Serenity Trailer Finally Released

ShinyHat writes "Browncoats Rejoice! The trailer for Joss Whedon's Serenity, based on his unjustly cancelled Firefly television series, was released on the QuickTime Movie Trailers page. Thanks to its new September 30th release date it won't be completely overshadowed by Star Wars. Talk is, if the movie does well enough, Universal will pick it up for a second and third installment." (As promised.)

uuuuuu...huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is there suddenly sounds in space?!?

Firefly is better than that ...

[Heisenbug]

it sounds like I should poke around the site more, but I was actually disappointed with the trailer. It basically made it look like another space action movie, with none of the unique characters or plotting or effects or [embarrassing Joss Whedon lust here] that made Firefly stand out so much. I have my fingers crossed that it's just marketing (or that I'm just in a crotchety mood), and the actual movie will be consistent with the show.

In the meantime, I for one would gladly buy a movie ticket just to see the original double-length episode of Firefly in a theater ... maybe if Serenity works out they should release that episode as "Serenity: Episode 1".

Re:uuuuuu...huh?

[Spad]

Good question - one of the things I liked about Firefly was the fact that space was silent and you didn't have the sound of laser blasts and explosions for "effect", which is no doubt why they've been added to the film (and to help those who don't get the whole "no sound in space" thing).

we all like firefly

[rvr]

I had not heard of the series Firefly and a friend highly recommended it so I obliged and borrowed the DVD. I plugged it in and it became a hit with me and my three kids. It is now a favorite, we all became hooked.

We loved the surprises and twists of the series and the trailer had some hints of it. We loved the gritty nature and the "western" feel. Can't afford fancy kick ass laser guns? Use regular 19th century handguns. Works for me. Do I use a scientific magnifying glass to look for blunders? No. I just sit back and enjoy and don't give a rats ass about that - leave that to others.

The mix of future and contemporary, sci-fi and western, redneckness and intelligence and humor and seriousness captivated me. Bring on the movie. A little breath of fresh air in the glut of shows that pass for TV entertainment.

I plan on watching the series late september and then checking out the movie. Will wait.

Re:Firefly is better than that ...

[Tenken]

It wouldn't really serve much purpose pandering to the Firefly fans, although as a fan I found the trailer wholly satisfying. They need to bring in the general audience, so it has to can't afford to be too quirky, at least not in the first trailer. Perhaps the fans will get one of those internet exclusive trailers, everyone knows thats where we all live ;)

Re:unjust?

[An Onerous Coward]

I've noticed that, most of the time, when someone says they were modded down for "going against slashthink", what they really mean is... ...they were modded down for being gratuitously insulting.

or ...they spent a half hour carefully crafting a post that explained in lengthy detail why they didn't care about the story, and why anyone who did care about it was an idiot.

or ...their rebuttal was so riddled with factual inaccuracies that it undermined the point they were trying to make.

Of course, bad moderation happens, and bad moderators exist. But a solid 80% of the time, it's just people being shocked to learn that they're not a tenth as brilliant or convincing as they would like to think.

In your case, you're trying to make much of semantics, and going about it a little wrongheadedly. Since nobody but you called it a "shocking" or "brutal" injustice, you've apparently tried to blow our miffed feelings way out of proportion. Injustices come in a wide variety of sizes, from kicking the family dog to wholesale genocide.

Yeah, it was just a show. But it was a good show, and deserved better treatment than FOX gave it. I think the word "unjust" is apt.

YMMV, IANAL, PBUH.

Sound in Space?!

[Shky]

One of the coolest things about Firefly was the lack of sound in space. I certainly hope that they've only put the sounds in for the trailer, but somehow I doubt that. Here's hoping they haven't made too many more stylistic changes (because the show was already dripping with amazing style).

Looks really, really cool... but...

[weslocke]

Was anyone else bothered by the 'turning away' from the western aspect of the series? I kept an eye out when I heard the techno/industrial song, but all I caught was a glimpse or two of revolvers. I fully imagine that the movie will be true to the series, but I still feel a bit let down that I didn't hear "Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me" in the preview...

It's been running through my head ever since Joss said the trailer was coming...

Sigh...

(Still looks cool as heck though)

"his unique vision of the future"

[Scooter]

Don't get me wrong, I liked the series, and this is one film that will persuade me to drag my ass to the cinema to endure the neck creaking, rustling, coughing and sweating, not to mention the washed out scratchy picture and unsatisfactory sound rendering; in order to see it before it premiers for real - on a disc I can play at home - on something a bit less agricultural, while I have a drink, but enough of my cinema pet hates rant :P

I have to take issue with this statement though - this vision of the future is hardly unique. In fact, it's a fairly standard issue vision of the future as proposed by Poul Anderson (Trader Team, The long night, Mirkheim etc), Marc Miller (Traveller et al), Bell & Braben (Elite) George Lucas (Star Wars), Harry Harrison (Rat series):-

Take sea going activities and extrapolate into space. Merchant ships, pirates, busy ports, adventure on the high, er.. volumes of near vacuum... and so on.

That said, it happens to be a vision I like - a working, slightly dirty and worn around the edges future filled with real looking objects - a vision that could be said to have been pioneered by Lucas, at least on screen.

I hope the soundtrack on that trailer isn't indicative though - cheap music will really feck this movie up. Using current pop output to score a film like this will date it in months.

Re:uuuuuu...huh?

[ceejayoz]

Mine's that the combat systems in ships would generate sounds to give sound cues and feedback.

Hearing a ship pass you would be valuable, for example.

What I'd love to see would be a sci-fi movie that implemented that, and had it cut out due to battle damage. All of a sudden, silence.

Re:uuuuuu...huh?

[Lahiru]

I think there's a fair chance the sounds WILL be in the final film. I see your point about making the trailer more flashy than the film itself, but I can't think of any films where the trailer added sounds from outside the film's sound mix just for the trailer.

They probably had to make some concessions to the studio in order to bring Firefly to the big screen. I doubt that the suits would have been eager to try something as experimental as taking out sound from space battles. And let's face it, most people in the audience will think something's wrong with the sound or the film's budget was stretched too thin to include good sound effects! Hollywood has programmed viewers to expect sound in space, so that's the norm. I'd love to be proven wrong though...

To the people worried about the Music...

[Fearan]

I also thought about this when seeing the trailer. Then I remembered The Two Towers trailer using a remix of the theme song from Requiem for a Dream, which was a bitttt more techno than the LOTR soundtrack. Honestly, right now I'm not worried. Trailer makes it look rather good.

Kind of dissapointed to not have seen Book in the trailer, and only a few frames with Kayle (sp?), but you have to remember that 2 hours will not provide the same amount of room to develop 6-7 characters effectively. And Josh usually focuses on character in his series, going in depth about each one. So let him do his thing of focusing on key cast properly, and maybe we'll see more of the rest in other installments?

Hell... Maybe we'll get to see it back on TV one day? (I know I'm crossing my fingers, although Mr. Whedon has said he will not return Firefly to TV... money does make people change ideas, as seen with Family Guy.)

Re:My Girlfriend...

[phritz]

I know what you mean, man ... the gf called me, breathless, to tell me to download the trailer. I have to give Joss big props - If you need a way to get your non-geek girlfriend to be excited about spaceships and hot girls in tight outfits doing acrobatics, you can't go wrong with Firefly and Buffy.

Re:"his unique vision of the future"

[eskayp]

"...i'm often surprised by what the characters do - like real people. they have motivations and emotions and aren't always perfectly rational "

Plus the times they are completely rational, but in a totally unexpected direction or manner.
Firefly's CG, special effects, and production were good, but you're right -- it was the character development that addicted us.
So many arresting personal quirks and offbeat futuretalk sayings.
We need Firefly restored to continue the story.

Re:Not a fan, but this looks good!

[Digitalia]

Unfortunately, your assertion that science fiction must depict a technological utopia is disheartening. You are definitely a core-worlder/first-worlder. You've never seen the technological inadequacies in the fringes of the third-world, and so you think that high technology must suffuse the world.

As for the characters, we were really being given a small glimpse into their nature. Had the series continued, Joss would have fleshed out their character quite readily. It's a much more realistic method for depicting a rich and multifaceted character. This is in stark contrast to the unoriginal caricature characters from B5, which need less than 5 minutes of screen time to fully reveal their entire raison d'etre.

Sound Effects?

[nahdude812]

Am I the only one who noticed that there were sound effects in space? I really hope this is only in the trailer, and that the actual movie stays true to the series by removing the sound effects from the space scenes.

It was the first space scene sans engine noises, that first completely hooked me on Firefly. I couldn't believe someone writing sci-fi actually obeyed the laws of physics in this sense. And the soundlessness of it, filled instead with that guitar drawl, really lent a feeling of surrealness, and in fact, I thought it made space seem like a lot scarier place than any other sci-fi had ever managed -- the thought of being stranded out there, in utter silence, alone and forever, really got me.

Re:Holy Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...the acting from Mal and Wash was dead on with what they did in the show. Especially Wash's one-liner at the end.

When has Wash freaked out over a piloting thing? He's always dry and sarcastic, especially when forcasting doom. Its only in situations when he's threatend with imminent physical violence that he loses his cool, never with piloting. I can't remember his exact line prior to the one you quoted, but it was something like:

Wash: "Well, this could be interesting."

Mal: "Interesting how?"

Wash, deadpanned: "(Interesting like: )Oh god oh god, we're all gonna die?"

Its the same dry comedy Wash has always had. It was *supposed* to be clear, and not at all a scream from the pilot of a starship in distress.

And Mal has always been a surface hardass with a soft spot for certain stuff like his crew, and he's also got that dry humor and sometimes callous disregard for stuff he dislikes. He also doesn't lose his cool in physical violence situations, but comes close sometimes when being subjected to Wash's flying.

Its what made the series so damned funny to begin with.

Re:Holy Crap

[MotherInferior]

I do see your point, but I think you might be confusing intelligent with didactic. There are any number of deep concepts underlying the series.

• Continuity of class structures over time
• Universal nature of frontier culture
• The ineffective nature of technology on the core problems that face mankind. (as opposed to Star Trek's "In the future we'll all shit flower petals and rainbows! Except for the Klingons and Borg... we still need bad guys, you understand."
• The effect of scarcity and want on common morality and civility.

Mr. Wheadon just didn't use the series as allegory thinly veiled in laser beams and photon carbonificators like most other sci-fi shows have (Gallactica being the canonical example). He wanted to tell a story, nothing more, but in telling a story as honestly and thoroughly as you can, you're going to expose a philosophical framework, which he did pretty darned well, IMO.

Re:uuuuuu...huh?

[Scrameustache]

I can't think of any films where the trailer added sounds from outside the film's sound mix just for the trailer.

How often do you pay attention to sounds in trailers and cross-reference them with the actual movie afterwards?

I've never done that before, but I remember that the Inspector Gadget trailers had scenes that weren't actually in the movie itself.
Man, that was a bad movie!

I doubt that the suits would have been eager to try something as experimental as taking out sound from space battles.

Experimental?
Been done in Firefly, been done in SW:epII! AND in 2001: A Space Odyssy (yes, I count a waldo bashing a guy in a suit as a space battle, shaddap ;-).

And as someone else has pointed out, most of the "space" battles in the trailer appear to be in high atmo.
Plus, another poster said something wishfull about a combat system that includes sounds:

I'd like to point out that if you listen to AM radio while watching a distant thunderstorm, you'll hear the lightning's electromagnetic interference through your speakers at the same time as you see the flash. Space battles would make a "sound" if there is something to take the huge EM noise and transform it into air vibration, like, say, a metal box that could resonnate... I dunno, like, a spaceship... possibly one with a comm system...

: )