Discrepancies b.w Pilot and Movie
POSTED BY: Petaline
UPDATED: Thursday, August 17, 2006 22:26
VIEWED: 12838
PAGE 3 of 4
It doesn't really bother me. It's not a stretch to think that Simon would lie about being the one to rescue River, since it would have had the crew worrying if he'd been identified and thinking about dropping him. He would have wanted to stay at least long enough to get somewhere safe and remote.
As for the changes in the characters - the movie takes place many months after the show. Book is gone. Inara is gone. Mal is in a bad, bad place. Stands to reason some of the crew are different. Especially that Simon has had to stand up to Mal once or twice if he thinks he's putting River in danger. By the time we get to the movie Mal has stopped thinking of Simon and River as part of the crew (probobly worn down by all the jobs they've had to turn down on their account and the problems that has caused), which of course would make Simon very edgy and less inclined to trust Mal.
Bottom line, I think Joss was true to the characters. And I think this is what the crew would have been like a season or two down the line. If we'd had that chance ...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Petaline:
Ok, maybe I'm missing something but isn't there a HUGE discrepancy between Simon's story of getting River out of the academy and what we see in the movie?
In the movie, Simon goes in there and gets her himself and takes her out completely conscious and all. They get on a ship and go.
But in Serenity (the pilot), Simon says some underground men got her out and she woke up in cryo. Even if Simon somehow sedated her and put her out and into cryo after the breakout, he said that he didn't get her out himself.
Was this an attempt by Joss to make Simon seem less of wuss? I mean Simon gets decked by someone in like every other episode but why would Joss have made this glaring plothole?
Please lemme know what y'all think about this.
"Sir, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing."
That part drives me nuts, but I thought of an explanation: Simon freezes her in cryo so he can wander through Evesdown docks without arosing suspicion, because there are Alliance guys there.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Instead of making things up, I decided to look at the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Tam
Which is complete crap btw, and check out the references.
This link from the references in the wikipedia article:
http://www.serenitymovie.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=766
has an interveiw with Joss in it. Here's the exert that matters.
"""
Question: Hi Joss. I was just wondering, a bit of a discrepency I might have noticed in the series and in the film. In the series, it is implied that River was smuggled *to* Simon in that chyrogenic box, yet in this movie we've seen him rescuing her. Is that just something you had to put in the plot to make it make sense to people who have never seen the series or did I just--
JOSS: -- Man, I haven't even noticed that [laughs]. It is the one place where I broke cannon, because I started to write the movie with people we have never met, breaking the material out, and I thought "My God, this is uninvolving" and realised I had to switch it for the movie to make it Simon himself who broke her out. So. My fan wank goes out as follows, he was lying about when he said other people broke her out, and I haven't gotten why yet... Im working on it.
"""
So, there you go. Joss admitts that he broke canon introducing inconsistencies in the story line.
Check your references people!
----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
Actually going by that, there's a mistake in what Joss said somewhere along the line. He claims not to have realised he `broke cannon` then a second after it says he made the change deliberately to make the film more involving, which in itself is a contradiction.
Again if you watch the series and that scene where Simon gives the story, read the book *and* see Serenity, there is no contradiction. The three do back each other up. One of the reasons I read the book was to try figure this bit out, and it all adds up just fine. There seems to be a misconception that Simon specifically said the men got River out, and the whole issue seems to come from that.
As far as the wiki goes... again, I stick by what is in the pilot (and afaik the entire series and corroborated in the book) that Simon never specifically claims OR denies that he was directly involved. His telling of the story was a quick summary for the crew, which the book elaborates on how the entire escape `went down`, and everything in what he actually says in the pilot scene, and how the book details the events does explain away this `problem` for the movie.
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I don't know if this has been said before (color me lazy)...
But to me the most striking difference between the movie and the pilot was that...the pilot seemed more "westerny" whereas the movie sorta downplayed the western style and upped the sci-fi style.
Don't get me wrong...you still get an "Old West" sense out of the movie...but I found that the asian theme and the sci-fi theme were stronger.
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Quote:
Originally posted by akredhead:
I don't know if this has been said before (color me lazy)...
But to me the most striking difference between the movie and the pilot was that...the pilot seemed more "westerny" whereas the movie sorta downplayed the western style and upped the sci-fi style.
Don't get me wrong...you still get an "Old West" sense out of the movie...but I found that the asian theme and the sci-fi theme were stronger.
I for one certainly did feel the Asian and sci-fi themes much more in the movie. A couple of the things that jar me about the movie are the hovercraft (which felt like something of an excuse to be more `high budget appearance` rather than something that fit the show or movie themselves) and the look of the cargo bay compared to the look it had in the show.
Serenity isn't supposed to be the typical clean metallic cliche and it made it seem somewhat colder and less `interesting` or homely than the TV forerunner did. The TV set felt more real and I always found it a very interesting space. The movie cargo bay felt more "average sci-fi movie cliche" and a somewhat more boring place to be because of it.
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On the question of whether Simon knew of River's psychic abilities when he denied them to the crew:
Sure, he heard what Dr. Matthias had to say on the subject, but why should he believe this little-girl-torturing nutcase about anything? I can hear his thought processes now--
My god, he actually believes she's a "reader"; I bet he believes in Reavers and haunted spaceships too. He needs to lay off the tabloid broadwaves...
But Simon knows enough about people to realize that if folk think River is a "reader", she'll be in additional danger. So he discounts the evidence of his own eyes. After all, if the experiences of "Safe" (I.E. her accurate readings of the mute girl and the village elder) didn't convince him of her abilities, then nothing would. I don't think he was lying to the crew in this instance so much as he was lying to himself.
Call him Tutankamen. He's the king of denial.
By the timeframe of "Trash", he's come to accept River's insights, although not so deeply that he'll defend the idea to others, and by the events of the BDM, he'd had the truth forced down his throat too many times to continue his self-deceipt. Simon's basically a rationalist; pile enough empirical evidence in front of him, and he'll accept it.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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Just a random little bit from rewatching the pilot. River's line "I didn't think you'd come for me."
Kinda supports the idea that *she* thought Simon had rescued her...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Unseen:
again, I stick by what is in the pilot
As do I, as well as with what is in the movie. I see contradiction b/c with what Simon says coupled with how he says it, makes the statement (paraphrase), "I paid people to get her out and they brought her to me."
To say the Simon has the talent to lie to the crew is also ridiculous as he is clumsy at best in any situation that we've seen him in outside of a hospital; he is very bad under pressure not medical related.
Sure he'd so anything to save/protect River, but he is always clumsy about it.
Quote:
Originally posted by Unseen:
...
(and afaik the entire series and corroborated in the book) that Simon never specifically claims OR denies that he was directly involved.
Going in such a political direction will get you no points here. Give me logic i.e. not having him directly say one way or the other doesn't give you anything to argue with. You must specify where he says one way or the other.
Also, the english language is far more than just words. It is also about how they are said, body language, etc. Simon gives every indication that he had no involvement besides funding to get River out, and again, he is a very poor anything outside of medicine.
Also, River's comment may have nothing to do with Simon actually being there getting her out, just that he in the end is who she saw, so it's a reasonable assumption to assume that he "got her out."
But then again, someone who wants no contradiction will use that comment as evidence when no evidence is there. It can go either way.
Quote:
Originally posted by Unseen:
His telling of the story was a quick summary for the crew, which the book elaborates on how the entire escape `went down`, and everything in what he actually says in the pilot scene, and how the book details the events does explain away this `problem` for the movie.
But, not the problem for the series. You can't say best out of three and have it end there. You also can't expect everyone to have gone out and read the book. I haven't nor do I plan on it; it is just an "on the side" thing.
The fact of the matter is that Joss changed several things from series to movie. A rememberence of history is probably in order here.
The way Mal is in the aired pilot is NOT how he wanted him. Go download the original unaired pilot (download link in the archives) to see the original Mal. Right in line with the Mal we see in the movie. Which Joss changed him back to b/c Universal allowed him to.
Universal also allowed a change in history to allow a simple story telling of River's escape and a simple introduction to two of the involved characters.
There is almost no Chinese influence anymore, and that we replaced with a Japanese influence. The architecture of Serenity herself changed and the grimy look that she had in the series is gone (she was actually shiny in the movie).
etc, etc, etc.
All in all, I found a lot of the stuff in the movie forced.
As an end comment, I really tired of bringing the history of how things happen up again and again, b/c people forget order and need things to be all neat and tidy; no contradictions. Even if it means stretching things beyond reason.
Joss has done it, many on this board do it and I'm tired of all the bullshit when it comes to this. I'm tired of the pissing contest when it comes to the "But I remember more/have read more about FF/S than you so I know better." i.e. Just because people have read more, does not mean they know more, nor does it mean they understand more.
Plain simple fact, Simon says one thing in the series, a different thing happens in the movie. Anything else is just fanboy-ism.
I've leaving this tiresome, pointless argument, good-day.
----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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I always figured he just lied in the pilot. People do that sometimes ive heard.
You can’t stop the Signal.
Keep spreading the word about Firefly!
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