FIREFLY NECROPSY (#2 of 4) - WHAT WENT WRONG?
POSTED BY: xed
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 25, 2002 02:25
VIEWED: 9694
PAGE 2 of 3
Twice more, SergeantX indulges in baseless name-calling -- the last resort of the character assassin who has run out of arguments and facts:
"I started reading your post but about a half way through I realized that despite your verbose, authoritative stance, you're really don't know what the hell you're talking about."
Your baseless persxonal attack reveals itself as empty name-calling. Either provide hard evidence that I don't really know what I'm talking about, or stand revealed as just another on-line Senator Joseph McCarthy.
SergeantX continues his shameful character assassination with the ad hominem attack: "Sorry I don't have the time nor the inclination for a point by point rebuttal..."
Of course you're sorry, sir.
You're sorry because your ad hominem attack reveals that you have no facts and no logic and no arguments to counter my facts and my analyses. Well might you be sorry about being in such a pickle. It's a sorry situation for you to find yourself in, isn't it?
Sans anything but name-calling to back up your empty claims, you're just another person thrashing around in inarticulate rage. And that won't get you very far, will it?
And the beat(ing) goes on...
In his latest essay into shameful character assassination, SergeantX digs himself a deeper hole by sneering: "I don't know what your axe is, or why you think anyone wants to hear it on this board, but you're just making pompous, argumentative ass out of yourself."
Keep up your vacuous name-calling, sir. Continue avoid giving a reasoned response to the points I have made about Firefly. Persist in your effort to wriggle out of facing my arguments and my facts -- both critical and in praise of Firefly.
Keep it up, sir.
The longer you persist in your name-calling, the more clear it becomes to everyone that you have nothing with which to respond to my posts but empty venom.
Keep calling names instead of engaging in reasxoned debate -- you've called me an "ass," now see if you can dream up some more names to call me.
We will all know exactly what to make of your empty name-calling.
We all recognize exactly why you cannot come to grips with my arguments.
You cannot counter my arguments becuase you know I'm dead right about Firefly. And you can't stand it. That's why you engage in baseless name-calling. LIke a kindergarten child who bursts into tears at being told there is no Easter Bunny, you have no response but a hysterical tantrum. All you can do is bang your spoon on your high chair and scream "Bad man! You're a bad bad man! You're bad bad bad! Make the bad man go away! Away away away! Bad bad bad!"
Surely, sir, you must realize how utterly bankrupt and bereft your name-ca;ling amkes you appear in the eyes of everyone on this forum?
Here's some advice, SergeantX -- when you enter into a battle of wits, make sure you don't come unarmed. When you stoop to ad hominem insults, you disarm yourself, for in that case you offer no arguments and no facts to counter my arguments and my facts. In a debate, cogency and eloquence count. Facts matter. Arguments count. Vacuous name-calling doesn't cut it.
Put up or shut up, SergeantX.
Name-calling is contemptible, it's the last refuge of someone who knows his own arguments just don't have it takes to convince anyone.
Provide hard evidence and persuasive arguments to show that my analyses of Firefly are incorrect.
Offer logic to rebut mine. Offer arguments to counter mine. Offer facts to contadict my facts.
Otherwise, reasonable people will know exactly what conclude about your empty name-calling.
Notice, sir, that while you have repeatedly attacked me with ad hominem insults ("ass," "you just don't know what you're talking about," etc.) I have in no instance called you an "ass" or anything of the kind. I refuse to stoop to your level, SergeantX. You may prefer the gutter, I won't grovel in the gutter even to counter your vicious name-calling.
Do you think that the people who read this forum can't draw an appropriate conclu
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HKcavalier (who recognizes that sci-fi movie reference?) remarks "I am baffled. You, XED, are the one here with the despairing view of human nature. How else could you interpret a show that hinges on the decency of people in the face of depravity and injustic as hopelessly dystopian?"
Well, you know, that's a good point.
What you're really saying is that I'm viewing Firefly as a glass half empty, while you're viewing it as a glass half full.
There's a lot to commend your remarks. I tend to agree, in fact, that the rays of hope which shine through Firefly shine all the brighter for the show's darkness.
Point is, you may not have recognized that offering a show with such a mixture of dark as well as hopeful elements could well induce quite a lot of the audience to view such a complex show as a glass half empty.
Now, that represents a real danger as far as grabbing and holding an audience goes, doesn't it?
I think that without quite realizing it you may be close to agreeing with my assessment that a show as dark and complex as Firefly has real problems in grabbing a mass audience.
For while you might find the show a wonderful affirmation of humanity, the fact that I find it often unbearably depressing could well give us an inkling of how plenty of viewers will respond, could it not?
The point is, how do we know your response it typical? Even if the audeince splits 50-50 twixt my take on the show (dystopian) and your take (a dark series shot through with glorious rays of hope), that's enough to knock out half the potential audience, isn't it?
And that's not a real good idea for a brand-new untested series, is it?
HKCavalier goes on to comment:
"Let's dumb it down a bit: it's a show about the underdog. Remember him? The long-respected populist anti-hero? I watch the show for Mal's suprising heroism, for Kaylee's "you just have to have faith in people," for Inara's compassion, for Zoe's steely loyalty, Wash's love of life, for Simon's raw courage, for River's promise, for Book's hard-won wisdom, for Jayne's empathy that he just can't seem to shake (gorramit!)."
These are very good points. And I think you've hit on the show's strengths.
Problem is, Firefly's crew seems always to be just on the verge of losing everything, of getting killed, or getting "raped to death, our flesh eaten, and our skin sewn into their clothes. And if we're very, very lucky, they do it in that order."
I mean...there's dark...and then there's DARK. Wouldn't you say that bit of dialogue (from the 2-hr pilot) is severely hyper-intensively MEGA-DARK...?
So perhaps my reaction is not entirely out of whack..?
And in that case, wouldn't you expect perhaps as muchas half the potential audience to get turned off by Firefly?
Ask yourself -- is that really a good decision from the point of view of the Neilsens?
Your remaining poitns are less convincing:
"You call it dystopian when Niska gets away. Hello, y'ever hear of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain?"
The fact that evil folks often win in the real world doesn't cut any ice for fiction. As Mark Twain remarked, real situations and real endings cannot be jsutified in fiction, for they are far too unlikely.
To put it another way, just because evil sometimes triumphs in the real world is no reason to throw up our hands and give in to taking the easy cynical despairing way out in a work of fiction. ("Everything sucks and nothing matters." The last pathetic refuge of the jaded modernist.)
Fiction is not reality, sir. You cannot excuse a badly formed or unsastifying work fo fiction by pointing out that the events actually happened that way in reality. Fiction is about more than reality -- it's about creating a cosmic arc of meaning out of the chaos of everyday life. Tossing in haphazard (and depressing) events in a piece of fiction and justifying that laziness with the catch-all excuse "but that's the way it happened in reality" is a complete cop-out. Fiction seeks to
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LOL,
That wasn't baseless name calling.(I'll get to that momentarily) As for your pretense of reason and argument, I don't find your 'critique' worth a response. You could have summed up your entired self important litany with "It confused and depressed me." It would have saved the board a lot of drive space. Your opinions are your own and I respect that, but to pretend you are some kind of authority, fit to criticize those who are creating Firefly is fraudulant and inexcusable.
Now for the baseless name calling! You're a jerk, a pompous idiot, a sad little twerp trying to build up your ego by criticizing something you could never hope to equal. You live for arguing online because you're so damned afraid of confrontation in real life... and you do it so poorly. "Put up or shut up?" How about f*ck you? How about you quit trying to pretend your intelligent and go away?
Ok, since I know you won't and I realize me getting mad at you is just what you want, I won't be addressing your nonsense anymore. I'm just seething right now because idiots like you run F*X.
Sorry folks,.... I'll be nice now. :)
SergeantX
"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith
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Holy shamolians! It just won't stop. This guy is unbelievable. I hope he's having fun. I hope he just gets the hugest kick out of writing these interminable, self-rightious, exercises in humiliation. I hope he has lots of friends leaning over his shoulder waiting for the next little fishy to bite and that they're all sharing a huge laugh at our expense. I hope he has a nifty I-was-the-captain-of-the-forensic-league term for speeking of someone in the third person to his face. "Sir, your ex video hominem nunc hunc postulum estrus attack shows you to be the base character assassin that my learned brethren all knew you to be blah blah bladdy rad rad huck!"
Get your head out of the 19th Century's ass, XED, this is not the presidential debate of 1892!
XED, XED, XED! These guys you think you're puting in their places have been here for months. They've had plenty of very satisfying things to say about this show we all love. So if one of them glances over your post and says it's crap, that carries a little weight, 'cause we know these guys a little bit. Also, it gives voice to a feeling many of us share. You must know this, XED. I've noticed that you ignore the reasoned, less adversarial posts that I've read (and written) in response to your remarks. What's that all about? If you want to actually have an intelectually satisfying conversation with any of us on this board act like it! How 'bout this, DON'T WRITE SUCH LONG POSTS! Give us time to breath and think about one or two of the fifty points you want to make before going on. Test the waters a little, see if what you're talking about is something anyone else really wants to talk about. Practice some social skills, m'kay? Rude, longwinded bluster just makes people mad. I mean that in the nicest way.
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More baseless name-calling from SergeantX:
"Now for the baseless name calling! You're a jerk, a pompous idiot, a sad little twerp trying to build up your ego by criticizing something you could never hope to equal."
You tell me, ladies and gentlemen -- does not SergeantX prove my points conclusively by stooping to such mindless insults?
I have pointed how and why thef irst couple of episodes of Firefly failed to cut the mustrad.
And what has SergeantX to say in response to my accurate crigficism of the first couple of episodes of Firefly?
"`Put up or shut up?' How about f*ck you?"
Now that's a convincing rebuttal, isn't it?
Who, sir reveals himself as a "jerk" by responding to my accurately detailed critque of Firefly's faults with "how about f*ck you"?
You tell me, ladies and gentlemen. Who reveals himself as a "ompous idiot"? SergeantX, with his immortal words "f*ck you"?
Or me, when I point out that "The Train JOb" was poorly paced, ground to a halt in the middle for no good reason, and got clogged up with exposition that shouldv'e been interleaved with action, while "Bushwhacked" boiled down to "waiting For Godot" mmets "Silence of the Lambs" in outer space (a recipe for death in a mass audience show)?
Against my analyses, SergeantX offers the incisive critique "f*ck you."
Further comment on my part is unnecessary.
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Hey XED,
Just noticed that you did respond to my post. And I must say, you were a good deal more sensible in your response to me than you seemed with them other guys. Thank you. I feel sorry now about my previous flame, even though I think I got off some zingers. Flame wars can be fun but to me they're mostly frustrating.
Your Mark Twain quote misses the difference between a long term episodic story and a completed drama. Yeah, it would be disgusting if Firefly's final episode of the final season had Niska kill half the crew and Mal commited to a mental hospital. But this is season one (hopefully of many). I think of STARWARS and Darth Vader, a bad, bad guy who lasts for three movies. When he finally is vanquished it's glorious and deeply satisfying. Then there's Darth Maul whom we kill off in the very first movie. Cool costume, but not much of a villian finally.
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Hey XED,
The glass half full/half empty comparison is to me the difference between faithfulness and faithlessness. A theme that runs throughout Firefly. Jayne says "there are only people like me" because that is what he believes, that is how he lets himself do the wretched things he's done. The 'verse, as expressed to us by the writers is bigger than Jayne. Yes, people make heros because they need them, and yes that can be foolish, but it doesn't mean that there are no really good men in the world. Just that Jayne is not one of them (although we all see the seeds of such a man of such a man within him, we all see how Jayne is just a few decissions away from being a half-way decent guy). Why do you think people love Jayne so much? Because he's doomed to a life of depravity and greed? Or because we see in this fantastically untrustworthy soul some hope. Isn't Ariel all about that last moment when we see through Malcolm Reynolds eyes Jayne's decency trying to surface?
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I agree absolutely with you about Jayne and about "Ariel." That luminous moment when Jayne finally make sthe deicison to let his decency shine through is a magnificent piece of drama.
In fact, we can infer that's probably why Mal lets Jayne live. Mal's presumablya godo judge of character.
Still and all, hard to believe that the bleakness I've noted in Firefly is entirely a product of my imagination -- or my putatively dire emotional state.
I mean, run down the plots here...
2-hr pilot: Mal gets betrayed by the guy he did the job for, then betrayed again when he tries to sell the product agian, then turns out he has a traitor on board, PLUS psychopathic cannibals from the rim of space try to "rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin into their clothes."
Now, call me a little dark cloud, kiddies, but that don't sound like Mr. Rogers to me.
"The Train Job" -- A supervillains greets Mal & Zoe by showing 'em a corpse haning from the ceiling. Niska hires them to steal what turn out to be vital medicines. Then when Mal tries to do the right thing, Kroll promises "Take the money. Use it for a funeral. It's doesn't matter where you go. I'll hunt you down. And the last thing you see will be my knife."
Call me a pessimist, kiddo, but I think it's safe to say we are not in Teletubby-land here.
Then we get "Jaynestown." A planet of slavess find out that heeir hero, jayne, actually didn't intend to be a hero, and Jayne tells 'em all he isn't a hero...then leaves them as slaves.
Am I really such a pessimist?
Or do we sense a certain pattern here?
In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Mal's blushing bride turns out tobe a murderous traitor working for psycho scavengers who want to kill everyone on board. CAn't talk about Shindig, my gorram cable company. In "Safe" it takes River and Simon a record short time get ;ipled on a heap 'o kindlin' about to get burnt alive. Oh, and by the way, the Alliance prove they're nice guys by turning away the mortally wounded SHepard Book..until they see his mysterious ID.
These are not happy campers.
"Out Of Gas" starts with Mall collapses gut-shot on the deck. It gets more brutal from there.
"Ariel" features Jayne betraying all his freinds for cash, then getting betrayed by the Alliance himself. After which the Alliance marshal and his cops are murdered in cold blood by psychos with blue gloves. Well, maybe I'm being negative here, but I'll go out on a limba nd say this is not a fun Disneyland ride through the Tiki Hut.
In "War Stories" we get a nice dose of torture to to spice things up, and of course River becomes a cold-blooded killer.
And "Objects In Space' showcases one of the more chillingly psychotic killers in recent memory, the bounty hunter Jubal Early.
Do you notice a pattern?
Or is it all just my misperception?
Torture, attempted rape, threatened rape, murder, stealing medicine from sick people, burning people alive as witches, getting betrayed by your newlywed wife who turns out tobe a murerous saboteur... And those are the *upbeat* parts.
Eeeyow!
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Quote:
Originally posted by xed:
Still and all, hard to believe that the bleakness I've noted in Firefly is entirely a product of my imagination -- or my putatively dire emotional state.
Okay, XED, right there. As I understand your earlier post, we were talking about a view of human nature. You were siting elements of Firefly's plots as evidence of what Joss & co. believed about people. "Being tortured makes you a torturer." You presented Jayne's "there's only people like me" as some kind of authorial measage. And that part I don't buy. Yeah, the story lines are spectacularly dark at times, but that's the Joss genre of choice. He's pretty regularly a horror writer on his shows. (Vampires for crying out loud!) Horror is not necessarily written by nihilists. Just look at Steven King, positively school-marmish when it come to the moral clarity of some of his books.
But okay, let's talk about the plot's being too dark for America. Okay. Maybe so. Buffy's pretty dark and seems to be doing fine, though. There are plenty of schlocky horror series out there. Maybe it's the combination of horror and genuinely adult concerns that America isn't ready for.
We may never know, 'cause nobody saw it. There's this urban legend circulating on this board that all these Nielson families turned on "The Train Job" and turned it off 'cause it just wasn't what they wanted to see. What makes anyone believe that the Nielson families even knew the show was on the air? As I've stated elsewhere NO ONE I know had even heard of it before I told them. Everyone that I've introduce the show to has LOVED it, and these are not sick people but nice Friends-watching normies. So the America I meet everyday seems ready for Firefly.
I'm sorry you got the idea that I thought Firefly was in the same boat as Mr. Rogers, Telatubbies, et al. I meant to say that I found Firefly to be a deeply, satisfyingly moral experience. And I would say that that kind of thing has universal appeal (c.f: Star Trek TOS). Captain Reynolds is called upon to make some amazing and harrowing moral judgements, some good, some, not so good, but I never lose the sense that Joss knows right from wrong.
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Well, I didn't sign up for sweetness and light. I also did not sign up for hopelessness.
Yet, there is a glimmer of hope - and those are in the characters. The Alliance is a bunch of fascist scum concerned with money and control. They have no problem seeing people as property or tools to be used and thrown away. (River, Mal's speech in the pilot, the slavers in "Shindig") The people that cross them/hire them (Niska, Badger, Patience) are concerned only with their own necks and coin.
But when it comes down to it - the crew of Serenity consider people more important than money, and Mal is the character that makes the best example of it. He crossed Niska (at his peril) when realizing what was on the train. He and Zoe could have killed Patience for trying to kill them, but they just calmly took what was asked and left the old lady to stew. He and Serenity come back for the Tams because they're "crew" and that was that. After that, Mal damn near spaces Jayne for trying to sell out the Tams (who are "crew"), and decks Atherton Wing for implying Inara is property.
Characters from Badger to Inara have brought this up constantly! Mal is still a man of honor, a freedom fighter trying to keep his own liberty and do what is right. He may profess to be a typlical smuggler, but he's just not able to be a total crook. Too damn honorable.
The rest of the crew shares this ethic. Zoe has the same honor code as Mal, and adds unmatched loyalty to it. I'm thinking Simon hadn't a clue what loyalty to anyone other than his sibling was until Serenity (Daddy Tam was certainly a bad example). Book's had a long and twisting road that's landed him here, and he finally seems to be at home there. Kaylee it too honest and has too much faith in people. Wash is so lighthearted it'd be easy tho call him a lightweight, but he's a decent fellow. Inara had her own reasons for coming aboard, but is likely starting to ask questions she wouldn't have thought of before. People care about her as a person on ship, and I think she's not used to it. Jayne is actually learning those kind of values - don't think anyone ever showed them to him before. Yet, as much as he tries to be a total rat, he can't seem to manage it either ("Jaynestown," "Ariel," "Serenity). Poor River...well, she knows she's among good people, away from the people who saw her as an object.
Miracles they can't do. Make the occasional stand for that is good and decent - hell yes! Zoe orders the crew to come back for Mal in the nick of time, despite the dangers. After being tortured, Wash volunteers to go back into hell for the captain. Simon gets up on the pyre with River because his baby sister is worth his life. The crew risk arrest and losing everything to get Book medical attention from the Alliance (who then don't treat him until he ponies up some high-class ID). Jayne, knowing he's dead meat, makes a last request not to be remembered as a traitor and it ends up saving his life. I think wrecking the statue was a freak-out reaction when he realized a "mudder" just got killed for him. Jayne also kept his silent vigil while Kaylee was in surgery.
This stands in shocking contrast with the "ethics" spouted on most of TV - screw your neighbor for cash, fool some bimbos into beliving a bloke has bucks and see if they'll break his heart when she finds he's working-class, duck the blame when you do something wrong, and then find a new way to get self-gratification.
In a universe where the "good guys" have lost, finish last, and the nastiest rat wins, Serenity's crew stands firm, and sometimes they win, even if it's small-scale moral victory. The town got their medicines. Atherton was exposed as a cruel coward and destroyed. The mudders have hope - something they didn't have before. Yeah, they'll pay for it, but they're not going to lower themselves to the level of those who only think in terms of cash.
And at episode's end, as they ride off into the sunset - still in a universe that doesn't get it...here they are, sharing a meal and laughing it off. Next planet, nex
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