If you’re even the littlest bit nerdy then there is no way you haven’t herd of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. The fourteen episode series and follow up feature film still suffer with a seemingly incurable case of popularity. The cast are still very much in demand to appear at comic and movie cons all over the world and not a week goes by without someone bugging poor old Whedon about another series.
If for some odd reason, maybe death, you’ve never heard of Firefly then here’s what it was basically about:-
Imagine if the Millennium Falcon had a full crew, only instead of a Wookie there was a ginger man with an amazing array of Hawaiian shirts and a whole lot more sarcasm.
There, good right?
All of this epicness started as a series of fourteen episodes in 2002 on the Fox network, but was cancelled for no apparent reason after only eleven were aired. Following its cancellation the cast and crew were reunited for the follow up movie, Serenity, which followed on from the ill-fated series as a kind of last hurrah to give everything something of an ending. Both series and movie followed the crew of the Firefly class smuggling starship named Serenity (name of the series and movie all in one ship, clever) as they did whatever they could to keep on keeping on. The crew’s luck took a turn for the worse when they took on two passengers who, unbeknown to the crew, happened to be the most wanted pair in the galaxy. Hilarity and fights ensue.
So now here we sit ten years on and people are still eager to see more, and that got me to thinking, just where could they go from where the movie finished?
Before we go any further the rest of the piece contains !!SPOILERS!! So, if you’ve not seen the series or movie then go and watch them and come back to finish. It won’t take long, me and the missus watched them all twice in two weeks and you will not be disappointed.
So, at the end of the movie the galaxy found out the truth, that the evil ruling body known as the Alliance created the psychotic, rapey and murderey strain of humanity known as Revers in a failed experiment to control a population through drugs. A couple of favourites end up dead but the majority are still left standing.
As I see it there are a number of options for the show’s creators if they were to give the fans what they want and continue the story on screen.
1. Another Series
Unfortunately this is probably the least likely of the choices. This is mainly down to the popularity of the cast and creators making them too busy to commit. On the subject Joss Whedon has said that in order to make another series you would have to:
Step 1 would be to create a Kickstarter to raise the money to make it!
Step 2: Cancel Castle. Step 3: Cancel Homeland. Step 4: Generally destroy everybody’s careers. Step 5: Avoid Step 2
I think we all know that Joss is pretty tied up with the Avengers sequel but what about the main cast?
Nathan Fillion (Captain Malcolm Reynolds) – Currently starring in the TV series Castle, has two movies coming out and is currently filming with Robot Chicken as the voice of Green Lantern.
Gina Torres (Zoe Washburne) – Staring in the TV series Suits and is a voice in Transformers Prime.
Alan Tudyk (Hoban Washburne) – Has a crap load of movies coming out including Wreck-It Ralph and is currently working on Premature. Although he did die in the movie so probably wouldn’t appear.
Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra) – In TV series Homeland and is in the movie Old Days to be released next year.
Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb) – Currently appearing in, well everything, from Chuck to Leverage to Castle.
Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) – Currently in TV series The LA Complex but popping up here there and everywhere, like in Supernatural.
Sean Maher (Dr. Simon Tam) – TV series Make It or Break It with Much Ado About Nothing coming out this year.
Summer Glau (River Tam) – A little bit of Gray’s Anatomy with a TV movie to be released shortly.
Ron Glass (Shepard Book) – He was in CSI: NY last year and has a movie coming out later this year but was also killed off in the Serenity movie.
So, with the cost of production and the cost to the US TV and movie industry to assemble the cast it looks like it will never happen.
2. A Follow Up Movie
More likely maybe? Serenity the feature film cost around 39 mil to create and took about the same amount of money at the box office. Add in the ridicules amount of DVD and Blu-Ray sales to that and the popularity the franchise now has another movie would definitely be a huge money spinner. There is also a better time frame for the cast, meaning there could be the possibility of squeezing a movie in between shooting various massive TV series. And if golden balls Whedon was involved I don’t think many production companies would turn their noses up.
3. Spin Off
We have already seen that the full cast are all over the place working their arses off, but if one or two of them were free would a spin-off work? In reality I think only a couple of the main characters could pull off a spin-off series. Jayne or Mal may be able to support a solo series, but let’s face it they are never the same and all you think of while watching is how good the original series was. We wouldn’t want to end up with another Joey!
4. Copy Star Trek
Star Trek has given us many fine TV series. Plenty of spin off and loose tie-ins. But by far the most interesting are the different generations. There are three different TV series, set in three different time frames all revolving around the starship Enterprise. Yeah, it was different Enterprises and blar blar, but why could this not work for Firefly? Same ship, different cast, constant nods and respect to the original, original character tie-ins and appearing in flash backs, what’s not to like? It wouldn’t have exactly the same magic but it could work well with the right cast and is the only sure fire way to not upset fans. It’s is also my favorite idea and if Joss finds himself too busy I could step in and take over writing duties, but I imagine I would be at the bottom of a very large and talented pile if that job ever came up.
So that’s about it, the way that I see it. All we need now is for everyone to get together and make something happen. Come on guys, the world would be much shinier with more Firefly in it!
About Jay Martin
Jay has been nerdy now for a little under 30 years, so it was only natural for him to aide others in their neediness through his writing. A big fan of comics, movies, TV, music, toys and anything else his pay check will stretch too, this Star Wars addict has an impressive collection of lightsabers and is currently working his way through the extended universe novels in order. If you like your reviews with a healthy dose of sarcasm he is the man for you.
Speaking for the 90 percent of science fiction fans that was not impressed by Firefly, I’m glad it’s canceled. The main problem with the show was the unpolished nature of the series. Joss Whedon should have done more world building before writing down the first episode. He simply did not do enough and he burned 8 episodes of the series trying to figure out his story. If he’d done more world building and not rely on his crutch of “clever dialog,” the audience would have come to see it.
It’s pretty clear that I’m a fan of the show, so anything I say will come from that point of view. That said, if you watch the series in its entirety now it looks like Whedon intentions were to get us invested in the characters before telling us where they came from and why they were there. It think that, had it been continued, more of the world/situation and the characters pasts would have come to light. And as for being glad it’s cancelled, I imagine thousands would disagree. That said you could say that for every cancelled show on the planet, people just seem to be very passionate where Firefly is concerned.