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 4 of 6
Tell ya what. Your paragraph has encouraged my wife and I to watch the rest of the episode.
Thanks for the insight!
No problem. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. It's disturbing, but I really don't think the torture was at all played for entertainment. It's upsetting stuff... but it is good drama. At least, I think so. =)
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Hm, another thing occured to me. In ancient times, torture was commonplace. Among people who conisdered themselves civilized. Treatment for wounds was cauterization. That's taking a red hot iron and pressing the thing down against the wound despite screams and thrashing of the subject until the wound was sealed. Before proper medical work, it was a mercy to slit a wounded man's throat.
Now, we consider ourselves more civilized. True it has been a good couple hundred years. War stories shows that sometimes, we are not. I do not ask anyone to blindly accept this. I just ask people to understand it. And as I said in my previous post, watch the interaction of character, not the torture.
-Gaheris
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zathras10:
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.
I'm so glad someone mentioned that. There are four lights!! Picard's torture was grusome as well, so it is not fair to say taht all Star Trek was lighthearted (especially not DS9).
Now, I'm a cheery, optimistic 17 year old. I'm not a violent person, and i'm not a big fan of violent movies. In fact, War Stories gave me nightmares. But I loved it anyway. That was the point. We're supposed to understand how twisted Niska is. We're supposed to recognize the horror of what the characters are going through. I thought that in spite of the dark topic, the episode was well executed. IT was violent, but all of the violence was there for a reason: to scare the hell out of us, not to be gratuitous and shocking. I gave up on shows like Andromeda because of the pointlessness of their violence. On firefly, any destruction is dealt with in a way that is not glorified. It is shown as what it is: deeply disturbing.
So while it may not be fun to watch those torture scenes, they felt necessary for character development. I'll settle for that over a show without plot.
My suggestion would be don't give up on Firefly because of one episode's violence. They wont all be like that. And acknowledge that violence for what it was.
On a cheery note... i liked all the shirtless Wash stuff. And the word "healthsome" is beautiful. I used it whenever possible today!
~*Saint of Cheese*~
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Right! Trek had its moments of being quite vile to its characters.
Violence - in real life, no. I'm a pacifist, a position that's earned me a lot of headaches as of late.
I've had some pretty bad experiences. I've literally stared my friends' rapist in the face and tell him flat-out "I know what you did" only to wind up at knifepoint, and glad I had the sense to confront him in a public place.
I've been "jumped" by about 4 people and beaten up because one of them thought it would be "fun." I've also been at the edge of knives or fists for holding religious and political beliefs that were unpopular.
Having lived this, and realizing that much worse goes on...(I've been in Amnesty International for years, among other political groups), I see no need to gloss over things or run away from it, nor do I see it as something to handle lightly.
Not to say I go seeking the stuff out. Several times dsuring the ep, I was glad for the bad reception that left the video garbled and the audio crystal clear.
Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!
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Late comment.
Unfortunately, I missed the first half of the show. Too bad, 'cause I missed the setup. I came in on the middle of the torture scene, and while I found it necessary for the story line (you can't understand Mal and Zoe until you've seen what they've been through) I thought it was badly done. As far as I know, nobody gets zapped like that and continues a conversation. The body goes through all kinds of physiological storms under intense pain. People sweat, go pale, lose bladder control, tremble, grunt, snivel, cry... all kinds of un-pretty things over which they have no control. Eventually they pass out or go into shock. Previous repeated experience leads to SOME amount of learning, but not like what was shown. In that sense, I found the screams coming thru the door MORE effective than the constant eyeball. Maybe my imagination is a little TOO vivid!
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
As far as I know, nobody gets zapped like that and continues a conversation. The body goes through all kinds of physiological storms under intense pain. People sweat, go pale, lose bladder control, tremble, grunt, snivel, cry... all kinds of un-pretty things over which they have no control.
I agree with you, but since I view Firefly as a Sci-Fi Fantasy and not Science Fiction, it's okay by me with what they did.
Though, still, when you see someone like John Crichton being tortured on Farscape, where his eyeballs roll back, and nostril flairs with mucus, vomit, and the likes flying all over the place, one really appreciates how good Farscape is.
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You can laugh if you want to... (this really gives you an idea that I *never* watch TV) but... what is Farscape?
Got a website?
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Well, there's no way of knowing just how strong the voltage actually was, right? I tend to think Niska was just warming up, taking his time to get the the real stuff so he might have started off with a lower voltage. Plus, it seemed to me he found Mal and Wash's conversation rather entertaining.
I'm glad they cut off Mal's ear because there had to be some indication that body mutilation was in store for Mal in the future. To me, it would've cheapened the realism of the scene if they didn't give some indication of it since body mutilation is a pretty common torture practice.
Well, that was morbid...
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I would agree with some of the points FIREFLYCLASSACT (FFCA) makes about the degree this episode went to. Yes, the show is gritty and realistic, but realism isn't really the issue I think FFCA had, once again, we come back to degree.
I am sure some of you remember the footage than ran on CNN repeatedly of a dog taking several minutes of agonizing, writhing, painful spasms and plaintive, mourful whimpers to die after having a biological weapon tested on it. That's Realism. That doesn't mean I want to see it on Firefly. There's a line between gritty and too far.
Personally, with the lesbian relations between Inara and her client and the extreme torture shown (for a primetime television show), I felt that this episode did go a little far and I also felt that it cheapened the episode quality. While I would still rather watch this particular episode of Firefly than any other tv show, I would watch this episode last out of all the ones I've seen.
I have no problem with extreme violence or same-sex couplings on tv, movies, etc. I usually find a good ear-ectomy amusing (Reservior Dogs, anyone?), but Firefly hasn't had to rely on that type of thing before. The episode was charactor driven, it was about the interpersonal conflicts of Zoey, Wash, and Mal. But I felt the lesbian side-story seemed like ratings mongering just a little bit, like filler, and the violence was also a bit exploited. It disapointed me. There have been much better stories told aboard the Serenity.
The bumpkiniest of the Bumpkin Army.
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The lesbianism sequence has been explained with the cut scene - with that in place, that sideplot makes a lot more sense.
I continue to hold that you could not do the episode without showing the torture sequence between Mal and Walsh. You just couldn't. Unless you have that scene, and unless you see what Mal does for Walsh, the episode has no meaning. The episode is about Walsh going from being jealous of Mal to understanding his heroism, and, by extension, Zoe's heroism. Unless Walsh saw that in as deeply terrifying a context as he did, that wouldn't be impressive at all.
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