(SPOILER) Preview pages from Star Wars/Serenity free comic book

POSTED BY: two
UPDATED: Monday, March 5, 2012 22:47
VIEWED: 19998
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PENNAUSAMIKE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 3:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:

PEOPLE DIE, all the time- THIS AIN'T DISNEY!!
SNIP
Tragedy is just a device to bring you along on the roller coaster.

Not exactly.
Tragedy in the form of challenges to overcome is riding the roller coaster.
Death is leaving the character on the platform, never to be enjoyed again.
Killing beloved characters doesn't make Firefly more real OR better,
only...less...

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
If I was playing god, I'd find a way to knock someone off a least once a season.

My, what a delightful piece of work you would be producing.
And I, like many others, would simply choose not to watch it.
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.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Routines are what you do in the morning,
fun is supposed to be spontaneous-
and sometimes, just like real life- UNEXPECTED.....

Yeah, and we all know DYIN' makes fun even fun-er!
Loss of dreams, lost opportunities, lost relationships and friendships;
and not just loss, but CHANGE that doesn't go the way you expect, for both good and bad,
provides rich fodder for drama.
I'm not asking that the status quo rule,
only that the writers find substantive issues and loss and change to craft stories around.
I feel that killing a character is the cheap way out
and destroys dynamics that build audience acceptance of a fictional world.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
The guy writes awesome characters, trust him just a tiny bit and you will still be entertained.

No, I'm not being entertained.
Firefly is the only Whedon-verse story I like.
I don't care for Joss' predilection 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.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
I don't know if you ever watched Voyager, but anyone remember when they got rid of Kess and brought in Jerry Ryan?? Tell me THAT wasn't for the best, especially you guys

Are you SERIOUSLY comparing a crappy character like Kess to Wash?
Apples to Oranges.
The whole reason Kess left with no repercussions was because she brought little to the table in the first place.

Wash was half of just about the only mature married couple on TV, he was the "civilian" voice of reason for the crew, he was the husband and yet sometimes odd man out in the Zoe-Mal-Wash dynamic, he was the skilled pilot who rescued the crew with his skill, and as the main comic relief, he was the smart-ass who spun others action and words into a funny twist.

With his needless death,
all those avenues of storytelling and character building are dead, also.

Obviously, your view of drama is more in sync with Joss's.
That should mean you'll be happy with more of Joss's projects, where for me, pre Wash's death Firefly is kind of an anomaly.

Happy viewing,
Mike

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 4:08 PM

Riona: That was actually directed at Mike. Two doesn't like that Wash and Book died, but I've never seen him wholesale dismiss the so far unobjectionable comics that have been produced since the movies.

I mean, you can't even CALL them dark, so I don't know what the heck anyone's talking about.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 4:15 PM

Quote:
In Disney, the rule is the Princess falls in love.

Actually, it really is very rare for a hero character to die permanently in a Disney movie. And even then sometimes it's kinda like they didn't even really die because they can still talk with the living via booming ghost god clouds.

So it actually is kind of a thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyDeath

But, yeah. Rule of draaaaaaaaama.

Although it's bizarre to kill off the mysterious mentor character before they've revealed the source of their mysteriousness and furthered the plot, but maybe that whole recording eye thing will become a plot device for that.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 4:32 PM

Quote:
Not exactly.
Tragedy in the form of challenges to overcome is riding the roller coaster.
Death is leaving the character on the platform, never to be enjoyed again.
Killing beloved characters doesn't make Firefly more real OR better,
only...less...

Depends. Some death is very meaningful and an essential part of a character's myth arc. It changes the way the audience perceives the character and their motivations, often improving the perception and generating sympathy, if not outright redeeming a character.

Shock death doesn't do that, however, so I'll give you some credit there. But I'm still objecting to your calling all the post movie stuff "dark" because it's really not.

Quote:
I feel that killing a character is the cheap way out
and destroys dynamics that build audience acceptance of a fictional world.

Again, not always.

Quote:
I don't care for Joss' predilection for killing characters; totally ruined Dr. Horrible for me.

See, now I think Dr. Horrible was actually a good use of this. It was a very important part of the story and the development for all the characters, even for Penny. And looking at the story narratively and symbolically, it was pretty much inevitable.

Dr. Horrible wasn't just a lark, it was a story about who is really a hero. And honestly, I don't think the hero was Doctor Horrible OR Captain Hammer. What happened in Dr. Horrible was essential to impart the MEANING to the story. A romp about a psuedo-villain sticking it to phony do-gooders might have been fun, if possibly VERY hypocritical, but ultimately meaningless.

Stories aren't about WHEEEE FUN! A writer tells a story not to entertain you, but to enlighten you, to give you a message, and hopefully one that endures. If you're entertained in the meanwhile, then they're a good story teller who knows how to keep an audience. But I wouldn't mistake the entertainment for the story, or feel betrayed just because some deeper meaning got into the middle of your crime caper or super hero slug fest.

PENNAUSAMIKE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 5:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Stories aren't about WHEEEE FUN!
A writer tells a story not to entertain you, but to enlighten you,
SNIP

This is at the core of my point.
I feel the opposite.
The purpose of fiction, especially episodic television is to entertain.
If enlightenment is part of the mix, THAT is the sign of a good writer.

There are plenty of venues to enlighten folks, and if they are entertaining,so much the better.

But I do not look to entertainment to reinforce the problems of real life, but to take me out of them for awhile.
It should FEEL real, without BEING real (as the Firefly series was.)

If I want real, I'll go to work where they pay me to be there.
If I'm paying for entertainment, I want uplifting, not enlightenment.
That is my preference, and if Firefly ceases to provide it, I'm disappointed, is all.

By the way, I'm not saying the comics thus far have been dark,
(especially until "Float Out" they were all pre-SERENITY)
just saying the post-SERENITY dead Wash vibe is a downer for me.

Joss brings back a turd like Dobson, but not Wash...
...(shakes head in dumbfoundedness)...

Mike

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 5:12 PM

Quote:
I feel the opposite.

Why do you think the very first story teller started narrating?

I guarantee you have to have a story teller before you have an audience.

So, ultimately, tracing all the way back through the ages to the very first story, all stories have one single, and very important goal, which defines why humans create stories.

Therefore, if they fail to achieve that goal, I'm not sure we can really call them all that good as stories.

Quote:
If enlightenment is part of the mix, THAT is the sign of a good writer.

So, I'd argue it's the other way around. If you don't have a message, you CAN'T be a good writer.

It's the writers who pull on the heartstrings and illuminate truth in fiction who are remembered, not the ones who write silly frivolity for mass-consumption.

Quote:
saying the post-SERENITY dead Wash vibe is a downer for me.

I guess that's up to you, though I'm still not sure how the way they've handled it has been such a big downer. Bitter-sweet, maybe.

TWO

Thursday, March 1, 2012 5:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I guess that's up to you, though I'm still not sure how the way they've handled it has been such a big downer. Bitter-sweet, maybe.

Joss killed Buffy. That was a dead-end, but he brought her back with magic. There was a plan, a scheme that allowed for more Buffy. Joss could have had a scheme for Serenity 2.

Joss never shared where the trilogy was going next, so it was possible that Wash could have been in Serenity 2. Joss would use science rather than Buffy-style magic on Wash. My favorite example of reversing a story trapped in a dead-end is Indistinguishable From Magic by kieyra www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=5185 which begins, “River knows that Miranda wasn't the only secret they had.”

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

WISHIMAY

Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:00 PM

Lotta good arguments since this morning!

My only other thing to add is a line from Daria;
"I think he's saying that it's the writers duty to steer readers toward more conscientious behavior, no matter how dull that makes the story"

This is why I don't like a lotta defined morals or rules in my entertainment. I'm an adult, I don't need anyone else's moral's- I have my own. I don't mind when it's posed as a question or left open-ended to get you to think and come to your own conclusion...but Hollywood has forgotten how to do this and gotten preachy. You want morals and rules? Go to church. Entertainment to me is alll about the what-if, the possibilities, constantly looking at things from a different perspective AND IT BEING EXCITING!...For some- entertainment is all about tuning in to the same thing over and over for mostly comfort and reasurance and basically turning off real life... Which, I will admit that in rougher times in my life, I've watched drivel because it was comforting, so I do get that.

But it's a story about a kludged spaceship run by anti-heroes doing arguably nefarius deeds. People should die. People should be born. Whoring should be done, and guns should be drawn, and sometimes- they should have lazers! It's a story that makes you think...but it's even better entertainment, at least fer me....

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:26 PM

A message doesn't mean moralistic or heavy handed. A message can be something as simple as triumph over adversity, and the dangers of consolidated power.

A story has to have meaning for us to relate to it, for us to feel the characters, sympathize with their hardships, and even incorporate the very idea of them and what they represent into ourselves.

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, March 1, 2012 9:20 PM

I wasn't really kene on Wash and Book dying either Mike, because there is sooooooooo much more that can be done with those charactors. In my opinion the only reason to kill off two charactors like that is if you really think this is the end of the story. Maybe Joss didn't know that he was going to get more oppertunities to do Firefly stuff so he killed them thinking it was the end of the saga so why not. When I list the four reasons I don't like the movie that is one of them, but it isn't the most important of them. I do read post BDM fic and enjoy it inspite of myself, but yes I do think killing Wash and Book was a dumb thing to do.

Mike I'm like you, I don't really enjoy any of Joss' other work. There were aspects of Dollhouse that I found interesting, but I couldn't sit and watch it based on certain personal ethics issues, I just had my friends tell me what happened on it when they thought those afore mentioned interesting aspects were present.

I thought Doctor Horrible sucked brick, I was bored and the end was weird. But I know a lot of browncoats like Joss' other stuff and that's fine for them.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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