Hey- interesting discussion concerning Firefly at a Trek site...

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, July 13, 2009 13:47
VIEWED: 7578
PAGE 3 of 4

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE

CHRISISALL

Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Yersinia:
(and oh yeah also get something twixt my nethers that don't run on batteries..heh heh!)

Oh GOD! I can't KNOW that!!!

The laughing Chrisisall

BLACKOUTNIGHTS

Friday, July 10, 2009 2:35 PM

I'm reading the forum over there now. Just reached the point where Yankster Boy (Laser Beam) wrote "depiction is advocacy" which has caused me to have an aneurism.

Haven't read on yet, but that kind of thinking scares the crap out of me and is what, if the mass majority ever started believing that, could result it ultimate censorship. I wonder what he thinks of Farenheit 451????

Depiction is NOT advocacy!!!! Some really great stories have been told through the eyes of the bad guy.

Oh, and let us know how yer bf likes the series, Ysermianiabba

"Keep Ted Turner and his gorram Crayolas away from my movie!"-Orson Welles in the verse.

MAL4PREZ

Friday, July 10, 2009 4:31 PM

Glad to see so much Firefly love amongst the Trekkies. That Yankee fan guy is a hoot. According to him, the Alliance isn't perfectly successful because it's written that way, while the Federation works because... well, that's just reality!

Silly.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

ZZETTA13

Friday, July 10, 2009 5:27 PM

Just did a quick thought survey of the history of the civilized world and nowhere has there ever been a leading powerful government that has led their populous astray. I mean come on people! At no time has any parliament, I mean governing body told the peoples of their nation one thing while they secretly did another. Yepper LB has to be right, no one would ever do that!!

Z

Likely a F*>< exec

YERSINIA

Friday, July 10, 2009 11:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by Yersinia:
(and oh yeah also get something twixt my nethers that don't run on batteries..heh heh!)

Oh GOD! I can't KNOW that!!!

"Call me if anyone interesting shows up..."

YERSINIA

Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by zzetta13:
Just did a quick thought survey of the history of the civilized world and nowhere has there ever been a leading powerful government that has led their populous astray. I mean come on people! At no time has any parliament, I mean governing body told the peoples of their nation one thing while they secretly did another. Yepper LB has to be right, no one would ever do that!!

YES! Exactly! (oh, and Z, I totally love your sarcastic-ironic style!) That's one of the reasons why I head over into Nice Clean Trek (TOS/TNG/VOY) when I'm in "I need to get on the road to Utopia" escape from reality mode because I just read the news of what's happening in the real world (world politics in particular) and something or a lot of somethings left me especially disgusted -- because, unlike real world events including, even though I'm a US natural born citizen, what IMO are bad/scary decisions made by the govt of the United States (or DS9, where they have an organization within the Federation like Section 31), you don't see the Federation deceiving its citizens (though of course you do see the bad guys killing and destroying, all so very nice black and white isn't it?).

And that's also another reason I love Firefly since IRL I do NOT trust, respect or admire my own nation's government or the society I live in (I'd leave if only there was someplace better to go, but I don't think anyplace in this world is any good) -- a lot of it for the same reasons why Mal joined up with the Independents to fight in the war against the Alliance -- not to mention what River said in the movie too, "meddlesome" -- which I actually see as a type of government which is actually a valid depiction of the kind of government we could really have in the future. When I see Mal and his crew living so rebelliously (up to and including harboring fugitives who aren't on the run because they're actual bad guys, such as wanted killers or rapists, but rather because one rescued and is trying to protect the other, his kid sister who was violated by their government!) -- for me that is an INSPIRATION, which is another reason why I love Firefly so much.

The Federation as depicted in TOS/TNG (not VOY: it's not depicted there at all really since the Voyager crew is stuck out in the Delta Quadrant away from the Federation) is the unrealistic wish I'd have for what I'd WANT the govt and human society to be like in the future, but the Alliance of Firefly is what I see as much more likely for future humanity to actually GET. Thankfully I won't live long enough to see it come true.

~Yersinia.

"Call me if anyone interesting shows up..."

CYBERSNARK

Saturday, July 11, 2009 2:32 AM

Exactly. Part of the conceit (in writerly terms) of Trek is that human society has changed (into something that actively selects for those positive qualities that Mal & company-who-aren't-Jayne typify.

As Captain Archer said: "a handful of very brave people realized that they could make a difference."

In the Federation, it's people like Mal, Zoe, Simon, River, Kaylee, Book, and Inara who are running the show, while the Badgers, Niskas, and YoSaffBridges end up pushed to the rim/arrested/in counselling. Jayne. . . Well, Jayne wouldn't fit anywhere, really.

. . . Which means he'd probably be an admiral or in politics.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

ZZETTA13

Saturday, July 11, 2009 2:40 AM

Yersinia

Very interesting read you have there. I don’t want to come across as not liking or not having enjoyed Star Trek. I love the show. Fact is my sister has the entire box sets of the original series….and I have her first box set at my house right now ( I’m getting my youngest son turned on to the show).

My warped way of thinking tells me that those in power view everyone as enemies, not just the people on the other side ( kinda like in the TERMINATOR) I mean when you have people in the same city or living alone the same shoreline not trusting or getting alone with one another why should I expect the powers that be to trust their own citizens enough the tell them their secrets? Just ain’t gonna happen.

Power and control are things the ruling class mean to keep…..and if a few browncoats have to die then so be it. I do feel that most of the Alliance folk are good and decent people. It’s just the verse superiors in power are afraid of loosing control. One way to prevent this is to coral all planets and moons under one rule, ONE VERSE ORDER. That way the only information getting out is what is deliberately fed to the consuming masses and we are way to smart for then to fool us aren‘t we?

I do believe that LB on the Trek board was just arguing for arguments sake….when someone gets like that there’s just no arguing with them. You can’t ask a blind man to see the light. So he didn’t like Firefly…to each his own, he has the right. But he never came up with a good reason why IMO. Like Chris said, "just a purplebelly" that if the mayor of his town told him to move from his house because in his million dollar neighborhood property values were low….he’d do it.

Z: question everything

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 11, 2009 9:01 PM

I'm just heartened that such a lively (albeit smallish) discussion could show up on such a popular board (I got some folk angry by sayin' Firefly was what DS9 wished it could have been...).

The laughing Chrisisall

YERSINIA

Sunday, July 12, 2009 6:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BlackoutNights:
Oh, and let us know how yer bf likes the series

As I suspected, showing him Firefly WAS the righteous thing to do! I showed him ALL of it -- the entire series from top to bottom yesterday (we watched it from 7-something AM till 9:30 PM, only walking away from the TV set once -- we had to run out to Home Depot so I could buy fuses). Then we talked and talked about the episodes themselves, and the Verse at large. Then this morning, we watched the movie and talked more.

So what did he think of it?

In General:

1. He enjoyed it big time and was shocked that such an intelligent, well-written, versatile show like that got cancelled at all, much less after only one season, and he wishes it could/thinks it should come back somehow. (I told him I'd joined this forum and about how the fans had reacted to the cancellation at the time and what it took to get the movie even, and that while the series started and finished in 2002, the movie didn't come out until 2005, so alas, I personally don't recommend we hold our breaths waiting for more. ::sigh::)

2. He totally loved the Verse and agreed with me that this is a much more likely scenario of humanity's distant future than the one depicted in Star Trek.

A Few Other Reactions I Found Interesting:

1. Shepherd Book with that Mysterious Past/having all that knowledge about things one wouldn't expect from a preacher (and an identification card which got him lifesaving treatment in the Alliance medical facility) -- he told me Shepherd Book made him think of Garak from DS9. I mention this because Garak is his favorite character (maybe tied with Captain Sisko) in DS9.

2. Yup, he would've been a Browncoat in the war, he loved the guns and the heists, the living "under the radar...at the corner of No and Where), and yeah, agreed with me that how Kaylee and Jayne got to become Serenity crewmembers did slightly resemble and (only just barely LOL) beat his own history of "Weird Ways to Get a Job." (his work history is very colorful.) But, no surprises here.

3. In "Shindig," as soon as the swordfight between Atherton Wing and Mal started, he exclaims to me, "He's just playing with him!" (OK, he's got a friend who is a master SCA swordfighter, who he has gone to watch in fighting practice many times...so this ep inspired a lot of sword tech-talk LOL)

4. The instant Mal first saw Saffron in the cargo bay in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (but before she said a word even), he said, "she's his wife, isn't she?" But yeah, finding out what Saffron was REALLY up to (after Mal kissed her and passed out) did surprise him, and he enjoyed the surprise.

5. He was also amazed by Summer Glau's range as an actress -- all over but notably in "Shindig," the scene in the cargo bay of River talking to Badger (one of my very favorite scenes, and we watched it twice together). And yes, he loved her dancing in "Safe," too. Her fighting in the movie just totally blew him away (exactly as it did with me).

6. For reasons that are too personal (and way too lengthy) to explain in here, the relationship between Simon and River (plus River's alternating psychotic/lucid streaks) hit him seriously "close to home" (we had to pause the DVD and talk about it on and off during various Simon and River, and just River scenes in the series). Although River is one of MY favorite Firefly characters and I knew that (a) he'd relate/find them fascinating, and (b) I remembered those certain aspects of his past, since we had discussed them at length 5-6 years ago (and it occasionally continued to come up now and then), I was really surprised at the connections he made between that and those past events of his own life. It inspired a lot of novel discussion between us, and even though we've been together 6 and a half years, it made me feel as though I got to know him even better!

7. I knew he'd like the music (which thoroughly enthralls me, personally), but he talked about it how excellent it was way more than I expected him to (

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE