Firefly

So here’s some remembrances of the 4 cast panels from dragoncon, and one panel with KRAD.

KRAD was forced to turn in his novelization one day before he found out the premiere was pushed from april to Sept. He is one of many who sent in proposals for an approved 2 original firefly novels coming, probably placed after the movie serenity in the timeline. A possible animated “show” (feature? Series?) has been suggested, unsure if it would be only in the same universe, or with the crew. The cast was not invited to do commentary on the movie DVD.

Sean’s nickname on set is “the bod.” Ron’s hair was his own- no extensions, and he cut it after the last day of filming firefly. Ron is a buddhist. Adam defended his dancing cop gig, saying “be bold” and something to the effect that you need to try things. Jewel regrets a compost video that is still used in schools in canada, that she did as a young girl. She sings a rap with an animated worm. Someone saw her in a hotel elevator and told her she looked just like Kaylee from Firefly. When Jewel laughed, the person said, “No, really! It’s a complement!” She closed the last session on this funny anecdote. Morena doesn’t care for the “I’ll be in my bunk” line being tossed at her all the time. When discussing the possibility of talking action figures, she says one where jayne can repeat that line endlessly was her worst nightmare. Jewel said she’d want hers to say “shiny.” She knows Inara’s secret, and so does adam, and promises that if it is not revealed in the story of any future trilogy, she’ll tell the fans. She says it’s “amazing” and was in the back of her mind informing every scene. Ron does not know his backstory, or at least will not admit to it. But I think he really doesn’t know because he defended not knowing by explaining how as he went through a given day, he doesn’t think about his childhood every minute, all his background information isn’t conscious as he carries on. [to which I thought, well, yeah, but it led directly up to your personality and choices now, which does have a direct bearing on your daily activities] Jewel says she thinks Kaylee smoked a lot of weed. Jewel’s audition scenes were meeting Book and talking to mal after she’d been shot and was in the infirmary. Adam’s never made it to the epidsodes, but one of them was him being mean to kaylee. Adam denied any possibility of jayne ever developing a romance with river. I think he said something like “horribly wrong.” The age difference was disturbing. Most of you know that morena auditioned once, immediately auditioned again for joss, and was walked on set after filming had already started. Ron fell in love with the script even outside of his portrayal. Morena dreams of playing cleopatra from shakespeare and would love to play wonder woman (there’s a clip of her on some red carpet saying so that’s charming if you haven’t seen it.) She loves to cook, and read, and go to plays. Her favorite outfit on the show was an antique blue-green kimono-robe. Jewel also loves to cook, and shop, and it was her husband’s birthday. He’s cute in a disheveled, lean, college boy way (imo). The crowd sang happy birthday to him and gave him a card. Some jokes they played on each other: nathan greased alan’s trailer doorknob so he couldn’t get out. Someone tied industrial bag fasteners to the axle of nathan’s new car, causing a loud noise that upset him. He and jewel have a running contest to flip each other off in creative ways, and she did a very funny trio of birds for him during the third panel. Adam kept the head of the statue of jayne. He says you can see a crack in the neck from when they needed it back for pickups. He also kept his boots. Nathan kept a lot of stuff, and is fond of the alliance money. Jewel kept her room’s sign from the ship, and morena has a tea set and the bowl that she held in the hallway of HoG. Ron has socks he liked. His favorite line to say was “the bible is a bit fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.” Jewel’s favorite line was “have great sex.” I can’t remember morena’s or adam’s. Ron also loves the line about not fixing the bible, that faith fixes you.

I appreciated everyone’s efforts to keep all comments spoiler free, especially since an annoying and significant portion of the audience seemed to have seen the screenings and was determined to ask questions about the movie, obliquely wording awkward phrases to try to get at their questions despite the restriction. It was ANNOYING. Morena gave away a spoiler inadvertently, and no one called her on it, I was surprised. The question was about injuries sustained during filming, especially stunts. Adam said he did some, but had a stuntman for most. Here’s morena’s small spoiler she shared about her injury:

Highlight with mouse to view spoilers.

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she had bruises around her neck from chewitel choking her

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And of course, anyone at the first 2 panels saw a special clip that takes place after the vault robbery mentioned in the trailer. So a guy behind me who was so spoiler phobic he hadn’t even watched the trailers was upset. (*mental shrug*) The clip was AWESOME. They were all incredibly gracious and polite, even to people who asked rude or stupid questions. They praised the fans up and down. They made an effort to give unique answers to questions that were asked in every gorram panel, or questions that showed a fan’s ignorance (as in people who do not haunt these boards as I do and aren’t up on all the inside info. One lady said, I heard you all got to adlib, and asked what contributions in the show were their own ideas. Ummm, everyone knows joss is a script nazi. They answered the question very kindly and in a funny way. Adam shared how he always tried to keep jayne busy. He’s not a man to sit with nothing for his hands to do. Him brushing the whore’s hair was his idea in HoG. Joss would make them redo shots where they omitted “the” or “um” that was in the script.) Many people were ignorant of the Tam session excerpts. Hope they hunt them down! Fans agree the new movie website is awesome.

Adam is so incredibly eloquent and ron is also nuanced and thorough in his completing his thoughts. Adam donated his proceeds of the weekend to the hurricane victims. Ron wore serenity tshirts twice. Morena wore a scarf in her hair once, and both she and jewel were very fashionably dressed. They all did great riffing off each other, sharing jibes and jokes. The mosquito fan film was hi-larious. Great to hear all 800+ of the room laughing at it together. The waiting lines each day were incredible, but everyone got in all 4 sessions, to my knowledge. Demand for serenity merchandise was fierce and I got several compliments on my tshirts (purchased on zazzle and I gave the website to everyone who asked.).SEB was organized and did a great fan table with hourly raffles of fab stuff. I didn’t win $hit. There was an absolutely stunning illustrated cast composite portrait by jasonpalmer (.net) for $30 on high quality stock. He even included serenity in it. Can’t wait to hang it in my office.

Let’s see.. What else... The crowd sang “hero of canton”’s chorus during the first and second session. Cedric performed delightfully during the art crawl- awesome serenity filk and original songs inspired by. The shindig was a total crush. When I left at 2am there was still a line around the entire lobby waiting to get in. If I had to say one thing I wished was different- we need to develop a fan greeting, or wave or something like our version of a secret handshake. I saw so many people in passing, some with tshirts, some with hasufel’s gorgeous badges, some with jayne hats, and I wished I could say something besides “hi browncoat!” Adam’s favorite place was the catwalk in the cargo bay, and jewel liked the couch in the lounge next to the infirmary even though it smelled like cat pee. Morena liked her shuttle. She said people were usually quiet in it, as if it was special place. They all agreed that the casting was “perfect.” There was a common core personality all of them shared with their characters. When morena first met everyone and didn’t know who played what, she thought adam was playing mal and nathan was played jayne. Morena had to do her bath scene on her second day, and had to do it twice. Joss teased her by saying she had to do it a third day, and nathan teased her by saying he watched it on the circuit tv in his trailer. During the filming of safe, the scene in the general store had to be done over and over because jewel and morena had terrible giggles, and sean was not amused because it was over 100degree heat. When ron had to do a laughing scene at the table with all of them, nathan got all the other characters to give him a flat face during the take as a joke. A common refrain during any mistakes during the filming of the last 2 episodes was “what are they gonna do? Cancel us?”

Overall, it was fabulous to hear their perspectives, their excitement and hope for the movie and possible trilogy, and their fondness for the series and fans. They were much fun to listen to and I feel like a kid who got a glimpse into a magic world.