You Willing To Die?
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Why did Mal leave alive the Operative, murderer of Shepherd Book and Mr. Universe?
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 4611 RATING: 9.0 (PG13) SERIES: FIREFLY
Inara saves Mal's life when he turns his back on The Operative. Mal makes that same mistake again in Mr. Universe's generator room. What would happen if Mal does not make the same mistake twice? Quoting the audience - “You turn your back on him, he'll kick your ass!” The audience is opinionated at my neighborhood theatre.
The answers to these two questions follow. About two-thirds of this alternate script is based on the shooting script from “Serenity, The Official Visual Companion” by Joss Whedon, page 142 to 152.
My “secret” motivation: In the movie theatre, I wanted Mal to kill the Operative at Mr. Universe's headquarters. It seemed to be justice. Three minutes later, I was thinking it was lucky that Mal didn't. But at the moment Mal spared the Operative, there wasn't a good reason other than Mal wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Finally there is another reason:
INTERIOR: BASEMENT, OVER THE GENERATOR
Mal has reached it and surveys the situation. Before him is a hand rail, and he can look down on the generator shaft. It's deep, with the machine rotating and grinding, and arcs of electricity ricochetting around it. On the other side is a platform, with the broadwave console sitting next to the edge of the platform. Cables and chains run along the ceiling, around a series of ladder rungs.
MAL: Hard to get to. That's a fact.
Mal gets on the railing, reaches for the 'rungs' on the ceiling just above him. He can almost get them - one wrong move and he pitches into the jaws of death...
A laser shot nails him in the lower back - he arches, legs sliding off the rail - he falls and hits the rail with the backs of his legs, flipping painfully onto his face as he falls, mercifully, back onto the platform.
The Operative comes around some equipment for a closer shot as Mal gets shakily up.
MAL: (in pain) Shot me in the back. I haven't... made you angry, have I?
THE OPERATIVE: There's a lot of innocent people in the air being killed right now.
MAL: You have no idea how true th
Not really sure if Mal (and the audience) finding out the Operative has less power than assumed would really make things better different. To me, knowing that a seemingly all-powerful, high-ranking Operative of Parliament can have such a sudden change in POV from seeing the Miranda Wave means a lot more when he is the one in charge of all the massacres of the BDHs' friends.
Still...mighty impressed with what you wrote here. Definitely would make things a bit more worrisome for the crew at the end of "Serenity," knowing that there are people higher than the Operative still out for River's head:D
BEB
To quote Joss Whedon, the Operative is “the gentlest, kindest, most thoughtful person who ever killed a bunch of people there ever was.” He was one of those villains with “this very strong conviction about who they were.” Chiwetel Ejiofor was picked to play the Operative because the actor can play a villain that has a heart. An example of heartlessness is blasting Haven from a spaceship. Very effective but very dishonorable and impersonal. (And if Book and his anti-aircraft gun had not been at Haven, it would been the most lopsided slaughter possible.) The Operative wouldn't order Haven blasted because that would break his personal code of honor. The Operative does his killing face to face. The military destroyed Haven because of orders direct from Parliament, bypassing the Operative, based on intelligence gathered by the Operative. That griped the hell out of the Operative. And when he learns that Parliament had been a million times more dishonorable on Miranda than on Haven... Well, it is time to turn in his resignation.
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