Firefly / Serenity Profile in San Francisco Chronicle
POSTED BY: Gabriel
UPDATED: Thursday, June 9, 2005 14:53
VIEWED: 5474
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I knew there was a reason I picked up the paper this morning! The piece can be seen with pictures at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/08/DDGQJD4D2O
1.DTL
When Fox canceled 'Firefly,' it ignited an Internet fan base whose burning desire for more led to 'Serenity'
Neva Chonin, Chronicle Critic at Large
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
It's a foggy Thursday night in late May, and the upper lobby of San Francisco's Van Ness 1000 theater is teeming with a rowdy assortment of revolutionaries, renegades, and women in Wild West garb and Chinese pajamas squaring off against black-suited men wearing blue surgical gloves.
It could be the usual summer tourist throng, but it's not. These are fans of a long-canceled television show called "Firefly," and they've been waiting in line all afternoon to preview an unfinished cut of "Serenity," the big- screen spin-off of their lost series. After the screening sold out, some fans bought scalped tickets for more than $100 on eBay; others camped out in the lobby and hoped for a miracle.
Joey Saade, 19, was among the first to score tickets ("I kept calling the theater"), and traveled from San Jose to see the movie with his brother and three blue-gloved friends. They share the front of the line with San Leandro native Arielle Kesweder, 23, and her own "Serenity" posse. Decked out in 19th century garb as "Firefly" character Kaylee (in one of Kaylee's flouncier moments), Kesweder says she heard about the screening from an e-mail and "immediately maxed out" her credit card getting as many tickets as she could for her friends.
Some people might question these fans' devotion to a series that ran a total of 13 episodes (of which only 11 aired). Some people have never been in love. Written and directed by TV auteur Joss Whedon (creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel"), "Firefly" was a polarizing phenomenon from its first episode in 2002. Its wildly inventive premise and pithy dialogue earned it critical praise, but good reviews couldn't save it: Fox showed episodes out of sequence, frequently pre-empted the show and finally canned it mid-season.
Granted, the premise was a hard sell for commercial TV. "Firefly" is a space Western set 500 years in the future, in the aftermath of a civil war between rebels known as Independents (or Browncoats) and a tyrannical conglomerate called the Alliance. The Independents lose the war, and under Alliance control, corporations rule openly; Anglo and Asian influences merge into a eccentric polyglot culture; men in black (with blue hands) carry out sinister covert operations; and astonishingly ugly cannibals called Reavers plunder at will. On the outskirts of this universe, the crew of the Serenity (part of a class of ships called Firefly), led by a former Browncoat, survive by pulling off heists and outsmarting the authorities.
When "Firefly" was canceled, fans -- dubbed Browncoats in honor of the doomed-but-noble Independents -- campaigned to have it moved to another network. True to Browncoat tradition, they failed -- but their efforts convinced Fox to release the show as a DVD set that included three unaired episodes and behind-the-scenes extras. The DVD quickly sold more than 200,000 copies. Impressed, Universal Pictures climbed onboard, enabling Whedon to make "Serenity" (due out Sept. 30), which picks up where the series left off.
"Serenity's" existence is a testimonial to the tenacity of fans and the power of the Internet, where Browncoats have spent the past three years inspiring converts, drafting petitions and even kibitzing with the "Firefly" cast on bulletin boards. Whedon and Universal are now stoking enthusiasm with their own "Serenity" Web sites, asking Browncoat communities across the United States, Australia and Europe to spread the word as they count down to the movie's release. Whedon knows "Serenity" will have to move beyond its "Firefly" base to succeed commercially, and he's actively recruiting Browncoats as guerrilla publicists.
"It's a viral thing, encouraging them to encourage ot
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That's a shiny article. Thanks for posting it.
Visit WWW.Marillion.Com for a better way to live
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I like the links at the bottom of the article.
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Ya beat me to the punch. I was going to post this very article!
I'm an SF transplant so I read The Gate every day.
Much props to my hometown paper and writer Neva Chonin for getting it right.
"Take me, sir. Take me hard."--Zoe
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Quote:
" 'Serenity' doesn't have Tom Cruise or 'I can't believe I'm in the body of a third-grader' slapped over the title, or any of the other things marketing people latch onto. What it does have is our belief in the film."
HA! This movie is going to kick ass.
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