Firefly (series) & Serenity (movie)

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Buzz201

What's up with the casual unexplained Chinese every 5 seconds?

It's just blended into a common-language in future-land. A bit like Cityspeak in Blade Runner. Plus they can swear like troopers and only a billion and a half people will know they're been naughty...

The show blended elements from the space opera and Western genres, depicting humanity's future in a manner different from most contemporary science fiction programs in that there are no large space battles. Firefly takes place in a multi-cultural future, primarily a fusion of Western and Oriental cultures, where there is a significant division between the rich and poor. As a result of the Sino-American Alliance, Mandarin Chinese is a common second language; it is used in advertisements, and characters in the show frequently use Chinese words as curses. According to the DVD commentary on the episode "Serenity", this was explained as being the result of China and the United States being the two superpowers that expanded into space.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by chip75

It's just blended into a common-language in future-land. A bit like Cityspeak in Blade Runner. Plus they can swear like troopers and only a billion and a half people will know they're been naughty...

Well I did look up the script, because the dialogue was poorly mixed and I thought the Chinese was supposed to be translated. Slightly surprised me that swearing in English is wrong, but swearing in Chinese is perfectly acceptable on US TV.

And he had 90 minutes in the Pilot, could he not have explained that?

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Buzz201

Well I did look up the script, because the dialogue was poorly mixed and I thought the Chinese was supposed to be translated. Slightly surprised me that swearing in English is wrong, but swearing in Chinese is perfectly acceptable on US TV.

And he had 90 minutes in the Pilot, could he not have explained that?

I'm not sure if it does translate or not but I think it's more the tone and sounds that are used to convey characters displeasure. A bit like when Indy and Shortround have an argument in The Temple Of Doom. The Asian influence has crept into everything merging the two cultures in the future in Firefly.

Firefly came pretty much as a fully formed 'Verse with it's sci-fi-frontier style. Of course the pilot was shown months after The Train Job which confused viewers in the US even more!

[Surfdude]

Originally Posted by Buzz201

Slightly surprised me that swearing in English is wrong, but swearing in Chinese is perfectly acceptable on US TV.

American studios don't even care about using British swearing, never mind if it's in another language. Not that they ever use it correctly.

Buffy being a prime example.

[Buzz201]

Originally Posted by Surfdude

American studios don't even care about using British swearing, never mind if it's in another language. Not that they ever use it correctly.

Buffy being a prime example.

I can only think of three really British swearwords, the mild "bloody", the moderate "bugger" and the bizarre Anglo Saxon term used in The Avengers (it's filtered, so I can't post it, but you know the one). None of them are especially offensive, so I doubt they'd be bleeped anyway...

[Perhaps this isn't the best topic to be getting into]

[ycbbh]

I quite like the fact that we randomly have an active Firefly thread in October 2013. Also, to quote xkcd, for a universe that's supposed to be half Chinese, Firefly sure doesn't have any Asians.

[Surfdude]

Originally Posted by Buzz201

I can only think of three really British swearwords, the mild "bloody", the moderate "bugger" and the bizarre Anglo Saxon term used in The Avengers (it's filtered, so I can't post it, but you know the one). None of them are especially offensive, so I doubt they'd be bleeped anyway...

[Perhaps this isn't the best topic to be getting into]

There are plenty of British slang words that Americans don't find offensive but we do, relatively speaking. At least, you wouldn't expect to hear them on a prime time TV show (although our censors aren't as sensitive to naughty language as their US counterparts).

I obviously don't want to start listing them on here, but some of the more homophobic ones are particularly jarring.

Originally Posted by ycbbh

Also, to quote xkcd, for a universe that's supposed to be half Chinese, Firefly sure doesn't have any Asians.

Particularly egregious that the single Asian speaking character on the entire show (albeit we only got half a season) is a prostitute.