How long after the series does the BDM take place?
POSTED BY: Adamwankenobi
UPDATED: Friday, December 22, 2006 02:28
VIEWED: 12236
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Okay, I've got $0.02 to throw in.
At first I thought the eight-month figure was off too, especially given Joss' public statement that the movie took place six months after the end of the series. But let us remember that this is the same man who couldn't get Buffy's birthday right on her fricking headstone. Creative genius, yes, mathemetician, no.
Originally assuming the broadcast episodes to cover roughly one year, I shrugged off the eight-months line as a possible misreading of "Eighteen months" (although this interpretation would require River to be "a mentally traumatized eighteen year old girl", vice seventeen.) I've done some refiguring since, though and while events aren't exactly a loose fit, it is possible to wedge things into the eight-month timeframe.
First off, I'm going to assume that units of time in the 'Verse mean the same thing that they do in the present day. If the worlds of the 'Verse had random rotation periods, varied local calendars would make sense, but these rocks have all been terraformed to a set standard.
The length of the "local year" would vary greatly, due to different orbital periods around the sun, and keeping track of it would be important locally for the sake of seasons, planting periods, etc., but days, weeks, months, and "official year" would all be consistant across the system, in much the same way every time zone on Earth is calculated against GMT.
On to the timeline:
There are no major clues to elapsed time in "Serentity Pts 1&2", "The Train Job" or "Bushwacked", but it's safe to assume that at least a couple of weeks had elapsed betwen the Tam's arrival and the end of "Shindig". Roughly a month passed between the events of "Shindig" and "Safe", as is stated in the script. That a minimum of a month and a half right there.
In "Trash" Mal states that Saffron married him "Half-a-year back". That can be considered an approximation--people round dates off all the time, especially if there's been a New Year in the meantime. Allowing a large fudge factor, that's anywhere between four and eight months. If we go with the smaller figure, that's still a minimum of five and a half months since the Tams signed on.
After "Trash" we have the events of "The Message", "Heart of Gold" and "Objects in space". Not many time clues in any of them. As with the first three episodes, I'll assign an arbitrary figure of two weeks as a reasonable minimum. So that's an even six months so far.
After the broadcast episodes we have to allow for the events of "Those Left Behind" (The comic book story), which Joss has stated is in continuity. This means we have to allow enough time for Mal to contact Badger and be assigned the bank job that goes South at the start of the story, plus all the events following. Call it another week at minimum. So six months and one week so far.
"Those Left Behind" concludes with Inara departing Serentity for the training house, and Book's announcement that he, too, will be leaving (Although his actual departure is not shown.)
The following events must take place between the events of the comic book and the beginning of the BDM, although not necessarily in this order:
1. Book's departure for the Haven colony.
2. The overhaul of Serenity (modifications to the cargo bay and landing gear, and purchase of the new Mule, both presumably funded by sale of the Lassiter--maybe Mal should have spent some of that on new entry couplings for the primary buffer panel...)
3. As mentioned above, time must be allowed for Mal to broker and achieve sale of the Lassiter. I presume the above repairs would not be begun before Mal had the liquid assets to do so. There's potential for a good story or two in these events -- perhaps even explaining why the above overhaul was necessary -- but right now we're just worried about time elapsed.
4. Contacting Fanty and Mingo and getting assigned the Lilac job.
You might manage to get the events of numbers 1,2, 3 and 4 done in a month and three weeks, although it would be a s
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Okay, time to put on your "science geek" hats kids. The first thing to remember is, time is relative. Example: On Earth, a day is 24 hours long because that's how long it takes this planet to perform one full orbit around our sun. On Jupiter, a day would be longer because it takes Jupiter longer to orbit the sun than it does for Earth to orbit the sun.
In the film Men In Black, they got around this conundrum by creating "Galactic Standard Time", meaning you could conceivably use the same measurement of time regardless of where you traveled in the 'verse. In Star Trek, they simply had Kirk use a different Stardate when making his entries in the ship's log at the beginning of each episode, thereby acknowledging the fact that time is directly related to the specific location in the galaxy in which you happen to find yourself.
Therefore, each of the terraformed planets in the Firefly 'verse would most likely have to create their own standard for the passage of time based upon that planet's orbit; a calendar on Persephone would probably be very different from an Earth calendar. Keeping this in mind, Joss Whedon could use this to his advantage when attempting to chronologically explain the various events that occurred within the Firefly 'verse, and that the length of a month on Serenity is not the same as the length of a month in Kansas.
Hey, I'm just sayin'... 
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There is the issue of local time vs. ship time. Shindig and that "10 in the morning" line. That's like switching time zones on this planet. Maybe there's some slippage depending on how far you go physically from the core?
Ships' clocks could be set to capitol standard time, and then have to adjust to local variations. That could throw off reconings by days to weeks. Probably not months, but it's a big 'verse. Of course Mal could be keeping time using Shadow's calendar for all we know.
We can say "Less than a year" with some certainty.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zombie61:
Okay, time to put on your "science geek" hats kids. The first thing to remember is, time is relative. Example: On Earth, a day is 24 hours long because that's how long it takes this planet to perform one full orbit around our sun. On Jupiter, a day would be longer because it takes Jupiter longer to orbit the sun than it does for Earth to orbit the sun.
Don't you mean one full rotation on its axis? A full orbit round the Sun is a year... A day on Jupiter is actually only just under 10 hours as it rotates faster, but its year is just under 12 Earth years.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cruithne3753:Quote:
Originally posted by Zombie61:
Okay, time to put on your "science geek" hats kids. The first thing to remember is, time is relative. Example: On Earth, a day is 24 hours long because that's how long it takes this planet to perform one full orbit around our sun. On Jupiter, a day would be longer because it takes Jupiter longer to orbit the sun than it does for Earth to orbit the sun.
Don't you mean one full rotation on its axis? A full orbit round the Sun is a year... A day on Jupiter is actually only just under 10 hours as it rotates faster, but its year is just under 12 Earth years.
Oops, you're absolutely correct. Thank you for keeping me honest!
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River was 14 when she was taken to the Academy according to the pilot episode. According to the River Tam sessions she was there at least 146 days and Simon refers to she "was" 14. And then Simon says for "two years I couldn't get to her". She's 16 at the beginning of the season... and on Serenity she's 18.
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In the BDM Simon refers to River as a "traumatised seventeen year old girl".
In the pilot, he says that "she was fourteen" when she left for the Academy, and that after he started investigating "for two years I couldn't get near her".
Of course, Simon could have been lying in the pilot...
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i don't mean to sound ignorant and ask a stupid question, but what does BDM mean??
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Quote:
Originally posted by browncoatsaway:
i don't mean to sound ignorant and ask a stupid question, but what does BDM mean??
Big Damn Movie.
BD
I think that Mal's grip on time is less than stellar, and we shouldn't take anything he says as an accurate timestamp.
mrben
"Carpe Aptenodytes"
http://www.jedimoose.org
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In the movie Mal says to Simon "Eight months, you've had her on my gorram boat, eight months" or words to that effect
That means the movie is happening 8 months after the start of the series
edit: Unless Mal's just plain wrong (read: Whedon's inability to add up has made its way into the script again 
)
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