Loved Firefly, but Serenity *sucked* (SPOLIERS)

Paid for the party the Browncoats had organized at Hard Rock, which was subsequently cancelled cos they didn't get the minimum number of people requested. 'Versal found out about it, said, "You know what? You guys come to our party!"

We were very well-behaved, followed the rules... unlike some other people that exploited their every 'Versal connection, called in every favor, and then treated it like a Gorram convention! Don't get me started...

*goes back to thinking about Alan almost dragging her to the bathroom - he has a hard time letting go of my hand, as it's happened before*

"Can I make a suggestion that doesn't involve violence? Or is this the wrong crowd for that?" (Wash)

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5. I don't know why Joss doesn't kill villains, maybe he wants to reuse them or prove that heros are different. If someone has theories, post them.

Joss has said he doesnt think that a hero kills people. He talks like this when he discusses the state of comics. He has said he would get rid of character like Punisher and the Dark Horse Batman. He believes that a hero, being a virtuos character, cant kill someone

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Stake, I really kinda hate these discussions. I'm not trying to convince anyone about the movie. I'm sharing my experiences with the hope that they resonate with others here. You and others coming here to tell me that I'm "wrong" and "defend" the movie is really just an annoyance. I very purposefully refrain from posting my negative feelings about the movie in threads specifically praising the BDM. I would just be a jerk if I did that, wouldn't I? Folks like you coming to this thread to "refute" my gorram feelings and perceptions is getting pretty old. I'm having a hard time finding it anything but rude. You loved the movie. I'm sincerely happy you did. I wish to hell I did. I could not. For the reasons I've been articulating. The failure of Serenity is still pretty painful to me personally and I need to talk to people who understand what it means.

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Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
First off, you seem to be stating opinion as fact, which tends to get folks with differing opinions riled up. Might want to look to that; these discussions can get pretty ugly when tempers flare.

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Stake, bubbala, we all do this. You did the exact same thing in this very post:

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I would also argue that such a technique actually brings us closer to the characters rather than jarring them out of a story. In television, you know that the cast is going to be back next week--it creates a sense of distance between you and the characters. [Not me.] Captain Picard may feel his life is in danger, but we all know he’ll be back on the Enterprise next week, so our emotions do not match those of the characters. [Nope.] Something similar happens in formula action movies; all the heroes usually survive while maybe a few sympathetic second tier characters get it. With Serenity, the Browncoats go in with the emotional distance of the TV show [I didn't.] and the regular audiences go in with the emotional distance of formula action.

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See how easy it is? That's your experience, not a fact. Personally, I don't have a problem with it; its called speaking with authority; we all have the right to act as if what we think is true actually is true.

Obviously, I don't experience t.v. or movies the way you do. I've watched every episode of Firefly umpteen times and I have exactly the same emotional engagement today as I did three years ago when they were first aired. When Kaylee gets shot, I can't help feeling frightened, not because I don't know that Kaylee's gonna pull through in the second half of the episode, but because good art never gets too far from its reference point: real life. People die of gunshot wounds every day. If you're gut-shot, you don't have long to live without treatment. Firefly, for me, creates the illusion that Kaylee is/was/will be a real person. That real person's life is in grave danger when Dobson shoots her. For me, the best art has the conviction of a documentary. For me, Serenity the movie didn't have it--and didn't have it in spades!

As for the meta-narrative, I was reacting to the many, many posts I've read on this site where people said that yes, indeed they did immediately think of Joss and what he was capable of when Wash died. And they loved it. What I said was "even the people who defend Joss's decision were taken out of the story by that event!" I was refering to the vast majority of posts I'd read. So, when you come along and say, "Well it didn't do that to me!" I'm not even talking about you.

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But the goal of any film technique is to be invisible, to keep the audience from pausing to analyze it.

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And that's exactly why this sort of "Act of God" event can be such a tough sell; its very nature makes it hard to render invisible. Some people will be manipulated exactly as the artist intends and some will not. As far as I saw, Firefly kept the deus ex machina theatrics to a minimum, surrounded them with mountains of finely observed realism (I'm thinking of Mal's

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i agree with much of your post, however:

[Mal didn't kill the Operative? So the Operative kills all of Mals friends, kills Book, and leads to the death of Wash, and yet he walks away? If there ever was a use for a death, this would be it.]

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i think NOT killing the operative worked on 2 levels.
a) Most of the murder mal does is when he is pushed to it. At the point he actually finished with the operative, he was no longer pushed. He had the upper hand and was accomplishing his goal. If further violence had ensued, he probably would have killed with no worries.
b) more importantly, the guy had a whole quadrant's worth (or what was left after the battle) of soldiers there... killing their leader would have probably pissed them off extremely... Mal chose reason over violence - an ironic twist maybe for his character, but hey in joss' universe, everyone grows...

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Stake, I really kinda hate these discussions. I'm not trying to convince anyone about the movie. I'm sharing my experiences with the hope that they resonate with others here. You and others coming here to tell me that I'm "wrong" and "defend" the movie is really just an annoyance. I very purposefully refrain from posting my negative feelings about the movie in threads specifically praising the BDM. I would just be a jerk if I did that, wouldn't I? Folks like you coming to this thread to "refute" my gorram feelings and perceptions is getting pretty old.

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No one's trying to 'refute' your feelings. I suspect, like me, most people are just finding it difficult to understand how someone could have such a profoundly negative reaction to the movie. Consequently, it's only natural that they'd want to discuss what it is that caused this reaction and try to explain how they saw things differently. This is a discussion. It's what message boards are for.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Book dying the very moment before Simon reaches him,.....,River's climactic and utterly fantastical triumph over the reavers).

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I definitely agree about these moments being unreal, if not the others.

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Originally posted by frunk:
I'm fairly certain no movie that had any reasonable chance of being made would have kept you happy. The medium is different, you can't tell the stories in a movie the same as with a tv series. A movie (particularly the first of hopefully many sequels) has to be self contained and explain itself. A tv show can let big question marks hang in an episode, knowing that they'll be back the following week (or year) to explain them. A tv show has the time to explore in depth each character in a 9 person cast.

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I appreciate this argument, but it just doesn't ring true. My disappointments had nothing to do with the self-contained nature of the story. There are plenty of ways to tell a story without resorting to action-movie cliches. That was the primary compromise that ruined Serenity for me.

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If you think Serenity is just another action movie look again. It twists many of the conventions of an action movie just like Firefly twisted the conventions of tv. It has all the same emotional elements, love, humor, surprise, terror, anguish, action and others. The balance is different, but the quality isn't.

If Firefly is dead, long may its child live.

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As you point out, it was mostly a question of balance. Joss tried to balance between the subtle family drama of Firefly and the no-holds-barred rollercoaster ride of an action movie. It was a decent enough attempt, but it failed to grab me. I'd rather Joss tug at my emotions than keep me on the edge of my seat. Just a matter of preference.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
I appreciate this argument, but it just doesn't ring true. My disappointments had nothing to do with the self-contained nature of the story. There are plenty of ways to tell a story without resorting to action-movie cliches. That was the primary compromise that ruined Serenity for me.

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I think Joss made it quite clear from early on that Serenity was going to be bigger, faster and louder than the series. That was his goal from the start. I don't think that warrants the disappointment you express. There's still more storytelling and character development in this than any single episode of Firefly, it just happens to be interspersed with more action. I'm sure if you get the dvd you can fast forward through the action sequences and you'll have a decent enough (not the best, not the worst) episode of Firefly. Still way better than most things on tv or in the movies.

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