Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

Thanksgiving weekend Sal introduced me to Firefly, a wonderful Western/Sci-Fi/Cool tv series that, as per usual, Fox cancelled well before its time. Oddly, as I was writing this post, Instapundit just posted on his enthusiasm for Firefly. If Glenn Reynolds is on board, maybe we can start a revolution!

Firefly is the brainchild of Joss Whedon of Buffy and Angel fame, among (many) others (makes me think I should rethink those programs as I had pretty much just written them off…). We watched the first three episodes and I was immediately drawn in to its humor, wit, acting (the cast worked and played off each other extremely well), and cinematography (I really enjoyed the camera work a lot: from cool use of focus and zoom to well designed sets that allowed for well manuvered camera movements, all across to board!). Sally said she finished up the series and was pleased throughout (although the episodes written by Joss were the more enjoyable ones). Why does Fox do this to us? Why can’t they give us something? They put on so much crap, why can’t they at least give us one good show for every ten bad ones? Is that too much to ask?

Luckilly for fans, the DVD sales did well and Joss was able to make a feature film: Serenity - named after their ship. Thanks to Fox’s advertising of Firefly [/sarcasm], I had no understanding of what the movie was about, I didn’t even have an idea that the movie was based on a tv show. For those that missed the movie, the DVD will be out December 20th. Until then, definitely check out the complete Firefly series on DVD. Sal also pointed me to a great review of Serenity by Orson Scott Card.

It’s great.

I’m not going to say it’s the best science fiction movie, ever.

Oh, wait. Yes I am.

Let me put this another way. Those of you who know my work at all know about Ender’s Game. I jealously protected the movie rights to Ender’s Game so that it would not be filmed until it could be done right. I knew what kind of movie it had to be, and I tried to keep it away from directors, writers, and studios who would try to turn it into the kind of movie they think of as “sci-fi.”

…

This is the kind of movie that I have always intended Ender’s Game to be (though the plots are not at all similar).

And this is as good a movie as I always hoped Ender’s Game would be.

And I’ll tell you this right now: If Ender’s Game can’t be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.

I’d rather just watch Serenity again.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of Firefly, seeing Serenity, and now, waiting for Ender’s Game to come out! Check this stuff out people!

Resources
Pursuing Holiness’ Open Trackback Tuesday!
IMDB: Firefly
IMDB: Serenity
A Firefly Wiki page - this is a cool site with lots of information
Wikipedia - Firefly
Orson Scott Card review of Serenity

-Matt Jones

PS: We got our first snow up here in Vancouver!! It seemed to be pretty close to 2 inches. Fun times.