War Stories
POSTED BY: HotForKaylee
UPDATED: Monday, February 16, 2004 03:37
VIEWED: 9719
PAGE 3 of 3
Quote:
Originally posted by DarkLady:
Is anyone else thinking that was a "Mulan" reference in "War Stories"?
I've heard rumors that Joss is fond of the movie and then he goes and references an insane warlord named Shan-Yu, who also happened to be the bad guy in "Mulan"?
I'm smelling something beyond a coincidence!
DL
Alright, Now it's my job to destroy some myth, Disney's "Mulan" is based about a legend from China. Like many of its Disney movies. However, Shan-yu is not the weird baddie you see in Mulan. I havn't unearthed much on him since unfortunately the disney character has now swamped the web but he probably was a real man with similar beliefs to what Book quoted. That does not mean that it's not a reference to the bad guy in Mulan, but rather a reference to someone from Chinese legend. Contrary to popular belief, Disney does not rule the world though that is where Shan yu would have been heard of by the most people. (By saying that I've probably called down a SWAT Disney strike on my house but sure whatever
)Now onto River. Yes, that was an incredible scene. I like the contrast between the Tam siblings as Simon couldn't aim worth anything, and River, no doubt boosted by subconscious training or innate abilities managed to blast 3 people with a no-look. Now I think River isn't a trained killer. She could be but I don't think so. Standard issue is you don't make your genius' trained killers because they are well... genius'. So then, I believe River has recieved some sort of training or awakening of powers previously latent and she still is (partially) the little girl who went to the academy. Thus explaining the "can't look" because she believes it would take too long or hinder her abilities and the matchless way she fires. If any of that made sense, let me know.
-Gaheris
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Quote:
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
I like that theory, but for the fact that isn't that the exact same thing they're doing on Buffy right now? Only for that reason, do I believe its something different.
Beats me. I must be one of the few who never really got snared by Buffy's net.
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Disney's "Mulan" is based about a legend from China. Like many of its Disney movies. However, Shan-yu is not the weird baddie you see in Mulan. I havn't unearthed much on him since unfortunately the disney character has now swamped the web but he probably was a real man with similar beliefs to what Book quoted.
I don't know about that. As far as I can tell (which isn't much--there isn't much available through googling on him unless you like bad fan fic), Disney pretty much made him up. And that indicates, unfortunately, a weird Disney reference in "Firefly". I'm trying now to research him over in Taiwan to prove my theory wrong, but I have to admit it's a real possibility.
Only one guy seems to believe he was real: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5082/names.html
but even he says that it's a title, not a guy. Which leads me back to square one.
Anyway, email me (f3k64@yahoo.com) if you know of any other leads.
http://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/
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On the Mulan thing:
Disney's Mulan was based on a Chinese legend. However, as is usual for Disney, the writers butchered the legend and changed things to be politically correct and get a happy ending. In the Chinese legend, the bad guys (the Mongols), win and butcher the Emperor. Also Mulan did not survive til the end of the legend. And if she had, the Emperor would have had her executed.
That's as much as I know of the legend. I don't know anything about Shan-yu.
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Well, but this is the Han Dynasty, potentially the beginning of 3 Kingdoms era (see the URLs above for historical placing, which is hard). The emperor wasn't slaughtered to a Hun takeover--in fact, the Huns were beginning to be slowly pushed West during this time towards, well, Hungary and the rest of it. They ended up losing. And the Han Dynasty only fell when everybody in China dogpiled on top of everyone else after the later empereors lost the "mandate of heaven".
My point is--Disney just went wild with history. As for the legend, there isn't one--there's many. I mean, people are divided on Mulan's /name/ (Fa, Hua, something else?). So I think history is irrelevant, and all my (preliminary) research points to this Shan Yu guy being completely made up. (see my website for the full spiel)
Anyway--my husband knows much more about the Han D. than I do. Maybe if we get a MD/PA shindig we can talk about it. ;)
http://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/
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