Serenity, Firefly and "That" Sense of Humor
Hi, my name is J and I am a Joss Whedon fan. I watched Buffy in syndication straight through and Angel thereafter. I watched Firefly DVD's in one sitting and loved every minute. His stuff is smart, funny, sarcastic and intriguing. Best of all, it doesn't take itself seriously. To me, Charmed failed where Buffy succeeded because Buffy "got" the absurdity and worked with it. Sci-fi, fantasy, and genre material in general pretty much deals in cliche. To handle it either you fail or you break out of it with true innovation and execution (Blade Runner), acknowledge the cliche and make it part of the humor (Buffy and the rest of Joss' work). It's the difference between playing the scene with the rebel cop being asked to turn in his badge for working the case in his own way:A. Straight as though we haven't seen this scene 10,000 times. (Failure)B. Have the boss and the rest of the squad turn theirs in too because it's really system-wide injustice. (Unique take)C. Turn it into an "in" joke with the audience by acknowledging it. "Here's my gun, but you still have my badge from the last time". (Working with it).At any rate, if you hate it and want to tell me so, that's cool. Just remember that I do have a degree in English literature and writing before you attempt to beat Joss over the head with your copy of "The Old Man and the Sea" and remember that in the world of text, video and audio there's filet mignon, and there's crappy fast food burgers, but there are also fantastic burgers and New York Strip's in between. And, anyone criticizing it had better have a ticket stub in their pocket before starting in.If, like me, you're eagerly anticipating the movie, here's some stuff to keep you busy until Friday:
The Official Serenity Site
The Browncoat Community
More Serenity news
Serenity Wiki
Fansite
Wallpapers
The Chinese creole phrasebook
Spend a fortune on your own gorram browncoat
Serenity movie poster that will inevitably be going in my theater.
Technorati Tags : serenity, joss+whedon, firefly
September 29th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
I will be there on Friday night, jonesing for a new Joss fix. Buffy is the best. TV. series. ever. And I too started watching it in syndication, and became a total convert.
Firefly was awesome while it lasted. I am hoping this movie opens big and gives Joss the credibility to follow his unique muse with open purse strings!
September 29th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
OK. I just bought my ticket to go and see it. I can't go until Sunday, but will be at the Brooklyn Regal 20 at 1:20pm in my reserved seat. I'll probably have the theater to myself (sci-fi early matinees do that in my theater), but it's reserved anyway.