A Thousand Tiny Details {Warning: Spoilerific}

POSTED BY: RocketJock
UPDATED: Saturday, October 15, 2005 02:41
VIEWED: 10821
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ROCKETJOCK

Sunday, October 9, 2005 4:04 AM

Warning up front: This thread is posted as containing spoilers; don't read further unless you don't care.

Lots of people sweating out the box office tonight. Important stuff, and I could easily spend the night doing the same, but that thought wearies me.

Instead I'd like to celebrate the artistic triumph that makes a sequel something worth the effort of worrying about.

First off, for the record: Even if I'd never heard of Firefly, or Joss Whedon, I would have thought of Serenity as a top-notch SF film, way ahead of the curve. Consider...

--The incredibly layered and nuanced pre-credit sequence, so outstanding that Universal has posted it for viewing on-line, proving that the BDM is its own best advertising:

At first we assume it to be a narration, lovely if a bit dry; then we realize that it is actually a history lesson--and the nature of the classroom combined with the teacher's attitude tells us as much about the Alliance and the Core Worlds as the dusty history lesson ever did. We've just gotten our new bearings when the story slams into Grand Guignol horror as visceral as the stylus/needle that slams into River's forehead. Take a breath, but quickly--now we're in an action movie prison break scene with a touch of James Bond--only to find out that everything we've seen has been recap!

By the time The Operative asks his question of River's image, the audience knows everything they need to know about the main story arc's backstory and universe--and its been done seamlessly, painlessly, and with a considerable amount of action, combined with a stylish introduction to The Operative himself.

That's nine minutes.

Some other gems:

--The rinky-tink player piano music drifting over the orchestral main theme. I could almost see Fast Eddie Costigan pounding the ivories. Anyone who thinks Joss was trying to disown Firefly's western roots just needs to hear this riff.

--The stem-to-stern, two-deck tracking shot that let us know the layout and dimensions of Serenity herself. Hallelujah, what a victory lap!

--River's eye-squinch at Zoe during the bank job.

--Jayne pouring whiskey into his wound, and then down his throat.

--The drink dispenser in the Maidenhead bar.

--Fruity Oaty Bars. (Help me please, sweet baby Jesus, get that gorram jingle out of my head!)

--Mr. Universe breaking the wineglass at his "wedding".

--"Am I talking to Miranda now?"

--"Dear Buddha, I want a pony, and a plastic rocket..."

--"Please, talk to him for an hour."

--Operative: "I am unarmed--"
Mal: "Good."
Operative: "I am, of course, wearing full body armor. I am not a moron."

--"That's not incense."

--Mal's casual, cold-blooded (and entirely justified) killing of the Alliance pilot.

--"She is beginning to damage my calm."

--The research/rescue vessel's reg number, C57D. (Well, after all, Miranda was a "forbidden planet".)

--The fact that it's Jayne, Jayne of all people, who voices the crew's decision to go for broke with Mal. It takes a hell of a lot to make that man take the moral high ground.

--The way Jayne slides the booze bottle to Simon--and Simon's acceptance of it.

--The clips from a vintage Fleisher Studios Superman cartoon showing on Mr. Universe's monitors.

--"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

--"The hell with this. I'm gonna live!"

--River and the reavers. (Buffy who?)

--The look in The Operative's eyes as he sees the reality of what his dream has led to.

--Serenity's victory roll as she leaves atmo.

Whew. Quite a ride for a hair under two hours.

So, what's your favorite moment?

"What was that?" -- Captain Malcolm Reynolds

JADEHAND

Sunday, October 9, 2005 4:29 AM

too many great moments. too many great lines. but I love....
Mal: You did the right thing.
Book: coming from you, that means....almost nothing.

Visit WWW.Marillion.Com for a better way to live
"Dreaming the dream that only the sleepless know."

LIMINALOSITY

Sunday, October 9, 2005 7:13 AM

I haven't read a post anywhere about the amazing chase scene on the souped up mule, except sort of peripheral stuff like comments about Mal shooting the guy from the vault, and River's line at the end about swallowing a bug. I was at the edge of my seat for the entire sequence, from the second they burst through the laundry till River says she ate a bug. The mule was slow, and close to the ground (ok, think back a couple years to the speeder chase through the redwoods and how fast that seemed). The Reaver ship chasing them was a comparatively enormous, nasty predator looking thing with 'blood' all over it, pouring out gouts of thick, oily smoke, making lots of glub glub engine noise. It was much faster than the mule, which suddenly looked kind of like an upscsale forklift when the shot showed the Reavers behind them. That was one hot chase scene. I love it that they have names like 'Barnswallow' and 'Crazy Ivan' for the edgiest moves.

When I was a kid I really enjoyed driving on frozen lakes. Nothing teaches you how to get out of a potentially horrific situation better than practicing crazy stunts in a safe place, and I love watching chase scenes like this one because I know the peeps who wrote it got there by practicing with something.

Joss kept the tension of that sequence going for a really long time too, all the way till Zoe and Wash put their foreheads together and Zoe says 'that was clooose'. Beauty.

"We gotta go to the crappy town where I'M a hero!" -Wash

THECRAZYIVAN

Sunday, October 9, 2005 7:32 AM

Quote:
--The rinky-tink player piano music drifting over the orchestral main theme. I could almost see Fast Eddie Costigan pounding the ivories. Anyone who thinks Joss was trying to disown Firefly's western roots just needs to hear this riff.

--The stem-to-stern, two-deck tracking shot that let us know the layout and dimensions of Serenity herself. Hallelujah, what a victory lap!

AMEN TO THOSE!

My favorite part...was just seeing Serenity (the ship), then looking around and realizing i was in a gorram movie theatre!

But OH GOD did it kill me when they unprettyfied her to look like a reaver ship. I teared up right there, Serenity being the 10th member and all. Then when Serenity went down on Mr. Universe's moon? THAT KILLED ME MORE! Just watching her bounch around and then the engine being torn off...*tear* It was like another death. AND THEN WASH?! heart attack...

I saw it back in june, keeping all that from my friends for so long also was killin me...

I know this thread was for things we loved...but i love that the movie made me feel so deeply! So there, justification.

~~~~~~~~~~
"There is a sense that this is still not over. It's hard to put a finger on what's so special about this project and about this group of people, but it's just one of those things you have to trust in, and relish. I am very, very proud."
---Jewel Staite on "Firefly" and "Serenity" in "Finding Serenity" (essay collection by Jane Espenson)

ZIPPLY

Sunday, October 9, 2005 12:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by liminalosity:
I love it that they have names like 'Barnswallow' and 'Crazy Ivan' for the edgiest moves.

Actually, a 'Crazy Ivan' is a "classic" submarine manoever. And nicely, our Firefly is mentioned in the Wikipedia definition of it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Ivan

STOWAWAY

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:15 PM

This is my first time to this site. Here goes...

The trailer for the movie looked pretty good. The first time we saw it, we didn't know anything about the history of the show. I knew that the movie was based on a TV show, and then I remembered that it was called Firefly and that we had seen commercials for it a year or two ago (couldn't really remember) and that we sorta forgot to watch it whenever it was that it finally came out.

So when Serenity premiered, we kinda went back and forth with whether or not we should get the series on DVD and watch it first or if it would matter. Unfortunately, it was moot since we couldn't find the damn DVDs anywhere. Until the other day...

I picked up the box at Tower on Tuesday (turns out they had just gotten some in) and we watched the pilot that night.

What's amazing about the pilot is that, while most sci-fi takes a while to bring you in and care about the people in it, Firefly did not. It made us care about them instantly.

That one two-hour show did such a brilliant job of introducing us, making us care and actually telling an interesting story (in a way we hadn't seen sci-fi told before) that I was just so impressed.

I probably can't say anything great about the show that likely hasn't been said a zillion times before, but that's not really the point of this post.

The point is that after having seen the movie yesterday, I probably would disagree to a certain extent that the movie would be just as solid without having seen the show.

Sure, it had lots of action, cool effects, and a bushel of humor, but if you really detach yourself from the film and series and think about it, there's no way somebody could get the same experience from the film without the series behind them.

Many of the jokes are much less funny without the history of the characters. And, unquestionably, the interperson relationships between the core cast members just don't have the punch on their own, just from the film, that they do if you've seen the series first.

And how could they? The film did a good job of making the uninitiated understand the relationships, but understanding something and feeling something are two vastly different things.

The show's ability to make these characters seem real, within the confines of their version of the 'verse, is truly amazing. You take away moments from the show like they're moments from your own life, with peoples' expressions burned into your brain. You feel that uneasy feeling in your stomach at times and laugh out loud at others and you can fully appreciate...you can really feel...the longing between Inara and Mal.

The movie, due to its time constraints, has to tell a compelling story, and it does. But if you haven't seen the show, I fear that's all it does...tell the story...not by any fault of the film, its cast or crew, but by absense of the true history of the sphere of reality that's been created by the show.

In all of this, the only true failure here is by Fox in blowing one of the best opportunities they've ever had. Last night my girlfriend seriously complained about the fact that she can't stand that Firefly / Serenity is already over...

Many of you lived through this in "real time"...waiting anxiously each week, then having to deal with the confusion and anger of having the show cancelled before it was done.

We went through it in four days. Less annoying for sure, but it'll be missed no less, I assure you.

Firefly was fun, brilliant in a simple way, exciting, and in all ways, passionate and romantic. For Fox to let that slip through its fingers is both mysterious and maddening.

And to be honest, I'd rather have another 8 seasons of the show than even one more sequel. Because like the best of friends, the friendship only gets deeper, better and more cherished the more time you spend together.

ARAMINA

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:23 PM

Quote:

But OH GOD did it kill me when they unprettyfied her to look like a reaver ship. I teared up right there, Serenity being the 10th member and all. Then when Serenity went down on Mr. Universe's moon? THAT KILLED ME MORE! Just watching her bounch around and then the engine being torn off...*tear*

Right there with you. I was torn to bits myself watching Serenity being turned into an abomination and then rocked and bounced around. But then like you said, Serenity really was the 10th member and she went through just as much as the rest of the crew for the greater good.

God love her!

When I think of an interesting signature you'll be the first to know.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
So, what's your favorite moment?

I have a hard time picking one, it seems like every time I come on one I think of another I either like more or just as much.

Even so there are two that I would like to highlight:

"I swallowed a bug."

I just feel like that is a perfect example of River. She's not being crazy there, she's perfectly lucid and it isn't something to do with being a psychic or a killing machine, yet she's still living in a different kind of reality, her perception of things is so different.

The other is one you mentioned

Quote:
--The way Jayne slides the booze bottle to Simon--and Simon's acceptance of it.

I love that, it’s such a simple scene, a simple gesture, but it says so much.

DONCOAT

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:35 PM

Welcome, Stowaway. Glad to know you've joined our obsession. I don't think anyone here cares whether you found Firefly/Serenity in 2002 or yesterday.

I think most people here would agree that a return of the TV series would be better than more movies. Right now, with the movie "underperforming", the issue may be moot. The best we can do is hope that everybody concerned is keeping their options open.

While I agree that the movie is probably more moving and involving for those who have already fallen in love with these characters through the TV series, there are plenty of reports (here and elsewhere) that "Firefly virgins" can enjoy it very much.

For one thing, sales of the DVD set are quite high right now (which may be the reason you couldn't find it in the stores originally). Some of those sales are to folks like you who wanted to watch the series before the movie... but there are also a lot of people who see the movie and then rush out to buy the DVDs.

As to your other comments about the show: you'll find a lot of discussion in other threads about the differences between the series and the movie. Some long-time fans feel that Serenity was not faithful enough to the spirit of the show; others disagree. Some Browncoats feel betrayed by certain things Joss put into the movie; others are saddened but understand and accept.

To me, the reason for those differences was mostly the two-hour movie format. A TV series gives you the luxury of time. There's more room to breathe, to do exposition over several episodes, and of course even our one abbreviated season gave us 14 hours to get to know our family in the 'verse, not two. The movie also had to make those character introductions -- for nine major characters! -- while the action was pushing ahead almost nonstop. It was a huge writing challenge, and I don't know anyone who's handled it better than Our Mr. Whedon.

STOWAWAY

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DonCoat:
Welcome, Stowaway. Glad to know you've joined our obsession. I don't think anyone here cares whether you found Firefly/Serenity in 2002 or yesterday.

Why thank you!

Quote:
As to your other comments about the show: you'll find a lot of discussion in other threads about the differences between the series and the movie. Some long-time fans feel that Serenity was not faithful enough to the spirit of the show; others disagree. Some Browncoats feel betrayed by certain things Joss put into the movie; others are saddened but understand and accept.

Yeah, I've since read a few other posts...I agree with some of the negativity about the film, some I don't. And I definitely understand the time constraint / difference in the formats.

I will say that I agree that the dialog in the movie didn't seem as natural (within context) as it did in the series. The movie didn't showcase as much of the wild west aspect of the 'verse, yet the dialog was moreso, which I think probably ultimately does a disservice to the film, especially in the eyes of people who've not seen the show first.

Quote:
It was a huge writing challenge, and I don't know anyone who's handled it better than Our Mr. Whedon.

I never really watched Buffy or Angel much but I have to say the writing of 'Firefly' in particular is really impressive...I follow pop culture stuff so I've read alot about JW and his shows and his writing style, but, again, the series really impressed me for sure. I do think that the movie's writing was a bit imperfect at times, but overall we both enjoyed the film a lot...it was intense and fun and there's a lot to be proud of it for cast and crew alike.

I just want more, more and a more show is all.

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