BEFORE there was Firefly, there was Starhunter (2000) by SIGNYM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

BEFORE there was Firefly, there was Starhunter (2000)

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, November 7, 2021 13:43
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VIEWED: 1006
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Sunday, November 7, 2021 5:40 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Tell me if this doesn't sound familiar:

A young yet ruggedly handsome captain of a ship that operates on both sides of the law in human-populated space
His black female tough as nails second-in-command
His irrepressible young female mechanic
His older, merc crewmember with questionable loyalties
Rogue spacers named "Raiders"

Critical parts that break
Always low on cash.
Taking whatever jobs come along..

*****

The scriptwriters should have been shot
The pacing is excruciatingly slow
The 'verse isn't anywhere near as fully-realized
Acting is uneven

Thank goodness for Firefly!

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Sunday, November 7, 2021 6:16 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

I had read Firefly is a Cowboy Bebop anime rip off, a Star Trek rip off, an Outland rip off and 'Outlaw Star' rip-off!...and if you keep going back in time I guess everything can be argued to be a rip off on something else? even Shakespeare and he totally ripped off the Greeks and Romans other other world folklore stories?

Perhaps something is missing from US tv these days, the risk taking maybe, there are a lot of great International Crime Dramas these days but not much Scifi, I look for Indie American stuff once Hollywood went full on Hollyweird and watch some stuff from places like South Korea. I don't know if there will ever be a great era of fantasy scifi tv again, maybe it could be done with crowd funding and the internet but it won't be television, the tv seems to be dying like old school radio shows. Gone will be the days of experiment CGI, claymation, world inspired new style music stuff and Mtv's liquid television, big and smal studios could afford to burn money on stuff like 'Starhunter', also during this era came the cheap 'reality tv' shows, survivor island, Masked singing musicians, the X Factor, the Singing contest, Ghost Hunter, Dancing with the Star contest, Top model Runway sometimes with Drags and these werid trannies, Big Brother, the america's got talent, dating island, celebrity cooking game shows, cheaper tv made more profits....reality tv became cheaper. Some like Disney and Hulu and HBO went for the spectacle, creatures and fantasy CGI worlds and fx while others made money from really cheap tv. When they do big productions is low risk and all re-imagined, I also expect them now to remake 'Heroes' with the 4400 other recent tv series and movies getting remade, its all remake after remake.

In defense of Firefly's originality -

Everyone has done the starship crew in space, so you need to write and film something original. You can't really repeat too many ideas again and again and you really need good actors, good sound and good story when the special fx are not there. I often went back and watched old shows, its amazing how much acting or fx improved they were always already getting better in the 90s but in the 2000s it steps up again. I don't see much happening in 2020s but that is thanks in part to Corona lockdowns. I did watch this 'Starhunter' once but soomething wasn't right, if a show bores or annoys me I usually quit, something didnt fit, the acting wasn't there if I remember, the overall storyline jumpy like an old xena or hercules tv show, maybe something wrong with the dialogue or the fx...well thankfully Firefly had a great story and a great team of special fx artists. I think today people don't have patience for shows, they want the fx to be great and want to be told everything in a story rather than allow it to slowly develop, I tried some middle of the road shows like Earth Final Conflict and 'First Wave' and 'VR.5' but could never get into them, Andromeda was ok for a season and this Firefly site long, long ago, used to be an Andromeda fan site but then Andromeda sucked. I believe the shows 'Space: Above and Beyond' or SAAB and Farscape and X-files are all of this time or before from the 90s but they are far more watchable.

The special fx in Farscape are great like Firefly and carefully used fx or a good script and good actors goes a long way, comedy helps also, a show not taking itself too serious like Futurama a quirky version of the Simpsons in space. Sometimes a good story is all you need like the Classic Twlight Zone or Outer Limits or Battlestar Galactica I liked watching a few seasons of the new one also, or classic Star Trek, the old Planet of the Apes was also good. It helps having good sets and props and actors that can carry a scene with not much visual detail inside it. The X-Files was great because it had a long story arc but it could also be very episodic and you could tune in any time. A new-ish show
'Dark Matter' which came out in 2015 was pretty good, its a bit crazy comicbook style but the guys making it knew what they were doing most of them were already involved in the Stargate franchise. The more recent show called 'The Mandalorian' was fun, it has all those StarWars creatures and I guess it has that frontier element you had in Firefly.

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Sunday, November 7, 2021 7:43 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I felt the backdrop world of Firefly was inspired by The Great Explosion. Particularly the 3rd part of that book "And Then There Were None".

I also felt that The Legacy of Heorot fell into that "Universe" and could have just been another planet the settlers moved to.

It's probably impossible at this point to ever come up with a story that's entirely original anymore.

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Sunday, November 7, 2021 1:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, IMHO Firefly is entirely original.

Some characters may have been borrowed from a previous show, but the Whedon and Minnear (I always look to scriptwriters to drag a show up out of the mud, and after that, the actors) made the show entirely their own.

Not impugning Firefly's originality at all... celebrating its success at taking such lackluster material (if you ever see Starhunter, you'll know what I mean), making it part of a 'verse that is whole and believable, with characters that are vivid.

Firefly is truly inspired work. I'm in awe of people who can do that.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

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