If you could change one thing in Firefly...

POSTED BY: Wulfhawk
UPDATED: Thursday, July 24, 2003 04:02
VIEWED: 11667
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JLP

Saturday, July 19, 2003 1:51 AM

Ah, how could I forget the lovely Zoe. Yes. Nekkid Nekkid Nekkid Zoe. :-). Lovely.

But on to more serious topics. I disagree that the blue hands were too cartoonish. We saw them, what, 3 or 4 times? Did we have a chance to develop them? No. Do we trust Joss? Yes. So I would say more blue hands, not less, but always carefully timed to slowly increase our understanding of what the gloves mean, who gets to wear them, and why.

Just my little opinion.

JLP

VETERAN

Saturday, July 19, 2003 2:45 AM

I understand why you say some of the bad guys are too monodimensional, but I disagree. I think(and maybe this defeats my previous post) that monodimesionality of certain characters is due to the fact that the show is only an hour long. For instance, the only important aspects of Niska are his power and his sadistic tendencies. That's all that's necessary to advance the plot. We don't need to know the details of how he runs his business.

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

Saturday, July 19, 2003 4:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Veteran:
I would make the Alliance/Browncoat issue more complex. I tend to get the feeling that the Alliance is shown as an ever present evil. I wouldn't mind to see that there are some good people in the Alliance.

Bear in mind that in OOG Inara mentions that she supported Unification, and that until River's abduction, Simon probably had no problems with the Alliance either. Inara's comment in particular is interesting, because it suggests that for some Unification was welcome even if it brought them no particular personal benefit (that is, as a well-regarded Companion in the Core, Inara probably wouldn't have been affected had the Browncoats seceded.) To me, this suggests there are indeed good people on both sides, even if The Alliance itself is a totalitarian (or at least bureaucratic and oppresive) government.

History repeats the old conceits

http://topshelftvshow.com

DRAKON

Saturday, July 19, 2003 7:04 AM

"You can't run an empire COMPLETELY through intimidation."

Gotta argue with this here. Fear has been the foundation of more than one nation, even terror impused by lunatics. And Saddam, Stalin, Hitler, Kim Jong Il and his daddy all represent the lunatic torturing ass hats who were very successful for a long while.

Remember April 9th, the scene from Baghdad of Saddam's statue they pulled down? Before they pulled it down, there was this huge muscle bond guy with a big hammer, wailing away on the bottom of the pylon. And nothing, small chips. He was swinging and pounding with all his might, and that statue was not coming down.

Until someone brought a wreaker to yank it down.

For the bad guys to succeed, they need power that nobody else has, and enough followers tied to their power to keep the population in chains. The good guys have to sit back and let them get away with it, for them to succeed.

If the good guys do nothing, and the rest of the population just ain't got enough juice, it is amazing how much person power you can accumulate, how many people you can torture, rob, kill, rape, etc. etc. etc. As shown my recent history

"My kind of stupid"

LUPA

Saturday, July 19, 2003 7:21 AM

Quote:
I thought the reason that more woman than men appear "nekked" in movies is psychological. Allow me to explain. Men are typically aroused by visual stimuli, while women are aroused by...sweet nothings, romance? Dunno. If I did I would probably be getting more.

Scientifically speaking, *ahem,* women are usually only really aroused by physical stimuli. We have to settle for the sappy romcoms because there is so little chance of being felt up by Hugh Grant in the comfort of your own home.

That being said Simon should still be completely naked every episode. And Jayne too. For some reason, however, Mal and Wash just don't do it for me and you couldn't pay me to bare witness to Nekkid!Book.

One of the reasons I think women are nekkid in movies more often than men is men are often very uncomfortable looking at nekkid members of their own sex, while women, not so much. As a straight woman, I would not mind at all if any of the Firefly girls walked about in their birthday suits.

"Life is a tragedy - Hurrah!" Georges Duhamel

TALONPEST

Saturday, July 19, 2003 9:51 AM

I think thing at the top of my list would be a more defined area of space we're working with. They never cleared up whether it was one solar system or multiple. It really has to be multiple systems, but I'd have liked to have that settled once and for all.

I personally am more than happy with the Inara nudity we've seen. No need to turn it into a flesh circus... one of my biggest problems with the Star Trek of recent years is the bimbos strutting around in catsuits all day (hell, Inara's a high-priced hooker, and she's got more dignity than Chief T&A Officer 7 of 9). I like to generally keep my porn and my scifi seperate.

As for why you don't see a lot of male nudity in movies, I think it's because the auidance actually likes to hear what's going on in the film. I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean last week, and every time Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom did anything, and I mean ANYTHING (example: lying passed out in a gutter with a bunch of chickens) all the women in the audience squealed like stuck pigs. I have NEVER seen guys react to some hot chick in a movie like that. And these guys were fully clothed. I can't imagine how bad it would have been if one or both had taken their shirts off, much less gotten entirely nekkid.

SIGNYM

Saturday, July 19, 2003 2:31 PM

I'm gonna beat this dead horse a little more, then I'll stop- I promise!

Interesting point, which I did think about before I wrote my comment. The flip side of the coin (looking at dictatorships) is that they also operate through reward. So Hitler's right-hand men got free rein to practice their ideologies and the populace got the promise of stability, the North Korean Army gets fed, the Baathists and Communist Party faithful got the good-paying jobs, white society got their slaves, and gangs get their drug money.

My observation of human nature is that people work their best through reward, but that punishment and terror teaches avoidance and produces sloppy, inefficient work. So you need overseers and informers and henchmen to keep things running, and the more you need the less efficient your organization is going to be.

I wouldn't have changed what Niska DID, I would have changed his surroundings. His base of operations was very stark and military-looking and full of guards running around. It says; here is a man who through a group of dedicated (but not very bright) hired guns runs and entire network entirely through force.

It would have given a different impression, and I think an even more insidious one, if his base of operations looked very business-like with secretaries and junior partners just falling over themselves trying to do his bidding. THIS person knows how to reward with one hand and take with two. He brings out the evil in others! It would have made the torture scene more startling and harder to explain.

VETERAN

Saturday, July 19, 2003 9:20 PM

"But on to more serious topics. I disagree that the blue hands were too cartoonish. We saw them, what, 3 or 4 times? Did we have a chance to develop them? No. Do we trust Joss? Yes. So I would say more blue hands, not less, but always carefully timed to slowly increase our understanding of what the gloves mean, who gets to wear them, and why. "

Sounds on target to me.

SHEPHERDOFHERMAS

Sunday, July 20, 2003 1:39 AM

Being around so many medical folk during the week wearing blue gloves from time to time, I find the blue gloved men extremely eerie. If it were up to me I might have designed them to remind people of clones (but not quite) with all of them having white hair (not gray) and blue eyes, which upon closer inspection, would turn out to be Blue Sun contact lenses that would sparkle like phosphorescent algae dying in a red tide.

DRAKON

Sunday, July 20, 2003 7:01 AM

I agree with you that people work best through reward, rather than terror. Which is why the regimes of Saddam, Stalin, Hitler et.al. ultimately all fall.

Nice idea about Niska, but it depends on the character of the bad guy. Niska's headquarters was an orbiting space station, possibly a moveable one, (equivalent to a large spacecraft) We don't know if it had any weapons on it or not, or just how militarily capable it was. Space stations make for one hellacious weapons platforms, especially for planetary bombardment.

Perhaps he did not feel the need to disquise his activities, play the role of a "honest businessman" I don't know. We really never got a chance to really see enough of Niska's operation.

But I like your idea.

"my kind of stupid"

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