Firefly (TV series)/Trivia

• Joss Whedon originally cast Rebecca Gayheart as Inara.
• Joss Whedon had cast Summer Glau before Firefly - she originally appeared as a Prima Ballerina on the "Angel" (1999) episode "Waiting in the Wings". Whedon remembered her from this and contacted her about the part of River.
• Chinese phrases are often inserted into the English dialogue (sometimes to get away with saying things that the censors wouldn't allow them to say), and the ship has some signs in Chinese.
  • In the DVD subtitles, this is referred to as a "Galactic Language".
• In the original conception of the show, Joss Whedon was only going to have five main characters on the ship. Throughout the development process, the character list got upped to nine.
• The entire interior of Serenity (and some of its exterior) was built full-scale and almost completely contiguous, split across two soundstages - one stage for the upper deck and one for the lower deck, shuttle docks and hold. No "stock" corridors or redressed sets were ever used for Serenity's interiors.
• The cast preferred to use the ship's lounge instead of a green room or other accommodations when waiting between shots.
• The character 'Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds' was ranked #18 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue).
• The Alliance's full title is the "Anglo-Sino Alliance". Joss Whedon intended the Alliance to be the merger of the USA and China, the last of the world's superpowers. The Alliance flag, seen in the original pilot episode, is a blending of the US and Chinese flags.
• Joss Whedon originally thought up the premise of the show with his friend Tyler Lovelly, who was not interested in pitching the show, so only Whedon was involved in production.
• Joss Whedon has said that the original inspiration for the project came to him after he finished reading Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels", a historical-fiction novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.
• Many of the names of off-camera and minor characters are drawn from the ranks of science fiction writers. Notably, Bester (Alfred Bester) as the original mechanic of Serenity and Brennert (Alan Brennert) and Ellison (Harlan Ellison).
• The cast had a running gag where they would yell Summer Glau's name whenever they flubbed a line or messed up. It began after she forgot her line at the end of a particularly difficult scene. The gag continued through the filming of Serenity (2005).
• All the Alliance officer and soldier uniforms are leftovers from Starship Troopers (1997).
• Some of the weapons used in the series were present-day weapons, which were picked based on their somewhat futuristic look. No modifications were made by the prop department to either disguise them or make them more look more futuristic. Alliance soldiers are seen carrying Enfield L85 rifles, which have been standard issue in the British Army since the early 1980s. The Browncoats are seen using Heckler & Koch G36 rifles, which are standard issue in the German Army.
• In several episodes (for example "The Train Job"), Jayne wears a German police jacket (green, military style), from the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate (German: Rheinland-Pfalz). This can be recognized by the badge on the right sleeve with the word "Polizei" (German for police) on the top and the emblem of Rhineland-Palatinate underneath.
• The lever-action Winchester carbine carried by Zoe throughout the series is an example of the Mare's Leg, a weapon used by Steve McQueen in the 1960's television western series "Wanted: Dead or Alive." Torres' exact prop was the one used on The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
  • This same weapon is used by Woody Harrelson's character Tallahassee in Zombieland
• The DVDs of Firefly were flown up to the International Space Station by astronaut Steven Swanson on board the shuttle Atlantis during its June 2007 STS-117 mission.
• Every scene in space is shot without sound effects of the ship moving, precisely as it would in real vacuum. No air, no sound. (Note this does not cover dramatic music that plays during space scenes.)
• According to an oral history of _"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"_ published in July 2008 in Entertainment Weekly, Neil Patrick Harris auditioned to play the doctor role on "Firefly" (2002) that was eventually filled by Sean Maher.
• The sound made by Mal's hand gun is the same sound as the eponymous character's hand gun in the Spaghetti Western Django (1966), played by Franco Nero.
• The Chinese most commonly used throughout the series is the most widely used dialect of Chinese - Mandarin - however, in "Out of Gas" the Chinese used over the Life Support Klaxon warning is the Cantonese dialect, a lesser-known dialect but still widely used (just to a smaller extent than Mandarin).
• The "Crazy Ivan" maneuver pulled by Wash in the pilot is inspired by a nearly-identical submarine maneuver. It was used during the early days of the Cold War by Russian submarines, in order to check the "baffle", the sonar dead zone directly behind the submarine; and given the name "Crazy Ivan" by US and allied submarine crews. The adoption of towed sonar arrays effectively ended the necessity for the "Crazy Ivan" maneuver. Referenced in its original context in The Hunt for Red October.
• A bit of Hey, It's That Guy! / Retroactive Recognition. Zac Efron played young Simon.

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