Ship Spotting in 'Serenity' (Firefly)
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Spacedock huh looking at the larger more blocky frigates on the alliance side, from the front 09:33, it kinda reminds me of the F-303 from Stargate, just the way the tower rises up prominently from the rest of the hull it has that very navel cruiser feel
Hey i wanted to ask if i could sugest the tiger claw from wing commander ?
look at 4:28-4:32 the ship in the back ground of serenity but not deep in the shot looks like the aft/rear section of a imperial star destroyer
Spacedock Tachyon The Fringe Game? All ships reall, you’d like the game, it stars Evil Deads Bruce Campbell
you should do ship spotting for "Return of the Jedi" at Endor
Hi! this is Lynn Blackson, the writer/artist for most of the spaceship section of 'Six-Shooters and Spaceships', the book you quoted for naming several of these classes. I LOVE this video, because, obviously, I too love these ships. Love them enough to have spent countless hours freezeframe analyzing the ships here, and building my own 3d models of them. In all that time, i NEVER figured out that the one was a BSG Defender (a ship I'd never heard of, honestly). So, thank you so much for that. The BIG Alliance ship is in S&S, called the 'Crete' class carrier. The Longbow, as listed in S&S, is carrying what I call Wawrhammer Interceptors and Foxbat Fighter-bombers. The Foxbat, btw, is the same as the 'skiff' that fires on Mal in the first ep of Firefly. The Warhammer looks largely inspired by the Hammerheads from Space Above and Beyond, but with truncated wings. The Longbow is somewhat modified between the Alliance version and Reaver version, particularly at the nose, and as there are multiple reaver longbows in the fight, I have to assume that nose is 'stock'. I called the reaver version a 'civilian' model in the rpg, since the reaver one also doesn't have the big gun on the Alliance model. I DID have stats and models for more ships but limited print space and all that. There are fan copies of them out there in free publications called 'Cortex Shipyards' volume 1 and 2. If I have a claim to fame in fandom, and a piece of work I'm proud of it's my attempt to catalogue, and name these ships, and I'm just thrilled to see someone else share my love for them. Thanks for bringing attention to them.
Thanks for the work you put in, it is appreciated.
"...there are franchises entirely about space warfare that don't do [thoughtful, sensible looking fleets] successfully, and yet Serenity has done here."
Hear, hear. Great tribute to an incredible scene.
I find it fitting that BSG ships turned up in this battle given that a Firefly class ship was briefly visible in the BSG mini series.
I think they used the same vfx company:)
The serenity was all over the Battlestar Galactica series, she also snuck into ready player one.
Jonathan Schmidt, in the book Wade owns a Firefly class called the Vonnegut as his main space vessel.
@@L0stEngineer in ready player one its more of a cameo as the whole movie is based around film and tv references .
FreeFalling Air, correct, Zoic did BSG after Firefly, up until BSG got in-house vfx, which is when they went down hill with out of focus basestars and fat Viper Mk VIIs with pointless extra intakes and retcon errors like the nuke silos and raise name lettering on the Galactica. Zodiac are brilliant artists.
"If this franchise is ever salvaged." 😔
I'm still hoping for a clone wars style animated series.
Though at the same time best go out when you are on top. I liked Firefly, I just didn't see it being sustainable beyond a couple seasons at best.
@@SultanFilm I'd kind of like to see the Serenity Verse expanded the way WH40k has been with different, unrelated stories being told. The Verse was really well populated with details that could be spun out into their own interesting stories.
@@SultanFilm The biggest question was.. Whats up with the blue hand group?
That would be shiney.
To me the Tohoku ships where the "peacetime" ships, large mobile bases for the occupation of the formally independent worlds by just plonking one down in a system or in in orbit. The ships here where the Warships, the combat focused ones.
Agreed. I also thought the Tohokus were great visual metaphors for the overpowering, oppressive bureaucracy of the Alliance.
@@Xalendare15 Tarkin Doctrine.
@@Xalendare15 Basically they looked like a city in space, sitting on top of a flying saucer, which to me implied the crew was both massive and would be on long tours of duty, maybe years at a time before heading into a port, assuming they every docked anywhere at all and crew were just rotated in and out by smaller freighters and shuttles
They almost seem to be some sort of... mobile.. space station! >:D
@@MrBigCookieCrumble
Ban incoming, /s
I think the Idea of an admiral on a corvette actually makes a lot of sense. They are fast, not easily caught in most shows, and can be specialized without incurring loss of overall fleet performance more readily. Imagine a ship specially built for an admiral as a command ship. It has excellent sensors and communications equipment, and has strong defensive characteristics like speed and shields or maybe advanced stealth systems. It can move around the battle as needed to remain protected. And this way, the main line capital ships can be thrown in without the additional potential of decapitating your own command structure. Depending on the particular style and rules of the Sci Fi property in question, it could make for an effective command system
Given the peculiarities of space travel (and the timeframes involved) in the Verse, a small and heavily armed vessel would make far more sense than some large behemoth in a universe where artificial gravity and interial compensators exist but faster-than-light travel does not; a large warship wouldn't be able to catch or intercept anything when it can only accelerate/decelerate at a fraction of the speed of the target.
Starting in WWII, flagships have often been smaller than other vessels in the fleet (a current example is the US 7th fleet using the USS Blue Ridge rather than the USS Ronald Reagan). Having C&C in a corvette that would not be taking the brunt of any action, and nimble enough get out real trouble (well, in theory), seems like a sensible option.
There is also the matter of who is in command here. That agent needs a lot of operational flexibility which a larger ship would not offer.
I agree the longbow is a really nice ship. It feels like it could be dropped into any other franchise and not look out of place. I hadn't noticed it before but now it's up there as one of my favorite ship designs in media.
I think the idea of the Longbow carrying fighters makes sense. It isn't necessarily a carrier in the normal sense, but it could be used to ferry short range / atmospheric capable fighters in-system. If you think of the fighters more like paratroopers for orbital combat, then the Longbow would be the troop plane that gets them to the drop zone.
It reminds me a lot of Imperial 40k ships, so it kind of has already.
@@daveh7720 To me it's like a high mobility artillery ship that carries its own fighter support. By using fighters instead of point defense guns it has less mass, which makes it easier to evade incoming projectiles. Plus, fighters are easier to replace and far more versitile than point defence guns.
Really, it's a miniature one-ship-fleet. The cannons are useful for anything the fighters can't handle, and vice versa.
@@vonskyme9133 Yup that's exactly why I clicked on this lol. That pronounced prow probably has an aquila on it.
parasite carriers never get the love they deserve. i think it is an efficient design and we need to see more of them
Daniel: "...the Reavers win this battle..."
Except they obviously didn't, or the Alliance wouldn't have been able to spare the troops to apprehend Mal & Co., and recover River (whose abilities they know, which is why there so many troops in the scene later).
Yeah. The Alliance had time and safety to do a lot that they clearly wouldn't have if their control of the orbital battlespace had been lost or even contested. They had troops to spare to hunt specifically for River, they could take time to patch up the _Serenity_ crew's injuries, they sprung for some basic repairs to _Serenity_ herself, and allowed the ship and her crew to leave. None of that would have been possible if the Reavers had won in space.
The Reavers are terrifying and gave the Alliance a nasty bloody nose with a strong sucker-punch, but the Alliance knows how to fight once they realize they're in one.
@@tba113 ,
Yeah. The Reavers were using mostly civilian craft, large craft, but civilian. They have no real chance against an organized force. As we saw, not all Alliance vessels were engaged in close combat. The Alliance appears to have a few dozen Frigates/Corvettes/Destroyers in the battle. Most of the Alliance's escorting vessels survive, but they lost their flagship. The Reavers have 4 Frigate/Corvette/Destroyer sized ships and one ship which could be battlecruiser/battleship sized. Once the Alliance takes them out, the others are small fry and the gunships should be able to mop them up.
Definitely a Pyrrhic Victory for the Alliance... and since they failed in their main objective it turns into a complete loss.
I was coming here to say this.
The Reavers did a lot of damage thanks to their unorthodox tactics. They had no qualms with sacrificing their wellbeing to do damage. But they didn't win.
@@aralornwolf3140 Agreed - though I'm sure more than a few career-minded Alliance officers would try to spin it into some epic victory over the Reavers.
One could potentially argue that the Reavers won the initial battle, but then left before Alliance reinforcements showed up. That being said, it is more likely the Alliance fleet prevailed in the end, and just sent more troops to the surface once they were sure that they controlled the space around the planet.
I think the Alliance won the Battle, at the end the operative ( wikipedia says that's Chiwetel's character) orders his troops to let the serenity crew free and there are no more reavers in the area
The Alliance fleet wins this battle.. i renember back in the day it was even stated somewhere.. the fact that the Alliance controls the planet and orbit very shortly after this "meeting" of fleets supports it
Agreed alliance won. How else would they have been free to land a party at the end of the battle. The reavers that were there on the ground were only those on the one ship that followed them down.
I would argue that they took too much casualties for a win (though, I'm not sure they would care about that). I don't remember if it was ever stated wherever they destroyed the reaver fleet, or just forced them into retreating (and again, from what we know of the reaver, would that even happen) ?
Reavers in general seem to use hit and run tactics. Attack, loot, capture prisoners, and retreat before more organised resistance arrives. Some are more berserk than others, but in general the show demonstrates they aren't just mindlessly charging.
Just look at the lone nutter aboard the alliance ship in one episode. He didn't charge into gunfire he used stealth and ambush.
Immediately after the battle (or perhaps even during) the Reavers probably grabbed what prisoners and useful ship parts they could, and hauled out of there. While alliance would send reinforcements pretty quickly, and the operative probably disengaged and headed to the planet the moment he realised the Serenity wasn't involved in the battle.
@@amahashadow yeah.. given the very nature of reavers it seems highly unlikelly that any of them would retreat
Hm. Has Spacedock ever done a "build a fleet" segment where they make a balanced 'soft scifi' fleet from multiple IPs?
that's a good idea for an episode...
I wish I could like this comment more so Spacedock can see it ^^
Spam UNSC Infinity
@@Harshhaze NO
Halo was halo only under Bungie, under 343 it's junk plain and simple, sorry but 343 are inept, think man their CEO Frank O'Conner I got nothing against him but his background is a writer and editor not a games dev, he was Editor In Chief at Ultra Game Players back in the 90's, if anything he should be lead writer not CEO lol
so no 343 has bad leadership and nothing they do will fix anything unless they restructure the studio....
i used to read Ultra Game Players lol
IDK new Halo is as bad as Disney SW IMO....
@@darthXreven What does that have to do with the Infinity being a good ship
You'd like to talk to the guy who designed those ships? What about Spacedock starts to do interviews? It would be very interesting! Why don't you try to contact the guy? :D
I second this, I would LOVE Spacedock interviews with creatives and loremasters
Thirded.
@@jjkrayenhagen 150 likes farther! Haha! Thanks! ;D
Forth this, or maybe fifths? yeah you must have connections by now!
Leinil Francis Yu a Philippine comic book artist
www.deviantart.com/leinilyu/about
www.deviantart.com/leinilyu/art/SERENITY-ship-43848424 here is the destroyer
He has also done several firefly comics
I've watched this scene many times but never analyzed it like this. I am sold on those Longbow destroyers are very cool and I wish we knew more. It is a spectacular and emotional fueled battle scene that is highly under-rated.
I've always found Serenity bitter-sweet. It gives an incredible ending to the show, but it removed the possibility of a full fledged show exploring everything in the movie, expanding on it through several season's rather than just 2 hours of screen time. Especially Books backstory, seeing that explored through several season's would be awesome
Frankly everybody's back story, Jayne, Inara and even how Mal got his hands on Serenity in the first place would ALL be stories worth watching!!! I read some place a "idea" for a "new Firefly show" that would open like this:
You see a planet with a number of rings circling around it, as the camera slowly pans in closer and closer threw a literal cloud of debris, broken ships, random parts floating in a formation around the planet the camera pans in further. You see tiny bodies of people hoping around in the mess of parts in space suits as the camera continues to pan in focusing closer into the derelicts and the wreckage, and then you see it, a Firefly class ship in the ring of debris hiding there in this "space junk yard". as a team of people in space suits begin to enter the air lock port leading into the cargo bay, they breach the small door on the retractable gate, and begin to open the main door to the two doors that form the inner cargo bay doors, and as they open THAT second small door.......there stand Malcom, guns drawn a a glare on his face and his voice calmly and coldly says: "GET OFF MY SHIP"!!!
I think that would make an insane "new Firefly" opening!!
Of course another way you could "bring back Firefly" would be to start the story at "day one" the day that Malcom took ownership OF Serenity!! I would personally watch and probably love a show where Mal is "looking for a ship" a day or two BEFORE he finds Serenity, and then after THAT first show............YOU HAVE SIX YEARS OF STORIES TO TELL!!!!!
THINK ABOUT IT!!! SIX YEARS!!!
Because in the original show it is SIX YEARS between the end of the war.....and the day Malcom, Jayne, Wash, Kaylee, and Zoey are stealing salvage from the Alliance vessel on the original Firefly pilot episodes ALSO named Serenity!!! The world building you could do in those SIX YEARS (if you use what we know from the episode Out Of Gas) would show how they met Kaylee, explore the day Wash first showed up, and we could find out more about Inara's back story as well. And it doesn't end there, because in the same episode (Out of Gas) we learn that Kaylee WAS NOT always the engineer and that Jayne came on board later as well......so we'd really get a "six years worth of" HOW DID Serenity get her crew??? Before they met Shepard Book, Simon, and River in the pilot show!!! And there would be SIX YEARS of Firefly stories that could be told, like failed jobs, nightmare situations and more Reaver interactions. I am sure since DAY ONE, when Mal, Zoey, Bester (the guy BEFORE Kaylee), Wash and Inara had some amazing things they had lived through and seen before Shepard Book, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon and River all came on board for the first time....and in case I have NOT drove that point home...............THAT IS SIX YEARS worth of stories you could tell about HOW Firefly, and the ship Serenity "came to be"!!!!
It wouldn't forever be a classic if they did that... Maybe they should make 5 more 5th element movies, no one was enough to forever cement itself in our minds.
5:46 - those are same fighters (interceptors) that flew past Serenity at 5:00. Also, one of them is lassoed at 5:50 :)
BTW, I'm not sure Alliance has lost. When I watched the movie, I thought that they won in the end, because a full force of Alliance marines arrived later to the scene of Serenity crew's last stand VS reapers. Besides, they did leave the planet afterwards without an issue.
The Alliance could have sent dropships full of Marines down to the planet even while they engaged the Reavers. The Marines aren't doing you much good in ship-to-ship combat (and you probably don't want to beard a Reaver ship, either).
The reavers lose Universe battle, its just serenity doesn't hang around to see them lose.... Great video but the alliance do show up at the end for a reason because they win.
I'd also argue the city ships are basically deepsace carriers designed for command and control of sectors while the ships in the universe battle were strike vessels and rapid deployment craft.
i was a bit dissapointed we didnt saw one of the "city" Alliance cruisers in the movie.. i was kinda expecting to see some and ended up with fully new desings
I concur. Especially since the Reaver attacks stop and the alliance is able to be told to stand down. The surprise of the attack likely allowed the Reavers to get some initial large hits in and take down some of the ships, like the Operatives which was at the vanguard. Likely even with stolen Alliance ships, the Reavers would have had trouble maintaining them and even repleneshing munitions on non-energy based weapons.
Serenity moved through so quickly, we likely did not see the more professional alliance regroup and use actual formation tactics to defeat the Reavers who are more ambush/berserk style. Not to mention the Alliance likely could have called in reinforcements, if there were other Alliance fleets or patrols nearby.
Sgt.Roadkill I agree, the Reavers surprised the Alliance at first and got in some damage but ultimately the Alliance regrouped and won the battle. The Reavers has the numbers, but not the fire power to take on the Alliance fleet. By using captured and modified ships, the Reavers didn’t have the weapons systems that the Alliance had, they had to resort to ramming and grappling lines. What few Alliance ships they had captured wouldn’t have either the resupply of ammunition or upkeep to allow the weapon systems to be as affective. A small group of ships were able to follow Serenity through to the surface and landed several waves of Reavers to chase them on foot. At the end, the Alliance landed troops proving that they won the battle.
I would imagine numbers are why the Reavers had such early sucess. In the zoom out shot it appears they have at least a 2 to 1 advantage in numbers. That coupled with their willingness to ram when outgunned would contribute to a higher attrition rate for the Alliance ships. But the kill rate would be heavily skewed heavily in favor of the Alliance I think. Considering they are the last of the two factions standing at the end of the movie I think that bears out. They were basically fighting all of the Reavers with a small task force. That there were enough Alliance organized enough to have a disciplined infantry unit on the ground post orbital battle says volumes about their efficacy.
This space battle and the ones from babilon 5 are in my opinion the best ones. Specialy for there capacity to show the chaos of it without obfuscation.
I find it fitting that the Alliance, prepped to handle Serenity, instead gets to taste the fruits of their own unholy mistake with the Pax virus...
Joss Whedon understands story telling and the need for closure at the end of a story, which was why the movie was so great.
Mal said it himself. "Chickens comin' home to roost."
As impressive and well-thought-out as the ships themselves are, what really impressed me about this scene when I saw it on the big screen was that the production team had put all this effort into something that was over almost as soon as it had begun. It would have been so easy to skimp on details, but they went the whole hog and gave us this beauty.
05:05 those “Brick shaped ships” reminds me of the aft section of Stargate’s Prometheus, Traveler ships from SGA, or the Resource Controllers from Homeworld Cataclysm.
I had the same thought about the similarity to Prometheus.
@@wilwatkins2773 Same, even down to the multiple rapid-fire weapons. The Longbows 'glass cannon' deal one-hit-kills but the 'bricks' wear you down through sheer volume of fire.
They remind me of Marza class dreadnoughts form Sins of a Solar Empire.
One of the artists is Leinil Francis Yu, he is the one who designed the destroyer.
Other artist Tim Earls designed Serenity itself as well as the original Reaver ship
and Josh middleton was one of the concept designers on serenity
Tim Earls also worked on Babylon 5 and came up with most of their ship designs.
Hear me out and tell me if this wouldn’t be a cool series:
The reveal of the reaver’s origins turns the outer colonies into a new battlefield as the independents reform and rally against the Alliance with much more popular support than they had before. However in addition, the revelation fractures the Alliance, a schism occurs between the old guard of the alliance against the reformers and those who’ve had to see the results of both the reavers and the policies of the Alliance on the outer colonies. Agents go rogue, entire fleets and armies in the outer colonies refuse certain orders or go dark entirely, some even begin “losing” supply shipments to the new Browncoats. Not only is there separatist ire in the outer holdings of the Alliance, but the government and military seem to be on the brink of war with themselves as well.
We follow a new ship, just trying to keep their heads down and keep flyin. At some point they cross paths with a young mid level officer in the Alliance, who slowly shifts from bright eyed and idealistic to conflicted as they sway between the two sides of the schism and their duty and changing ideals as we follow them as well.
Tristan Potter oh, you mean The Expanse?
you just described The Expance series, my dude. :D
Sleeping Backbone read the other replies
@@Stonewall5101 I did. feeling salty?
Sleeping Backbone no, wasn’t sarcasm, I love the expanse, I just think there could be a cool connection.
I've never paid much attention to it, but now that it's pointed out, I really like that Longbow-class light carrier/ destroyer hybrid thing.
Those Longbow ships look a lot like the Asgard ships in Stargate SG-1.
I didn't know I needed this video in my life, but here we are. Thank you.
The Victoria Class was always my favorite design from this movie. I'm happy they ditched the Alliance design from the series and created more conventional ships.
I'm a leaf on the wind watch how I soar.....this was wash's shining moment and I almost burst into tears when a certain moment happened....no spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen this incredible film....I miss firefly so much wish Josh whedon would bring it back.... Even the cast said they would love to do it again.
"target the Reavers, Target the Reavers,.....Somebody, Fire!!" one of my favorite lines.
I'm fairly convinced the design of the Razorcrest for the upcoming Mandalorian show is a nod to Serenity. The profiles are just too similar, and what we've seen of the show seems in many ways tonally similar to Firefly (which itself of course was heavily influenced by Star Wars).
Also, for the record, the way the Reavers are depicted in this movie is basically a much much better version of the Yuuzhan Vong imo.
Firefly & Serenity are criminally underrated and deserve much more attention than they received.
May be some time we will see a sequel... Or better we don't...
@@Ariman4238 Better to see the Verse revisited with new characters somehow (as much as I loved the cast.)
The lore is far too rich and varied to be languishing away, so this could actually be the one time I wouldn't burn Hollywood at the stake for a "reboot" as it were...
Firefly is now in comic book form from Dark Horse and Boom Studios just glad to see more stuff from Firefly
I miss firefly.
If there were more easter egg ships, I kinda wish there was the interceptor from Homeworld, Swordfish from Cowboy Bebop, and 05:50 makes me want a grappler ship from Outlaw Star.
main reason most sci-fi doesn't add a lot of easter eggs in from other stuff is they wanna be original but I think sneaking things in is cool, like maybe slipping in the nose of the SSV Normandy in a hangar bay of other ships, nobody comments on the clearly not regulation ship in there but it's there to notice....
or in a hangar full of long nose fighters slipping an ARC-130? or X-Wing in there lol
or maybe something where you see a ship graveyard and there's the guts of a Correllian blockade runner there or some other famous ship like that from something else, in Mass Effect 2 I kinda expected to see something like that entering Corlus [where you obtain Grunt] but no, just all in universe ship hulls, can't fault em though cus they kept everything in universe for the trilogy
it would be cool to see a clearly Japanese anime style ship in big show or movie...even if it was just something in the background....
Well, talking of firefly and easter eggs... A Firefly class ship is in plain sight in the first episode of Battlestar Galactica...
@@SymbioteMullet where?? lolz
14:05
@@darthXreven They sneaked the Millennium Falcon into one of the Star Trek movies
The Tohoku Class Cruisers were fine ships, but not what was called for in this scene or deployment.
Despite Daniel's loathing of the term, a Tohoku was a "mobile base" used for Command and Control operations over a planet or in a theater; large, lumbering, plodding behemoths that were likely absolute suicide to attack but completely unsuited to fleet combat and instead acted as transport, supply, medical, recreation, and fabrication facilities for ground invasions and the more mobile fleets (like the one seen in this video) that did the actual fighting.
The Tohoku was a VERY good example of a Mobile Command Platform or what ever name was decided on. it apparently had an onboard nursery which tells me that the crew was similar to a Galaxy with Crew and dependents along for long voyages. i kind of see the Tohoku's as equivalent to a wandering police station they park near a couple of planets (a few days out maybe) and then send gunships loaded with Alliance marines along to do checks on settlements.....possibly even running a circuit of colonies ala a wild west judge or Marshal.
7:23 you can see the twin barrel cannon on the alliance destroyer firing both barrels almost simultaneously. really cool
I really loved the beam on that Reaver ship. The look with it having different brightness inside to out and the sound of it.
It's kinda funny that you hate the design of the 'brick' ship on the Alliance side, and then go on to talk about how glass-cannon the Destroyers are and how they might need escort. That Brick ship is probably a heavy cruiser/dreadnought/ or something; heavy armor, heavier weapons, damned tough to kill. Only job is to put out tons of fire while covering the Destroyers (which honestly, given their single big cannon and the tons of fighter berths, I'm thinking they're actually CVLs) and to soak up incoming damage with their heavy plate.
I honestly like the Brick. It's the kind of ship you use to build a vanguard wall against an enemy fleet, keeping your CVs and BBs behind it, so it can act as a living shield if it has to. The Victoria might be a corvette, but that might only be in reference to its mobility and armaments, compared to bigger ships (since the Victoria seems to outmass even those previously mentioned CVLs)
I just wanna know what the hell that monster behemoth was the Reavers had; my brain thinks of it as a repurposed colony ship (as in 'this is an entire colony in one ship') because what else COULD it be? And the one that preceded it, that makes me think of a half-rotted eel or fish? What were these ships originally?
Literally the first thing I thought when I saw that massive Reaver ship was that it has got to be a colony ship of sorts. No known military ship of that kind exists, and it's not too hard to believe that the numerous colonized planets may have required some civilian colony ships in the heydays of the Alliance.
Sloping is better than flat brick wall lmao
@@thehz8613 not really. Just look at tank armor. The best tanks nowadays have angled, flat, sloped armor, not curvy organic lines. That curvy organic look works better for stealth tech, when you use the right materials, because instead of reflecting a radar ping straight back to source, it breaks it up and sends it everywhere, lowering the overall footprint of the object being pinged.
On the other hand, if a ship is just meant to be a visible ship of the line, with no need for stealth but every need for armor protection, you might cast the expensive organic-curve plating aside for something more robust and conventional.
@@Kalebfenoir I see your point but what I'm saying is brick is less likely to deflect projectiles than sloped armour
@@Kalebfenoir btw your comment reminds me of leopard tanks lol
Anything Firefly or Serenity is always welcome. Such a great show that did not deserve the short life it had. If any show needs to be brought back, its this one.
Sshhh it might get a Disney reboot
Henry Lidiard a reboot would likely kill it, we need a new show in the same universe, with the serenity crew making cameos every once and a while.
@@tarnyowl6068 heaven help us all. 0_o
@@Stonewall5101 I'd like to see it take up about were it left off. Disney need not apply for funding please. 0_o
At 3:21 I'm glad they showed the Reaverfied Trans-U spacecraft again in this movie. It's actually one of my favorite Reaver ships.
I believe that the vfx house that did Firefly / Serenity did BSG as well, hence the reuse of ships.
That would make sense. Serenity in BSG as well.
@@KenS1267 Yes. Near the beginning of the pilot episode of BSG you can see a Firefly fly over the city.
www.syfy.com/syfywire/image-day-epic-firefly-easter-egg-battlestar-galactica
How did the Reavers beat the Alliance? I thought with the appearance of Alliance soldiers at the end of the movie showed that they won. I would agree their fleet above might be gutted but to lose outright?
Because there are more Alliance ships and personnel than Reavers who are just maddened civvies
The Reavers could well have won the initial engagement but would always loose momentum. We know what they do with captives for instance.
Meanwhile it's hardly a surprise the alliance would have called for reinforcements. The fleet there was after all, on a secret mission, blockading against a single unarmed transport (and perhaps a small number of friends she might be able to muster) not expecting a full blown battle.
Sorry but the reavers lost this fight. They brought everything they had and we're pretty much destroyed. Yes the alliance fleet got mauled but they won.
The reavers were made by the Alliance scientists who were attempting to create docile colonists, they were focused in the location of the planet where Mal was taken in the movie, yet you don't know if they repeated it elsewhere, had they done so, there would be more reaver fleets.
The longbows look like imperium of man battle barges from 40K scaled down.
I think they look more like Dauntless Light Cruisers. Long, thin and with that wedge prow.
Max Power same general idea I was going for
@@maxpower3990 or Cobras. Exactly what I was thinking when I saw them.
Apparently the big Alliance battleship is called a Crete-Class Carrier (um, alliterative) and it's more a supercarrier and mobile base than a battleship. Not something you would want to take into a knife fight like this but makes sense as the Alliance wasn't expecting one.
07:47 I really like the pursuing ship’s elements, really gives the idea of a large raptor or bird of prey chasing down a smaller swallow.
If you watch the "Earth that was" opening of Serenity, some of the colony ships are the destroyers from later in the movie.
I watched Serenity multiple times and I never noticed those Destroyers were also acting as Fighter Carriers. You can even clearly see the one at 5:39 deploying it's wing.
Here's some geek cred, haven't watched the series in years but I'm pretty sure the big green and black capital ship that was in the series premiere was called the I.A.V. Dortmunder. Pretty sure Whedon said in the commentary that he chose the design because it was different and being in space you don't need a ship to be short and symmetrical. He liked the verticality of it. Though it wouldn't have worked in that end battle. The Alliance was supposed to appear to be outmatched (though they obviously did win in the end). I think the battle also technically took place in atmosphere. Unlike the series and earlier scenes, there were distinct battle sounds, not muffled. It was a more conventional battle scene compared to earlier Firefly.
I would really like to know if the IAV Dortmunder is named after the City of Dortmund, since a person from Dortmund is called Dortmunder.
The Tohoku [sp?] was supposed to be a "cruiser" of sorts...big, heavy, slow, patrol carrier and power projection ship. Basically like having an embassy and Fleet Carrier battle group all rolled into one. It was not meant to be fast and basically, aside from looking for the occasional missing ship, just patroled the established shipping lanes. The smaller ships in Serenity were more flexible, like a rapid reaction force that could be anywhere in the system, FAST. All together or split into smaller strike packages [like when they hit all of Serenity's safe harbors].
or a big space station to control vast amounts of space. One Tohoku could be expected to dominate a solar system and house enough troops to occupy rebel planets.
I loved this analysis, there's heaps that I never noticed. Upon re-watching the original footage in detail, there's even more detail that you missed. The opening shot, for example, shows the longbows deploying interceptors.
Here it is 2019 and there are folks LIKE US still talking about Firefly and Serenity, and thinking about it just imagine the "LIFE" this little show, with this little ship, has had, and it surprises me that even today I run into people who never heard of the show....and when they DO they are blown away by it!!
That being said and to comment about something said in this video itself about how Serenity is "flying through all this chaos" is kind of the "metaphor in life to start with" isn't it??? After all here we are watching Serenity "dance around and duck and weave" and through all this "insanity" she looks as though she will come out of it "unharmed", and need I say Wash saying his classic line "I am a leaf on the wind watch how I soar!" as he commands the ship through what is a "total nightmare" of a battle, without as much as a scratch! Even when he (if you know anything about flight dynamics) STALLS the ship to return to his dive, your heart is pounding as you wonder "Is this the end for the little ship?" and at the last moment you see it isn't as he pulls off the most STUPID GREATEST MANEUVER every lifted from a World War II style dogfight in a fictional space craft!!! Even Star Trek fans have NEVER seen a stunt like that pulled, really showing off the talents of the crew who put this "fight scene" together further!! And it gives a range of "scale" to how big some of these craft actually are to one another AGAIN the metaphor being "the little guy sometimes wins"!!!
It is sad people never seems to "catch on to this show" especially at Fox who aired it, but tried to make it something it is NOT!!! And still has the Reaver ship chasing it through begin to "rip into her" Serenity by the final approach and landing is tore up, beat up and seemingly at her end as she finally crash lands. But still the little ship "did her job" and got her crew down safe!!!
If you can't understand the meaning behind all that, then you are using your head as just a hat rack!! Because in the end, the WHOLE POINT to the ship known as Serenity is that no matter what she goes through SHE is a tough, old, beat up bird who is so well built it will handle anything you throw at it, even though it is well past its "sell by date"!!! And like the crew.....it COMPLETES what it sets out to do no matter what!!!
I also love how it shows how amazingly maneuverable the firefly class can be with the right pilot (RIP WASH)
Aww.... I really liked that blocky sort of anti-fighter frigate thing at 5:00. Maybe I'm just a sucker for loads of rapid fire tracer rounds in space.
This space battle sequence is simply perfect to embody the pilot's mantra. "I am a leaf in the wind."
I agree, this is one of the most captivating battle sequences produced to date
Even when i saw the movie in the theaters, that large "battleship" you call out at 2:22 I thought looked like a Narn battle cruiser from B5.
Firefly was a great and very underrated show!! I for one wish it had a longer run!!
I like the details like the massive reaver ship that rams the Operative's corvette. It's probably the original colony ship that took people to Miranda, so it would be huge, to contain colonists, materiél and gear to settle the world.
Makes sense it wouldn't have much in the way of weapons apart from mass, either.
There's a featurette somewhere that features thd vfx artists calling about how they made several different ships from components they rearranged, worth a watch.
Space dock, how is the Sojourn coming along. It has been a while since you guys have posted any new videos mentioning the Sojourn. Best of wishes, keep up the good work!
Serenity is in the background of a Battlestar Galactica episode (I think the pilot episode, flying in the skies on Caprica) so it's cool that this movie in turn used a ship from BSG in its background
It is...you can see it landing on Caprica through a sky light when Roslin is waiting to hear from her doctor.
@@wilwatkins2773 I thought so
In general, Serenity is a shockingly beautiful movie. I'd hope that anyone who was associated with its look got a strong boost in their career.
Honestly the brick ships are my favorite. they're a nice, sturdy utilitarian design, and they clearly shit out firepower like nothing else.
I always took the massive city ships as mobile bases, as where the fleet in Serenity was a straight up attack group.
You need to keep a sector of space under control you send in the bug guy, but if you are going to war you use smaller, more purpose built ships.
Are you sure the reapers won? From the end scenes and the alliance soldiers charging in at the end I thought the alliance won the battle.
I think the Alliance won, but took such heavy losses that it may as well have been a Pyrrhic Victory.
@@Janoha17 so long as I didn't miss understand the end. When spacedock guy said the reapers won I thought 'they did?' all shocked.
I want a wall mural of the shot where both the fleets are facing off, moments before the engagement. Just a fantastic tableau shot, something we rarely get outside of MCU movies.
I agree, that longbow was great.
The brick shap ship at 5:02 along with the Logbow class are very reminecent of StarGate for me.
The brick looking like a squished/stacked Prometheus.
The Longbow looking like an Asguard Oniel class.
Using little old Serenity to start a battle between the two fleets is awesome!!
The Longbow is awesome. Twin-linked is always the the way to go.
And the sound effects and music are amazing and perfectly in sintony with the battle, the serenity and all the drama that happens outside.
The Fire Fly class ship in the first episode of BSG was also a nice treat.
Thank you for the very interesting close examination of that Firefly battle scene.
My favorite ship from that Battle. Why Serenity of course......I'm a leaf on the wind.
Many of these original ship concepts were designed by freelance modelers showing their work on the internet or other places. Procured by the studios and modified later as needed or seen fit for the final renders. Many are very cool. Many designers never get their due.
I realize that I'm a bit late to the conversation here, glad I finally found this video. Those Ring Ships bring Vulcan ships to mind for me.
Oh yes. I've been waiting for this.
I think this is the best background space battle in any movie anywhere.
I've always been a huge fan of John Berkey's spaceship designs. A few ships (on both sides of the battle) have quite a bit of "Berkeyness" to them - sleek aerodynamics merged with some very believable industrial projections and facility. Thanks for a great vid.
5.50 You can see the fighters dropping from the longbow.. Great vid..thx :)
I actually like that they have both those flying cities and the more sleek designs.
The flying city is more like a mobile base, very well suited for policing the rim planets where actual on-planet or orbital bases would be few and far between. We know that they have a lot of administrative facilities, launching pads for smaller craft and even sophisticated hospitals on board. A really good vessel for policing outer space.
But at the same time their massive frontal profile makes them ill suited for a military-grade space-battle, so it makes sense to have dedicated military ships as well that have profiles more suited for combat and trade their administrative capabilities for more armor and weapons. Not to mention that those smaller vessels would be much faster and more manouverable due to their smaller mass and less likely to crash into anything in that nebula, cloud or whatever surrounded Mr. Univere's home.
Great episode Daniel! This was a lot of fun. Since you asked for suggestions, how about a similar battle breakdown for Sheridan’s fleet vs the Shadows vs the Vorlons from the Babylon 5 episode “Into the Fire”
If you’re still doing planet side episodes, a breakdown of the vehicles from the final battle in Aquaman would be great too.
Thank you for drawing attention to those longbow-class destroyers, such an underappreciated yet excellently-designed ship.
Zoic Studios did the space VFX for Firefly and later Serenity. They also did the ships for the re-imagined BSG. And I remember reading that they did go the extra mile when Firefly went to the big screen.
Yeah for a franchise that wasn't about big space battles (just some cool get-out-of-trouble moments), this scene is fantastic and shows they could do space battles really well.
*aiming to misbehave intesifys*
*intensifies
That reminds me, in Destiny 2 there is a revolver (refered to as hand cannon in-universe) called Malfeasance, it even comes with a skin ornament called "Aim to misbehave". ^^
(Also, quite a few characters are voiced by actors of Firefly, Nathan Fillion as Cayde-6 being the prominent case)
This sequence was "borrowed" fo an episode of "Storm Hawks", a cartoon series from 2007. It's called "Terra Deep", and feature "Murk Raiders", who are VERY inspired by the Reavers. It's on youtube, and the interesting bit is about 20 minutes in.
Zoic studios, were the team that worked both on BSG and on Firefly from a modeling perspective so it's not really a surprise that you can see a bit of Bleed-through between these now and then.
Need safe passage? We’re cheap. We’re cheap, we’re clean. The Brutus , best ship in the ‘Verse. What’s your dest, Grandpa? C’mon. We’re hittin’ the outer rings.
@@Loki_had_a_Medkit What ?
Thank you Spacedock. I've been thinking of making some of the Reaver ships out of LEGO's, but there are too many to choose from. Also I didn't even know there are some ships from Battlestar Galactica. This movie has a ton of Easter Eggs.
As far as the flagship being a Corvette, there could be a few reasons for that.
1. The authority is largely a peacekeeping entity and normally does not have a main rival or government to combat. There are no real opponents to them, so smaller patrol boats would be vastly more numerous and used. In firefly there isnt much combat or war spoken of other than the browncoat rebellion so it is likely that any larger/more powerful ships are either anachronistic or otherwise heirlooms of earlier conflicts. Having your flagship be more mobile and able to parade about your territory would have some political benefits (assuming these corvettes have better engines or are otherwise able to move/jump faster and more frequently.
2. The Victoria could be one of the newest designs. It may be a Corvette, but if it is new tech it could be theoretically able to take on larger ships on an equal footing, up to a point. Innovation is a great way to broadcast that your empire is powerful in ways that an aging battleship may not. Battleships are grand and imposing, but if you are still using a hull a couple hundred years later then it starts to broadcast stagnation instead of power.
3. Corvettes are cheaper. Even with new tech, the size alone makes them more economical than battleships. I say this mostly because the government in firefly would *not* be above swapping just what victoria class Corvette is "the victoria" and this can be easier to achieve with smaller hulls. They would still need to be careful... but this allows the inner core to have their flagship "at home" in the inner system as well as out on the rim to keep the peasants reminded of the government's power. The people on the rim and the people in the core seem to have no knowledge of each others situations and the government apparently has a lot of control over information so it wouldn't be toooo hard
I think having a Corvette as a flagship makes a good amount of sense. The survivability on Corvettes is high, they have the ability to get out in case of trouble, and they carry enough for your officers in charge
Sure the Alliance didn't expect Serenity to appear with the Reaver fleet behind it, but I'd bet that the Reavers also didn't expect Serenity to lead them into an Alliance Battlegroup.
I like the city ships and the roll they played in the show, other than a brief shot of them (I think) landing in the beginning of the pilot, We only ever see them sitting around doing seemingly background managerial tasks. Bastions of bureaucracy in areas that had none, and coordinating reports and what not with ground troops with the odd police stuff.
It’s possible that the ships seen in Serenity were always there, just serving a completely different set of roles like anti piracy and/or reaver operations on the fringes and we didn’t see them because Mal didn’t take the crew out far enough to see them during the show.
I really like that big boxy kinda ship, just because it seems like someone wondered how many guns they could put onto one ship.
If they're fighter berths, then at 5:40 they're launching, not just randomly flying into the shot. Another longbow up close bottom left at 2:15. You're right that whoever made this at the very least gave it a bit of thought. Chances are they put a lot of love into it.
Longbow was my favorite. Mostly because it is how I try to design ships, far reaching primaries with fighter backups. Or if the ship were a utility/mining vessel it would use the same system to launcher the workers in whatever craft they needed.
the ship ramming the victoria class is another longbow. just revered up with spikes
One part of the movie that always stuck with me, aside from Planet Miranda, is when Serenity sneaks through the Reaver fleet. You can hear radio transmissions from the various Reaver ships of people screaming in pain and agony meaning that the Reavers capture and torture/rape/devour their captives while they are still alive, also that these ships double as prisons and farms for food. Additionally, the large Reaver “Command Ship” has that spotlight on tracks that follows Serenity and you can see human body remains strung up as the spotlight rolls past, further adding to the grotesqueness and horror that are the Reavers. As well, we saw one Reaver ship tear apart a recently captured civilian vessel, showing their barbarism and cruelty.
Speaking of, the Reaver ships themselves are a various collection of civilian and military vessels. Maintenance is obviously barebones (or non-existent) as the ships possess a skeletal appearance to them in addition to the obvious signs of rust and decay, indicating that these ships were once planet-side on Miranda and suffered from storms and dealing with the environment (as can be see in vehicles here on our home planet of Earth) like the Easter Egg Reaver ship with the damaged sponsons and the weapon on the port side. The Reavers definitely would have captured and modified ships to their liking (hence the laser weapon on the ship tailing Serenity or the lassos on the smaller Reaver craft) but as could be seen, when compared to the Alliance’s ships, their ships definitely lack care and are barely holding together.
As we saw in the opening battle lots of Reaver ships were destroyed from the first salvos of the Alliance ships and very little return fire from the Reavers. This further adds to the general condition of the Reaver fleet and their lack of maintenance. While the unorthodox tactics of the Reavers would certainly surprise the Alliance, the overwhelming firepower of the Alliance ships eventually took its toll as we saw fewer and fewer Reaver vessels. Any Reaver vessels that suffered damaged appeared to then kamikaze themselves into Alliance vessels, showing that the Reavers care nothing for tactics or self-preservation. There is also a huge lack of coordination as every Reaver vessels seems to split up and go after their own target, though maybe going after larger prey in some instances. However, all of these traits would definitely indicate that the Reaver fleet was annihilated, as the Reavers would unlikely retreat and would instead kill themselves or cause as much damage as possible. Considering that the majority of the 30,000 Reavers were on those ships, the Reaver menace would likely be extinguished and any and all Alliance ships would then proceed to Miranda and eradicate any remaining Reaver forces.
I actually watched the movie before the tv show. For not really rehashing much, it felt like a pretty good stand alone.
I also like the idea of a flagship being a small, fast vessel. Meant more for commanding and observing a battle while not drawing too much attention. It also could make your opponents underestimate you.
#Browncoats forever.
You, Spacedock, are a big damn hero for making these videos.
And we only gotten one season unforchantly, I Absolutely loved Firefly, n Serenity! Wish it was given more of a chance.
I like the smaller Reaver ships, like the one seen chasing Serenity
they all appear to be Pieces of larger ships, with all the exposed skeletal beams (wings) hinting at where portions of a much larger hull used to be attached.
I would love it if the designers/modelers would upload their stuff to sketchfab. I really feel like they don't take enough pride in their work to let it stand on it's own. A lot of amazing ship designs get lost and obscured. Not every fanbase has it's EC Henry that can make an amazing model based off of some old concept art, blurry vfx shot, or getting to see the old models.
I think it would have been nice to see one or two of those 'city' looking ships from the series in this fight. But still a really good scene and still in of my favorite movies.