I am a leaf on the wind...

Oh man. Happy Birthday Joss Whedon.

So, on or around Joss' birthday each year, browncoats around the world get together to raise money for his favorite charity Equality Now by holding screenings of Serenity in local movie theaters. This year there were 50 plus events planned. Luckily my city holds one of them. We got to go last year and were fortunate enough to get to go yesterday to this year's event.

Not only do we get to help raise money for a very worthy cause, but we also get to gather with many like-minded individuals and enjoy a masterpiece of cinema exactly as it was intended to be enjoyed--up on the big screen.

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this movie. It is just an amazing thrill ride. Hell, when I went to take my lunch today, someone in the break room had found it on one of the movie channels (we work at the cable company, so yeah, we get the movie channels in our break room--too bad we have to watch them on a dinky little television that can barely compete with the volume of the ice machine...). It had just started, so I got to get a bit more of my daily Joss with my lunch. Nice. Anyway--as fun as this film is to watch at any time, nothing can compare to watching it in a theater full of browncoats. It is an experience I think everyone who loves the Joss should try to have at some point. Everyone is laughing at all of the right moments, we can cheer with immunity when things go well for our big damn heroes, and we can all still gasp in pain at that moment--you know that moment...until Jayne goes and says something else to make us just start laughing again.

So, as you can tell, I definitely had a ball at the event. In addition to the movie, each location also usually tries to get a guest from the Whedon 'verse and there's a charity auction for EN with all kinds of Joss-related goodies. The auction is fun to watch. My husband and I are starting to think we might come packing some serious cash next year so we can get in on the action the next time around. Who knows. If you are a fan of all things Joss, or if you just like Firefly/Serenity, I really encourage you to check the event out next year. It's called Can't Stop the Serenity, and here's the site link.

Our special guest this year was Tim Minear, who has worked on Joss' shows Angel and Firefly, as well as is working with Joss on the forthcoming Dollhouse. He also worked on some show called The X Files as well as both short-lived but much acclaimed series Wonderfalls (which I have yet to experience) and Drive. I have to say, he was pretty darn entertaining.

One question asked of him really got me to thinking though. The question was this: Is Shepherd Book an Operative or a Cylon?

Obviously, someone was trying to find out the truth about Book's past while also having a little bit of fun. Minear stated definitively that Book is not a Cylon , but wouldn't answer about the other part--though he did comment that his restraint in answering was due to the fact that there are plans to reveal Book's backstory in an upcoming comic book. Cool beans.

Though Minear denied that Book is the last Cylon it did cross my mind that if there were two compatible 'verses in the world, it just might be the Firefly and BSG 'verses. Is it not possible that the people who ended up on Kobol left Earth and went one way and the people who ended up becoming the Alliance's minions simply went another? Space, after all, is big. Really big. It's certainly got my fanfic writing juices flowing. The more I think about it, the more I want to write this crossover. Heck, it's not even going to take the finagling with the timeline that I initially had thought might be required--which was to move the events of Firefly from 500 years in our future to 5000. Instead, if we go with the assumption that the people of Kobol left Earth in its very distant past, and get to Earth around the time of the events of Serenity....hmm....

Okay, I promise I won't subject you to that line of thought (unless you're interested in it, in which case, I will direct you to the place of my posting once/if I get this thing actually started). This blog isn't about fanfic, I swear.

One last reflection on the Firefly 'verse. If we choose to look at Joss Whedon's body of work from the Stephen King angle, we can make a reasonable assumption that all of his works are somehow connected to each other by some thread. So, I give you this--what if River's a Slayer? Maybe the Alliance meddling with her brain, in addition to the creation of the Reavers, activated the first Slayer in centuries? It could explain why she shows progress overcoming her mental distress and why she is truly the Alliance's greatest success in that particular venture. Just a thought. :o)

Anyhoo, I hope you all have a super week. Watch some Firefly, or some Buffy, or some Angel. Do something to salute Joss. He's a good guy.

'Til next time folks, hope it's all shiny,
C

To Hell with this...I'm gonna live!

That's right Kaylee, you're gonna live indeed...

Man. I was totally going to blog about how bizarre daytime television is, since I had to stay home today and my allowed activities were limited, which resulted in me sitting around in front of the television all day. Then I was bumming around on Whedonesque, which is the repository for links to all things Joss, and I found a link to this super awesome video on YouTube.



I love YouTube. I also love Browncoats. So this has got me totally thinking I want to rewatch Firefly now. It's not like it will take that long, it's just thirteen (superb and outstanding) episodes and one (supercool) movie. What I should be doing is finishing off the back half of Jericho before the new season premieres in February, but I got through the first half of the season and then just got derailed. This is, of course, no reflection on the series itself. I just had a lot of stuff go down in real life that kind of put me out of the mind frame I need to be in to watch a show as intense in the particular way that Jericho is intense, if that makes sense. I think I might entice myself to finish watching Jericho by promising myself that once I get that done, I can rewatch Firefly as a nice little change of pace.

But thinking about Firefly reminded me that the first issue of the new Firefly comic is supposed to be coming out soon, and that got me all excited all over again. I don't think I can ever give Joss Whedon enough kudos for realizing that, as long as he still has more stories to tell us in this 'verse, we'll take them in any medium we can get them. Comics definitely work. As he's said with Buffy and Angel--sometimes continuing the stories in comic form allows him to give us stories that technology or budgetary concerns would never have let him tell us on television. Also, there's a tiny little part of me that hopes those executives at Fox who totally screwed the pooch with this show have come to realize it and are kicking themselves heartily.

Let's hope they can make up for the bad juju garnered by Firefly with keeping the Sarah Connor Chronicles awesome and around. In case you're wondering, I did enjoy episode two just as much as the first episode. I really liked how they're tying in elements from the past (presented to us from both the movies and from the just the first episode) to give us hints as to the new direction these characters are moving. I also totally dug the appearance by Tony Amendola as Enrique (hey, I know he's been in so much more than just Stargate, but he will always be Bra'tac to me) as well as the nice little send up to L. Frank Baum. I have high hopes for this series. Maybe that's a bad idea, given that it's a genre show on Fox, but who knows, maybe it will go the Bones route and we'll luck out that it will stick around for a while, even if it doesn't end up getting all of the attention we adoring fans know it deserves.

One thing I have noticed about this series though, is that despite claims of the creators that the series is going to totally disregard the third Terminator movie, it doesn't really seem to be doing so. One of the big elements in that regard is Cameron's revelation to Sarah last night that in the original time line, she dies of cancer in 2005, resulting in Sarah going to get herself checked out by an oncologist. While it is clear that the events of the series will not lead up to the events of the third film, to me it really feels more like an alternate time line, not a complete reinvention. It could have happened like Rise of the Machines said it did, but someone who knew about that time line was sent back and changed it, and now we get a whole new course of events to see unfolding. Maybe that's just my take, but there it is.

Anyhoo, that's really all I have for today. There's nothing terribly exciting going on over here. I will leave you with one last YouTube video, while I'm showing you cool stuff. This is a Battlestar Galactica mashup of the original series and the Ron Moore reinvention. It's been around for a while, and every once in a while I feel the need to look it up and watch again. I enjoy the catchy little song that manages to pay homage to and mock both series at the same time. Good stuff.



Until next time, gentle readers, stay safe.

C