Wow, that's super-cool! Where is this subway? Is it somewhere in England?

RiverKillsReavers | October 11, 22:28 CET

It's a poster on the ceiling? No wonder this movie is #1 over there. When do we get our River ceiling poster, hm? Shiny!

electricspacegirl | October 11, 22:29 CET

Now, that is so cool.

palehorse | October 11, 22:31 CET

Very stylish indeed! No wonder you brits once had a huge empire spanning across the whole known world. You know how to do things right! (Where "Westlife" figures into this, I don't know..")

[wcip]Angel | October 11, 22:38 CET

She looks like Mrs.Fantastic!

eddy | October 11, 22:44 CET

Makes one heckuva wallpaper too!

Firefly Flanatic | October 11, 22:47 CET

It's on the ceiling - the angle of the photo (taken by Sarah, who appeared on MTV with Joss as a "superfan" the other day) is looking up.

Subway runs in London (aka the London Underground).

There's a few variations of this in circulation...

(And yes, I think these are a little more noticable than the US artwork personally...)

gossi | October 11, 22:48 CET

I like it a lot.

Apocalypse | October 11, 22:50 CET

The money spent on this poster could have been used to adopt a Ukranian orphan.

Sorry, just poking a little fun at my own expense. Nice poster.

Serapion | October 11, 22:54 CET

That reminds me to take a camera when I go into London on Thursday, finally see me some Serenity advertising.

That is a cool poster though.

Ghost Spike | October 11, 22:54 CET

Serapion: are you Angela Jolie?! ;)

gossi | October 11, 22:55 CET

Now, a poster like that would bring in a ton of warm-blooded American lads to the theatres! Why didn't they use more of those in the States?

killinj | October 11, 23:05 CET

I just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE that picture of River. Reminds me of Xander's 'Lilonium' quote.

SpikeBad | October 11, 23:08 CET

Me and a friend would like to know what you can see if you look from the other direction..

Not that we want to see, you know, dirty laundry or anything.

I really just posted this, didn't I?

gossi | October 11, 23:14 CET

The US barely has subways. Otherwise, we'd have these posters.

impalergeneral | October 11, 23:16 CET

Serenity the Porn Star! I mean...cool poster...

MySerenity | October 11, 23:17 CET

Can I have one for my ceiling? ;)

AnotherFireflyfan | October 11, 23:20 CET

The US barely has subways. Otherwise, we'd have these posters.

Yes, but they can use regular posters similar to this one in the States - it doesn't have to be a subway poster. It seems the posters used overseas are better than the ones used here.

killinj | October 11, 23:21 CET

I dunno, I'd like to see something other than iPods advertised in Boston's T. (Although it's pretty neat when the iPod silhouettes dance on the tunnel wall.) But I've *never* seen a Serenity poster anywhere other than a theater. Did Universal advertise in any U.S. sub/bus system? Or just at a mall?

thatfangirl | October 11, 23:24 CET

The UK barely has subways - only around London. These can go on any ceiling, anywhere.

gossi | October 11, 23:26 CET

W o w. That's just great.




And now I'm disturbed... :-)

GVH | October 11, 23:31 CET

I laughed like crazy when I saw this...but I thought it was a joke. That is a real poster?!? I'm speechless...well, for me. ...And pretty horrified. ...But glad Serapion is showing he can laugh at himself. Good on you, Serapion.

I'm obviously so out of touch and probably better off that way. If this were in the subways in NYC, I shutter at the graffiti that would be on these things. (No, it does not matter if they are on ceilings 20 feet above a moving escalator.) I also shutter at the audience they would bring in. I mean when my best friend and I went to see the first Star Trek movie in Times Square back in the 70's we moved twice to get away from 3 different guys who sat down next to us and started "abusing themselves" and that was with William Schatner on the poster in a much less enticing pose. (The third guy came and went, so to speak, before we could move.)

Did I see a different movie than everybody else? One that these posters in no way reflect? No don't answer that. I'm happy here in my little dream dimension.

I have to stop thinking about this now.

newcj | October 11, 23:46 CET

:-O

Now I'm not even mock-disturbed. Then again, I used to work at a movie theatre in my spare time, and I did find...certain things...from time to time.


Nope. But that's not the point. It brings in the people. Just look at the BO results :-)


Whoops. Too late. Sorry 'bout that.

GVH | October 11, 23:54 CET

Serapion, nice. ;-)

I'd have loved to have seen these in the NYC subways, not only for the publicity, but because of the graffiti that would have wound up on them...

RambleOn623 | October 11, 23:55 CET

newcj, GVH, you think that's bad? I once encountered that while working in a zoo...*shudder*

RambleOn623 | October 11, 23:56 CET

And then they say browncoats are scary *shudders along with RambleOn623*

GVH | October 12, 00:00 CET

newcj... I think you're encounting a sales pitch. The poster does, in theory, represent the movie. I mean, it's roughly a scene from the movie itself, in fact. Just with less clothes.

Sex sells. It really does.

gossi | October 12, 00:03 CET

Wow, newcj, RambleOn623, thats the most disturbing thing I've heard all day...

zeitgeist | October 12, 00:07 CET

I am very disturbed now. I know theres a Buffy or Firefly quote I could be using now but I, too, am :-o'ing.

eddy | October 12, 00:09 CET

impalergeneral: The US barely has subways. Otherwise, we'd have these posters.

NY, Washington, San Francisco, and other major cities have subways. That's a lot of people you can reach on a twice daily basis.

Also, my wife made a good observation: we never saw an ad for Serenity on DC Metrobuses...but I remember that ads for Four Brothers were all over the place before its release and well into its run.

Chris inVirginia | October 12, 00:16 CET

I was going to post a comment about "I'll be in my bunk, and can I have that poster on my ceiling" but I was worried I'd lower the tone. Then I read some of the other posts and... Well, WILLIAM SHATNER?

zz9 | October 12, 00:16 CET

There was a young customer doing that at a bookstore I worked at (around 1990-ish), too. Very disturbing. These guys really get around…

brownishcoat | October 12, 00:26 CET

down boys!

hmm thats not the first time thats been said

becsthebeast | October 12, 00:29 CET

I presume it was a GOOD book.

gossi | October 12, 00:29 CET

Really cool poster, but thanks to this discussion I'm now wondering if there exists a fringe group of fans with brown raincoats. I wonder if they meet in internet and compare their movie experiences. (shudder) (shudder again)

futile | October 12, 00:41 CET

Well...it's a nice bit of advertising, but me myself, I'm not too hip on the design.

Then again, I feel the same way about the U.S. poster, which is hanging on my wall with newspaper clippings underneath it...

:-D

UnpluggedCrazy | October 12, 00:49 CET

Wouldn't it be brown trenchcoats?

eddy | October 12, 00:51 CET

Gossi, I understand the concept of putting something out there just to get people into the movie, and have absolutely no problem with that. The problem I see (and those of you who have read this before in my other posts, please excuse me) is that you can end up getting people in who feel that they were cheated because it wasn't the movie they were expecting/wanted to see and therefore give bad word of mouth or no word of mouth while turning off people who would go to see it if they had an accurate idea of what the movie actually was.

I am not a prude and like sex just fine. (Not that anyone said otherwise.) I do not have a problem with well done exploitation of someone's sex appeal to sell their own product. On the other hand I don't like cheap, mindless, sensational, trash and don't go to see it. Unfortunately that is what these posters all say to me and that is reeeeeeeeally frustrating.

I guess I am especially aware of it because I have missed various good movies over the years because that is how they were advertised. They went for the sensational and turned me off totally. Years later I caught them on television and lo and behold, they were worthwhile and interesting.

As far as the guys in the Star Trek movie, all we could connect it to was the huge pulsating orafice...or William Shatner, of course. ;-) Seriously, how often did two young girls go to a Time Square theater alone back in those days? So that was probably it. I often wondered how they organized it though. I mean, the theater was dark and these guys were like a relay team. One would get up and the next one would sit down, we would move, another one would sit down. They seemed a whole lot better organized than some of the relief efforts have been lately. Nah, they were probably just lined up at the back of the theater like taxi cabs waiting for the next fare.

Bookstore makes sense in a weird way...but...the zoo. Huh. ...and shudder.

newcj | October 12, 01:18 CET

Cool poster. At first glance I decided it was a manip. After reading comments and realizing it's a real deal, I'm awed. Very stylish.

Moscow Watcher | October 12, 01:31 CET

Yeah, but I really meant that you see movie ads in the U-S plastered on walls or next to bus stops...but where can you do that on a ceiling? Subways are the likely place, and only a few major cities have subways. It would have been great seeing that poster at the MTD subway stations in L-A. Otherwise, the only place I can think of it right above an escalator, where people would be inclined to look up...and there's not a lot of space where that's possible.
But if River was above me, I'd look up....carefully.

impalergeneral | October 12, 01:38 CET

I'll have to take everyone's word that it's cool. My work thinks photobucket is EVOL!!!!!!!!!!

Rogue Slayer | October 12, 01:42 CET

Gossi, you ain't the only one who wondered about that. I mean, it crossed my mind.

Newcj. I understand what your saying, and that's the very problem I had with the previous subway poster with River's left boob hanging out of her blouse. But this is inspired by a specific shot from the movie trailer, and I don't think it's meant to be sexually exploitive. Correct me if I'm wrong though. This poster just didn't make me think of that at all.

[ edited by electricspacegirl on 2005-10-12 00:01 ]

[ edited by electricspacegirl on 2005-10-12 01:03 ]

electricspacegirl | October 12, 01:43 CET

newcj - the biggest problem Serenity has is actually getting people to go and see it. If they actually go and see it, they'll probably laugh. A lot. And enjoy it.

I've not heard a single person in the UK complain, coming out of the theatre (and trust me, I'm listening), about the movie posters being a missell. Nobody.

And: our cinemas are full of the 18-24 demographic. If only the fans had shown up this weekend, or 40% fans (like in the US - source Universal exit polls), the UK cinemas would have been nearly empty. They weren't. We had the highest per screen average by a long, long shot.

Why? Well, multitudes of reasons (excellent reviews from nearly everywhere, TV appearances etc). But I'm willing to bet the posters help get people actually into the cinema.

Sure, it's not River The Vampire Slayer. People watch and find out it's an ensemble piece on a space ship. And they probably like it.

I HATE misadvertising when the film is crap. I fully agree about that. But Serenity is not crap.

Did the US sci-fi posters work? I don't know. Couldn't call it. I think these UK ones did, though, and for that reason I love them regardless.

[ edited by gossi on 2005-10-12 00:08 ]

[ edited by gossi on 2005-10-12 00:09 ]

gossi | October 12, 02:06 CET

Uh, was that really how you meant to type that? Just wondering...People are fully allowed to change their minds of course;-)

EdDantes | October 12, 02:09 CET

Hee. It was a typo, I was frankly trying to fix it before anybody noticed :D

gossi | October 12, 02:09 CET

Hehe, "but I, Hercule Poirot have eyes weech noteece everytink".

Ahem, sorry, must still be the booze...

EdDantes | October 12, 02:51 CET

Funny, I generally don't care what crappy movies do, because the word usually gets out that they are crap. I get upset when good movies are advertised as though they were crap, because then I miss out on seeing a good movie...cause as we all know, it is all about me after all. ;-)

I'm truly glad that something is getting folks into the theaters, whether it is this poster or something else. I have come to think it is rather amazing that anyone in this neck of the woods has seen it at all. I have yet to see a Serenity poster in real life at all, and that includes at the two theaters I went to opening weekend. Go figure. No one at my work has ever heard of it until I mention it. It does not even ring a bell with some of them that I told them about it before until I start telling them something about it...again. It is just not in the mainstream consciousness. (Sigh.)

newcj | October 12, 02:55 CET

I don't remember River escaping from the Alliance lab in boots and a miniskirt. Hm, is this how they dressed up all their patients? :P

Ronald_SF | October 12, 03:05 CET

I think thats what she was wearing when she attacked Jayne.

eddy | October 12, 03:41 CET

For the UK peeps, that poster (or one just like it) is in Angel tube station just as you come out of the platform.

lone fashionable wolf | October 12, 03:49 CET

Just looking at that poster makes my crotch hurt in a "I really need to get back to my yoga" way.

I also worked at a movie theater - self-flagellation of the erotic kind was definitely less of a mess than some other things you have to clean up.

Ocular | October 12, 03:56 CET

Serenity is just one movie in the UK. Surely then other movies there are marketed this way. I know some people think viewers will be cheated, but if this is the norm, they are very much used to being cheated.

This one just wouldn't happen in the US. Nope. I would die of shock if this appeared in the US because there's no way it would happen in the first place.

Not that I don't love it! I think it's great and actually amusing, because they ain't representative of the River we know. No need at all to be offended. Different cultural slant?

WhoIsOmega? | October 12, 04:41 CET

OMG WICKED!!
and very very nasty.

annosuperstar | October 12, 04:52 CET

My local cinema had the Serenity poster in the most prominent location, right in front of the box office, for the first two weeks of release. It's been moved now (but it's still up), but my daughters and I were thrilled while it was there. And it's still the first entry in the marquee.

As for the kid in the bookstore, he was camped out in front of the adult magazines, very close to the front of the store, but hidden from the registers by a bargain books rack. I wouldn't have realized he was there or what he was doing if I hadn't needed to go to the back of the store for something.

brownishcoat | October 12, 05:20 CET

This one just wouldn't happen in the US. Nope. I would die of shock if this appeared in the US because there's no way it would happen in the first place.

Why wouldn't a poster like this one appear here in the States? I've seen plenty of more suggestive things advertised here.

killinj | October 12, 05:30 CET

It's the angle, killinj. Like the boob she doesn't really have and the positions she is in. And it doesn't represent her accurately. Jessica Simpson in Dukes ads looked the same in the ads as in the movie (I saw magazine film pics not the movie). River is great and gorgeous in the movie but she does not give off a sexual vibe. I know there are other suggestive posters but not in those poses. And not in mass areas like public transport. Not for a PG-13 movie. I mean, think about it. When you are walking under her, it's well, not something that would attract consrvative viewers. There is appeal in the US posters (and they have put it next to the ticket area that is open at night) but our posters don't have that sex vibe. The US is really sex conservative when it comes to public viewings. While there are shows with plenty of sex on cable or for sale, there is very little sex on the public tv airwaves and in advertising. It just seems to me like that wouldn't be considered appropriate advertising, at least not in this conservative area.

I still love it, of course.

WhoIsOmega? | October 12, 05:57 CET

I look at River locking the flat of her feet against the sheer walls and burning an image of the fire sprinkler head into her palm as she snuggles the small of her back against the concave ceiling and all I can think of is OUCH! Whoa! This looks promising. I have that image burned in my brain. I see only the faintest shadow of a hint of sexual imagery, and that only because the image is one of a girl wearing a dress stretched up to the thigh, not unexpected should you wish to (ouch) pull a sort of grand jete (ouch) to hide among the plumbing to escape your enemies.

I just don't see any misleading advertising here.

Drifter | October 12, 09:14 CET