One Billion reasons to launch Season Two of Firefly

Television, Movies Games and Books Firefly
#1

Hi all,

I don’t know if this was immediately obvious to y’all as it was for me, being in asia. Check this out:

Firefly broke new ground, being the first space-western. Being set in a totally viable future universe where US & China merge to become the Alliance.

ol’ Sciffy & Whedon shoulda, oughta take advantage of this story concept and be the first American scifi show to break into the Chinese market (I mean, for real). Hello? You’re talking a potential audience of 1.1 billion and spare change (counting the chinese diaspora as well)

A season two would’ve covered on back story on the US-China alliance; how the society in the Alliance works out. A popular theme to draw from Chinese culture would be the Water margin, which also draws on that whole rebel-cowboy thing. That oughta get people hooked. That, and the cheap thrill of watching Americans speak putonghua.

Hansioux, would you help me out here? Pls help me connect more dots and enunciate what I’m trying to say out here. :o

#2

I think your on to something.
Not a season 2 of firefly, but another series in the 'verse would be do-able, and very cool. I would love to see something either during the initial move out to the stars from the ‘earth that was’ or the outbreak of the war.
OR even a series about the firefly ship that later became Serenity. and the series could end with the guy that sold the ship to Mal, taking possession of it.

#3

there’s the good old story told by Zhuangzi 2300 years ago during the Warring States era. Two business men from the state of Song traveled to the barbaric state of Yue (aka Viet), and they saw the people in Viet didn’t wear hat or clothes. They went back to Song to report to their boss.

One said “Bad news, the people of Viet cut off their hair and have no use for hats. They also tattoo all over their body and to show off their tattoos they don’t wear clothes. We can’t do business there.”

The other one said “Great news, none of the people in Viet own hats or clothes, we can do great business there.”

That story tells the problem of introducing Scifi to China. China and the Chinese people are very into their past. The two main genres in entertainment are romance and historical. And mostly, it’s historical. Pay close attention to most movies made by China, most of them are historical or martial arts movies. Even the martial art movie set in modern era are simply an extension of the “traditional past is great” theme of entertainment.

Perhaps it is due to the fact that for much of the last century, the Chinese government and people were too busy destroying their past with the cultural revolution and all.

No more than 20 years ago, making a Qing dynasty period piece that glorifies the royal family is going to get you sent to the labor camps and Bruce Lee movies are banned for American Imperialism.

Now over half of the prime time TV drama made in China are based in Qing dynasty, most of them about the royal family. It may take a while longer before most of the Chinese public feel their pride in their glories history is fulfilled and begin to seek entertainment in the unknown. That being said, I think Firefly, TSCC, Heroes and other scifi shows are followed by a small group of more forward Chinese youth, and one can find those shows’ MKV torrents with Simplified Chinese subtitles…

So, I go back to the story from 2300 years ago… good news or not maybe too early to say. After all, small group in China in other places is often considered a huge group…

#4

i would have loved for the show to have gone on and developed more. honestly.

#5

I’m just saying… I have a colleague (now there’s 2 of them) from china and asked her if she’s into chinese chess - she replied that China is so big that everyone has their own interests and not everyone is into the same thing.

Just so you know, they have a UFO research institute which is fully respectable there (and none of that Roswell stigma). And the Shanghainese stoack exchange is waay more advanced than in Singapore (to be fair, they bought most of their gear more recently since China opened up).

But Hansioux is right. I went to a karaoke with my office colleagues like last, and most of the Chinese songs were emo balllads… and the only thing I’m into is Jay Chou. So going by the way things are going in the Chinese music scene (that includes the dialects too), I think Scifi as a tv/movie genre has some way to go. The most recent “chinese” scifi I can think of is Jet Li’s “The One”… which kinda tanked.

PS Wait, there was a state of Song in the Warring states period? I thought it was after the Tang dynasty?

#6

there are many tiny states under Zhou dynasty, Song, written just like the Song dynasty, is one of them.

The state of Song (or the kingdom of Song after 318 B.C.) was a strong state in the Spring and Autumn period. It is located in today’s Shangqiu city, Henan.

The state of Song was sandwiched between powerful states such as Chu, Qi and Jin. During early Warring States period, Song defeated Chu and Qi several times, causing the wrath of two super powers. Eventually Song was conquered by Qi in 286 B.C.

The first Duke of Song was Zi Qi, the older brother of the last king of the Shang dynasty. He defected to Zhou’s forced before the fall of Shang, so the King of Zhou gave him a state.

Confucius’ ancestors were noblemen from Song before moving to the State of Lu.

Another famous philosopher, Mozi, is also from Song. Mozi is known for ideas such as “Love for All”, “Anti-war”. Though that sounds like he’s a Hippie from the 70s, but Mozi’s anti-war philosophy meant he and his followers would travel to battlefields and fight with the side that didn’t start the war. He is renounced for defensive battle machines and defensive warfare.

#7

I think the Song, the Tang, the Ming, and the Qing are the dynasties used to most in movies/TV shows Why? Because they’re the most prosperous dynasties while also being distinct from one another.

Here’s what I think about Scifi (or the lack of) in China and why:-

  1. Fantasy. The fantasy genre is much more prominent in TV shows, movies, comics and video games (like “The Water Margin”), because there is a huge history to draw stories and fables from (much like European history where most of western fantasy is drawn upon). So, perhaps it’s not that China doesn’t have a Scifi genre but that it’s overshadowed by its Fantasy genre. After all, they have thousands and thousands of years of history, religion and tradition that are really interesting. Compare that to the US, which only had some 200 or so years. In a way it makes a lot of sense that Scifi is much more prominent here than anywhere else.
  2. Budget and funding. They’re very very small compared to anything in the US.
  3. Popularity. There’s yet to be a Chinese scifi movie that made a ton of money (or deserved to make a ton of money. Of the attempts on scifi shows I HAVE seen, they’re…pretty crap). Which leads back into reason 2.
  4. Competition - with already established western scifi and Japanese scifi that are readily available online in China.
  5. Lack of creative space in the mainstream. In HK, there are only 2 network TV channels (with one of them that completely dominates). So the shows they make are creatively very narrow, because it doesn’t really matter what they air, they get great ratings anyway. I would suppose it’s actually a bit better in China, since they have something like 6 or more nationwide networks - so there is a creative space. Well, if you don’t think about them censoring news as such. Which brings me to…
  6. Creative Censorship. While it is opening up, networks/people are a bit more/a lot more uptight when it comes to entertainment. Prime example is the movie Infernal Affairs (of which The Departed* is based on). In the original HK version Matt Damon kills DiCaprio and was able to keep his cover, so at the end of the movie, he’s still a good guy with a great future ahead of him. In China, in order for the movie to be released, they had to change the ending so while Dicaprio dies anyway, Damon gets his due (I think he dies, or goes to jail or something), because? He does questionable things and it’s not good to show people that bad people get rewarded for doing bad things. And that was just 8 years ago. I mean, even now, if a celebrity accidentally uses a swear word in a TV interview or something, they have to publicly apologize for it, even if it’s bleeped out. So that’s the mainstream for you. I think it would be difficult for writers to write scifi that have such clearly defined good/evil…
  7. The Youth Market. China did lose a bunch of time during the Cultural Revolution to build its current mainstream pop culture. So in a way, perhaps the newer generations who are interested in scifi haven’t gotten to that ‘hippie culture in the 70s’ where the youth becomes the all important 18-49 advertising age group yet. The fact that there was that one child policy also means that the youth market is a smaller percentage of the main population, which means advertisers would care about what the older population think more. So it’s not that there’s no sci fi or people don’t love it, it’s just that it hasn’t risen to the mainstream pop culture status it has in the States.
  8. But wait! There are examples of mainstream scifi. There’s a HK writer who’s really popular with dozens and hundreds of sci books under his belt. They’re pretty great. One of his series revolves around an Indiana Jones Sr. type guy who encounters weird alien stuff in his books. And they have attempted to make some of his stories into tv shows and movies back in the 90s, but they were all unsuccesful ventures one way or another. So, maybe someone will try again sometime.

As for emo chinese songs - why? Karaoke. The Chinese/Taiwan music industry is pretty much dependent on whether their songs would be successful karaoke hits (and how cute the singers are). So, emo love songs with attractive singers in the MV people can watch and crone to will be the most popular. But that’s just your typical ‘top forty’ songs. I’ve heard underground bands from China that are just nuts and sound nothing like your typical Chinese love song.

  • Though, The Departed also ended with Damon being killed, which I always thought to be a huge mistake on Scorsese’s part, especially when I think about how interesting Damon’s character would develop in Infernal Affair’s sequel. Perhaps he based it on the China version. :smiley:

Phew, that was a long post with me just rambling on, I’m sorry about that!

#8

yeah, if not historical drama, it’s historical fantasy, or at least it is a show based on a undefined period in the past, but with fantasy elements such as kongfu or kongfu fantasy (with gods and stuff). have to say most of those shows are formulaic and skull numbing…

also, the whole point of scifi is to examine ourselves. Creating a new set of reality so we can reflect on our society, culture, government, politics, direction of progress, mainstream believes, without directly attacking any group of people.

let’s just say with the kind of censorship in China, reflecting on the government and society are probably not embraced by the censors.

#9

No, go on! I’m learning tons in this thread.