POLL: How many peeps here lost someone close, and how does that affect your view of 'Serenity?' (Spoilers) by chrisisall

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

POLL: How many peeps here lost someone close, and how does that affect your view of 'Serenity?' (Spoilers)

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 02:28
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VIEWED: 2868
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Friday, April 2, 2010 3:31 PM

I lost my Mom in my 20's, so having Wash die in Serenity was a hard reminder that anyone can go, anytime. Sure I'd have liked to see him live, but we don't always get what we want, and Joss knows this.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Condemnations? Rants?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Friday, April 2, 2010 4:19 PM

CHRISISALL

Too painful a topic?

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Friday, April 2, 2010 7:27 PM

FEARTHEBUNNYMAN

I lost my dad when I was 18, and I concur with you. I don't have a problem with the deaths in Serenity, as much as I liked the characters.

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Saturday, April 3, 2010 12:57 AM

LWAVES

TV and movie deaths don't usually bother me as I know they are not real, even if I'm really into the movie, but I can understand that it can be a reminder for those that have lost someone really close. Even more so if the circumstances on screen are similar to the real life ones.

I count myself very lucky that both my parents are still alive although I did nearly lose my Dad a few weeks ago to blood clots. It was scary but he's pulled through.
The only real death that bothered me so far was when I was in my late teens there was a ten year old girl called Emma who lived a couple of houses away that I sort of babysat for a few years earlier (her parents would leave their two kids with my parents when they went out). Apparently she went to bed not feeling well with a strong headache and she never woke up. Doc's said she'd had this condition from birth and because she'd never been really ill no one had picked up on it. Basically her brain gave up at that was it.
Seeing someone so young and so full of life go was very hard.

As for Serenity and Wash's death it shocked me like a lot of folk but had I known that the series/movies were continuing I might have been more bothered by it in the long term as he was a great character that added a lot of humour to the show.

"I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it it might cheer me up to watch."

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Saturday, April 3, 2010 10:17 AM

LITTLEBIRD

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Too painful a topic?

Yes, it is kinda painful right now. My mother just passed away on Wednesday. She had been ill for along time so it wasn't unexpected, but it still feels as if the world has shifted off it's axis a bit.

I was saddened when Joss killed off Wash and Book, but death is part of this crazy trip we are all on. I don't hold it against him.

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 5:01 PM

CHRISISALL

I'm so sorry Littlebird. I've been there. Precisely.
After a time your world finds it's axis again.
Promise.

Chrisisall

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 5:41 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Joss and Tim are pricks. Knew that goin in.

Condolences, Littlebird.

Father-in-law was killed by doctors this year at age 57. I'm wearing his shirt right now. Mother-in-law killed by doctors at age 52. Grandmother killed by doctors who said tobacco was good for you, at age 32.

Death, we're all gonna see it face-to-face. I saw it when I was 17 in a dentist chair, looking down on my lifeless corpse as they tried to resuscitate, laughing my ass off. Seems somebody forgot to turn on the O2 with the nitrous. Damn rednecks.

I think a pole shift is comin...

Or a pole dance.

Keep feeding the game of life. Best game in town.

"A coward dies a 1000 deaths, but a brave heart only 1."
-Famous Old Dead Guy

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 6:51 PM

BLUEEYEDBRIGADIER

Having just recently...observed?...the 1-year anniversay of my mom's passing from a stroke (caused directly by a heart attack, indirectly by diabetes), your question is an interesting one, chrisisall.

On the one hand, the filmed/displayed deaths of Wash and Book are still shocking and painful for those who came to feel for the characters. On the other, their deaths were basically sudden - yes, before anyone jumps on me, I know Book got the movie cliche slow death to get the hero all revved up - but they were basically healthy and whole before getting gunned down and/or skewered. My mom was basically in a coma for 2 days before she finally passed away...and I was there when she did. Every other person I've lost that has been close to me has died when I wasn't present, so my mom being the first one has left me struggling this past 13 months. Definitely understand what Zoe would be going through, even though it wasn't a spouse I lost.

Honestly, I am kinda itching to want write something from Zoe's POV, to explore the nuances of losing someone like a spouse or parent when you had an extremely close relationship with them...to shine a light on the mix of hatred and sadness and confusion you're left with when that special someone dies and you are left trying to find a new method to orient a moral compass or find happiness.

Truthfully, the movie didn't hit me any harder or softer the first time I saw it after my mom died (which would have been the 2009 Toronto Can't Stop the Serenity charity screening)...but a year past and gone, with all the slow bleeding of my emotions back into the forefront? Gonna be interesting times this summer I think...

"The revenge of the beaten comes in refusing to fall." -- Mal, in "The Losing Side - Chapter 45" by jetflair

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 7:26 PM

CHRISISALL

Blue, my Mom passed after a long bout with chemo & complications. I wasn't there to see her go, but it was sudden as it gets for the knowledge that cancer's gonna do it's evil job.
That year I saw Bright Lights Big City with Michael J. Fox. Talk about CLOSE up & personal. The characters' Mom died the same way, and it shook me to my roots. Stories will do that.

When Wash died, it just took me back to the loss again. To hate it or deny or run away from it cheapens the special meaning of having that person in your life in the first place IMO.
So, when Wash goes in Serenity, I say a silent prayer for my Mom.
It's a reminder to me of this transient thing we call life.

The serious Chrisisall

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Monday, April 5, 2010 2:18 AM

BORIS

I first exeperienced the death of a friend due to agressive leukemia when I was 12. I think it coloured how I deal with death of loved ones. I have a pragmatic outlook and basically focus on experiences we shared, and let myself react however I need to when I want to talk to the people who have passed and then realise I can't. I was saddened by the death of Wash a much loved character, and shed a tear but it was not entirely the same as my real life experiences as there was no shared emotional investment.

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Monday, April 5, 2010 3:36 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

I've lost people, family, friends, comrades, people very close to me. That kind of pain stays with you, it may get better, but the memory is always there.

Did Joss killing off Book and Wash change how I view Serenity? Sure. Had they lived I don't know that it would have really driven home just how perilous the crew's position was, just how serious the Alliance was about burying their dirty little secret about Miranda. Having both characters died showed us how real the threat was and made it clear that no one is safe. In that final battle in the tunnel of Mr Universe's complex I thought we were about to lose more of the crew. It was bleak and desperate and I think that is just what Joss wanted to convey.

Seeing those deaths on the screen made the crew more real to me because death could touch them the same way it touches us all. It gave those characters grief they will carry always.

__________________________________________
Holding the line since December '02!

Richmond, VA & surrounding area Firefly Fans:

http://www.richmondbrowncoats.org

X.O. / Battalion O.I.C.

http://76thbattalion.homestead.com/index.html

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Monday, April 5, 2010 4:58 AM

CHRISISALL

Very nicely put, BC1.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Monday, April 5, 2010 5:11 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Very nicely put, BC1.

Thanks Chris.

__________________________________________
Holding the line since December '02!

Richmond, VA & surrounding area Firefly Fans:

http://www.richmondbrowncoats.org

X.O. / Battalion O.I.C.

http://76thbattalion.homestead.com/index.html

http://76thbattalion.proboards.com

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Monday, April 5, 2010 5:35 AM

AGENTROUKA

Deaths I have been affected by were of very old relatives, generally, which has no bearing whatsoever on my viewing of Serenity. My mother died quite suddenly after a long battle with addiction when I was 12, which also doesn't really affect my view of Serenity.

Movie deaths have to be handled really skillfully to approach the emotional seriousness of my experience of losing a loved one. Or, more specifically, portray the act of grieving. It's not the death that gets me, it's the emotional effect on other people.

Serenity doesn't really do that. Sure, we see both Mal and Zoe go apeshit with rage, but that's not grief. And we don't see either of them deal with loss again until they stoically say goodbye during the funeral, to "fly true" again right afterwards.

Now, give me the funeral scene in "My Girl" and I'm a sobbing mess.

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010 9:51 AM

CHRISISALL

*sends love to Beatupplenty*

Chrisisall

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010 10:34 AM

AGENTROUKA

Beatupplenty,

first of all, I'm very sorry for your loss.

I didn't say that anger wasn't part of grief, at all. It's a big part. But what we saw in both cases was more a very early, initial rage, in both cases - and then nearly nothing. We see very little of the rest of their grief playing out. None, to be exact, from Mal. A funeral, a moment of rebuilding the cockpit and a remark to the effect of being mostly fine from Zoe. For all that Joss used the deaths for shock, I feel he still glossed over the real, long-term impact of it. He did a better job with the guest character deaths on the show. Both Nandi's and Tracey's deaths showed characters afterwards dealing with that loss and reflecting on it, beyond the funeral.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010 12:17 AM

LITTLEBIRD

Thank you for your responses. My heart goes out to all of you who have lost someone close. Sending Firefly love.

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