What a dumb idea.This show was lightning in a bottle.It had the right guy behind the camera (Whedon) and the perfect cast.I'd rather a sequel to the movie than what will certainly be a woke inferior reboot.
https://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/firefly-fans-react-furiously-rumors-disney-reboot/
I don't think Whedon's gonna be capable of writing the same top level dialogue and they won't be able to find the cast anywhere as good.
Plus we live in the era when people who fought against a central government for the right to live their lives as they see fit will never be shown as heroes.
You know what? I'd like to test that theory!
Only problem is: there is nothing in the news about Whedon's involvement. So we'll never know if he's still got the top level dialogue and all. And without him, such reboot would not make any sense to even consider producing, so I hope they will not go through with it.
Whedon's radioactive; they'd never hire him to be anywhere near this outside of needing to pay him some kind of royalty for the characters or setting or whatever. And that, of course, would be one of many reasons it wouldn't work.
shareYep, sadly the recent news about him make this impossible, but I was talking about his writing capabilities - I think he's still got it, but we'll most likely never know...
shareHe's a great writer; if anybody could reboot it, Joss is the one to do it. I used to be skeptical of his problems (it's hard to take everything an ex-wife and an actor left on the cutting room floor rant about seriously) but a lot of people have come forward (and Charisma Carpenter has talked about it for years), and I'm starting to think that maybe Joss needs serious anger/stress management therapy and owes a lot of people a lot of "I'm sorry"s. I'm no kind of cancel culture jerk, though, I'd like to see more "written and created by Joss Whedon" credits. Maybe he should just be put into a room with a word processor and told to come out with three good scripts and not let him deal with people?
share"Maybe he should just be put into a room with a word processor and told to come out with three good scripts and not let him deal with people?"
That was what I was thinking initially as a solution, but I think he's a great director too, and I think he is the one that should realize his vision. I'm always horrified by Alien: Resurrection, and often muse about how he would have directed it... This is another thing we"ll never know.
Of course I meant this from a pure artistic point of view - he needs therapy and anger management indeed and I don't wish anyone to be treated like he treated most of the cast of Buffy... So this is a tough one.
I think the results would still be quite mixed if he was put into a room and came out with the finished scripts for the Firefly reboot. Not involving him in directing and casting is a serious risk to the quality of the product. He has amazing eye for ensemble casts, and a great vision as a director. But we cannot let him near actors and crew at this point in time... I'm seriously torn about this, as Firefly is my all time favorite series.
On the other hand, even if he only writes the scripts, that's better than nothing, and I am not opposed to any sequels, reboots or anything, because there is always a slim chance they will be good, and if they are not, you can ignore them anyways. In the case of Firefly, Whedon's scripts would multiply the chance of it being good, so... I'd still go for it, even if he doesn't direct.
BTW on this subject I wanted to ask you: what do you think about the trend of creating "requels", where they claim it's a sequel, but everything the original work established gets reset, so the end result is in actuality a soft reboot? I got the "requel" term from a post on reddit which I found interesting:
https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/s5timl/has_hollywood_moved_beyond_postmodern_into_a/
Are we really beyond postmodern now? What do you think?
He has directed some great movies, but he's probably a long way off from being able to be in charge of people. Right now it seems like he'd need a producer on-set making sure he's not screaming at people. Of course, it would be impossible to be creative under those circumstances, so it's kind of a Catch-22.
You're right. Had Joss been at the helm of Alien: Resurrection, it'd probably be a cult classic.
There's a dark side here, which is that Whedon got results with his bad behviour. Whiplash explored this a bit. Evil in the creatives' room gets *results*, and that's terrifying. Of course, non-toxic people get results, too, but here's an interesting hypothetical: Whedon had to make a few writers cry to get Firefly made. Do you want to live in a world without Firefly, or a world where those writers are happier? I know I *should* answer, "The writers' happiness," but...
In a larger sense, we kinda ignore this all the time. Ironically, Cancel King Louis CK had a bit about this. "But, maybe..." where he walks an audience through their willingness to look the other way on horrible things to get advantages. Your sneakers are cheap because of exploitative global labour practices. You bought them anyway. So...?
I think because there's a template already, he could write without further involvement in a Firefly reboot. Other creatives know how to direct/cast/showrun, so I think it could work. They have the original Firefly tapes. "Okay, it's like that." They could get there, especially if they got Tim Minear to handle some of that. Or, heck, get the Russo Brothers.
Firefly's one of my favourites, too, but I'm skeptical that it could work again. If it's not Nathan Fillion et al, do I even want it? Maybe...? You're right, though; it might be better to roll the dice and ignore them if they come up snake eyes; I just think they might be loaded dice.
Requels, generally-speaking, suck. They're nostalgia factories. They're manipulative. They should be reboots or sequels, not both.
Beyond Postmodernism...? I don't know. On the one hand, yeah, we're in a different philosophical age - one which is weirder than postmod, if possible. We seem to be in a kind of bizarre age of polarization where people not only make up their own truth, they claim contradictions. Your news is fake news, mine is real. Reality isn't subjective, but I get to make up the reality. It's like Newspeak + Postmodernism. It's ugly stuff. I'm off the cuff right now, though, so I might need to rethink this if presented with new facts, or rather, facts I didn't know/forgot in the thirty seconds I took to write this.
On the other hand, I don't think we're done "deconstructing" things, and I don't think we should be. If we don't deconstruct once in awhile we never get Watchmen (comics) or Logan (film). I like deconstructing, just not ad absurdum, and I wish there was more room in the collective consciousness for a little sincerity and Truth-seeking.
You had some good points there. I still watch Buffy, I still watch Kubrick's movies, even though the actors and staff involved were treated horribly... I'm sad about the circumstances of the making of them, but still consider them great works of art.
You said Whedon got results with his toxic behavior - I would argue that's not the only way to get results, even for him... so toxicity is not a necessary component of creating valuable works.
My question about post-postmodernism (or whatever we should call the current state of affairs in terms of cinema and culture) was not entirely random - the Reddit post I read reminded me an article from 2013, where none other than Joss Whedon called it - or more precisely warned against a very specific phenomenon.
The quote goes:
"Whedon makes note of the scene in the film where Indy confronts two swordsmen, and reaches for his gun… which isn’t there. Spielberg cues up Ford’s trademark shit-eating grin, and the audience laughs because it reminds them of the classic scene where Indiana shot the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But the truth is that it doesn't make sense in the context of the story being told.
[Whedon says]: "You know that thing in Temple of Doom where they revisit the shooting trick?... That's what you don't want. And I feel that's what all of culture is becoming -- it's becoming that moment."
Full article: https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Joss-Whedon-Has-Very-Specific-Complaint-About-Indiana-Jones-Temple-Doom-39189.html
When I read that 9 years ago (sheesh!) I got what he was talking about, but I felt his concerns were overblown and hyperbolic. "All of culture?" Way to bee an alarmist, Joss!
But 2 years later upon watching The Force Awakens, I had to realize he was right - and Hollywood turned this up to eleven in the last few years - feeding off the nostalgia of people born in the 70s and 80s. And it would be fine if they made proper sequels to the old IPs - but they don't.
Most people seem to fall into our category: separate art from artists, acknowledge that everybody's flawed, and while we don't want to tolerate awful behaviour, we're not going to stop watching Chinatown.
Some people are more extreme, but that's where I sit. Sounds like you do, too.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that toxicity is necessary, more to ponder if I could go back in time and stop the on-set abuse, would I do that if it meant I wouldn't get Firefly at all? Or, "Would one go back in time, etc."
I think he's right with the mainstream. There are still plenty of things that are more original. However, I do lament (with Whedon, apparently) that many major properties have devolved into that Indie Gun Moment. I see it most with Disney properties - Star Wars and Marvel - although it is by no means limited to Disney.
We can also look to places like youtube. I have enjoyed channels (and still do, occasionally) like CinemaSins, but I am becoming more switched-off to that constant nitpicking, self-cycling humour. I think that contributes to this. It's just deconstructions of deconstructions at some point.
Unfortunately, when they do make original, worthy sequels, they're often ignored. Blade Runner 2049 was, in my opinion, a worthy sequel that built on the original without going to nostalgia, without recycling the whole thing. It was interested in telling a new story that was birthed from the original film's narrative. Unfortunately, nobody went to see it.
About deconstruction - I fully agree. I feel culture has "cycles". In the last decades, the superhero genre was in full swing. But now, we are deconstructing it - Invincible and The Boys are the best examples, both are series which take the genre to the extreme, but maintaining an engaging plot and relatable characters. Logan was also good in this regard.
In general I like self-aware movies, but meta for the sake of meta is annoying. Something like The Cabin In the Woods is brilliant, because it's basically a love letter to the horror genre. Invincible, The Boys and Logan are love letters to the superhero genre. But the new Scream movie - judging by the trailer - is just a gorram leech feeding off of our nostalgia towards the original one - which was in itself a deconstruction of the slasher genre!
Now I could envision a great way to deconstruct the deconstruction and create a worthy sequel to the Scream series, but for it to be good, there has to be more in the artistic intent than "let's rake in some cash, people remember Scream, right?" And you can fill "RoboCop" or "Ghostbusters" or "Star Wars" in the blank - these were all attempts without anything of added value to the originals. The Mandalorian is I guess an OK series, but I see nothing outstanding about it.
What's sad about it, that these IPs are rich. The world of Star Wars could support multiple brilliant movies and series. But we don't get them, because Disney's main intention is not creating brilliant series, it's selling subsciptions by repeating visuals, moments, or outright whole scenes that in their original context were brilliant, but with the meta-spin on them, they are cringe-inducing and a bit offensive for the original fans. And Whedon called all this in 2013 - funny, eh?
Deconstruction is fine, yes. I haven't seen Invincible or The Boys, but I hear very good things. I loved Cabin in the Woods, and I'm not even a huge horror fan. But it was so well done, and the story in and of itself was engaging. I think that makes the difference between good and bad. Is the story worth telling even without the original? Yes? Okay, go ahead.
Watchmen works without superheroes in the zeitgeist. It'd need to spend a bit more time at the beginning setting up the idea of costumed vigilantes, but the storyline itself still works. Take away A New Hope from The Force Awakens, though... what's left?
Star Wars has that potential, yeah, but the story was really tightly-focused, originally, and was Luke Skywalker's story for three movies. Yes, there was a whole galaxy to explore, but it was tightly focused.
Example: King Arthur's mythology is set in a world where he must contend with Rome for power over England (well, in Tennyson, anyway... there are a million different versions of... just follow me on this, please?) but if you wanted to do "King Arthur Cinematic Universe," the idea of setting a bunch of stories in the last days of Rome is... okay, I guess, but what's it got to do with Arthur?
Star Wars could do a story of a working-class Corellian engineer building those inimitable ships, but do we really want to watch that?
Now, I will say this: I'd love to watch the *first* Jedi. That would be cool. I wouldn't even need spaceships. Star Wars as fantasy (it's already halfway there), showing this world of alien knights in armour learning to use telekinesis to wield three longswords at once? Yeah...
Your point is well-taken: Whedon called it and nostalgia overdrive is drowning mainstream pop culture. The best way forward is to (a) create our own stuff that isn't driven by "lookit! nostalgia!" and/or (b) spend our money on non-deconstructionist properties (and encourage others to do the same).
Great points in both your replies! I generally agree with everything, so here I'll reflect on only two things.
One is the first Jedi. This idea of yours immediately reminded me of Knights of the Old Republic (the original game from 2003), which told a great story.
The other is the "create our own stuff" idea - which is excellent, but I couldn't help but think about the original 1977 Star Wars movie - which was in itself a product of Lucas's nostalgia towards the Flash Gordon series he watched as a kid... But your point is taken - it's not about truly original ideas, it's about execution. Star Wars wasn't a soulless retread of Flash Gordon, and did not outright repeat scenes from it without added context, it didn't just say "look! nostalgia!!!".
Star Wars is actually very creative in its world building and mythology, and this added value I think explains its success. Real care and real effort went into making the original trilogy films, in sharp contrast of the nostalgia-bait movies we discussed earlier. And that is what I am always sad about - when I see a movie without any added value, only trying to rehash and re-tread scenes and visuals, even when from the plot standpoint it doesn't make sense in the work itself. And that brings us back to the Indy moment...
I recently rewatched Episode I and wondered when was the moment Lucas lost his touch... Initially, his decision to add CGI nonsense into the original trlogy put my estimation around '95, but I guess maybe it was around '84 then? :-)
I, too, wonder about the "nuke the fridge" moment for Star Wars. I can point to a few key moments of possible "breaking". The first is the Special Editions. When Lucas decides to revamp the OT, that might've been the cutoff, but I don't remember anybody really caring. Yes, there was "Han Shot First," but that grumble didn't "wreck" anything for anybody, really.
The second possibility is the Prequels. People had waited years for more Star Wars and when it finally arrived... meh.
Of course, there were "more Star Wars" movies in the Ewok adventures, not to mention Droids and Ewoks - the cartoons. Was it then? I don't think so. They weren't theatrical film releases.
A lot of people now like to say the Disney films, but I think it happened earlier than that.
For me, I think the point when I knew definitively that Star Wars was bust was the Clone Wars animated film. I didn't see it, but just this theatre-release of a "side quest" movie said, "I'm done pretending this is special," to me. It pushed all the bad vibes of Episodes I and II to the foreground and that was kinda when I thought, "Yeah, this is stale." So, it's the Prequel Era for me, but that specific moment.
Of course, cracks started almost immediately. The Star Wars Holiday Special was a sure sign that there was the possibility of cheapening the brand right away.
Original is good, retreading is bad. But trying too hard to be original didn't go well, either. Rian Johnson tried to push that envelope and we got The Last Jedi. I think of the first two Disney films as the extremes of Star Wars-ing. The Force Awakens is nostalgia bait and just copies everything. It's ersatz Star Wars made by a committee. After (some) fans complained about that, they made "subverts expectations," and fans REALLY hated that, so they retconned and tried to pander again with Episode IX.
The lesson of the sequels, to me, isn't to avoid nostalgia or embrace it, but rather to have a good story idea in and of itself.
"The lesson of the sequels, to me, isn't to avoid nostalgia or embrace it, but rather to have a good story idea in and of itself."
I think it boils down to that. This is the most concise assessment of the state of affairs regarding sequels, reboots, requels, whatever. More often than not I stand up after a movie and ask: "They made a whole movie for... this?" And by "this" I am referring to the lack of a properly developed, adequately written story.
It is OK to use an existing IP, but as a filmmaker your goal should be first and foremost telling a good story.
Contrast this with the saying "It's not the story, it's how you tell it." This is the defense I often use regarding Avatar. I don't really mind that the story there is a carbon copy of Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas or whatever, because the world building, the pacing, the VFX, the dialogue, the characters are all very well crafted. So a lot of movies could be still salvageable with good execution... but more ofen than not they are not even executed well.
My "nuke the fridge" moment (is this what replaced "Jumping the shark" now? Nice, I think it's more expressive of the idea and Indiana Jones is way more well known than... what was the show with the Fonz again? :-) so my NtF moment remains Episode I, as that was really heartbreaking to watch as an OT-fan 15 year old...
About Episode I in particular I recently rewatched it and took extensive notes about details that pissed me off, so I'll soon compile my findings into a thread which I will link here, as I'm curious about your views about it.
Story has to come first. Ideally, story the filmmakers care about, but I'm sure there are exceptions. The ultimate expression of "cool execution, no story" are any number of stuntman videos online. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2SMng4u1k
They've got cool moves, it's well-shot, but so what?
Now, for the record, I think it's awesome that people put that together and I enjoy watching it, but I don't think it's better than the original scene or anything.
I enjoyed Avatar. It is really well done. I don't think it's a great movie, but it's well put-together. Consider this, though: it's a poor xerox of Dances with Wolves/ Pocahontas, but those are good stories. So it's not as though Avatar is building on nothing. Stripped down, basic storytelling can still be good. In fact, it can be primal. Think mythology. Those are archetypes at best, but who doesn't love hearing of the thousand ships setting sail for Troy?
I use "Nuke the Fridge" with movies and "Jump the Shark" for TV.
I look forward to your Episode I slap-fest. Feel free to let me know when it's up so I don't miss it.
My Episode I post is up - a notification, as you requested:
https://moviechat.org/tt0120915/Star-Wars-Episode-I-The-Phantom-Menace/6200fe100d92a97371aff130/Unbelievable-displays-of-carelessness-and-laziness-by-George-Lucas
Just wanted to let you know that in the meantime I posted about The Book of Boba Fett as well:
https://moviechat.org/tt13668894/The-Book-of-Boba-Fett/62138ccbc8568b3b67e8b347/No-identity-for-this-show-just-a-mishmash-of-nostalgia-and-a-very-thin-plotline
Don't know if you've seen it, but this might interest you.
if the original version came out right now all you anti-woke warriors would be up in arms.
Half the cast are women! oh no!
and that skinny one can really fight.
In fact she can knock out a 200lb thug like jayne. The definition of so called woke .
No... Just no.
sharePeople don’t want a reboot. They want another season.
shareThis
shareIt's way too late to do another season. They had magic. If they try and replicate it now, it won't work. It's why Arrested Development didn't work; they lost their groove. It's just been too long. I speak as an avid fan of the show - I think it was this beautiful thing that just didn't last. That's the tragedy. We got a handful of brilliant episodes and a brilliant movie, and some comics.
shareIt will be crap. No matter who the cast members are, they won't have the same charisma or chemistry of the originals. And the writers will Woke it up, which will go 180 degrees against the grain of the original show, making it unwatchable for anyone with a functioning brain.
shareWithout Joss its absurd to do it
shareDumb on so many levels. The reason the show was successful wasn't its plot or setting (both great), but in truth it was the electricity of the whole team. It was the right team for the time and any attempt to replicate it will really not go well. All they will prove is that they, too, can cancel the show. It's been too long to bring back the cast. Even if they did, they'd want new heroes, too, and if Disney Star Wars is a pattern-starter, they'll railroad the (beloved) original characters and tick people off. It won't end well. Fans don't want it. Nobody wants it.
shareA reboot could work , as long as they didnt call it Firefly , or use any of the character names , or make any references to firefly or its 'verse .