Is Firefly the best sci-fi series ever?
POSTED BY: Darkfly
UPDATED: Friday, August 18, 2006 22:38
VIEWED: 16347
PAGE 5 of 7
jolly wrote:
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I don't see that being "simple folk" and being outlaws is mutually exclusive. The crew have willingly and knowingly joined an enterprise which regularly pulls heists (including armed robbery in the movie) and runs contraband. Simon and River are already outlaws when we first meet them, though for reasons not of their own choosing. During Serenity's travels to the outer worlds, we see many other "regular folk" that apparently make a living through other means. Kaylee is something of an enigma to me; I understand why she stays with the crew, but I'm not completely clear why she would join in the first place (perhaps "knowingly" didn't apply in her case?).
I don't disagree that Whedon's crew is easier to identify with than those of some of the aforementioned shows, though I'm not convinced that every character in Blake's 7 was a psychopath (though I admittedly haven't seen the show in at least twelve years).
One similarity that Blake's 7, Farscape, and Serenity all have is that the protagonists acquire something that the powers that be desperately want, and which makes it inevitable that they will draw the attention of those powers. In the first two shows, the object is a powerful spaceship, while in Serenity it is River...
Good points in general, and I admittedly know absolutely nothing about Blake's 7 (other than my wife's heartfelt, "It was horrible!"); but I think you may be subtly misrepresenting some of the Firefly characters' motivations. So, I'll let them speak for themselves...
Zoe: "At last. (deadpanned) We can retire and give up this life of crime."
Inara: "Right. You're a criminal mastermind. What was the last cargo we snuck past the Alliance to transport?... They were little geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled!"
And then, the Captain himself sums up his 'just doing whatever it takes to get by, not intentionally victimizing others' philosophy, thus:
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You stuck a thorn in the Alliance's paw. That tickles me a bit. But it also means I got to step twice as fast to avoid them... And that means turning down plenty of jobs. Even honest ones.
Put this crew together with the promise of work...(metal clanking) Which the Alliance makes harder every year. Come a day there won't be room
for naughty men like us to slip about at all.
This job goes south, there well may not be another...
So here is us, on the raggedy edge.
Taking the Alliance payroll job didn't victimize any of the common folk (Robin Hood figure), as Mal takes great care to explain.
As far as River and Simon being on the boat, there's every reason to believe that Mal would have steered clear of them had he known the trouble they were in:
"(To Dobson's unspecific "bound by law") You -- what -- the doctor? Oh! (indignant at Simon) Hey! (hopeful, to Dobson) Is there a reward?"
-and-
"Not to worry. We can hold Lord Fauntleroy in a passenger cell. Won't make a peep til you hand him over to..."
Mal only changes his tune toward obeying the lawman when Dobson says he holds Mal and everyone else on board culpable, to which Mal responds, "(icy calm) Well now. That has an effect on the landscape."
Finally, River and Simon may be wanted by the Powers That Be, but they have broken no laws. No codified laws exist regarding the escape from clandestine medical research facilities engaging in human vivisection. These 'PTBs' are twisting the enforcement arm of The Law to serve their own ends, but some of what is so 'weakening to their regime' is the now-public knowledge that the Government itself is the outlaw, not the Tams.
So, in closing, I'll reiterate that Firefly's characters are identifiable to ourselves. Pick a line of dialogue, any line (in context), and you will see their commonality with the rest of us trying to get by "on the raggedy edge". And if the Law gets bent on occasion, that behavior never compromises Mal's ultimate law, his own sense of right and wrong.
(NB: ...With one exception. Care to name it?)
Respectfully,
zoid
P
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Well, now..."best"? I dont think I'd put it best, but frankly, I'm hard pressed to name what is the best scifi show aired.
Now, understand that you should take my opinion with a grain of salt - after all, I'm one of about 10 people who actually liked Enterprise, and if you include Space:Above and Beyond, that narrows the list down to about, well, me.
With that said, yeah, I was initially turned off by the idea of cowboys in space. You have an ex-Confederate soldier out in the Wild West with his band of desperados, etc. etc. Change that to an ex-Indipendent soldier out in the rimworlds with his band of misfits, etc. etc. and youve got Firefly.
But there are a couple of ways where FF really scores well as scifi. For one thing, they pay attention to physics. Remember ep. 1 when the Reaver ship flips over and descends into the atmosphere? Yeah, a spaceship that doesnt move like a plane. And doesnt go WHOOOOSH ZAP! There isnt sound in space. Someone mentioned C.J. Cherryh a few posts back - she writes hard scifi - scifi that pays attention to physics. And when the laws of physics are broken, everyone says 'what the hell? Thats not possible! How did they do that!'
Its not better than Bladerunner, which is the standard I judge media scifi. Science fiction asks 'what if' and then builds the necessary universe around that question. What if we had the ability to create humans in a lab? What kind of a society would have to exist? How would the Replicants feel about this? What structures would exist in society to deal with this new technology (4 year life span, Bladerunners).
FF is science fiction - what if there was a society based around creating an ideal, utopian civilization. How would they go about it? What would be some of the consequences? Who would be harmed by the process? Would people try to resist perfection?
Is FF better than the other leading brands? Many of the oldTrek eps were better for scifi, because they werent being written by staff writers, but by scifi writers. But, clearly the acting is better in FF.
Battlestar Galactica was too 70s. And Buck Rodgers...no. So 70's it was even too 70's in the 70's.
Dr. Who is hard to compete with - production value was minimal - why exactly is the galaxy overrun by badguys who can be defeated by pushing them over? Where the ultimate defense against them is stairs? But the writing was tight, and you loved the characters - who doesnt remember Romana and Leela?
Thank you, who ever first brought up Blake's 7. I think I've see the majority of those shows on PBS way back in the day - very very much like FF, except rather than being on a cargo ship, they were on one of the most powerful battleships in space. Ok, you've got more ships, so we'll run, but you better catch us with all of them at the same time.
Bab 5 after they hired Bruce great stuff, far better than any of the newTrek that was out at the time. Might not be as good as FF, though great great fx.
Farscape - I dont have cable, so I've only caught a few eps - and they've all been brilliant. I think Farscape might be a bit better than FF.
Futurama - everyone leaves out the funny stuff, because no one takes humor seriously - but solid writing, likeable characters, and we got screwed by FOX again. So it had to be good.
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." -Terry Pratchett "Night Watch"
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Great post GrrrArg, and pretty much sums it up perfectly.
The question of the best sci-fi show ever aired will always be a tricky one, as everyone will have their own personal opinions. As I've said before, Firefly had the potential to be one of the best, if not the best.
But that's about all that can be said for the moment - the movie added greatly to the series, but still left a lot of character development to be achieved. (Leastways in my opinion, lol).
I know it's been posted that Firefly was always going to be a tragedy, in many ways like a Shakespearian play.
But I think to achieve that, it needs more to bring it to fruition. Probably oversimplified, but Shakepeares plays generally pick an underlying theme, be it revenge, jealousy etc., and let the central characters explore that theme to its final tragic conclusion.
I don't personally feel that Firefly was allowed to mature long enough for that to happen. They weren't fighting for a cause as such and weren't fighting the Alliance - they were just trying to eke out an existence on the frontiers of space.
They had lines they wouldn't cross, for example returning stolen medicines, but other than that they were essentially wild west outlaws.
Serenity the movie did however show how the series could develop, with Mal taking a stand against the Alliance. And it would be interesting to see how that develops (if Firefly is ever resurrected as a show).
It would also serve to show how Zoes character develops. Will she stay stoically calm, or seek vengeance against the Alliance. (It may not have been the Alliance that killed her husband, but their actions created those that did).
In particular, it would be interesting to see how the broadcast revelation affected Alliance worlds, or whether the Alliance would just use PR tricks and deny the authenticity of the broadcast.
The only problem is, it probably left the Alliance wanting Mals blood. And as Serenity isn't a warship, and there's no organised resistance to the Alliance (that we yet know of), it seems unlikely that Mal & crew could stay out of Alliance hands for very long. And that's just being realistic, as Serenity isn't a Millennium Falcon that can outrun enemy ships, nor a Liberator (Blakes7 ref again) that can outrun or outfight virtually anything flying.
But then, the series could evolve with a dedicated resistance of 'browncoats' still wanting to fight the Alliance. I think the movie has intrinsically changed the characters, and it'll be interesting to see if another movie or series is ever forthcoming, just to see how Mal & Co fare.
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I pretty much agree with you totally Dinalt.
Just remember Browncoats FOX are Oh Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze(you don't want to know what that means but if you do go to Browncoats.com then go to the Chinese translations then to the episode Safe.
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Things are about to get interesting...Define interesting...Oh GOD oh GOD we're all going to die.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Darkfly:
I pretty much agree with you totally Dinalt.
Just remember Browncoats FOX are Oh Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze(you don't want to know what that means but if you do go to Browncoats.com then go to the Chinese translations then to the episode Safe.
Yep, that sums Fox up pretty well.Thanks Darkfly.
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Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
...if the Law gets bent on occasion, that behavior never compromises Mal's ultimate law, his own sense of right and wrong.
(NB: ...With one exception. Care to name it?)
Okay, I'll take a stab at this. It's when Mal allows himself to be seduced by Saffron (Our Mrs. Reynolds, of course). He even concedes he's going to that "special Hell" for succumbing to her... special charms. And I loved him for it. Yep, you read that right, I loved the character's human weakness. A tragic weakness of the space dimension variety.
As for more examples of non-displaced loyalties: bring 'em on! Because I'm still trying to work out Inara's loyalty, which I don't think is as simple as it seems. She ain't just in love with the hunky feller.
Sigh, to reiterate the desires shared by so many Browncoat wannabes: we require another 120 or so episodes to resolve these issues to their inevetably tragic, yet oddly humourous, conclusions.
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Quote:I believe it's actually flat out said at one point, certainly implied (Two last super powers). Anglo-Sphere was used to describe English speaking Nations, coined by Churchill, so it's not beyond belief Anglo could mean American, especially given Britain was absorbed into America prior to the exodus in the Backstory.
Originally posted by zoid:
P.S.
I still don't understand why it's assumed that The Sino-Anglo Alliance consists of Chinese and American co-hegemony; "Anglo" means English, and at least one major capitol is named Londinium, the capitol of England's ancient Roman name...
Besides we know all you Yanks realised you made a mistake and want to be British again...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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OVC states that it is the remaining Superpowers, America and China, who join together to evacuate Earth and colonise the new system. Always wondered if this was a bit Bladerunner, and just left the really poor and religiously awkward to die on a suffocating barren world. (morbid much?)
Zoid - so, you have a theory on why Jayne joined the crew? Be interested in that, see if it's like mine.
Ooh, C J Cherryh fans, too. Anyone like the 'Foreigner' sequence?
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Well, being something of an Anglophile, I wouldnt mind so much being a brit, or at least Canadian (better people, better food, and better beer, why move around the world when Eden was so near?) - except after watching one of the Monarchy eps. Or any military campaign from about The Seige of Boston to the beginning of the 20th century. "Say, heres a good idea. See that U shaped valley with the Russian cannons on all sides? Why dontcher ride right down the middle of that? Good show, what? Off you go now, lads!"
Still, from a political sense, it makes more sense that its an American-Chinese alliance. I believe its in the bonus material in the DVD where they say its assumed that only 2 superpowers are left at the point everyone leaves Earth - China and the USA. That doesnt imply GB - that might imply that our allies are part of an American political bloc, and chief among these are the Brits (What? We left the French on the launch pad? Um. Oops. We...didnt...mean to. Honest.).
Now, someone brought up the point that one of the cities is named Lundinium, the Roman name for Lugh Dun, modern day London, as a proof that Anglo refers to England, not the US. Here I can speak with some amount of professional knowledge, since I'm a geographer - its a good point, since often names are given based on where the the settlers were from - Plymouth, Boston, Worcester, Glouster - all brit placenames in Massachusetts. But sometimes geographers, not settlers, name stuff - and we're an over-educated lot. So naming cities after ancient Roman cities might appeal to me and mine - I already know the first two names I'd give Martian colony sites: Bradburyville and Columbia City. But surely some Martian city would be named Vern - a brit, but the name wasnt placed there because it was british.
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." -Terry Pratchett "Night Watch"
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Er...I mean, "wouldnt be placed there." Yes. This is what I meant to type.
Damned temporal paradoxes....
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." -Terry Pratchett "Night Watch"
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