Serenity (** warning: spoilers ahead! **)

Okay, so we just got back from Serenity. It made me want to go around to a few hundred million of my closest friends and take up a collection to buy the Star Wars universe from Lucas and give it Whedon. Tho it is probably too late anyway.

**Spoiler**











Y'know, I *know* that Joss likes to kill characters you care about. It's a trademark with him, and in fact a policy --that you have to "pay" real costs for success. And, really, the way he set it up with Shepard I saw it coming. . .but he got me with Wash, the bastard, and yeah, I felt it.

Unfortunately, since this is hard s-f rather than his usual fantasy, I don't know how he's going to manage another Whedon trademark with his "Whedon Players" -- "You work more after you're dead."

It also occurred to me to wonder if, with sequels in mind, he just decided that the core cast was too big to do justice with in a "one movie every three years" kind of format.

Also, "conservation of happiness --cause happiness is boring" Whedonism. Wash gone probably made Joss more willing to let the doctor and Kalee start playing "hide the salami".
 
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More spoilers.

I was not happy with the movie.

There, I said it.

I loved the series, but the movie made me sad.

Why? It made me realize, within the first 5 minutes, that the series will never happen again. It can't. They all look older. They all were older. It made me realize that the past is history, and it can't be changed.

I saw it when I first saw Shepherd on the screen. He's changed so much. It was driven home when they killed Shepherd. I wanted to learn his stories, but that will never happen now.

And that makes me sad. I really wanted the series to continue. On a deeper, philosophical note, that somewhat struck a chord with me w/respect to some issues in my own life. Can't change the past, and have to accept it and move on. Anywhooo....

As for the movie, there were some frustrating aspects:
-They somewhat ditched the cowboys in space aspect. Much less cowboy.
-The overall story really didn't make a whole lot of sense. The secret of Miranda was too much of an obtuse reason for the Alliance to be after River. All sorts of people knew about Miranda. And how did she hear it? And why are those people still alive if the plan was to kill everybody who knew...
-The characters had changed since the series:
1) Mal made some decisions and statements in the beginning of the movie that were not him.
2) Jayne got smarter (or seemed to)
3) Inara with a bow? *roll*
4) Everybody seemed a lot more comfortable with guns when they toured Miranda.

Inconsistancies:
-Mal's bio as seen by the operative said "Captain". He was a sergeant.
-Mal couldn't fly in the series. Maybe he learned, but I think the episode where they detailed the history of the crew suggested he needed a pilot (and not just because a captains got other things to do on a boat)
-The series seemed to suggest there wasn't one big solar system. The movie did. Or explained itself very poorly.
-In one of the episodes, the Simon suggested he never had killed anybody. In seems like he did in the movie when rescuing River. Or maybe his weapon thing just stunned everybody.
-The sick bay was way different than the series.

Beyond that, though. Loved the movie. Will buy it on DVD. Still want the series, even if it would be a different series than the one put out almost three years ago.
 
Spoiler!!!


RussSchultz said:
More spoilers.

-The overall story really didn't make a whole lot of sense. The secret of Miranda was too much of an obtuse reason for the Alliance to be after River. All sorts of people knew about Miranda. And how did she hear it? And why are those people still alive if the plan was to kill everybody who knew...
Click to expand...

You missed this? What was the first doctor's sin in the prologue? That he'd put some of the leading minds of the parliament in the same room with a telepath. . . and later River tells Simon "they aren't even my memories!"

Edit: Oh man do I agree about Shepard. . .but y'know, I could imagine them taking that one up again. . .tho maybe not in a movie. A holo-cube or something with a "last favor", leading to uncovering his pasts. . .

EditII: Best exchange in the movie: Bad Guy: "Do you know what your sin is?" Mal: "Actually, I'm rather fond of all seven. . ."
 
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geo said:
You missed this? What was the first doctor's sin in the prologue? That he'd put some of the leading minds of the parliament in the same room with a telepath. . . and later River tells Simon "they aren't even my memories!"
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Aaah. Ok, that does make sense. It still makes for a lousy reason for the premise of the movie.

Especially since "Mr. Universe" would know all about it already. Why wasn't he killed?

Also, the end of the movie (showing the tape to everybody) was somewhat silly. I doubt it would solve or change much of anything. For example, if somebody broadcast an unsourced confession about 9/11 really being a government plot, I doubt you'd have an uprising over it, or even create much of a stir.

Edit: Oh man do I agree about Shepard. . .but y'know, I could imagine them taking that one up again. . .tho maybe not in a movie. A holo-cube or something with a "last favor", leading to uncovering his pasts. . .
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That would be nice. They could also shoot the series as if the movie hadn't happened yet.

Final note: I always found the River storyline to be a distraction from the series.
 
Spoiler!!

RussSchultz said:
Final note: I always found the River storyline to be a distraction from the series.
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Me too, to a degree, tho I wanted to find out more about those. . .err psycorps (yes, I know, but I can't remember their real name) boys. Apparently jettisoned for the movie.

The good news is, you can look at the movie as having resolved the weirdest/distracting aspects of that and then can move forward with her still having her cool features while dumping the large majority of the ethereal goofiness. I think they hinted at that near the end, where she says something like she's okay now in a rather intense kind of way, like more than just for the moment. So moving forward she's more like a Star Trek Data kind of character. . .
 
John Reynolds said:
Even though the Reavers themselves aren't handled all that well, I liked the explanation for their origin.
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Bush Administration, wasn't it? <g,d,&r>
 
The only question I have about Serenity (I don't really care about spoilers; I'd heard most of them before from people at the preview screenings) is: would it have been better with a different director? I watched every episode of Buffy and every episode of Angel, and the only time I was ever really impressed with the direction was in the episode "Hush" (nobody talks for about 45 minutes).
 
Since directors famously don't respect writers (at least in film, rather than TV), no.
 
Over all I liked the movie, but there were a couple of things that I was a bit disappointed with:

1) The reavers struck me as more of a "last man standing" kind of creature rather than a group that could band together to actually pose a significant military threat in space. If they had such bloodlust and inability to control themselves, you would think they would have destroyed each other long before they managed to organize themselves onto ships. How do they manage to keep their ships flying anyway?

2) Like was previously said, it seems like airing the video really wouldn't have that much of an effect. The corrupt political body would just use the media to spin it to their liking (IE it's fake propoganda being sent out by ex outer-world patriots to stir up trouble).

3) For being a master of manipulating information, Mr. Universe seemed awfully easy to find.

Other than that, I really liked the movie, and you can talk to my wife as testament that I'm very hard to please! :)

Nite_Hawk
 
RussSchultz said:
Especially since "Mr. Universe" would know all about it already. Why wasn't he killed?
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Why would he know all about it?

RussSchultz said:
Also, the end of the movie (showing the tape to everybody) was somewhat silly. I doubt it would solve or change much of anything. For example, if somebody broadcast an unsourced confession about 9/11 really being a government plot, I doubt you'd have an uprising over it, or even create much of a stir.
Click to expand...

If everyone in the US saw bonefied 100% undeniable proof that one of our politcal parties planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. You don't think there would be a serious political upheaval

Nite_Hawk said:
1) The reavers struck me as more of a "last man standing" kind of creature rather than a group that could band together to actually pose a significant military threat in space. If they had such bloodlust and inability to control themselves, you would think they would have destroyed each other long before they managed to organize themselves onto ships. How do they manage to keep their ships flying anyway?
Click to expand...

Even the most ravenous beasts can get along in some fashion. They aren't stupid creatures just not very wise creatures. Don't think they do pose a military threat, they aren't organized. Nothing in Serenity showed any kind of organization.

Nite_Hawk said:
2) Like was previously said, it seems like airing the video really wouldn't have that much of an effect. The corrupt political body would just use the media to spin it to their liking (IE it's fake propoganda being sent out by ex outer-world patriots to stir up trouble).
Click to expand...

It is a parliament and they do answer to the people.

Nite_Hawk said:
3) For being a master of manipulating information, Mr. Universe seemed awfully easy to find.
Click to expand...

They never showed us how they found him.
 
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ecliptic said:
Why would he know all about it?
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He sees everything that is broadcast. Surely somebody talked about it at some point over the air waves.




If everyone in the US saw bonefied 100% undeniable proof that one of our politcal parties planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. You don't think there would be a serious political upheaval
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The undeniable part is where it falls apart. A 1 minute video clip isn't undeniable. Considering they expunged the entire planet of Miranda from the collective consciousness, a 1 minute video clip would be easy.
 
RussSchultz said:
He sees everything that is broadcast. Surely somebody talked about it at some point over the air waves.
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yeap and you would have thought that he would have seen them coming for him....



RussSchultz said:
The undeniable part is where it falls apart. A 1 minute video clip isn't undeniable. Considering they expunged the entire planet of Miranda from the collective consciousness, a 1 minute video clip would be easy.
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Good point...one COULD say that it was enought to ask questions which lead to something bigger? But we could speculate for awhile.... I guess the only thing to do is go see it a 2nd time :)

BTW I liked it. A bit "darker" but in all very good stuff!!
 
The video clip would be sufficient to have ex-browncoat, browncoat sympathisers and likely a lot of people who were on the fence. I doubt everyone would buy it. Ever think in more than binary? Besides, people keep on drumming up silly parallels to the US, but if we looked at it on a world level, I'm sure such a recording could easily mobilise a force which would attack an imperialist/oppressive power who keeps on telling others how to be.

Why didn't they kill Mr. Universe prior to this or why didn't he see the fleet comming? Did you see how easily he would have taken that bribe? He'd be fine with the military comming, he's getting paid.

The only thing wrong with that movie is that it seemed a bit rushed and in doing so the tempo was wonky.
 
ecliptic said:
Even the most ravenous beasts can get along in some fashion. They aren't stupid creatures just not very wise creatures. Don't think they do pose a military threat, they aren't organized. Nothing in Serenity showed any kind of organization.
Click to expand...

That's not really the kind of creature that they were made out to be though. They were humans that become so incredibly aggressive that they turned to canabilism/rape/etc without remorse. There is no way that any kind of organized society could be built unless for some reason the reavers aren't as aggressive with each other as they are with "normal" humans. That's pretty weak imho though.

It is a parliament and they do answer to the people.
Click to expand...

Sure, but I'm with Russ on this one. There would be so much muddying the waters with investigations to figure out if it is real, "expert" analysist arguing about minute details of the broadcast, not to mention that the source is place out near the rim of civilized space where the outer colonies are. Besides, they could just launch a war against the reavers for the suprise attack on paralment forces. Scare the population with stories of rape and canabilism. Nothing like a good war to keep people from asking too many difficult questions.

They never showed us how they found him.
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Seems as though the implication is that they basically made him an offer he couldn't refuse if he betrayed his friends. Still, I'd think he'd be a little more paranoid than that given his er... profession.

Nite_Hawk
 
Orson Scott Card used "sci-fi".

If you need me I'll be in the other room putting on the sack cloth and ashes. :cry:
 
geo said:
Orson Scott Card used "sci-fi".

If you need me I'll be in the other room putting on the sack cloth and ashes. :cry:
Click to expand...

Heh, I don't care about his religious views or politics. Ender's game is a classic, and his views on sci fi are relevant.
 
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