Poll: When Crow goes through Serenity's engine...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, March 5, 2009 18:50
VIEWED: 13685
PAGE 6 of 9
After Serenity, my first taste of the series was the last of Ariel, from the killing of the guards/cops to escape the hospital. When Mal whacked Jayne, I didn't know what was going on, but I could tell this show warranted further watching - easy to do since it was a scifi marathon.
So watching TTJ wasn't that much of a shock to see Crow kicked, after also seeing Dobson in Pilot an hour before.
Mal wrenching Jayne was the moment of shock for me. What? What happened? What IS this? What's going on?
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What Crow said was incredible cliche. It is also the whole reason why it was so funny. Mals response changes the whole scene from incredibly cliche to one of the funniest moments of my life.
You don't need to justify Mals actions because it is just one classic Firefly moment of many that go's to prove why it is so superior to all the other boring and actual cliche crap we are presented with on TV nowadays.
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Quote:
Originally posted by asarian:Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
What I loved about it was the setup. Joss completely fooled me. Crow says his bit about "I'll dog you and I'll be everywhere and when you least expect it..." and I rolled my eyes because I thought it was such a cliche, "I thought this Whedon guy was suppose to be different? He's just setting this guy up for guest stardom nirvana, we'll be seeing his mug for the next..." And then whooom!
When I showed Firefly to an outspoken pacifist lady friend of mine, she went like: "Oh, you can't do that, it's murder!" And she thought it was out of character for Mal. I was mildly annoyed, like everyone's making a fuss while this is just an hilarious moment. Truth be told, though, she's probably right. Crow's 'Last thing you'll see is my blade' speech is so incredibly cliche, that killing him is made to feel comical. But this is not exactly the "If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed." Mal, is it?
PIZMO - Yeah, that would've been a great pay-off ("great - same old formula cra-...hmmm, shredded Crow..."). When I first watched that ep I was recovering from some major surgery, and really didn't know what to expect. But I had already, through my low-key opiate haze, seen Mal dispose of the "Dobson problem" in the premiere, so I can't say that seeing Crow go through the uprights of Serenity's engine was a huge shock.
ASARIAN - I see your point, but if you're inclined to give partial credit, Crow was awake and he was facing him...2 out of 3, and all...
It was like that when we got here!
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when crow goes thru the engine nothin' major happens.. now if it was a canadian turkey it might chock and smoke... :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by WASHnwear:
ASARIAN - I see your point, but if you're inclined to give partial credit, Crow was awake and he was facing him...2 out of 3, and all...
Fair to say. :)
Now, I know it's all 'Crow/air through the egine,' but been thinking some more about Niska's muscled doorman, and the psychology of it all. Here's how I see it now.
Firstly, Mal had no intention to kill Crow at first when calling the deal off. Mal, being the Captain and all, always (when even instinctively) thinks ahead a few steps, and he realized, better perhaps than he let on, that Niska is not the person with whom to frak:
ZOE
He's a psycho, you know. Niska.
MAL
He's not the first psycho to hire
us, nor the last. Do you think
that's a commentary on us?
Mal cracks a joke, for sure; but, internally, he's well aware of how dangerous Niska is, and probably rather not deal with him, 'cept the situation is as it usually is: they don't exactly got their pickin's of jobs. So, far as Mal is concerned, he'd part ways with Niska, clean as possible:
MAL
Now this is all the money Niska
gave us in advance. You give it
back to him, tell him the
job didn't work out.
Mal is not stupid. And I'm sure he realized that, sooner or later, the wheel which never stops turning would bring around Niska again. But Crow ain't playing ball -- quite the opposite, even. And I think at that point Mal flipped a switch. He had tried to do the honorable -- be it highly self-motived -- thing. He offers the guy a fair way out, for both of them, and what does Crow do? He deliberately screws up the deal, pontificating in Mal's face how his blade will be the last he's gonna see, and yada, yada, yada. To Mal, that just ends the deal -- and all 'courtesies' that go along with it. Not that he's really worried Crow will make good on his threat, per se (after all, he knows it's Niska really who is the real threat); but to Mal, a man who has exactly no time for games, Crow is simple wasting his time from here on out; and since Crow turned down his offer to play nice, Mal also no longer feels honor-bound by it, and through the engine Crow goes -- easy-peasy. :) It's said here before: Mal at least tries to do the honorably thing. But he ain't no saint. Test his sainthood, and you'll find it remarkably absent. And, kinda life he's leading, he can't exactly afford sainthood, either. "Man of honor in a den of thieves." sums him up so well.
Mal also let Patience live, btw. And she shot him, no less (be it due to a perfect legit conflict of interest). Still, even when threatened, I still think Mal will choose not to kill, unless someone deliberately throws away the deck and it's clear there're no more cards left to play (like Crow did; after which Mal swiftly takes action).
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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There were three moments in the pilot and the train job that sealed the deal for me in terms of becoming a FIREFLY fan.
1) The "Kaylee's dead" statement/joke from Mal in the Pilot. I assumed that Kaylee would be the likable throwaway character to get us invested in the show and then - wham.
2) The bit with Patience (I do a job and I get paid) - getting the cashy money but letting her live.
3) The Train Job - Mal returning the medicine - but kicking Crow into the engine sealed it.
My reaction vis a vis CROW: GASP -
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I laughed... but then I came out of the psychopath's closet a long time ago.
To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
--Francois Mauriac
It's fuzzy-minded liberal thinking like that that gets you eaten.
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1. Shows that Mal has an...interesting...moral compass [GG].
2. Shows that Mal can take a more muscled guy than him with a little help :-).
3. Sets up nicely for bad guy #2 capitulating.
***
BTW, Andrew Bryanarski = alive and well and not showing any adverse after effects of his shredding!!
Devout Keeper of Jayne's Lunchbox
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For me, Mal's moral compass takes a detour when Book and Inara have left the ship and Mal starts using River on heists as we see in "The Other Half" and
the BDM.
I get the need for resorting to violence wrapped in necessity in killing the "bad guys", but to use a traumatized underage girl and expose her to carnage and suffering explores a new level of darkness in Mal.
There's just nothing humorous or heroic about it and it always bothers me more than Crow, Dobson, etc. It makes me feel bad for both of them, especially after their cutie moment on top of the ship in OiS.
Mal gets back on track by the end of the movie when he goes from a blatant threat aimed at the Operative to his love talk and her flying lesson on the bridge, now that's sweet and poetic, and the Mal we all know and love.
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I get the impression that River isn't actually part of the job in The Other Half. She seems to be there because Mal needed Simon to stabilize that murdering whoreson, and just got caught up in a bad situation. She was there just in case, not for any specific reason.
Although for the Payroll Heist on Lilac, yup, she's an active part of it... Though I don't think Mal anticipated the Reavers showing up. If they hadn't, it probably wouldn't have been all that traumatic an experience for River, because Mal wasn't planning on killing anyone. He even spares the guard of the secret vault.
Technically in The Other Half, he says outright he didn't expect the Reavers there, either. I seem to recall that in his own way he apologizes to River for ending up involved, too. He doesn't verballize it, but the way he talks to her at the end is an attempt to see if she's all right with what happened.
I do get what you're saying, and I agree. Someone as sensitive and psychologically/emotionally fragile as River should NOT be involved in some of the nastiness of the crime they have to do. And I agree that Inara and Book leaving marks a dark time for Mal (without any moral compass? Maybe, though dark as Mal can get, I don't yet see him abandoning his own conscience at least).
But on the other hand, being that River's psychic, and considering their lifestyle, the hardships of the Rim, and their luck's track record, it seems to me like it'd be pretty much impossible to protect River from being exposed to unpleasantness. That's not to justify intentionally exposing her, but just what I think is the reality of the situation.
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