The premise, Joss's genre playground, and the problem. (slight movie spoiler!))
POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 16:17
VIEWED: 9326
PAGE 3 of 4
^^^ HKCAVALIER, I read all your posts! Great stuff, great points. Mini shark jump, *chuckle*, that's a terrific way to put it. And I completely agree with your post, I think we are as demanding as TV viewers get. A little more and we will forgo TV completely for books. And I agree that Trash is old Joss Whedon, I'm glad it was such a tight ep. I agree that Firefly seems to be Joss' most mature work, most complex, and best!
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Misguided by Voices said:
The cop show, the legal drama, the war movie; there isn't anything new anymore, but few would dispute that The Shield, Murder One and (the first 20 minutes at least) Saving Private Ryan did something new with the old routine.
Yeah, it's all the same eh? Though "new" is something I'm demanding about. Saving Private Ryan might have had lots of cool new film work (or rip offs of old techniques... we should talk) but the story is drop dead dull and frankly, crap. Take Clint Eastwoods' "Unforgiven": Constantly refered to as a "revision" of the Western, this movie actually follows the old stale Western formula perfectly and without variation. Good movie... but not anything new at all. And frankly, a real bore to those who aren't into that genre and sees it as more of the same. Why? Because it is!
That's the thing about TV and movies (genre or not)... it's all old stuff redone. ALL OF IT! Joss' stuff might be really great in a lot of ways but Joss is still veryu much in the world of iconic comix characters and setting. He can't seem to get out of that though I'd argue that Firefly shows some breaking through that barrier.
When Misguided mentions the cops shows, etc. that's exactly the point - Sci-Fi TV shows and movies have degenerated just as these shows did (in the f*ckin' 70s). That is, Sci-Fi is as stale as all those other shows. Sci-Fi is SO mainstream it sucks like mainstream - repetitive, self consuming, pap. Yes, I think B5 andSG-1 do this. I think Firefly does this too! But hey, this is a very deep critizism that leaves out ALL of the production values, acting, etc so don't think this is anything more than a deconstruction of the form - and where Joss' creations fit into this new world of... pap.
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Originally posted by SemtexJack:
SF....Science Fiction.... It does not merely contain spaceships and aliens. The premise behind it is that any element of Science is taken and a story is made from it.
If you want a perfect example of how Science Fiction works well without even touching the realms of Aliens or Space in general then try 'Village of The Damned' or the book it was based on 'The Midwitch Cuckoos'. With the film, go for the original Black and White one not the 90's remake, that was awful.
Perfect example of something new. And a perfect example of it being strip mined today. Something new? Nope! Something from five decades ago... but not as well done. Greeeeaaat. Any wonder kids today are homicidal?
One thing I might suggest to improve Firefly and move the show forward into a higher state of being... er, a TV show. Create a new character unlike any character Joss has ever created. Something unique like Spock was in the 60s. A character that is outside the usual iconic soup Joss pulls his characters from. Hmm, someone Chinese would be nice! Gorram round eye...
Oops! I've a job! Forgot.. heh heh.
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Quote:Isn't science fiction whatever I say is science fiction? (To borrow from Damon Knight.)
Originally posted by SemtexJack:
SF....Science Fiction.... It does not merely contain spaceships and aliens. The premise behind it is that any element of Science is taken and a story is made from it.
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^^^ you gotta have some "science" in there. Sci-Fi, as opposed to Science Fiction, can have any elements really as long as they are recognizable as a Science Fiction element.
Children of the Damned is Sci-Fi, not Horror. Why? Because of the Science Fiction idea of telekinesis used as the stories motivator.
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Sorry in advance for all the rambling to come...
Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Yeah, it's all the same eh? Though "new" is something I'm demanding about. Saving Private Ryan might have had lots of cool new film work (or rip offs of old techniques... we should talk) but the story is drop dead dull and frankly, crap. Take Clint Eastwoods' "Unforgiven": Constantly refered to as a "revision" of the Western, this movie actually follows the old stale Western formula perfectly and without variation. Good movie... but not anything new at all. And frankly, a real bore to those who aren't into that genre and sees it as more of the same. Why? Because it is!
Couple things: First of all I really, really think you're missing the real point of departure that these films represent. Historically, literary and cinematic criticism have largely ignored the realm of feeling. It's hard to be "objective" and "critical" when you're feeling a work of art and letting it move you. Far too often there's very little distinction between "deconstruction" and "reduction." I think your assessment of these two movies is a little on the reductive side.
"Saving Private Ryan" doesn't feel like any other war movie I've seen. It invites me to participate in the experience on a very deep and visceral level that hasn't even been possible before CGI. I've always known that war was a severe societal psychosis but SPR was the first movie that showed that to me. The opening scene on the boat, before all the state-of-the-art atrocity, was terrifyingly immediate. Those men could feel that they were going to their doom. Their bodies felt it and rebeled. Somehow a generation of men had signed up to die. No film made the horrific absurdity of war more immediate and simply felt.
And "Unforgiven" is profoundly different from previous westerns on a feeling level because of its obsessive observance of grief and failure. Previous to that movie, the character Eastwood played would have been utterly mysterious and unavailable. But "Unforgiven" showed a heartbroken man, a man who is aware of himself in a way that allows the viewer to be aware of the true human cost of the life of a gunslinger. Maybe you can dismiss it and say, "Of course they were all a bunch of drunken yahoos, I knew that!" but I think you miss out on the harrowing human journey the film would take you on if you would open up and let it.
There's plenty of sentimental Sci-Fi out there thanks to Star Trek. But no Star Trek episode has ever come close to moving me the way I am moved when I see Mal deside to let Jayne live at the end of Ariel. There's no simple moral followed by a cute musical riff at the end of a Firefly episode. The stories are too real for that kind of crap.
The one thing that kills T.V. shows every time is not trusting the reality of the characters in the story. The reality of the characters exists on a level that is very difficult to turn into a formula, because when real people's lives become formulaic, they tend to change or if they don't change, they dwindle into very undramatic depression. So, the more formulaic the show becomes, the less real it feals, because in reality, the characters in the show should be nearly as aware of the formula as we are. If we know that Mal and Inara are nuts about eachother, there comes a point when everyone agrees that if the show is to be believed they better fricken notice!
That's the great thing about Joss though, he can be relied upon to make things happen. I hope if Firefly is allowed to continue as a T.V. show that the Firefly of season 7 will be very different from the Firefly of season 1. For instance, I want all of the current plot threads to be quite resolved by then. Or in the case of the Blue Hands and the Reavers, I want the conflict to be on a wholely new level. I want the world of Firefly to evolve. I want there to be political events that change the course of our BDH's lives. But most of all I want Joss to simply trust the charac
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Quote:
The one thing that kills T.V. shows every time is not trusting the reality of the characters in the story. The reality of the characters exists on a level that is very difficult to turn into a formula, because when real people's lives become formulaic, they tend to change or if they don't change, they dwindle into very undramatic depression.
Excellent point.
Someone earlier mentioned that when you strip the details away from Buffy and Angel and Firefly characters, they become simliar. That's true, of course. But it's those details that make the difference. It's the thin line between archetype and stereotype.
Does the crew have a base in sci fi (or more precisely, in literary) archetypes? They surely do. I think you'd be quite hard pressed to create a character that didn't.
One of Joss's strengths, though, is that he routinely rises above this. He adds that little dimension that creates a /character/, a person that we care about, intensely. A person who is able to draw from the base of that archetype, but who is also their own person, able to move away from it when needed. They feel, to echo HKCavalier, real.
His other strength, in my opinion, has been his willingness - his insistence - to experiment. Sometimes it works, spectacularly (Hush, The Body, Once More with Feeling, Objects in Space), sometimes it doesn't. (see above re: mini-shark jumps. right on!). But I suspect that we'd never see the greatness of some of Joss's work without a few less spectacular bits. Cough.
One trapping of /any/ long-running show, mentioned earlier, is getting caught up in it's own mythology. It's both a blessing and a curse. As a fan, I /love/ it when a show is packed with stuff from its beginnings, references fans get. I want to see the Red Button in the BDM like nothing else. At the same time, there's a point where the show just becomes too hard to understand from an outside point. Reruns can help, but...
I guess the answer is just to get everyone to fall in love with Firefly right now, at the beginning? ;)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Aerrin:
Someone earlier mentioned that when you strip the details away from Buffy and Angel and Firefly characters, they become simliar. That's true, of course. But it's those details that make the difference. It's the thin line between archetype and stereotype.
I think that's an excellent statement, because it really applies to people in general, not just characters. I can mention that I have a tall, quiet friend who loves books, and almost all of you can think of someone similar that you know. It's the details of a person that make them individual. Full deconstruction of any form of entertainment, be it literature, film, tv, or anything else, is flawed to that extent because it discounts details as unimportant, when they are, in my mind, one of the central results of the creative process.
That being said, when I was discussing Firefly with a friend recently, she said that the reason it was the best of the three shows that Joss has made was because they didn't have time to run it into the ground. I think she may have a point, but I still stick by my response as well: I'd rather have a long-running series like Firefly that has a lot of hits and a few misses than only 14 episodes.
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Quote:
I'd rather have a long-running series like Firefly that has a lot of hits and a few misses than only 14 episodes.
And that's where we disagree. :p 14 winners are better than one Star Trek franchise (I like Trek, but you have to admit from Kirk and Spock to Enterprise there's been a whole lot of stupid crap) in my book.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cam:
And that's where we disagree. :p 14 winners are better than one Star Trek franchise (I like Trek, but you have to admit from Kirk and Spock to Enterprise there's been a whole lot of stupid crap) in my book.
Well, there's a big difference between having a series that goes for multiple seasons and more than 14 episodes and a franchise that spawns multiple spin-offs and remakes. A vast difference. I wouldn't want to see that happen to Firefly either, but I do wish that it had gone on for longer than it did, even if it meant that we saw a few episodes didn't work quite as well as the ones we've seen so far.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Sorry in advance for all the rambling to come...Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Yeah, it's all the same eh? Though "new" is something I'm demanding about. Saving Private Ryan might have had lots of cool new film work (or rip offs of old techniques... we should talk) but the story is drop dead dull and frankly, crap. Take Clint Eastwoods' "Unforgiven": Constantly refered to as a "revision" of the Western, this movie actually follows the old stale Western formula perfectly and without variation. Good movie... but not anything new at all. And frankly, a real bore to those who aren't into that genre and sees it as more of the same. Why? Because it is!
Couple things: First of all I really, really think you're missing the real point of departure that these films represent. Historically, literary and cinematic criticism have largely ignored the realm of feeling. It's hard to be "objective" and "critical" when you're feeling a work of art and letting it move you. Far too often there's very little distinction between "deconstruction" and "reduction." I think your assessment of these two movies is a little on the reductive side.
... SNIP!
Yes, you're quite right though I'm trying to avoid a reductionists baloney arguement.
And don't think I really have a far reaching understanding of just what "deconstructing" a work of liturature intales. I'm just winging it here.
And I'm right there with you when it comes to feeling a story, letting it wash over you. Your disbelief carries you away with the narrative and any movie or TV show that can do this is a success artistically. Great points referenced by AMNESIACK earlier. Nice work. :)
But...
The thing I'm going on about here is stripping away just that, the feeling, and looking at what bones (the "deconstruction") make up the story, trying to understand what the 'bones' mean. What "truth" do the bones reveal? Every genre has it's own set of bones which is the formula for that genre. It is these bones that can make or break a story as it is the very foundation of it and deconstruction must have an eye towards the cultural conciousness, in this case the Sci-Fi genre/culture and how Firefly is part of that.
"It's just an object. It doesn't have any meaning".
... but it does River. Oh it does.
That is, take away the horror and in your face action of Saving Private Ryan and you have a rather dull story filled with rather lame sentimental dialog... and to deconstruct further it is nothing more than a warm hearted tribute to dead heros. Take out the action and it looks like a Rememberance Day video salute - the deconstructed meaning/truth of SPR is little more than blind sentimentality. Now, that is not a fair critizism of the movie since that movie is all about the viseral experience, which offsets the sentimentality. But, the story is still just that. There is no reversal or realism to pull the story above adolecent hero worship. It is a Steven Speilberg movie after all. Not surprised at all. *chuckle*
So what I'm on about is a bare bones look at the genre in general using the last three Joss Whedon shows to demonstrate the Sci-Fi genre limits and, on the side, the lametable state of Sci-Fi story telling (Film/TV) in general (though I'll stick to Firefly for this post). Which I believe is made up of rehashed old Trek stories, and the like. To me, Firefly represents the ONLY departure from the incredibly self-referential world of TV and Film today. But even Firefly is unoriginal in that it's bare bones are recognisable genre elements and plots, mostly "the Western" - naturally.
Objects in Space being a riff on just that, or so I devine. Here was an ep that did nothing but, through River, explore the bare bones of everything in the show. The ship, the characters, and thier meaning. Their truth. Hell, even Early blurted out "I'm a lion"... really telling dia
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I know you've said that you're not using the term "deconstruction" very precisely, Ghoulman, but seriously, you really aren't even in the ballpark in your definition. I think you'd find actual deconstruction pretty interesting so I'm gonna indulge myself here. In fact, I think you do it pretty often here on the board yourself!
A few words about deconstruction: Deconstruction is not reducing a work of art to forms and tropes as you're doing to Firefly. It's actually the opposite. All that stuff is actually the stuff that gets stripped away in deconstruction. Deconstruction is concerned with what the work is actually "about." It's about the basic cultural assumptions that fuel the story. For example: Dracula, in your reductionist view is a ghost story, a haunted house story, perhaps a romance where the heroine is captured by an evil wizard and her beloved must go through many trials to win her back. But these mere characteristics have nothing to do with why the novel is so important or popular. A deconstruction of Dracula would have much more to do with 19th Century England and sexual repression. In a pretty standard deconstructionist view Dracula would be a story that tells us that female sexuality is utterly dangerous and destructive to society. It expresses Victorian Sex-phobia at its most extreme. It legitimizes women's marginalization as bearers of such a destructive power, portraying Bram Stoker's novel as a repressive christian screed. Deconstructionist arguments are usually intentionally contravercial and highly debatible. Even as they break down the cultural assumptions of a given work, they tend to be the product of the deconstructionist's own cultural assumptions and biases. It can become something of a hall of mirrors. Ah, post-modernism!
A deconstructionist view of Firefly would prolly talk about America at the turn of the 21st century. It would prolly talk about the shows post-watergate mistrust of governance, the marginalization of old-style conservatism in the multi-national corporate culture of the post-modern age, it might even go after Firefly as a reprehensible exercise in revisionist nostalgia for the culture of the pre-war south, efacing as it does the bitter reality of the "peculiar institution."
A deconstructionist would argue that the forms which concern you so are not what makes people love the show, for instance. If they were, then any western or space western would be popular. Deconstruction tells us that the show is popular or loved because it fills the emotional needs of its viewers by supporting their prejudices and justifying their sense of entitlement.
I'm just saying...
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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