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According to Joss Whedon, the creator of the short-lived series Firefly (2002), the cult show is about “nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things.” The chronicles of crewmembers on a scruffy space freighter, Firefly ran for only four months before its abrupt cancellation. In that brief time, however, it established a reputation as one of the best science-fiction programs of the new millennium: sharply written, superbly cast, and set on an exotic multicultural frontier unlike anything ever seen on the small screen. The show’s large, enthusiastic fan following supported a series of comics and a theatrical film, Serenity (2005), that extended the story, deepened the characters, and revealed new wonders and dangers on the deep-space frontier. In Firefly Revisited: Essays on Joss Whedon’s Classic Series, Michael Goodrum and Philip Smith present a collection that reflects on the program, the characters, and the post-cancellation film and comics that grew out of the show. The contributors to this volume offer fresh perspectives on familiar characters and blaze new trails into unexplored areas of the Firefly universe. Individual essays explore the series’ place in the history of the space-Western subgenre, the political economy of the Alliance, and the uses of music and language in the series to immerse audiences in a multicultural future. These essays look at how the show offered viewers high adventure as well as engaged with a range of themes that still resonate today. As such, Firefly Revisited will intrigue the show’s many fans, as well as Whedon scholars and anyone interested in the twenty-first-century renaissance of science-fiction television.
Director, producer and screenwriter Joss Whedon is a creative force in film, television, comic books and a host of other media. This book provides an authoritative survey of all of Whedon's work, ranging from his earliest scriptwriting on Roseanne, through his many movie and TV undertakings--Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Dr. Horrible, The Cabin in the Woods, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.--to his forays into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The book covers both the original texts of the Whedonverse and the many secondary works focusing on Whedon's projects, including about 2000 books, essays, articles, documentaries and dissertations.
Joss Whedon’s Serenity (2005) is at once a symbol of failure and a triumphant success of fan activism. The cult television icon's feature directorial debut functions as an extension of his canceled Fox series Firefly. Mourning their loss, fans of the show fought for more, making Serenity not just a cult film but a monument to cultdom. A minor box-office success upon first release, Serenity continues to be a sci-fi favorite, attracting fans, cosplayers, fan fiction authors, and more to conventions and charity screenings internationally. This book examines the relationship between the film and its peculiar cult following, largely established before a cult object even existed, and situates the film in relation to the series and its other transmedia continuations to plumb the status of different media texts and their platforms. Additionally, it explores those cult features of Serenity—a playful engagement with genre, with high and low culture, with gender roles—that predisposed it to such a fierce following, one that would follow Whedon into future series and blockbuster projects such as The Avengers.
When Joss Whedon's television show Firefly (2002-2003) was cancelled, devoted fans cried foul and demanded more--which led to the 2005 feature film Serenity. Both the series and the film were celebrated for their melding of science fiction and western iconography, dystopian settings, underdog storylines, and clever fast-paced dialogue. Firefly has garnered a great deal of scholarly attention--less so, Serenity. This collection of new essays, the first focusing exclusively on the film, examines its depictions of race, ableism, social engineering and systems of power, and its status as a crime film, among other topics.
From the Star Wars expanded universe to Westworld, the science fiction western has captivated audiences for more than fifty years. These twelve new essays concentrate on the female characters in the contemporary science fiction western, addressing themes of power, agency, intersectionality and the body. Discussing popular works such as Fringe, Guardians of the Galaxy and Mass Effect, the essayists shed new light on the gender dynamics of these beloved franchises, emphasizing inclusion and diversity with their critical perspectives.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Joss Whedon's work presents various representations of home spaces that give depth to his stories and storytelling. Through the spaceship in Firefly, a farmhouse in Avengers: Age of Ultron or Whedon's own house in Much Ado About Nothing, his work collectively offers audiences the opportunity to question the ways we relate to and inhabit homes. Focusing on his television series, films and comics, this collection of new essays explores the diversity of home spaces in Whedon's many 'verses, and the complexity these spaces afford the narratives, characters, objects and relationships within them.
Contributions by Lawrence Abrams, Dorian L. Alexander, Max Bledstein, Peter Cullen Bryan, Stephen Connor, Matthew J. Costello, Martin Flanagan, Michael Fuchs, Michael Goodrum, Bridget Keown, Kaleb Knoblach, Christina M. Knopf, Martin Lund, Jordan Newton, Stefan Rabitsch, Maryanne Rhett, and Philip Smith History has always been a matter of arranging evidence into a narrative, but the public debate over the meanings we attach to a given history can seem particularly acute in our current age. Like all artistic mediums, comics possess the power to mold history into shapes that serve its prospective audience and creator both. It makes sense, then, that history, no stranger to the creation of hagiographies, particularly in the service of nationalism and other political ideologies, is so easily summoned to the panelled page. Comics, like statues, museums, and other vehicles for historical narrative, make both monsters and heroes of men while fueling combative beliefs in personal versions of United States history. Drawing the Past, Volume 1: Comics and the Historical Imagination in the United States, the first book in a two-volume series, provides a map of current approaches to comics and their engagement with historical representation. The first section of the book on history and form explores the existence, shape, and influence of comics as a medium. The second section concerns the question of trauma, understood both as individual traumas that can shape the relationship between the narrator and object, and historical traumas that invite a reassessment of existing social, economic, and cultural assumptions. The final section on mythic histories delves into ways in which comics add to the mythology of the US. Together, both volumes bring together a range of different approaches to diverse material and feature remarkable scholars from all over the world.
How, as historians, should we 'read' a film? Histories on Screen answers this and other questions in a crucial volume for any history student keen to master source use. The book begins with a theoretical 'Thinking about Film' section that explores the ways in which films can be analyzed and interrogated as either primary sources, secondary sources or indeed as both. The much larger 'Using Film' segment of the book then offers engaging case studies which put this theory into practice. Topics including gender, class, race, war, propaganda, national identity and memory all receive good coverage in what is an eclectic multi-contributor volume. Documentaries, films and television from Britain and the United States are examined and there is a jargon-free emphasis on the skills and methods needed to analyze films in historical study featuring prominently throughout the text. Histories on Screen is a vital resource for all history students as it enables them to understand film as a source and empowers them with the analytical tools needed to use that knowledge in their own work.
This cutting-edge handbook brings together an international roster of scholars to examine many facets of comics and graphic novels. Contributor essays provide authoritative, up-to-date overviewsof the major topics and questions within comic studies, offering readers a truly global approach to understanding the field. Essays examine: the history of the temporal, geographical, and formal development of comics, including topics like art comics, manga, comix, and the comics code; issues such as authorship, ethics, adaptation, and translating comics connections between comics and other artistic media (drawing, caricature, film) as well as the linkages between comics and other academic fields like linguistics and philosophy; new perspectives on comics genres, from funny animal comics to war comics to romance comics and beyond. The Routledge Companion to Comics expertly organizes representative work from a range of disciplines, including media and cultural studies, literature, philosophy, and linguistics. More than an introduction to the study of comics, this book will serve as a crucial reference for anyone interested in pursuing research in the area, guiding students, scholars, and comics fans alike.
A look at African American women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror: “A compelling contribution to the scholarship on speculative cinema and television.” —Journal of American Culture When Lieutenant Uhura took her place on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek, the actress Nichelle Nichols went where no African American woman had ever gone before. Yet several decades passed before many other black women began playing significant roles in speculative (i.e., science fiction, fantasy, and horror) film and television—a troubling omission, given that these genres offer significant opportunities for reinventing social constructs such as race, gender, and class. Challenging cinema’s history of stereotyping or erasing black women onscreen, Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before showcases twenty-first-century examples that portray them as central figures of action and agency. Writing for fans as well as scholars, Diana Adesola Mafe looks at representations of black womanhood and girlhood in American and British speculative film and television, including 28 Days Later, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Children of Men, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Firefly, and Doctor Who: Series 3. Each of these has a subversive black female character in its main cast, and Mafe draws on critical race, postcolonial, and gender theories to explore each film and show, placing the black female characters at the center of the analysis and demonstrating their agency. The first full study of black female characters in speculative film and television, Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before shows why heroines such as Lex in AVP and Zoë in Firefly are inspiring a generation of fans, just as Uhura did.