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The Animated Adventures of Firefly
If you consider yourself any sort of sci-fi geek at all, then you are surely familiar with the amazingly epic, yet poorly abused, mistreated, and canceled television show Firefly. If not, you can just throw that geek card away right now and go cry silently in the corner. (Minus 500 geek cred for you!) For those who are not familiar with Firefly, let me catch you up to speed.
Set in the year 2517, Firefly is a space western created by writer and director Joss Whedon. (You may know him from such awesomeness as The Avengers and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.) The show follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a “Firefly-class” spaceship and explores the lives of some people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the outskirts of society. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. The series premiered in 2002 but received poor ratings which I attribute to Fox’s airing the episodes out of order and general mistreatment of the show. The series was canceled after only 11 of the 14 episodes had aired which gave rise to the Browncoats, fans of the series who wanted to see the show continue.
Flash forward to today and we see that many of the stars of Firefly have gone on to have great careers. However, their careers may have moved on, yet Firefly remains. There has been talk of the show being resurrected by Netflix. Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Malcolm Reynolds, has even talked about buying the rights to the show, making it on his own, and distributing it on the Internet. YES PLEASE!
Anyways, to get to my point… It’s obvious that fans want this show to continue. We got a movie that wrapped up the series, but the holes in our hearts were just too big for Serenity to fill. What will it take to get our Firefly fix? Who will step in and get this done in a manner that will please the fans? Unfortunately, I don’t have those answers but I know how it can be done in a way that will work with the actors’ schedules and not put the studios at a ton of risk financially: animation. (This idea actually came out during our most recent podcast.) Seriously. Why not do an animated Firefly television series? How awesome would that be? Answer: very.
While I’m not hopeful that something like this could ever happen because Hollywood is too stupid for something so smart, it makes perfect sense to me to make Firefly into an animated series. Think about it. You’ve already got a loyal fan base so you know that there will be viewers. The cast could do voice-over work when it’s convenient with their schedules. You have a story with characters that could go on and on, unless Joss Whedon kills the rest of them. And you have the ability to distribute the show via network TV, the Internet, or Netflix. What’s not to love? Why is this not being made now?
What are your thoughts? Do you think that Firefly would work as an animated series?
[The artwork is courtesy of OtisFrampton's deviantART page. You can check it out here.]
The Dark Knight Is Rising
In case you’ve missed it, a new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises has been released into the wild, and it’s pretty awesome. We get to see a lot of Bane, Catwoman, Generic Police Officer portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and of course, some Batman. However, this newest trailer has raised a few questions in my mind. We see Bruce Wayne with a beard; is he healing from a broken back? Catwoman seems to be fighting alongside Batman; is she not really a villain but more of an anti-hero like we see in the comics? Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets a lot of screen time for being “just a cop.” What is his true role in this film? If you have answers, please feel free to share them because July 20th is so far away and I don’t know if I can wait that long.
The Death of RIM
It may seem that we like to pile on Research in Motion here at StolenDroids, but we really don’t. OK. Maybe we do a bit but they make it so easy. Regular listeners of our podcast know that there is hardly a week that goes by that we don’t ask the question “What are they thinking?” We’ve even been blamed for being the sole cause of RIM’s troubles. As much as I’d like to believe that we have that much influence, this infographic seems to say otherwise. I guess we’ll just have to try harder to take down companies in the future…
Alan Moore Is Talented
Those of us who are familiar with comic books know that Alan Moore is a great writer. With works including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore is comic book royalty. Sure, he’s like the weird, inbred uncle that the rest of the royal family keeps locked in the tower whenever company comes to visit, but royalty nonetheless. That being said, it’s generally accepted that Moore’s talent levels make his crazy levels something that most people are willing to deal with. The dude is nuts. There are reports that he is describes himself as an anarchist, a practicing warlock, and allegedly worships an ancient Roman snake god. He also wears metallic talons. Yep. Crazy.
Now, I don’t know where this image came from, but I thought that it was too awesome not to share. Moore was apparently on BBC News at some point in history (don’t ask me when though because I was too lazy to look it up) and somebody was able to get this screen capture:
I always knew that the guy was a talented writer, but I’ve never been sure about his wizarding abilities. (How do you really know if somebody is a good wizard in this day and age?) However, I had no idea that he moonlighted as a mall Santa and a Rasputin impersonator. Kudos to him for branching out. It’s good to diversify yourself, especially in this tough economy.
The Life Of An IT Guy
No, not an ‘it’ guy. I imagine that life has got to be pretty sweet. I mean, you’re the ‘it’ guy. Everyone wants to be you. This is very different from being an IT guy. I-T. As in information technology. As in the guy that people yell at when they think that organizing every file on their computer alphabetically in one folder, usually on the desktop, or what’s left of it, is a good idea.
Most of us here at StolenDroids have all been there. By trade, we’re computer nerds. We’ve done our time in the trenches as the company IT guy. We’ve also all served hard time working a help desk for various large, faceless corporations full of employees who all think that theirs is the most important job in the history of important jobs. Because of this sense of self-importance, they tend to treat the IT guys and help desk monkeys like total idiots, not realizing that without them, that two minute PowerPoint presentation that they need to give on why it’s important to flush the toilet wouldn’t get done on time. But I digress…
Earlier today, Schmidty and I were sharing some of our horror stories about our days helping others. A few of them were pretty brutal while others were just met with facepalms. Here are a few of the favorites that I shared.
Marvel Movies: Assemble!
Do you have what it takes to sit in a movie theater and watch six movies? I know that I do, but I’m a computer nerd by trade so sitting is what I do best. If you also think that you have what it takes, then you’ll probably be interested to know that your local AMC movie theater may be hosting and event called The Ultimate Marvel Marathon in which six Marvel films will be shown back-to-back-to-back-to… Well, you get the point. What does your $40 get you? Here is the list:
- Iron Man
- The Incredible Hulk
- Iron Man 2
- Thor in 3D
- Captain America in 3D
- The Avengers in 3D
As of right now, only 10 cities have been listed as participating in this epic event, but more cities will be announced on March 16th. You can find out of your city is on the list by going here.
I would love to be able to take part in this but, my city isn’t on the list. Yet. What are your thoughts? Is this something that you would pay $40 on?
So Invalid
Darth Vader. On a unicycle. Playing bagpipes. Every argument you have ever argued has never been so invalid.
Bat Phone Wins
If you ask anybody who they thought would win in a fight between Batman and anyone else, the answer is usually Batman. If it’s not, then the person is wrong. (Scientific fact!) Batman always wins because, well… he’s Batman. It has now been proven that the case holds true for the Bat Phone too. In a head-to-head showdown between the Bat Phone and the iPhone 4S, the Bat Phone was the clear winner. Don’t believe me? Check out the video.
It’s About Time
After years of waiting, EA has announced that SimCity will make its triumphant return in 2013. This time, with 3D graphics and curved roads! For those of you who love this franchise, this comes as extremely welcome news. And for those of you who played SimCity Societies, I understand that you may be concerned that this will be a buggy mess that is virtually unplayable. Thankfully, EA has people who worked on SimCity 2000 and SimCity 4 working on the game. 2013 cannot get here fast enough.
