Things about Firefly that niggle you

POSTED BY: hughff
UPDATED: Thursday, October 19, 2006 17:39
VIEWED: 13457
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DONCOAT

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by hughff:
1. I'm not that concerned when things are against the laws of physics so long as I can ignore them when watching - suspension of disbelief and all that. eg I teach The Matrix to my 6th form and i explain how the people farming "combined with a form of cold fusion" of the machines is far less efficient than just using the cold fusion asa direct source of energy. (My first degree is in ecology.)

2. Justifying Serenity as a boat by comparing it with a submarine is clearly fanwank (nothing personal, DC). If that's so, you shouldn't call her a ship. She's a ship - she has two lifeboats/shuttles.

3. Inconsistencies between the BDM and the wonderful, wonderful series are all forced because of the need to tell a complete story for newbies who aren't aware of the on-going narrative. Sadly, this necessity is what makes the BDM inferior. I can live with them - though I agree the noisy space battle is particularly disappointing. (Actually, I don't like the BDM half as much.)

To quote somebody or other, I don't disagree on any particular point. I fully understand and accept your item 3, f'rinstance, though I do like the movie more than half as much as the series.

On point 2, though, I do disagree a little (OK, so I lied there a second ago). Calling Serenity a boat just doesn't bother me, mostly because of the submarine analogy but also because it's a common synonym in informal usage. Our BDHes are anything but formal!

And besides, some submarines (real life as well as fictional) have carried minisubs, and most carry at least inflatables. Hey, didn't you ever watch "Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea"?

Plus, my sailboat has a dinghy, but that sure doesn't make her a ship. (And many ships, especially warships, do not carry lifeboats; I don't see the relevance of that argument).

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I'm pointin' right at it!

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:31 PM

I don't want to turn this into an argument or anything since a) you're entitled to your opinion and b) well, technically you're right! But... I kinda like it when the crew call Serenity a boat! It's almost like a pet term for her, like they're acknowledging that she's a little bucket of rust that's only holds together because Kaylee loves her so. I think it fits neatly with Serenity herself.

Again, don't want to gang up on you. And I fully appreciate the fact that you're right in what you've said!

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SERYN

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by hughff:
2. Justifying Serenity as a boat by comparing it with a submarine is clearly fanwank (nothing personal, DC). If that's so, you shouldn't call her a ship. She's a ship - she has two lifeboats/shuttles.

That I can remember off the top of my head, the occaisions when they refer to Serenity as a boat, i believe its used affectionatly - much the same way as I call my dads car the wagon (its a people carrier, not a bit of canvas in sight) and my friend calls her boat 'the tub'.

tell me, do you always use the exact correct term for inanimate objects? Or more importantly, do any of the crew look like sticklers for correct terminology?

Actually, i can see someone trying to point out to Mal that Serenity is a ship and being pegged out on her nose.

With regards to the sound in space thing - Joss is a film director, not a scientist - he's not obliged to keep absolutely to the facts just to keep a small section of his audience happy. His decisions are always tempered with what is aesthetically pleasing and balanced. Too much or too little sound is counterproductive to story telling.

so cut him some slack!

My one niggle with the film is a small amount of unclear blocking - in that introductory scene in Serenity, when Mal leaves the bridge and talks to Jayne about grenades, then see's Zoe and tells her to talk to her husband, so she stop next to Jayne and says something like 'we're robbing the place, not occupying it' - I thought (not having seen the series at that point) that she was married to him - then was faintly alarmed that the short geeky bloke was cuckolding the monkeyman with all the weapons.

actually no, that was amusing, i'm not going to niggle about that.

Edit: Aw, ok, DTH and Doncoat beat me to the pet name thing.
Great minds think alike!

http://www.myspace.com/seryndippyt

ASORTAFAIRYTALE

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Canter:
I don't know if you can really call it a niggle...

Simon states right through the Firefly episodes that he doesn't know what the Alliance did to River, so he doesn't know where to start treating her, and he only found out in Ariel that they cut into her brain.

But "Serenity" starts in the Lab with a doctor explaining to Simon exactly how the process worked... and that the "neuron stripping" causes her psychotic behaviour.

He states in "Objects in Space" that he cannot understand why River should know anything about firearms, but in the opening sequence of Serenity he is informed that "she is ideally suited for military deployment...even with the side-effects".

He also explains in the pilot (Serenity) that he developed contacts to smuggle River out of the academy in cryo, but in the movie he breaks her out himself.

I can reconcile the contradictions in my mind, but maybe I misunderstood some scenes.

This always kinda bothered me too. I never really knew why Joss did that, but I just figured that it was because he would have to explain the whole thing over for the people who hadn't seen Firefly otherwise. Or maybe he just wanted to make Simon seem cooler...

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We're not telling people what to think, we're just trying to show them how.

USMCHELLRAISER

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RimGirl:
I've said it before, I don't like how easily Zoe calls Mal "Sir". She was Corporal to his Sargent. It wouldn't trip off her lips.

For the record, I call any senior enlisted I respect as a person "Sir" when I can sneak it in as a sign of respect and to remind both of us that personal respect and professional respect of rank are two different but not necessarily exclusive things. I don't say it in the crisp, formal military way, more like "Yessir" in between the usual laundry list of questions/demands that some of them put on me.

If I can "Sir" a 2nd Lt., and a civilian (which I of course, do), then I can throw a "Sir" here and there into a conversation with a man who has been faithfully serving the Marine Corps for like two decades.

Also, the Captain of any sailing vessel is regarded and addressed with respect- even if it is a civilain Egyptian tanker that comes into a gulf port harbor during a port lock-down and a VBSS team is the one talking to him.

And lastly, if you are in a volunteer rebel army to fight against the government when they start trying to take planets, I'm not sure that they went through military bootcamp or basic training with the usual lessons on military customs and courtesies. If I had to throw a rag-tag multi-planetary joint task force together to fight an overwhelming enemy, I'm pretty sure anyone with previous combat experience would become an officer. It would get worse when I had to replace the officer ranks with enlisted replacements to fill in "Combat-Related Sudden Occupational Vacancies". I'm not sure that their was an educational (ie-College) requirement to beceome an officer in the "Rebel Volunteer army.

I had a Ssgt. who used to respond "YesSir!" whenever he was called in an authoritative voice if he hadn't figured out who it was in the second between him being beckoned and himm responding.

Yoost a perspinion,
Ryan

"...let's not ruin an otherwise pleasant day with unnecessary bloodshed..."

DONCOAT

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by asortafairytale:
[Re: Simon's personal rescue of River] This always kinda bothered me too. I never really knew why Joss did that, but I just figured that it was because he would have to explain the whole thing over for the people who hadn't seen Firefly otherwise. Or maybe he just wanted to make Simon seem cooler...

Joss has stated in interviews that he originally tried to write the movie so that Simon hired people to get her out, but it was just too slow and complex for non-Browncoats to follow. So he gave him the hero role.

I'm willing to go with the theory that Simon lied about this to the crew in the series pilot, since at that point he didn't know them well enough to fully trust them. He just told them what he needed to.

The rest of the apparent inconsistencies can be explained by Simon not fully understanding what Matthias meant by such terms as "neural stripping" until he saw the scans in Ariel, and even then not knowing the implications. We can't assume Simon had knowledge of all the experimental methods that Matthias and Co. were using on River -- presumably those methods would be as secret as the Academy itself. So he really was baffled by the effects he saw in River's brain.

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I'm pointin' right at it!

USMCHELLRAISER

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Choo1701:
Quote:
2. Justifying Serenity as a boat[edit] She's a ship - she has two lifeboats/shuttles.

i think your getting a bit too in depth there. (sorry).

Joss has proved a valed piont about language, and how it could chamge in the next half millenia or so (Shiny, Humped, Gorram, Ruttin').

The first time someone made a Marine call the regular floor "the deck", a stariway in a building(not a ship!) a "ladderwell", and a wall in another or the same building a "bulkhead", I'm sure staring and blinking occured. Nowadays however, we're used to it (not that everyone does it).

I imagine the language would change at least a lot in 500 years, and something like forgetting that there's a difference between what a boat and a ship is something that might be forgotten in however long it took for the descendants of the original colonists from "Earth-that-was" to get to where they ended up, tcha-think? Maybe no, maybe so...

"...let's not ruin an otherwise pleasant day with unnecessary bloodshed..."

HUGHFF

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:07 PM

I know I'm prolongoing a debate but all this "they aren't formal" stuff is absolute nonsense. As I indicated in an earlier post, go to a port and misuse those words. People whose idea of formality extends to saying shit instead of f***ing shit will use those very phrases on you. Been there, seen it - trust me. IMO, Mal would plant someone for calling his ship a boat but never for the other way around. I't doesn't sit right with me and never can.

Edit: No swear filter - interesting. Editted for formality!

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www.nbhs.school.nz - my work

USMCHELLRAISER

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Canter:
I don't know if you can really call it a niggle...

Simon states right through the Firefly episodes that he doesn't know what the Alliance did to River, so he doesn't know where to start treating her, and he only found out in Ariel that they cut into her brain.

But "Serenity" starts in the Lab with a doctor explaining to Simon exactly how the process worked... and that the "neuron stripping" causes her psychotic behaviour.

He states in "Objects in Space" that he cannot understand why River should know anything about firearms, but in the opening sequence of Serenity he is informed that "she is ideally suited for military deployment...even with the side-effects".

I could walk up to a trauma surgeon and start talking about "neural-stripping" and if he was in a position or place where his ego/image would look bad (or if he decided to just nod and look it up later, or if he didn't care), I'm pretty convinced I might be able to get away with him not being sure what it was, or even if the term existed. The trauma doctor (Medical Officer) who referred my leg injury out to a civilian podiatry specialist didn't know what "Osteo-Chondritis Dessicans" meant, but I know for a fact that he can stabilize someone missing a limb.

Man, I wish I could walk...

"...let's not ruin an otherwise pleasant day with unnecessary bloodshed..."

HUGHFF

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:30 PM

Sounds like you have a helluva story to tell, USMC.

www.cpfc.org - my life
www.nbhs.school.nz - my work

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