Thursday, February 23, 2006

Got no place that I can be, since I found Serenity

If you visit Freespurge regularly then 3 words appear with great frequency alot.....they are....drum roll.........."Shiny", "Firefly" and "Serenity". Am I right?? Now i think I'm allowed to rip him a little bit, but he acknowledges that he does go on about it all quite a fair bit, but bless him, he loves it all and who am I to say it's wrong. Still not with me?? Well I think I'm correct in saying that Phil loves 'Firefly' the now defuncy sci-fi series from Joss Whedon [of Buffy and Angel fame].

I love sci-fi too but have to admit that if it ain't on BBC2 or Channel 4 then I'm probably not going to see it, and so it happened that I missed out on the 'Firefly' series. I've heard Phil harping on about it and when I went and visited him last summer we even went and saw 'Serenity' the feature film follow up to the series. It was good, although I didn't really have any info on the background of the film, and maybe would've appreciated it more if I'd seen the series.

Well this week I felt I needed to buy something shiny and ventured onto Play.com and searched for the Firefly DVD just to check it out. Well up it popped, £13.99 for the whole series, a special edition no less, including 4 DVDs, on which there are all 14 episodes, along with special features such as audio commentries on all the episodes, 2 featurettes, deleted scenes, plus a load more stuff to mention. And so I bit the bullet ordered it, and so it arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

Five hundred years in the future there's a whole new frontier, and the crew of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity is eager to stake a claim on the action. They'll take any job, legal or illegal, to keep fuel in the tanks and food on the table. But things get a bit more complicated after they take on a passenger wanted by the new totalitarian Alliance regime. Now they find themselves on the run, desperate to steer clear of Alliance ships and the flesh-eating Reavers who live on the fringes of space.

I've watched 2 discs so far, and the first thing I noticed was the use of the word 'shiny' denoting something good, and one of Phil's favourite words had some new meaning as inow know where it came from...I should have known.

It's a good series and I'll probably finish it over the weekend [not including all the special features]. The storylines are good, the special effects are of good quality, but not overused so the storylines do not depend on them, and I shall enjoy watching the rest of the series. It is a very realistic view of the future, no robots or aliens, just a world when the frontier has been extended to as far as man can travel [echoing the Western themes throughout].

The quality of the DVD production pleases me greatly as it annoys me when the possibilities of DVDs are wasted on just putting a chapter selection on the DVD.....Although....here it comes...I won't be able to enjoy all the special features as my TV has gone funny!!! Calm down Phil, I'm not dissing 'Firefly'! When I put the DVD in I switched the TV to Cinema mode, which on a widescreen TV effectivly removes the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. When I finished watching the first DVD I went to use the remote control to change the aspect ratio, and it wouldn't work....something's wrong with it!!! Damn you Firefly DVD!!!!

OK I know it's not really the DVD's fault, but something did it!!!!! I'd say go and buy it as it's terrific value for money and a good series to boot. It is shiny.

4 comments:

Ginny said...

OH NO! Another obsessive Serenity fan! ;)

I have seen the DVD at my local video store, so I may have to rent it someday to see what the commotion is all about.

adem said...

I watched all the series now....gonna have to go buy the film now!!

Anonymous said...

Hooray! Good boy Adem! Ginny, it really is very good. I wouldn't spend such a worrying amount of time and blog going on about it.

Adem, you are a wise man. The movie comes out on the 27th. Pre-order NOW!

Alecya G said...

I'm nuts for the series as well. Its already released over here...Well worth the money, wasn't it?

*sighs* Great plot, excellent effects, superior writing...and it doesnt hurt the cast is painfully pretty...