Are you ready for "Serenity"?

[Occhidiangela]

Hi all!
Just thought I'd give you all region1-people a heads up on the DVD. (review). Although it's not officially scheduled for release till December 20th (making it a perfect Christmas present, so why not buy one for each of your friends?), multiple reports are coming in at Whedonesque.com that some stores have started selling the DVD early.

For all us poor chaps in Region2-land, we have to wait till February till we get our dirty hands on a copy. :(
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PM me your address and we may be able to work something out. ;) Is format (PAL/NTSC) an issue in DVD's or not?

Occhi

[[wcip]Angel]

Thanks for the offer, but I don't have an all-region DVD-player. My DVD-player can only play region 2-DVDs.

Also, I would need an American television set. (Which I don't have :().

I appreciate the effort, but there is no getting around it. I'll have to wait till February. :)

[[wcip]Angel]

Bringing this up from the dead.

I don't know if I mentioned this to anyone here, but there's a documentary movie being made about Firefly/Serenity; the journey from start
to finish called Done the Impossible. It'll be out on DVD later this year. (originally scheduled November 2005).





Despite it being a fan-made movie, it seems to be of impressive quality. Both Adam Baldwin and Jewel Staite have agreed to be part of it.
Adam is the "host" of the 90-minute long documentary and Jewel will provide the voice-work for the DVD-ROM-bits.

There will be cast/crew/fan-interview and a boatload of bonus material including:

• The Documentary (almost 90 minutes long),
  Interactive Timeline (see website for screenshots)
  Trivia
  'Verse Dictionary
  Commentary
  'What is Firefly?' - mini-doc
  Music Videos
  
  Interactive Viewing Experience DVD-ROM with:
  Over six hours of extended VIP and fan interviews
  Printable Fan artwork, recipes and songs.
  Printable Posters and Guerilla Marketing materials
  Fan and VIP Biographies
  Conversion stories
  Live Transcript with links glossary terms
  A Running Fan Count
  All searchable, cross-indexed and obsessively interactive.<>
  [st]
  all filled with such wonderful quotes like:
  "Oh man, when they cancelled the show, I felt GREAT!! Oh wait. No. The other thing."
  
  Take a look at the trailer and some interviews at
  http://www.donetheimpossible.com
  
  I also want to point out the awesomeness that is this movie! It's a testament to the insanity and dedication of these people; both fans, crew, cast and creator.

[Occhidiangela]

Bringing this up from the dead.
(originally scheduled November 2005).

Are you suggesting that there wasn't enough fan trivia in the extra info and narration of the DVD, and the annotated episodes from the TV show 4 disk set?

Not to mention Browncoats.com.

Then again, milking a fan base has kept Elvis' heirs rich.

Occhi

PS: I did not see Elvis at the gas station last night. ;)

[[wcip]Angel]

I'm suggesting that it's an amazing feat for two fans to produce something as momentous as this, AND that they managed to get the cast involved in the production of it.

edit: Also, that it's for charity just makes this all the sweeter. :)

[Drasca]

Angel,Dec 14 2005, 05:19 PM]Thanks for the offer, but I don't have an all-region DVD-player. My DVD-player can only play region 2-DVDs.

Also, I would need an American television set. (Which I don't have :().

I appreciate the effort, but there is no getting around it. I'll have to wait till February. :)
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Your region specific problem confuses me.

Assuming someone purchases a legitimate copy to send to you, an archival copy could be made alongside to be regionless or region 2.

Do you have a DVD-ROM? They too can be regionless, and most software can handle DVD-playback.

Then again, its past february, so that should be a non issue :)

[DeeBye]

Your region specific problem confuses me.

Assuming someone purchases a legitimate copy to send to you, an archival copy could be made alongside to be regionless or region 2.
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Not only that, but lots of regular DVD players can be made region-free with the appropriate button presses.

[[wcip]Angel]

At this point it pretty much *is* a non-issue :) My old DVD-player broke and for Christmas I got a region-free DVD-player from my brother. Subsequently, I purchased Serenity from Playusa.com (With the llama-cover.)

[Dixen Andomiel]

Too bad people refuse to go see movies without big movie stars in them. :(

I think you grossly underestimate some people... I refuse to go see movies in a theater regardless of who is cast. With a family of 6 we figured we could rent 3 DVDs, buy all the pop, candy, popcorn and chips that all 6 of use could eat, and could even allow each of the kids (4 of 'em) to bring over a friend or 3 and still spend less than a single movie in a theater... Oh, and we could do "movie night" 3 times a month and still spend less.

It's not about "stars", it about common sense.

As an aside... I saw the movie before I say the series. I was so impressed that I now own both the series and the movie on DVD. Here's to hoping they bring the series back...

[[wcip]Angel]

With a family of 6 we figured we could rent 3 DVDs, buy all the pop, candy, popcorn and chips that all 6 of use could eat, and could even allow each of the kids (4 of 'em) to bring over a friend or 3 and still spend less than a single movie in a theater... Oh, and we could do "movie night" 3 times a month and still spend less.

Sounds sensible :) Movie prices are obscene nowadays. Here, we pay about $15-16 for a single ticket. What I do is, when I get home from a movie where I haven't been completely happy (something wrong with the sound/picture, people talking, etc), I send an email to the cinema, and they send me a couple of tickets for my trouble. :)

Back to Serenity. I guess there's no single answer why Serenity did so poorly in the cinema (world-wide gross totalled about $38m, the movie cost $40m.) Why do you think it didn't do so well? If it wasn't for the lack of superstars, what was it? Granted it's a tough movie to market, what with it being an action-adventure/horror/drama/comedy/sci-fi/western-hybrid sort of thing, but it has a solid fanbase who should have been able to spread the word. (However, some articles have claimed that the zealotry of certain extreme fans put people off and alienated potential viewers...)

[Dixen Andomiel]

Sounds sensible :) Movie prices are obscene nowadays. Here, we pay about $15-16 for a single ticket. What I do is, when I get home from a movie where I haven't been completely happy (something wrong with the sound/picture, people talking, etc), I send an email to the cinema, and they send me a couple of tickets for my trouble. :)

Back to Serenity. I guess there's no single answer why Serenity did so poorly in the cinema (world-wide gross totalled about $38m, the movie cost $40m.) Why do you think it didn't do so well? If it wasn't for the lack of superstars, what was it? Granted it's a tough movie to market, what with it being an action-adventure/horror/drama/comedy/sci-fi/western-hybrid sort of thing, but it has a solid fanbase who should have been able to spread the word. (However, some articles have claimed that the zealotry of certain extreme fans put people off and alienated potential viewers...)
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Honestly, I'm not really sure. After seeing the movie, which I thought was rather well done, I went back and watched the TV series in the actual order that JW meant for them to be seen. I absolutely loved it... the theme song wasn't very well received by my wife, then again she doesn't like Country music in the slightest. Other than that we both rather liked the series and for the life of me I cannot figure why it just didn't take...

Course, personally I think there are simply to many "reality" shows on the tube as of late and were it not for my DVR I wouldn't even bother with a television set. Hell, I even have a bigger Monitor than I do TV because I just don't use the thing enough to bother spending the extra money on it.

[bigeyedbug]

Sounds sensible :) Movie prices are obscene nowadays. Here, we pay about $15-16 for a single ticket. What I do is, when I get home from a movie where I haven't been completely happy (something wrong with the sound/picture, people talking, etc), I send an email to the cinema, and they send me a couple of tickets for my trouble. :)

Back to Serenity. I guess there's no single answer why Serenity did so poorly in the cinema (world-wide gross totalled about $38m, the movie cost $40m.) Why do you think it didn't do so well? If it wasn't for the lack of superstars, what was it? Granted it's a tough movie to market, what with it being an action-adventure/horror/drama/comedy/sci-fi/western-hybrid sort of thing, but it has a solid fanbase who should have been able to spread the word. (However, some articles have claimed that the zealotry of certain extreme fans put people off and alienated potential viewers...)
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In terms of how I got to know the Firefly universe, I was in much the same boat as Dixen Andomiel, except that I thought the movie was ok-verging-on-good the first time around. I'm glad I gave the TV series a chance after that. The only reason I did so was because a person whose opinion I have immense respect for recommended it over at the AB.

There's a lot of great stuff in the series. I don't need to tell anybody here that, but I will say that after I'd watched the pilot a couple of times, I took to telling my friends it was the best Western I'd seen since Unforgiven.

I went back and watched the movie again after obsessing over the Firefly discs. Trying to steer a middle course between my high expectations (Firefly) and my low ones (the Hollywood sci-fi record over the last 20 years) I still give it about a 6 or 7 out of 10.

I don't think that explains why it did so poorly at the box office--that I'd pin to the prosaic "star power" and marketing reasons, mostly--but it might have stood a chance if it had more of whatever magic pixie dust made the TV series so special.

But...I think the fact that it was on TV had something to do with the magic.