Firefly didn’t get a high enough number of viewers to inspire FOX to keep it going, but the DVD sales numbers seem to be doing just fine.

I’m about to start the third disc in the series which puts me halfway through, so I feel versed enough in the material to make some comments. The material is utter cheese, but in a very endearing way. Campy is the word I’m looking for, but keep in mind I say that as a compliment. It would be more difficult to take Firefly seriously as entertainment if Joss Whedon hadn’t infused it with campy material or humor, one-liners, etc. He offsets the humor with moments of soap opera styled dread and seriousness.

As for the rest of the writing, it seems solid enough. Joss creates some strong dramatic tension between the crew of Serenity and the situations in which they find themselves. The production values of the series could have been a little higher, but I forgive all of it in understanding of budget concerns.

What I get out of the series more than anything is optimism. The supportive, even fanatical fans of Firefly prove that you don’t need big budgets or even the greatest writing credentials to make the next Star Wars. Joss is very much a student of George Lucas bootstrapping and even a writer of Star Trek heritage. He even admits it in recent interviews:

“There’s always the young punk rebelling against his father.I’m rebelling against Han Solo, but if you are going to tell me that Han Solo isn´t the father of Malcolm Reynolds, then I am going to laugh and laugh and laugh. A lot of people liked the first STAR TREK when they were really finding their way, and James Kirk was about taking the time to take his shirt off and getting it done. Kirk was also, I would say, Malcolm’s weird uncle. And both of those franchises became more and more sterile, and less kind off down and dirt. I was rebelling against that kind of TV and science-fiction. At the same time, I owe both of those franchises a huge debt. They are both in my personal, how can they not be ?It’s that classic thing : I’m rebelling against my father and doing everything he doesn’t do, but I think I look like him.”

Creative people often focus on the notion of originality at the expense of everything else. Along with working in a vacuum, many supposed ‘creatives’ will speak of derivation as an evil thing to be avoided at all costs.

I’m often both surprised and disappointed by this Originality Notion. I find Firefly very far from original. As Joss says himself, Firefly and its characters are very much the children of Star Wars and Star Trek, perhaps with a little John Wayne or Sergio Leone western spice. Being derivative is often the source of inspiration for great works.

When I learned that Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammet was the inspiration for Frank Miller’s Sin City among others, I had to read it. After reading Red Harvest I was curious about whether a movie had ever been made, or if there were any plans to make a modern version. Here is what Wikipedia had to say:

“Red Harvest has only been adapted into a film one time, for the 1930 film Roadhouse Nights, starring Jimmy Durante. However, many major elements of the book were changed for the movie, including most of the characters’ names, and the film is not considered a faithful adaptation.It has been frequently asserted–though never officially corroborated–that the plot was the inspiration for Yojimbo, a 1961 film by Akira Kurosawa. Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars (1964), a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood; A Fistful of Dollars was in turn remade as a 1920s-era “gangster” movie in Last Man Standing (1996), starring Bruce Willis.”

So Red Harvest spawned Yojimbo and Yojimbo spawned A Fistful of Dollars. Kurosawa films have spawned a little something else as well. George Lucas modeled the first half of Star Wars (Episode 4) on Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress.

So here we have a long history of samurai movies, westerns, and fantasy-science fiction spawned off pulp fiction and detective stories. Not to mention Lucas & Spielberg’s open admission that Indiana Jones was inspired by 1930s serials.

Good things happen to those who emulate.

You don’t have to be entirely original to create good work or even attain a marginal level of success. Being different is more important than being original. The two are not necessarily the same thing if you think about it.

If you can’t get high TV or cable ratings, or can’t be a smashing box office success, there is always the growth of DVD sales to prove you ‘financially viable’ in entertainment markets.

This is an important message to writers everywhere that you don’t have to be a bestseller or smashing success to have some kind of success. Success doesn’t happen overnight. From a creative standpoint you don’t have to be entirely original either, just different enough to grab peoples’ attention. There is a huge market in catering to the Children of Star Wars.

If anything it proves the old adage; “If you build it, they will come.”

Just ask Joss Whedon.