So, what happened here...

POSTED BY: FlipDog
UPDATED: Friday, January 20, 2006 22:06
VIEWED: 12050
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DC4BS

Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:44 AM

But Kaylee already HAS her baby... Serenity.

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dc4bs

MISBEHAVIN

Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by PrincessRohannen:
...Whedon realized (correctly, I believe) that the danger wouldn't seem as real if we didn't actually watch one of them die. That death put a seed of doubt in our minds: "If he can die, then any of them could. Who's gonna get it next?"...

And it worked perfectly. I saw the movie without knowing Firefly, but came to love the crew by the time that certain character died near the end. I thought, "This is going to end really badly. No one's getting out of here." That's what sets the work of this guy above the rest. Joss said somewhere that he plays hardball with his characters.

JOELIST

Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:38 AM

I have to disagree that the movie neglected character development, to the contrary there was a LOT of it.

Mal is, so to speak, alive again. The whole Miranda episode, propelled by the death of Book, has revived in him the sense of purpose he had lost in the war. You could even see it when he took the controls at the end of the movie; despite the deaths he seemed more confident and content.

Simon and KayLee are finally together, and each compliments the other perfectly.

How about Jayne doing something not for the $$$ at the end of it?

Zoe has issues she will have to face about losing Wash; we saw them a bit in the fight with the Reavers when she got wounded in part because she was out for revenge.

Then there is River. We saw two big things happen in the third act (when the crew were trying to hold off the reavers in the passageway):

1) River did freak out from all of the Reaver minds impacting on hers, but she was able to get control of it and compose herself, something she had never been able to do before. She actually came out of it without anyones help.

2) When River went to get Simon's medkit, got trapped with the Reavers then destroyed all of them, we saw something else totally new for her. In the barfight she was triggered by a subliminal message and in the gunfight in war Stories she was not really there, so to speak.

Against the Reavers, she was fully there and put herself into combat mode. She also got herself out of it when the Alliance forces finally broke in the compartment.

I think that the combination of knowing what the images in her mind are and Simon's medical treatments have given River a new measure of self control.

FLIPDOG

Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:54 AM

I agree with that a lot, as posted before. Though I tend to see, with the exception of the freakout, River as okay when the truth is revealed on Miranda. She throws up and says "I'm fine." and then reiterrates it, I think meaning, she's truly fine, because what's been tearing her up inside has finally been released.

As for the thread itself discussion. I don't need to lead the way. Many of my fellow Browncoats have already done so by creating a great discussion about character development.

SINGATE

Thursday, January 19, 2006 5:34 AM

I can't imagine River is going to be 100%. Better yes, but from Simon's analysis in the diagnostic lab on Ariel and what the doctor at the beginning of the BDM says on neural stripping there is no way she is in top form.

It is good to see her doing more than cry and sputter crazy thought fragments. And before anyone freaks I do like her character on the series.

I think her mental state is still going to be a very complex tangle and we all want to see what else Joss has in mind for her.

WILDHARE

Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:07 PM

True.. but I love the visualization of the vomit scene. That she is expelling something from inside that had to get out. It was a great exclamation point to the moment.

As for you leading the way, I’m all for someone bringing to the table something interesting to talk about. I for one believe it is pointless to spin our wheels in the hole of will they wont they make another move/show. Time in the end will answer that question and for now we have 13 episodes and a movie.

"They tell you 'never hit a man with a closed fist,' but it is, on occasion, hilarious."

- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

JERRYT

Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:52 PM

I think another moment when something clicked in place for Mal, was during his speach to the crew before leaving Miranda. He says along the lines of "the Alliance wants to make people (pauses a beat and looks right at River) better, and I don't hold with that."

I think that at that moment Mal realises the answer to the question Jayne asked after the bar fight when he asked Mal, "why did you bring her back on the ship?", and he didn't have an answer. Why he has been protecting River all this time even though it has been a danger and burden to the ship and crew. He realises that River is as much a victim of the Alliance as the people of Miranda were. The Alliance is still trying to make people better and/or using them for their own ends.

JerryT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'll be in my bunk"

CHRISPV

Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:05 PM

Well, with regards to River, I don't think that "normal" was ever an option. I'm going through the novelization, and a good point is brought up. River is a genius far beyond anything rational, and couple that with her psychic abilities, and she can basically learn and know anything almost instantly. Have you ever considered what a mind-numbing bore life must be under those circumstances? Just to keep herself going, she'd probably devote much of her intellectual thrust to contemplating the kind of philosophical questions of meaning like we get with the whole stick/gun incident in Objects in Space. When literally everything is an open book to you, from physics to human thought, you will by definition see the world very, very differently. River's basic conceptions of the mind and reality itself are fundamentally altered from the average person's, with or without Alliance tampering. Personally, I'd lay good odds on the biggest thing the Alliance did to her mind was strip away the pretense and defenses. We're seeing what goes on in her head, uninterrupted, like a literal stream of consciousness. It's River, without social niceties. Hopefully, after Miranda, she's going to able to bring some of those niceties back, if only for her own sake.

As for Mal, I think he's not as bad as he likes to think he is. He can make cost/reward judgements about others in proper military fashion, such as the guy he shoots during the Reaver raid, but when it comes to the crew, he's a softie. Kaylee is right, he is fundamentally a nice man. After all, he wasted quite a bit of time getting all of those people into the vault in the BDM. And he was willing to negotiate with the fellow down regarding the best injury to impress the Alliance with. I think the BDM just shows us a desperate Mal, trying to keep food on the table for his family, failing, and still reeling from losing the woman he cares for and the man who acted as his surrogate father figure/conscience. He's still that generally good man, but he feels like he's floundering.

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, Fox!

WILDHARE

Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:05 PM

Good point, I never thought of that.

Thanks for mentioning it.

"They tell you 'never hit a man with a closed fist,' but it is, on occasion, hilarious."

- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

CARTOON

Thursday, January 19, 2006 5:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SameErtia:
Cartoon, I think you're missing my point.

Oh, I excel at that.

No, seriously, I got your point, and I wasn't disagreeing with you. I think a baby would complicate the story (were it to progress). I was just saying that they wouldn't have to go to extraordinary means to bring a baby into the story (if that were their intention), as Zoe could already be "with child".

My statement was not an endorsement of that possibility, just stating that it might be so.

"I was aimin' for his head."

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