Let's Speculate Wildly About the Prologue of "Serenity"
POSTED BY: magus3d
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 8, 2004 21:00
VIEWED: 10897
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Greetings&Felecitations:
Heard some good things here and some not so good. It could go either way with the opening scene, action or a broad outline of how they got to where they are. Depends on what the studio wanted I'd think. Joss had wanted a slower intro to the series, but Fox wanted something faster, hence the barroom brawl. Perhaps we'll see something like that with flashbacks on the different characters as they appear in the scene. Or they could do a slower opening, I liked the OIS idea, River's going by each character and having the comment made by each character and a flash of history. That could work as well.
But what my personal favourite would be: Book narrating a three minute opening showing the history of the 'verse from the depletion of old earth, to the Reavers, to the War (every Southern refer's to the War of northern Aggression with a captial letter even after 140 years!)to the current situation, ending on Serenity with him reading from the Book as the others come and go from the galley.
Brion Jaeger of Amber
"Once you've been in Serenity, how can you ever leave?" Zoe to Simon in a scene deleted from the pilot but kept on the DVD
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Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
First of all..Quote:Ebonezer, I'm not sure that Jurassic porn is quite the mood Joss wants to start his movie with. I could be wrong.
That or Wash's dinosaurs doing it
Doesn't anybody ever listen to me?
Quote:
Originally posted by ebonezer:
Hey! That not what I ment! You got a smutty mind!
I ment it should open with Wash playing with his dinosaurs, and in their little dinosaur voices they could talk about the crew and do the introductions.
It would be strangly poetical and fitting too (cuz thats how serenity the episode started)
Sheesh, you people don't listen do you.
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Four out of five gynecologists recommend calling Ebo a girl.
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It's amusing as heck reading this thread, since I know how the movie will go. *evil laugh*
Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
They should actually go back to THE TRAIN JOB for inspiration, because if it was the "second pilot", then they did a masterful job explaining the situation and the characters in an incredibly short time.
Wow, I couldn't possibly disagree with this sentiment more. "The Train Job" did an awful job of introducing the universe and the characters. I maintain that, had Fox started with "Serenity," and had "The Train Job" never existed, we wouldn't be awaiting the release of Serenity as a feature film, because we'd all be too busy watching Firefly's third season right now. (And the commentary by Mssrs. Whedon and Minear that accompanies "The Train Job" bears me out in some ways.)
Keith R.A. DeCandido
keith@decandido.net
www.DeCandido.net | www.AlbeShiloh.com
www.livejournal.com/~kradical
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KRAD - So just how lethal is your non-disclosure clause?? Any wiggle room... at all... any?
Anyhow... I think it would be great if the movie opened as the trailer *might* suggest with the crew pulling off an incredibly lame heist. This would lower expectations for the new audience in terms of the nobility of the characters, which would perfectly set the scene for the rest of the movie, ie, the true heroics of these characters as they fight for one of their own.
That guy, working electric, he never drank with us!
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*wanders into thread*
There's nothing wrong with scrolling text..
I like the SW intros fine. Not that they'd work well with Serenity, but yeah.
Ooh, food..
*wanders out of thread*
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I agree that we don't need the main theme (Ballad of Serenity) to introduce characters, but I would absolutely love! it if Mal or Wash or someone just hummed it or something. Like a little funny 'thanks' to all the die hard browncoats out there come to see the movie. That would be great, and it seems like something Joss might do. Oiy, is it September yet?
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It opens with a man running from a pitchfork-waving, torch-bearing type crowd. He looks like a monster, covered in blueish hair and muscles, and he runs barefoot. He stops in an alley, hiding, and finds a piece of paper on the ground. He gets out his glasses and puts them on as the crowd yells for his hide in the distance.
Oh, wait. Did you say Serenity or X-Men 3?
Because I think that intro could work for either film.
"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."
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About using a voice over in the prologue:
The thing about voice-overs in cinema today is that they are extremely taboo. Most screenwriters will say that using a voice over ends up being a short-cut that avoid tough and interesting exposition. It is a tell-tale sign of a student horror short-film, if the main character begins the film with a gloomy voice over (I should know, I wrote one with a beginning just like that, but over the course of countless revisions, more and more of the voice over was cut because I was learning more effective ways of "showing" not "telling") The format of film is amazing because you don't even need words to show something, action and visuals can tell so much in a film and most general exposition that you can tell in a voice-over can be told more effectively other ways. It is a cardinal rule of screenwriting (that of course can be broken, but really shouldn't) to "show, not tell" what you want the audience to learn. That's not to say that voice-overs should not be used - I'm sure that if Joss really wanted to use someone like River to do a voice-over, he would write a very effective one - but Joss I'm sure knows the breadth of what he can do in film (as opposed to TV) and will be able to give exposition without resulting to a voice-over.
Inara: What did I say to you about barging in to my shuttle?
Mal: That it was manly and impulsive?
Inara: Yes, precisely, only the exact phrase I used was "don't."
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We seem to have gone a bit off topic here...
Oh. Wait.
You mean this isn't the "Jurassic Porn" thread?
"Hermanos! The Devil has built a robot! Andale!" -- Numero Cinco
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E221b : RE: voice over taboo...
That's exactly why I think it would be fitting for "Serenity" to have a voice-over... It's so retro, nobody does it anymore -- like camera zooms and querky framing... It's possible to have a voice-over with good visual representation to get the exposition out of the way...
p.s. -- "Show... Don't Tell..." 
... sorry, makes me laugh...
... I Majored in Professional Writing (Scriptwriting) -- I've been using that exact phrase for many years now... Constantly... especially with a mate of mine who graduated Law and BA English who had delusions of being a writer... Finally got him to do a post grad in pro writing last year -- now he's an assistant lecturer in scriptwriting at Uni, and he's doing his Masters in Professional Writing -- so now he keeps telling me, "Show... Don't Tell..."
Oh, the irony...
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