My amazon customer review by kpo

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My amazon customer review

POSTED BY: KPO
UPDATED: Thursday, December 15, 2005 04:48
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VIEWED: 496
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 11:20 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Howdy all

Just posted my first customer review for anything (ever) on amazon. I'll paste it below.

Reading my review again, I reckon I could've alternatively named this a 'why I love firefly' thread. Hmm. The review is fairly epic, just to warn you - although I did manage to spot one other person with a longer review. Bueno.

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So firefly. This is a special show. Somehow I need to get this across to you in a more convincing fashion than the hundreds of ‘best show ever!’ reviews on here. It is in my view the best show ever, and hundreds of people saying as much is surely a compelling reason to buy the dvd and see for yourself, but I know that if I were reading all these posts I would be unconvinced, sceptical person as I am. You can expect for pretty much any tv show that the die-hard fans will post 5 star reviews for the dvd boxset claiming ‘best show ever!’ (perhaps not as many 5 star reviews as you’ll find here, mind).

So, for all the cynical people out there I need to try and explain to you why exactly firefly is so special.

First let me tell you a bit about myself so you know where I’m coming from. You know already that I’m a cynical person, I can also tell you that I’m no fan of television in general. Also, you can probably guess that I’m not a kid (I didn’t want to bother creating an amazon account just to write a review).

Hmm, so far I’m old and cynical… let’s brighten my image a little:

I’m a writer, so one of the first things I look for in a tv show are good characters – characters that are interesting and or beautiful, but most importantly real, so that I can enjoy them for what they are without scoffing. As a viewer I want to identify and empathise with the characters, but I get turned off very quickly in most tv shows when they compromise a character in order to supply a convenient plot twist or whatever. Lack of emotional reality – sooo irksome.

In firefly there are 9 main characters that are so rich and well rounded that almost all are popular fans’ choices for their favourite character. Some of the more poignant scenes where these characters interact are scripted with a level of emotional intelligence I have never seen on screen before, and this in itself is almost enough to make the show ‘special’ in my book. But no, I set out to prove why this was the ‘best show ever’, not just a brilliant commentary on life. So there’s more:

It’s really funny. As well as beautiful to look at the characters are all impossibly witty. This means that the dialogue always has a sparkle to it so that you watch an episode with a smile on your face pretty much the whole way through, and also, you can watch them all over and over without getting tired of them. Then there are the laugh out loud moments - usually you get these from the great one liners (at least 2 or 3 of these per episode) but for me the funniest firefly moments of all are when the story comes to a climax that you’ve seen played out in the movies many times before (e.g. hero standing over defeated villain, decides to spare villain’s life in true hero fashion). At this point you will find that the firefly character will flirt with the cliché for a second, and then suddenly do something cheeky and completely unheroic to totally break the mould, while delivering a hilariously comic line at the same time. Wicked, Simpsons style humour that sits very well with me

Even if that kind of humour doesn’t resonate with you, you can still admire the refreshing originality of it all.

Another wonderful aspect of firefly is the whole universe that goes with it. As someone who is very interested in history and knows about technology from his engineering degree, I find the firefly universe a fascinating and very believable vision of the future. A new ‘frontier’ makes sense to me, as mankind tries to colonise space, so I’m happy with the western themes in the series. As intellectually stimulating as these socio-political projections are, it’s the nice creative touches such as the evolved language that make the firefly universe feel so like home (as well as the 9 identifiable characters).

I feel I ought to say something about the action in firefly, because that is after all the kind of show it is. There are guns, spaceships, and bad guys aplenty. When our heroes are not busy fighting these numerous foes they are staging some audacious ocean’s eleven style heist to rob from the rich, so they can sell to the poor. Our heroes fight with style and not bravado, and often blur the edges between right and wrong. There’s basically everything you could want from an action drama – plot twists, good fight sequences, great settings. If you buy this series just for the action I don’t think you will be disappointed, but that’s not where firefly comes into its own in my opinion.

One more thing that made this show special was that everyone working on it knew it was special. Watch the dvd extras and you’ll see how amazing the chemistry was between all the cast and crew. Firefly was one man’s original vision, with an excellent cast and a highly talented and intelligent team of writers and producers, and most importantly, it was carried out with love, which translates to the screen in more ways than I could possibly list for you here.

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 4:48 AM

DONCOAT

Beautiful! You've nailed a lot of the things I love about Firefly: sharp writing, witty dialog, convention-defying action, and a fascinating 'verse.

Only one thing you might want to clarify: that this is a review of the Firefly Box Set, not Serenity (the movie) or some other Firefly-related product (many of which are also available on Amazon and have customer reviews of their own).

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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.

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