quote:Um, not really. It had a compatriot feel, but there was no indication that they were anything but a group of people who had been thrown together and given a choice to change the world, or to sit back and let it go in the direction it headed.
I agree. They were all allies. They really weren't vulnerable to each other, in fact, they were kind of closed to each other. Both Bab5 and Battlestar Galactica are stories concerning career soldiers enjoying professional relationships in serious times.There are a lot of uniforms and saluting by dispassionate stoics, but given their situation, it's competely appropriate.
The dynamic on the other shows I named is a little bit looser. The characters aren't constrained by as many rules and protocol and manners, and in general, and that freedom lets their loving character come through, as well as making the problems flowing from this looser dynamic more vivid.
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Joldo -- It's not corny, you know. Everyone has different tastes. Your friends are just rude enough not to keep their mouth shut during a movie and let other people enjoy it even if they're not. Don't let them ruin it for you. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Corny might not be the right word. We do have to make sci fi allowances and ignore things like "We can't broadwave this video from the ship" etc. But it's definitely NOT corny. Eljay's right.
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I personally thought SERENITY was excellent. Not quite as excellent as a full season of FIREFLY, but good enough that it deserves some sort of continuation. I'll leave the medium it graces to Joss. Be it another film or a return to the small screen, I'll be there.
You can't take the sky from me.
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Narnia, it occurred to me why they couldn't broadwave the video from the ship upon my second viewing -- because it bugged me enormously the first time through. There's a throwaway line in which Mal mentions that the recording's so old that they don't have the equipment to play it back on board -- and indeed, we never DO see them play it on board. That said, it's probably fair to ask why they didn't just take the player from the shuttlecraft, but maybe it didn't occur to them. *laugh*
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It seems that Joss Whedon's strengths aren't logicality and consistency. The problems weren't big enough to ruin my enjoyment, though.
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Good catch Tom. It didn't bother me very much, but it is something I noticed. So now I can explain it away as "They were just too stressed out to take the player." Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Narnia, it occurred to me why they couldn't broadwave the video from the ship upon my second viewing -- because it bugged me enormously the first time through. There's a throwaway line in which Mal mentions that the recording's so old that they don't have the equipment to play it back on board -- and indeed, we never DO see them play it on board. That said, it's probably fair to ask why they didn't just take the player from the shuttlecraft, but maybe it didn't occur to them. *laugh*
Or perhaps they realized The Operative was chasing them down and they wouldn't have the time to dismantle the equipment built into a ship's systems and move it to Serenity. Not to mention the fact that none of their crew is necessarily able to do that. Kaylee knows a ton about engines, but that doesn't mean she knows Alliance technology or ship construction, or how to take such things from one ship and hotwire them into her own.
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I'm happy that nitpick isn't valid! Sure, they couldn't read data off of it and didn't have time to figure out how to transfer the reader.
So here's my nitpick: why didn't Mal take Kaylee with him to broadcast the signal? From War Stories, she's worse than useless in a fight and he's got no problem with that. So why leave her to face the Reavers when he's about to face what he expects to be a purely technological challenge?
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'Cause he knew how to use the system that activates the message, so why should he need someone to help him with it? I mean, as far as he knows, Mr. Universe is still alive when he headed downstairs. In his estimation, he could hand the thing off to Mr. Universe and get it broadcast using his equipment, then sprint back up and help his crew out with the Reavers. He didn't know Universe was dead till he went down the elevator.
As for Kaylee: She might not be good in a fight but she might be able to hand the rest of the crew guns when they run out of ammo or reload weapons for them. Gunners aren't on their own in firefights generally speaking; they have support people there to help keep them firing away.
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besides, from what they knew about Mr. Univers, anything female might have been a distraction.
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" Narnia, it occurred to me why they couldn't broadwave the video from the ship upon my second viewing --"
My no-prize explanation is that a broadcast from Serenity would be pretty much treated as spam by the rest of the galaxy. Mr. Universe probably has the ability to hack into trusted newsfeeds and popular underground news sources. Kind of like a future Wired.com type of deal.
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Sure, but they could have sent it to Mr. Universe over Serenity's communications system, and have him relay it to the rest of the world.
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I'm willing to accept the idea that the rescue shuttle didn't have broadcast capability and Serenity didn't have the right hookups to access the disk.
Oh, and I'm willing to bet that Mal expected trouble when he went to Mr. Universe's place. After all, there was an entire Alliance fleet in orbit of the planet. I'm sure he suspected that Mr. Universe might be dead or a hostage. I bet he even realized that the equipment might be destroyed, though he was probably hoping it wasn't.
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This didn't bother me in the least. The holo was just that. Ever seen any holographic transmission in Serenity? Any little fuzzy green people hovering over the control panel?
I assumed the holo was too informationally dense for the Serenity's basic systems to transmit, even to Mr. Universe.
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It didn't bother me either, but rather than saying "we can't broadwave this," perhaps Mal should have said "we can't transmit this, so we'll have to deliver it."
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quote: I assumed the holo was too informationally dense for the Serenity's basic systems to transmit, even to Mr. Universe.
They wouldn't have to actually transmit a holo, you know. If they could play a holo while standing in front of whatever sends video, they could transmit video of the holo. Unless there are frame rate issues. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: I assumed the holo was too informationally dense for the Serenity's basic systems to transmit, even to Mr. Universe.
They wouldn't have to actually transmit a holo, you know. If they could play a holo while standing in front of whatever sends video, they could transmit video of the holo. Unless there are frame rate issues.
Then you run into issues of authentication, right? Why would anyone believe that the holo was real if they just recorded a video of it and sent it to Mr. Universe? Presumably the holo had some sort of embedded digital "watermark." I was thinking that maybe it can't be played back on or transmitted from a non-authenticated device. That way receivers know it isn't a fake.
Transmission of FMV was definitely a change from the series, though. In the series you had to be nearby to do real-time FMV. "We're close enough for vid, put her up." I figured that was a result of speed-of-light issues, which the movie completely ignores.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Narnia, it occurred to me why they couldn't broadwave the video from the ship upon my second viewing -- because it bugged me enormously the first time through. There's a throwaway line in which Mal mentions that the recording's so old that they don't have the equipment to play it back on board -- and indeed, we never DO see them play it on board. That said, it's probably fair to ask why they didn't just take the player from the shuttlecraft, but maybe it didn't occur to them. *laugh*
A couple of thoughts: Has anyone considered the issue of a power supply? It may be that the ability to 'put it on every screen for 30 worlds' would just requre more power (whether more available power or a transmitter capable of utilizing more power) than Serenity had at its disposal -- remember the size and look of the generator Mr. Universe had?
Or it may just be an issue of the right equipment. For a very rudimentary example, it doesn't matter how sophisticated my radio transmitter is, I can't send any information to my television set in the next room, let alone in the next state. Mr. Universe had an enormous facility whose entire function was communications -- it was designed to send and receive anything anywhere within the verse, probably using any medium. Serenity is a small transport ship, meaning she probably has the necessary communication devices to do her job and not much more. To me it seems perfectly natural that Mr. Universe would be able to put the signal on every screen for 30 worlds and that Serenity wouldn't be able to do much with it.
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Why wouldn't Mal just send Kaylee by herself to send the signal then? If he was expecting it to be a one man job, or expecting Mr. Universe to be alive, why wouldn't he said the person with the most tech experience and stay behind as one of the better fighters to help take care of the Reavers?
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quote: To me it seems perfectly natural that Mr. Universe would be able to put the signal on every screen for 30 worlds and that Serenity wouldn't be able to do much with it.
That's not the problem, Jemmy. The problem is that Serenity should have been able to get the signal to Mr. Universe, since they had full-motion video communications established with his base. Unless of course they couldn't play the holo at all using their own equipment.
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quote:As for Kaylee: She might not be good in a fight but she might be able to hand the rest of the crew guns when they run out of ammo or reload weapons for them. Gunners aren't on their own in firefights generally speaking; they have support people there to help keep them firing away.
It's only the film that matters to Joss Whedon... this very clear throughout the series and the movie. The plot or "logicality" of the plot tends to take a back seat to the impact of the movie and the lines and scenes. From a movie POV there's plenty of reasons why it was better for the story that Kaylee stayed.
1) The "Hell with this..." line and the admission from Simon. 2) It adds tension- she is is sweet girl in the line of fire. 3) Mal had to face The Operative alone. The hero has to have the last fight to himself; he must leave the group behind. 4) The shot with him in the elevator has that great impact... two people wouldn't have the same effect...
To Joss it's about the audience, the film, the scenes and the lines, not, necessarily, about the plot.
EDIT: This also explains the problem with the transmission to Mr. Universe. I'm sure Joss is smart enough to realise he's got giant holes in his plot, he just doesn't worry much about it.
I don't think.
Maybe we should send him an e-mail or something?
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Good point. I guess I don't know about that one . . .
Could it still be a case of the wrong equipment for the medium? I guess that has already been mentioned. *checks* Yep. That was your first comment, wasn't it Tom. I'll just sheepishly second your suggestion. Posts: 270 | Registered: Jul 2004
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"*imagines the horror of the Operative vs. Kaylee*"
I think it's pretty obvious that Mal wasn't expecting the Operative to crawl out of a ventilation shaft like that. If he had expected that, he would have destroted Mr. Universe's fembot to stop the Operative from finding out the plan.
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That was another point at which I had to suspend my disbelief. An escape pod. Landed exactly where he wanted it to go. 5 minutes after Mal got there.
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And how in the heck did River get out of her handcuffs before Jayne came into the locker on the ship?
Was it something she could have done all along and was just waiting for the 'opportune moment?' In fact, did she actually CREATE that opportune moment by actually getting Jayne to come open the door??
Hm. Deep thoughts. And much nitpicking. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Yeah the landing pod thing was farfetched. But whatever, half the plot of the movie has to be taken on faith, why take issue with something as small as that?
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If the landing pod has any sort of navigational system, the Operative following Mal is no problem. Especially since Serenity went pretty much straight down to a rather noticeable landing. All the Operative had to do was follow.
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Ok, so what about River and the cuffs? But I guess I shouldn't even ask that. It's River for crying out loud!
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I always assumed that Mal took the tape down to Mr. Universe himself because he needs to see the deed done. What's on the tape backs up everything he believes is wrong with the Alliance and now he gets to tell 30 plus worlds about it. He's got evidence. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to leave that to someone else, even if there's no tactical reason for him to do it himself.
Also: I watched the DVDs some more and then saw the movie again, and the inconsistencies that I thought I saw aren't there. I'm much happier with the movie now. Much.
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I can't imagine Mal ever sending Kaylee to make the transmission. To begin with. This is Mal we're talking about, it's just not in his nature. Sending out the message was something he had to do. I doubt it would have occured to him to send anyone else.
I also really doubt that Mal, knowing the Operative's general mode of operations would have any illusions about Mr. Universe being alive when he got there. What I find in need of nitpicking is that Mal was surprised the equipment was destroyed. I can't imagine anyone in the Operative's position not destroying the equipment and I can't believe Mal didn't think of that possibility. Also, since Mal obviously knew that the Operative probably had gotten to Mr. Universe before he did, I'm sort of missing why he would have transmitted the holo straight into the Operative's hands. In his mind the only way to get the message out was to distract the Operative from the equipment for long enough to transmit it himself.
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quote:Originally posted by Narnia: Ok, so what about River and the cuffs? But I guess I shouldn't even ask that. It's River for crying out loud!
If you really have to have an answer... Perhaps she could have gotten the cuffs off at anytime, but doing so didn't gain her anything until Jayne was coming in to kill her (the fact she could read minds from inside the pantry was already placed).
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quote:If you really have to have an answer... Perhaps she could have gotten the cuffs off at anytime, but doing so didn't gain her anything until Jayne was coming in to kill her (the fact she could read minds from inside the pantry was already placed).
Actually, I was thinking she may have planted the idea for Jayne to go after her. She was still locked into the pantry, and wanted to go to the bridge.
In 'Trash' she did establish that she could kill Jayne with her brain.
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No, she threatened to do so. Big difference. No sign she's ever done anything mentally besides read people.
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quote:SPOILER: During the funeral scene, Kaylee wears a medallion with the Chinese symbol for marriage.
Huh??? Anyone hear anything about this? Is it true? If it's true, is it intentional, or did the movie folks just use some random Chinese symbol???
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quote:She is wearing the character for double happiness usually displayed at wedding banquets or marriage festivities. It does not mean marriage in of itself. (Chinese normally does not wear it as an amulet nor a good luck charm on the body.)
... which makes much more sense, yay.
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I haven't read the thread yet, it's way too long and I have to say something...
I just watched Serenity for the first time. (Life prevented us from getting to the theater--not that it was in enough theaters, anyway.)
I loved the movie.... mostly. I turned to my husband within the first 10 minutes and said, "This is the best movie EVER!
But I was deeply disappointed about Wash's death. I thought it was pointless and gratuitous. And... Spoilers for Season 6 Buffy below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We already saw Joss do meaningless, pointless death with Tara in Buffy. Wash dying was stupid and made me angry. When Shepherd died, I thought that was pretty stupid, too. My husband turned to me and said, "And we love Joss's stuff why?" (or something like that.)
When Wash died it just made it even worse. It spoiled the end of the movie for me to a large degree. Yes, it was still cool, yada yada yada...but I was still grieving when the triumphant ending music started. It felt out of place.
More later.. probably.
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