REVIEW: SERENITY (by a HUGE fan of Firefly)

[edott]

when i saw it saw it with people who were fans of the show and people whom had never seen the show and everybody loved it. no one was confused at all. personally think that it was the best picture of 2005.

[ScottSF]

I can't believe anybody liked this suggar coated piece of . . . I'M KIDDING! I can't even pretend to not like it. I like it like I like Fruity Otie bars that make a man out of a mouse and make women burst out of their blouse. There's an easter egg that shows the whole comercial that makes river flip out. I don't remember how to get there, someone on the speculative vision forum told me how. Anyway, the best characters, best plot, most heart breaking edge of my seat movie I've seen in a long long time. I've seen movies with lots more action, but really caring about the characters makes a world of difference.

my only real gripe is that it doesn't always make sense for them to be flying around a single solar system. Would a furthest planet out look as bright as palm springs on the surface? Also a term like "edge of space" doesn't make much sense. Edge of the Solar System? Edge of the Galaxy? Edge of the Universe?!" I just have to interpret it in my head in a way that makes the most sense and then forget about it and enjoy the ride.

[ScottSF]

oh, I really don't actually know if a planet further out would necessarily be more dim. Any astronomy mayvens know?

[Winters_Sorrow]

Originally Posted by ScottSF

I can't believe anybody liked this suggar coated piece of . . . I'M KIDDING! I can't even pretend to not like it. I like it like I like Fruity Otie bars that make a man out of a mouse and make women burst out of their blouse. There's an easter egg that shows the whole comercial that makes river flip out. I don't remember how to get there, someone on the speculative vision forum told me how.

my only real gripe is that it doesn't always make sense for them to be flying around a single solar system. Would a furthest planet out look as bright as palm springs on the surface? Also a term like "edge of space" doesn't make much sense. Edge of the Solar System? Edge of the Galaxy? Edge of the Universe?!" I just have to interpret it in my head in a way that makes the most sense and then forget about it and enjoy the ride.

Well it's the furthest out from the "Core Planets" of the Alliance, not necessarily the core of the Solar System but I agree it was a bit of a faux pas to make all the planets part of the same solar system. I suppose it was just a way to avoid the "warp drive" which every other sci-fi show has to have

Oh, and to find the easter egg on the DVD it's on the right hand side of the main menu

[Brown Rat]

Originally Posted by ScottSF

my only real gripe is that it doesn't always make sense for them to be flying around a single solar system. Would a furthest planet out look as bright as palm springs on the surface?

Here's a link to an article by Wil McCarthy that offers eight possible (well, sort of possible, only not really plausible, but it's fun to speculate) explanations.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue439/labnotes.html

One caveat: The article talks about "100 planets," so it's bit off, because as we all know, the system is described in Serenity as containing "dozens of planets" and "hundreds of moons."

[ScottSF]

wow, that's a great article, it contains some ideas to play with. It doesn't say anything about the teraformers though. I wonder if they are able to compensate for some of those factors. I had wondered about what happened in 2010 where Jupiter became a small sun so many of Jupiters moons became like planets of a smaller sun. Thanks! I was at another forum and nobody wanted to even think about this stuff, like it was a wet blanket to their space party. Oooh how about portable suns, like portable hearters. But if they could do that then they could probably leave the solar system. I wonder if the humans spent several generations aboard the ships that left earth or if they do have inter-stellar travel but only the most rich and powerful have access. My dream show has Joss doing plot and characters but a star trek team covering speculative science. I used to love on TNG when I woud ask but wouldn't that? . . . and the next scene would answer my question.

[Brown Rat]

Originally Posted by ScottSF

I was at another forum and nobody wanted to even think about this stuff, like it was a wet blanket to their space party.

Was it a forum devoted to Firefly and Serenity, or a general SFF forum? Strange they didn't want to speculate.

Originally Posted by ScottSF

I wonder if the humans spent several generations aboard the ships that left earth or if they do have inter-stellar travel but only the most rich and powerful have access.

Serenity: The Official Visual Companion says that "an entire generation never even saw the outside of a spaceship, the journey took so long" from Earth-That-Was to the new system (12). So, not several generations, but at least one, spent their lives aboard ship. But we don't know how long people live in the Firefly future. Maybe significantly longer than we do; maybe not. So in our terms it might have taken several generations.

Certainly they have interstellar travel, in the form of generation ships, but I guess you mean FTL or some other go-fast method that can make the trip in less than a lifetime. In the series, we don't see any such ships, and fan opinion seems to be that it doesn't exist. I've read that Joss says he doesn't think that FTL exists in the 'verse. (Sounds like the sort of waffle-science thing he might say. )

If you like to speculate about the science, you might enjoy the FireflyWiki: http://www.fireflywiki.org/