Loved Firefly, but Serenity *sucked* (SPOLIERS)
POSTED BY: Jusl89
UPDATED: Friday, December 16, 2005 22:26
VIEWED: 39034
PAGE 9 of 12
Sorry, JUSL89. I can't really agree with any of your comments about Serenity. I loved it.
1 & 3 The deaths of Wash and Book: OK, upseting, but a part of good storytelling. As soon as i heard there was going to be a movie follow-up to Firefly, i knew that at least one character would die. Joss has always been very willing to kill characters for the sake of the story, unlike most other TV writers. As a writer myself I can understand the need to have characters die sometimes. i enjoy Joss' work more for this, not less. He has faith in his audiences ability to accept change. His shows don't become stale because things constantly change. And there is always a real sense of peril, because no character is safe. Most TV bores me because there is no sense of peril: all characters are sure to survive every perilous situation they encounter.
2: The interaction between Mal and Simon struck me as odd at first. But on second viewing i could see that this was simply showing the tremendous amount of stress they were both under. It also provided Mal with a character arc for the film. He starts out broken, bitter and hollow (traits we saw signs of in Firefly, accentuated here) and is healed by finding something to believe in and fight for. He regains some of what he lost in Serenity Valley. This is another Whedon trademark: characters change. Their relationships change and sometimes fall apart. I think that if FF had continued, Mal and simon would have eventually come into conflict in this way anyway.
4: I agree that there was too much action but I don't think it detracted (or distracted) from the story and characters
5:Mal didn't let the Operative live out of mercy. He let him live so he could see the tape, and see how wrong he was. That was punishment, a far worse (and more meaningful) one that death.
6: Jayne has changed. Simple as that. He's still mostly out for himself but remember how he became more integrated and altruistic as Firefly went on? And remember how he feels about Reavers. He's a bad guy but he's not that bad. The Miranda incident would have horrified him.
7: The Alliance's main power seems to be that people believe in them. Even those that don't like the Alliance don't seem to hate them enough to act against them. Evidence of a planetary genocide is likely to change that.
8: Disagree with that the most, sorry. Fighting for causes often involves great personal sacrifice. Doesn't mean it aint worth doing. Like I said, Mal found something to believe i8n and fight for. I think the message is 'fight the good fight, regardless of cost'. Although, I wish we could have seen some concrete consequences: a mass defection of purple-bellies, some protests/ riots etc...
9: I din't find myself wishing for more Inara. Not a very inspired or sympathetic character IMHO. I did want to see more Book though. Oh, and bow and arrow. We know she's trained in fencing, why not archery?
All in all a superb film. Not perfect, but it's merits far outwayed its flaws.
"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."
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Quote:I got something different out of that dream sequence, though not on first viewing. I think it harkens back to River's comment in the cargo hold: "He didn't lie down. They never lie down." Yet in the dream, she's being told to lie down by an authority figure (representing the Alliance) and is resisting.
Originally posted by DonCoat:Quote:
Was it just to bump the line "I coulda left her there?" Fits right in with the bit where River yanks herself out of the nightmare where the class lies down, and she's cuffed to the grid, then we cut to Mal waking startled as Wash yells that
Think I'm seeing ponies and plastic rockets?...goad, goad.
I see it as a playing-out of her schizophrenia. River knows about Miranda, but she's desperately trying to suppress that knowledge -- but her "neural stripping" makes that almost impossible. (She can't not feel.) So whenever she's placed in a situation that forces that knowledge to the surface, she deflects it, never stating the underlying truth -- the Reavers don't lie down (unlike the rest of the Mirandans). Little River won't lie down (though the Alliance is trying to force her to). It's going to get much much worse (when we all find out that awful knowledge).
One thing that's quite clear after repeated viewings: even River's craziest remarks aren't crazy at all. The brilliant part is: that's true even of the things she says in the Firefly episodes. Everything makes perfect sense once you have the key.
The only conclusion I can draw is that the events in Serenity were all clear in Joss' mind from the beginning. The story would have played out more slowly if the series had continued, but it would have come to the same place.
Anyway, back to your thoughts -- I didn't see it quite as you did, but it's entirely possible for Joss to write scenes that work on multiple levels at once. The "tore up plenty" exchange is a prominent example.
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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
Full thoughts and full deep breaths: always helpful, huh? The pixies took the last half of that line...when Wash yells to Mal on the com that he's going to bounce down a wave.
I completely agree with what you write about the meaning of her schizophrenia in the dream sequence, and about River not lying down when told to by the teacher, and I really like the way you put it. I meant that in addition to that, as she jerks awake the second time, Mal is also yanked awake in his bunk, and I wondered if, by that cut Joss was trying to indicate that they are connected - not just her being able to read his mind, but Mal being in River's head also.
I found River waking twice from that dream very spooky creepy. The first time she wakes, there's a snarling voice that says something like 'kill them all', and then she wakes again. This moment made me wonder if part of what's going on with the 'neural stripping' is that the nightmare is trying to drag her into itself - trying to make River into a reaver. As in "Bushwacked", the fellow the reavers made watch while they killed the rest of the passengers was turning himself into a reaver. The Stockholm Syndrome (identifying with your captors) taken to the logical, horrifying conclusion.
Also, speaking of the dream sequences (to spiral off on a tangent as usual) I think the classroom scene at the beginning of the movie with the kids talking about reavers, and little River's explanation that 'we meddle' is from a real memory. A point of fusion between her real life and the horror.
Also, I've thought better of the idea that Mal is being psychic, seeing River cuffed to the grate. I realized I'm seeing pixies here, and that's just a plain old device. In the dialogue between Mal and Book in the firelit scene on Haven, Mal's saying he could have left her, and the scene showing us by the agony on his face looking at her chained to the decking, that he never could have left her. Sorry, just temporary insanity. Sometimes things only come clearer for me after I write or sp
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Quote:
Originally posted by dantheman:
Ignore Serenity completely and continue on from the last Firefly episode.
Don't people get that, eh, that's what Serenity *was*? If Firefly had continued, it would have looked a lot like the movie - people would have died, things would have changed. Why can't people accept that? Serenity was the continuation of the show, in movie-form.
Oh, and it wasn't 8 monthes between the show and the movie - it was closer to 2.
-Steve
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Steve580:
I believe it's been stated by 'official' sources (if not in the movie itself somehow) that the time frame from the end of OiS to Serenity is ~18 months...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't
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Quote:I originally thought it was about 8 months, but there's a problem. In the movie itself, in the scene in the dining room just after River's freakout in the Maidenhead, Mal yells at Simon that he's had River on his boat for eight months. That would be eight months from Serenity (the pilot) to Serenity (the movie).
Originally posted by citizen:
Steve580:
I believe it's been stated by 'official' sources (if not in the movie itself somehow) that the time frame from the end of OiS to Serenity is ~18 months...
Either Mal's confused, or the time scale is a whole lot tighter than I originally thought.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
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Ah, that's what I was thinking of, and I thought what he said was eighteen months...
means the time scales shorter than what I said, but still longer than 2 months...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't
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Quote:
Originally posted by liminalosity:
Yes, I too think Joss has a really long view of the stories he tells. Where'd I read that Joss said the movie plot was season 2, mashed into a much smaller box? I think some things that will happen in season 12 of Firefly will be things that were part of his original imagining of a character. Not that I think his stories are rigidly imagined, I think he gets all bendy with them, but I think he begins with a pretty well realized structure of where it's probably going.
Yes. Of course, other writers work on his series too. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for the discussions -- "No, you can't have River doing that, because..."Or maybe, "You can't have River doing that, but I can't tell you why. Or I'd have to kill you."
Quote:I'm thinking of a scene (I think it's from Ariel) where she starts babbling about it being Christmas but they've taken the toys away, and left nothing but coal. It makes some sense for that scene alone, but takes on another whole layer now that we know the underlying cause of her madness. Maybe the stress of that moment has lowered her defenses and some images of Miranda are leaking through. Coal indeed!
I agree that everything River says makes sense once you have the context.
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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Ah, that's what I was thinking of, and I thought what he said was eighteen months...
means the time scales shorter than what I said, but still longer than 2 months...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't
Wasn't the show over a span of six months? That was my understanding...I know it was near a month between Shindig and Safe alone...
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The part I will never understand isn't the deaths of Book and Wash so much as their timing - in the first movie??!! It's the triumphant return from being gone and buried for 3 years and you're gonna start killing characters?? I was hoping for a movie that had a focus on what made these nine actors and characters so great together (as the best of Firefly did), and that that would hook the part of the audience that hadn't seen Firefly on wanting more. I think that's what all posters here wanted, from the gripers to the ever-faithful - more Firefly.
Serenity was not that, it was more "this is the big finale." And that possibility truly sucks.
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.net
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(WARNING: still very bitter about the whole gorram thing)
Quote:Good points all. It seems pretty simple, do'n'it? I already lived through all the characters dying when the show was cancelled, what's the point of killing off close to 1/4 of the cast in the first installment of a hoped for trilogy? It's just a crazy stunt! Makes me think Joss just went off his meds or something. Firefly was certainly one of the most suspenseful t.v. series the world has ever known, without a single one of the BDH's dying (well, 'cept Mal). I have no doubt that Joss might have killed either or both of these characters in the course of two or three seasons, but killing both of them the moment we get them back from the void of cancellation? I had no idea browncoats would be so masochistic, but, boy howdie, Joss sure did! Score, one for Joss; zero, for HK on that one.
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
The part I will never understand isn't the deaths of Book and Wash so much as their timing - in the first movie??!! It's the triumphant return from being gone and buried for 3 years and you're gonna start killing characters?? I was hoping for a movie that had a focus on what made these nine actors and characters so great together (as the best of Firefly did), and that that would hook the part of the audience that hadn't seen Firefly on wanting more. I think that's what all posters here wanted, from the gripers to the ever-faithful - more Firefly.
Serenity was not that, it was more "this is the big finale." And that possibility truly sucks.
Here's a thing: when the show was cancelled every incomplete plot thread and untold backstory was lost. Barring a miracle, none of it would ever be resolved. Didn't that suck? But the miracle came (in no small part, due to the work of us fans). Now, in the space of just one film, Joss has changed the landscape so much that we are in exactly the same spot all over again, because we may never get another installment. The only way I will be able to make sense of the shenanigans of Serenity is if I get a sequel--IF Joss desides to make sense of it at all. Heck, all he has to do is advance the story another 6 months and he won't have to deal with Zoe's grief; or maybe by then she'll be remarried to Simon, Kaylee will have moved back in with her dad and Inara will be pregnant and fans will eat it all up, quote Joss as saying that he intended all that to happen during seasons 4 thru 8 and call it brilliant, mind-blowing, best movie ever--as the openning credits scroll by, we can make bets on who'll get knocked off in this one!
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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