Tema: Firefly (Joss Whedon)

Añado el asunto del orden de episodios.

Orden emitido por la Fox en 2002:

The Train Job
Bushwhacked
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Shindig
Safe
Ariel
War Stories
Objects in Space
Serenity

Episodios emitidos en 2003:

Heart of Gold
Trash
The Message

Orden de rodaje según el código del mismo:

Serenity
The Train Job
Bushwhacked
Shindig
Safe
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Ariel
War Stories
Heart of Gold
Objects in Space
Trash
The Message

Orden final según el DVD de la serie en 2003 (entiendo que Whedon reordenó los últimos)

Serenity
The Train Job
Bushwhacked
Shindig
Safe
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Ariel
War Stories
Trash
The Message
Heart of Gold
Objects in Space

Tochaco que he dejado en el subforo de cine comentando Serenity.

------

Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005)



Unas semanas atrás revisé la etapa de Joss Whedon como script doctor y como guionista acreditado en unos años 90 que, pese a -como él mismo dice- estar muy bien pagado, le reportaron más de una decepción viendo como trataban su trabajo. En 1996 le ofrecieron convertir su idea de Buffy The Vampire Slayer en una serie de TV y Whedon pudo así iniciar su primera y probablemente más fructífera etapa creativa. Buffy se fue hasta la séptima temporada. El éxito y la confianza de la WB le permitió desarrollar un spin off, Angel, que se fue hasta la quinta temporada. Y a mitad de todo eso, cuando Buffy y Angel estaban en su sexta y tercera temporada, respectivamente, y movido por su contrato con la Fox (quien producía la serie), desarrolló una tercera serie: Firefly.

Buffy y Angel son series de culto (más la primera) pero lo de Firefly es otra cosa. Más literal. La Fox no supo tratar la obra de Whedon, ni supo entenderla: rechazó el piloto que servía para presentar los personajes y la premisa; emitió los episodios sin el orden establecido por el autor y, claro, canceló la serie en diciembre de 2002 tras 11 episodios (tres más fueron emitidos en 2003).

Estos últimos meses he estado revisando Buffy, viendo Angel por primera vez y revisando Firefly. En este último caso era sólo mi segundo visionado pero la he vuelto a disfrutar como la primera vez. No, más todavía. En el subforo de la caja tonta he ido colgando unos tochacos al tiempo que revisaba cada episodio.

Resumiendo: Firefly es una suerte de western espacial trata sobre los tripulantes (capitán, segunda a bordo, piloto, mecánico y mercenario) de la nave Serenity (de la clase Firefly), y sus invitados (una acompañante de lujo que permite a la Serenity acceder a muchos planetas, un misterioso pastor y dos hermanos, uno de ellos médico y la otra una joven con misteriosas capacidades psíquicas). Su forma de supervivencia suele basarse en trabajos de todo tipo, legales o no, intentando mantener siempre una cierta ética. Es lo más cercano a ver a Han Solo teniendo su propia serie. Y todo con el toque Joss Whedon: diálogos ágiles y divertidos, mezcla de humor, acción y drama, consciencia de si misma como serie de entretenimiento, un casting espectacular, grandes momentos.



Cuando la Fox canceló la serie, Whedon y los fans trataron de mover la serie a otra cadena. No pudo ser. Pero tras agotarse en preventa la tirada inicial de los DVD y con una base de fans absolutamente entregada (algo que se extiende hasta la actualidad: los paneles de Firefly son de los más activos), Whedon desarrolló la idea de Firefly como película y llegó a un acuerdo con la Universal. En septiembre de 2003 se oficializó el acuerdo (por temas de propiedades, la película no pudo llamarse Firefly), en marzo de 2004 se dio luz verde a la producción y el rodaje ocupó todo el verano de 2004.

Fue además la primera película dirigida por Joss Whedon. A principios de siglo estuvo negociando para dirigir Iron Man cuando esta era de New Line pero declinó (supongo que por incompatibilidad con sus series). Presentó a Warner su idea para Batman en 2002 antes de que contratasen a Christopher Nolan. Así que a sus 40 años se vio frente a su primera película y que mejor que basada en su propia obra, en su creación, adaptando una de sus series.

Se puede ver Serenity sin haber visto Firefly? Sí.

Su visionado puede spoilear la serie en caso de no conocer los eventos de la misma? No demasiado.

Whedon se encontró con el mismo problema que en el piloto de la serie: este no gustó a la Fox (siendo uno de los mejores episodios de la serie) y le pidió otro piloto, que fue The Train Job, así que Whedon y su mano derecha Tim Minear, tuvieron que volver a presentar premisa y personajes pero sin que, una vez ordenada la serie, fuera reiterativo. Lo lograron. Fue una demostración de talento. Y en Serenity lo repite: consigue presentar a los personajes y la premisa ante los nuevos espectadores sin resultar reiterativo o sobre explicativo con los fans de la serie (aunque conviene poner el modo de entendimiento ante la situación: Whedon debía presentar de nuevo todo).

El prólogo utiliza tres tiempos en uno para lograr maximizar la presentación de la premisa de la película. Una adolescente/joven llamada River Tam (Summer Glau, que debutó en la industria de la mano de Whedon en Angel y en Firefly) navega por sus recuerdos de niña mediante los cuales Whedon nos cuenta la premisa mayor: 500 años en el futuro los humanos se han extendido y repartido por el universo, divididos entre la poderosa Alianza y las colonias independientes, dicotomía que causó una guerra que tuvo a los primeros como vencedores; cuando vemos a River casi adulta, Whedon nos suelta una premisa más concreta: River está siendo víctima de experimentos por parte de la Alianza, aprovechando sus excepcionales cualidades, y es rescatada por su hermano Simon; finalmente vamos hacia el presente en el que Whedon nos presenta la premisa concreta de Serenity: un agente de la Alianza está observando una grabación 3D de dicha huida y se dispone a recuperar a River.

Entonces pasamos a un segundo prólogo: un plano-secuencia de 5 minutos que se casca Whedon usando los interiores de la nave Serenity para mostrarnos la tripulación de la nave.



La Serenity se dispone para un aterrizaje problemático al tiempo que Whedon nos va presentando a los personajes con tan sólo unas breves intervenciones que sirven para saber quienes son y qué relaciones se establecen entre ellos. Whedon es un maestro en esto:

-En la cabina el capitán Malcom Reynolds (Nathan Fillon) pide explicaciones al piloto, Wash (Alan Tudyk). Su primer intercambio es puro Whedon:

WASH
This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.

MAL
Define "Interesting".

WASH
(calm suggestion)
"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die?"

MAL
(hits the com)
This is the Captain. There's a little problem with our entry sequence; we may experience slight turbulence and then
explode.

-Jayne (Adam Baldwin) es el mercenario de la tripulación, un tipo fornido, sin demasiadas luces y con una lealtad que tiene sus límites (económicos).

-Kaylee (Jewel Staite) es la mecánico más dulce vista jamás en cine, TV o cualquier otro medio.

-Zoe (Gina Torres) es la segunda a bordo (y veterana de guerra, como Mal), una mujer de armas tomar, una guerrera.

-Y finalmente los hermanos River y Simon Tam (Sean Maher).

Sin embargo Malcom Reynolds se lleva buena parte del protagonismo. La serie es más coral pero creo que era inevitable que en la película Whedon no aprovechara el carisma de Nathan Fillon y el éxito de un papel que le va como anillo al dedo. Whedon dijo que esos actores habían nacido para interpretar a esos personajes pero en el caso de Fillon es aún más obvio: Mal es una suerte de Han Solo, cínico y resolutivo, pero consciente de que su misión y su vida es proteger a su tripulación. A su segunda y compañera de guerra, Zoe, a su esposo y piloto Wash, y a Kaylee, a la cual trata como a una hermana menor, o una hija, pues repito que Kaylee es adorable, Whedon lo sabe (en cada serie tenía una Kaylee.. En Buffy era Willow, en Angel era Fred... ), nosotros lo sabemos. Y con Jayne, bien, ese es otro tema.



Serenity me gusta, me encanta, pero no tanto como la serie. Aquella era más coral, más especial, tenía esa BSO tan especial de Greg Edmonson (y la canción de la intro, escrita por el propio Whedon), y podía profundizar en varios modelos de presentación: episodios más modelo western espacial, otros más sólo-espacio, otros más modelo Alianza etc Serenity es más que un episodio de 2h porque aborda el misterio del origen de River, porque tiene algo de mayor carga emocional pero a la vez tampoco parece un blockbuster (o mini, porque fue una producción digna pero no millonaria: 40 millones) al uso.

Dos de los personajes fijos de la serie, el pastor Book (Ron Glass) y sobre todo Inara (Morena Baccarin) no aparecen en la tripulación habitual de la nave pero si durante la película: el argumento, la Serenity huyendo de la Alianza, y River en el punto de mira de todos, así como Book e Inara, permiten a Whedon que la película vaya viajando por distintos planetas, con paisajes habituales en la serie. Uno a lo western, otro a lo Blade Runner o Coruscant, otro a lo Naboo, otro a lo Mad Max y el último a lo distopia setentera.





Serenity no fue un éxito y no pudo recuperar su inversión en los cines por lo que las posibles secuelas quedaron en nada. Viendo la carrera posterior de Whedon (un par de series más y luego sus exitosos 5 años en Marvel con millonadas en taquilla) no conviene reimaginar su carrera en ese punto. La serie es inmensamente amada por sus fans, con un culto realmente sorprendente, y la película fue un extra, un regalo inesperado cuando se canceló en 2002.

No había querido decir nada hasta el final, pero muchas gracias Synch por el esfuerzo de dedicarte a detallar en profundidad y analizar toda Firefly

Yo soy fan de la serie desde que la descubrí por accidente, pero todos los entresijos sobre el orden de creación para su visionado, la manera en como Fox la arruino, y su gestación no los conocía.

Iniciado por Synch

Se puede ver Serenity sin haber visto Firefly? Sí.

Su visionado puede spoilear la serie en caso de no conocer los eventos de la misma? No demasiado.

Algo parecido me paso a mi cuando la descubrí. Recuerdo que cuando se estreno Serenity se hablo de ella en las noticias autonómicas catalanas, y yo ni idea de que iba, pero al mencionar esa mezcla de universos como el Star Wars en la figura de Mal y el Halcón, no pude evitar fijarme en el susodicho actor, porque tenia algo que hacia que me cayese bien (en eso Nathan Fillion es único). Y bueno, a raíz de eso, cuando la película llego a DVD, la alquile y la vi.

Me encanto, y a partir de ahí ya me fui informando sobre que era Firefly y toda la movida previa. Y me hice fan de Whedon y Fillion
Entonces pasamos a un segundo prólogo: un plano-secuencia de 5 minutos que se casca Whedon usando los interiores de la nave Serenity para mostrarnos la tripulación de la nave.

Eso siempre me quedo grabado como referencia desde que la vi. La forma en como Whedon presenta a sus personajes, que te permite conocerlos y descubrirlos en un momento, sin necesidad de menciones previas o presentaciones alargadas. Cierto, no necesitas ver la serie para conocer ese universo o esos personajes, o para spoilearte. Como se nota que sabe lo que hace en términos narrativos siempre, por eso me encanta.

Sin embargo Malcom Reynolds se lleva buena parte del protagonismo. La serie es más coral pero creo que era inevitable que en la película Whedon no aprovechara el carisma de Nathan Fillon y el éxito de un papel que le va como anillo al dedo. Whedon dijo que esos actores habían nacido para interpretar a esos personajes pero en el caso de Fillon es aún más obvio: Mal es una suerte de Han Solo, cínico y resolutivo, pero consciente de que su misión y su vida es proteger a su tripulación. A su segunda y compañera de guerra, Zoe, a su esposo y piloto Wash, y a Kaylee, a la cual trata como a una hermana menor, o una hija, pues repito que Kaylee es adorable, Whedon lo sabe (en cada serie tenía una Kaylee.. En Buffy era Willow, en Angel era Fred...), nosotros lo sabemos. Y con Jayne, bien, ese es otro tema.

Es normal que Fillion tuviera mas protagonismo, si, su carisma y forma de interpretar a Mal (porque ES Mal) le daban mas notoriedad en una película. Me alegro que luego haya tenido éxito continuado en televisión (Castle es otra maravilla gracias a su buen hacer, donde aprovecho para meter a la mayoría de compañeros en varios capitulos), pero siempre he pensado que el cine le debía un papel importante a ejercer. Espero que no sea demasiado tarde y que algún día se lo reconozcan.

Sobre Kaylee coincido en que es una dulzura, y no caía que en sus series, Whedon repite ese esquema que mencionas, es verdad! En SHIELD su versión es Simmons por completo (ahora entiendo porque me gusta tanto también). Pero es otro de sus grandes logros a nivel de escritura, sabe como formar equipos con personajes muy variopintos en el que todos cumplen su función individual, pero a la vez forman cohesión, se comprenden entre ellos, hay química palpable. Yo porque tengo mas reciente su serie mas actual, SHIELD, pero no puedo evitar ver todas esas similitudes.

Lo dicho de nuevo, gracias por los posts y ayudarme a comprender mejor ciertos aspectos de esta GRAN serie

Iniciado por Zack

Lo dicho de nuevo, gracias por los posts y ayudarme a comprender mejor ciertos aspectos de esta GRAN serie

De hecho tiene un punto egoísta porque disfruto revisando la serie y comentándola

En cuanto a Willow-Fred-Kaylee.. En los comentarios de Whedon en el DVD de Objects in Space dice que le gustaba ponerla en peligro como hacía con Willow en los inicios de Buffy, será...

En este panel estaban juntas Amy Acker y Jewel Staite:

Firefly cumple hoy (bueno, ayer, que me he pasado por 18 minutos) 15 años desde su primera emisión el 20 de septiembre de 2002. No fue, como debía, el piloto Serenity sino The Train Job, escrito a toda velocidad por Joss Whedon y Tim Minear.

Dejo un artículo:

Firefly 15th anniversary: Why iconic series stands the test of time

OF ALL of the brilliant TV shows created by Joss Whedon, none of them have as devoted a fandom as Firefly — yes, more devoted than Buffy.

A clever fusion of sci-fi and western about a ragtag group of smugglers, Firefly was yanked around by its network before getting unceremoniously axed after 14 episodes.

If it was just your average show, that’s where Firefly’s story would’ve ended, relegated to the footnotes of TV history as some quaint series someone vaguely remembers.

Instead, 15 years to the day since it premiered, Firefly is still being lauded for its must-watch story of space underdogs, regularly included in “best of” lists and topping most “cancelled to soon” remembrances.

The tale of Mal Reynolds (the eternally charming Nathan Fillion) and his crew, Firefly was a brilliantly written genre series before the era of peak TV. In its short run, it managed to be a layered, fully realised world with compelling characters you want to root for — a remarkable feat considering its constraints.

After its cancellation, its fans, called Browncoats, lobbied and lobbied and lobbied for some kind of rescue. After healthy DVD sales, the cavalry came in the form of movie studio Universal, who gave Whedon $30 million to make a film sequel, Serenity. It gave fans the resolution the series wasn’t allowed to entertain.

Set in a post-Earth future, humans have colonised space but it hasn’t managed to do much about that pesky wealth gap between the rich and the poor. Before the start of the series, the flush central planets wage war on the plucky and much poorer independent planets, bringing them under one rule.

The independents (the Browncoats) was the side Mal and his first mate Zoe fought on and lost with. Whedon was inspired by the American Civil War in crafting his narrative — though not the unsavoury slavery aspect — about what happens to those on the losing side who won’t be brought to heel by a central government.

Firefly mostly takes place on the outskirts of this world, where technology is sparse but injustice is rife. Hence the western part of the show — it scaptured that frontier almost-lawlessness.

A decade and a half on, the series still stands up, cementing its place in the pantheon of all the great TV that followed.
Of course, some of the performances weren’t as great as you remembered, or one or two characters feel a bit clunky — all things that would’ve settled if Firefly had been given a chance at, say, three or four seasons.

But the one facet of Firefly that is jarring to 2017 eyes is its treatment of race — specifically, its lack of Asian representation.
In the in-universe history of the “Earth-that-was”, the United States and China eventually formed an alliance before the mass exodus. Consequently, the cultural milieu of Firefly is heavily steeped in Asian influences — the characters often swear in Chinese, there is Chinese writing in a lot of signage, they eat Asian food and the costumes and décor have an Asian aesthetic.
Yet there are no Asian characters. There is the occasional Asian actor in the background, generally in party scenes such as at the society ball in “Shindig”. But no one of Asian appearance gets any lines.

Even worse is that there are characters with Asian surnames played by white actors — Simon and River Tam (a Chinese/Vietnamese surname) are portrayed by Sean Maher and Summer Glau.

Of course, this is all from our 2017 perspective, with the last two years having been particularly active in pointing out “whitewashing” in Hollywood, from the likes of Ghost in the Shell to Aloha. Just in the last month, Ed Skrein quit his role in the Hellboy reboot after it was pointed out that the character is of Asian descent. He was replaced by Daniel Dae Kim.

When Firefly was made in 2002, Asian representation was far from the mainstream cultural consciousness and the now-glaringly obvious omission would’ve barely been noticed then. Context matters, even if it makes for awkward cringing in a 15-years-later re-watch.

And Firefly certainly had more than its share of representation highlights, chief among them the character of Zoe, a highly competent, no-nonsense warrior woman played by Cuban-American actor Gina Torres.

But a re-watch is necessary because it is such a brilliantly written show with shade and morally compromised heroes. It was dead funny, in large part because of the lyrical cadence to its unique dialogue, and hearing those words again will take you back.

Above all, it was about family. It was about doing everything you can for the people you love and respect, even when the easier choice was to give up on them or give them up.

At a time of shifting global tensions and social friction, we all need a little something as unifying as Firefly. Yep, it’s all about those warm and fuzzies.

Such is the outsized impact of Firefly, one of its actors, Alan Tudyk (Rogue One, Suburgatory, Zootopia) has gone on to create Emmy-nominated satirical web series Con Man, based around a fictionalised version of himself and his experiences in the fandom of Firefly. Check it out on iTunes — it’s excellent.

In Sydney last month to promote The Tick, Ben Edlund, a producer and writer who penned Firefly episodes “Jaynestown” and “Trash”, nailed it when asked why he thought Firefly had such staying power.

He told news.com.au: “I was really so fortunate to be part of it. It didn’t get a lot of airtime but that sci-fi universe has a real amount of depth, it was great.

“People still like to live in that world because it’s got dimension. It’s lasted and only become more illustrious.”

Otro más, sobre las posibles tramas de la que iba a ser la segunda temporada:

Inara's Fatal Illness & More: The Lost Plots From Joss Whedon's 'Firefly' Season 2

No se suponía que la peli era la segunda temporada comprimida mas o menos?

Iniciado por Xen

No se suponía que la peli era la segunda temporada comprimida mas o menos?

Parece ser que la trama de la película era hacia donde quería llegar Whedon en una segunda temporada. El final de la misma vaya. Lo que se comenta en el artículo parece que va más enfocado a las tramas propuestas o pensadas para los 22 episodios que debía tener la segunda temporada.

En este artículo:

11 things you may not know about Joss Whedon's Firefly

Dicen que Whedon tenía pensado un episodio con Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof y James Marsters interpretando a un grupo de teatro ambulante shakespiriano...

Maldita Fox!

Artículo relativamente reciente sobre los 15 años de Firefly, con entrevistas a Tim Minear y parte del casting:

'Firefly' at 15: How a Canceled Show Became a Cult Favorite



"We were fighting a battle from the get-go": Stars Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres, Sean Maher, Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau as well as exec producer Tim Minear and former Fox boss Gail Berman reflect on the Joss Whedon underdog 15 years after its premiere.

It was the unlikeliest of invitations. Writer-producer Tim Minear had gotten to know fellow TV wunderkind Joss Whedon while working his Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff, Angel, and one day in 2001, Whedon approached him with what had to be one of the stranger requests he'd ever had.

"He told me, 'I have a spaceship and I want you to come and play in it,'" recalls Minear, who now runs FX anthologies American Horror Story and Feud.

That craft turned out to be a pilot Whedon had written called Firefly, which he saw as a TV twofer: part space opera and part Western. Whedon was a fan of the John Wayne film Stagecoach, about a group of strangers traveling together in the Old West, and this new show was to be a nod to that 1939 movie. Meanwhile, a former executive producer on Angel as well as Buffy — Gail Berman — was the head of entertainment at the Fox Broadcasting Co. And she was very eager to get whatever he wanted to do next on the air as soon as possible.

"I wanted him on the network," recalls Berman, now president and CEO of production company the Jackal Group. "I remember going to the Buffy offices to talk to him about that. He said he'd think about it and not too long after that, I went back and he gave me this fully fleshed-out idea to consider. I was surprised that it was a space show. I didn't think that's where he was headed, but I also thought, wherever Joss is going is where I want to go."

Where he went was a sci-fi series that took off Friday night, Sept. 20, 2002, on Fox. And then crash-landed in less than a season. Despite being on the air for such a short time, Firefly has become a cult phenomenon that only seems to get more popular as the years go by. As the show celebrates 15 years since its premiere, THR spoke with some of the stars about everything from their uncomfortable outfits to a controversial lunch rule to how the fans have shown their thanks over the years.



In the Beginning

Minear: I knew this show felt special and important, but I didn't realize what it was going to be at that early stage. It really wasn't until we were into the making of it that it hit me. Once the show was cast and the spaceship (Serenity) was built, then it was a different story. It has been a very complicated process up to that point because Fox didn't like the pilot. They made Joss go back and add some humor. He did what he could without damaging the pilot, but they never really understood what Firefly was and never loved it. This was all happening right before the 2002 upfronts, and the network was trying to decide if it was going to go for another season of their sci-fi show Dark Angel or pick up this Joss Whedon space show. They couldn't see in their head what an hour of this show would look like and told us they weren't sure we'd get a pickup. Joss and I said we'd write a first episode over that weekend before the announcements and they said OK. Then we asked ourselves, "Are we crazy? Can we do this in two days?" But we spent two days at Joss' Mutant Enemy office, where we broke the story and each wrote half of the episode. And by Monday morning, we had written the "Train Job" episode [which was written as the show's second episode but aired as the pilot Sept. 20, 2002] and the network liked it. And we got picked up.

Berman: Firefly had an incredibly good pilot script, very ahead of its time. I remember it generating a lot of excitement inside the company and we were hopeful it was going to be a brand-new franchise for us. And when it came to casting, Joss was also very forward thinking as he always was. He put together a remarkably intelligent and diverse group.



Getting to Know You

Gina Torres (Zoe Washburne): I was given an outline, but no script, when I auditioned. It was a detailed outline from Joss, and it ran through the big strokes and pieces of scenes that would potentially be in the actual script. I remember thinking, at the very end of reading the outline, though this was a sci-fi show, there were no aliens and no mutants. It was an intriguing take, a sci-fi Western. So I said, "OK, I'll meet." Buffy and Angel weren't a part of my world, but I knew that the guy who created them had had great success. When Joss called me in to read, he said I was just coming in to see producers. Right from the beginning, this show was unlike anything I had experienced. There was no script and one guy auditioning me.

Sean Maher (Simon Tam): The material I was given was the scene from the pilot where Simon explains to the crew what had happened to his sister — the "I am very smart" speech. Given that there wasn't a script, my first question when I met Joss to audition was, "Can you tell me about the show?" He proceeded to paint this extraordinary picture of this wonderfully unique world he had created. I was sold.

Alan Tudyk (Hoban Washburne): I was doing a play in New York when my agent sent me a description of the pilot. I had a friend who'd done a Buffy episode, and when I asked about Joss and if I should go in for a show of his, the answer was the most emphatic "yes" you could get. I did a test on DVD but then forgot about it. Then, I ended up out in Los Angeles for another audition and was about to come home when my agent said they wanted to test me for this show Firefly. I'd forgotten what it even was at that point, figuring that if my audition DVD wasn't in the trash it was at least trash adjacent. But a week after I went in, I got the part.

Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb): I knew nothing about the show until I auditioned. I loved Westerns and shoot-'em-ups when I was little. I would watch them with my dad, so that was great. I put on a grumbly voice in my audition, kind of like in those old movies, and they let me just go with it in the show.

Summer Glau (River Tam): I'd just booked my first job as an actor, working for Joss on Angel. I was still a full-time dancer, trying to be an actress and downplaying the fact that I was a dancer. I'd snuck into callback for Angel and ended up playing a ballerina. That was my introduction to Joss, who let me dance on national TV. We had an immediate bond! He has such a different style from anyone I'd read or auditioned for. He let me be myself. He told me on my last day of Angel that he was writing a new pilot and told me a little about it. A month later, I got called in to audition for it. There wasn't a lot to go on. I remember there were only two pages of dialogue for me but no script. Joss writes in such a specific way and I have such a specific reaction to his dialogue, thought, so that was enough. I just knew who River was and how to bring that across. When I finished, Joss turned to (casting director) Amy Britt and said, "That's how you do it!"

The Name Blame Game

Tudyk: We didn't do a lot of press for the show initially. The promos that were done bothered a lot of people. When they promoted us on Fox, they used that Smashmouth song, "Walking on the Sun," which didn't represent our show at all! Their way of marketing didn't match the show we were making. I'll never forget when they first sent some of the promos to us — they used a scratch track for the voiceover but the announcer mispronounced our names. So on the set, we started calling each other by those mispronounced names.

Good Food, Good Friends and Clowns

Glau: Joss really wanted us to bond. He wanted that family rapport. That's why he had a dinner for us all before we started. At this point, I was used to eating instant mashed potato soup and other delicacies like that just to survive. And suddenly, there I was sitting with all these people who had worked for years, in the sort of fancy restaurant I'd never been to before.

Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye): That dinner felt like the beginning of what could have been a 10-year run. The fact that we all got along so well was such a great feeling, and we were pretty giddy that night as we pounded lots of wine. Joss was really confident about the show so we all just thought it was the start of something that was going to change our lives. Of course it ended a lot sooner than we all thought, but it did actually change our lives.
Maher: I remember that dinner fondly! That was the first time I had met most of the cast. There were so many first impressions and the first time I realized what a special group this was. Jewel and I drove back to our hotel together and I remember how out of place we both felt, her a Canadian and me a New Yorker.



Baldwin: That first cast dinner was at Valentino in Santa Monica. Thank god Joss picked up the bill! I sat across from Ron Glass (Shepherd Book), which was amazing to me because I'd been a big fan of his going all the way back to Barney Miller. He just sat there, looking very Zen, observing the energy of the place. He was very present but not saying much so I wanted to engage him. I asked him what the key is to keeping a series going and keeping everyone friends. He said, "Keep it about the work. Don't let petty squabbles and personality clashes get in the way. Be giving." When he said that, I could see it really hit home for all of us. Also, at some point, I started talking with Alan. I knew he'd gone to Julliard so I asked him what his favorite thing to do in school was and he said, "Getting to play the clown." Then he started talking all about clown theory, which I knew nothing about.



Tudyk: I just explained that clowns are fucking brilliant and they get a bad rap! I tend to try to school people about clowning a lot. I'll admit that the career move I regret not taking is becoming a clown. But I'm talking more about clowns in theater and more of that artistry. In my definition, they are children that have never been told no. They aren't silly, big-shoed, goofy, frightening people making animals out of balloons at parties. They're children who are mischievous and like to get into trouble. They're bawdy and inappropriate and selfish. I enjoyed enlightening everyone on the topic.

The Little Show That Couldn't

Baldwin: The good news for us was that we were going on the air. The bad news was that Fox really only had two hours of primetime real estate open at the time, Wednesday and Friday nights at 8 p.m. They also had two other great one-hour pilots that year, John Doe and Fastlane. And our pilot was two hours, which didn't help us. Two-hour episodes are tough when it comes to holding audience attention spans. Meanwhile, American Idol was the big kahuna that sucked up all the oxygen publicity-wise. That left us as The Little Show That Could at 8 p.m. on Fridays. We were fighting a battle from the get-go.

Tudyk: We were always hopeful that people would find us. We were, as a group of actors, what the show itself was: people who were completely outnumbered but didn't give up. At one point, we even got picked up for part of our back end and that was encouraging for all of us. We could have been canceled but they decided we could make three more or something like that even though the ratings sucked. They kept preempting us for baseball and then some Adam Sandler movie. Which got better ratings than we were getting!

Maher: It wasn't until we were picked up for our back two [episodes] that I really wondered how much support we had from the network. We all felt it, but we still had faith that we'd be the dark horse.

Staite: We were all aware that we were the underdog. The people upstairs rarely came to visit the set or give any sort of indication that they had our backs. It was probably my sixth series at that point so I had a pretty good feeling that we were going to be canceled. I remember driving home from work one night along Sunset Boulevard and one of Fox’s other new shows, Fastlane, was having this huge premiere party with a red carpet and press and everything. I just drove by it, like, “Cool… I better start packing.” But hey, they don’t have Fastlane conventions now, do they?
Baldwin: Despite the ratings, we were all really tight as a cast. I don't think Nathan (Fillion, who played the group's leader, Mal Reynolds) gets enough credit for helping pull us through. He was the quintessential No. 1 on a call sheet. I will never forget how he showed up at my 40th birthday party and it was right after we'd just met. He came without even knowing me.

Staite: We liked each other so much, we would spend our weekends together. It was usually at Nathan's house, swimming in the pool and playing Pictionary.

Tudyk: This was a terrible sign right from the start: Fox made us pay for our lunches. We'd have to go to the commissary to buy it and that wasn't worked into the schedule, so we had to make it over there and eat in costume sometimes. Which was very weird. I've never had that experience again on anything else I've done.

Glau: We used to get all these pieces of mail left on our trailer steps. This was my first experience with fan mail and you can't imagine how it feels to have that love showered on from people you've never met. I got all kinds of gifts and art and fan fiction. My favorite was the fan art, and there were people who took time to cross-stitch and needlepoint portraits of River. Someone even made an action figure of her by hand.

Minear: That day we got canceled is one I'll never forget. I was directing an episode called "The Message" and had the whole cast on the bridge of the Serenity. Joss showed up, pulled me aside and said, "We're dead. We're canceled." I asked if we should tell everyone or keep shooting. We decided to tell everyone, stop shooting and come back the next day. He made the announcement and everybody went out to get rip-roaring drunk. When we finally came back to work, I had to direct Nathan, Gina and Jewel in a scene where they were sitting around a table laughing uproariously. They were laughing about Tracey (Jonathan M. Woodward), who they think is dead. It was like an Irish wake with the characters drinking and telling funny stories. I have to admit, it was hard for us to pretend something was funny. It shows you what great actors they were because watching that scene, you'd never know we'd just been canceled.

Baldwin: My daughter was on the set the day we got the news, doing her homework. An AD knocked on my door and said to get to the set because we'd just been canceled. I looked at my daughter and just thought, "Oh shit!" The finality was more shock than surprise because we knew we were near last in the ratings. The finality of it, the timing of it...that's what hit me. I had a young family and having to deal with news like that in circumstances like that sucks. I just thought, "I've got money saved but now what?"

Torres: We had to shoot for a whole week after we got the news. That was hard to do. One of the little games we played in those final days was that providing little Easter eggs, liking coming up with innovative ways to flip the bird. Like a scene where I tucked all my fingers but one into my pocket.

Something Good Coming From Something Awful

Berman: Canceling the show was really tough. The look of the show was so unique and so fresh…there wasn't anything like it before or since on TV. The art direction, which was absolutely Joss' vision, was spectacular. It had an Asian feel, a Western feel, a futurist feel. It was a remarkable example of how to see the future on television. It doesn't come up a lot in conversation for me these days, but it does come up plenty when I'm around fans at places like Comic-Con. Fans will never give me credit for putting it on the air, but they will blame me for canceling it. Firefly has a remarkably big fan base. It's unusual for a show that lasted a year and was canceled gets to make a movie but that's what happened for Joss. He got the film Serenity made in 2005.



Torres: The miracle of this whole experience is Serenity. The fact that the movie happened at all defies all reason. We'd all been getting calls that it was possible, and then Joss invited us all to dinner to say it was actually happening. It was so great to go back and do that, and we had the best time making the movie. I still recall during the shoot that Alan and Nathan commandeered two golf carts and started racing them. We shot at Universal, and they loved racing around and doing gunplay just for fun. They'd try to run each other off the road, and people on the tourist trams would get an extra thing to tell the people at home about. That was that kind of fun atmosphere we had on the set.

Maher: We went to Comic-Con in San Diego to promote the film in 2004 and Joss had cut together a preliminary trailer for the fans. The cast stood backstage while he played it and I remember the roaring of the crowd was like something you'd hear in a sports arena. We walked on the stage one by one and it was overwhelming. I was holding Morena Baccarin's [who played Inara Serra] hand, saying, "Holy shit!" She responded with, "Fucking crazy, right?"

A Con-vincing Comeback

Glau: A year after the show was canceled, I got invited to go to England for a convention. I didn't know what conventions even were at the time. Joss tried to explain it to me because he had so much experience with them through Buffy and Angel. I remember going and just being blown away by how many fans come out to support a show that hadn't lasted a year. Then it all snowballed. Now, every so often at a convention, someone will get a marriage proposal right in front of me. People will tell me they've had Firefly-themed weddings. I've even been invited to a few, which is the highest honor.

Minear: The biggest sign that the show never really disappeared was five years ago, when we did a panel at Comic-Con after having been off-air for 10 years. I remember looking at my hotel window the night before and seeing a line around the block that turned out to be for us! Fans had spent night out there, and it was so packed in the hall the next day that they were turning people away. The enthusiasm was amazing. Comic-Con is not usually about nostalgia. It's about what's the next big thing that's about to be launched. And yet, all these people showed up in this big hall see an old, canceled show's cast and writers.

Staite: The size of that crowd at Comic-Con and that roar we heard when we came onstage solidified the fandom we had even though we had been told no one was watching our show. Clearly somebody was wrong. Even now, when I see people show up in droves at conventions wearing Firefly costumes, it puts a lump in my throat. The other day, my two-year-old was playing with a set of Firefly nesting dolls I was given. He pointed to the Kaylee doll and said, “Mama!” And I just thought, Yeah, I’m doing my part in creating a new generation of Browncoats.
Baldwin: That was definitely when it finally hit me that this had become more than just a canceled show for people.

Tudyk: Comic-Con was definitely a milestone, but we'd all gone to conventions since Firefly had been on the air. And not just a couple. A lot! Morena, Jewel and I were traveling the world. I was meeting young people who weren't even alive when the show was on the air, these four- and five-year-olds whose parents were the fans telling their kids, "You might want to check this out." As sci-fi fandom has grown, Firefly seems to have become one of those genre staples. Maybe it's because it was so short-lived. Maybe it's because Joss is so big now. It's almost like if you want to be a nerd, which is a cool thing to be these days, and you haven't seen Firefly, you will be shamed.

Uno más:

'Firefly' Cast Recalls the Crazy Joss Whedon Pitch That Was Never Filmed

Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite and Sean Maher reunite to ask why Netflix hasn't picked them up yet.

Few shows have made such an impact in such a short amount of time as Firefly.

Joss Whedon's sci-fi western ran for just 14 episodes on Fox from 2002-03 and inspired the 2005 feature film Serenity, which was beloved by fans but failed to ignite the box office.

On Saturday, Heat Vision's Aaron Couch moderated a Long Beach Comic Con reunion panel with cast members Nathan Fillion (Capt. Malcolm Reynolds), Summer Glau (River Tam), Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb), Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) and Sean Maher (Dr. Simon Tam).

Below are highlights from the conversation.

On if Whedon having directed some of the biggest films in the world makes a reunion more or less likely...

Adam Baldwin: It's up to Joss. That's up to Joss.

Jewel Staite: Is it? … I don't want to put it all on Joss.

Baldwin: It's on Fox.

Nathan Fillion: I totally get wanting more. I hear it all the time. "Is there going to be more? When is it? Could there be? What if there was?" And I get it. At the same time, we all had what I would call my dream job. It was the perfect position. Everything was great. Even the challenges we faced, we faced them together. We were all in it together and we were all pulling for the same thing, to make a great show. And I loved every minute of it. It's really hard to look at that kind of stuff and say "Give me more." Because enough is enough. Oh my god. It was everything. It was everything. How can everything not be enough?

Staite: Sean and I want more. Last night we had dinner and we were in an Uber and we were not talking about Firefly in any way.... You were on your phone and texting away and, I [said] something about Netflix.... And Sean said this, very absentmindedly, "I can't believe they haven't picked us up."

On the crazy opening scene for an episode that they never did…

Fillion: Joss once described an opening scene to me where we are looking at a planet with a ring around it and as we come in close, we see the ring is actually rocks and pieces of ships and old derelicts. It's a junk ring. It's the junkyards — we mentioned it in Firefly one time. We see little bits and we're jumping slowly from bit to bit and as we get closer we see Serenity floating lifeless and these little people getting on and coming through it. And as they get into the airlock and they close it, they come and there's Malcolm Reynolds, bleeding and cut, strapped down with giant guns and not looking great. He's got these two giant guns, and he says, "Get off my ship."

On finding out they got canceled…

Baldwin: I was doing homework with my seventh grader in the trailer. [Mimes someone knocking on the trailer door.] "Come to the stage, they canceled us!" My daughter's like, "What does that mean?" [I told her,] "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You don't really need new shoes anyway."

Fillion: We had three more days of shooting after we were canceled and I remember thinking, "This is going to be the worst. Every day is going to be painful reminder of what we're losing and it's going to be one of the saddest, most horrifying three days of the shooting." And it turned out to be amazing. Everyone was determined to squeeze any last remaining drops of joy we could get from this wonderful experience. I was really impressed with how people pulled together.

Interesante crítica sobre Firefly:

La luciérnaga en la órbita del planeta Hawks

No he visto todas las series (sí las películas) de Joss Whedon, pero, conociendo las señas particulares de su universo, se me hace difícil pensar que su talento haya llegado a lucir con tanta atmósfera, exuberancia, frescura y profundidad en la exploración de personajes como en la serie Firefly, de una única temporada emitida –con problemas, pues se canceló antes del final– por la Fox en 2002, más su complemento, la película Serenity, respuesta al grado de culto que la serie había generado entre el público, realizada en 2005.



Esta especie de space western opera, como la han definido, resulta harto interesante para desentrañar esencias importantes de un discurso, el de Whedon, que reclama su peso específico en la narrativa audiovisual de lo que llevamos de siglo. Lo que llama la atención de entrada es el desacomplejado melting pot de elementos convocados para, al fin y a la postre, construir un relato de aventuras de los de toda la vida, donde se hace evidente que la prioridad narrativa no constituye tanto el lugar/escenario cuanto la exploración de los personajes. La gracia del caso es que Whedon (creador, co-escritor, showrunner de la serie y productor ejecutivo de la misma junto a Tim Minear, amén de director de los dos primeros y el último episodio, igual que firma el guión y dirección de Serenity) inventa un encourage novedoso (por mucho que sea fruto de la fusión desacomplejada, pero no por ello menos sabia, de elementos bien reconocibles) para reproducir en él un esquema realmente clásico en lo que concierne a esa exploración de personajes, utilizando esa tensión entre lo conocido y lo inédito para dar rienda suelta a su imaginación y a sus obsesiones como narrador, que, a pesar de quedar patentes de bien principio, nunca devienen redundantes, pues cada episodio de la serie exprime de forma excelente el molde narrativo tan bien fijado para profundizar en ese estudio de personajes.



Debemos señalar que las herencias asumidas por Firefly se hallan menos en los lugares comunes pop del western o de la space opera que en los términos de influencia, perfectamente asimiladas y traspoladas a su tiempo, del imaginario más rutilante y efervescente del cine de Howard Hawks, que probablemente muchos seguidores de la serie –especialmente los más jóvenes– desconocen sin que ello signifique que su incidencia no sea mayúscula en las definiciones matrices que hacen funcionar el ingenio narrativo. Firefly, en ese sentido, es una celebración pura y muy autoconsciente de elementos cardinales del cine aventurero de Hawks, principalmente la capacidad de sugestionar al espectador a través de relatos corales de personajes de personalidades muy marcadas, personalidad a menudo confundida con la acción que desarrollan, de modo tal que hay un nexo umbilical dirigido al dinamismo del relato, a menudo su condición afable, incluso en algunos casos ingenua por lo primario de las definiciones, pero en un articulado endiabladamente hábil de relaciones complementarias que confieren lógica y apabullante personalidad al relato.



Como en tantas obras del autor de Sólo los ángeles tienen alas (1939), en Firefly los personajes están profundamente definidos por lo que hacen, por su oficio, un oficio del que son tan devotos que se hace difícil imaginar que pudieran hacer otra cosa en la vida, y evidente que nada de lo que pudieran hacer lo harían mejor. Por eso hablar de Firefly, la historia de esta luciérnaga-nave espacial que surca los espacios exteriores de una galaxia centralizada por una especie de imperio galáctico tan nefasto como el perfilado en Star Wars, es hablar del carisma de sus personajes, cuyas definiciones tipológicas e interacciones encierran la miga de la historia. La luciérnaga tiene un nombre, Serenity, y su tripulación, nueve personas, es el motor que lo condensa todo, muy por encima de la gravedad y peligro de las sucesivas misiones en las que se comprometen o entrometen (depende del caso) como smugglers o contrabandistas de emociones a nuestro lado –pues de complicidad se trata– de la galaxia.



Así, debemos empezar por hablar del capitán, Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillon), quintaesencia del tipo comprometido con una causa, altruista por naturaleza, tan bondadoso como sarcástico (que no cínico) y tan firme en sus resoluciones como duro a la hora de apechugar con las más terribles contingencias. “Mal” para los amigos, viva expresión del coraje y referente indispensable para todos los miembros de la tripulación, es llevado al borde de la muerte en diversas ocasiones (teniendo que inyectarse a sí mismo un chute de adrenalina en el corazón para sobrevivir o soportando la más terrible de las torturas de un mafioso galáctico), estableciéndose así vasos comunicantes entre el heroísmo y el sacrificio altruista (algo así como si John Wayne tuviera que soportar el calvario que incumbe a Dean Martin en Rio Bravo (1959)), en una definición de resonancias castrenses (el cabecilla militar que predica con el ejemplo ante sus hombres) que proceden de los antecedentes del personaje, narrados en bruto en la secuencia prólogo del piloto y después referenciados de diversas maneras en el devenir de la serie, que nos hablan de Reynolds como un soldado de rango en el ejército de los “casacas marrones” (sic), que se rebeló ante la Alianza/Imperio, y que como perdedor debe pasar a ejercer su rebeldía como buenamente puede, capitaneando esta nave que se dedica al comercio en los confines exteriores, a menudo haciendo tratos con gentes de catadura bien dudosa (o moralidad cuestionable) pero que comparten con él su condición de parias cuando no proscritos, outlaws en esta frontera que, aunque sideral, algunas y evidentes concomitancias tiene establecidas con la del far-west.



Entre los miembros masculinos de la nave hallamos a Derrial Book (Ron Glass), un predicador que, como suele decirse, guarda un secreto sobre su pasado; a Hoban “Wash” (Alan Tudyk), el entregado y eficiente conductor de la nave; a Simon (Sean Maher), un médico de buena familia convertido en proscrito por necesidad (la de salvar a su hermana de las garras de la Alianza) y que se convierte en el imprescindible sanitario de la nave (que episodio tras episodio debe salvar la vida o integridad física de unos u otros miembros de la tripulación); y a Jayne (Adam Baldwin), el brazo ejecutor de Malcolm, un tipo tan fuertote como más bien carente de luces, y personaje que nos sirve para ejemplificar con qué aparente sencillez los guionistas manejan los mimbres del relato como una ecuación diáfana, cuyo placer para el espectador reside precisamente en resolverla una y otra vez: Jayne es un mercenario y la pieza desaparejada en el mosaico de relaciones en la nave (como después analizaremos), y su cuestionable compromiso y sentido de la ética se pone en jaque en diversas ocasiones, reciclando con astucia nociones sobre su posición de amenaza para el grupo, de lo que resulta un personaje que, a pesar de su aparente simpleza y de la función algo bufa que cumple en el entramado de personajes, puede desconcertar para alimentar algunos de los tantos twist que la serie gusta de ir manejando para retroalimentar sus señas.



Si he dividido los miembros de la tripulación por sexos es porque, indudablemente, uno de los puntos fuertes de Firefly se hallan en el interés y la frescura que Whedon (recordemos, el creador de Buffy y Angel) y los guionistas de la serie demuestran a la hora de perfilar personajes femeninos. Quizá de entre ellos el más apasionante sea el de Inara (Morena Baccarin), la réplica exquisita del protagonista del serial, cuya profesión, la de “acompañante”, refina las connotaciones asociadas a la prostitución; la bella y siempre elegante Inara, en secreto enamorada de “Mal” (al igual que él lo está de ella, aunque eso no está tan claro en el juguetón intercambio situacional-dialogado entre los dos personajes), es una mujer de estudios, formada como una geisha moderna y una cortesana, y ese matiz (que es consecuente con las reglas del universo firefly) sirve para plantear un paradigma de personaje femenino muy alejado de los cánones, y en que de hecho –extensible a buena parte del universo whedoniano– merecería un atento estudio en clave cultural. Y ese darle la espalda deliberado, bien trabajado, a los tópicos de la función que una mujer debe ocupar en un universo a priori tan masculino como el de las cuitas aventureras de un carguero espacial, viene reforzado por los otros tres personajes femeninos que pueblan la función: la íntegra Zoë Alleyne Washburne (Gina Torres), escudera de Malcolm en la guerra y aún su mano derecha; la bondadosa Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), personaje chocante por cuanto su apariencia angelical contrasta con ese rol, tan masculino, de ejercer de mecánico de la nave; y por último, River Tan (Summer Glau), la hermana de Simon, una joven perturbada por culpa de unos sombríos experimentos de la Alianza en los que le tocó ser conejillo de indias, y de los que ha heredado una intuición a menudo visionaria, de manera tal que el personaje ofrece al relato unas a menudo apetitosas fugas enigmáticas. Del director de Bola de fuego (1941) y La novia era él (1949) queda esa tipología asociada a las mujeres de carácter, pero los significantes quedan sin duda lejos de lo hawksiano, y enlazan con la lectura contemporánea que la serie sin duda reclama a gritos.



Como el director de La comedia de la vida (1934), Whedon extrae mucho partido a las situaciones de guerra de sexos y al flirting a menudo asimétrico entre los miembros de la tripulación. También, como muestra del rigor y el control de las piezas de ese mosaico vivo, el relato progresa a menudo aparejando personajes en conflictos de largo alcance: tenemos por supuesto la historia de amor consumada entre Zoe y Wash, o las dos pendientes entre Keileen y Simon o entre el propio Mal e Inara; pero también tenemos la relación entre los dos hermanos prófugos, o los interesantes apuntes filosóficos/teológicos que depara el careo entre River y el predicador Brook. Firefly nunca sacrifica la posibilidad de seguir sacándole punta a ese estudio y careo de personajes y grupos: las ocurrencias argumentales resultan briosas, divertidas y en ocasiones angustiosas o hasta sombrías, pero se saben subordinadas a ese retrato, sencillamente brillante, de personajes. No es de extrañar que en la culminación de un episodio como “Ciudad de Ariel”, en el que tienen lugar graves acontecimientos (como siempre resueltos felizmente los últimos cinco minutos), cuando Kaylee es preguntada por lo sucedido explique todos esos entresijos de la trama (dos que se hicieron pasar por muertos, otros que planearon un robo en un hospital en el corazón de la Alianza, una expedición que se torció y terminó con apuros, atropellos y violencia) quitándole hierro; Kaylee viene a decirnos: “da igual lo que suceda, todo acabará bien”; lo que no significa que lo que suceda no sea importante, simplemente nos asevera dónde radica el meollo de la cuestión.



Esos axiomas, en cualquier caso, funcionan como sugestivo combustible de otros: lo que Firefly termina proponiendo es un retrato de vena romántica y que nos habla de los significados de la amistad, el compañerismo, la lealtad y el compromiso con unos determinados valores ya perdidos en un mundo (perdón, galaxia) donde la oligarquía de poder retroalimenta su carroña ideológica y excluye a la mayoría en nombre de la ley y el progreso. Conjugando con suma eficacia escenográfica el minimalismo de los interiores de la nave y unos efectos digitales tan sencillos como resultones para ilustrarnos sobre el progreso y las fachadas de este extraño futuro intergaláctico, la serie propone, sin abandonar nunca la clave pop, un paseo por elementos categóricos de la ciencia ficción: atiéndase al retrato social distópico o a los experimentos en el personaje de River, que sostienen parte importante de la inercia de esa constante sensación de fuga que caracteriza a estos outlaws de las páginas del futuro que, da igual si lo son por vocación o necesidad, defienden con uñas y dientes el pabellón de la rebeldía, porque saben que es el sinónimo de la libertad.



El aludido contraste escenográfico, que también es extensible a los exteriores donde discurren los sucesivos periplos, entre el high-tech o la frialdad metálica de los espacios opulentos y la rudeza de tabernas o prostíbulos, por no hablar de la desnudez de espacios desérticos o nevados, nos habla también de la apuesta de Firefly por la dialéctica entre lo viejo y lo nuevo, las reglas de un clasicismo que se hace evidente que no se agota y los esfuerzos por incorporar nuevos tropos, nuevas retóricas, algunos de reciclaje pero otros fruto del ingenio y la capacidad innovadora de Whedon y el resto del equipo creativo. Firefly es una excelente serie en el balance de todos esos elementos en solfa y armonía, que en realidad poco tiene de posmoderna pues detesta la mera cita, el guiño o la sutura, y ambiciona en cambio una mirada moderna, desacomplejada, extravagante si es preciso, pero sin que el canje sea nunca el rigor expositivo y el equilibrio en el relato de personajes. Firefly es, añadirían algunos, entertainment de quintales; pero yo no lo añadiré, porque eso que damos en llamar “entretenimiento” siempre me ha parecido una definición difusa que a menudo pervierte/subvierte/ningunea, al ser esgrimida, los fértiles significados en los que reposa el interés de una obra de ficción. Y eso es injusto. Por no decir miope. O incluso cínico. Y el cinismo daña las cosas bellas, como la nave Serenity, como el capitán Reynolds y su tripulación, o como la imaginación de Joss Whedon.

Suena a que la Fox lo ha hecho unilateralmente, como poseedora de los derechos de la serie, y que el título de Consulting Editor suena a que tendrá poca participación o directamente es un crédito que deben darle como autor del original. A lo mejor no, eh, pero suena a eso así de primeras.

Firefly canon to expand with series of original books

It may sound like something out of science-fiction, but it’s true: More Firefly stories are on the way.

EW can exclusively report that Titan Books and Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products have teamed up to publish an original range of new fiction tying in to Joss Whedon’s beloved but short-lived TV series Firefly. The books will be official titles within the Firefly canon, with Whedon serving as consulting editor. The first book is due in the fall.

Starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, and Alan Tudyk, the western-tinged space opera ran from 2002 to 2003 on Fox. Exploring weighty moral and ethical questions, Firefly centered on a collection of characters living on the fringes of society, joined together in the pioneer culture of their star system in the wake of a civil war. It lasted just 14 episodes, but in the decade and a half since it went off the air has amassed a significant cult following. (A follow-up feature film, Serenity, was also released in 2005.)

“[I am] delighted to be bringing new, official stories to fans of a show that has continued to grow in popularity over the years, finding new audiences in an unprecedented way,” commissioning editor Cat Camacho said in a statement. “Firefly is a hugely unique IP and Titan Books is excited to be becoming part of its legacy.”

EW has exclusive details on the first three books in the upcoming Firefly fiction series, including the authors and release dates. Read on below.

Firefly: Big Damn Hero, by Nancy Holder (Oct. 2018)
Captain Malcolm Reynolds finds himself in a dangerous situation after being kidnapped by a bunch of embittered veteran Browncoats.

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine, by James Lovegrove (March 2019)
Jayne receives a distress call from his ex Temperance McCloud that leads the Serenity crew to danger on a desert moon.

Firefly: Generations, by Tim Lebbon (Oct. 2019)
The discovery of the location of one of the legendary Ark ships that brought humans from Earth to the ’Verse promises staggering salvage potential, but at what cost? River Tam thinks she might know …

Why it's Awesome - Firefly and Serenity

Lo que más me alegro de que hayan vuelto a emitir los episodios es que me ha dado la oportunidad de verlos de nuevo con mi hija y encima le ha encantado la serie.
Genial.

Iniciado por nadim

Lo que más me alegro de que hayan vuelto a emitir los episodios es que me ha dado la oportunidad de verlos de nuevo con mi hija y encima le ha encantado la serie.
Genial.

Es importante que sea en el orden correcto (que el primer episodio sea "Serenity" vaya, no me refiero a la película, claro) y en V.O. pues las series de Whedon pierde muchísimo dobladas. Si no ha sido el caso prueba a verlo así, verás como aún es mejor!!

Creo que recordar que vimos algunos en original, y después de ver la serie, pues la película.
Esta es una de las serie que más rabia me ha dado que fuese cortada, una auténtica lástima.

Artículo sobre la que se lió en la Comic Con de San Diego de 2012 con el panel del décimo aniversario de Firefly:

Why Joss Whedon and Firefly fans reigned over Comic-Con 2012



Before midnight Thursday night Firefly fans were already lined up for Ballroom 20 at the San Diego Convention Center. I say Firefly fans not because I interviewed them all, but because it was well known why most of them were waiting in line, despite the fact that the panels in the same room included the cast of the TV series Community, Korra, Bones, and Arrow. I would wager I was the only person there in line to see the pilot for the new fall TV series Arrow, among maybe 7,000 people by the time the doors opened, who stood in line for the day of panels in the big hall. I’m a lifelong Green Arrow fan, and I could hardly profess being the #1 Green Arrow fan around and miss the Arrow panel. But if you’re a sci-fi fan of one franchise you’re a sci-fi fan of all, and I’d received advance press releases about the Firefly reunion and thought it sounded like a big deal so I was really curious about it. I also am a fan of Adam Baldwin from his My Bodyguard days through Chuck as well as actor Alan Tudyk.



Because it was my first year with Comic-Con press credentials I flew out anyway with friends (sadly without my spousal unit who stayed behind) and met up with my old friend and borg.com writer Jason McClain. Everyone turned in early Thursday night by my standards. The bus stop at Petco Field had changed which led me to walk by the front of the convention center and about 200 uber-fans already camped out and many fast asleep around 12:30 a.m. Friday. After a few weeks of 100 degree temperatures in the Midwest it occurred to me how nice the cool sea breeze felt. I like to sleep on a firm mattress–the harder the better. Hmm… how bad is sleeping on cement anyway? I initially had no intention of visiting any panels this year but figured I’d just hang out in the exhibit hall for the weekend. Why not see what this camping out at the Con thing is all about? I headed to my hotel and on the bus met folks on their way back to the center for the Firefly panel. Nowhere close to feeling like winding down for the night I took a shower, changed into my Friday clothes, grabbed some extra shirts and headed back on the bus toward downtown at about 1 a.m.

One to two hundred more people were in line and I caught up with the people from St. Louis I met on the bus. I nestled in with my backpack as a pillow under a palm tree on some nice lawn turf. Not so bad! New friends Cody and Sam even offered me their hotel pillows. The night life was surprisingly peaceful, a true Zen moment. Back in the line everyone was still bustling but gradually teetering on the edge of sleep. Conversations about where neighbors in line were from and what they did and what they like. Who they were, what they were doing, where they were going. Why they liked The Walking Dead. Why they didn’t like The Walking Dead. The low murmur of card playing and conversation lulled by the hour until a kid started running down the line at 3 a.m. shouting “Joss Whedon just stopped by the front of the line!”



No one really believed it, but likewise, if Whedon really was there no one wanted to miss seeing him. People got up one by one to walk toward the front of the line. A trusting crowd, people left their things behind–the only time you could get away with this in any city on Earth. Expecting at best to see Whedon with a series of “handlers,” instead there he was talking one by one with folks in the line. Soon everyone mobbed around him, and what you’d think would be one-off photos with a few fans, he soon was taking photos with anyone who asked, meanwhile autographing copies of Firefly DVDs and Comic-Con badges for those who had nothing else to get signed. Sensitive to the sleepers, he said he didn’t think he should wake them up. I (and others) thought they’d feel pretty lousy later finding out they missed seeing him and we walked ahead waking people up. He leaned in on several people who awakened with looks of not knowing where they were or who this guy was who was talking to them. It was quite funny to see. We were all really caught offguard.



At best when celebrities show up to meet “the people on the street” they shake a few hands, have their publicity moment, the camera lights dim and they jump in their car in drive away. Like when U.S. Presidents who stop their cavalcade to shake a few hands. In this case, Whedon did something I’d never seen or heard of before. He went through the entire line and acknowledged everyone, which took at least a half an hour. And there was no camera crew there. In fact I have seen no major press coverage of his visit at all. I and a crew from a Southern California magazine were probably the only thing close to press around. The energy was palpable. Exciting doesn’t come close. This guy just directed The Avengers, the new top selling movie of all time and the best reviewed superhero flick in decades. He created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the best vampire franchise ever with a phenomenal fan base in its own right. But for his past shows he hadn’t done this before. Firefly, his own concocted western story set in outer space, clearly holds a special place for Whedon.

You can tell from the quiet and nervous crowd laughter that folks were pretty surprised. Check out this video by one of my 5,000 new friends that I didn’t get to meet, who just happened take footage of me getting a photo taken with Whedon that I stumbled across on YouTube (THANKS, whoever you are!):



And I may look a little presumptious stepping in for a photo but trust me, we all took turns rotating in for a photo or autograph. That’s what he was there for. No one asked him typical celebrity questions. It was all pretty quiet and everyone half asleep. I did hear someone shout out “How about doing a Wonder Woman movie next time?”

The constellations aligned just right for this day, and after Whedon went on to his hotel no one could get back to sleep. We heard he made this stop to our line on his way back to his hotel after a late ending party. Not thinking I’d need any technology on this outing I worked with the gang from the SoCal magazine to get photos uploaded and online. See my 3:30 a.m. photos posted here. (Thanks for letting me use your laptop, guys!).

And so we waited and talked. For nine more hours. And it never got boring. I didn’t even bring a book to read. You may have read before about visitors to Comic-Con. One hundred and fifty thousand like-minded, self-professed geeks and nerds (and all proud of it), you will find no better community anywhere. Folks watched out for each other. The convention security staff opened the doors for restroom and water fountain visits. You can’t imagine a more peaceful assemblage of thousands of people with a common cause–not only having fun for fun’s sake, but believing in being part of something bigger. I connected with a few great guys from near my hometown in Iowa who sat next to me in the ballroom. The community aspect came through in what Whedon would talk about during the panel. “When you’re telling a story, you are trying to connect to people in a particular way. It’s not just about what you want to say, it’s about inviting them into a world and the way in which you guys have inhabited this world, this universe, have made you part of it, part of the story. You are living in Firefly. When I see you guys I don’t think the show is off the air. I don’t think there’s a show. I think that’s what the world is like.”



Later at the Con I connected with long-time Star Trek chronicler Larry Nemecek (author of books on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the First Contact film) and he thought Firefly’s fan base reminded him of the fan base that kept the original Star Trek series on the air. And that is all that these fans want–for the series to return–just like those Star Trek fans that ended up being successful back in the 1960s. Clearly from the series cast, they want the same thing. If any modern fan base could make it happen I wouldn’t be surprised if it were these guys, many sporting Adam Baldwin/Jayne’s motherly-knitted orange hat, these fans define the fanatic.

Originally billed as a reunion of the whole cast, a few didn’t make it, but it didn’t affect the mood of the crowd. The panel featured Nathan Fillion (Mal), Adam Baldwin (Jayne), Summer Glau (River), Alan Tudyk (Wash), Sean Maher (Simon), writer Jose Molina, writer/director Tim Minear and creator Joss Whedon.



When Baldwin walked on stage, it was like Elvis or Michael Jackson or the Beatles arrived. It was a roar like no other and he strode across the stage with a great smile and his arms raised, soaking it all in. He later pulled out an orange knitted cap, replica to the one he wore on the series as the character Jayne, a hat that he later gave to a girl in the crowd. Clearly a now-defining prop for Baldwin and Firefly fans, he acknowledged what such a prop could do for an actor. “This hat is a goldmine. It’s like a birthday cake in a wasteland,” he said. He mentioned he auctioned off the real hat for thousands of dollars for a charity, which received applauds from the crowd.



Meeting Whedon earlier in the day made the ballroom event that much more energized. Many in the crowd said Whedon “was one of us.” By the end of the panel, nary a dry eye was in the house. Whatever this Firefly energy and this 10th anniversary reunion was about, no one, including the cast and creator Whedon, wanted this to end. The first to start getting choked up was series star Nathan Fillion when the cast described why he, the actor, was the right captain for the production. He said Mal was “the best character I ever played” and “If I can get through this without crying, it’ll look a lot cooler.” Whedon added “There was never a moment from the time we met when he wasn’t the captain.”

The Q&A was energetic and funny. A fan asked for each of the panelists to describe their craziest fan story. Writer/director Tim Minnear responded, “That time we were off the air for 10 years and thousands of fans showed up like it was yesterday.”



“Everything we were doing was for the right reasons, with the right people, that we were making something that was more than the sum of its parts. That I had the best cast I will ever work with.” He added in deadpan, “We also had Alan,” referring to actor Alan Tudyk, known for playing hilarious characters like Wat in the movie A Knight’s Tale.

One member of the audience asked if an animated version was possible. The answer was in the negative but Fillion suggested he’d like to do a radio version and started to make special effects sounds with his hands, and he and Tudyk performed an ad libbed, brilliantly funny scene.



“The 27 people that saw it when it aired loved it,” Whedon said of the series, referring to his fans comprised in large part of people who were much younger when the series first aired and have only seen the series on DVD.

One bit started by actor Simon Maher replayed an old Christopher Walken Saturday Night Live bit, to cheers from the crowd:

Maher: I think you might have a fever.
Fillion: The only cure is more Firefly.

Fans who missed the convention would have liked what was probably the best question of the night: “What if there would have been a Season 2 instead of the movie?” Whedon answered: “It would’ve been littler. Most of the Reavers would’ve been off-screen [dramatizing large actions scenes off-camera with his arms]. I don’t think I would have killed anybody.” At that point Alan Tudyk’s arms shot up in triumph, causing laughs. (Tudyk’s character was ultimately killed off in the film). Whedon continued: “I think we would’ve delved more into the Blue Sun conspiracy, which we had to drop. And we would’ve learned about Book and about Inara. For some reason, that’s the question that’s going to make me cry.”

Whedon said he felt bad that the missing actresses from the cast were unable to attend the reunion panel. Only actress Summer Glau was on the night’s panel, and she seemed to be holding back a lot of emotion.

Comic-Con is over for another year. I ended up going about 44 hours without sleep. All worth it. Time to think about getting tickets for next year. Costumes to create. Finding a hotel again. What panels the show organizers can come up with to top this one. I think I’ll ask my mom to knit me an orange hat.

To understand why a series like Firefly has such a loyal following, and what fan loyalty is all about, you need only look to Joss Whedon and his visit to a bunch of people on a sidewalk outside a convention center in San Diego in July.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Más sobre los nuevos libros de Firefly:

Preview: Explore the Serenity and the 'Verse in These New Firefly Books



While Joss Whedon’s Firefly is not likely to come back anytime soon, the franchise continues to live on. Two great examples are these in-world books from the world of Firefly, including a guide to everyone’s favorite ship, Serenity, and the ’Verse at large. Better yet? We’ve got your first looks at each.

First up is The Serenity Handbook: The Official Crew Member’s Guide to the Firefly-Class Series 3 Ship, which is “designed as an actual crew-created manual and is the first in-world book set in the ‘Verse. Featuring technical blueprints, personal mementos, and humorous commentary from Mal, Kaylee, and the rest of the crew, this book will allow fans of Firefly and Serenity to explore the iconic spaceship in an entirely new way.” Here’s a first look, which includes the receipt from when Mal first bought the Serenity:



Next up is Hidden Universe Travel Guides: Firefly: A Traveler’s Companion to the ‘Verse, which contains “the history, geography, and culture” of the worlds in the Black “from Core planets such as Ariel to the outlaw badlands of the Rim worlds.” It also has concept art and original illustrations, which you can see some of here:





Both books are published by Insight Editions. The Serenity Handbook: The Official Crew Member’s Guide to the Firefly-Class Series 3 Ship is out July 3, while Hidden Universe Travel Guides: Firefly: A Traveler’s Companion to the ‘Verse arrives August 14.

Homenaje a firefly en su 15º aniversario



https://vimeo.com/273367734

Podcast interesante sobre Firefly, en español:

https://fueradeseries.com/fdsreview-30-e54b17640b7f

Nuevos cómics sobre Firefly en clave precuela! (se unen a las 3 novelas que saldrán entre 2018 y 2019)

New Firefly comic will tell the story of the Unification War



Firefly fans are about to get some very interesting answers to long-standing questions. The short-lived space western series only lasted one season on Fox back in 2002. Although interest in the show only grew after its cancellation, leading to the 2005 movie sequel Serenity, there’s still an element of tragedy to how much storytelling potential was left unused by taking the show off the air so quickly.

Over the course of 14 episodes, creator Joss Whedon and the rest of the creative team dreamed up a universe where humankind had taken to the stars but still didn’t distribute its resources evenly. This led to tensions between the wealthy central planets and hardscrabble outlying systems where people struggled as hard as they did back in the Old West. Those tensions came to a head in the Unification War, the devastating conflict briefly glimpsed in the opening moments of Firefly‘s pilot but rarely discussed otherwise other than as a source of lingering trauma for the main characters.

But now, a new Firefly comic will finally explore the Unification War and what characters like Mal and Zoe experienced during those battles.

Firefly‘s rich potential of unexplored mythology has produced several spin-off comics already. Miniseries like The Shepherd’s Tale explored the hidden backstory of characters like Shepherd Book, while No Power in the ‘Verse followed the Serenity crew through new adventures after the film’s conclusion. Now that publishing rights have shifted to Boom! Studios, a new ongoing Firefly comic is launching this November from writer Greg Pak and artist Dan McDaid, and will explore the characters’ war-haunted past as it comes back to bite them in the present. Pak wrote the epic Planet Hulk comic that provided much of the basis for last year’s Thor: Ragnarok, so he’s well-acquainted with complex sci-fi stories.

“It’s high time we got to see the full story of Mal and Zoe’s meeting and mission in the War of Unification — the good and bad that the pressure of war brings out in them, and the unforeseeable consequences,” Whedon, who serves as a story consultant on the new series, said in a statement.

Mal Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion in the original series) always saw the space-faring life as an escape from his past battles, but the new series will find him and his loyal second-in-command Zoe (originally played by Gina Torres) hunted by Unificators, mercenaries deputized to hunt down war criminals.

“Firefly spoke to so many people at the time because of the themes it dealt with and the way it allowed characters to deal with them, and those themes are even more relevant today: found family, identity, and the emotional toll of resistance, to name a few,” Boom! editor Jeanine Schaefer tells EW. “Our job is to craft stories that will be exciting and rewarding for Firefly fans that have been with these characters from the beginning, but also to introduce it to a new audience. We want to cement Firefly as a pop-culture touchstone, enduring yet modern, in the tradition of other perennial sci-fi epics that are still teaching us about ourselves.”

EW caught up with Pak to ask him about his plans for the series and the things he’s most looking forward to about exploring the Firefly world. Check that out below, along with exclusive promotional art for Firefly #1 and for Firefly: Legacy Edition, Book One, which will collect previously published Firefly comics.

Entrevista de hace algún tiempo por parte de The AV Club a los creadores de Rick&Morty:

RR: Of course Dan truly does love the Marvel movies.

DH: Well, I actually do. I love the Joss Whedon ones.

AVC: Anything else you want to talk about that we didn’t get to touch on?

JR: Firefly. The show Firefly. Just started watching it. Little more than halfway through the first season. So good.

Entrevista de hace años con Summer Glau:

‘Firefly’: Summer Glau reflects on Joss Whedon, sci-fi women and River’s edge