SERENITY Part II. Your thoughts?

POSTED BY: THESOMNAMBULIST
UPDATED: Saturday, October 12, 2013 01:20
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THESOMNAMBULIST

Friday, April 15, 2011 1:49 PM

So I just rewatched SERENITY for... Well I no longer know how 'manyeth' time and I still regard it as good as the day I first saw it !
Now as it's nearing it's end and Mal and River are talking I began to wonder:
What would SERENITY part II be about? What preoccupations are left to explore and what would feel right for Joss?

Plenty of ideas came to mind but I'm more interested to know what the fine folk of FFF.net think....

So your thoughts please.

ZEEK

Friday, April 15, 2011 1:55 PM

My first thought is Blue Sun. I don't think River is totally fixed yet. I think she feels better now that she understands some of the images rattling around in her head, but I don't think she has it all worked out yet. I think she'll slowly piece together more and more and realize what Blue Sun is doing. My guess is initially Reavers were created by a bad combination of chemicals that Blue Sun was experimenting with including in food. Hence River's freak out with the food labels. The story would have to be changed now that the Reaver history was altered, but they could still uncover some Blue Sun plot and try to fix it.

I just don't know if that would be too similar to the story in Serenity. They'd end up on the wrong side of a power much bigger than them who's trying to keep a secret. Maybe rather than oppose that group maybe they'd have to work with them to fix their mistake. Like uncover that Blue Sun isn't evil they just made a mistake that they don't know how to fix. So, without a cure they're just covering it up. River meets up with some of their head scientists and has to help them find a cure as an outbreak gets closer and closer to the point of no return.

THESOMNAMBULIST

Friday, April 15, 2011 2:09 PM

Hey Zeek.

Blue Sun is an interesting angle. When you mentioned food it reminded me of the Soylent Green premise. Perhaps something along those lines but not so obvious as food being people, but maybe a kind of engineered food substitue that becomes as significant as spice during the years of the Dutch East India company... And somehow the crew find themselves pawns in the greater shenanigans of the corporate giants of the 'verse...?

TWO

Friday, April 15, 2011 3:07 PM

In Serenity 2, I'd like to see the Operative meeting with River for a debriefing. He suspects there is more to Reavers than space zombies. She has insight from close contact with Reavers.

I want Serenity 2 to start where Serenity ended. At the end of BDM, by the way, the Operative didn't come out in the rain without his umbrella for a poignant (yet pointless) moment with Mal. He was a diversion while mechanics sabotaged the reactor shutter, that big piece that fell off Serenity at the end of the movie. That is the setup for the Operative's meeting with River the next day.

I remember Joss said he wanted to start a movie with a spaceship on fire. This would be the opportunity. Serenity is forced to turn around and go back because she catches on fire from very hot liquid sodium, which cools the reactor, squirting on wet metal. They don't call them Fireflies because the tail-butt glows. It's not very interesting if the piece of Serenity fell off only because Kaylee forgot to tighten a bolt or look for metal fatigue. I want a conspiracy involving the Operative.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

STORYMARK

Friday, April 15, 2011 5:30 PM

So hard to say.

Had we gotten a Serenity 2 close to the first, I could see a lot of the above scenarios, River still dealing with her craziness, Blue Sun, etc.

But now, if we ever get one, it'll be a decade or so on, so even if the story doesn't jump that far, it'll have to move forward some at the least.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

BYTEMITE

Friday, April 15, 2011 6:48 PM

Somn: Well, I think since Blue Sun is the once thing Joss wanted to cover in the movie, but didn't, I think that's most definitely where the verse is heading now. We already uncovered evil secret government experiments twice, now let's look at the second half of the socio-economic coin, the corporations that together with the government exist to make the verse a crappy place.

I like to think maybe the Inara secret thing might tie into Blue Sun secrets somehow. I mean hey, they made the Pax, who knows what else they've made. Let's look at conspiracy theories about food and pharmaceuticals now, it would be a logical progression from Miranda.

But I actually think that'll be the last movie, in which they collapse the economy of the Core and take down both Blue Sun and the Alliance for good.

So next movie I'll maybe say they build on the Operatives warning that there are still people who will come looking for River and Simon. Then we can do a story about the Academy and some of the "students" who have actually graduated.

Two: While I also agree that the thing falling off at the end of Serenity is more interesting if it has a point, I think we can get Serenity coming in for a crash landing on fire without an Operative conspiracy. After all, why would the Operative waste time talking to Mal if he could just talk to River while they're there? Why let them leave only to force them to come back?

The Operative could have had his meeting with River off-panel. Maybe while he was talking to Mal, River snuck back on the ship and headed up to the helm.

I could see the Operative sabotaging the ship, but not to just bring the crew back. I also suspect that they put something on the ship to track it, since the Operative learned his error just relying on pulse beacons.

Picture this: All of the soldiers the Operative had under his command are now witnesses that the Alliance will want offed. In exchange for their silence, the Operative made a background deal spare the lives of the people under his command for his failure to stop the Miranda broadwave. The piece that fell off Serenity was part of the buffer panel system again, and in the words of Kaylee: "aren't just for show outside of atmo. They also got the grav screen spread across them. With one gone, can't go too fast or the grav forces'll take us apart."

And then the ship with the Academy graduates shows up to chase them, which was why the Operative sabotaged the piece to break off, to slow the crew down. The crew only just gets away because River, despite being unfinished, is still the most promising of the bunch. But it looks hairy for a while, and part of getting away involves looking like they all died in a fiery crash.

Then they find a stowaway, who got on the ship during repairs in case the ambush didn't work out...

STORYMARK

Friday, April 15, 2011 8:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

But I actually think that'll be the last movie, in which they collapse the economy of the Core and take down both Blue Sun and the Alliance for good.

I don't think Joss would be so cut-n-dried. His characters despise the Alliance, but he always seemed to view them more ambiguously.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

BYTEMITE

Friday, April 15, 2011 8:21 PM

Maybe, but generally all his series end with something near-or-post apocalyptic. The fall of the Alliance tearing itself apart in the process is the only thing I can see that would go there.

So considering that Buffy had the schemes of the evil government of Sunnydale, and Dollhouse had the fall of the Rossum corporation, my guess is that's the most likely story arc.

To be fair to the Alliance, I'm sure Joss will show how things are so much more sucktacular in the core and maybe some rim and border worlds without them, but it won't quite get in the way of Joss' favourite message about people going their own way and eventually landing on their feet.

STORYMARK

Friday, April 15, 2011 9:17 PM

Well, for one thing, I tend to assume that the "most likely" way for a story to end is the less likely way Joss would do it.

And as for the others (Buffy's evil Mayor, Dollhouse and Rossum and Angel and Wolfram & Hart) - they were all pretty unambiguously BAD groups.

Not so with the Alliance. When he talks about them being an analog for Star Trek's Federation (as opposed to say, Star Wars' evil empire, and we know he's not afraid to make Star Wars parallels with Firefly) I just think assuming that he would go that way is simplistic.

If anything, I could see him bringing down the Alliance, only to have the characters have to discover things were better with them, flipping the expectation.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

DMI

Friday, April 15, 2011 9:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
In Serenity 2, I'd like to see the Operative meeting with River for a debriefing. He suspects there is more to Reavers than space zombies. She has insight from close contact with Reavers.

I want Serenity 2 to start where Serenity ended. At the end of BDM, by the way, the Operative didn't come out in the rain without his umbrella for a poignant (yet pointless) moment with Mal. He was a diversion while mechanics sabotaged the reactor shutter, that big piece that fell off Serenity at the end of the movie. That is the setup for the Operative's meeting with River the next day.

I remember Joss said he wanted to start a movie with a spaceship on fire. This would be the opportunity. Serenity is forced to turn around and go back because she catches on fire from very hot liquid sodium, which cools the reactor, squirting on wet metal. They don't call them Fireflies because the tail-butt glows. It's not very interesting if the piece of Serenity fell off only because Kaylee forgot to tighten a bolt or look for metal fatigue. I want a conspiracy involving the Operative.

Starting it the next day might not feel right given that no matter what the circumstances, there would have always been many years between shootings. I like the idea of starting a movie with a spaceship on fire (didn't know that Joss wanted to do that) and the idea of keeping The Operative character around, but I feel like he had a real change in heart after seeing that video. It may be hard to believe this could happen, but there was a pretty big deal made about him being a believer and that video seemed to rock that faith. In a sequel, I'd like to see him come aboard about halfway through as a bit of a surprise twist (you know, help the crew out with a problem and gets invited along). He would sort of replace Book's character.

However, I think at least part of a sequel would need to be told in flashback, because Whedon left a lot of clues to things that happened between the series and the movie that I don't remember getting covered in the comic books. For example, why does Mal need that shot in the arm at the beginning? This would also be an excuse to bring Alan Tudyk and Ron Glass back for a bit. As far as plot goes, I figure in the beginning that Mal tries to go back to life as normal but finds he can't be a petty crook (PETTY!?) any more. Then, because of his new reputation as a conspiracy thwarter, he is hired but someone to uncover something about one or some combination of the following: Blue Sun, Parliament, or the real reason they left Earth.

-----------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

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