Out early, finally, Titan Books has given us a wonderful gift in the Firefly Companion.
Designed with the same style and attention to detail as their Serenity Companion, the Firefly Companion is utterly crammed with cool stuff. I was blown away. Let me see if I can get the idea across.
Since Firefly came out, I have read every article and interview I could find. I’ve read Joss and Tim’s reviews of each episode, I’ve heard the commentaries again and again, I’ve hovered around all the websites and just absorbed it all. And yet this book has something new for me on almost every page.
Behind the scenes pictures are printed for the first time here. Close up pics of props — not screen captures — with details on how they were made (and, usually, how fast). Get a good glimpse of River’s cryo-box, and Book’s ident card (pictured). Closeups of Alliance insignia, the Sheriff’s badge from “The Train Job,” Inara’s Companion papers, Simon’s universal encyclopedia, almost every weapon, Kaylee’s room, and more.
Above: Mal’s pistol, built on top of a Taurus 85 pistol.
There’s also the first part of a new interview with Joss, and damned if he doesn’t still have new things to say about his baby.
The bulk of the book is made up of the shooting scripts of the first six episodes, introduced by the writers and peppered with comments from the cast and crew. I knew the Alliance uniforms were from Starship Troopers but I didn’t know that some of Serenity’s spacesuits were from the movie Soldier, or that Zoe’s Mare’s Leg pistol was originally made for The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., which cheers me up no end.
I know what you’re thinking. “I’ve seen the scripts already, for free, online, in a buncha places.” Not these, you haven’t. These are clean versions of shooting scripts with more detail, more complete scene and angle descriptions, missing scenes, replaced scenes (like the original Tam family scenes from “Safe”) and details on post-production changes. These are now the definitive scripts, and there are goodies to be had within.
There are also pages devoted to each cast member, promo shots we haven’t seen yet, interviews with costumer Shawna Trpcic and guest stars like Mark A. Sheppard, Christina Hendricks, Michael Fairman. If you’re a Firefly fan, I can’t imagine you not wanting this book and eagerly awaiting Vol. 2.
Order the first book at Amazon or Amazon UK.
You can also preorder Vol 2, due out next spring, at Amazon and Amazon UK.
You’ve put the wrong link on the second cover – it links to a large picture of the first cover.
Outstanding! Hurrah hurrah hurrah! 🙂
I am new to the Firefly/Serenity ‘verse and fell in love with it. Just found this website and just wanted to say great work. Now if only I had the money to buy stuff from the London Prop Shop.
I just got my email notice from Amazon that my order shipped. I jumped for joy since I thought I wasn’t getting it until October. CANNOT WAIT!!
Anybody that hasn’t gotten this book yet will LOVE IT when they do. 😀 Definitely worth the wait. And a big shout out to Amazon for getting them shipped our sooner than had been expected. Very nice touch. 😉
This book is WELL worth the cover price, and more. The shooting scripts have some beautiful extra stuff, and besides, reading Joss and others in their original form is so much more enjoyable with the pictures and such.
My only nitpick is that some of the pics seem to be glorified screen-caps, oh and I can’t WAIT for volume 2. These are DEFINITIVE, buy them now.
the book looks incredible… ordering now.
btw — just found this site. it’s great. not only is the content amazing, but i’m quite impressed with the design. shiny. 🙂
I was going to wait to get this, or ask for it for Christmas/my birthday, but then I caved. And then I caved some more and finally bought the Serenity VC too. ^^;;
This looks completely awesome. I can’t wait to get it. I just wish they would get the second one out sooner.
I got my copy the other day and was absolutely astounded. I was expecting (and would have been happy with) much less of a book and I can’t say enough good things about this publication – very shiney indeed!
Yo! If Lee Assef is giving the thumbs up then I’m placing an order now! Can’t wait!! (By the way, if Mr. Assef reads this then he needs to give his cousin a shout because he ain’t returning emails. 🙂 )
play.com doesn’t list the two volumes of this book as different books. Had to use this site to differentiate them. I first got suspicious when, despite the same names, they had different page counts. That and the covers were different, but I thought they might just be different editions or different, regionalized covers.