Objects in Space

POSTED BY: Da
UPDATED: Monday, April 5, 2004 12:10
VIEWED: 9786
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DA

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 9:16 AM

Ok, let's just say that for more reasons than one that I understand River. The fractured thought process the being able to see into people's emotions and have that manifest itself the way that Joss presented it.

However, I'm having one small problem.

As we start out the episode we are following River through the ship. And as she enters each room at least one person notices her before she gets her "reading" on them. Simon, Kaylee, Jayne and Mal. That's all well and good however, did no one notice her carrying the big 44 auto in her hand? No. Because she wasn't carrying it.

::sighs:: Now she runs to the cargo bay and steps on the twig (I have on more than one occassion picked up something and thought that it was something else) then we flash to outside River's reality and wham there's the gun. Okay. But how did the gun get there? It is completely inconsistant that Jayne would somehow leave his precious weapons laying around and since we followed River on her entire journey through the ship, when did she have time to stop break into Jayne's stash of weapons, load it, take it down to the cargo bay, leave it there and then happen upon the twig at a later juncture?

This is what is bothering me. Anyone have any insights that I'm missing?

Imagery aside, how'd it get there?

BARNEYT

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:15 AM

I think there's an amount of time fracturing here as well as everything else! The reason she's not seen carrying the gun when she passes each of the rest of the crew is because at that point she isn't - she gets it after then, and before we then see her in the cargo bay.

Either that, or she isn't actually 'there' when she's reading the minds of the crew...

I'll have to go home and watch the episode again, see if I can decide!

---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

JENTLE

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 12:07 PM

.... Those are both possible, I guess, but I don't know that I buy either of them...

I'd like to get your input after you review the episode.

I'm at a loss, personally. I don't know how the damned thing got there, but I didn't see anything that suggested to me that it was River's doing.

But then it also doesn't make sense that Jayne would be careless with his firearms, so I dunno.

-------------
Every well-bred petty crook knows that the small concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting.

CALHOUN

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 12:28 PM

I think the "space monkeys" moved Jayne's gun.

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 9:24 PM

As I recall, River was mind reading the crew, and as a visual interpretation of this, we saw River walking around the ship. That may have been where her mind was, but her body was elsewhere.

Jayne was in the kitchen, so I'd say River wandered over to his room, got the combination out of his head, opened it up and stole a shiny.

She clearly didn't recognise it as such on her "concicious level" (the twig), but I'm thinking some heavy duty Manchurian Candidate hard wiring was involved and it some how kicked in a bit to send her off to locate a weapon.

"I threw up on your bed"

THATWEIRDGIRL

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 9:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Misguided By Voices:
As I recall, River was mind reading the crew, and as a visual interpretation of this, we saw River walking around the ship. That may have been where her mind was, but her body was elsewhere.

Jayne was in the kitchen, so I'd say River wandered over to his room, got the combination out of his head, opened it up and stole a shiny.

She clearly didn't recognise it as such on her "concicious level" (the twig), but I'm thinking some heavy duty Manchurian Candidate hard wiring was involved and it some how kicked in a bit to send her off to locate a weapon.

I agree with you here. Her mind was somewhere else and did not realize she had the gun until the crew pulled her back to their level.

I need to watch the Manchurian Candidate again, it's been awhile. Thanks.

www.thatweirdgirl.com

HIGHIRON02

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:11 PM

I agree with you here. Her mind was somewhere else and did not realize she had the gun until the crew pulled her back to their level.

You should consider other imagery of this film sequence. River is standing alone in a very serene place filled with trees, fallen leaves and of course the branch that she steps on. Once the branch snaps, it suddenly has her complete attention. She picks up the branch and studies it. She says "It is not what you think. It is just an object." That would suggest that while she percieves that it is just a branch, she knows on another level that it is something else.

Suddenly the scene changes. What we would consider to be reality, is swiriling and chaotic as the camera pans about the cargo bay. She is suddenly lost. A deer in the headlights, so to speak. Mal takes the gun.

Mal says to River, "No touching guns!" To which she replys, "She understands, she does not comprehend." This would suggest when she is lost in her mind, she has little percption of other things.

The previous episode (War Stories), after playing with Kaylee, Simon finds her distraught in her bed. She tells him that after the drug treatment that for a while she surfaced toward reality, she hates it because it won't last. After a while reality becomes chaotic (apple bits) and she spirals back into that safe and tranquil place in her mind. Unfortunately this is also the place where her nightmares reign unchecked.

We got you partially surrounded

LJOSALF

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:48 PM

Ah, yes, the fully-loaded, safety-off, honkin' big hand gun. Yes...Well...Here's my take: River wasn't the person meant to find the gun, but, since she didn't kill anybody, no harm done. No, someone wants Mal and the rest of the crew to mistrust Jayne, enough maybe get him thrown off the ship, maybe even before landfall. My money is on Book and when River reads him as saying, "I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not. So, where does that put you?" Book is in fact referring to Jayne even though he apparently is civilly discussing aspects of the religious life in realtime.

Why would Book want Jayne gone? Well, here are two possibilities: first, perhaps Book is indeed a Shepherd but is also a member of the group that helped Simon get River out of the Academy. Maybe, he suspects Jayne sold the Tams out on Arial; maybe he's just tired of Jayne trying to get Simon and River off Serenity one way or another and believes that they are safer staying aboard. Second, perhaps Book is an Alliance operative (as has been suggested elsewhere recently). Jayne has voiced a great number of questions about how Book knows what he knows and can do what he does in the way of the non-religious life--e.g. Niska's reputation, identifying sniper rifles by the wounds that they make, expertly handling a weapon in the firefight to get Mal back from Niska, and so on. Jayne's always asking questions and it would certainly be easier to maintain cover if Book didn't have to deflect this sort of attention or come up with reasonable answers (like the discussion with Jayne about celibacy).

Just a thought.

Ljosalf

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

RANGER

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:51 PM

I think the key to this is in who River gets readings on. She gets input from everyone but Kaylee. In the end, she finds the gun, which is the thing which changed her relationship with Kaylee.

I think River is trying to find her place on the ship. In her effort to read Kaylee she remembers the gun and ends up in the same place with the gun that she was in with Kaylee with it. This is her mind trying to understand her relationship with Kaylee.

We still don't know how powerful River is. Perhapse she stole the gun from Jayne, or perhapse she simply "remembered it" and brought it to herself psycicly.

Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.

LJOSALF

Thursday, April 1, 2004 12:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ranger:
I think the key to this is in who River gets readings on. She gets input from everyone but Kaylee. In the end, she finds the gun, which is the thing which changed her relationship with Kaylee....This is her mind trying to understand her relationship with Kaylee.

I have to disagree here. Too subtle; too static. It's clear that River isn't invisible for real but only because no one expects her to be able to interact normally, and, so, they don't pay any attention to her. She walks past them all and no one acknowledges her presence. She is, after nearly a year aboard, alienated. No special powers required for that just plain human social interaction. From the commentary, we get that Joss wanted us to think that he would test the envelope, so to speak, by making us believe that River had discorporated and become Serenity when in the end he really had no intention of going that far out there. Psychic, mind-reading powers, OK. Destroying/creating matter; possessing inanimate objects, not so much. So, I don't think we are going to see super powers from River. Only, really well thought out, fallible, pushed mental abilities--like the mind reading.

So, I'm sticking with the gun getting to the cargo hold in a normal, everyday manner, and here are the people who did NOT put it there: Jayne (I believe him; there is evidence of the care he takes with his weapons sprinkled through several episodes), Mal (no point to him doing this; his is meant to be the audience's point of view), Kaylee (I except her character at face value; I just do), Simon (contrary to his personality and profession), River (just did not happen; what, she put the gun in the cargo hold and then rediscovered it? Nah, not buying it). Maybe not Zoe or Wash (They both appear to jump on the blame Jayne train only after Mal cuts Jayne off when he starts in blaming River as dangerous, leaving the impression with them that Jayne's done something else wrong in regards to River to piss Mal off.) Maybe not Inara (to what purpose?). That leaves me most suspicious of Book.

Besides, you get tension and a plot hook to boot. Whereas the issue of River working through her relationship with Kaylee is pretty much resolved by the end of the episode.

Ljosalf

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

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