Godwinning all over the Firefly reboot

[sabotabby]

I feel guilty every time I post about something shallow and trivial. However, I enjoy shitposting and we could all use the distraction. The way I distract myself is being spicy in fannish communities.

If you have emotional attachments to a certain cancelled sci-fi show and its creator, skip this post.

Still with me? Okay.

So I want to propose a new TV show for you. It's set IN SPACE in the far-flung future, think gritty space dystopia, think found family, think QUIPS and BANTER and BIG DAMN HEROES. 

Our heroes are the crew of a spaceship. They dress in snappy black and silver uniforms. They're all played by white guys and women, most with blond hair, all of them extremely fit and attractive. They have a cool logo that looks great on merch. Their ships are very cool looking and the best in the galaxy. They stand up for the common man. 

They are fighting a snivelly and sinister enemy, a vast galactic conspiracy that is secretly pulling the strings behind every bad guy of the week. Maybe they turn out to be, IDK, some kind of lizard alien or something.

By the way in case you're getting ideas about historical analogies here, I should make it clear that the first officer on the heroes' ship is a Jewish woman and the heroes don't commit any genocides on screen. In fact, one of them has a speech about how violence is bad in the first episode! They are shown to be very against war crimes in fact, it's the antagonists who are doing all the war crimes.

Now, a poll:

Poll #34385 Which would be less bad?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

View Respondents

Which would be better, if this show concept HAD to exist?

View Answers

Depicting the protagonists doing war crimes
2 (33.3%)

Not depicting the protagonists doing war crimes
4 (66.7%)

Comments

[sovay]

Sorry, got distracted by the mention of war crimes.

(I am not sure I know enough about Firefly to engage in appropriately spicy discourse beyond the premise being very Lost Cause in Space.)

[sabotabby]

To be clear, I have no problem with depicting fictional war criminals doing war crimes! I loved Babylon 5.

The premise is exactly Lost Cause In Space, except of course it's the kind of Lost Cause mythology that suggests that the Confederates were good and not racist at all. Which I think is worse, personally, than portraying Confederates being racist.

[gingicat]

That is almost exactly what Minoanmiss said about it.

In better creative hands it could have been more like the French Resistance. It was certainly very Wild West.

[sabotabby]

They could have been an analogue to any one of the many times a scrappy band of rebels stood up to Big Gubmint. I mean, Lucas managed it even.

[sovay]

To be clear, I have no problem with depicting fictional war criminals doing war crimes! I loved Babylon 5.

Hence thinking of you for that post!

The premise is exactly Lost Cause In Space, except of course it's the kind of Lost Cause mythology that suggests that the Confederates were good and not racist at all.

I thought the Confederacy doing no wrong was part and parcel of the mythos, but if Firefly leans especially hard into it, whoopee. By which I mean bleh.

[yarrowkat]

Firefly is so deeply and totally a Space Western that i couldn't take any of it seriously. i was too busy critiquing the low-budget settings, some of which i even recognized as places on earth i have been to. (not just on earth! in california and southern Arizona! which is... not much of an alien world, really. even when you add houseplants to it. or a lot of bamboo. i get SO TIRED of people looking at the desert and going "this is an alien world because i personally have never seen it!")

anyway, this was upsetting to people in my general vicinity who want me to feel the same way they feel about television and are thus doomed to eternal disappointment.

i understand the reboot is going to be animated? is that a correct understanding? i imagine we'll eventually watch it out of morbid curiousity if nothing else.

[dewline]

There's lots of world-building gaps to fill, to be sure. One way and another. The critics - inside and outside the fandom - have compiled lists. Sabs isn't wrong to look at the contradiction at the heart.

[sabotabby]

It's going to be animated, which means I won't even pirate it, and I pirated the Melania movie.

[yarrowkat]

as in, you won't watch it at all? (we also generally pirate things unless we want to deliberately support something). i'm just hoping they use real artists & not AI garbage.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I have a general aversion to nearly all animation so even watching it to dunk on it wouldn't be fun. There are a few exceptions but it's not like I have a shortage of things to dunk on.

[yarrowkat]

fair! the world is indeed very rich in things to dunk on.

[sovay]

and I pirated the Melania movie.

How did that work out?