What would you have done? SPOILER WARNING by SignyM

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

What would you have done? SPOILER WARNING

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 01:04
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 3956
PAGE 1 of 1

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:35 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I was speaking w/ an avid movie-goer who saw Serenity on my say-so, and she expressed a certain amount of puzzlement about the movie. What she said was that the movie spent a fair bit of time developing the characters and then

SPOILER WARNING (Sorry, should have done this earlier)

turned them into caricatures when it veered into being an action sci-fi. Which led me think (once again) about the limitations of the movie format, the expectations of financial backers, and THEIR view of the average movie-going audience. (ie wanting to see things go "boom" and unable to handle ambiguity.)

LAST CHANCE

Select to view spoiler:

That led me to think about the plot itself- River is being hunted by the interplanetary Parliament because she knows of a secret failed experiment to pacify society, and that Serenity uses Reavers to help defeat the Alliance while neutralizing the threat to River by publicizing the secret. *takes deep breath*

I ain't got a problem with the plot as laid out. What I DO have a problem with is the "scale" of the forces involved: The ENTIRE parliament, a host of Reavers, a fleet of Alliance ships, the future of politics. It would have been far more believeable- and I think it would have made a better and more complex film- to scale down the nature of the problem: The experiment was created by a rougue element w/in Parliament. The Operative didn't represent the entire Parliamant, just this rogue element. Mr Universe isn't s super whiz-bang genius who can do anything, but a guy who an in some SOME communication channels. Only a few Reaver and Alliance ships were involved.

Once the nature of the problem is scaled down, it gives the film room to move. You could hint, for example, that Parliament actually had two competing covert programs: chemical pacification, and psychic prediction. Mr Universe may (or may not) be part of the group that sprang River. The Parliament- like all governments- has both honest and dishonest members. The Operative could have seen that his boss was simply corrupt, but still have faith in "the system". The action by the crew of Serenity is just one battle in an ongoing struggle. That way, some of the more egregiously unrealistic elements (River triumphing over a couple of dozen Reavers) could have bee avoided., and I think it would have brought the movie back to human scale and put the characters front and center.

Once you've saved the solar system where do you go form there?

So... given the requirements of successful/ popular film-making, what would YOU have done with "Serenity"?

Please don't think they give a shit.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:54 AM

SHIRLOCKC

I think you should post spoiler in the title.

I have same/similar issues with the BDM, which I posted elsewhere. Much as I liked the movie and trust Joss, I can't help but wondering why the parliment didn't take care of the Miranda problem. If they could send the Operative with loadsa backup to hunt one little girl, surely they could send similar OPs to clean up the Reavers and Miranda. Yes, I know they were denying the existence of Reavers and yes, I know that the more who know the harder it is to keep a secret, but they mobolized a fleet of ships for one little girl. How secret is that? The Operative was hardly secretive with the other officers about his purpose. The very least would be to send one team to nuke/find the origin of the signal that the parliment received, ie., the one on Miranda. Obviously, someone transmitted it from somewhere and if the Serenity crew could find it so could others.

Then there is the cryptic "the Tams are no longer a threat." Why would the Operative believe this? He knows that the problem is River's psychic abilities. If she gleaned one secret surely she knows more. The Operative may have given up his beliefs but he's too intelligent to think that River is no longer a threat. Unless it was a subtle warning to Mal ...

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:01 AM

STATIC

Here's something folks are missing. . .and it's a result from 'over-thinking' everything.

Remember, as the audience, we are the "Gods". . .we see and know EVERYTHING.

The reason the Operative was sent was because...

"KEY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT." were in the same room as River.

NOONE really knew what it was River knew, if she knew ANYTHING. They just knew that some dumbass had put people who POSESSED secrets in the same room as a psychic. The Operative was a 'just in case' scenario.

Stop over-thinking it.

http://burstsofstatic.blogspot.com

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:09 AM

GWEK

I've seen "Serenity" five times now, each time with different people, and I don't think that the fault lies with the movie, but with the marketing.

Unfortunately, there's no way to pitch a movie like "Serenity" to the masses without comparing it to "Star Wars," and "Star Wars" has not been particularly well-received for the past few years. This week, I head radio ads that described "Serenity" as something like "A hipper, edgier throwback to the original Star Wars movies." Even though the quote didn't exist before the movie, that idea should've been the core of their marketing campaign. Heck, to the layman, the whole thing can be largely summed up as "Han Solo: The Series."

Like I said, I saw it five times, with a number of people including hardcore fans, casual fans, folks who'd only seen an episode or two, and the totally uninitiated. And, hey, EVERYONE WHO SAW IT LIKED IT. Many of them loved it.

I think changing the reducing the scale would have hurt the movie, actually, from a movie standpoint, anyway. I know I was concerned when I saw read some spoilers because the truth behind the Reavers isn't as visceral as, say, the Death Star, so why should people care?

Our intrepid anti-heroes don't actually save the solar system, but they get a terrible truth out there. If they had done something less, why would any movie-going audience give a damn? Where's the stake?

One one level, the movie is about Mal regaining his faith, and his opposite number, the Operative, LOSING his. If you scale things back, you take that away.

While there are certainly minor adjustments that could have been made (and everyone will differ on what these are), for Whedon to tell the story he wanted to, and keep it true for the fans AND give it a shot with a larger audience, I don't think he really could've done it any other way.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:27 AM

THELURKER

Quote:
Yes, I know they were denying the existence of Reavers and yes, I know that the more who know the harder it is to keep a secret, but they mobolized a fleet of ships for one little girl. How secret is that? The Operative was hardly secretive with the other officers about his purpose.

The Operative knew why they were trying to stop Serenity, but who is to say that he told anyone else the reason? Those Alliance soldiers would have just done what they were told without a reason why. In other words, the Operative didn't need to reveal any secrets to the other ships/troops to carry out his mission.

Quote:
The very least would be to send one team to nuke/find the origin of the signal that the parliment received, ie., the one on Miranda. Obviously, someone transmitted it from somewhere and if the Serenity crew could find it so could others.

My understanding is that the signal was so faint that even Serenity's crew had trouble finding it. No one on the other side of Reaver space would even know it existed. As for not destroying the Reavers and Miranda, the full-scale military assault necessary to exterminate the Reavers would have been problematic due to their apparent numbers and ferocity.

Quote:
Then there is the cryptic "the Tams are no longer a threat." Why would the Operative believe this?

Who says he believes this? It's simply what he told the Parliament. That doesn't mean he believes it. We know he no longer believes Parliament is good or altruistic, so in his disillusionment, he no longer cares if River Tam is a threat to the Parliament. As he said "They might listen," which implies they may continue to pursue River.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:29 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Static wrote:

Quote:

Here's something folks are missing. . .and it's a result from 'over-thinking' everything.

Remember, as the audience, we are the "Gods". . .we see and know EVERYTHING.

The reason the Operative was sent was because...

"KEY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT." were in the same room as River.

NOONE really knew what it was River knew, if she knew ANYTHING. They just knew that some dumbass had put people who POSESSED secrets in the same room as a psychic. The Operative was a 'just in case' scenario.

Stop over-thinking it.

I second this.

The
Somnambulist

Oh and I wouldn't have done a thing to change Joss' script.

www.cirqus.com

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:36 AM

EMBERS

I agree that you need to put 'Spoilers' in the title

we have a lot of Browncoats from other countries,
many people haven't had the opportunity to see the BDM yet.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:58 AM

JCLAST

I also think scaling down the plot would have made it more believable. In Firefly, the Alliance struck me just as "the other." They weren't necessarily evil; they just weren't popular with most of the crew. Heck, Inarra was _for_ unification, and we all know she's not stupid.

Making the Alliance stereotypically evil in the film turned wonderful shades of grey into large patches of black and white. We always knew we'd keep following Serenity, but now they're the heroes. They used to just be the main characters living out their lives, and I'm going to miss that.

I have my issues with the film, but on the whole I enjoyed it. I just think that Joss made it a little too accessible. Maybe he catered to the least common denominator just a little too much.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:38 AM

CHRISISALL

SignyM, I didn't see anything in the movie to make me know that the entire parlament is evil, I took from it that there were factions of parlament that were behind all this, and they had to operate secretly- inferring to me that some powerful people might be mad if they found out certain things...(public opinion polls are obviously gonna be important to future politicians, too)

And was that a WHOLE Alliance fleet? Yeah, there were quite a few, but come on, I have more dvd's in my closet than that. I hold that it was the contingent of Alliance ships fully trustworthy to keep this op a secret, and that they involved no ships who's commanders did not have leanings toward 'the dark side' (interplanetary Oliver North's, if you will).

So in the end, apart from letting certain folk live (I'm a softy that way), no, I wouldn't have changed a gorram thing plot or epic-wise.

Edit to add: time and subsequent consideration of character developement are fast making the BDM one of my favourites, if not my favourite movie ever...

But I woulda got Greg to do the music...Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:58 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Once you've saved the solar system where do you go form there?

Now, you tell a smaller story (like TNG did with Insurrection).

Or go into the tremendous emotional turmoil caused by the BDM's events and losses.
Serenity II will explore the rest of that iceberg, I have faith.

Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:23 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by jclast:
Making the Alliance stereotypically evil in the film turned wonderful shades of grey into large patches of black and white.

Just curious, did the BDM say specifically that the WHOLE Alliance or Parlament was in the know about Miranda and the Reavers? Did I miss something?
I think it's possible to see all as SignyM talked about in the original post up top. I never got the feel of it being all-encompassing like in, say, Star Wars, where everyone in the galaxy was involved to some degree or other.
It's a smaller movie the second time around, and better, too.

Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:33 PM

JCLAST

The implication I got was that while only key members of parliment knew about River, they all knew about Miranda.

I could be wrong, but it just felt like Joss was out and out saying: Serenity = GOOD, Alliance = BAD.

I liked the story and figuring out the origination of the Reavers; I just liked it better when the Alliance felt less like an enemy and more like a government.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:41 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by jclast:
they all knew about Miranda.

Hmmmm. That was not my impression. Tell ya what- I'll come back with a clearer idea after I see it 3 or 4 more times next week, okay?

Chrisisall fuzzy in the brainpan

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 1:31 PM

STAKETHELURK

Quote:
jclast wrote:
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:33
The implication I got was that while only key members of parliment knew about River, they all knew about Miranda.

I could be wrong, but it just felt like Joss was out and out saying: Serenity = GOOD, Alliance = BAD.

I liked the story and figuring out the origination of the Reavers; I just liked it better when the Alliance felt less like an enemy and more like a government.

I don’t feel the movie made the Alliance into an “evil empire,” in fact, the Operative explicitly denies this. I think I’ve got a few things to back me up here:

- The Alliance appears to be a democracy. The opening narration implies that the “interplanetary Parliament” is an elected body. It may be that they only represent the populations of the Central Planets, but that would put them in line with most “democracies” in the 19th Century (US included). And it sure means they ain’t no dictatorship.

- Alliance weaponry. We already know from the series that the Alliance police use non-lethal weapons (the sonic guns). Well, the Operative grabs an officer's sidearm when he’s fleeing his flagship and later shoots Mal with it. The weapon gives off some zappy energy blast, like a taser. So even Alliance soldiers are given weapons designed to subdue, rather than to kill.

- “I was assured this project had full Alliance support.” The Academy holding River is separate from the Alliance, it requires Alliance support to proceed. Sure, it’s sinister, but it’s only a government funded program ran than a government run program.

- The Alliance genuinely wants to help people. They looked upon the border worlds as savage and backward, and they wanted to help so much they forced their help onto the Independents. Not exactly a good policy, but there was no evil intent--only a desire to improve lives. That same desire is what led to Miranda, another crime from good intentions. Whedon seems to be saying it’s good to help people, but it’s bad to force unwanted help upon them. Thus, the Alliance isn’t evil, just tragically misguided.

- The delineation between the Alliance and the Parliament. In the series, there was no mention of a “Parliament” and the Alliance was constantly referred to as a monolithic agency. But in the movie, the characters constantly talked about “Parliament” where they would previously have said “the Alliance.” Not to go all political, but it’s the same as saying “the Administration” rather than “the United States.” The Alliance as an institution is verbally distanced from the crime, rather it is the leadership at the top who are the criminals (and their major crime is simply taking their ideology too far and then hiding their mistake).

As for whether every member of Parliament knows about this, that is left unclear. The Operative speaks of “key members of Parliament.” River babbles about “old men covered in blood. Never touched them but they’re drowning in it.” Mal and most of the others simply mention Parliament in general. It is plausible that “key members of Parliament” were involved in the Miranda disaster, but the whole Parliament has become complicit in covering it up. It is also equally possible that only “key members of Parliament” know about the mess and have used their higher security clearance (they’re “key,” so they get to see more than the rest of the Parliament) to hide their mistake. Either way, the broader institution of the Alliance is not corrupted, only those directing it. Overall, I feel that Whedon successfully preserved the ambiguity of the Alliance in the film. It is still “just a government.” We’ve simply learned more about what it does and how it operates.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 2:38 PM

JCLAST

Wow. I hadn't thought about it like that, but couldn't your argument work for my side as well? All members of Parliament would know about the failed governmental program, but only key members would know about the school/psychic camp they funded?

Thanks for the great reply. The Alliance doesn't seem so indiscriminantly evil now.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 2:38 PM

JCLAST

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:20 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, CLEARLY I have to see the BDM again in order to sort out my impressions!

Please don't think they give a shit.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:31 PM

NOSADSEVEN

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Once you've saved the solar system where do you go form there?

But that's just it. They didn't save the solar system - they just blew a whistle. In doing so they managed to save (most of) themselves, but one of the things I liked most about this movie is that what they did was indeed a very small thing. It may well lead to bigger things, but it, in and of itself, was not.

The action by the crew of Serenity is just one battle in an ongoing struggle, and we don't even get to see just what kind of an impact it has on the grand scheme. What we do get to see is the impact it has on the characters: Mal finds his rudder. River finds some peace. Simon finds Kaylee. And Zoe...

If that's not human scale, putting the characters front and center, I'm not sure what would be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't. We. Just.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 6:46 PM

STAKETHELURK

Nosadseven is right. All the crew really did was introduce doubt. Where before people (like the Operative) trusted the Parliament blindly, now there is doubt at all levels. Parliament hasn’t come crashing down, the Alliance hasn’t been overthrown--all they’ve done is introduce doubt into a previously infallible belief system (am of course referring to the Central Planets, reckon there’s already plenty of doubt as to the Alliance’s intentions out on the Border Moons). The solar system hasn't been saved, just informed.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:02 PM

HKCAVALIER

Hey Signy,

I really like your idea of bringing the story down to life size. I sure would have liked that movie. I'm frankly surprised that fans of Firefly would actually advocate changing the world so radically just to capture the interest of some mythical "mass" audience. WTF? Does no one trust that a real Firefly movie would sell? Are vapid popcorn movies the only things that anyone likes? Weird.

Anyway, for me, the movie plot wasn't really over the top (the set pieces, yes; plot, not so much), it was overblown. The scandal was trivial really. Trivial because it wasn't really incriminating at all. It was a mistake, get over it! A terrible mistake with grave consequences, but a mistake. They shouldn't have covered it up, but governments always cover up their embarrassments. Only hardcore lefties and libertarians are gonna care about this particular "truth."

So here's what I would have done to put the B back in BDM...

In The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Miranda is the name of an enchanted girl who lives with her father on an island ruled by monsters. Her father is a mighty wizard. Hmmmm...

Miranda wasn't the planet (that was a lame one-step riddle in the movie), Miranda was the name of the experiment. River's father was the scientist that headed the project. When Project Miranda went wrong, most of the people died of docility, a significant portion went all reaver, and the infant daughter of the head scientist (exposed by mistake) was unaccountably immune.

The government would have sent the Elder Tam and his family into hiding. He would have had to give up his scientific career in the bargain. His daughter would have been thoroughly tested, but nothing would have come of it. His son would grow into a fine scientist, whom the father would push to reclaim the profession he had to abandon.

Then in adolescence, his daughter would begin to show signs of tell-tale aggression. Terrified that his daughter was finally succumbing to the Miranda Syndrome, and still stultifyingly guilty for the Miranda catastrophe, he lets the government take his daughter away. His gifted doctor son must be kept totally in the dark if he's to prosper in his profession.

Okay, meanwhile, the government, y'see, has been continuing the Miranda Project secretly, trying to create another River Tam. All they seem to be able to do is create more and more reavers which they dispatch to the outer rim to keep the independents in check (now there's a scandal!). In their experiments on the adolescent River, they discover that River's incipient psychic awareness has something to do with her immunity. So they augment it. Y'see, they get the idea that if they can control the reavers in some way they would have a devastating and ever-renewing fighting force. So they work on River's psychic awareness with the express purpose of making her a sender. They're gonna control the reavers using River--and then her brother springs her. Whoopsie!

Now, River has no idea of what they've been up to. She has no idea that she's a "sender." And the Alliance is absolutely desperate to retrieve her as she truly represents an apocalyptic threat to their way of life; she is a terrible weapon that mustn't fall into the wrong hands. All this info trickles out over the course of the movie along with the character relationships as they come up in service to the plot. So at that climactic moment when River tells Simon that it's her turn and disappears into the crowd of reavers, she doesn't kill them, she subdues them; she doesn't so much control them as the government had planned, she reaches out to them, and helps them to "focus" their rage on a specific and somewhat more appropriate target. Even Mal ain't expecting that one!

Haven't quite worked out the climactic battle and how River deals with her tragic pawn of a father, but there's plenty of room for huge climactic battles and psychic foo from River. Oh, and Wash lives.

Anyway, you asked.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:49 PM

DREAMTROVE

Okay, I'm getting foggy and tired finally, so this one isn't as well thought out as my other posts probably, and I haven't read everything on this thread I sort of skimmed it cause I'm really gettin' sleepy.

I didn't get the impression that this was star wars scale, all or nothing. I think this is the start of resistance to the alliance, not the end of it. I suspect the recipients of the story know that a recording of an unintentional disaster on a settler planet. But I didn't think it was all alliance ships, all reavers, all members of parliment.

Even if people a) see it, and b) accept it as true, this doesn't change all that much. It means that mal and co may get more sympathy from people.

Now this all comes down to conspiract theory. The story presented is a conspiracy theory about what happened on miranda, which the general public never knew, and still doesn't, and a lot of people had heard a few competing theories.

The alliance next has to broadcast a well constructed argument that the miranda tape is a hoax. In time when that argument dies, people will be used to the story, and eventually they will accept the argument that it was an accident. By that time the intent to control people will be mutated into some twisted version where the anger being suppressed was that of pre-existing reavers, a historical inaccuracy that will just persist until people can accept that it happened and not care that much.

Consider 9/11. I have seen evidence to support the idea that we blew up the trade centers ourselves that dwarfs the proof the miranda tape presents against the alliance - but I'm still not sure I believe it. On balance I probably doubt it, but I'm willing to believe that it is a possibility. If someone came to me and said "hey, I was there, I saw the US destroy the twin towers, and here's my proof," I'd probably buy it. Similarly if someone said "hey I was there and I say OBL blow up the twin towers," and presents me with the proof, I'd believe that. But before seeing the WTC conspiracy stuff I probably would have only accepted the osama bin laden/al qaeda theory.

I'm not of course trying to convince anyone that WTC was an inside job. I don't believe it myself. But it's out there, and most of you have been exposed to it, and in theory it could someday prove to be correct. Someone puting it on the web didn't make us all believers.

Furthermore, here are some things that the US govt. has actually done. None of these are conspiracy theories, they are all well established facts.

Waged long term war in Iraq since 1991, with civillian casualties direct and in direct exceeding 1 million.

Dropped two nuclear bombs onto civillian populations, intentionally, against a country that despite the temporary insanity of tojo, we had been allies with for a hundred years.

Support wars in other countries to create a population and forcebly transported 22 million for slave labor.

Intenionally led a pogram of racial genocide to exterminate an entire people, 12 million in all, in a mad gree land grab, for land which almost exclusively we never used for anything. This last part is true, btw, the vast majority of former indian homesteads are virtually unpopulated today.

These are things that our govt. undeniably and unequivocally did, and did intentionally. They all dwarf WTC on an epic scale. And what do people say of this govt. if you ask them. (well, not so much lately, but generally through history) "greatest country on earth" "land of the free" "home of the brave"

People believe what they want to believe. It's not much of a much booster to say "I'm from the land of the genocidal babykillers" Okay, maybe they do if they're Dennis Kuccinich (sorry) but mostly people like that are depressing to be around, and most people don't respond that way.

So, alliance reaction to miranda, after hearing both sides and lots of spin, will decide on the one which is most comfortable to believe, and might even round up and kill the doomsayers, but probably just shun them.

Terrible what happened on miranda

Terrible what happened on miranda because of the reavers

or even

Terrible what the reavers did on miranda

Here is some food for thought. Firefly is a western. The alliance in this story plays the role of the US govt. Of course it's not going to be an evil empire. But at the time the US govt. had some serious problems.

I'm going to kill them all. That oughtta distract 'em.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:01 PM

EMMA

Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Static wrote:
Quote:

Here's something folks are missing. . .and it's a result from 'over-thinking' everything.

Remember, as the audience, we are the "Gods". . .we see and know EVERYTHING.

The reason the Operative was sent was because...

"KEY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT." were in the same room as River.

NOONE really knew what it was River knew, if she knew ANYTHING. They just knew that some dumbass had put people who POSESSED secrets in the same room as a psychic. The Operative was a 'just in case' scenario.

Stop over-thinking it.

I second this.

The
Somnambulist

Oh and I wouldn't have done a thing to change Joss' script.

www.cirqus.com

I third this, although I would have seen Mal naked at least twice - very traumatic seeing no Nathan butt!

extremely dimensionally transcendental

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:18 PM

DREAMTROVE

I like overthinking it. besides, joss and co read these boards. anyway, getting sleepy, finally.
I think the antibiotics they gave me for this bug are causing insomnia, hence overposting.

I'm going to sleep now. That oughtta distract 'em.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 1:04 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Well I think I'm going to have to apologise in advance to a few of you who have come up with suggestions for what the 'real' Firefly movie should have been, whatever that means as this 'SERENITY' is the 'real' Firefly movie...

However I've skimmed through many of the posts suggesting changes, alternatives, universe sizes and explanations and frankly, and I don't mean to be harsh, but in all honesty the level of reality you're encorporating is incredibly tiresome and dreary.

Part of making a film is knowing just what to include and what not to include within your narrative. Many of you here are basically loading your ideas with far too much exposition, which would require something the size of a series to accomplish. With the two hours you'd have to tell your story this would not be possibly.

Cinema has it's own language and short cuts, and knowing where to employ this is key to being a filmaker. While many of your ideas sound great on paper, I don't think they'd work up on the screen.

Artistic license n all that... It's a cliché, but like most clichés they're rooted in some truth.

I'm kinda defending where Joss took SERENITY because he had an incredibly difficult job in seeing this be made. To even sit down and tackle a defunct project in the first place is an amazing achievement, I know because I've illustrated books without any success and when ever someone suggests giving it another go, it's almost impossible to muster the enthusiasm again to do so..

Joss has had to meet many criteria here for his first cinematic venture as director, and I think he's nailed it. In terms of the integrity of the ethos of the original Firefly I think it's still there but yes he has changed it. He had to. It had to move on.

The
Somnambulist

www.cirqus.com

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE

USER

POST DATE