There is no continuity error with River's rescue.

POSTED BY: Adamwankenobi
UPDATED: Thursday, July 13, 2006 18:54
VIEWED: 14272
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22CLAWS

Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:47 AM

I always assumed the account of River' rescue in the pilot was amended with caution for the crew. I should admit, I saw the movie first.

The average fox has 16 claws.
22

CHRISISALL

Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AlienZookeeper:

Me-
Liked the last Robocop best of all. That whole thing of stripping a man's humanity away and him eventually getting it back...

Most folk miss that part of the story while they're ripping on the flick for not having Peter Weller or the 'F' word in it.
I liked the film immensely, and think it's such a shame that the director (Fred Dekker) took a career hit for it's lack of financial success.

You call me Roboisall

CHRISTHECYNIC

Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:32 PM

Look lower.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:32 PM

I'll admit that I hit submit twice, why are there four posts?

CHRISTHECYNIC

Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:32 PM

Lower still.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by nirwin:
Then in the BDS, when she is released from Cryo she is positively shocked to see Simon.

If that was shock then I take back every single thing I ever said about Summer being a good actor.

I don't want to do that but if her reaction to Simon was supposed to be shock ... well I don't have a choice do I?

When I saw that scene, long before the movie was even being considered as a possibility, I thought that River's distinct lack of shock was showing that even disoriented, naked, screaming, and in a strange place she could quickly adapt to accept new information, that being the presense of her brother.

I didn't think she'd seen him before, but I certainly didn't think she was shocked to see him.

Quote:
She wasn't that disorientated after the suspension of cerebral functions.

I agree, in the pilot she was out of it for ages, after suspension of cerebral functions she was perfect after a quick puke.

The series makes it very clear that recovering from cryo is more difficult than recovering from being dead.

Simon has no problem with the idea of operating sensitive equipment after being dead, but even as late as The Train Job Simon still thinks that River will have trouble recognizing him and forget that they are on a ship.

Obviously Simon, an accomplished doctor, believes that one is FAR more disorienting than the other.

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As for the continuity, well first off Simon is dishonest to the crew constantly.

Throughput the series, especially in Trash, Simon acts as if he knows that River is psychic (according to the movie he did) and yet in the last episode, Objects in Space, he tries to steer the conversation away from that, never flat out denying it, but refusing to say it is so much as possible. Even then, after all that time onboard, he's still being less than honest with them. It is a lie of omission I admit, but those are the best kind.

Second this is what I said in another thread:

Quote:
Originally posted by me:
There is no need for Simon to lie, if he [Joss] has adopted that stance I don't see why because it would imply layers of complexity far beyond what we have seen in the movie and the series.

Too much complexity in my opinion.

I mean I see why you would want to say he lied, it implies he is inept which works towards furthering the character, but it also means that something he said must not have been true.

So
Either he was not contacted by men
Or they were not underground
Or they were not a movement
Or they didn't say she was in danger
Or they didn't say the government was playing with her brain
Or they didn't ask for funding
Or they didn't say they could get her out
Or they didn't mention cryo
Or they didn't say they’d bring her to Persephone

Well he was in contact with them so they must have contacted him even it was a reply instead of initiation.
We know that they were underground.
We know that he paid them.
We know that they got her out as part of an orchestrated plan (so they must have said they could at some point.)
We also know that they told him about the conditioning.

That means the only things he could be lying about are:
The men being a movement
Them saying she was in danger
Them being involved in the cyro bit
And
Them bringing her to Persephone

If they were not a movement it hardly matters much.
If they didn't say she was in danger it still doesn’t make much of a difference.

That means that the only reason to say Simon was lying is if the people who got River out were not involved in the cryo bit and/or getting River to Persephone.

This means that there was an entire as yet unrevealed and indeed unhinted at leg of the journey. Simon was involved with some other group of people who either got him the cryo equipment or passage to Persephone, or both.

Why make that assumption? Isn't it so much easier to assume everything he said was true?

This was in response to someone saying that Joss said that he has adopted the stance that Simon lied even tho

SHINYSEVEN2

Friday, June 23, 2006 3:18 AM

As far as I'm concerned, IT'S ALL ABOUT SIMON, which is why I think of the movie and the series as being different canons. I think the real clincher isn't Serenity the Pilot--it's Ariel. Look at the way River acts when they're running away from the Blue Hands Men. If she's a trained psychic assassin, it sure is news to her. She doesn't really "switch on" until War Stories.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, June 23, 2006 4:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by shinyseven2:
As far as I'm concerned, IT'S ALL ABOUT SIMON, which is why I think of the movie and the series as being different canons. I think the real clincher isn't Serenity the Pilot--it's Ariel.

I always thought that Ariel was the best argument for continuity, I mean that's where you really find out that Simon trusts River's not-natural senses. He immediately assumes that she knows exactly where she's going in spite of the fact that it is impossible for her t have that knowledge. It, combined with Safe, Trash, Objects in Space, and a few other episodes, makes it so easy to believe he knew she was a psychic all along.

Quote:
Look at the way River acts when they're running away from the Blue Hands Men. If she's a trained psychic assassin, it sure is news to her. She doesn't really "switch on" until War Stories.

I think that's the point. In the series by the end of Objects in Space we are left believing that she has been trained as a combination psychic assassin for two years and yet she knew nothing about it until she killed the people in War Stories.

In the movie, if we take it as a different continuity entirely, we are left to believe that she was trained, mostly while unconscious, as a psychic assassin for an unknown amount of time and yet knew nothing about it till she was triggered eight months later.

If we combine them we end up believing that she was trained as a psychic assassin (Objects in Space+Serenity the movie) for two years (Serenity the episode) but displayed no physical skills in this regard (the first 9 episodes) until she killed three people with her eyes closed to save a friend (War Stories) and still didn't know the full extent of what happened and what she learned while it happened until she'd been there for a total of 8 months at which time she was triggered (Serenity the movie.)

-

My point is that I'm confused how her not knowing about herself in Ariel is significant since the series made it clear the episode after that in spite of what she didn't know she was well trained and, perhaps more to the point, the movie made it seem that she didn't know until she was triggered, which was well after Ariel.

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--
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I'm not trying to shoot down your idea or change your mind, I just really fail to see how it implies discontinuity.

When you combine the two you don't get a situation where she knew and then she didn't know and then she knew again, you get a situation where she was worked on in her sleep, she slowly came into the realization of what was done to her as she progressed from shying away from the sight of a gun (Serenity the episode) to killing people with her eyes closed (War Stories) and from saying whatever she found out with her psychic ability even when it could get her killed (Safe) to using that ability to gain the insight needed to skillfully manipulate a dangerous person (Objects in Space) and finally after she's managed to start getting it all down life does what it does best, it mucks it all up.

I see a progression, not a contradiction. I also see someone doing a nice job of cobbling two things together as seamlessly as is believable (when it gets too seamless it even smells fake) when it could have been a train wreak. All Joss had to do was have the work done on River when she was awake and it all would come crashing down, but he didn't do that. And I'm really confused as to why you think the movie implies it wouldn't be news to her in Ariel.

SIGMANUNKI

Friday, June 23, 2006 5:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Adamwankenobi:
Many have claimed that Simon's description of River's rescue in the BDS and the rescue depicted in the BDM conflict with one-another. This is not the case. The two actually mesh together quite well if you really think about it. To see what I mean, read my article on Simon Tam on Wikipedia ([url] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Tam).

Don't have time to argue nor read the entire thread. I'll just point out that you removed the contradiction by not mentioning it.

ie what happened in the BDM goes against Simons speech in the aired pilot ep.

Sorry guy, but this just doesn't cut the mustard.

If you wanted to resolve the issue "correctly" you should just cite that Joss himself has stated that Simon lied in the aired pilot. Which IMO is a rather trite and pathetic explination for wanting (having to?) rewrite history.

My guess, since you registered after the BDM came out, is that you want to keep what you find exciting, etc as "correct" (ie from the BDM) since you probably saw that first, instead of going according to the "RL" chronology.

bah.

----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

SHINYSEVEN2

Friday, June 23, 2006 1:28 PM

replying to christhecynic: the series has an arc where both River and Simon become more accustomed to and more comfortable with violence, and also an arc where they gradually are accepted and become part of the crew. Then the whole thing re-sets in the movie.

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