MATTIE

The other day I had some time on my hands. I feel like I haven't been doing my part. I had already bought my Christmas presents by the time everyone was making big plans to buy out the Serenity DVD supply when it came out. Yes, I am sort of a control freak. I would have bought a copy for myself, but my birthday was yesterday. My famliy knows I'm a fan and it was an obvious gift to get. Shoot! So, to try and remedy my guilt--I definetly don't want to be considered one of those people who rides on the coat tails of others--I decided to encourage my friends, family and everyone on my emailing address list to check out this amazing 'verse. Here's the email that I sent: Just to warn you all, I’m a nerd, and this email comes out of probably the nerdiest part of me. I HAVE to say something though. A few months ago I saw a movie called Serenity. (Some of you, I know, have heard of this movie–probably from me.) I was on a double date. The guy who wasn’t my date was all gung-ho about going to this wacko movie that I had only heard about. All I knew going in was that it used to be a television show, somehow connected with the Sci-Fi channel, and that it was about outer space (thank you Entertainment Weekly). I was not excited about this movie. I would never describe myself as a science fiction fan–although I read books that would fall under that category. I’m not a fan of Star Trek, haven’t even seen an episode. I pretty much steer clear of sci-fi television and movies. I didn’t see Star Wars III until last week. Unfortunately, the tickets had already been bought and, besides that, I wasn’t about to refuse to see a movie that my date’s best friend had insisted on seeing. About two hours later, I walked out of the theater in a daze. What had I just seen?! Serenity was running through my head non-stop. I had no idea how to describe what the movie was. I had definitely been entertained. Who doesn’t like comedy, drama and hard core action all in one movie? I was confused, though. What were Captain Mal and his crew? How did they get to be where they were? What, what, what? There was more to the story that I had missed out on. When I got home, I of course checked in with my parents. I found my dad waiting up for me–as usual. He asked about the night and when I told him about the movie I had seen, his eyes lit up and he said “really?” If you know Peter, then you probably know the kind of “really”that I’m talking about. It was the “I’ve heard about that and I’m interested, tell me more” kind. Over the next half-hour I expressed to him my interested confusion. (How else do I describe it?) He said that he knew about the film because Entertainment Weekly, which I subscribe to, had written a bunch of articles about it. The avid reader that my dad is, he had read all of them. He sort of filled me in on the premise of the movie and then encouraged me to read the articles that I had only glanced at. That night before I went to bed, I dug out all of the articles and read them–all of them. The more I read, the more interested I became. I learned that this movie had started out as a television show on Fox. In 2002, eleven episodes of Firefly aired before it was cancelled. (I blame the cancellation on a bad time slot, and sports.) The show, created by Joss Whedon (a.k.a. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Toy Story), generated almost no viewers because of the stupid, fragmented way that the network aired the show. (Think World Series baseball and football.) Those few viewers, however, had grown. Those few viewers who call themselves Browncoats had made a fuss about their show, converting others, turning Firefly into what can today be called a cult hit. This fuss also elicited a response out of Hollywood. Joss Whedon wrote the movie and Universal Studios green-lit it. Serenity was born. Okay, so there was a television show. And it was out on DVD. Humm... was it worth my time and money to invest in something like that? Duh, I’m me, of course it was, and besides, the curiosi

BODACIOUSBRUIN

Well this should be fun! Do I really get my own webspace here? THat's cool, and people who like the same things I like will actually read this! That's exciting too. Sorry, very late on Christmas day, just joined the board, and I promise more useful posts here from now on.

LVS2READ

My family is awesome! For Christmas they bought me the Firefly DVD set, the BDM, AND the Visual Companion! Of course, I'd only been telling them for two months that I wanted them all. :biggrin: So, I spent part of yesterday watching several episodes. I FINALLY got to see "War Stories." Somehow kept missing it on SciFi Channel. :banghead: One of my sisters-in-law was here visiting and I converted her! Yay! Another Browncoat! Don't know if she'll ever buy any of the DVD's, but you never know. She really liked our Captain! :wink: On the downside, I see that after the marathon on January 6, our show is no longer on the SciFi Channel schedule. :crap: Hope everyone had a happy holiday with lots of family, food, & fun!

AURAPTOR

It must be REALLY slow today ( Dec 26th ), because I have no other explanation for this post. Last night, while mindlessly channel surfing , I caught this clearly made for TV movie on Lifetime or some such, called [I]Odd Girl Out [/i] It was some teeny bop drama ( redundant, I know ) about popularity and one girls struggle to 'fit in'. Ok, never mind the story, here's the kicker....I thought I was watching some early Lindsay Lohan movie. Seems all she did, after[i]The Parent Trap[/i] and before [i] Herbie[/i] was the same tired story over and over...new girl at school, naive to the laws of survival of the fittest , the importance of being popular, cliques, jealousy, backstabbing princesses, etc.. gets hurt, then comes back to show the world that she's prettier, smarter and a better human being than all the 'mean' girls put together. But this wasn't Lindsay Lohan. Despite that it looked like a young LL, it was actually the girl from [i]Spy Kids[/i]- Alexa Vega. She had changed her hair color and was ,yep....a red head. The resemblence between Alexa and a younger LL is uncanny, at least imo. Why did I waste time on this? I have no idea.

JAYTEE

All of us ( I already have)should go to Universal's website and post a thank you in their Corporate Vivendi/Universal contact page. I thanked them for risking capital and producing the movie and also for letting Joss Whedon have control instead of being micromanaged like he was at (3 letter curse word in my vocabulary). I also pointed out the sales of the DVD and stressed that this fanbase will only continue to grow exponentially now that others have had a chance to see the BDM on DVD. Within 2 years I believe the fanbase will be huge enough to support a sequel that will certainly be a box office hit. That being said, I think it's still important that we show our sincere appreciation to a studio that gave Joss the green light and stood behind him by 1) posting a thank you and 2) going to see any Universal films at the theater you think look interesting but would normally wait for the DVD to come out to watch. If Universal gets tons of email thanks then they'll probably view it as 20% of the people out there that feel the same but weren't so damn lazy they wouldn't type an email. That would only serve to make us look to them as bigger than we are in numbers probably. Either way, they deserve our thanks and not just by buying the DVD.

GYPSYLIFE

Flew right past 5 and now working on 6....got to make sure you guys are left guessing right??? I'm getting really really really excited about this story. BUT as always I'm open to plot bunnies and the like...Stay shiny!

TRACY

So I spent the past month obsessed with U2's "Elevation. Since my deadline has been pushed back to March, and I wasn't working this Xmas weekend, I decided to see if I could make a fan video using the song and screencaps provided by still-flying.net. The result can be seen here: