Firefly

WREN

The following is the ramblings of my shindig trip:

Friday - We arrived at the shindig at midday. The merchandise area was closed. Someone was talking in the hall but we had no idea who he was. (I should point out that while I have watched Buffy I am not a massive fan and could only identify SMG.) The guy who played Xander was doing photos, his pink nail varnish was the talk of the show. I approached a few stewards to ask how things ’worked’, but they had no idea either. I then discovered Nathan Fillion was having his picture taken with guests so bought a ticket and waited to be called. We ended up back in the hall where Serenity was showing. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a proper sound system so all you got was a mass of very loud sound which hurt your ears. A lot of people left during the first fifteen minutes. The merchandise area finally opened, but there was nothing Firefly related, not even the dvd! Finally it was our turn for the photo. Nathan was lovely. He made a fuss of my kids and gave my four year old daughter a hug. He then introduced the kids to his girlfriend. The rest of the day was geared towards Buffy fans so we left.

Saturday - We went early to listen to Jewel and Summer answer questions. Jewel did most of the talking, these are the answers that I remember them giving:

Jewel said Shindig was her least favourite episode. She hated the dress she had to wear. Everytime she sat down the crew could see her bum. She had really wanted to do the commentary for that episode though. She would like to do a musical version of Firefly. Gina had a wonderful voice, though Morena could not sing a note. Everyone use to take the mickey out of Morena over her awful voice. She would have liked to do more action sequances. She was always rather jealous of Gina because of the amount of action she got to do. Her favourite phrase from the show was ’shiney’. Alan Tudyk continually messed up his chinese lines. She really wished Kaylee had kissed Simon. She had enjoyed working on Dead like me and thought the show and cast were great. However, she had not enjoyed filming the sex scene because the clothes were really uncomfortable and she found the whole scene uncomfortable to do. If she could travel back she wasn’t sure she would do the scene. (For those who never saw the show(I thought it was crap) she was dressed in goth gear and had sex with a reaper in a shop cupboard) Nathan had been the show clown. He use to stand behind the camera and pull faces. Morena had a sick sense of humor, and was least like her character. To begin with Jewel had been a little intimidated by Morena’s beauty. Sean had a silent laugh and would cry while laughing so, they all had great fun making him laugh. She had not enjoyed putting on weight. She had eaten cakes and doughnuts non stop before and during the shoot. She was glad to finally lose the weight. Her husband asked what animal she would most like to be. She said a pony. Nathan asked who was the best looking, most talented actor on the show. She said he was. She could not comment on whether the show would return to tv. She also could not comment on the new movie, though they were planning on a commentary at the start to help new viewers understand what was happening. She was looking forward to the new movie and getting back together with everyone.

Summer generally agreed with what Jewel said. She loved the moment in Message when Kaylee held Simon’s hand. She had had a my little pony as a child and had always wished she could be one. The dance she did in Safe was a polka dance. The combat boots hadn’t bothered her. It had been harder to do the Angel ballet because the point shoes were uncomfortable and it was tightly choreographed. River got her clothes from the rest of the crew and Simon would buy her bits, like the pink dress, when they visited planets. Her favourite episode was Objects in space when Mal welcomes River back to Serenity. Her worse was Message when they found they were cancelled.

The next session involved Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Allen. Nathan’s answers were:

Firefly will not be returning to tv in the near future. The agreement with Fox was for the movie only. There was a time specification before it could be brought back to tv. He did not say how long that time period was but other fans kept saying five years, though I have no idea where they got that figure from. Depending on ticket sales the plan was for a trilogy of films. His favourite cheese was cheddar, medium not to sharp. When asked if he would be naked in the movie, he said he would be taking his shirt off. Someone asked who would win in a fight between Jayne and Mal. His response was to ask who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk. He said Mal won so often because he fought dirty. If he could lick chocolate spread off anyone it would be Margaret Thatcher, when she was the most powerful woman in the world. His worst Buffy moment was when Caleb got cut in half because "it was just so not right and so unfair." His worst Firefly moment was finding they were cancelled because "it was just so not right and so unfair." He had kept the Caleb contact lenses and liked to wear them during halloween cos it scared the Buffy fans to see Caleb walking down the road. No one held him responsible for poking out Xanders eye. He and Nicholas Brendan had practised that scene but when they actually did it Nicholas’ scream was so real Nathan thought he really had hurt Nicholas. If he had his own space ship he would call her the Pneumatic Princess. He had trained to be a teacher, but had left four months before qualifying. Seeing what most teachers put up with he felt he had made the right choice. However, he would still like to be a professor because all they have to do is profess and he was very good at doing that. Brendan Fraser was a great guy to work with. The cast of that America soap he was in (can’t remember what it was called) were all great. He loved doing Saving Private Ryan and Steven Spielberg was great. He was asked where he bought his shirts. (He had worn a white shirt with a flowery design on Friday and was wearing a similar shirt with pink flowers on Saturday) He got his shirts cheap from a guy he knew downtown. Someone had told him real men wear pink, though he wasn’t convinced. (The next day he wore a plain black shirt) He said that there were no current plans for David Borenza (I can’t spell it) to be in the show. He had auditioned for the part of Angel, but hadn’t even got through to see Joss. Joss has been given full reign to do what he wants in the movie. The movie will be a lot darker. It focuses on the reavers. It is set a year (?) after the series ended and something very bad has happened to Mal which makes him a much darker character. Every character will have been changed by events during the previous year and we will see new sides to them. People who have never seen the show will understand who the characters are. Badger and Saffron will not be in the movie. He had really liked the Badger character and would have liked to see him in the movie.

Autographs were being called by ticket numbers. If you were not there when your number cas called you missed out. The rest of the afternoon was spent waiting for our numbers, which were never called!

Sunday - They had abandoned the number calling system for two of the Buffy guests, so we queued for an hour. When we got to the front of the queue they informed us people with small children could push in! We then wandered round to the other autograph room where the nice steward let us in even though our numbers hadn’t been called. We got four more Buffy signatures. Emma Caulfield spotted my two year old daughter in the crowd. She picked her up and sat fussing over her for a few minutes. My daughter loved the attention. Then she sneezed all over Emma! They did a Firefly group photo. Jewel said she like my husbands ’28’ Jayne shirt. Summer gave my two year old a hug and Nathan gave my four year old another hug (she is now a very big Nathan Fillion fan) The Firefly autographs were called at 2.30. Our numbers finally came up at 4.50. My four year old pinched my Jaynes hat, Summer and Nathan liked the hat. So what did I do during this opportunity to meet the stars? I turned into a gibbering wreck and mumbled complete nonsense.

Edit: Nearly forgot, they are planning on doing a Serenity shindig next year. They hope to get this shindigs guests back, including Gina and Morena. One of the staff told me tickets will be limited to 500 and they are currently trying to get Adam Baldwin.

DEBBIEBUK1

Monday, May 03, 2004 - 00:06

Wren I hope it’s okay to add some stuff which I really enjoyed about Fusion.

Jewel said she found the technobabble and the Chinese hard but kept writing them out until it seemed to stay in her head. She is hoping that "Serenity" the film is a big box office hit cos then they should get to do some more. She didn’t enjoy the costume she wore in the "Dead Like me" episode she did it was really uncomfortable. She hated filming the sex scene in that, as well as finding the one in "Out of Gas" difficult.

Summer’s least favourite scene to film was her first, in "Serenity" as she was nervous, nearly naked, in the box for a lot of the time and she’d not done much acting before. She also talked about the Angel scene with David Boreanaz and said he was really nice to her.

Summer and Jewell did their stage talks together and Jewell said she hadn’t appreciated how much folks outside the US enjoyed Firefly (she thought they’d just be a little group tagged on side a Buffy event) and was going to tell the rest of the team they should have been there.

They were both really lovely and kind to the questioners.

Nathan was great, really funny, but I’ll stop here for now so someone else can add more, just mention the wonderful fancy dress team who came as Inara, Atherton Wing, Kaylee and Mal in Shindig, really excellent (and if any of you read this forum, apologies from the intoxicated person in lilac who tried to take your photo and failed.)