I was a HUGE fan of Firefly until last night's episode...
POSTED BY: FireflyClassAct
UPDATED: Friday, December 13, 2002 03:08
VIEWED: 20098
PAGE 3 of 6
The only thing I can go with is my own experiences as a writer to try and understand Wheadon's motivations.
OK, I'm a fanficcer, and I've written some gruesome shit, including the FF piece I'm working on now. I've gotten into it with a beta-reader over it. I've had the nasty e-mails where folks are like "can't you just imply it?"
The answer is...NO!
"Implying" it, cutting away from it, shutting your eyes from it...it's an attempt to escape from it. If I'm going to do those to a character - whether it be Wheadon's, Mandell's, Roddenberry's, or mine - I'd better have the balls to stare it in the face.
Same goes for the readers - if you're going to deal with the dark shit, you aren't doing anyone a service by trying to take small glances. You want light and fluffy, go somewhere else and don't lie and say you can handle it.
(rant mode off!)
Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!
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What world is it that some of you people live in? The tourture scenes were VERY mild when compared to real tourture methods. For instance it is typically preffered to have the electro shock hooked up to ones genitals. With violent gun battles on almost every episode you had to expect something like this episode to come along. And as far as the lesbian scene goes, granted I did have to check real quick to see if my tv had somehow switched itself over to cinamax, but I think it is a nice statement that in their "verse" bi-sexuality is no big deal (most of the crew didn't really seem to care except for Jayne who gave the typical preverted male perspective, and he was made to LOOK foolish for the childish way he delt with the situation)
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#1 - Not to pick on you in particular, but it was pretty obvious from "The Train Job" that someone on Serenity (namely, Mal) was going to wind up being tied up and tortured by Niska. And the argument between Wash and Mal during the torture was vintage ME stuff. It reminded me of the scene in "Primevil" from Buffy where Buffy and Willow reconcile while rappelling down an elevator shaft while invading a secret military installation. Joss & co. love to juxtapose personal conflicts with external danger.
#b I don't mind stuff being gratutious as long as there's a reason. There was a very definite reason for this. (Just like there was a reason for the scene with Inara and her client - don't get me started on that ruckus) Plus, we all knew Nathan wasn't spending the rest of the season without an ear, so it was going to get reattached. *g*
#iii - The worst episode of Firefly ever will remain about 1000x better written than the best episode of any Star Trek series ever in history. I'm just sayin... *g*
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Quote:
Yes, acknowledging evil and evil-deeds is important;
but, showing them as entertainment makes no sense to me.
The idea, behind all good stories of this sort ('good'
versus 'bad') is about overcoming these things.
That's what makes it a story. Mal helps Wash through
his troubles, until Zoe arrives. Mal hangs on long
enough for his crew to save him.
The torture itself isn't the entertainment, its about
surviving the hard knocks in life and rising again,
so to speak.
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Niska needed to be scary. Not scary in the over-the-top Joker on Batman way. Niska needed to be scary like those people who torture political prisoners are scary. This is the typed of stuff that still happens today around the world -- by governments no less! Just check in with Amnesty International. Joss & Co. obviously wanted that scene to be real world scary and to demonstrate Mal's endurance and compassion for Wash in the face of extreme deliberate pain.
Brilliant episode.
There was a warning at the beginning of the episode.
You don't need to stop watching the show. Just know what to expect next time Firefly has a violence warning at the beginning of it.
Mattro
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Quote:
Originally posted by FireflyClassAct:
It was a real shocker for a show that started off as pleasant as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to *linger* over torture.
It would have been one thing for the camera to show both men tied up and then cut away and hear them scream,,, but it's quite another for the camera to stay on them while they writhe in pain.
Urm, did we watch the same ST:TNG? Or for that matter, the same Firefly? I'm thinking no. First of all, though I loved about 60% of so of TNG, Firefly is nothing like the overly-utopian view of much of Trek (most of DS9 excepted). Downright dystopian at times, and much, much darker. Reavers? Blue-hand guys (the creepiest thing since Buffy's Gentlemen)? Heroes who steal and kick guys into their engine intakes? Oh yeah, just like Trek.
That said, secondly, have you never seen TNG's "Chain of Command?" Picard being tortured, writhing in pain? "I see four lights?" Meaning no disrespect, but you seem to be viewing both shows through rose-colored glasses that just aren't my prescription.
Chris
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I'm probably being repetitive here, but checking through all 25 posts is difficult. But here we go.
Firefly, has from the very beginning stressed realism. Granted it is surreal and has enough sci-fi to know that it IS fake and people do realize it is a TV show but, realism is what it has. Joss manufactures emotion like no other director. Now I never liked Angel or Buffy but Firefly has that degree of (I'm going to use that word again) realism that makes it go from a sci fi flick to a study in character. The torture scene, though not absolutely necesarry, was a display of the bonds that hold people together. The torture, which was graphic, also could have been far worse. Thumbscrews, stretching devices, mangling, twisting... all could have been displayed. Instead they stay with electro-shock and ear-removal. The other mechanism which I will dub the "snake-cable" was disturbing but also adds that Sci-fi twist. Imagery aside, I think that the scenes in "War Stories" were incredibly well-crafted if a bit gruesome and graphic. All I ask is to keep an open mind and if the gruesome parts disgust you, focus on the interplay of characters, not the graphic scenes.
-Gaheris
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Quote:
Originally posted by FireflyClassAct:
Yes, acknowledging evil and evil-deeds is important; but, showing them as entertainment makes no sense to me.
The darkest deeds of man should be best covered in newspapers and history books and not flaunted as entertainment during prime-time.
So then movies like "The Killing Fields," "In the Name of the Father," "Midnight Express," "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," "Schindler's List," "The Crucible," "Salvador," "Apocalypse Now," "The Serpent and the Rainbow," "Braveheart," "A Dry, White Season," etc., etc., shouldn't have been made because cinema and TV should *only* be made to entertain, and never unflinchingly show us the darker side of human nature? Me, I like quirky, lighthearted hijinks at least as much as the next guy, but I also appreciate artistic efforts that try to hold a mirror up to humanity and challenge our assumptions. My favorite painting is Picasso's "Guernica"....
Chris
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Question: I noticed a "disturbing violence" type disclaimer at the beginning of this episode that I've never noticed before. Is it usually there?
Ok, now for my little rant on why they had to show the torture (a scene which I thought was absolutely brilliant, and I was actually surprised to come to the board this morning and find this thread):
Just saying "and then they got tortured" isn't enough. Take the story with the apples and the ribcages. At the time I heard it, I was thinking "ok, so something bad happened, but obviously these apples don't have grenades in them, why do they still feel the need to cut them up before they eat them? And I think it was the same for Wash. He heard the stories, he knew it was bad. But he didn't *KNOW* how bad it was. He says this himself after Zoe rescues him. "i didn't know... I didn't know..." You can't possibly begin to understand what someone goes through if you don't show it.
Let's take the Buffy/Spike attempted rape last season. It had to be pushed to that extreme. Because it took that amount of violence to show people that Spike is still evil without his soul. Showing just another round of Buffy and Spike fighting and throwing each other around would not have proven it. But seeing the look of terror on Buffy's face as she struggles to get away from him, the ghostly look of shock on her face as she tries to cover herself up after she stops him.... They had to show it so we the viewers would understand.
There was no way Wash could have understood the bond that Mal shares with his wife without finding that bond himself.
This episode had me double think more than once. In the beginning, i remember thinking how odd it was that here these men are being tortured mercilessly, and they are discussing relationship issues. It didn't feel true to me. Until Wash passed out and Mal started yelling "you here me, Wash? Listen to me." then I got it. Oh, Geez, they are talking like this to survive the torture.
And when Zoe showed up, and Niska made her choose, and before he even got it out, she chose Wash. My first thought was that she chose him because he is her husband, and in her mind, he is always first. But then I started thinking, no, she did that because she knew of the two of them, Mal would fare better than Wash. Wash would break, Mal would not. So really, in rescuing Wash, she is saying "I don't think you can handle this, and Mal can."
I was utterly amazed at this episode, and far from it being a reason not to watch the show, I think it is a reason to stay tuned.
______________
Wash: Hey, I've been in a fire fight before. Well... I was in a fire. Actually I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity. I can handle myself.
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Actually, I have to agree with FIREFLYCLASSACT. Not so much that I will stop watching the show, but it was borderline for me, too.
As already said, I am from Germany. In Germany, we have a different attitude to Sex and Violence in TV or Cinema. Sex and nude bodies is pretty much okay - its natural. I have a life-size painting of a nude woman hanging over my couch and I love this picture!
But violence is a different matter. I truly believe that people dull to violence if they see too much of it. And no, I don't think anybody needs to learn how to torture (or to be tortured), just because life is hard!
I also think that adults completely underestimate the effect of violent scenes on kids. I very clearly remember the first movie in my life which made me afraid. As an adult you cannot see anything scary or violent in it, but as a kid I totally freaked out.
So in Germany, if a movie is rated 16, you cannot go in this movie if you are younger - not with parents or anybody else, you just can't. (It makes absolutely no sense to me here that they say: this move is PG16, but if you find a dude who will go with you, you can see it even if you are 5).
Another example which had me laughing (but is actually sad when you think about it) happened just 2 weeks ago. They showed Alien 2 in TV, around 3pm afternoon. They showed - of course - every bloody detail, but the bad words like fuck and bullshit and so on were blended out. Hence the dialogues had a lot of breaks in it. How much sense does this make??? Your kid learns how to kill somebody effectively but not how to swear when doing it? Come on...
So coming back to Firefly: I still found it disturbing. I don't question that it was well made and everything, but it was hard for me to take. Probably even more because of the funny dialogue in between. I understand that it was done by Mal to keep alive and sane, but as a viewer, you still laugh about people being tortured - you can't help it - and what does that teach you in the end?
Merl (deep in thoughts)
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