Why still not seeing "Serenity."

[plot mechanic]

Whedon's faux-Western dialogue is a creative achievement. His jokes are pretty good, too. Plus, it seems many of the offenses, great and small, of the series were rewritten for mainstream appeal. For an instance of great, the Reavers get a back story that turns them from viciously stereotyped savage "Indians" into something (thankfully, anything) else. For an instance of small, Simon Tam is no longer a comic sissy.

So why won't I catch the big screen experience, besides remembering episodes of Firefly too bad to finish watching? Whedon is seriously funny, after all.

1.) Although the Neo-Confederate stench seems to be absent, there still seems to be a Libertarian ethos. In post-Katrina days, stale and ignorant cliches about the evils of big government are in bad taste. We've had a wakeup call: A government that you can drown in a bathtub is not much use when really big water comes. Better to see a fantasy movie about drowning Grover Norquist in a bathtub!

2.) I'm not superspoiled on the plot, but I'm pretty sure that the action hinges on the notion that getting the Matt Drudge blogger of the Whedonverse to post THE TRUTH on the internet will save all. I know it's just science fiction but I don't think that excuses the completely ridiculous. No single story will topple a government, especially one on the internet. This premise requires willful ignorance of human society!

3.) Whedon also keeps the nutty opening of the series in the movie: Somebody Else starts all the action, then promptly disappears. Hey, if this is about River, then the people who release River are main characters too! Especially since even knowing about River is such a big deal.

4.) Spaceships are not a hokey cliche, not even faster than light ones. Aliens are not a hokey cliche. Psychic powers, however, are a hokey cliche. Is it really surprising that Hollywood is the Last to Know?

5.) Deadly martial artists exist only in a world without snipers, bombs, poison and the need to sleep.

6.) Popping naked out of the freezer was the last time River was actually interesting. At the end of one episode, Simon said "Time to wake up." Poor fool Whedon didn't keep the promise. Incidentally, I think that was the best line in the whole series. And the only spark of serious science fiction appeal in the whole mess.

7.) One Big Damn Solar System is not just ignorant. It is militant proselytizing ignorance. This is on par with breathing without a spacesuit or landing on the sun!

But...

Why aren't you seeing the movie?

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[Qasim]

Why aren't you seeing the movie?

Saw an ep of firefly once didnt like it

It was the one when they land and theres some woman on a horse and then when they take off the engineer is injured and she has to tell someone else what to do and one of the crew is thrown off the ship when they are taking off whilst the rear door is closing - anyone know which one that is?

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

It's not showing in my city. And the closest place showing it is about an hour a way from where I live. And with gas prices this high, I'm better off waiting for the DVD, or wait for my town to start showing it.

[Taonas]

Whedon's faux-Western dialogue is a creative achievement. His jokes are pretty good, too. Plus, it seems many of the offenses, great and small, of the series were rewritten for mainstream appeal. For an instance of great, the Reavers get a back story that turns them from viciously stereotyped savage "Indians" into something (thankfully, anything) else. For an instance of small, Simon Tam is no longer a comic sissy.

So why won't I catch the big screen experience, besides remembering episodes of Firefly too bad to finish watching? Whedon is seriously funny, after all.

1.) Although the Neo-Confederate stench seems to be absent, there still seems to be a Libertarian ethos. In post-Katrina days, stale and ignorant cliches about the evils of big government are in bad taste. We've had a wakeup call: A government that you can drown in a bathtub is not much use when really big water comes. Better to see a fantasy movie about drowning Grover Norquist in a bathtub!

2.) I'm not superspoiled on the plot, but I'm pretty sure that the action hinges on the notion that getting the Matt Drudge blogger of the Whedonverse to post THE TRUTH on the internet will save all. I know it's just science fiction but I don't think that excuses the completely ridiculous. No single story will topple a government, especially one on the internet. This premise requires willful ignorance of human society!

3.) Whedon also keeps the nutty opening of the series in the movie: Somebody Else starts all the action, then promptly disappears. Hey, if this is about River, then the people who release River are main characters too! Especially since even knowing about River is such a big deal.

4.) Spaceships are not a hokey cliche, not even faster than light ones. Aliens are not a hokey cliche. Psychic powers, however, are a hokey cliche. Is it really surprising that Hollywood is the Last to Know?

5.) Deadly martial artists exist only in a world without snipers, bombs, poison and the need to sleep.

6.) Popping naked out of the freezer was the last time River was actually interesting. At the end of one episode, Simon said "Time to wake up." Poor fool Whedon didn't keep the promise. Incidentally, I think that was the best line in the whole series. And the only spark of serious science fiction appeal in the whole mess.

7.) One Big Damn Solar System is not just ignorant. It is militant proselytizing ignorance. This is on par with breathing without a spacesuit or landing on the sun!

But...

Why aren't you seeing the movie?

pm

Ok, just to correct a few things:

1) The movie was made long before the events of Hurricaine Katrina.

2)

Spoiler:

The signal does not topple the government in any way. It simply weakens their control slightly. Also, the news that they found is a pretty damn big one.

3)

Spoiler:

Other people do not rescue River (it was changed from the TV show), in the movie it's actually Simon who rescues her, with help from others who we never see.

4) That statement is actually very true

5) Not quite sure what is meant by that

6) River has some great parts in the movie (and I'm not talking about fighting or nude parts). There are a lot of well written and well said parts.

7)

Spoiler:

The solar system has 12 planets and hundreds of moons. This is not that odd considering we have 9 planets and (at current count) 140 moons in our own solar system. The planets in the Firefly/Serenity universe were all terraformed to support human life

Anyway, not here to spark any arguements, just wanted to point out a few things that needed to be correct.

Thanks.

[Taonas]

Saw an ep of firefly once didnt like it

It was the one when they land and theres some woman on a horse and then when they take off the engineer is injured and she has to tell someone else what to do and one of the crew is thrown off the ship when they are taking off whilst the rear door is closing - anyone know which one that is?

The part you are describing is the end of the second half of the series premier.

[plot mechanic]

Thanks for the input.

Two clarifications: First, it is true that Katrina came long after the movie was finished filming. It still exposes the silliness of the mindless conservative/libertarian slogans about government.

Second, the idea that a government would engineer the perfect martial artist simply ignores the fact that hand to hand combat is pretty much irrelevant. (For a painless introduction to my basic idea, read The Legend of John Henry.)
So River can't be outfought? Who'd try? Plant a sniper out of reach (physical and mental,) plant a bomb without a mind to read, poison the air or water (easy in a spaceship!) or just shoot when she has to sleep.

If River is actually interesting in the movie, that would be another character rewritten for the mainstream. Unless the series River was to your taste.

pm

[darman]

Thanks for the input.

Two clarifications: First, it is true that Katrina came long after the movie was finished filming. It still exposes the silliness of the mindless conservative/libertarian slogans about government.

Second, the idea that a government would engineer the perfect martial artist simply ignores the fact that hand to hand combat is pretty much irrelevant. (For a painless introduction to my basic idea, read The Legend of John Henry.)
So River can't be outfought? Who'd try? Plant a sniper out of reach (physical and mental,) plant a bomb without a mind to read, poison the air or water (easy in a spaceship!) or just shoot when she has to sleep.

If River is actually interesting in the movie, that would be another character rewritten for the mainstream. Unless the series River was to your taste.

pm

Reading your posts, I find your whole argument ironic because you should see the movie to understand why the characters are so antagonistic toward the alliance. The reason the movie was made was just for that reason, to answer the questions posed in the series. And if you see the movie and still believe the government such as the Alliance has done no wrong and should not be accountable for the things they've done, I think you missed the point. Actually the answers they give us in the movie are kind of similar with what happened with Katrina incident, which is government failure to correctly respond to their peoples problems and their lack of accountability towards it.

[Giantevilhead]

Thanks for the input.

Two clarifications: First, it is true that Katrina came long after the movie was finished filming. It still exposes the silliness of the mindless conservative/libertarian slogans about government.

You can say the same thing about Star Wars. Plus the show didn't last long enough to establish what the Alliance is like.

Second, the idea that a government would engineer the perfect martial artist simply ignores the fact that hand to hand combat is pretty much irrelevant. (For a painless introduction to my basic idea, read The Legend of John Henry.)
So River can't be outfought? Who'd try? Plant a sniper out of reach (physical and mental,) plant a bomb without a mind to read, poison the air or water (easy in a spaceship!) or just shoot when she has to sleep.

If River is actually interesting in the movie, that would be another character rewritten for the mainstream. Unless the series River was to your taste.

pm

The Alliance didn't engineer River to be a martial arts master that can't be beaten by anyone. They engineered her to be a psychic assassin, among other things.

[Jprime]

Hand to hand combat is still important. If your goal is to kill someone, there is no need for a physical weapon to do so. In the words of Sargent Zim "There are no dangeous weapons, only dangerous people". River doesn't seem intended as a soldier, more an assisin. The more versitile the killer, the more effective. If you can kill someone tactically without a weapon, you are at an advantage. And suppose you have no weapon, or have it confiscated? Wouldn't it be comforting to know you still stand a good chance of finishing off the enemy anyway?

[plot mechanic]

About Star War politics: Since that movie series is widely criticized for puerile politics, I'm not quite sure how this is a defense. Besides, the notion that absolute monarchy is E-e-e-evil may be a no-brainer, but it's not a conservative one.

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[Giantevilhead]

And Firefly was never about fighting the evil Alliance, it was about a group of people who were just trying to make a living and they don't have any grand visions of a better civilization, they just want to be left alone.

[Mr Prophet]

For an instance of great, the Reavers get a back story that turns them from viciously stereotyped savage "Indians" into something (thankfully, anything) else.

Just not seeing the original Reavers as being in any way "Indians". I mean, aside from the fact that the stereotypical Native American has been a gentle, innately noble soul for many years, these are not an indigenous race, but were always 'us without the good bits'; once-humans who lost their humanity by staring too long into the void. If they were any stereotype they were Lovecraftian, 'thulhu worshippin hill-billies.

[plot mechanic]

Firefly may have spaceships, but it was also a Western. The Reavers were the Indians because they did what Indians did in the vast majority of Western movies and TV series. The view that "gentle, innately noble soul" is the stereotype doesn't even hold true in my opinion for the occasional Westerns of the last twenty years. (The idea that Lovecraftian anything is common enough to be stereotypical is simply rhetorical excess.)

Compare Mal's speech about the need to put down the survivor hopelessly befouled by Reaver madness (in one of the unwatchable episodes) to John Wayne's Ethan Canin ranting about the need to put down Natalie Wood's character, hopelessly befouled by Indian semen. The similarity in flavor is astonishing in my opinion. Except, of course, Ford's movie was a step forward from the true Western towards real drama. While Whedon's series was...not.

In any event, the idea that Reavers "lost their humanity by staring too long into the void" is both silly and pompous. The combination is an achievement of sorts I suppose, but not one to brag about. This kind of idiocy is one proof that the series was not even well written.

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[Blue Banrigh]

In any event, the idea that Reavers "lost their humanity by staring too long into the void" is both silly and pompous. The combination is an achievement of sorts I suppose, but not one to brag about. This kind of idiocy is one proof that the series was not even well written.

That's an urban legend for their 'verse.

The real reason why the Reavers are what they are is explained in the movie.

[plot mechanic]

Hmm. I did turn the set off after Mal's rant in the episode about the Reaver survivor. Nonetheless, I feel quite certain that Mal was "right" about the need to kill the survivor for his taint of Reaverdom. How could an urban legend turn a Reaver survivor into a Reaver?

The Experiment Gone Wrong can pass as an new origin for Reavers. It still won't explain a Reaver society, but my guess is that for the movie you forget that Reavers were supposed to be expanding their "space." (Incidentally, if this is all one solar system, what do the terms Core and Rim even mean?)

I would suggest praising Whedon for rewriting a horrible idea.

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