Firefly – Serenity
Sep 9th, 2006 by Ashley
Finally got the DVDs.
Glad that I’ve read it somewhere saying that Firefly is like a western-cowboy style of show took place in the space. If I saw it on the TV without knowing how great people said it is, it’s highly possible that I’d change the channel within 2 minutes.
* Why do they have to speak Chinese. It’s such a torture knowing that if I try harder (actually, if they had tried harder), I’d be able to understand what they’re talking about. But the only thing i recognized until is “他X的”.
* Kaylee’s cute
* Crazy Ivan :D
* I like this show
I’m so happy you’ve found some time to watch the show. I hope their inability to properly articulate Chinese doesn’t detract from the show too much. If it helps, just imagine that the language has evolved on the fringes of space in this manner. :-)
I thought the fact that everyone spoke Chinese was very forward thinking.
For the longest time I openly disregarded the program because of how it was portrayed by the few fans I had discussed it with: “A space western”. Blech. Then one day I read a review by one of my favorite authors. This changed everything. I IMMEDIATELY rented the series and began watching it…and fell in love. So much of the Sci-fi genre is contrived of flashy effects, poor acting and characters without depth. Not so with Firefly. Joss Whedon has really outdone himself with this series. I put this cumulative work (Firefly / Serenity) on the same level as the works of William Gibson, Neal Stephanson, Philip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card and Frederik Pohl.
I love this series. I watched it in its entirety in one sitting…including going so far as to skip work the next day so I could catch the movie in the theatre.
I hope you are able to enjoy it 1/10th as much as I did.
At first, the Chinese speaking was rather disturbing. Mostly because they spoke weird Chinese. But when I thought more abou this, it’s actually less absurd than I previously thought. I’d sometimes throw in some English (like “sxxt”) when I’m speaking Chinese; therefore, when someone said “我的天 (Oh my gosh), blah blah blah…(in English)” in Firefly, I shouldn’t be so surprised. Afterall, we say something like “Oh my gosh, 他從二樓摔下來 (he fell from second floor)!” all the time. =p
As you said, the idea is preety forward thinking indeed.
However, I wish they’d pronounced it better. It’d be 2x fun to be able to understand what they were talking about when they spoke Chinese. (Like people who understand French had more fun watching Hugh Laurie presenting an award in this year’s Emmy, we, Chinese speaker, should have this small “advantage” too. ; )