So... a higher body count if Firefly went the distance on TV-?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, August 14, 2010 03:21
VIEWED: 14189
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CYBERSNARK

Friday, August 13, 2010 12:01 AM

Yeah, Mal's "awake, facing me, armed" line in the pilot pretty much had "foreshadowing" written all over it.

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

TWO

Friday, August 13, 2010 2:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by pennausamike:
The body count was already too high.
I'm rarely entertained by writers who have to kill beloved characters to make a point.
It is a cheap shot for the writer to tell his audience, "Look at me! I can kill 'em all!"

The better writer can carry his characters through troubles without seeming cliche or trite.

I don't care for Joss' prediliction for killing characters; totally ruined Dr. Horrible for me.
I wanted to see Dr. Horrible turn his "evil" against phony do-gooders, not see a light-hearted romp turned into a THUD! morality tale.

Killing off beloved characters in light-hearted action tales:
It's not clever,
it's not insightful or enlightening,
it's not commercial.
It satisfies a niche audience at the cost of greater acceptance.

Firefly appealed to a larger audience than the BDM Serenity, in part because its sensibilities were lighter at the behest of FOX.

Joss would have made us mad by ending Firefly with the crew dying in a radioactive fireball when they heroically crash head-on into the Reaver Mother Ship at max velocity. I can imagine the news conference at ComicCon about the significance of the final episode. Jayne narrates the final episode because he survived, like a rat, by abandoning ship.

“I'm in your face, Christians,” explains Joss as he shoots them the metaphorical finger. “The best you can hope for is a bittersweet death, with morphine for the pain, followed by existential nothingness of non-existence.” It's too pretentious for TV but perfect for a comic book convention crowd.

Or Joss could go flabby and give Firefly a Lost-style final episode where Mal's old enemies and friends meet him in the, so called, interdenominational afterlife and all Mal's heartbreak and anger are forgotten. That does not require Joss to completely abandon his principled atheist schtick of murdering major characters to demonstrate again and again that God is a myth.

“Are there any Buddhists in this crowd?” Joss will ask at ComicCom. Several hands will be raised. “Sorry to say: there's no reincarnation, either. Get over it!”

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

BYTEMITE

Friday, August 13, 2010 2:14 AM

There's some who think that everything after Out of Gas might just be Mal's dying dream.

LAUREN779

Friday, August 13, 2010 2:19 AM

Had the series gone on, I would of hoped that they wouldn't have killed anyone--at least not until the third season, and even then I can still see Book being the first to go.

However, personally, one of the things I thought made Firefly great was the cast and the chemistry they all had. If they killed off Wash in season two, I can't see it lasting another season. I think with Inara dying, and the crew having near close calls with death would satisfy me.

And if they had to kill a character in season two, my vote would go to Yo-Saff-Bridge.

TWO

Friday, August 13, 2010 2:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
There's some who think that everything after Out of Gas might just be Mal's dying dream.

Stop with the crazy theories inspired by Inception. They hurt my brain.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

CHRISISALL

Friday, August 13, 2010 3:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Stop with the crazy theories inspired by Inception. They hurt my brain.

Mal died in Out Of Gas. Thereafter was a dream. Deal with it, Two.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it was ALL a dream in Buffy's head after "Chosen"...

Caleb was once a hero, now fallen...

The twisted Chrisisall

CELLARDOOR

Friday, August 13, 2010 4:42 AM

Well, they're all figments in Tommy Westphall's mind anyway, right?

( http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html)

GWEK

Friday, August 13, 2010 3:02 PM

To answer the question re: body count, I think we have to look at the larger question of overall fate (as determined by character arc).

Had the show gone seven seasons, I suspect the crew would have looked very different at the end. My guess is that it would have been Mal, Kaylee, River, and Jayne... and maybe even Saffron (who they discussed adding as a series regular). Mal and Kaylee aren't going anywhere--both love Serenity too much--and River and Jayne (and even Saffron) are similar in that their arc seems to be to find a place in the 'Verse. Possibly, any (or all) of those characters could have bought the farm in the final act of the series, but not significantly before.

As a sidenote: if Joss's endgame involved the destruction of Serenity, I think Kaylee and Jayne would have gone down with her (Kaylee refusing to leave her beloved ship and Jayne finally achieving his goal of becoming Mal's proxy), leaving Mal and River alive, with Mal once again lost, and River this time helping him pick up the pieces (a hint that the future would be sort of an inversion of the series itself).

As has been noted, Wash has always been slated for execution... which makes me think that Joss always had it in mind that Zoe was going to be a single mom. Would she have stayed aboard for the full seven seasons with a child? Much as Joss loves a manufactured family, I think he's logistically smart enough to know that if they dragged a toddler with them through multiple seasons, it would be a problem, so Zoe would likely have settled down someplace and made periodic appearances (not on the crew, but safe).

A few people have earmarked Simon for death "in order to let River grow." I don't see that happening, because I think Joss realized Simon was much to interesting a character to kill off. The Wesley comparison is a valid one. Throughout the series, Mal makes the important decisions, but Simon often makes the hard ones. That dichotomy should buy Simon his survival. Further, if we look at the crew as a family with Mal as the father, Simon is often the rebel son. His arc, I think would have been to "grow up" and leave the ship at some point, possibly to become a captain in his own right or go on to do something great. If executed successfully, that would allow both River and Simon to grow significantly as characters.

Inara... Well, we know Joss is a sucker for a tragic love story, so I think the only question here is whether she would have died late or early.

That leaves Book, who died in the movie. Had the series played out, I have a feeling his character trajectory would have been very different. While what happens to Book in the movie makes perfect sense in the movie, it doesn't feel like "payoff" for what Joss was setting up in the series. With seven seasons of FIREFLY, I have a feeling Book would have been far darker, far sinister, possibly even the Big Bad, by the end.

Dead? Yes. But probably killed by Mal to protect River (again, as with Simon breaking off from Mal, the rebellious son rising up against the father).

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

PENNAUSAMIKE

Friday, August 13, 2010 3:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by LAUREN779:

SNIP
However, personally, one of the things I thought made Firefly great was the cast and the chemistry they all had.
SNIP

This point by LAUREN779 is the crux of the whole issue.
The interactions of the crew,
the contrasts of their personalities and motivations,
the clever back-and-forth of their dialog,
the chemistry of the actors playing their roles
are what made Firefly great.
At no point does killing the characters make that better,
unless you're trying to make "Terms of Endearment".

Another poster wrote:

Quote:

I think it's very effective to kill someone off now and then, as the story warrants.

The story doesn't "warrant" anything.
The story is a blank slate until the writer writes it.
Maybe "Cheers" would have been better off if they had killed a character off now and then.
Or maybe "Gunsmoke" coulda killed off Marshal Dillion so we could have seen how Miss Kitty would have run things...
Naw, I call BS.
Those shows lasted FOREVER because viewers tuned in to see characters they loved,
not to see who the creators would "kill off".

Quote:

No one every dying makes things a bit too pat and unbelievable. Scorching the Earth is too harsh.

While I recognize there are people who find entertainment in stories ABOUT killing people
(like the SAW movies or suspense flicks)
that's not what drove Firefly.
Firefly was episodic TV.
There were elements of Firefly that were already unbelievable,
(like the fact that they weren't hauled in after the Ariel heist, where they were undoubtedly on every security camera in the place!)
but we bought into the Firefly 'verse out of love for the characters.

Killing those beloved characters doesn't make Firefly more real OR better,
only...less...

Mike

KHAMBILO

Friday, August 13, 2010 4:53 PM

I hate to say it, but I agree on the point with Book possibly being the big bad of the show. But with the premature cancellation of Firefly, Joss got to play this storyline out in Dollhouse with Boyd. So if any more new material is ever released on the progression of Book, I doubt it would point to him being the secret evil any more.

Though it has been rumored, and murmured at conventions and what not that Inara is dying of a terminal illness, I don't believe it really, at least not until a comic book or short story or something comes out confirming it. Also, if anyone has read Still Flying, I believe Inara was still alive much into her elderly years in the one short story. Can't exactly remember and sorry if thats a spoiler. With that said, Inara's arc would play out much differently. I think that as the series would have continued, Inara would be forced to choose between the life on Serenity and her life as a Companion and the "tugging-on-heartstrings" effect would come when she would choose the Companion life. I could picture her leaving for a season or so and the coming back to find Mal romantically involved with someone else. Possibly even Saffron.

And yes, Saffron would become apart of the main cast. It was mentioned by the writers that her role would expand and also that she would develop a romantic entanglement with Mal. Perhaps if the show had continued we would have really met the real Saffron.

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