A Space Opera Podcast: Browncoats Unite! Revisting Serenity

This week from deep space w/ host Jon Justice
- Revisiting Serenity

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
M y'all got on this boat fordifferent reasons, but y'all come the same
place. So now I'm asking moreof you than I had before. As
sure as I know anything, Iknow this, I am to misbehavior.

(00:38):
I'm taking your sister into my protectionhere. The only people she's a threat
to is us on this boat.It isn't safe. They're coming. I
think we better go. Where areyou hiding, little girl? Your lines

(01:00):
one of the reasons they shouldn't havesent in a sense of every minute you
keep ri attempt from me, morepeople will die. That is your fault.
I don't learn a children, Ido. The Alliance has gone to
enormous struggle to find your friend.You'll know what it is you're carrying.

(01:22):
Do you know that guy? Sheis amte unpredictable mood, swings of a
sword. It's less than you knowit usually is. It's a fair bit.
Alliance knows what's coming. No,you're not going to see this coming.
Let's be bad, guys, We'renot alone, no more running.

(01:56):
This is gonna get pretty interesting tofind interested. Oh god, oh god,
we're all gonna die. I wantto resolve this like civilized men.
I'm not threatening you. I'm unarmed. Good. It's my nerd World,
a space opera podcast, and I'myour host, John Justice. Glad you're

(02:19):
with the show. I know I'vetaken quite a bit of time off of
doing this show, but I've beenbusy. I've been busy writing stories,
stories in my Embarked series that werelargely inspired not only by Star Wars,
but by the very trailer for themovie that we'll be discussing this week on
a space opera podcast, and thatis Serenity. You can visit my Nerdworld

(02:43):
dot net to find out all aboutmy nerd World, including the science fiction
space opera series written by me JohnJustice. There at the website of my
nerd World at dot net and thepodcast as well. Sign up for the
mailing list while you're there, andas always, you can email me talk
show Nerds at gmail dot com.My Mary. All right, I'm glad

(03:09):
you're with the show this week,and I have taken quite a bit of
time off from doing a space operapodcast. And if you've been waiting patiently
for the next episode, I apologizethat has taken so long, but I
have been very busy. Plus there'sbeen like elections and stuff going on here
in America depending on where you're listeningto this, and I will not be
getting into any of that on theshow because I'd like to keep my pop

(03:30):
culture content as free from politics ashumanly possible. But as I went into
this weekend, I decided that Iwanted to revisit the podcast, and I
hadn't gone through all the movies thatI wished to cover, and one of
the ones at the top of thelist was the one we'll be talking about
this week, and it's Serenity.Serenity is the movie version of the Well,

(03:53):
it's the movie that's attached to thecult classic TV show Fireflying. I
watched Serenity before I will and becamefamiliar with Serenity before I became familiar with
Firefly. So if you're not familiarwith any of this, let's go ahead
and dive into it. So Fireflyis a TV show television series right created

(04:15):
by Josh Whedon, and Serenity,which came out in two thousand and five,
is the continuation of Firefly. Agroup of revel of rebels and travels
the outskirts of space on board theirship Serenity, outside the reach of their
Alliance, a sinister regime that controlsmost of the universe. After the crew
takes in Simon played by Sean Mayerand his psychic sister River played by Summer

(04:39):
Glau, whom he has rescued fromAlliance forces, they find themselves being pursued
by the Operative played by Chitwell Edgeof Four, an Alliance agent who will
stop at nothing to find them createdby Josh Whedon. Also starring in the
lead role Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudick, the voice and character actor k who

(05:00):
did k Twoso in Rogue one,and we'll be reprising that role in the
Cassian and Or series. I lovethis film, and when I was writing
my embarked science fiction space opera series, it was, you know, largely
inspired if you're familiar with my workStar Wars obviously, but my goal at

(05:23):
the time when I was writing thatseries and continues to be that I wanted
to create adventures in the style ofStar Wars, but I didn't want to
copy what George Lucas did, soI based everything on Earth in the future,
where fly culture replaces car culture,and in the opening book they have
to escape from Earth because of anindustrial accident and I'll talk more about that
later on in the show. What'sreally interesting, though, is I go

(05:45):
to revisit Serenity and was doing theresearch for this podcast today. I suddenly
realized that a lot of the inspirationthat I was drawing from also came from
Serenity, because Serenity is one ofthose pieces of entertainment content and Firefly that
also tried to do something very,very similar, and I dig that,
I really do. George Lucas dida galaxy far far away, made it

(06:08):
feel like I lived in universe betterthan most anybody else ever has and never
will. But in doing so,you know, he created a completely unique
and different universe. And what iscreated here in Serenity, just like what
I created with Embark, was ascience fiction epic, a space opera that
was originally based on Earth, butnow we're out in the middle of space

(06:29):
now. Of course, there's alot of other elements that are drawn from
that, but they really are very, you know, very close in terms
of what they were trying to accomplish, and Serenity does it spectacularly. I
love this film. I loved itwhen I saw it in theaters. I
felt like it deserved a heck ofa lot more attention. But like so
many of the pieces of space operacontent that we have covered and will be

(06:53):
covering on this podcast, it's reallyhard to get new ips, new intellectual
properties, especially science fiction intellectual properties, off the ground. You look at
the other space opera films that havecome out over the course of the past
decade. Whether it's your Valerian orwhether it's your Jupiter Ascending, these are

(07:15):
really fun movies. Not the greatestmovies, but they're really fun movies.
But they have a really hard timegrabbing any traction in the theaters because people
are so accustomed to the intellectual propertiesthat they're used to going and seeing,
right, whether it's your Star Warsor whether it's your Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You even look at a film likeMortal Engines, which I really enjoy.

(07:40):
The intention with Mortal Engines was tocreate this new series and then create more
movies based off these books. It'swhat I pray happens with my Embark series
one day might be better off workingas a live action series. But unfortunately,
Mortal Engines just didn't grab a holdof the box office. People weren't
familiar enough with the source material togo and give it a chance. There's

(08:01):
an argument about that that the moviewasn't as strong, right, And there's
something similar about Jupiter Ascending and Valerianas well. I enjoy those films,
but if they had been stronger piecesof content, I feel like they would
have been more popular. That's usuallyhow it works, right, But they
were already at a disadvantage because ofthe fact that these were unique, individual
science fiction pieces of content. Now, Firefly did arguably pretty well at the

(08:24):
box office, had the benefit ofthe fandom going to see Serenity who were
big fans of Firefly. My understandingis that Josh Whedon, who created the
TV show in the film, definitelywanted to do more Firefly adventures, but
again it just didn't take off.And really, when you go and watch
Serenity, it is really close tosort of a Han Solo, right.

(08:48):
It's one of these films where youcould go and actually take this storylining.
You could place it in the StarWars universe and instead of Serenity being the
ship at some millennium Falcon and NathanPhillion instead would end up his character would
end up being Han Solo and theBrown coats of the series themselves end up
being the rebels. All that beingsaid, Serenity really is a fantastic film.

(09:09):
If you have not seen it,you definitely need to go and check
it out. It's a relatively hiddengem of a science fiction space opera film.
If you're a reader of sci fi, especially self published authors, this
movie is a is a fantastic unintentionalhomage to the genre. The only criticism

(09:31):
that I personally have of Serenity atall is, like so many films,
at the end, it sometimes fallsa little flat. I'll give you an
example, Overlord, which I watchedover the over the holiday season. Really
like, really, really like thatmovie. Great movie about these sort of
Nazi type zombie creatures, you know, done during World War Two. But

(09:52):
at the end you have this circumstancewhere you have the villain and one of
the protagonists that are going to wearoff and fight each other. And that's
very similar to what happens in Serenity. I'm not really spoiling anything, but
my only criticism of the film isat the very end, the climax itself
isn't as interesting as I wished itcould it could have been, And that's

(10:13):
also a matter of personal taste.This movie is filled with fantastic characters,
great dialogue. I mean, thisis peak Josh Weedon. I feel like
he's gone a bit downhill since them. He directed the first Avengers movie,
which I still enjoy, even thoughin hindsight that movie feels a little bit

(10:33):
too much like you're watching a liveaction TV show. Josh Whedon just has
that about him. I mean,he was he comes from a from a
live action TV show background, soit's not all that surprising that his films
also carried that film but that feel. But the way that he films them
feels very much like a like aTV show. Firefly and Serenity or actually
a show that I wish they'd goback and redo again for the small screen,

(10:54):
because I really think that now withthe advances of technology such as Lucas
Home and other studios now using thevolume the stage with the surrounding digital screens,
you could really bring this world tolife and enhance the special effects far
beyond what they were able to doin the late nineties or maybe early two
thousands when it comes to Firefly.That being said, the special effects in

(11:16):
Serenity for being in two thousand andfive are pretty solid. The spaceships are
really unique and a lot of fun. The space battles are definitely unique and
fun. I took a lot ofunintentional inspiration in writing my stories from Serenity.
It's just kind of funny because goingback and watching the film and looking
at some of these action sequences andI go, oh, hey, that's

(11:37):
very similar to some of the thingsI did with my book with my book.
And I'm sure that it's partly becausethose types of scenes that I enjoy,
especially the action you know, vehicledog fight sequences in the film itself,
are burned into my brain, eventhough I didn't directly realize when I
was writing my story that that's whatI was being inspired by. It's also

(12:01):
it also has a very interesting mythologywithin within the film. And again for
those that haven't seen it, Idon't want to ruin it while I talk
about the movie, um, butit's one of the things that I really
do enjoy about the film. Theybring in some some unique elements, like
in the description where the woman,the girl they're trying to protect, is
a psychic. It's a main plotpoint that drives the story. This is

(12:26):
early chitwell Edge of four. Probablyone of my favorite character characters that he
has done as an actor would behis role at Mission Control in The Martian.
I love him as an actor andas a villain. He is fantastic
um And again, all the writingand the characters and even the little side
love story are are done really reallywell. And there's a there's a fun

(12:52):
there's a fun story embedded within Serenitythat I really appreciate. And fun it's
not the right word, maybe relevancy. There's a there's a relevant story within
Serenity that I don't know if JoshWeeden was intentionally trying to send a message,
but there definitely is a very relevantmessage within the film itself that I

(13:15):
really like. And it's one ofthese types of subversive embedded well I guess
I keep saying messages, but it'strue themes kind of this, this this
embedded theme within the film itself thatbrings it into modern times and makes it
very very relevant and still to thisday very relevant. And again I'm dancing

(13:37):
around around the details here because Idon't want to ruin anything, but there
definitely is this this theme in themovie of you know, big government trying
to create a utopian society through overrestrictivepowers, and how it doesn't work out
the way that they had planned.So, if you are like me and

(14:01):
you like to watch films that havesome relevancy to what's going on in the
world today while still having a goodtime and being highly entertained, Serenity is
absolutely a movie that you need togo and check out. And if you
have seen it, I'm gonna venturea guess that you're going to agree with
me. Talk show nerd at gmaildot com. That is the email address.

(14:22):
I'd love to get your thoughts onSerenity if you've seen it or if
you watch it, and then whenI email me when we talk about sort
of recapping on the next podcast,I'd be more than happy to share that
with the listeners to the show.Moving on to the next portion of the
show, I have thirteen fun factsabout Josh Whedon's Serenity. Serenity brought Josh

(14:43):
Whedon's Firefly crew back for a bigscreen adventure that would end up being their
last. And this is by theway Firefly and Serenity have cemented themselves in
pop culture. I know a lotof people are Firefly fans before Serenity.
But if you go to any andhopefully I pray that we'll be able to
get back to these very soon here. But if you've gone to any conventions,

(15:07):
Comic con conventions or dragon con inAtlanta, it's really interesting to me
because while you don't see a bunchof people dressed up like a Nave from
Avatar, right the one of thehighest grossing films of all time, you
just never embedded itself within the fandomthat way, right, you do see
people that are such a big fansstill to this day of Firefly that they

(15:31):
will come dressed up as brown coatsfrom the film. It really does tell
you sort of the endearing nature ofthe content of what Josh Whedon created.
And as I mentioned before, itreally is the universe in a world that
I hope one day gets revisited becauseit is right for exploration, or somebody
could just go and pick up,you know, I don't know, the
Embark series and go and make alive action TV show or movie out of

(15:54):
that. I'd appreciate that a lot. All right, let's get back to
the thirteen fun facts. Wheaton hasrevealed that will four Nathan Phillion and Summer
Glau and Sean Mayer all performed allof their own stunts. Glao is actually
a trained dancer, that's not ahuge surprise, and she used her dancing
skills and rivers two fights, whichare spectacular. For the second fight,

(16:17):
the cameraman, who was also adancer, moved through a gap around the
combatants to achieve the movies dynamic cameraangles. Yeah, it's shot really,
really well. You can see somecrates in the cargo bay of the Serenity
as a reever is shot that havereusable container do not destroy printed on them.
This was apparently an inside joke.The ship set had to be rebuilt

(16:41):
from scratch for the movie. Theoriginal ship ship from Firefly was actually destroyed
and this was a completely unintentional coincidence. But I have no doubt in my
mind that I was inspired by Serenitywhen I came up with this. But
in my Embarks series, I havea group of individuals who I call roamers.

(17:03):
Roamers were people that once humanity switchedout flight air and space flight culture
for car culture and everybody had theability to fly around in customizable vehicles.
There was a group of individuals thatdecided to take advantage of that and leave
Earth who were up to no good. Those individuals ended up being pegged as

(17:23):
roamers. They are just humans,but they are roamers, are basically a
band of pirates. Made me laughwhen I was revisiting Serenity because I completely
forgotten that one of the main villainsin the film itself is a group of
individuals who are very twisted and evilcalled Reavers. Okay, back to the
Thirteen fun Facts. Finley On suppliedthe blueprints that were used to build the

(17:45):
ship set for the film after beinginformed at a production meeting that the originals
had been lost. When he wason the TV series, he took photos
of the preproduction materials, including theblueprints. You can actually see a show
of it's actually in the film twicein Ready Player one when they are visiting

(18:06):
the distracted globe in the film,and there is the shot of all of
the ships coming in waiting in lineto enter that particular part of the oasis.
And then at the end of thefilm when oh gosh, when Dato

(18:27):
comes in the final battle and takeson the form of the Gundam, he
actually comes in flying and drops outof the Serenity at the end of the
film, and again very much reinforcingjust how big within the fandom and how
popular within pop culture fandom Firefly andSerenity actually are. The fact that it

(18:48):
was used so prominently inside of theReady Player One movie, I don't recall
if it was mentioned in the bookor not. I want to say that
it was, but I'm not onehundred percent sure on that, all right,
for those that have seen the film, this one's a little bit more
specific in terms of fun facts.But to put a river to sleep,

(19:10):
Doctor Simon Tam says ita karam nashmech, which is Russian for this is
very ridiculous. In case you didn'tknow, If you go to the main
menu screen of the DVD, andI don't know if this works with the
Blu ray or not, if youkeep clicking left until you light up the
triangle with a dot in the centeron the right side of the screen,

(19:30):
the icon will take you to thefull fruity ODI Bar commercial. In the
DVD commentary, Whedon said that hewanted the commercial to be as odd as
possible. He said it was heavenlyinspired by the mister Sparkle advertisement from the
Simpsons episode in Marge We Trust,And there's a lot of really interesting Again,
there's a lot of subtext inside ofSerenity that's really interesting. I'm including,

(19:53):
like I said before, things thatmirror in our real life when you
get out into space and these otherlocal how's. The aesthetic is largely drawn
from China and the Chinese language,including a lot of the teachings that take
place that that takes place in thebook. There's a lot of flashbacks two

(20:17):
Rivers going to school and finding outthat she had special psychic powers. The
reason for that, according to Joshueden, was because he was extrapolating a future
in which China essentially ends up takingover Earth, and therefore when Earth expands
to go and and populate the planets, the influence of the Chinese is definitely

(20:38):
felt in that in that expansion,and of course that mirrors rather interesting with
a lot of things that we're dealingwith in modern day politics. This was
the first Universal film released to HDDVD was also one of the first Blue
rays I ever bought. In TheWhite City, one of the crew examines
a mummified corpse inside of a arestenciled on the car side as C fifty

(21:03):
seven D. This also this wasthe serial number of the saucership in Forbidden
Planet. Forbidden Planet is a fantasticclassic sci fi movie. By the way,
My father had introduced that film tome when I was a young kid,
and I recently bought the Blu rayand it is a lot of fun
to watch an incredibly unique a storythat is another one of those classics that

(21:26):
I really wish would get a modernday upgrade. Forbidden Planet would be awesome
to see. Redone It's Always Sunnyin Philadelphia star Glenn Howarton Dennis Reynolds was
in an early part of the movie. I'm a big fan of Always Sunny
in Philadelphia. During the bank robbery, he was the guy who begged them
to take him with them during theirescape. Wheaton said that if the Firefly

(21:47):
TV series would have kept going,season two would have concluded with the Serenity
crew discovering the Miranda planet and uncoveringthe origin of the Reavers, which is
a big part of the story inand of itself. Now, within the
film, there are certain characters thatdon't make it all the way to the
end, and the reason for thatwas because those particular actors could not commit

(22:07):
to the sequels. Universal Pictures wantedall the main actors who would appear in
the sequels to be contractually available,meaning Weedon had to find a way of
getting certain characters out of the storyin the original script before he knew they
couldn't commit. All the members ofthe crew had ended up surviving despite this.
Weedon also has also revealed that therewas a strong possibility that certain characters

(22:30):
would return if a sequel was evermade, indicating that he had plans to
bring them back in the official Serenitycompanion. He acknowledged that it would have
been done in a way the audiencewould buy. Several reaverships in the final
battle are Alliance ships with different paintschemes, and the reavership that was destroyed

(22:52):
by a gun mounted on the Serenityis called Betty, and it was from
the film Alien Resurrection, in whichwe also worked on. And I believe
that he that he wrote and Ireally dig that. You know, this
is again as somebody who creates contentand hopes it one day that my novels
can get turned into some type oflive action TV show or movie. I

(23:14):
dig the fact that there's little tinynods in there two other pieces of content,
and even going so far as toutilize the ships that were used in
other films. One of my favoritethings about Alien Resurrection. An alien film
that I'm not the biggest fan of, I do enjoy it. It's definitely
unique and different. But there's again, problems that I have with Alien Resurrection

(23:34):
mostly have to do with the finalact of the film. The rest of
it's fine. The Betty from AlienResurrection is a pretty rad vehicle, and
if you've listened to any number ofmy podcasts, you know what a big
fan of vehicles that I am.So listen. That wraps up the show
for this week. I know it'sa short one, but I just wanted
to take some time and talk abit about Serenity for a space opera podcast.

(23:57):
Again, this is a film thatreally is worthy of a rewatch and
in an own um. It's afantastic science fiction film, does very well
for the budget that it's on.The writing is great, the characters are
great. I really really wish thatit had the opportunity to have some sequels

(24:17):
made from it, but who knows, maybe one day we can see it
resurrected. It's funny though, becausethis is one of those films where the
cast really does make does make themovie, and you know, a lot
of these characters and a lot ofthese actors are aging out of being able
to carry on with these particular roles. Not I mean, they're not that
old. But when you look atsort of production time, unless they've gone

(24:37):
into production right now, I thinkyou'd actually have to come up with a
brand new cast. And that's notto say they could, but part of
the charm of certainly Firefly and definitelythe movie Serenity is the cast that they
had chosen for the for the film. But it definitely is a universe that's
worth more more exploring, and itdefinitely is a film that if you're looking
for something to watch, since you'rea sci fi fan, the space opera

(25:00):
fan, listen to this podcast,definitely go and check out Serenity. Trust
me, you will not be disappointed. All Right, that wraps up the
show for this week. Before Ilet you go, if you want to
support my nerd World and the podcasthere on my nerd World. As always,
I would like to invite you togo and check out my science fiction
Space Operas series Embark an exciting mixof Fast and the Furious Star Wars,

(25:23):
Ready Player one and the sci fiadventures of the seventies, eighties, nineties,
and two thousands. All three booksare now available in e back,
in ebook, paperback and audiobook.Book one Embark, Book two, Treasure
in Darkness, and Book three,The Vanishing War. Audiobooks are produced and
narrated by me. Book four,Gon Corbyn and the Asteroid of Misfortune is

(25:45):
scheduled to be out sometime before theend the end of the year, and
I am just now wrapping up onthe first draft of book five in the
series, which will be out sometimenext year, along with books six and
seven. So go on by toMinordworld dot net. You can get more
details about the books there, orto Amazon and search for John jo and

(26:07):
Justice. The paperbacks are only elevenninety nine, the e books are two
ninety nine, and the purchase ofthe e book gives you a big discount
on the audiobook. I think you'dget almost seven to ten dollars off and
right now the audio books about elevenor twelve hours of content for each one
run about twenty bucks. So headon over to Amazon dot Com search for
John at Joan Justice and check outthe stories there. Before I let you

(26:29):
go, I will give you justa few more details about the book,
and then say and then I'll sayMike goodbyes for Earth. The end is
near. Only a reluctant hero andthe girl he loves have the power to
save humanity's future. It's the notso distant future, and car culture is
replaced by air and space flight,made possible by two of Earth's largest corporations.

(26:56):
Flight mechanic Taffed Guardia spends his freetime race singing through the skies with
his three best friends and the girlhe longs to be with, headstrong Katha
Morrow. With the planet on thebrink of an industrial apocalypse, a powerful
and ruthless corporate madman sint Argam,moves to exploit the disaster with his covertly

(27:17):
created military. When Taft, Katha, and their friends uncover a shocking secret,
sin Argam, We'll stop at nothingto find them. Time on Earth
is running out, but with thehelp of a ragtag group of young pilots,
they'll fight for Humanity's future and survivalamong the stars. My nerd World.

(27:37):
If you have picked up the booksalready. Thank you so much for
your support. I really do appreciateit. And if if you have and
have not left a review, pleasetake a moment right now and head on
over to Amazon dot com and leavea review for any one of the books.
If you enjoyed the read or listen, I really would appreciate it and
that would help me with further salesin the future. All right, thank
you so much for checking out thepodcast this week. I subscribe on a

(28:02):
YouTube or whatever podcast platform you areon. You can always drop me an
email talkshow nerd at gmail dot comor go on over to my nerdworld dot
net. All kinds of fun stuffthey're including an almost daily blog where I
do reviews of the Mandalorian, Italk about stuff going on with the books.
I give you my take on stuffthat's happening within pop culture. It's
all available at my nerdworld dot net. My nerd World