about the “two shuttles in opposite directions” scene, but isn’t there a quiet tune there as well?
The two big engines on the side are either airbreathing engines or ducted fans. Otherwise they wouldn’t be sucking things into the intake. Which means they are for atmospheric flight, and the glowing spinning thingy is the interplanetary/interstellar drive (that’s a whole separate debate).
And the whole premise of Out of Gas is that if the engine dies, you don’t get to the destination.
The pylon-mounted engines (are those the ‘extenders’ Kaylee refers to in the pilot?) apparently are turbofans, and are indeed used primarily in atmo. I’ve seen at least a few shots in various episodes, however, in which they are emitting a glowing exhaust (and thus, presumably thrust) in a vacuum environment. This implies that they can somehow be used as rocket assist to the main engine as well.
And don’t get me started on the main engine, or ‘glowing spinning thingy’. It’s a pretty effect, and I love the engine room set, but what it does makes no sense to me at all. It doesn’t appear to emit large amounts of heat or reaction thrust, but as we see in the pilot, if you do a full burn in atmo, you get an effect similar to lighting up an Apollo booster rocket. Can anyone come up with a plausible explanation for this in Captain Dummy talk?
No, there have been lots of scenes where there was dead silence. You’re right that there was music when they ‘mooned them’ in the pilot, but there was plenty of dead silence at other times in that episode - like when they blew the hatch on the freighter they were entering. And I think there was dead silence in ‘Out of Gas’ when they vented the fire overboard. There was also dead silence in other scenes in upcoming episodes we’re not supposed to talk about yet.
You’re right, although I can’t remember if they’ve ever been shown running in space. Could be a hybrid drive of some sort, I guess. Anyway, they shut 'em down when they left the atmosphere in the pilot.
And in fact, you won’t. A constant-acceleration ship can fly from point to point in pretty much a straight line. Lose the engine, and you you will no longer wind up where you were planning to go. Instead, you will go into an elliptical orbit or leave the system, depending on how fast you were going when the engine quit. But you won’t come anywhere near your original destination, because the planets are in motion and gravity is acting on you. So it’s not that you just get where you were going slower - you don’t get there at all. As Kaylee said, “You’re drifting”. She never said you stop. You just drift along whatever vector you happened to be on when the power quit.
Nitpick: it was Book.
Book: She don’t look like much.
Kaylee: She’ll fool ya. Ever sailed on a Firefly?
Book: Long before you were crawling. Not an aught-three, though. Didn’t have the extenders. Tended to shake.
You just invert the tachyon matrix, bypass the primary power coupling to divert warp power through the deflector and… Oh, wrong show.
The way I understood it was that it ejected plasma or fuel or something out the back of the ship and then ignited it, the ship somehow riding on the shockwave. Apparantly trying this in an oxygen-rich atmosphere has the potential of the plasma igniting prematurely as it’s being dumped out of the Firefly’s hindquarters. At least, that’s when doing the full-burn boost thing. When it’s just cruising around, they probably do a more controlled burn along similar lines.
I’ve seen the movie. Very minor spoilers to follow; nothing significant about the story will be given away. This will be safe to highlight unless you’re one of those who wants to remain absolutely pristine.[spoiler]Space is, indeed, soundless — for the most part.
The introduction of our heroes has them approaching a planet. The little Firefly coasts silently toward the world for a few seconds, and then suddenly there’s a huge roar, which is clearly intended to represent their plowing into the top of the atmosphere.
There’s also a fairly sizeable space battle during the film, briefly glimpsed in the trailer, with dozens of spaceships on both sides. There is, unlike the rest of the movie, sound during this scene. However, as indicated by the visuals and the dialogue, it all takes place in some sort of “ion cloud” (don’t remember exactly what they said) blanketing a planetoid. Superficially, from a story standpoint, the cloud is there to camoflage the activities of the character inhabiting the planetoid, but I also presume Whedon put the gaseous material there to justify having an exciting whiz-bang soundtrack during the battle. It’s a little odd and out-of-place, and seems like a sop to the mainstream audience, but it does seem to have a rationalization.
Since this was an advance screening of a film in progress, I don’t know if any of this will remain true for the final release.[/spoiler]
:smack:
Ok, I’ll go with that. I recognize that details of propulsion systems are not what the show’s about anyway.
That’s what I like so much about this series. It’s done realistically enough that the poetic license moments aren’t too distracting. You can debate and nitpick if you feel like it, but there’s generally a plot-driving reason for items that don’t exactly fit into our current picture of how things would be. But in the end, none of this takes away from the fact that it’s a set of really good stories that are told really skillfully.
GT
That’s exactly right. There is a place for ‘hard’ SF where the characters can expound for pages on the scientifically-plausible reasons for various things, but it’s not in a film. Firefly just has to be plausible enough that A) the goofy explanations aren’t so bad that they draw you out of the show, and B) it shows that the producers and directors and actors actually cared about the product they were making. They wanted it to be right, and logical, and reasonable, and did their best to make it so.
What I can’t stand are the arrogant movie people who say things like, “It’s more exciting if spaceships whoosh, and the audience won’t know the difference anyway,” or the ones who are just too lazy to bother.
But we’re also geeks and nerds, so it’s still fun to try to work out the rules of the universe, figure out the technology, and all that fun stuff. It’s part of the enjoyment you can get from any show that’s logically put together. Look at the endless debates that went on about the plot details of the X-Files, or analyzing ‘24’.
I just want to say, I hate you all. After reading all these Firefly and Serenity threads, I bought the damn DVD series. And I freaking LOVE it!
But I love it with a air of sadness…I am at episode 4 and I know I only have 8 more to go, then nothing!!! I have to contain myself to not watch all 8 in a day, I want to stretch it out and enjoy it all. And I know, I KNOW, it is going to end and leave me feeling hollow. Damn you all! 
That’s why we’re doing them one per week. To drag it out. Until almost (but not quite) when the movie comes out in wide release.
(Although, I wouldn’t mind doing Farscape this way, too.)
Hey Dob, from one FF newbie to another, welcome. That’s the only good thing about there being so few episodes, it doesn’t take long to be as big a Firefly geek as everyone else. I mean, it took me years to achieve my status as major Buffy geek. It only took a couple weeks to become a Firefly geek! I’ve even already seen Serenity!
Um, cold comfort, I know. Anyway, on to the point: there is more than just the TV show. Joss is writing FF comics that are going to begin coming out in July (which is now! ooooh!). The covers are already floating around the net and they look totally awesome. Then there’s Serenity, and hopefully, its sequels. I know Joss loves the world he created here, and so do an awful lot of other people. I look forward to revisiting it often for years to come.
Thanks Kyla! I look foward to at least joining the last few FFF threads!
Also, the repeat value of the Firefly DVD set is amazing. I have a lot of DVD’s in this house that I bought and have never watched twice. The Firefly DVD box set sits right beside my DVD player, because I find myself throwing an episode in whenever I feel like watching something and don’t know what.
Plus, you can watch all the episodes that have commentary on them over again. And the commentary is great. I love Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion chatting on ‘War Stories’. It’s hilarious.
Then you can watch the episodes again when the inevitable discussions about finer points crop up on the SDMB.
And before you know it, Serenity will be here, and you can REALLY enjoy it.
After that, the long dark winter of no new Firefly content. Let’s not think about that.
Comics? He’s doing comics? With the crew or just in the same universe/star system? And would you know where to get them and get them to the UK?
With the crew. The comics take place between The Message and Serenity. I think they start coming out on 7/14, but I could be wrong about the exact date…as for where to get them in the UK, check with your local comic book store? I don’t know. As per usual, my stupid work firewall is preventing me from googling, but a quick google of firefly+comic ought to uncover something.
Here’s a couple of links: 1) about the comics and 2) a place where you can pre-order. Looks like there will be several different covers.
GT
The time expansion effects of marijuana just extended the torture. Imagine a trip to Jupiter in real time. You start envying the dead guys in suspended animation.
Acid, considering it takes a couple hours to peak, would be timed perfectly but you’d be left peaking with the closing credits.