Loved Firefly, but Serenity *sucked* (SPOLIERS) by Jusl89

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Loved Firefly, but Serenity *sucked* (SPOLIERS)

POSTED BY: JUSL89
UPDATED: Friday, December 16, 2005 12:26
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VIEWED: 31631
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:15 PM

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outta curiosity - has anyone read the comics? they are supposed to bridge the gap between series and movie.
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Yes. It involves the Blue Hands and how the Operative got on the case..."

Except for it's not supposed to bridge the entire gap. But good thoughts about Jaynes character. I think whoever posted that originally hit the nail on the head. And you know that they (River and Simon) know about it, from 'Trash.' And I think what Simon said to him was very enlightening, and prolly made him feel both accepted and scared.

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 6:01 AM

ANDRE83

I never was mad about Wash death.

I thought it served a meaningful purpose. Of cource, i loved wash, but as I said in another thread; If i were to pick 1 caracter to die, it would be him. No offence wash :)

Book on the other hand. That was irritating. But only because he is my favorite caracter. But i can live with it. There will always be the 14 episodes with him :)

Jayne: All those years of preacher training, getting knocked out by one bounty hunter
Book: Oh, dont get me wrong. I gave him a hell of a fight
Jayne: Epic i'm guessing

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 6:34 AM

CHRISISALL

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Mal is not a hardass moral machine, he is a supple and surprising real human being with an amazing moral instinct. I'd say he was well aware of all the Operative had done, just as he figured out all of Jayne's actions on Ariel. Mal was able to rise out of the mechanism of revenge long enough to see a better way. That's the Mal I know and love, thru and thru.

This, more than any other single reason, is why Serenity is my favourite movie.

And Mal's not killing the Operative, this one moment of harsh mercy is what ultimatly saves them all. What a beautiful message.
If we could all be like that....

Chrisisall

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 8:24 AM

HAZE

Forget it, never mind. Im done with Serenity rants. It’s a good movie.

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Who do you suppose is in there?

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 9:38 AM

SHINYBROWNSHORTS

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Originally posted by Jusl89:
Serenity was a big dissappointment for me. I'm going to list in decending order what dissappointed me the most:

1. Wash's death. Thanks Joss Whedon, for making me lose all interest in seeing any possible sequels or series revivals again. I can't imagine Firefly without Wash. He was a great part of the heart and soul of the series, and without him, there is no Firefly. There was no reason for him to die, and even the way he died was ridiculous. Wash's death prevented me from enjoying the ending of the movie. So great, they dealt a wound to the Alliance. Too bad the strength of the series wasn't about them fighting the Alliance or the Reavers, but was about the great characters and the character interactions. Wash's death was a result of trying to artifically increase tension in an action sequence, and what a waste it was.

2. The Simon-Jayne-Mal interaction. In Serenity, Jayne and Simon were acting like Ariel never happened, and that Simon never had that talk with Jayne in the episode "Trash". In fact, Simon acts like "Safe" never happened, and doesn't have Mal's trust. This made the Simon in Serenity seem alien to me, and I didn't see him as the same Simon in Firefly.

3. Book's death. I hated this for many of the same reason's as Wash's death. Book didn't need to die.

4. Too much action. The best episodes of Firefly were NOT action filled. Granted, seeing the Reaver ships fight the Alliance was awesome, but the rest of the action sequences were tired. River beating everyone up with martial arts? Everyone knew she would win, there was no excitement in it. And how the hell did Mal know to pretend to freeze up when the Operative hit him with the nerve strike? Didn't make sense.

5. Mal didn't kill the Operative? So the Operative kills all of Mals friends, kills Book, and leads to the death of Wash, and yet he walks away? If there ever was a use for a death, this would be it.

6. Jayne would not agree to go on a philanthropic "save the world" mission. This was way out of character. He didn't even ask what the payoff would be.

7. Ending secret was lame. So the Alliance created the Reavers? I've heard the same premise from worse sci-fi stories. And given the police state that the Alliance is, I woulnd't see how knowing that the Alliance created the Reavers would significantly weaken them.

8. Ending was a net loss. Mal lost alot at the end. The extent to how the Alliance was weakened was vague and uninteresting, without anything susbstnatial to show for all their efforts. In fact, most of the movie was directionless.

9. Not enough Inara. In Serenity, it wasn't even explained what she did or why she was on the ship. And at the end she is firing a bow and arrow? What the hell is that?

I could go on, but I'm tired. In my mind, Serenity never happened.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the "sucked " assessment. I saw the movie before the series and as someone new to the whole thing I thought the movie was very good on its own merits.I went back to the film after I watched the series and enjoyed ie even more. Killing off main characters is the mark of a brave author. If a main character can go that puts everyone in the series in jeopardy, which adds to the dramatic tension. It also allows new characters to emerge in later installments.Moreover, there is an excellent political subtext to the movie about how our govermnent has created the "monsters" that threaten our very existence.No one should expect that the movie should rehash the show, which was excellent, but did fail, after all, to attract a consistent audience. Themovie was produced for a different studio which may have requirewd that it meet different standards and a different audience

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 11:58 AM

BROLAN

One point I would like to make:

I've said in another thread how I was a huge Firefly fan but not happy with Serenity. That it was too dark for me and I didn't like the two empty places at the dinner table Joss left.

I saw it once, and really do not want to see it again. This got me wondering if there were a lot of fans like me who felt burned? And that's why the huge repeat business for the movie didn't happen. If it were a lighter movie I would have likely seen it 3-4 times and happily purchased the DVD.

Joss may have HAD to tell this story, but it seems to be costing him a lot.

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 2:33 PM

NCBROWNCOAT

Along the lines not killing the Operative Mal didn't kill Atherton Wing in Shindig either. but could have easily. He could have easily put a sword thru either Atherton or the Operative but maintained a sort of code of honor-you made you point and have the upper hand-why kill?

Remember Lord (can't remember his name for the life of me-gotta see Shindig again!-paraphrasing here-) saying that it was more humiliating to live defeated (and unbelieving) than to die at the hand of the victor. That's exactly what Mal himself had been doing.

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 3:11 PM

N0SKILLZ

I just wanted to put my input on this...

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1. Wash's death. .... Wash's death was a result of trying to artifically increase tension in an action sequence, and what a waste it was.

Ok i agree Wash's death, seemed a little harsh after the first viewing. But it did what (i thought) it was intended to do, draw out your emotions (shit i got all teary eyed) and make the last action scene that much more intense. And I think it did its job, it made me FEAR for the lifes of the rest of the crew.

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2. The Simon-Jayne-Mal interaction.

Lets see, according the comics, they havn't had work in way to gorram long of a time. SOOoo that should account for Jayne's actions (Lets see, 4 divided by nothing equals nothing, carry the nothing). As for the Simon-Mal interaction, Lets ask this: Wouldn't you be pissed if the only thing you cared about, the thing you gave up your whole life for, was about to be put in danger, and then was?! So basically i'm saying, it wasn't Mal not trusting Simon, it was Simon not trusting Mal

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3. Book's death.

I refer you to other Whedon works, mostly Buffy. I've heard he kills some characters *gasp*!

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4. Too much action.

Its a movie? And why are you comparing Apples to Oranges, huh? You make something that was like another episode of Firefly and expecting to sell what it did. Also it is ranked high on my list of Action movies with a Plot.

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5. Mal didn't kill the Operative? So the Operative kills all of Mals friends, kills Book, and leads to the death of Wash, and yet he walks away? If there ever was a use for a death, this would be it.

Mal left him alive for a reason, which i'm sure only Mal knows.

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6. Jayne would not agree to go on a philanthropic "save the world" mission. This was way out of character. He didn't even ask what the payoff would be.

Did you even watch the same show as me?! or movie for that matter?! Jayne and Book where friends, hell if my hunches are correct, from not-so-different walks of life. and Jayne strikes me as teh revenge type, he just did it for the reason Book woulda wanted him to do it.

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7. Ending secret was lame. So the Alliance created the Reavers? I've heard the same premise from worse sci-fi stories. And given the police state that the Alliance is, I woulnd't see how knowing that the Alliance created the Reavers would significantly weaken them.

I'll give you that the Alliance creating the Reavers, was kinda lame-ish as a premise. But then again you forget who was right the story, Joss motherfrakin Whedon, he could turn a story about zombies, into the best character development we've seen this side of the perfection that is Firefly.

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8. Ending was a net loss. Mal lost alot at the end. The extent to how the Alliance was weakened was vague and uninteresting, without anything susbstnatial to show for all their efforts. In fact, most of the movie was directionless.

If you had an imagination you'd make up your own conclusion as to how hard it hit the alliance. and as for Mal, remember a little place called Serenity Valley? He's lost more, if he can handle it, we can handle it

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9. Not enough Inara. In Serenity, it wasn't even explained what she did or why she was on the ship. And at the end she is firing a bow and arrow? What the hell is that?

Ummm.... did you need to know? if you hadn't seen Firefly, you jsut got that she had the hots for Mal (unless your dense), didn't really need to know more. As for the bow and arrow, remember the fraking sword? I'm sure its all coming back to you now. But as for teh first sentence, and not the rest, yes more Inara woulda been awesome.

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I could go on, but I'm tired. In my mind, Serenity never happened.

While you pretend one of the best ORIGNAL* movies of the year didn't happen, i'm going to go enjoy Serenity one last time (again) in the comfort of my own home.

Oh and before you knock any movie again for being good enough to sell 30 million dollars worth of tickets, Lets see you do better.

*Orginal means(in my mind), not a sequel, not a movie made from a popular book, comic, videogame(even tho Narnia rocked my socks)

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Mal:"Jayne try not to steal to much of there sh*t!"
Death is like sex in high school... If you knew how many times you missed having it you'd be paralyzed- Georgia Lass (Dead Like Me)

*Andersen AFB, Guam*

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Thursday, December 15, 2005 10:14 PM

ANDRE83

Good response noskillz. Agree with mostly everything you said.

Jayne: All those years of preacher training, getting knocked out by one bounty hunter
Book: Oh, dont get me wrong. I gave him a hell of a fight
Jayne: Epic i'm guessing

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Friday, December 16, 2005 12:08 AM

QUIETUDE

I just like how everyone ignores the emotional aspect of having Book and Wash killed off. If it effects you so much that you hate the movie, then Joss has done a good job. This is only science fiction after all, extremely well written but fiction none the less. Here's a question for those who hated it, when have you been that upset about a movie? Star Wars Episode 3 was disappointing, but I expected it to be after having seen the 2 previous to it. Serenity obviously had far more impact on you than you think.

In regards to the plot line with the Alliance having created the Reavers, from a political stand point its great as like true people who really do not care about others it had no effect on some. The idea that 30 million people (not sure about that number its been a while since I saw the movie last) were killed through government experimentation and then hidden is just the same as Holocaust in World War II (story wise, fiction cannot compete with reality in such things). Just like the holocaust its like water off a ducks back to most people, as if you didn't experience it then its like it didn't happen. Germany to this day is shamed by the holocaust, but they still exist and are still a world power, nothing much changed, just like nothing much will change in the Alliance.

If you say Serenity lacks reality, then think about the fact that America has gone to war, and nobody really gives a damn. When did America become so desensitatised that such things don't matter to the public?

One of the main points in Firefly is that although its 500 years in the future people still behave the same way they always did. If evolution for us is that we can ignore the plights of other countries (worlds), because they don't seem to effect us then its a sad state we will be in, as I am sure the people of New Orleans would attest to.

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Friday, December 16, 2005 3:22 AM

HAOLEHAOLE

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I could go on, but I'm tired. In my mind, Serenity never happened.

... Kind of like Highlander II eh? I've heard people talk about it, but ... it never happened. Not in MY universe.

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Friday, December 16, 2005 12:26 PM

DC4BS

Book dying was OK to further the story but I didn't like the cliche way that he died.

Oh! Mortaly wounded! But... Able to... Hang on... Till the good guys arrive... And tell them... (insert dying message), Look, a doctor... gasp... (thud) "He's gone, Jim!"

C'mon! How many times has that plot device been used and vastly over-abused? Far better to arrive back and find him already dead or if not dead than wounded such that he survives but is out of action for the rest of the movie (perhaps to return later). One of the survivors could have passed on a message or led the crew to his home where they find something to lead them to the next stage of the plot.

That was about the only scene in the movie that I though didn't belong only in that Joss tends to be far more original than that most of the time.

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Is it just me or did anyone else pick up on the whole phoenix vibe going on at the end of the movie?

death:

Serenity crashes (dies) and its crazy pilot Wash also dies within moments.

rebirth:

Serenity is rebuilt and River becomes much more whole/sane as she comes to terms with what the Aliance has made her into and perhaps becomes the new crazy pilot.

Well, river gets better through the whole movie, but you get the idea.

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I may have lost track at the end (only saw it in theater once) but, WHO payed for Serenity to be rebuilt? I kind of got the feeling, that the Operative ordered it but I'm still not sure. An insurance company would have scrapped it...

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dc4bs

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