New Firefly on the way?

[ryacko]

There was a spin-off of Buffy, named Angel.

Whedon can very well start a spin-off show. The great thing about Firefly is that it is fundamentally an A-team set in space. Mercenaries running around, making plans to get a buck, etc.


If the actors of Firefly join in making webisodes, that would imply a love of Firefly greater then their paychecks.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well since the browncoats are strongest on the internets let us take this to the logical conclusion and cast in Samuel L Jackson as Sheppard Book's replacement....

[Darth Fanboy]

If the actors of Firefly join in making webisodes, that would imply a love of Firefly greater then their paychecks.

[Alkaloid]

I can kind of see a show about the crew of an alliance ship working, especially if they fill the same role in the story as US Marshalls do in westerns, more or less decent cops trying to bring law and order with limited resources and little backup. Leading to the hilarious episode where the meet the crew of the Serenity and deputise them into the Alliance Police Force, because the old fans will shit if you do a show set in the same universe and don't have them at least guest star once.

[Guardsman Bass]

I can kind of see a show about the crew of an alliance ship working, especially if they fill the same role in the story as US Marshalls do in westerns, more or less decent cops trying to bring law and order with limited resources and little backup. Leading to the hilarious episode where the meet the crew of the Serenity and deputise them into the Alliance Police Force, because the old fans will shit if you do a show set in the same universe and don't have them at least guest star once.

You'd probably be targeting a different group of fans than the Browncoat diehards with that kind of show, although many would tune in just to get more of the 'Verse. But I like this idea, particularly since it'd likely be easy to get one or two of the Firefly original cast members to occasionally drop in as older versions of the characters in the show.

In any case, the old diehard fans would probably shit anyways because it wouldn't be exactly the same as original Firefly except somehow more awesome.

Spaceships are cool but the themes seem like they could still work out in the mid-future on Earth. The biggest concern would be the expense of production. Were generic planets that all looked alike cheaper to pull off? How about the effects for the ship? Cheaper to pull off than attempting with a real boat and selective CGI?

The Serenity set plus occasional location shots in the desert would be cheaper than actually having a real boat and doing selective CGI all the time, particularly back in 2002. Plus, it's easier to do whatever you want in terms of SF story if you set it in the far-off future in some other solar system, than to have to try and fit everything into an Earth framework (especially a relatively near- to -mid-future Earth). It makes your SF look a lot less dated ten years from now.

Space has another advantage for your setting. It lets you get away with pure CGI shots that don't have to look photo-realistic because there's nothing "real" in the shots to compare them with. Or at least that's my opinion - I don't mind video game level graphics in SF as long as there isn't someone real standing in the midst of it, making it look too obviously like a green screen shot. Doing that in an Earth setting would be more difficult.

[Lord Baal]

A reboot would be a no go I think. It would be nearly impossible to have a cast together to fill those shoes. Maybe in a few decades it would be, but as right now, I don't think so...

I think another set of characters and setting would work out. However that would not be an easy task too. The thing is that the series (or the lack of it) has lead to a real nostalgia syndrome among the most ardent fans, and overcome that nostalgia will be near to impossible. Not impossible but very nearly to it. I mean, unless very well planed and executed it will be a fail, and just because of it I don't think any channel will risk to it, sadly.

Maybe they should go with a video game series first, and see if that renown the interest, a MMO game (thought I despite most of them) would work, taking sides as a Alliance thug, head hunter, detective or something and as a free, well thug, head hunter, detective, smuggler, or something. Other than that a first person or third person shooter could work.... but again, the IP obstacle and the general discontent/lack of interest on the verse seems to forbid any further work on it beyond the fan fiction wrote all over the internet.

[Themightytom]

Planning to fail is failing to plan. Look at the webisodes for Sanctuary...oh wait, you don't have to, because it became a show.

Yeah because Sanctuary was a high budget show on a broadcast network expected to perform like the various Star Treks, Buffy, etc...

oh wait no it wasn't.

That's exactly the point idiot, thanks for wandering back into the thread, can you do it sober next time?

The entire purpose of a web series is to add content to build, or in this case rebuild a fan base. A web series could become a regular series too if it was written well enough, as Sanctuary demonstrated. Are you too ignorant of Joss Whedon's work to know he's done low budget projects that were well received before?

Holy crap though I come back to this thread and i'm seeing some of the most rational posting about Firefly i've seen on this board yet (except for themightytom who continues the browncoat tradition of masturbatory fantasies involving the resurrection of this failed franchise).

The only masturbatory fantasies here is your apparent belief that you're more than a human train wreck. Do you imagine yourself a trollking, or are you genuinely of the notion you've contributed something here.

If the actors of Firefly join in making webisodes, that would imply a love of Firefly greater then their paychecks.

You ARE ignorant

http://drhorrible.com/

How much did the creator and lead actor of the Firefly make on this one again?

[Guardsman Bass]

Could you actually do a web series with Firefly? The original show had special effects and an actual Serenity set, which no web series could afford to reproduce. You'd have to mock up rooms to look like the set. And that's before trying to lure back the cast, several of whom are active on different projects.

How much did the creator and lead actor of the Firefly make on this one again?

Who knows? Wikipedia says that they "paid back their bills and their cast", which doesn't sound like it was a very profitable success.

[Themightytom]

Could you actually do a web series with Firefly? The original show had special effects and an actual Serenity set, which no web series could afford to reproduce. You'd have to mock up rooms to look like the set. And that's before trying to lure back the cast, several of whom are active on different projects.

I wouldn't expect them to use the old cast, I still favor expanding the story in different directions.

That was why I used sanctuary as the example because they're really the first to do it successfully. Nbsg's set was digitally imaged so that they would be able to do that. CGI sets are not as ridiculous as they used to be.

Here's an example of a fanvid. Not firefly, but star trek.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2udHO-LNzpU

The exterior cgi looks fine. The CGI sets though, you would need a composite of CGI backdrop and actual set. Not a bunch of swivel chairs in front of green screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdstRWUVom8

This set, for example, is FAN MADE, and good enough that they used it both for an episode of Enterprise, and for a fan movie which featured a ton of former cast members.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEl0vq0CCLU

Joss Whedon still HAS the original Firefly set, that's how he put it together for Serenity, again, I don't want to see a sequel to Serenity, I'd prefer a spinoff, but there's nothing implausible about a web based series.

How much did the creator and lead actor of the Firefly make on this one again?

Who knows? Wikipedia says that they "paid back their bills and their cast", which doesn't sound like it was a very profitable success.[/quote]

Exactly, but it's a cult favorite, that is legitimate enough that you can find it on netflix, and they've been planning to do another one since shortly after the first.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/ ... -horrible/

JW had his own brothers play a part in it, the guy doesn't do EVERYTHING for profit. Some of what he does is because he likes to. Look at the opening theme of firefly. How much did that cost? Joss Whedon pulled out a guitar to demo the concept. If he wants to expand the universe, nothing's stopping him, and he's fully comfortable with web media. We're not talking about a franchise owned by George Lucas, Rick Berman or Brennan Braaga. Fox owns it, all Whedon has to do is convince them he could do it successfully, and that it would make money. Like Seth McFarland did.

[Darth Fanboy]

Except that Family Guy got resurrected because the show started making money again via the DVD, plus it lasted long enough to being with to be syndicated. Firefly never showed Fox it could make money even though they got a second chance with the movie.

But hey keep holding on to that dream maybe? Maybe the old cast will throw away money to work for free on something a couple hundred people are really dying to stream online slowly in an ad supported window?

[aussiemuscle308]

Sad thing... I would say that FOX is ruled by a retarded monkey. But that would give retarded people and monkeys a bad name.

How would you tell?

[Darth Fanboy]

Yeah FOX must be stupid for not wanting to produce an expensive show that did not do well in the ratings. Obviously the deep love of the show by all 300 of its fans was worth losing a million or two here and there.

So stupid.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah FOX must be stupid for not wanting to produce an expensive show that did not do well in the ratings. Obviously the deep love of the show by all 300 of its fans was worth losing a million or two here and there.

So stupid.

The two arguably idiotic things Fox did:

One, airing the original show in such a way that it had less chance of building up a fanbase. That's just bad business in general; if you spend a lot of money on something, you don't get it back by fucking up the distribution of the product.

Two, if they're never going to make the show, why not just sell the damn rights? Why keep useless property?

One question is why does Firefly have to be in space? It could have just as easily been Earth 100 years in the future. The US is on the losing side of a war with China. The new political leaders in this country are currying favor with Beijing and keeping their wealth and power selling out the regular folk. Mal would have been ex-military. The Serenity could Ben's tramp freighter sailing in some region that credibly includes backwaters and major cities in reasonable proximity, a place where central authority is stretched thin.

I'd rather use different characters in the same setting to recapture the Firefly-ness than use the same characters in a different setting.

It'd be an interesting premise for (say) a tabletop RPG campaign. Not so good for a major TV show, especially because it would get tangled up in real world politics and affairs so quickly. I suspect it would come across lame.

Spaceships are cool but the themes seem like they could still work out in the mid-future on Earth. The biggest concern would be the expense of production. Were generic planets that all looked alike cheaper to pull off? How about the effects for the ship? Cheaper to pull off than attempting with a real boat and selective CGI?

Since even stuff set in real life is starting to use CGI a lot, I'd bet on the answer being "yes." Plus, generic planets can be shot at random spots in California or whatever, which saves a lot of money over CGI in the first place. That's what (for example) Stargate did, and very successfully.

There was a spin-off of Buffy, named Angel.

Whedon can very well start a spin-off show. The great thing about Firefly is that it is fundamentally an A-team set in space. Mercenaries running around, making plans to get a buck, etc.

If the actors of Firefly join in making webisodes, that would imply a love of Firefly greater then their paychecks.

They haven't done that. They're having a cast reunion, which is normal and has nothing to do with them wanting to recontinue the show, any more than a high school reunion means you want to go back to high school for another year. Any webisode stuff is just them trying to cash in on that.

As to spinoffs, Whedon probably isn't going to try. Once you get a billion dollar movie under your belt, you can make anything you want, more or less. Whedon will probably be much too busy creating whatever previously un-fundable personal projects he had on the back burner for his whole career. Like Cameron and Avatar.

[jollyreaper]

Whedon seems like a guy with a lot of ideas and selective nostalgia. He will revisit projects when he feels he has a good idea but otherwise has new and fresh ideas to explore.

If we see new Firefly, it will be like the angel and Buffy comics, continuations not in a live action medium. But that's only if he feels there's something left to explore. He doesn't seem to run things into the ground like Lucas.

This is actually refreshing. It prevents a tarnishing of what was good, no running it into the ground. Firefly is like a rock and roll star dying young rather than aging and fattening into bloated self-parody.

[Lord Baal]

Obviously the deep love of the show by all 300 of its fans

At the time the series was cancelled by Fox, it averaged 4.48 million viewers

So stupid.

Granted, it might not be enough to keep the show alive, but it was not only 300 people... so if you dislike the series so much, why wasting your so precious time here on this thread?

[Darth Fanboy]

I freely admit that I like to get the goat of overzealous firefly fans because its so easy but the point stands as always, the show never generated enough traffic to be a big budget series on a major network. Episode order aside, that's something only diehards point to in retrospect, if the show bhad been interesting it would have overcome that.

[JLTucker]

At the time the series was cancelled by Fox, it averaged 4.48 million viewers

Those are poor figures for that network.

[Lord Baal]

Yes I know that.

Granted, it might not be enough to keep the show alive

I think it was a real shame the series didn't attract enough money to keep alive, since I considered it real good and refreshing for tv and very interesting by all means. One could argue that it was the schedule (not only the order, but the slot they gave to the series) and so on, in the end it doesn't matter, the original series are gone. The diehard fans can only hope for a really lucky reboot or a new set of characters be it either in a new situation or in the same situation as the original firefly. But even that seems like a real long shot. Maybe when they run out of stupid reality shows ideas, one can only dream.

[lPeregrine]

Ignoring the question of whether they could do something new in the Firefly universe (whether a tv show, internet episodes, whatever), what exactly is the appeal of it? Is it just some kind of weird brand loyalty where putting the "Firefly" label on a new and marginally related show suddenly makes it appealing, or is there something inherent about the setting (without any of the original cast/story/etc) that would actually make it better than a brand new scifi show in a new universe? Because I honestly don't get it. Why put so much emphasis on calling it "Firefly" when you're making so many changes that it's Firefly in name only?


(And for the record, I love the show, but jollyreaper has it right: the show is dead, and at least we're left with just quality work and happy memories, not an endless milking of the cash cow.)

[aieeegrunt]

Sad thing... I would say that FOX is ruled by a retarded monkey. But that would give retarded people and monkeys a bad name.

How would you tell?

That monkey is rocking a meerschaum pipe, which makes him anything but retarded.

[Thanas]

No pure sci-fi show has consistently pulled in network ratings over the last decade. Heck even BSG, a major critical success would have been cancelled due to low ratings on Fox. The only exception to that would be Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

However, the way Fox goes about Sci-fi is pretty bad. Even if a Sci-fi show does well, it is demoted to the friday night death slot.

[Guardsman Bass]

I wonder if you could do an animated series of it. It would be much cheaper than the show, and you wouldn't even have to get the old cast back together to do it - just get voice actors who can imitate them and their characters. Not that I think it will happen, but it's one possibility.

At the time the series was cancelled by Fox, it averaged 4.48 million viewers

That's a terrible rating on a broadcast network like Fox, but a great one on a basic cable or premium cable channel. Which makes me wonder if the Sci-Fi Channel might have picked it up back in 2002 if

A. Fox was actually willing to sell the rights, and

B. They weren't working on their own relatively large-budget SF series in the form of neo-BSG.

[Terralthra]

One question is why does Firefly have to be in space? It could have just as easily been Earth 100 years in the future. The US is on the losing side of a war with China. The new political leaders in this country are currying favor with Beijing and keeping their wealth and power selling out the regular folk. Mal would have been ex-military. The Serenity could Ben's tramp freighter sailing in some region that credibly includes backwaters and major cities in reasonable proximity, a place where central authority is stretched thin.

I'd rather use different characters in the same setting to recapture the Firefly-ness than use the same characters in a different setting.

It'd be an interesting premise for (say) a tabletop RPG campaign. Not so good for a major TV show, especially because it would get tangled up in real world politics and affairs so quickly. I suspect it would come across lame.

What's that you say? A tabletop RPG?

[Simon_Jester]

No, you don't understand. I'm well aware of the Firefly RPG, my point is that a "Firefly-ish" setting on future Earth with plucky renegades traveling around the globe and trying to find places where The Man's writ doesn't extend... that would itself be a conceit you build a tabletop game around. A specific campaign.

It would not work so well for a TV show.

Whedon seems like a guy with a lot of ideas and selective nostalgia. He will revisit projects when he feels he has a good idea but otherwise has new and fresh ideas to explore.

If we see new Firefly, it will be like the angel and Buffy comics, continuations not in a live action medium.

I think he already did that, insofar as he ever will.

This is actually refreshing. It prevents a tarnishing of what was good, no running it into the ground. Firefly is like a rock and roll star dying young rather than aging and fattening into bloated self-parody.

Well, it might have been nice if it had made it to two seasons at least.

I freely admit that I like to get the goat of overzealous firefly fans because its so easy but the point stands as always, the show never generated enough traffic to be a big budget series on a major network. Episode order aside, that's something only diehards point to in retrospect, if the show bhad been interesting it would have overcome that.

Aside from the argument that you need something more like ten million or so viewers even to get Fox's attention these days... that just ties into one of my points. If Fox knew so early on that the show would never sell, the sensible thing would be to sell the rights to someone else for a large sum of money. Why keep useless property? Firefly rights are totally useless to anyone who doesn't plan to make the TV shows.

[The Yosemite Bear]

but in firefly verse earth is gone, everyone is decendant from the terraforming seeder ships that went out when we figured out that we had fucked thigs up. there's probably safe on eath by now, the plucky Disney Pixar bots have fixed everything and the Roomas are going to go Cylon on our asses when we show up and fuck with the job the've been doing of cleaning up the mess we created....