Discussion for the subject: What happened to my show, 'cause Serenity wasn't it?!
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 03:51
VIEWED: 33215
PAGE 3 of 11
HKCavalier, I enjoyed the film but I wouldn't have done if I hadn't have been a fan. I think the nature of Serenity is different to the nature of Firefly but not because of the reasons you stated. I think it is an extremely violent film and what Joss would have done on television if he could have gotten away with it. I for one am glad he didn't because I wouldn't have enjoyed it.
I do agree with you about fan-led art though. Buffy and Angel are pure fan-fiction, a soap opera of the nth degree but I love it because of that. Joss writes a fantastic story because it is a fully rounded soap opera and he gives the fans what they want, and then takes it away from them. This is where I disagree with you though, it is the taking away which makes him so popular.
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Tara's relationship with Willow was wonderful, but better because Tara died. Angel and Buffy were fantastic when they finally got together but better when he turned into Angelus
Serenity is good because it will have 1 or 2 sequels and there will be consequences
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Simon and Kaylee will fail, Inara and Mal will struggle, eventually get together and then fail, Zoe will breakdown - I imagine a mental killing spree. Joss is fantastic but increasingly predictable. There will never be a happy relationship and people always go mad after death of loved ones. The sex-bot made me cringe because it is obviously a plot device and was stolen from Buffy, granted he was plagiarising himself but still!
If there aren't sequels then these consequences won't take place and there I can see your point. Especially with
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Wash's death
. We shall see though.
I liked your exposition and found it inciteful and intelligent. It is more articulate than many of the negative responses I have seen which concentrate on 'oh now, how could he do that'. These things happen, but debating the reasons they are written and who for, now that is interesting.
Personally, I enjoyed the film but I enjoyed it because of all of the 'fan-led' elements, not the 'cinematic-led' elements. But then, I am a Buffy and Angel addict for exactly the same reasons.
extremely dimensionally transcendental
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TO HKCavilier:
Your insight regarding Serenity is totally remarkable and as far as I am concerned right on the money. Someone needs to send Joss a copy. I thought it was extremely thought-provoking and intelligent, so much so that I printed it for a fellow Browncoat here at work. I'm just jealous that I couldn't have said it myself.
"And that's not incense!"
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Quote:Very insightful analysis. I agree--partially. As someone else pointed out, the sex-bot was an obvious wink to Buffy fans. As you pointed out, Zoe or anyone else wouldn't have questioned Mal the way they did. I agree that Buffy was mostly fan pleasing and "jumping the shark," as you say. I think Angel was less so, and by Firefly, Joss had enough confidence and clout to move past fan-tweaking and tell an independently creative story.
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
In Firefly, character always trumped plot,... But in Serenity there's a thing that trumps character... character driven sci-fi it ain’t.
Then Firefly got cancelled (that's what you get for moving past fandom). He gets one last shot at resurrecting Firefly. The pressure is enormous. I can't blame him for returning to what he knows works--pleasing the fans. There are deeply compelling pragmatic issues here. Maybe he didn't panic. Maybe it was a deliberate move to produce what he knows sells.
I don't think Joss sold out entirely though. That's where the layers come in. He did develop character. Just one--Mal's. If you look past the gratuitous fan throwaways, you see that the whole movie is about Mal. Struggling with his loneliness. Unleashing his bitterness. Finding his faith again. That, in the end, was what this whole story is about.
The way I see it, the fan tickles were just a disguise to sell his character-driven drama to a sci-fi action crowd. Maybe that was the mistake. It was too character driven for the action crowd, and too action driven for the character crowd. Most people seem to be able to see only one layer at a time. Those who see the wrong layer hate it, and those who find the right layer for them love it--that is why the disparate reviews. But I understand why he did it, and I applaud him for being ingenious enough to find a way to squeeze 2 movies onto the same screen.
Quote:This is where the fan-fic upsets me most. Instead of River-turned-Buffy at the end, I wanted to see Zoe in that room. I think that would have been more in character for a hardened war veteran who just lost the love of her life.
I’m sorry, a couple tired double entendres from Zoe don’t cut it for me. On another thread someone suggested a brief scene of Zoe crying in Mal’s arms.
Chrisisall and HKC, watch the movie again. For me at least, I saw a completely different movie the second time around.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Unfortunately Serenity was not "Firefly". Good movie, maybe a great movie (at least for some of the fans - but I find it hard to believe a non-fan would think of it as anything more than passing entertainment) but Firefly the series was special.
Never liked Buffy or Angel, but with Firefly it seemed that Joss Whedon showed incredible talent. I'm not sure what went wrong with Serenity but I think it was Joss!
I do also agree that Serenity gets better on repeat viewings. I'm not happy with how Serenity was made but I do hope for more of the Firefly 'verse.
Maybe some of us were holding Joss to too high of a standard by expecting more of Firefly? Maybe Joss let the "BDM" go to his head? Maybe the real Joss (of Buffy) was revealed?
We all love to hate Fox for killing the best series I've ever seen. But it may have been Fox toning down the "darker" side of Joss that actually made Firefly fantastic.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mithel:
We all love to hate Fox for killing the best series I've ever seen. But it may have been Fox toning down the "darker" side of Joss that actually made Firefly fantastic.
You are a brave person for saying so but you might have a point there.
extremely dimensionally transcendental
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HKCAVALIER, Ummm....wow.
You put in words what I think a lot of others have tried AND you did it with being abrasive or confrontational. WELL DONE!
Joss himself said it was the hardest thing he's had to do, write this script. And I think you are bang on the money when you said he reverted back to what he knew. Hell, we've all done that under pressure. And here's an added wrinkle, when was the last time a studio stayed hands off a project and let director do things his own way?
I don't believe for a moment that Serenity was Joss's true vision. Plus, the arguement that Firefly wasn't what Joss had envisioned has me thinking then, that Fox tempered his vision and inadvertently make a good show but were too stupid to realize it. And that's the show I loved.
So HK, I'm with you. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.
Safeat2nd, Chief Handyman of Destiny
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
For me, Serenity represents the Buffy-fication of Firefly. Still has a diverting plot, still pleases the vast majority of Firefly fans who also adore Buffy, but character driven sci-fi it ain’t. The opening scene with Simon is an exemplum. Forget about the fact that Simon is given info he never had until Ariel, the problem with the scene is his kick-ass portrayal of an Alliance Officer. Acting is pretty hard for non-actors and acting undercover when your life is on the line staggeringly so. But here’s Simon all steely-eyed and balls-to-the-wall cool fooling the feds. Remember Jaynestown? Remember when Mal asked him to pretend to be a buyer, as in the totally unsmooth “I’m a buyer” line? In Firefly, Simon’s steeliness developed slowly, painfully, realistically over many episodes, but he never became a good liar--just look at every dumb thing he ever told Kaylee. The Simon in the Alliance uniform is smoooooooth, and the Simon of Firefly is anything but smooth. As fan-fiction though, Simon’s impersonation is awesome--Go Simon!
Nitpick time. Okay, Simon is informed of the goal of River's treatment -- but not the specifics. The administrator refers to "Stripping" the subject's brain, but Simon needed medical specifics. That's what he was after on Ariel.
Speaking of Ariel, check out Simon's performance there. Within the hospital, he is smooth, professional, and calm -- a good actor. Simon is nervous as "the buyer" because he's out of his element -- but disguise him as an authority figure in a "civilized" context, and he's able to handle it--it's familar turf.
And as to why Simon didn't tell the rest of the crew that River had been trained/tortured to be a human killing machine, it's probably because he didn't want them to toss her off the freaking ship! His goal, as the movie pointed out, was to keep River safe.
And by the time he clocks Mal, he's had a lot more time on the frontier. He's become more confident in his new role.
IMHO.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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Quote:That's the root of the problem. Serenity was not "Firefly." But I do believe that the special Firefly we know and love is not absent, just hidden. Maybe well hidden, but it's there.
Originally posted by Mithel:
Unfortunately Serenity was not "Firefly".
For the record, I am not a Joss apologist or fanboy. I used to think of Joss as an entertaining soap opera writer, nothing more. Even with Firefly, I expected him to unravel the series after a season or two with his three predictable "shockers": 1) turning good people evil, and evil people good; 2) switching sex partners within his little pseudo-incestuous family; and 3) killing off main and auxiliary characters, and resurrecting them again.
But Serenity changed my mind. Underneath all that soap opera is some brilliant playwrighting that tackles moral ambiguities, unconditional love, loyalty, faith, redemption, freedom, identity, pain, vengeance, survival--and relationships. Looking back, these themes were there all along in Buffy and Angel, but I think they found their full, mature voice in Firefly. That Joss could bring that maturity to the big screen when there was so much pressure crank out yet another formulaic movie tells me that maybe Joss isn't just a soap opera writer after all. Sure, he has room to grow. Maybe with Serenity 2, he will drop the fan-pleasing trappings altogether.
Well, that's just me.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Can I just be very girly and say how fantastic it is that this thread hasn't degenerated into the usual slanging match that seems to happen when Browncoats disagree about the BDM.
extremely dimensionally transcendental
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Sure, he has room to grow. Maybe with Serenity 2, he will drop the fan-pleasing trappings altogether.
I think for the majority of the people that had a problem with Serenity, you summed it up well. And if they feel the way I do, the same excitement and anticipation won't be there for the second one. Maybe that'll be an advantage. It's akin to being punched or dumped by a loved one, you're wary the second time around, less wide eyed so to speak.
Emma, go right ahead
I agree with you wholeheartedly!Safeat2nd, Chief Handyman of Destiny
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