Big Damn Thanksgiving Weekend
Oct. 9th, 2005 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Two for one edition, with Thanksgiving and Serenity...
Okay, so, yesterday I did the Thanksgiving Dinner thing with the family. It was pretty good.. had good turkey, good ham, good gravy, good mashed potatoes, okay turnips and carroty carrots, and rolls, good pumpkin pie, and so on. Also there were plenty of leftovers to take home (some of which I just finished for dinner today), and no cheesy 'go around the table and everyone say what they're thankful' things I hate.
So that was cool. And there's still pumpkin pie left for later.
In other news, saw Serenity again, 2nd time, and officially making it the first film I've ever seen twice in the theatre. This time I took my brother and his girlfriend along, my treat because they really couldn't afford to go, Serenity's sadly not doing very well in the box office and I'd like to support it, and I'm just a nice guy... plus my boss said he'd pay me a little extra for coming in late on Wednesday, and the extra is basically just enough for two extra tickets. They both really enjoyed it, as did I although maybe not quite as much as the first go-around.
More specific thoughts, some spoilery, behind the cut.
So this time I went in knowing everything, and so could better focus on the memorable funny parts:
"Mal! Mal!" "Every heist he's gotta go yelling my name."
"Gee it sure would have been nice if we had some GRENADES."
"Dear Buddha, I want a pony and a plastic rocket."
"I am a leaf on the wind."
One thing that interested me was that during the flight down to Mr. Universe's world and the subsequent running fight with the Reavers, I felt a lot more tense than I can recall being the first time around. Now that could just be because the first time around I was focusing more on seeing what happened than to observing my own reaction, but still, it was interesting how that went.
I also have come up with a satisfactory (to me) solution to The Simon Problem, as I call it. For those who've seen the movie and the series, there's a bit of a continuity error, since everything in the series indicates Simon did not smuggle River out of the facility himself - he said others did it. Yet, in the movie, he does it himself. Now, that's not such a big deal to fanwank. You could simply say he told Serenity's crew that someone else got her out because he thought they might be more likely to turn him over on the feds. The problem is that while he's supposedly supervising the experiment, they basically tell him what they've done to her, making his big crime excursion to figure out what was done to her, in 'Ariel', rather unnecessary. So, I have a proposed solution:
Whoever helped Simon get River out had serious alliance ties. Now, while he might have been wanting to get River out, he a) didn't want to expose himself, and b) didn't want Simon to know about any other secret projects he might encounter on the way. So, he coached him on how to get in and out, let him do the job himself, and then, once River was safe, he used secret alliance tech to wipe Simon's memory of the rescue (and coaching) so he both wouldn't remember the mole's name or face if later captured, and wouldn't remember anything else he learned about the project or River's condition.
I enjoyed the movie and will definitely get the DVD, but I am feeling a little disappointed that the movie isn't doing so well at the box office. I guess it's a textbook example about why you don't rely on anecdotal evidence - all the time I seem to hear from people who are excited about the movie, fans who are seeing it six, seven, or more times, I hear from people who've never seen the series but still really like the movie enough to go see it a couple times... hell, I even hear a few times about theatres, this weekend, being backed... and yet it's not doing well. I can sort of understand a low initial box office, but I would have hoped the movie would have started to pick up and have a low dropoff. It sucks. Especially since I want to keep seeing these characters in more adventures. The show is just too pretty to die. Ah well. Who knows, maybe it'll start picking up some as those people who liked it but never saw the series slowly start telling people. Maybe it'll be a huge hit on DVD. Maybe Universal, instead of spending the 'half the marketting budget on the 2nd week' (which clearly didn't happen as I don't think I saw one ad after that first weekend... I've heard there were some, but there were nowhere near as many), they decided not to, and while that certainly didn't help, maybe it'll mean that the movie doesn't have to break $80 million to be profitable enough for a sequel, and it only has to do something like 50 or 60 mill worldwide now.
Oh, in other news, before we went into the movie I stopped off in the bookstore and go Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling which just came out in paperback and I've been interested in for a while. For those who've heard of the Island in the Sea of Time series, this is the story of what happened to the rest of the world that Nantucket disappeared from (to wind up in the Bronze Age) - apparently that same moment some weird phenomenon made most technology in the world simply stop working. Hopefully it'll be good.
Okay, so, yesterday I did the Thanksgiving Dinner thing with the family. It was pretty good.. had good turkey, good ham, good gravy, good mashed potatoes, okay turnips and carroty carrots, and rolls, good pumpkin pie, and so on. Also there were plenty of leftovers to take home (some of which I just finished for dinner today), and no cheesy 'go around the table and everyone say what they're thankful' things I hate.
So that was cool. And there's still pumpkin pie left for later.
In other news, saw Serenity again, 2nd time, and officially making it the first film I've ever seen twice in the theatre. This time I took my brother and his girlfriend along, my treat because they really couldn't afford to go, Serenity's sadly not doing very well in the box office and I'd like to support it, and I'm just a nice guy... plus my boss said he'd pay me a little extra for coming in late on Wednesday, and the extra is basically just enough for two extra tickets. They both really enjoyed it, as did I although maybe not quite as much as the first go-around.
More specific thoughts, some spoilery, behind the cut.
So this time I went in knowing everything, and so could better focus on the memorable funny parts:
"Mal! Mal!" "Every heist he's gotta go yelling my name."
"Gee it sure would have been nice if we had some GRENADES."
"Dear Buddha, I want a pony and a plastic rocket."
"I am a leaf on the wind."
One thing that interested me was that during the flight down to Mr. Universe's world and the subsequent running fight with the Reavers, I felt a lot more tense than I can recall being the first time around. Now that could just be because the first time around I was focusing more on seeing what happened than to observing my own reaction, but still, it was interesting how that went.
I also have come up with a satisfactory (to me) solution to The Simon Problem, as I call it. For those who've seen the movie and the series, there's a bit of a continuity error, since everything in the series indicates Simon did not smuggle River out of the facility himself - he said others did it. Yet, in the movie, he does it himself. Now, that's not such a big deal to fanwank. You could simply say he told Serenity's crew that someone else got her out because he thought they might be more likely to turn him over on the feds. The problem is that while he's supposedly supervising the experiment, they basically tell him what they've done to her, making his big crime excursion to figure out what was done to her, in 'Ariel', rather unnecessary. So, I have a proposed solution:
Whoever helped Simon get River out had serious alliance ties. Now, while he might have been wanting to get River out, he a) didn't want to expose himself, and b) didn't want Simon to know about any other secret projects he might encounter on the way. So, he coached him on how to get in and out, let him do the job himself, and then, once River was safe, he used secret alliance tech to wipe Simon's memory of the rescue (and coaching) so he both wouldn't remember the mole's name or face if later captured, and wouldn't remember anything else he learned about the project or River's condition.
I enjoyed the movie and will definitely get the DVD, but I am feeling a little disappointed that the movie isn't doing so well at the box office. I guess it's a textbook example about why you don't rely on anecdotal evidence - all the time I seem to hear from people who are excited about the movie, fans who are seeing it six, seven, or more times, I hear from people who've never seen the series but still really like the movie enough to go see it a couple times... hell, I even hear a few times about theatres, this weekend, being backed... and yet it's not doing well. I can sort of understand a low initial box office, but I would have hoped the movie would have started to pick up and have a low dropoff. It sucks. Especially since I want to keep seeing these characters in more adventures. The show is just too pretty to die. Ah well. Who knows, maybe it'll start picking up some as those people who liked it but never saw the series slowly start telling people. Maybe it'll be a huge hit on DVD. Maybe Universal, instead of spending the 'half the marketting budget on the 2nd week' (which clearly didn't happen as I don't think I saw one ad after that first weekend... I've heard there were some, but there were nowhere near as many), they decided not to, and while that certainly didn't help, maybe it'll mean that the movie doesn't have to break $80 million to be profitable enough for a sequel, and it only has to do something like 50 or 60 mill worldwide now.
Oh, in other news, before we went into the movie I stopped off in the bookstore and go Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling which just came out in paperback and I've been interested in for a while. For those who've heard of the Island in the Sea of Time series, this is the story of what happened to the rest of the world that Nantucket disappeared from (to wind up in the Bronze Age) - apparently that same moment some weird phenomenon made most technology in the world simply stop working. Hopefully it'll be good.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 03:26 am (UTC)Sadly not very good, no. I think it's hoped it would do well in the UK where there's a huge Wedon fanbase but at this rate it'll struggle to make its money back, even with DVD sales...
Looks like the movie pretty much appealed ONLY to Firefly fans and hardcore Sci-fi buffs.
There's been a fair bit of discussion about it elsewhere and it backs up my argument with other Transformers fans that to appeal to the fandom only is the kiss of death.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 08:36 am (UTC)Also, in this case, I don't think it has too much to do with who the MOVIE, as a movie, appealed to - with that low ticket sales not enough went to see it, and that's, at least in part, the Marketing's fault - which I do think has been lacking. Universal did a few things right but also a few things really wrong. I don't think the TV commercials did a very good job at marketting to anyone other than fans, who presumably only need to be told 'this is a Firefly movie', where they should have been focused on appealing to sci-fi and action fans in general. Trailers should have focused less on Joss Whedon's name (which can be a turn off to people who think Buffy is silly) and the fact that it was a failed TV show (which can understandably turn people off or make them want to check out the TV show first). I never saw any of the actors on the major nighttime talk shows (even in the dead time where they're the second guest of the night after a big name actor)... sure, they're all pretty well unknowns, but I've SEEN unknowns on talk shows plugging movies, especially in dead zone months like September when there's no big releases. Hell, a lot of shows focusing on upcoming movies seemed to skip talking about Serenity at all, even when they were obsessively advertising movies that had already failed. (I remember one particular example, weeks after 'A Sound of Thunder' had come out and bombed, seeing YET ANOTHER showing of the trailer on a show here that does nothing but show movie trailers, all before I ever saw them show their FIRST trailer for Serenity, which was only a couple weeks from theatres). After all the good reviews I didn't see any ads plugging them (I've heard there were some, but I watch a lot of TV, and before the movie I saw MANY ads for the movie, but I haven't seen any that quoted, say, Ebert & Roper's "Two Thumbs Up", so if they did some it was not that many).. hell, I saw more 'hear what the critics had to say' ads from INTO THE BLUE, a movie that had Jessica Alba in a bikini in it, was in more theatres, and STILL did worse than Serenity.
So yeah, it's a bit of a harder sell being a SF with no big name actors and some quirkiness to the premise, not to mention being based on a failed TV show, but IMHO there was still some serious dropping of the ball, especially since it is widely considered to be a good movie. Exit polls from early audiences said that about half the people asked said they were fans of the series, but 80% of people asked said they liked the movie. That's pretty damn good (especially since some segment of the fans were violently opposed to a couple things that happened in the movie).
I think it's probably going to make its money back - it may take a while, but it will, IMHO. I just don't think it's going to make nearly enough that they'll think it's worth trying to make a sequel, unless it really takes off in DVD with people who didn't want to bother going to the movies trying it out on DVD and really liking it (or people who heard that it was a TV series, tried that out first, liked it, but by the time all that happened it had left the theatres, so naturally they would then decide to buy the DVD). I don't _expect_ that to happen, but it's possible and hey, I might as well hope. ;)
Even if nothing else comes of it - it still is 2 more hours of Firefly than we were ever expected to get after it was cancelled.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 01:52 pm (UTC)It hasn't gone out there and appealed to a wide sci-fi audience and it COULD, and also kept the core characters IMHO. The Star Trek movies proved that a failed, cancelled TV show could appeal to a wide audience, even with a cast of unknown tv actors if done right. There needed to be something NEW to it - taking the core cast, but adding a splash of something that no sci-fi movie has done before. Hard, but not impossible.
But every review I've seen has said "they're a bit like Star Wars" or "the reavers are like Klingons" or whatever, and you're not gonna catch people rushing to the movies to see something that they can see just by flicking on the telly...
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 07:16 am (UTC)