little 'perspective' question about "Out Of Gas"

POSTED BY: Idefix
UPDATED: Saturday, November 30, 2002 17:06
VIEWED: 2837
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IDEFIX

Friday, November 29, 2002 4:51 PM

...deleted first sentence, because it was accidentially written in german *blushingabit*...
now again in english...

I just read a review about "Out Of Gas" and I felt the need to ask all of you about your 'perspective' of timelines in this EP.

this is no question about right and wrong and how it was intended, so I think we need not ask JW to settle a mile long debate about this. I just wanted to know how you saw it.

there are rouphly 3 timelines in "Out Of Gas".

timeline 1: the oldest one with the flashbacks about how the crew met. it's not really a timeline but let's call it one, this scenes seem to happen roughly in the same timeframe.

timeline 2: the one with the birthday party for Simon, Zoe's accident and so on.

timeline 3: the one where the injured Mal tries to install the new engine part to get the ship running again.

timeline 2 and 3 meet somewhere along the road. timeline 2 ends with Mal being shot and timeline 3 starts with Mal falling to the floor right in the beginning of the EP.

now my question: did you 'see' timeline 3 as present and timeline 1 and 2 as past? or did you see timeline 2 as present and timeline 1 as past and timeline 3 as future.

the reviewer went with the first option and I saw it the second way. to me the timeline that made the beginning of the story (birthdayparty, engine blows up...) was the present up to the point where it ended. then I sort of jumped into the end of timeline 3. I went with the story in the way that I 'understood' it. Mal falling to the floor shot didn't seem like the beginning of a story to me, then there came the old flashback and I thought of it as a memory and then there came the birthday party with an uninjured Mal and I immediately accepted that one as the beginning of the story and so it had to be the present. but I seemed to know that the injured Mal from the beginning would be later on in the story. so that was my 'future'.

so now tell me your view of things.

Idefix

EVANS

Friday, November 29, 2002 6:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Idefix:
to me the timeline that made the beginning of the story (birthdayparty, engine blows up...) was the present up to the point where it ended.

The present was Mal struggling to repair Serenity. The views of the crewmembers signing on were his memories. The brithday party timeline was to show us, the viewers, how Mal was injured.

m.
------------------------------------------------
"But ... not boring, like she made it sound." Wash, in ARIEL

DELVO

Saturday, November 30, 2002 12:56 PM

They were color-coded. The past memories were yellow, the present was left natural, and the foreshadowed future was blue. Then the scenes related to the future part of the story lost the blue and became natural color when the present caught up to them.

INVISIBLEGREEN

Saturday, November 30, 2002 5:06 PM

I actually see a fourth timeline: Mal buying Serenity.