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May 25, 2012

Firefly: Bushwacked

by Keith McDuffee, posted Jun 16th 2006 11:18AM
firefly bushwacked
(S01E02) Not an episode that stands out above the rest, but it has its moments. We're really getting a feel for who these characters are, what quirks they each have and who likes/dislikes whom. This episode also deals a lot with the Reavers, what they are (or actually, what they are not) and what they're capable of.

We're gradually being introduced to these mysterious Reavers, and in coming episodes we start to gain some understanding as to who or what these creatures are. Heck, even Jayne is afraid to death of these things, and the stories Mal tells seem to sound worse with every coming episode.

Something that had sometimes confused me about this show was how difficult it was to understand the scale of Serenity in relation to other things. We sometimes get a glimpse of the ship on the ground, but it's not often you see the entire ship in relation to the size of a person. That is, until this episode, where Simon and River cling to the outside of the ship, the camera falling back to reveal not only how large Serenity is in relation to a person, but how so tiny Serenity is in comparison to a massive Alliance ship.

Something I loved about Firefly was the shots in space, sometimes as if the camera tries to zoom into a scene too quickly, making it out of focus just for a second; it somehow gives it an authentic feel. I've seen this same thing many times in the new Battlestar Galactica series, where the camera shot starts from a great distance, then closes in quickly on passing ships, almost as if a real person performed the shot (when in fact it's all a matter of CGI). Was Firefly the first to do this sort of thing in CGI shots in space?

Doug Savant did a decent job of playing an Alliance officer. The interrogation scenes were some of the best stuff this show has to offer -- Kaylee defending Serenity's honor; Zoe not offering up any information about her relationship to Wash, while Wash fully divulges how Zoe's legs are what attracts him to her first ... and the part that connects her legs to her back ... and everything above that; Jayne's silence. These scenes really gave us more of a sense of the ragtag team we're following.

A couple of other tidbits of note. We learn that Serenity was named after the battle we saw in the pilot episode. Also, the line Mal uses with Doug Savant's character about there being "no children on this boat" just shows how slippery and smart Mal can be.

Jayne-ism of the episode:
"Looked bigger when I couldn't see him."

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Akbar Fazil

Agreed Dorv, I am looking very forward to telling you time and time again how wrong you are ;)~

June 21 2006 at 1:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dorv

Akbar...

It just won't be as fun until October when Galatica comes back, and we can argue.... er... discuss a current show :)

June 20 2006 at 7:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Akbar Fazil

hey Dorv- you are a fanboy ;)

sorry to dissapoint, I was was in Europe last week.

I too loved this episode (in fact, the only episode of Firefly I didnt really care for was Heart of Gold. Mostly it was the overall plot I didnt care for but the Inara/Mal/other space hooker storyline I enjoyed) The Jayne stare down and the Wash "You ever made it with a warrior woman?" line are priceless.

June 18 2006 at 3:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gidget

I don't know about zooming in, but I know that, in its CGI space shots, Babylon 5 used to add lens flare to imitate the look of a real camera taking shots of real ships.

June 16 2006 at 8:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
slives


Poster #4 is correct. http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=2945&img=

They say that the death of Firefly made way for Battlestar Galactica.

By the way... love the photo chosen for this artcle! Jane was my favorite character.

June 16 2006 at 6:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

"I've seen this same thing many times in the new Battlestar Galactica series"...

The reason it's familiar is because it's the same company that does CGI for both Firefly and BSG. Also, in one episode of BSG, if you look hard you'll see Serenity in the background.

June 16 2006 at 3:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dorv

As far as that particular effect goes, if you listen to the Commentaries, its said that Firefly was 'almost' the first. Their idea for it was original, but the summer before Firefly premiered, you could see that 'quick zoom' during the final (albeit LAND) battle in a little film called Attack of the Clones.

See, I loved this episode (where's Akbar to call me the fan boy?? Hello??). Ok, maybe I just enjoyed it. The aforementioned interrogations were superb. I liked Jayne playing the joke on Simon with the suit. I loved the misdirection that made you think that Mal was going softer when he really had figured the booby trap.

I was going to go on and on about Book's mysterious backstory, and how he got the Alliance to treat him, when I realized that is a completely different episode, and that I am an idiot. So that will have to wait a couple of weeks.

June 16 2006 at 1:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eric J.

I think the special effects you're referencing were first done on Firefly, but I wouldn't be surprised if something similar had been done on Babylon 5.

June 16 2006 at 12:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ryan

Definitely not a stand-out episode as you said, but the many many awesome moments make it impossible to completely write off.

The interrogation scene was brilliant and hilarious. Simon/River clinging onto Serenity and River looking at the stars always gets to me. The beginning scene when all of them were playing was fun to then transition to the creepiness of the ship.

As for the CGI zoom/out-of-focus trick, I thought Firefly was the first but that's just a complete assumption. And I also heard that BSG was influenced by Firefly or the same CGI people working for Firefly jumped ship to BSG (a Firefly class ship appears in one of the scenes in the BSG miniseries).

June 16 2006 at 11:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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