MovieChat Forums > StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) Discussion > Some elements of this remind anyone of F...

Some elements of this remind anyone of Firefly?

posted 14 years ago by Now_known_as
14 replies | jump to latest

Haven't checked the boards so if this was mentioned already I apologize but a whole lot of plot devices in this reminds me so much of Joss Whedon's Firefly.

Former military man (Marshal, whatever) leading band of misfits, backwater planet in revolt against overpowering centrality government. Futuristic but with some elements of wild west. Elements of psionic powers in both. Doing mercenary missions because they're strapped for cash but ultimately doing the right thing in the end, helping out people less fortunate etc. etc.

I guess Starcraft 1 came out earlier and the plot was sort of developed already there but I never played that one so I can only compare Firefly to WoL.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Now_known_as 14 years ago

Because this game didn't, Starcraft 1 did, as I mentioned in my original post I never played Starcraft 1 so I cannot compare its plot elements to Firefly, I can only compare Firefly to Wings of Liberty.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] magus-21 14 years ago

The mercenary mission structure is new, but everything else you mentioned was in the original StarCraft.

People call me a cynic. I call myself a realist.

[–] gcronau 14 years ago

To answer both the OP and Sierra_Alpha,

I felt there was a Firefly influence too. Especially in some of the cut-scene background music. One or two pieces sounded like they were lifted intact from Firefly.

As to this "already being present in Starcraft I", I'd say "not really".

Starcraft-I had a weak overall story to tie the gameplay together, but nothing as complicated, detailed, and fleshed-out as Starcraft-II.

[–] Now_known_as 14 years ago

Yeah the twangy guitar music while drinking in a puddle of his own misery reminded me a lot of Firefly which is why I started noticing the other similarities in the first place.

[–] Kazum 14 years ago

exactly... this is very "firefly"-ish. But thats a good thing!

[–] rhododendron 14 years ago

I'd say "really".

Starcraft 2 may be more detailed, but those exact elements that the OP mentioned were present in SC1, which predates Firefly by a whole lot of years.

Sure, Blizzard will be referencing Firefly since it's awesome, and some of the music is similar. But story-wise this is exactly how the game would have looked with or without Firefly. It's not like Blizzard saw Firefly and went hey that Mal guy is kinda cool, let's put him in our game. It was always going to be Raynor vs the world, nothing else would have made sense given the ending of SC1.

But yes I do agree there are similarities. Great minds think alike I guess :) (I doubt Joss Whedon played SC1 sadly)

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of course cavemen win

[–] thepurplyone 14 years ago

Definitely the music, especially what I think is Swann's Theme (comes on anytime he drops a new unit in the campaign), has Firefly-esque tones (I know nothing about describing music). I can't say I see very many other similarities without a great deal of stretching... the Starcraft universe is very separate from the Firefly universe, and there's almost no overlap except for the broad themes already mentioned (piracy, use of mercenaries, alcoholism, etc.) Firefly is about individuals, and even though the Starcraft stories have strong characters, it always is on an army-size scale, wheras Firefly, even in the film Serenity, was only ever about a small handful.

[–] fox_nemhauser 14 years ago

"i swallowed a bug" is an obvious reference to firefly-verse (and also the quote below in the same picture)

http://a.imageshack.us/img267/6519/scandff.jpg

and some people noticed that the resemblence between the mule from Serenity is too uncanny to be a coincidence:

serenity:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GIchwvJ-aNk/SmCx6hTFEOI/AAAAAAAAJgM/rC5Zlu2h 7eo/s800/Serenity+mule+picture+car+Universal+Studios.jpg

sc2:
http://sc2armory.com/img/terran/renders/mule.jpg

i was myself reminded of firefly a couple of times while playing sc2, especially the bar fight and the music played during that.

If someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them back!

[–] mario_023 13 years ago

That's pretty cool. I love SC 1 and Firefly, but have yet to play SC 2. Now I really wanna pick it up. The game Freelancer is similar to Firefly also and that game is awesome too

"The saddest thing in life is wasted talent." ~ A Bronx Tale (1993)

[–] Huvan 13 years ago

For those who have played the missions. Some of them bear a strong resemblence to Serenity itself.
Can't stop the signal eh? :P

Stumbling across a piece of tech in a hostile environment, which happens to reveal a dark and most scandalous secret about the government of the core worlds, and then fighting your way through the enemy to broadcast that secret to most/all the core worlds.

[–] turmoil_23 11 years ago

it all comes down to starcraft 1, before comparing you should research and see that all this was set 1st on sc1, but, it actually has a few common things, take "the force" out and you can compare it to star wars too, all this universes, including the wing commander universe, have outer worlds with low tech struggling ppl that use mercenaries and merchants.

In FF its a group of planets revolting
In SC its a core planet that gets wiped out and develops in revolution (lead by Mensk) and the plan to make the serg wipe the confederation only to put an emperor in place, and raynor becoming the new lead on the revolution
In SW, is a sort of guerrilla coming together, they usually dont have A planet, they try to constantly move and work in the shadows.
in WC, they do have some problems with the outter worlds to eventually find a common enemy, the kilrathy.

[–] deviant526 11 years ago

The Terrans in Starcraft 1 felt like Blizzards interpretation of the American deep south, transplanted into space. Watching Firefly, I felt that Starcraft had been there before. Although blizzard focused on the 1860s American South, rather than the western frontier (the typical setting for many westerns).

Examples of deep south influence in SC1:

Country music in space!

The southern accents and slang which the Terran characters use. (Edmund Duke, Arcturus Mensk, Jim Raynor)

American civil war motifs (confederate flags, references to Gettysburg)

Names of places and geographic features (gulch, backwater station, New Gettysburg)