Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Sci-Fi Media Movies

Upcoming Firefly Movie Behind-the-Scenes Photos 107

browncoat1 writes "A Firefly Mod for Neverwinter Nights is available, based on the cancelled FOX Television show Firefly (by Joss Whedon, of Buffy, Angel, and Titan A.E. fame). The guy who wrote the mod just posted some secret behind-the-scenes photos from the set of the upcoming movie Serenity, based on the show and starring the actors and actresses from the show. It should be a must-see for fans of Firefly or sci-fi TV in general."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Upcoming Firefly Movie Behind-the-Scenes Photos

Comments Filter:
  • "Secret" (Score:5, Funny)

    by toetagger1 ( 795806 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:25AM (#10227220)
    "secret behind-the-scenes photos"

    I love secret photos, especially when they are on the Internet and /. links to them!

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TrickFred ( 231420 ) <trickfred@NoSPaM.gmail.com> on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:32AM (#10227244)
    Joss as much as admitted that he 'borrowed' the idea for Buffy the Vampire Slayer from a Japanese anime called 'Devil Hunter Yohko' in an interview I read a few years back [in print, sorry, no link] - I wonder what his influences were originally for Firefly?
    • Andromeda (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Karma Sucks ( 127136 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:05AM (#10227364)
      FireFly is the realised version of a western in space Kevin Sorbo always wanted the Andromeda show to be.

      Compare these characters for starters:

      Matt --> Dylan
      Jayne --> Tyr
      Sheperd --> Rev Bem
      Kaylee --> Trance
      (both Canadian girls who played in similar kid shows incidentally) ...

      Lots of similarities with tweaks for the particular environment and setting of Firefly. And of course, Firefly is miles ahead of what Andromeda became.

      • Re:Andromeda (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Who's Matt? There's no Matt on Firefly. Maybe you meant Mal.

        And I find River to be a much better comparison for Trance, being the mysterious outsider girl with hidden powers.

        That's just my take based on old Andromeda eps, though. I gave up on the show after the first season. Firefly did much better than most other scifi, and with only half a season.
        • Right, Mal. There are many other similarities as another poster pointed out in this thread. And sure you could say the Trance character was split into Kaylee+River.
      • by Em Ellel ( 523581 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @11:01AM (#10227628)
        It's like saying shows are same because they both have characters in them.

        Andromeda's main premise is an attempt to (re)build a huge empire. It is highly political (and not in a smart, B5ish way) and highly idealistic (tada - everything is "Good Vs. Evil" like Star Trek and other idealistic "sci-fi")

        Firefly's main premise is to keep flying and stay below radar, noone is good or evil, just people who can help and people who can hurt. Main theme is survival.

        I think survival is something more people can relate to and makes for a much better science fiction (as opposed to "sci-fi")

        -Em
      • Re:Andromeda (Score:2, Interesting)

        Andromeda is much more watchable than Voyager even, let alone Firefly. The last episode I've seen, has Harper pulling a neat trick with a space station, to slow down the invaders... he speeds up the rotation, increasing percieved gravity by 400%. If only Star Trek could learn from this.

        Matter of fact, I've not seen any dumb pseudo-science on it approaching the level of even the best of Voyager.

        The entire premise, with him living 5 seconds what is actually 300 years, due to relavistic effects... that was p
        • The Nietzcheans, the Magog, the conflicts all seem real

          An entire race that has to wear bracers to support their silly forearm barbs seems real to you?

          To each his own I guess.
      • Re:Andromeda (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @12:08PM (#10227959) Homepage Journal
        Matt --> Dylan

        I think you meant Mal, as is captain Malcom Reynolds...

        FireFly is the realised version of a western in space Kevin Sorbo always wanted the Andromeda show to be.

        And I'm sorry, but Sorbo wanted it to be "Hercules...in space!".

        Also, comparing Andromeda to Firefly is unfair. The only similarity is that they both (add Farscape to that to make it 3) were comfortable with campyness. Andromeda by being cheap and using campyness as an excuse to not make efforts (IMO, my wrasslin loving freinds liked it), Firefly by going all the way with the space western motif (they had a cargo of cows, making them officially cowboys), and Farscape with the muppets and the sexy alien space monsters (which are campy, but enjoyable).
        : )
        • And I'm sorry, but Sorbo wanted it to be "Hercules...in space!"

          Which is sad. Sorbo said that the plots were "too complicated and too clever for the rest of us to understand" [trektoday.com]. That's true in comparison to a lot of television shows, but you didn't need a degree in rocket science to follow along. I also suspect that Sorbo wanted Dylan to be a less ambiguous, more straightforward character. (Mr. T also only wanted to play overt good guys. Smooth move, Sorbo. Good luck with that "acting" career.)

          The real trag
    • Re: I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


      > I wonder what his influences were originally for Firefly?

      Supposedly the Jesse James [wikipedia.org] legend, plus presumably every western and space opera written or filmed since then.

      Supposedly also it harks back to an original pitch of Star Trek to the studio as "a wagon-train in space".

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ajs ( 35943 ) <{ajs} {at} {ajs.com}> on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:06AM (#10227370) Homepage Journal
      Why do there have to be specific influences. In the case of Buffy, Joss has said that he started with the idea of wanting to turn around the "scared girl in the alleyway, attacked by monster" so that the girl kicks the monster's ass. Being a fan, and drawing on anime for the mechanic of that seems reasonable, but if you watch the first 2 seasons of Buffy, the slayer and the monsters (vampires) aren't the focus of the series except in a few episodes. MOST of the show early on is about the contrast between high school and monster-hunting and how high school really is the more frightening element.

      In Firefly, obviously there are Star Wars elements. There's also a whole lot of the old TV western series feel (Joss has mentioned that this is deliberate).

      For my taste, the concept was a poor one. Telling a frontier story in space makes perfect sense, but you don't have to drive that home with American western metaphor. However, the execution (barring a few jarring elements that Fox demanded) was brilliant, and the show grew on me. I especially liked the development of the culture in large (throwing in Chinese language) and small (the scarcity of fresh vegetables) ways. The show FELT like it was taking place in a frontier setting, and I think that's the highest compliment I can pay to Joss and the crew of the series. The acting was superb. The only character I never "believed" was Jane. Joss has a hard time writing thugs because I don't think he knows enough of them ;-) but the actor did a fine job.
      • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

        the scarcity of fresh vegetables

        I like that too, gives it that extra "ship at sea" feel that a lot of sci-fi doesn't have (because you can't have shows upon shows where they dont land anywhere).

        The only character I never "believed" was Jane. Joss has a hard time writing thugs because I don't think he knows enough of them ;-) but the actor did a fine job.

        Funny, I think he's one of the most believable characters.
        The actor does a fine job playing him because, well, he ALWAYS plays military types. Hell, t
        • ... he doesn't want others to know he's a thief, a backstabber...

          Jayne's arc alone should get Firefly Emmys for Joss and Adam. Fox execs must be color-blind to quality. They're quality-blind.
        • I don't disagree that he's a great character, and wonderfully human, I just think that he's not believable in the line-to-line reading. His lines tend more toward the parody of a brute than a brute, where everyone else's comedy comes from the situation, and their natural reactions to it. Mind you, this is a minor complaint, but it's one that stuck with me through the series. I did like the character concept, and I did like the fact that in the end, he was exactly as trustworthy as you expect, i.e. not.
    • I can't say with any certainty what really influenced him, but every time I watch Firefly, it makes me think Andromeda, and vice versa. At least the cast is quite similar, my friends always argue that it's extremely different.

      Captain Dylan Hunt == Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds

      Tyr Anasazi == Jayne Cobb

      Beka Valentine == Zoe

      Rev Bem == The Shepherd Book

      Seamus Harper == Wash

      Trance Gemini == Kaywinnit Lee 'Kaylee' Frye

      Rommie == Inara Serra

      Not exact matches, but there's definitely at least one major s

      • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kalidasa ( 577403 ) *
        For anime, the closest match is obviously Cowboy Beebop, but the feel of the two shows and the setup are quite different. As for the Andromeda fans, try doing a compare of Firefly to Star Trek:

        Mal - Kirk
        Zoe - Spock
        Wash - Scotty
        Kaylee - Chapel
        Shepherd - McCoy
        Jayne - Chekov
        Inara - Rand (yeah, I know, Rand and Chekov were never on at the same time)

        This is because episodic television (indeed, all episodic fiction) is by its nature formulaic: you look for ways to balance your ensemble, and the chie
        • A better Star Trek comparison might be:

          Mal - Kirk
          Inara - Spock
          Kaylee - Scotty
          Wash - Sulu
          Zoe - McCoy
          Jayne - Chekov
          Shepherd - ?

          In terms of role the characters serve. The weakest of those is the Jayne->Chekov thing, which is mostly for completeness.
        • OMG people saying Firefly is like Andromanda and Star Trek..

          BURN THE HERETICS!! >_'''
    • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Loadmaster ( 720754 )
      Mr. Whedon has said that he was inspired to create Firefly while reading the book, "Killer Angels." KA is a book about the battle of Gettysburg.
      • Linkage (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Here's a link to a story talking about Firefly when it first came out. Whedon talks about the book in it and why it inspired him.

        Firefly [post-gazette.com]
      • When I read your post's reference to "Killer Angels" my brain misfired and I was thinking "Broken Angels" by Richard Morgan (also "Altered Carbon"). Now, I'd really like to see a mini-series inspired by those two books. Probably have to be on HBO, though. hehe
      • Thank you - I was looking for something concrete, not just what people were thinking his inluences were. :)
    • Joss as much as admitted that he 'borrowed' the idea for Buffy the Vampire Slayer from a Japanese anime called 'Devil Hunter Yohko' in an interview I read a few years back [in print, sorry, no link] - I wonder what his influences were originally for Firefly?

      Cowboy Bebop, I couldn't say for sure, but some of the music in the first episode sounds exactly the same as in C.Bebop.
      The similarities are uncanny.

      • It's hardly just the music. Cowboy Bebop is also known as a "western in space" of sorts. It features a crew taking on odd (bounty-hunting, usually) jobs to manage enough money for a bite to eat and keep their old lunker of a spaceship running. I've seen all of both Cowboy Bebop and Firefly, and I have to say, I'm pretty convinced that Firefly was at least partially inspired (if not in origin, than in execution) by Cowboy Bebop... it feels like Firefly is, as my sister put it, "channeling the spirit of Bebop
    • Is that the same as witch hunter robin on the cartoon network? I'm not an anime fan, but thats a good show.
  • by JasonUCF ( 601670 ) <jason-slashdawt&jnlpro,com> on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:33AM (#10227249) Homepage
    The guy who wrote the mod just posted some secret behind-the-scenes photos from the set of the upcoming movie Serenity,

    Uh...durrr... what's secret about your soon to be slashdotted photos? And if they don't get hosed, which marketing agency do you work for?

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:54AM (#10227324) Homepage Journal
    Submitter's email address? "tulsa23@hushmail.com".
    The "guy who wrote the NVN mod" runs Sixbyte hosting, which is located in..... Tulsa, OK.
    Is this a case of Astroturfing [dict.org] ?

    To use a slogan from a certain network: I report, you decide!

    ;-)

  • It'll be interesting to see as production and post goes on how the publicity works out. Remember that wonderful network called Fox and their marketing department that royally screwed over this show? Since Universal bought the movie rights to a defunct show, it obviously has more of a vested interest in Firefly, but are they looking to be The Next Big Thing in Hollywood or simply appeal to Firefly fans.
  • by doormat ( 63648 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:25AM (#10227474) Homepage Journal
    No photos of her =^(
  • Fox is Evil. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Aetrix ( 258562 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @11:12AM (#10227676) Homepage
    Ooh - I get the first chance to say -

    Fox is Evil and Bad for canceling Firefly. It's a great show.
    • I'm ashamed to say I never watched the series on TV but I rented the first DVD of the complete series and liked it so much I bought the boxed set. It works like a 9 hour movie.
  • Hmm.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by TrevorB ( 57780 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @11:21AM (#10227721) Homepage
    Seriously... Are pics like these [sixbyte.net] supposed to demonstrate how the series died off?

    (ducks)

    (apologies to all, I'm actually I Firefly fan)

    (ducks again)
  • Um, not to be a smart aleck or anything, but are we sure this is Firefly? It looks like Disney's Imagineers took some of the props from Pirates of the Caribbean and scattered them around Tomorrowland.
  • Just for the record -- after all the rewrites, Joss' contributions resulted in only four lines of his being left in the final draft. (Including the "Planet Bob" line at the end of the movie). I would hardly say that "Titan AE" is a Joss Whedon movie!
  • Firefly Links (Score:4, Informative)

    by lostOnEarth ( 811738 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @11:42AM (#10227829)
    For those who don't know what Firefly is about here are some links:

    The offical Serinity site:

    http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?u=tu sk [serenitymovie.com]

    And the most popular fan site:

    http://www.fireflyfans.net/ [fireflyfans.net]

    You can of course buy the DVD's if you want to see this great series too, at Amazon or elsewhere.


  • To me, the buildings looks like the College of Letters and Science (L&S) compound at UC Davis. Then again, the bottom floor of the L&S compound looks like the re-education facility in "A Clockwork Orange" so who am I to say. And continuing, the "Big Wheel" logo of the City of Davis looks suspiciously similar to the logo of the Island in "The Prisoner." Perhaps the designers were trying to tell the public something...

    • You mean the building everybody refers to as the "Deathstar". We were talking about holding a Paranoia LARP there.

      And the "The Prisoner" references are really creepy when you consider how pervasive they are around town. We had a late night diner discussion where we seriously tried to figure out how to put a device in a big pink balloon to control the direction it bounced so we could run it through campus (which is car-free) and the surrounding fields.

      --
      Evan "I am not a number!!! Well, maybe 19442."

      • "You mean the building everybody refers to as the "Deathstar". We were talking about holding a Paranoia LARP there."

        Yep, that's the one. During my time there, it was also commonly referred to as either "Hitler's Tomb" or "Stalin's Tomb."

        I wouldn't do the pink balloon deal. You are bound to antagonize the midget cop, and after seeing the fury that Gary Coleman dished out when he was a security guard, I wouldn't want to bring that upon anyone else.

        • I wouldn't do the pink balloon deal. You are bound to antagonize the midget cop

          S'okay - I've slowly been endearing myself to the powers that be in this town. Note also that I'm not a student but a "reputable looking" adult. That helps quite a bit when performing surreal acts of art.

          --
          Evan

    • the building is Diamond Ranch High School designed by Morphosis [morphosis.net].

      sorry about the double post, but i just noticed your question.
  • I'm a big fan of Firefly, but I really fail to see what is so "must-see" about these photos. As far as behind-the-scenes photos go, these are pretty boring.

    Some burned corpses and a shot with Morena (and half of Nathan)... yay.
    • Oh, I dunno. It looks like one of the core worlds where Something Horrible has happened prior to the arrival of Serenity. If you notice, all of the burned corpses are lying in fairly normal places (on the stairway next to a briefcase-like object, etc.) as if they died really suddenly. That seems like kind of a minor plot spoiler if nothing else.
  • What is with the TV producers in the USA, always cancelling good shows, but continuously renewing crap?

    Farscape, Family Guy, Futurama, Hidden Hills, Firefly - all excellent shows, and when I show them to anyone, people love them. All cancelled in their prime... but Girlfriends? No, that shit is being renewed for it's fifth season. There's about a million different "Survivor"s and "Bachelor"-like shows.

    I have a theory that it's a conspiracy to make people actually look forward to commercial breaks, ins
    • Farscape: too complicated for Americans. No easy way to say who's the good guys and who's the bad guys. Scorpy's a bad guy, but somehow he's funny and just trying to do what he think's right. Meanwhile Moya's shipmates chop off one of pilot's arms. Ouch, so much for the good guys. No heroic Bruce Willis fighting for the flag and apple pie while asking God to look after his fallen comrades. Waaaaaay too much grey area. Besides, everyone knows only terrorists would try to find a way to make wormholes.
      • Farscape: too complicated

        I try to watch Farscape, but every time I do, everybody is either switched with everyone else's body or the whole episode is playing out in John's head and all the characters are playing other people, or wacky versions of themselves, or whatever the hell is going on that makes it 0% understandable.
        And the screeching noise they use as an intro makes me want to hurt them back.
        Also, I find the female lead utterly unapealing. Blue chick is kinda cute, but Aerin does nothing for me (ye
    • Good shows are cancelled because Hollywood doesn't know bullocks about how to nuture a show. Seinfeld didn't make a hit for almost two years. it got shuffled around until it finally got big. BTW I think, with new tech such as shooting with tape instead of film which cuts costs, Someone should starting straight to disk films and let the market place for them shoot it out.
  • the building in the background is Diamond Ranch High School by Morphosis architects http://www.morphosis.net/ [morphosis.net].
    it shows up in lots of tv commercials.
  • http://tamara.spacemonkeys.ca/serenityteaser.avi.t orrent/ [spacemonkeys.ca]
    (from a discussion at imdb [imdb.com])

"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe

Working...