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 5 of 6
I will stipulate that yes, I couldn't see this episode done without that level of violence. But still, in my opinion only, there have been much better episodes. It felt like I'd seen it done before.
The bumpkiniest of the Bumpkin Army.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Eldor- hey, you don't know morbid until you hear "hospital humor". I laugh because it's painful.
OH. FREE SOUP!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
A lot of people are defending the violence and sexual content of WAR STORIES. Their main defense is that this is simply the nature and theme of FIREFLY. While I wasn't offended by either the violence or sex, I disagree that this is how FIREFLY was originally conceived. All you have to do is look at the previous episodes. There has been some strong sexual content, particularly in "Serenity" and "Out of Gas," but there's never been the kind of violence we've seen in ARIEL or particularly in WAR STORIES. I'm glad to see it myself, but I think it's a new strategy adapted by Whedon and Co. (with Fox's blessing) to improve ratings.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'd just like to pick up this quote, because I thought it was a really good point. (Quoted by Ringwriath from the creator of Babylon 5.)
Quote:
And by framing it in the "is this NECESSARY?" way is designed to make you defend your position when such defense isn't the point; is it NECESSARY to have humor? to have a romance? to have correct science? No, *nothing* is NECESSARY. It's what the writer feels is right for that scene, that story, that character.
For that matter, is it really NECESSARY to have a TV show? Maybe I'm strange in that I rarely watch things purely for entertainment, so I rarely analyse things in terms of their entertainment value. I think the reason that humans are driven to create, whether that means a sculpture or a poem or a TV show, is because they need to get things out, to tell things about life as they see it. From that point of view, there is absolutely nothing that I would say "should not be shown" in fiction. As long as what we are seeing is actors and not some real person being violated, then torture, violence, bad sex, rape, murder, it's all fair game, because it all exists.
No, I wouldn't show it to a 5-year-old kid, but that's a parent's responsibility, not a writer's. The network put a warning in front of the show, and if parents are responsible, then at that point they should judge whether they think their kid can handle something that needs that kind of warning, and make the call accordingly.
Yes, the torture creeped me out and disgusted me. Yes, I felt guilty for laughing even though the Mal/Wash conversation was meant to be funny, but ultimately I give credit to the writers for that, because they made me feel, they made me think.
However, I'm a TV masochist who likes being made uncomfortable by the shows I watch. I can totally understand and respect anyone, who, when they think they're coming to a show to be entertained and they find horrific scenes of torture, decides that show really isn't for them. But I will continue to defend the validity of the writers in saying and showing those things.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
there's some good points there. I have to agree.
I like it, when shows are fluffy and funny at times, I laughed myself silly on watching more than one FF EP so far (Our Mrs Reynolds, Janestown, Shindig, the flashbacks from Out Of Gas) but I do tend to like the thought and feeling provoking EPs even more (main storyline form Out Of Gas, Ariel, War Stories). what I can't stand are the merely entertaining ones (maybe most of Trainjob and Bushwacked but even they have some meaning beyond entertainment). If I watch an EP of any series and I wonder what it is about and I don't find a thing, I'm bored and kind of disgusted of having wasted my time with watching it. tends to happen with Andromeda S3 most of the time and I'm thinking about stopping to watch it. someone here said someday 'I'm sick of watching Special Effects in search of a Story.' same can be said about Jokes without a Story or Action without a Story.
if the writer wants to say something then we should be glad to have found something with a meaning and let him/her say it the way s/he wants to.
SO I'm totally apalled by violence without a meaning. watching Violence in search of a Story is the worst one for me. but I wasn't upset by the torture scenes in War Stories maybe I've seen to much violence in TV already. but there are enough scenes on TV and in movies that do upset me, so maybe not. maybe War Stories was done in a decent way. with all the talking and the meaning behind the talking right in front and the torture just to make it believable in the background. I really liked it when Zoe took Wash out to the shuttle and he pulls himself together and decides to rescue Mal even if it means going back and possibly be killed or tortured again. that was what it was all about. I was more upset with the blue hands guys device in Ariel. but maybe that's just a case of taste. you simply can't argue about that. it was a way to tell the story and so I never complained. I would have prefered to see less of the bleeding and dying there but it is the writers/directors choice and it wasn't meaningless violence just to grab some viewers with a very sad taste in entertainment.
and being a young and openminded german I'm never upset by consensual sex in any form. sex is good, sex should be fun or a way of showing love. and if sex for money is fun too - Inara never seems to mind, and if she does she simply calls the deal off and goes away (Shindig) - I see nothing wrong with that either. I'm really glad that at least a bit of Inaras 'work' is shown here and there. it is part of her life and we should see it to know what Inara's all about. this particular scene would have made much more sense with the cut scene not cut. it seems to float a bit like this, not much story attached to it except for the bits about Inara taking female clients now and then because she feels she can be totally herself with them and not always with men. sounds natural to me. to me watching people on TV having sex gets boring most of the time but it never upsets me. and I even do believe that it wouldn't hurt children, if they were told what it was all about and it wasn't forbidden to speak about and all that crap. there's nothing bad to it so why make it sound like something bad?
...but I digress.
Idefix
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
All I have to say Fireflyclassact is, spread the wealth. Hand out some more of those rose colored glasses that you are wearing so that we can see the world as you do.
Allow me to point out that the reason DS9 started losing an audience to B5 is because of those rose colored glasses.
The "Warstories" episode of Firefly has got to be one of the best sci-fi episodes I have ever seen. It now beats out "Our Mrs. Reynolds" as my favorite. And Zoe is now on the same level as Book as far as my choice of fav character on the show.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
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.
What was the name of that episode?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Snowspinner:
The lesbianism sequence has been explained with the cut scene - with that in place, that sideplot makes a lot more sense.
Which cut scene was that? Can you explain or post a link to the explanation thread?
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hmmm..I'm trying to think about how to say this.
One of the things I like about this show is that the violence *isn't* senseless - it's real. It's messy and sad and horrifying and you wish it hadn't happened, but Firefly is like life - sometimes bad things happen to people. And just saying "and I'm going to torture you now" and holding up a set of pincers wouldn't cut it. The snappy banter between Mal and Wash while they were being tortured wasn't for cuteness - it was Mal keeping Wash going when nothing but the talking might have done it.
We learned a lot that we never would otherwise.
1)Wash had never really seen true violence (inferred) or understood what Zoe was talking about when she reminisced about the war. He also didn't understand that her bond with Mal wasn't just because he was the boss - that it existed for a reason.
2)We've begun to see that Mal is a survivor because he's probably just too pig-headed to give in when things get tough. I've known people like him - people who just put one foot in front of another when things get tough. Zoe's loyalty to him is based on a bond formed because his toughness saved her life, as it saved Wash's in the episode.
3)In addition to what I said about Zoe above, she made exactly the right decision about which guy to take with her. She knew Mal could take it, because she's seen him take worse. She knew Wash couldn't. Simple equation. She counted on Mal's innate bullheadedness to keep him alive till they could get him out of there.
I suppose these points could have been made some other way, but I can't for the life of me figure out how all that could have been conveyed to us in any other *effective* way in a one-hour show.
And I can't even begin to enumerate the interesting things we learned about pretty much every other character during this episode.
I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry (and ended up doing both) during the torture scene. And I don't think I'd change a thing.
I see a lot of TV shows these days that have mindless violence. The good guys stand there and blaze away at the bad guys and come away without a scratch. In a video game sort of world, where actions often have *no* consequences, I would rather see Joss' version any day.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:Quote:
Originally posted by Snowspinner:
The lesbianism sequence has been explained with the cut scene - with that in place, that sideplot makes a lot more sense.
Which cut scene was that? Can you explain or post a link to the explanation thread?
Never mind, I found it:
http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages/?msg=2793.44
(man that FOX board is a b@stard to navigate!)
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME