Firefly Movie News (Just a little blip)

[Hand of Evil]

Saw this is the News Brief on the Sci-Fi Site

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/

The official Universal Pictures Web site has added Serenity, the movie version of TV's canceled SF western series Firefly, to its "Coming Soon" section. Universal is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.


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I know it is not much but...

 

[MEG Hal]

Saw this is the News Brief on the Sci-Fi Site

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/

The official Universal Pictures Web site has added Serenity, the movie version of TV's canceled SF western series Firefly, to its "Coming Soon" section. Universal is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.


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I know it is not much but...

Ta ma duh!
I saw this already and hope it is true!

 

[Crothian]

This is going to be the bestest movie ever

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Hopefully the movie format will allow them enough time to practice to get their Chinese tones right.

 

[Cor Azer]

I dunno...

Hopefully the movie format will allow them enough time to practice to get their Chinese tones right.

I kind of liked that they don't have quite the proper accents for chinese - it's sort of like how Anglophones have mangled various French phrases that have seeped into English.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I find it hard to believe in that if the language has merged so much with standard English that they wouldn't have more of a natural command of it. It is a very cool idea, but it's jarring to the small percentage of the population who can understand Mandarin.

 

[Umbran]

I find it hard to believe in that if the language has merged so much with standard English that they wouldn't have more of a natural command of it.

The show is set in the future. Languages change over time. They aren't generally using standard American English accents on their English. Why should they use standard contemporary 20004 accents on their Chinese?

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Well, actually the tone of a character/word in Chinese is completely integral to its meaning. It doesn't make sense that they would be stripped out. But you kind of have to know the language. Making up imaginary scenarios about language change doesn't really work.

Just another point, if the characters are getting all creative with their Chinese curses like they do, that presumes a certain amount of fluency. It's not like they are just throwing out a borrowed word or two, they are manipulating the language.

Don't get me wrong, I love Firefly... but this one issue hurts my suspention of disbelief.

Maybe I should take this discussion somewhere else... I don't want to hijack the thread.

 

[Pielorinho]

Cordo, that's interesting -- I've heard from other Chinese speakers that the actors did a pretty good job. Is it possible they were coached by someone with a different dialect, from a different region of China?

In any case, I find it highly likely that Chinese in 500 years would look different from modern Chinese; the least believable part of the show is how similar future English is to modern English. But that's a necessary plot device.

Daniel

 

[Umbran]

Well, actually the tone of a character/word in Chinese is completely integral to its meaning. It doesn't make sense that they would be stripped out. But you kind of have to know the language. Making up imaginary scenarios about language change doesn't really work.

The fact that contempoprary Chinese is dependant on tone does not preclude the possibility that the tonal nature of the language could change in the future.

Imagine that for some (probably business related) reason in the future, lots of speakers of Western languages start to pick up Chinese. But, not being native speakers of such a strongly tonal language, none of these westerners get it quite right. And now the Chinese have to deal with French-accented Chinese, and Russian-accented Chinese, and Southern-American-Accented chinese, and Boston-accented-Chinese...

At that point, if communicating with these people is really called for, perhaps it is best to let your language flex to meet them, and a form of the Chinese language develops that is not so tonally dependant. Or maybe it is just differently dependant on tone. Perhaps the language shifts to use tone differences western language speakers are more able to catch...

Just another point, if the characters are getting all creative with their Chinese curses like they do, that presumes a certain amount of fluency. It's not like they are just throwing out a borrowed word or two, they are manipulating the language.

It presumes a certain amount of fluency in the langage present in their time period, not with 20th-century Chinese. And, if they've been borrowing for a long, long time, their usage and pronounciation would be expected to change from present-day norms.

Don't get me wrong, I love Firefly... but this one issue hurts my suspention of disbelief.

I'm a physicist by trade. Do you know how frequently I run into things in sci-fi shows that would hurt my suspension of disbelief? One needs to learn to set one's own pet knowledges aside to fully enjoy fiction. Worry about the show's internal consistency. Don't worry about it's consistency with exterior reality.

As for the hijack - I wouldn't worry about it. It isn't like there's anyone saying anything else now anyway