'Firefly' Triumphantly Returns in New Animated Teaser

Fans longing for a return to that ‘verse of Captain Mal, Wash, Jayne, Kaylee, River and the rest of the Serenity’s crew will have their wishes granted today, albeit bittersweetly. All the characters from Joss Whedon’s immensely popular gone-too-soon sci-fi series Firefly return briefly in animated form in a new fan-made teaser-trailer.

Artist Stephen Byrne, has hinted at a work-in-progress Firefly teaser for years, releasing quick gifs of the key moments, like Zoe’s tearful reunion with a hologram of Wash. But now, Byrne released the full 39-second teaser, alongside the word “soon”, implying, perhaps that he has a longer project in the works.

As fan-made videos go, the Firefly teaser is doubly successfully. For one thing, if you’re a long-time fan of the show and still missing it desperately, the imagery in the teaser evokes a slew of nostalgic feelings, but also incapsulates each personality of each character in less than a second. The movement to the animated medium is also impressive. Plus, translating a live-action show from over ten years ago makes all the the actors ten years younger again, effectively immortalizing Firefly fandom even more than before. You thought it wasn’t possible to get teary about Firefly again. You were wrong.

So far, no word from Joss Whedon yet on throwing a bunch of money behind this project to make an animated Firefly show or feature film a full-scale reality.