How long after the series does the BDM take place?
POSTED BY: Adamwankenobi
UPDATED: Friday, December 22, 2006 02:28
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I have heard from many sources that the BDM takes place approximately six months to a year after the series. However, as any browncoat will notice, this is impossible based on lines from the series and film.
In "Trash", Mal says that he first encountered Saffron "bout a half year back". In the BDM, Mal says that Simon and River have been on the ship for 8 months. Therefore, only two months at the most could of taken place between the series and the film.
Now, this number is fine with me, although not what I would expect. But was this Joss' intention? Since he is a geek, doesn't he pay attention to these things?
Questions? Comments?
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I always figured that roughly two months had passed between the series and the movie. Six months to a year seems a little hefty for my taste. Joss has rarely left anything to chance, and he has thought of more things than the entire fanbase collectively have, So yes its very likely intentional.
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I believe Rivers age comes up in both the movie and the series... if they say the same thing I wouldn't put it past half a year. isn't she 17? I always get confused becuase of the "start with the part about Jayne getting knocked out by a 90-year old... man?". it makes me think the line is 19-year old girl, but its really 90 pound girl...
althoug 90 pounds seems pretty light for a 17 year old. . .
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I always figured it wasa couple of months.
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Well, 90 lbs is small for a normal 17 year old, but you know, River spends a lot less time eating and a lot more time being crazy than most. And in the BDM, Simon mentions something to the effect of her being 17. Actually, who am I kidding, I watched it this morning, that's what he said. Back to the point, however, I can imagine Joss, being the fanboy he is, making this calcuations in his head, and not allowing for the blantat continuity problems. So, I figure that 2 months later sounds about right. Why wait, anyway, am I right? Somebody, am I right?
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The excellent Firefly timeline ( http://www.mts.net/~arphaxad/firefly.html) has the series taking about a year, with the movie a couple of monthes later. This, of course, does not work based on the "eight monthes" line in the movie.
One explanantion I like is based on the fact that a year may not be a year. For us, a year is the length of time the Earth takes to go around our sun. However, this series is not taking place on Earth but in another star system, with presumably different periods of rotation from planet to planet. Maybe in the Firefly universe there are competing calendars with years of different lengths. So people on starships might use "Spacefarer's Mean Time" which is based on the old Earth clock. The Alliance might offcially determine one year based on the time it takes Londiniunm to go around the sun. Perhaps there were numerous other calendars used by the Independents, which are falling out of favour since the war ended.
Thus, when someone says that something happened "six monthes ago", maybe that's only three monthes in another calendar (or seven in another). It gives us a little fudge room where times and dates match up. Of course, it does make creating a timeline difficult...
Such a situation would be confusing as hell, but in my mind it kinda fits the somewhat chaotic Firefly Universe. Remember, on some farming community out on the Rim, the length of a local year is important when it comes to growing seasons, so they would want to use their own local calendar to judge the seasons rather than some official one.
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Hi Hans,I like that explanation of the timeline.Makes total sense to me.
On the subject of River's weight,I think that Wash would choose 90lbs. strictly for effect.The term brings to mind "90lb. weakling".The smaller the opponent,the more humiliating it is for Jayne to be beaten by them.Just my opinion.
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@Hans:
That doesn't really make sense. I mean, by your logic, people would be able to say, "I'm 15." Yet be 35 by our standards (or another world in the 'verse). Basically, it throws everything out of wack. How are people supposed to communicate effectively if they have to convert from calander to calander to... everytime a time-span is referenced? Doesn't make sense.
How about instead of trying to resolve obvious errors on the part of the writers by way of exotic complicated conjectures, we just accept the contradiction and move on? To me, this is the most reasonable action as people do err you know.
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I think faulty timelines is a plague scifi shows will never shake. Sadly, firefly fell victim to it as easily as all the others...
Here are a few random thoughts about the timeline:
- In The Train Job, Inara says she's been on Serneity eight months. In Buckwacked, she says about a year. People interpret this as meaning that The Trainjob and Bushwacked were four months apart. I say, that interpretation makes no sense, especially when you take into account Simon and Inara's conversation during the ring-ball game. She was more likely estimating, becuase it has been "about" a year. The time between Train Job and Bushwacked was most likely a week, perhaps a lil' bit more, but not four months.
- As for Mal's comment that he ran into Saffron "about six months back", you need to keep in mind 1) when fox aired them OMR was episode 3? and Trash never aired at all. And if it had aired, who knows WHEN it would have aired. Maybe it was supposed to go after Objects in Space, but Joss figured that between football and other sports it would be about six months... :-)
- The only time we can be certain that a signigcant amount of time passed is between Trash and War Stories because of Inara's "haven't worked in three weeks" comment. Clearly, she had work in War Stories. But again, considering the intial airing order, the fact that while Trash may have been rushed, it was probably filmed with the idea that it would be aired, someday... what does this mean? If it had aired after OiS, it could mean nothing.
Anyway, now that I am finished ranting about things you didn't ask about, into the "eight months" line...
- Joss wrote the movie so that it would be accessable to new fans. If he had written "Simon and River have been here for just over a year", it would probably have struck new fans as odd that Mal still doesn't consider them crew. A year is a long time. Eight months, I think, is just on the cusp -- just long enough so that it makes sense for Kaylee to be so upset over Simon leaving and the other crew members (Zoe, Wash) to consider them family, but just short enough that it could make sense of Mal not to have accepted them yet.
And, to actually answer the question, I think Sereity took place six months after OiS, becuase emotionally it makes sense for the characters. As for inconsistancies it creates in the timeline, I blame them all on the fact that Fox screwed with the episode order and then canceled it and therefore make it necessary to have a BDM that was written with new fans in mind in the first place, and that is were the blame belongs.
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I'm thinking that Joss didn't write Trash and wasn't thinking of that when he said there was 6 months (or so) between the show and the movie...
mostly he wanted enough time to pass for the events of the comic book to take place, and for us to imagine that lack of work, poverty, and avoiding Feds, had led to Mal getting to a very angry desperate place (leading to the tension between him and Simon)
However writing it off as a faulty time-line is only one explanation, the other is that people lie...
depending upon the situation and who you are talking to you might want to exaggerate and say you've been somewhere a year (when it has been 8 months) OR in other situations you might want to just say you've been there a couple of months (when it has been much longer)...
keeping things vague can be important to folks out on the rim.
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