Two Versions of Serenity (the ship) solved!

POSTED BY: JavidRho
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 14:19
VIEWED: 7790
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JAVIDRHO

Thursday, August 5, 2004 12:32 PM

I posted two versions of Serenity (the ship) yesterday in the Blue Sun Room.
link: http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=1665

One is the boxy version we have seen all over the web (and on the DVD cover) while the other streamlined version seems to be the one actually used one the show.

So, last night I rewatched the first three episodes and came up with this conclusion: The bulky well-known model was used in the Train Job, but after that, they switched over to the newer streamlined model. The episode "Serenity" actually used both models - but you can see that the newer model was only used in the updated scenes - those added later to spiff up the episode.

So, they changed ships on us - and none of us were aware until now? What kind of geeks are we anyway, to have missed this until now? We have "wasted" the past year debating the one-solar-system-versus-many question, and missed this little inconsistency.

I can only conclude, fellow browncoats, that none of us are the true sci-fi geeks we thought we were. The Trekers would laugh us out of the geek bars and make us remove the unneeded tape from our fake thick glasses.

Of course, this means that I am still a geek for discovering this, so I have to keep my taped glasses - damn!

RELFEXIVE

Thursday, August 5, 2004 12:43 PM

No one spotted it? Cool! That means we can be geeky without being Geeks... a slightly different state of being. And a better one, if you ask me.

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

MIKECHANCE

Thursday, August 5, 2004 1:04 PM

You do realise that when someone calls you a geek and you say "No I ain't! I didn't know they switched ships on us!" That your gonna be a geek?

:P

That ain't no shepard...

JAVIDRHO

Thursday, August 5, 2004 6:11 PM

You have to wonder if any of the self-professed geeks on either the old official firefly board or new official Serenity board are aware of this yet?
They certainly can't claim to "not care" about this sudden swapping of ships, since they (and we) have written volumes on every other possible discrepancies in the Firefly universe during the past year. They just missed it - that's all.

SHINY

Thursday, August 5, 2004 6:49 PM

We were just waiting to see how long it would take you to figure it out. ;p

Jayne, your mouth is talkin. Might want to look into that.

JAVIDRHO

Thursday, August 5, 2004 7:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:
We were just waiting to see how long it would take you to figure it out. ;p

I appreciate that, Shiny!

Actually, I didn't so much figure it out - it just sort of dawned on me that something was not right. I'm embarrassed that it took me this long, considering how many times I've watched each of the episodes (so many times, in fact, that even my 13 month old daughter starts dancing when she hears the theme song).

I am also scientist, writer, and a 3D CGI model builder, so is is even more embarrassing that it took me this long to see that there were two ships used during the series. Maybe I'm not the Sci-fi uber-geek I used to be - age will do that, you know. How terribly sad for me...

TIGER

Thursday, August 5, 2004 7:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JavidRho:
The bulky well-known model was used in the Train Job, but after that, they switched over to the newer streamlined model. The episode "Serenity" actually used both models

Ya, know, I could hardly believe you at first, since I've seen the eps so many times. I went back and watched Serenity and The Train Job again, and of course, you're right.

I did notice that the new/sleeker version is used for most of Serenity. The boxier version only shows up in the flight from the reavers on Whitefall, and after.

It looks like both versions were used almost equally in The Train Job

I took a couple interesting screencaps while re-examining these eps.

Has anyone ever noticed the markings on Serenity's bow before? I sure didn't. I don't think you can see them unless you go frame by frame.

It may be a little hard to see in this sized-down version, but it looks to me like Wash is piloting while sitting on the console rather than behind it.

SHINY

Thursday, August 5, 2004 8:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger:

Has anyone ever noticed the markings on Serenity's bow before? I sure didn't. I don't think you can see them unless you go frame by frame.

You mean the Serenity logo painted on the side of the bow, like the one in my avatar?

Jayne, your mouth is talkin. Might want to look into that.

JAVIDRHO

Thursday, August 5, 2004 8:06 PM

Tiger,
The following link has some impressive hirez scans of the newer Serenity - taken from all sides. You can read the writing pretty easily on them.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/feature.asp?f=49

Leaving for the rest of the day - as Captain Picard would say, "The board is yours."

Ah, still a geek after all...

GUNRUNNER

Friday, August 6, 2004 1:25 AM

I think someone spoted this long ago. The creator of the Firefly transport for 'Orbiter' mentioned in the readme file that there were 5 diffrent versons.

From the read me...

Quote:
Jon Marcure: After reviewing a great many screen-captures I discovered at least 4 different versions not counting the full size set which pushed it to 5 different versions. In some cases the "Serenity", the name of the Firefly in the show, varied from slightly different from shot to shot to being completely different.

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