Controversial Mal characterization
POSTED BY: SpaceAnJL
UPDATED: Saturday, January 3, 2009 06:12
VIEWED: 42749
PAGE 4 of 12
(Thank you safeat2nd!!)
I'm with you jetflair, about the movie. Hey, I like it, but so many things were different - had to be different - that I prefer to stick with the series as canon. Of course, I think there's plenty of dark Mal in the series, enough for me to build off in my own way...
As for the new mule - wasn't that stolen in the comic book? They certainly did drive around in a yellow hovercraft, and that can't be a coincidence.
Oh - I also have some forced retraining sort of thing happening for Mal after the war, though in a very different way than we're talking here. But I looove the idea of Mal being forced to telemarket. oh my gawd, the fun that could be had with that...
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Quote:
I'm
Oh - I also have some forced retraining sort of thing happening for Mal after the war, though in a very different way than we're talking here. But I looove the idea of Mal being forced to telemarket. oh my gawd, the fun that could be had with that...
I can't wait to read your take, as I'm sure there will be angst involved ;)
Mal being forced to telemarket.....oh, it is fun indeed. So hilarious that I've already written parts, when I just want a good laugh. I haven't decided on his actual job yet....but it will be something like that. I'm thinking customer service - because I can actully see Mal being able to sell staplers, but can you even imagine him in customer service? :snickers just thinking about it:
My particular favorites right now are when Mal gets invited to the company picnic to benefit Alliance war orphans, and a scene where Mal's manager decides to write him up for his "bad attitude."
Just thinking about his reactions makes me want to start laughing out loud. Mal's take on employee recognition programs plans to be entertaining too ;)"Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you when she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home." .......We love you, captain.
"This is the captain. We may experience some slight turbulence and then.....explode"
www.serenityverse.com - Zoe necklace replicas, Serenity dogtags, jewelry, image gallery w/ custom DVD covers, other goodies!
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Quote:OK - you're making me think of Dead Like Me - a surly grim reaper trapped in cubicle hell LOL! Happy Time!
Originally posted by jetflair:
My particular favorites right now are when Mal gets invited to the company picnic to benefit Alliance war orphans, and a scene where Mal's manager decides to write him up for his "bad attitude."
Mal in this situation will be priceless. I can't wait to see it, jetflair!
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I was under the impression that the hovercraft was the new mule. It would seem to me to be the kind of thing that they could never have afforded during the series, and Malcolm is starting to worry about keeping the crew fed, let alone Serenity in the air in the movie. Those Left Behind gives no mention of it.
I don't think.
Kaylee: "What's so damn important about being proper? It don't mean nothing out here in the black."
Simon: "It means more out here. It's all I have..."
http://manwithpez.livejournal.com
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I agree with Jetflair's view of Mal in the movie, and for this reason I'm a little nervous of Joss's enchantment with the darkness of Battlestar Galactica. I love the Character of Mal in Firefly, and want to see more of THAT character if any. The world already can be a pretty dark place, we don't need to deliberately make it darker. What we could use is an example of how someone who's been through hell pulls his humanity back together again when he's had every reason to lose faith in life and love. That's the show I want to see. That's the show the world could use right now, not one that just shows how screwed up people are capable of becoming. We already know that.
Even the most successful and decorated heroes from WWI and WWII complained of nightly nightmares for the rest of their lives. I grew up with combat veterans of WWII and knew instinctively there were missing pieces to them. Then in the 1980's and 1990's I watched as homeless people appeared from thin air and then learned that 70% of all the homeless people then were Viet Nam vets. Now with the current conflict in the Mideast we will have another generation of people with damaged minds and spirits. Firefly, as with any good scifi, lets us look at the same old problems from new angles. And Mal and Firefly would have been a brilliant example of survival in the face of overwhelming odds. The necessary anti-hero for the times.
Could Mal ever be happy? I hope that's one of the reason Joss cast Nathan for the role. Can you imagine a more consistently optimistic, upbeat person? I certainly hope Joss was planning a recovery for Mal - slowly and painfully but realistically - before he killed him off. Could the Mal that was evident in the first few minutes of the pilot ever return? In some form, that's what I'm waiting for. Remember him hugging Kaylee so joyfully in Ariel? He's still in there - somewhere.
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Whew! Great posts guys!
Just a quick comment. The Mal in the movie may not be the one we came to know and love in the series, but it is a much more realistic portrayal of an antihero that is living on the edge with not a whole lot to live for.
I think Joss explains it best by saying that Mal is pulling him self apart. Shit happens; Inara leaves (romantic dream shattered), Book moves on (loss of a friend/confident), life with the Tams (need I say more), loyal crew questioning (Zoe and Kaylee). Life has taken a turn, Mal reacts and goes into survival mode.
The Mal of the film is not the weekly serial wise-cracking hero of TV, where issues like life and death are resolved between commercial breaks. This is a much grittier and realistic look at how this character would react under these kinds of circumstances, living this kind of existence.
Living on Serenity, not so fun anymore because life settles in and stays for a long visit.
So...same character, we just see more of his darker side.
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yeah i agree on this -
except just to note in general
that a lot of fans seems to play down the darker elements of Mal's character as seen in FireFly
even as others downplay the humour in Serenity (BDM).
i don't see a WHOLE acre of difference -
just a subtle shift - something closer to what Joss probably intended pre-Fox meddling..
but it plays for me as harmoniously as a second season vision
(what does everyone make of the comic and its version of Mal?)
just like the shifts in characters in BTVS or Angel - never exactly the same from season to season... and i'll stop there before i just repeat what you've already said.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:Quote:OK - you're making me think of Dead Like Me - a surly grim reaper trapped in cubicle hell LOL! Happy Time!
Originally posted by jetflair:
My particular favorites right now are when Mal gets invited to the company picnic to benefit Alliance war orphans, and a scene where Mal's manager decides to write him up for his "bad attitude."
Mal in this situation will be priceless. I can't wait to see it, jetflair!
*snickers* Guess I'm not the only one with a very sick mind, then. I'm now thinking of Kevin Spacey in 'American Beauty'...can I join in, too? I have a whole raft of madness dammed up.
Alt. scene - can you imagine Mal (or Zoe!) forced to flip burgers at Mooby's? (I just have this vision that that was the fry-cook opportunity Wash got fired from - he'd fit in so well with Randall and Dante...)
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Isn't the next comic set called "Serenity: Better Days " ?
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Quote:
Originally posted by jetflair:Quote:
I'm
Oh - I also have some forced retraining sort of thing happening for Mal after the war, though in a very different way than we're talking here. But I looove the idea of Mal being forced to telemarket. oh my gawd, the fun that could be had with that...
I can't wait to read your take, as I'm sure there will be angst involved ;)
Mal being forced to telemarket.....oh, it is fun indeed. So hilarious that I've already written parts, when I just want a good laugh. I haven't decided on his actual job yet....but it will be something like that. I'm thinking customer service - because I can actully see Mal being able to sell staplers, but can you even imagine him in customer service? :snickers just thinking about it:
My particular favorites right now are when Mal gets invited to the company picnic to benefit Alliance war orphans, and a scene where Mal's manager decides to write him up for his "bad attitude."
"Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you when she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home." .......We love you, captain.
"This is the captain. We may experience some slight turbulence and then.....explode"
www.serenityverse.com - Zoe necklace replicas, Serenity dogtags, jewelry, image gallery w/ custom DVD covers, other goodies!
Jetflair,
Snicker, then laughs out loud. I'm thinking Mal would be more than a bit like the character of Peter Gibbons in OFFICE SPACE, just fed up with the whole thing and plotting revenge on Bill Laumbaugh(the boss) by hijacking the year 2560 computer virus to line his own account. I can't wait to read this.
Oh, and being forced to wear 37 pieces of flair.
I was incredibly bored at work Friday and quickly wrote a few paragraphs of "Mal Happily After". Nice soft bed, waking to sunshine every morning to a very willing and sweet Inara, 2.5 kids, prosperous ranch. The worst thing in his life is the 4 year old running screaming into the bedroom just when he wants to have morning sex with Inara.
It was just so sickingly fluffy and sweet that it put me into a sugar high. I don't think it'll see the light of a computer screen again.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
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