Firefly Amazon Review

[shipperx]

I was following a link from someone's LJ to a different Firefly review (because I'm [Rygel voice] bored! bored! bored![/Rygel voice]. Anyway, nothing to say about the review that was linked. But another review caught my eye because it's part of what thedeadlyhook and I discussed just the other day in this post.

I'm copy clipping part of the review which is found here (I know I shouldn't copy-clip, but... well if the reviewer is offended, SORRY!)

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Review:
I have to mention, also, because I just read all 158 reviews here on Amazon, and not a single one of mostly enthusiastic supporters managed to say: This is basically a re-do of Joss Whedon's "Alien Resurrection" plot minus, of course, the copyrighted Aliens. Honest.

I always thought that "Alien Resurrection's" crew of the freighter "The Betty" had some kind of backstory that never made it to the screen. Unfortunately due to the demands of the Alien franchise, half of the Betty crew gets eaten...and early on. I think Whedon always wanted to develop this idea, and "Firefly" was his big chance.

Don't believe me? Re-rent "Resurrection". The Betty is also a small, dirty unregistered freighter running slightly illegal operations, occasionally smuggling or doing mercenary work in a ragtag universe. Just like FIrefly, aside from the famous "Aliens" (who are unknown to most of humanity) there are no other extra terrestrials (ala Star Trek) in this universe. Despite being set 500 years in the future (just like Firefly), the sci-fi setting looks contemporary and industrial...no fancy high tech anything. And it's very dirty. The Betty originally had a crew of 8 (cut down in the final shooting script to just six) and the Serenity has a crew of 9.

The Betty captain is crude mouthed, morally ambivalent but is basically a decent guy, who thinks of the crew as a kind of family -- he calls the ship the "family wagon" and its constantly out of food or supplies. While he isn't exactly married, he is clearly in a long-term romantic relationship with the ship's pilot. The ship's mechanic is a fiesty, cute young girl, just out of her teens. There a "muscle man", who is big and burly but a nice guy underneath it all. The ship's female pilot and second-in-command is a tough cookie who is just as smart and strong as the guys.

I can only guess that this is an idea Whedon just can't get out of his system...he was reportedly VERY unhappy with the final shooting script and production of "Resurrection", as were most hardcore Alien fans.

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Wonder if this reviewer ever read the original Jossian script for Alien Resurrection? Honestly, as I said to thedeadlyhook, after reading the original script I discovered that, as an Alien fan, the parts of Alien Resurrection that I loathed were Whedon's. (Insert mini-rant on the shallow misuse of the Frankenstein plot.) When I finally (belatedly. I didn't discover it until Season 5 BtVS) connected that Whedon wrote Alien Resurrection, it made so much sense because he did the same poorly executed, shallow treatment of Frankenstein in Season 4 BtVS.

Although I'm curious why the reviewer bothered mentioning that there were no other aliens in Alien. There have never been any other aliens in the Alien franchise (well, until they did that Alien Vs Predator crapola)

Comments

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I probably shouldn't get into a why-no-other-Aliens-in-Alien discussion, because it's a long one - we did see another alien on the original planet of the chestburster eggs in the original movie (the gigantic dead pilot), but from there, the franchise kind of ignored the existence of any other aliens in favor of the whole horror-show cum war movie aesthetic. I would note, though, that there's a cameo Alien skull appearing in Predator 2, so the Aliens Vs. Predator setup goes way back...

Firefly as followup to Resurrection? Yeah, it's pretty clear in hindsight. Which makes sense - one has plot bunnies, there you go. But while I don't personally have a giant hate-on for Resurrection - I liked it way better than Alien 3, for example, even though I'd already seen a lot of thematic material covered in the Alien comics, Firefly just doesn't "do" it for me. Most of my reasons for that are personal, though, and nothing that would probably make sense to anyone else.... which is again ironic, 'cause again, you know? Really similar, in some lights.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You're right about Alien, but I suppose what I was thinking was that there's really no point in mentioning the absense of aliens, because while the Alien franchise never precluded the existence of other aliens, it wasn't part of the story either (and have I said alien enough?)

As for Resurrection, I think the reason that I resented Alien Resurrection soooo much wasn't that it was a failure, but that it was squandering good material. I also hated Alien 3, but Alien 3 just seemed BAD. Alien Resurrection would tease you with really interesting possibilities and then would choose the most trite and mundane choices.

The thing that irked me the most was the whole "recreating the Aliens for militaristic purposes"[tm]. Yeah, that was the history of Alien in I & II, but enough was enough. At least do something intersting new take on it. I kept thinking that they should have had the obsessive scientist resurrect the aliens not for militaristic purposes but from an enviornmentalist purpose because he resented the genocide that had been perpetrated against the Aliens. It just seemed to fit and would have been a fresh take on the alien material. Instead they just went back to the tired, old plot. So what started with some interesting ideas regarding the genocide of the Alien species, and the tinkering with DNA went with the most boring and predictable route. There was nothing NEW to it and it just seemed utterly redundant.

If Resurrection had just been BAD like III was bad, I actually would have dismissed it more easily. It's that Resurrection teased me with promises of story that might have been good... and then didn't deliver. Which... huh. That's sort of a Whedon trait.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

No matter what fandom he jumps to, he really does only have a couple of stories, doesn't he?

[meko00.livejournal.com]

Plus ça change. Nothing new under the sun... and more of those clichés.

*pets you* Let it go, dearie.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, I think we may have seen Whedon's entire bag of tricks by now. :)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

No matter what fandom he jumps to, he really only does have a couple of stories, doesn't he?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, he does seem to have a limited number of themes. Many writers do. My dislike of Alien Resurrection really wasn't the Firefly-ish aspects. What I hated about Alien Resurrection was the extremely shallow treatment of the Frakenstein-like plot, and the Winona Rider small little waif character (hate that character). Plus what was annoying me in Alien Resurrection was that it set up some interesting ideas then gave the most mundane answers by making the most mundane and anticlimactic choices... sort of like Season 7 BtVS.

[rahirah]

Hm. I have never yet seen Alien, Alien Resurrection, or Aliens 3. I saw 2, and thought that none of the others could top it and I might as well not torture myself.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Good move with Alien III and Alien Resurrection.

The original Alien is quite good though quite different from Aliens.