Page 3 • Firefly / Serenity • Non-Gaming • TV • Eurogamer.net

O-Fox 5 May 2005 14:56:23 597 posts
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Firefly = super fantastic
"Psychic!? But that's like science fiction!"
"Honey, we live in a spaceship..."
It's also almost infinitely quoteable.

saysomething 9 May 2005 18:47:04 1,245 posts
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The one responsible for the cancellation of this show should have his balls removed. He (if it is a he) wouldn't need them anyway...

ssuellid 10 May 2005 09:05:13 19,141 posts
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Watched the first 20mins of an episode last night. Started off with some land war then suddenly x years later they were in spacesuits nicking some stuff off a trashed huge ship. First impressions not at all good. The music is fucking awful. I'll watch the rest of the episode before saying anything else but so far I'm not at all impressed.

Derblington 10 May 2005 09:06:36 30,689 posts
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ssuellid wrote:
Watched the first 20mins of an episode last night. Started off with some land war then suddenly x years later they were in spacesuits nicking some stuff off a trashed huge ship. First impressions not at all good. The music is fucking awful. I'll watch the rest of the episode before saying anything else but so far I'm not at all impressed.

I wasn't impressed at that point either but it gets very good.

ssuellid 10 May 2005 09:08:55 19,141 posts
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What about the music - or does it stay at cod cowboy utter shite country music level?

Derblington 10 May 2005 09:16:23 30,689 posts
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The music's never bothered me tbh. I believe it's the same throughout. I think fits a sci-fi western.

oneiros 10 May 2005 09:19:22 1,877 posts
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I'd agree with your comments about the first twenty minutes. The war scenes are totally out of context and the salvage operation is just filmed way too dark, but Firefly's strength lies in the interaction between the characters, which isn't really apparent in that portion of the Pilot. Watch the rest of the episode, and then The Train Job (which is more typical of the weekly shows) and then you'll have a decent feel for the rest of the series.

The music on the other hand, doesn't really differ from what you've already heard...

ssuellid 10 May 2005 09:24:54 19,141 posts
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I did not realise it was the pilot. I just noticed it was on and hit record. The darkness was not much of a problem but the encoding was really bad - probably the channel I recorded it off tho. I'll watch the rest and try another episode.

Derblington 10 May 2005 09:27:14 30,689 posts
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Yeah the first 20 mins of the pilot is just backstory. I think you see another bit of the war in one other episode and again it's not for too long.

Tricky 10 May 2005 11:25:58 4,849 posts
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Tsk - personally I loved the music. In the context of the series it works really well. And yeah, give it a chance ssuellid! 20 minutes is nowhere near enough - Firefly is definitely a slow-burner.

Shivoa 10 May 2005 11:35:30 6,314 posts
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Bah, I really enjoyed the opening sections for the required reading they are. Although a lot more is infered about the past in future eps it gives you enough of a backing to really thrust into the program without worrying about spending ages defining characters.

Obviously you're not going to get a lot of classic lines in there as humour wouldn't fit but you do get a bit of what makes Whedon great. When they're told to surrender and stand up in disbelief, slow pan out and the soldier standing next to him gets blown away by enemy fire. I thought that was particularly good in the opening of the trailer.

oneiros 10 May 2005 11:42:37 1,877 posts
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Oh I agree; the back story is important but it isn't necessarily typical of the show's character.

I've been watching (or rather, listening to) a few of Joss' commentaries and the thought he's put into it is pretty impressive. Most of the camerawork is done on handhelds and Steadicams, until they go inside the sterile 'Star Trek' environment of the Alliance ships/planets whereupon it's done on dollies. Watching the episodes again, having listened to the commentaries is really quite interesting...

stonedben 10 May 2005 11:44:54 4 posts
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Having now seen the Serenity trailer, may i just say

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiverrrrrr!

Shivoa 10 May 2005 13:10:57 6,314 posts
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The comentaries are quite nice. And they really show off just how different the CGI is, with missed focus and the like.

Really does stand up to repeated viewing (again and again for quite a few of us).

eviltobz� 10 May 2005 13:42:48 2,609 posts
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and again and again and oops i seem to have bought another box set because my first has been lent out for too long.

i think the first 20 minutes would seem a lot better the second time you watch the series when you know the history of the characters and you can appreciate their interaction that much more. when i first caught it on tv it put me off too as i thought i'd come in at some obscuare part in the middle. ho hum.

anyone tried watching the hidef trailers that are floating around? damn they take some grunt, my mac can just about play the 720p file, dropping the odd frame here and there, but the 1080i, damn, thats like a slideshow. and it's too big for my 20" monitor, which is nice

/upgrades

terminalterror 10 May 2005 13:44:29 18,932 posts
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You've given me a strong urge to rewatch my DVD, then watch it again for the commentaries. The DVD is at home though

Something to do once I finish the year at uni.

terminalterror 10 May 2005 13:46:55 18,932 posts
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eviltobz� wrote:
and again and again and oops i seem to have bought another box set because my first has been lent out for too long.

i think the first 20 minutes would seem a lot better the second time you watch the series when you know the history of the characters and you can appreciate their interaction that much more. when i first caught it on tv it put me off too as i thought i'd come in at some obscuare part in the middle. ho hum.

anyone tried watching the hidef trailers that are floating around? damn they take some grunt, my mac can just about play the 720p file, dropping the odd frame here and there, but the 1080i, damn, thats like a slideshow. and it's too big for my 20" monitor, which is nice

/upgrades

I don't have a mac so I can't install QT7 and watch them. I bet that by the time QT7 for windows comes out, I'll be back home and won't have a 100Mbit connection to watch HDTV trailers with. My laptop copes fine with 720p (almost perfect fit for my 1280*800 moniter), and can play 1080i without problems, but obviously not at full resolution.

Derblington 10 May 2005 13:47:11 30,689 posts
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Tobz - how many is that now? 5?

Shivoa 10 May 2005 13:53:56 6,314 posts
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linky for downloadable high dev trailers? I can rape the work connecting if they're huge and then enjoy them at home (can I really be bothered to get out the projector for a trailer, it was designed for it - probably just run the 720p one onto the widescreen LCD)

Freek 10 May 2005 13:55:17 7,682 posts
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The same place as every other big name movie trailer.
You'll need Quicktime 7 though.

terminalterror 10 May 2005 14:03:19 18,932 posts
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I hate apple.com and their trailer monopoly. PocketDiVXEncoder couldn't handle the apple.com quicktime trailers (it converted them without sound), and now PSP Video 9 flat out refuses to touch them. Annoying because trailers are the perfect way to show off something like a PSP, but the ones you download from the sony website are appallingly badly encoded (you'd think they would know what they were doing it being their console and all), and the ones from psptrailers.net are stretched vertically to fill the screen. I suppose I could try reencoding a stretched one and try to get it unstretched.

Why is it that only the quicktime used for trailers is such a bitch to convert? And you can never find them anywhere else that aren't copies of the apple.com ones.

Shivoa 10 May 2005 14:10:51 6,314 posts
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Ah, the fullscreen one is a 720p trailer then? I get the feeling I'm going to be in trouble after downloading that over my phone connection. Anyone know how much damage I just did?

oneiros 10 May 2005 14:15:52 1,877 posts
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eviltobz wrote:
i think the first 20 minutes would seem a lot better the second time you watch the series when you know the history of the characters and you can appreciate their interaction that much more.

Yeah; there's a bit where Mal kisses his crucifix just before heading out into battle, which seems almost unbelieveable when you consider how hostile he is to Book (or rather, his beliefs) six years later.

I noticed that the Browncoats forum has the obligatory "fave firefly female" thread and that surprisingly, Kaylee was taking the majority of the votes. Then it occurred to me that Joss has created a character with a similar level of appeal as Buffy's Willow and Angel's 'Fred; quirky, cute and slightly vulnerable. I'd guess that these characters are more appealing to the genre fanbois that the unobtainable beauty of say Inara or Zoe (and therefore by extension, Buffy or Cordelia). Myself included.

eviltobz� 10 May 2005 14:56:39 2,609 posts
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Derblington wrote:
Tobz - how many is that now? 5?

heh, no, i was just illustrating the point that i own multiple copies cos it's that damn good

re the hidef trailers and non-mac usage: i know that some pc users have been able to play them with the right combinations of software, i think that mplayer might have been one i heard touted.

Shivoa wrote:
Ah, the fullscreen one is a 720p trailer then? I get the feeling I'm going to be in trouble after downloading that over my phone connection. Anyone know how much damage I just did?

the fullscreen one when i downloaded it wasn't the 720p, it was a mere 40meg and vga sizeish, the 720p weighs in at 100meg

oneiros wrote:
... Browncoats forum ... "fave firefly female" thread and that surprisingly, Kaylee was taking the majority of the votes. ... I'd guess that these characters are more appealing to the genre fanbois that the unobtainable beauty of say Inara ... Myself included.

mmmm. we love inara. inara and saffron. we love them both. lots. and hate mal too

City-Sickness 10 May 2005 15:13:44 318 posts
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OK, for someone who doesn't really watch an awful lot of Sci-fi, is Firefly worth a look?

I hate the shiny CGI and stupid make-up of most shows like *insert Star Trek franchise here*, Babylon 5, Stargate et cetera and I love a bit of grit and decent genre-subversion - the new Battlestar had me slavering for each new episode.

So, is Firefly for me?

Derblington 10 May 2005 15:16:03 30,689 posts
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Yes. Buy it!

oneiros 10 May 2005 15:16:44 1,877 posts
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Yes; dirty CGI and not a bumpy forehead in sight.

eviltobz� 10 May 2005 15:31:02 2,609 posts
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the people that did the realistic camera-y not exactly pristine shiny type cgi were the people who perfected that style on firefly. infact, the scene with the minister in the doctors getting told her bad news in the pilot has our beloved serenity fly past the window

to be honest, it's not really sci-fi, it's just a sci-fi setting for interesting people to lead interesting lives. and it's piss cheap with sendit.com currently doing it for �12.99

terminalterror 10 May 2005 15:57:10 18,932 posts
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oneiros wrote:
I noticed that the Browncoats forum has the obligatory "fave firefly female" thread and that surprisingly, Kaylee was taking the majority of the votes. Then it occurred to me that Joss has created a character with a similar level of appeal as Buffy's Willow and Angel's 'Fred; quirky, cute and slightly vulnerable. I'd guess that these characters are more appealing to the genre fanbois that the unobtainable beauty of say Inara or Zoe (and therefore by extension, Buffy or Cordelia). Myself included.

I see what you mean. But then Inara is obtainable, for a price

City-Sickness 10 May 2005 16:00:57 318 posts
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OK, OK. I've ordered it. And be aware that - even though it was only �12.99 - I'll still hunt you down and kill you in your sleep if it's rubbish.

No pressure, like.

Firefly / Serenity • Page 3