This is a premature thread, but I will be leaving to go see the first showing of Serenity in nought but 10 minutes.
The plan: Grab a Steak and Shake Burger. Sneak it into the theater under my jacket. Enjoy the burger while the pointless previews play. Sit in stunned fanboy amazement as the movie plays.
Aban. So. Excited.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Hmmm... well, I liked it. I've just got a few thoughts off the top of my head.
1) The Retcon of River's escape: The small bit of backstory from the series holds up pretty well, Simon just never mentioned that he had anything to do with springing her. River seemed awfully lucid during the escape though. And waltzing into an Alliance facility seems an awfully hero-type thing to do for our meek and mild, all-dolled-up Dr. Tam.
2) Kaylee's lost weight. Hell, EVERYONE'S lost weight. Book's skin and bones, Inara's thinner, even Wash looked thinner.
3) Vibrators still exist in the 'Verse. Outstanding.
4) I felt a disconnect between the movie and the series. It never got quite to the family feeling there was on the show. The interactions were a bit different. The absence and reappearance of Inara and Book felt just a touch empty. And Wash's death wasn't deep enough. For awhile, it looked like they were going to kill off everyone. River got grabbed, Kaylee got tranqed, Simon got shot, Zoe got sliced.
5) The explanation about the Reavers made sense.
All in all, I give the movie an 8 out of 10. Good, but not the mind-blowing spank-fest I had my heart set on.
Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
WOW is really all I can say.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Thanks to this movie I am emotionally devastated!
Well, OK, not really, but still. I mean, OK, so if it does well this weekend there will be sequels, but so what? Wash! Book!
Also, oh man, awesome.
(Though, to nitpick: Can anyone really erase all memory of a planet that appeared to be as developed as any in the Core? Or, actually, hang on. I guess all they said was that "terraforming didn't take," which I guess might mean the environment collapsed after the colonists had settled and the cities been built. And with the Reavers making it their homebase it's not like anyone would be in a hurry to go check. Still, in that case, wouldn't it be remembered as a great tragedy, albeit an ecological one that's conveniently no one's fault?)
I guess, all things considered, things are mostly better in the end than the were in the beginning. The fact that our heroes are confronted by a team of Alliance soldiers at the end, rather than yet another Reaver freakout, suggests that they won in the sky. Which makes sense; homicidal mania is only going to get you so far against a professional navy. But anyway, that seemed like a sizable chunk of the Reaver population, so that's good for folks. And the new leaders who come to power after the huge scandal might very well prove to be better than their predecessors.
Still, a downer, really.
Also I would have liked to have seen one of those skyscraperesque Alliance cruisers from the show. The Reaver ship from the pilot managed to make an appearance, after all; why not one of these? It could totally deploy gunships and kapow, bang!
Uh, after watching the film I kind of had some beer.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Oh yeah, and I wonder if the flashes on Earth (that was) at the beginning were meant to be more ships launching, or something more menacing, like nuclear detonations. There weren't very many of them, so I lean towards the former. (If you're going to have a nuclear war, why bother with half measures?)
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
So, here I was hoping for some grand creepy reavelation that, like River, the Reavers were somehow tied to Firefly's version of the Psi-Corps conducting evil experiments on Potential-12 telepaths, and all I got was a lousy low-key story that 26th century Prozac either kills people (who took it voluntarily, even) or turns them into mental cannibals. Boo.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
That was pretty disappointing. OTOH, ghost town... Maybe?
If you look, and I'm not 100% certain, but I think the number of blasts corresponded exactly with the number of ships and their various vectors out of Earth.
So, I want to see it again. I'm not sure I loved it. There were a lot of things I did like. A lot. Some truly great scenes. Character interplay. But then there were some things that made me go "Hmmmmm".
Like Mr. Universe. Wasn't buying it. Deus Ex Machine planet. And while the 'twist' of the Alliance being somehow responsible for the Reavers seemed like it might be this huge thing, but it seemed kind of a disappointing origin. And didn't really make me feel any sympathy for those that got ended on their air-Prozac. And speaking of sympathic endings, was it just me or did Wash and Book kind of get bum wraps? AND I'm not sure I bought (or really even understood) Mal's "Do what I say or I'll shoot you, you jerks" speech on/at Haven. Like why it couldn't be a (an admittedly more schlocky), "Yeah, let's do it for Book. (besides we ain't got nowheres else we can go.)" thing. And where the fuck was Blue Sun? Hover-wagon chase? Why didn't they just jump off a cliff into Serenity's waiting hull while they were at it?
So much that was good though: I love: A) that Jayne wasn't just a total idiot wasted purely for comedic value and got to yell at the Captain and probably be right, B) Everyone was totally in on the Mal + Inara thing, C) Mal and Zoe shorthand "so...trap?" "Yeah, trap." is always awesome, D) Mal "Think she'll hold together?" Hooray!, E) Reavers are scary, F) River isn't useless, G) Bad guys who are badasses, but maybe might not be so terrible that they ain't human, G) Hover-wagon! H) Kaylee get's her man (And in a complicated procedure, Simon surgically removes his foot from his mouth and head from his ass. He is a great doctor after all.) I) Pretty space battle. Shiny, J) Mal just shooting bad guys, K) Body count, L) Fuck it, I'm stopping... There's a lot to love.
In the great balance? Well I think I want to watch it again. I didn't really take to the series at first. Now it's one of my favorite things ever. I wound up thinking there were a lot of things I felt had been done better in the series. I think maybe I went in with too high expectations. Maybe repeat viewings.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I was definitely expecting more of the series feel than ended up being there. It felt *almost* like a movie that had been written for people who hadn't seen the series.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
The thoughts of our friend who shall remain nameless:
Quoth The Lad "I saw it last night. I knew Book was going to die (simple plotting by my friend Aleta & me, we heard that Joss said "someone's going to die," plus I got the soundtrack when it streeted on Tuesday). So we saw it & went, "OK, there's our death."
And then..Wash.
It STILL hits me. Haunted my dreams, in fact. To quote Bucky from "Get Fuzzy," "You killed the funny."
Picked up that Mal was gonna lead the Reavers, figured River would become the new pilot--how handy is that? A pilot who knows what's going on before what's going on happens.
I liked that The Operative was left alive--a nice touch. And I've always like Chiwatel Ejiafor (I think that's how it's spelled) ever since I saw him in "Dirty Pretty Things." Good casting.
I need to drag another friend to it on Sunday, one who has never seen the show (despite our attempts to have her watch) & who whined about going last night. In the past 5 years, I've only seen 2 movies more than once: Gladiator (3 times) & Bend It Like Beckham (twice). This is worth paying $7.50 for again.
My favorite line from that? The opener: " In her review, Manohla Dargis in the New York Times compares Joss Whedon's Serenity with George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith. Serenity comes out ahead."
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Is that really an intrinsically great accomplishment, though?
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Does US$10.1 million opening weekend buy us more Firefly? Should it?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yes. Because Firefly rocks.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I doubt it, myself. I have this nebulous notion about how the movie, while good, doesn't make up for the cancelling of the show, and how a good movie instead of a great TV show is a kind of melancholy pleasure. But I haven't worked out the details yet, beyond this vague sense that the whole structure of the 'verse is built for serial storytelling.
That's a doubt about the possibility of sequels, by the way, not about their desirability.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
A friend of mine said that the story that was told during the movie was slated to fill the whole of the third season. The origin of the Reavers and what not. So this does seem like Joss saying, "If I don't get to do anything else with these characters... this is what I wanted to do."
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Second, surely, according to Nerd Sources.
(Or: that's what I read on the internet.)
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Finally got to see it today. They killed Wash! That was just too sudden for me. But then realistically, not everyone gets to give a death speech. (And why is it my favorite characters (in any universe) are always the ones that get killed?)
Supposedly, River's knowledge about Miranda was what made her a threat to the government. And now that that's been made public, she's not as much of a threat anymore. But somehow, I don't believe that the blue hand guys are in any way connected to the official government, and they are most certainly still after her. So I don't think her troubles are anywhere near over.
So, did anyone else notice the "C57D" on the pod and the R&D ship in the dead city? Interesting nod to "Forbidden Planet" there. In case you're unfamiliar, it's the designation of the hero's flying saucer.
Being a total tech head, I did notice a lot of minor changes to Serenity itself, most noticeable of course were the legs (that eventually got ripped off) and the spots they extended from. The engine room had a lot more equipment, the cargo bay walls were different (I'm pretty sure they were straight, not curved), etc. etc. etc.... But one cool thing was it looked like they actually rebuilt the set as one big structure, rather than the cargo bay in one place and the upper decks in another as in the series. Unless they put in a sneaky cut I didn't notice.
Also, they finally put to rest the nature of the Firefly universe. Apparently it's one star system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. To me, that's more consistent with the series than multiple star systems.
Did anyone notice they had sound in space this time? I predicted that they would do this for a feature film. I don't really have a problem with that, especially since it would make more pleasing to a casual moviegoes who might not have seen the series.
B.J.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:But one cool thing was it looked like they actually rebuilt the set as one big structure, rather than the cargo bay in one place and the upper decks in another as in the series. Unless they put in a sneaky cut I didn't notice.
Looked like there might have been a cut in the camera blur when Simon was following Mal to the infirmary. At least, that's what I was guessing when I saw it.
quote:Did anyone notice they had sound in space this time?
The explanation given by Whedon for the sound in space was the fact that that planet was surrounded by an "ion cloud" or somesuch. Matter, thus sound.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
That is an incredibly long single shot. Almost too tricky, but it did tie the ship together nicely.
So I noticed on my second viewing tonight that River is wearing the same (or a very similar) hospital green gown (with the dental bib straps) when she fights the Reavers as she is at the very begining in the hologram of the breakout. She wears something similar in her vision of Miranda through the viewpad. I'm not entirely sure what the significance of this is, but I can't imagine that it happened by accident.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
B.J.: The Blue Hand guys are dead. At least the two we've seen up until now. There may be more. But the first two died in the comic book mini-series, if I'm remembering rightly. And apparently they *were* independant contractors working for the Alliance. It was after their failure to grab River that The Operative was called in.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
My thoughts:
I desperately want to like Serenity. But the entire last half hour or so -- from the ship crash onwards, was way over the top, and I felt like my reactions were being deliberately and obviously toyed with. "Look! They killed Wash! Now Zo�'s about to die! No wait, maybe it'll be Kaylee instead! Or Simon! Or River! Aw, screw it." Even considering they were fighting the Reavers, I thought the violence far exceeded the level of the TV series, and again made the whole situation far too dire.
I can't help but feel that the decision to kill Wash seems like a huge "Fuck You" to the fans who made the whole movie possible in the first place. On a logical level, I know that Whedon almost certainly wouldn't do something like that, but I still can't help but see a message like this: "See, we're bringing this story that you love back, but we're going to screw it over so much that you'll end up wishing that there never was any movie in the first place!"
However, I definitely enjoyed almost all of the movie before the moment when they killed Wash. Sure, Mr. Universe was a too-convenient Deus Ex Machina, and I'm not sure I like all the ret-conning of the rescue of River from the Academy. But all of the characterization and interactions just felt right. Like the lack of an argument with Inara signaling that the call was a trap, and Mal and Zo� coming to the same conclusion simultaneously. But other than that... well, the explanation of where the Reavers came from made sense, so that's one big thing in the movie's favor right there.
(Though dammit, the idea of 70+ habitable planets and moons in one single star system located somewhere within 10-15 light-years of Earth is quite ludicrous in my mind. I don't care if Galactica did the same thing... That just rubs me the wrong way.)
Finally, I really, really hate the suggestion at the end that River is now going to be just fine and stable now that she's outed the secret about Miranda and the Reavers. The series clearly showed multiple times that it wasn't just some hidden knowledge, but also the abuse and medical experiments that caused her severe emotional scarring. I certainly buy that she might have learned about the secret during her time at the academy, but I don't buy that that was the one thing causing her distress.
I hate to say it, but it seems that my very first reaction to the news of Serenity was correct -- that the 'Verse would not completely survive the transition from TV to movie theaters, and would leave me feeling unhappy about what got changed. So, my motto for this depressing review? "You can't take the sky from me, but you can still fuck with it while I'm not looking!" Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I don't think River was completely stabilized at the end, she was peaking in on Simon and Kaylee after all. She was better, but I don't think it was just revealing Miranda that did it. Simon getting shot seemed to do something to her, perhaps forced her to regain control. Could also have been killing all those Reavers. Also possible she got some sort of medical help in the mean time.
I have to wonder about the Pax gas in Miranda's atmosphere. I mean, the crew was breathing that stuff. Surely it's intended for long-term effect, but I wonder if perhaps that had some calming effect on River...
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
That reminds me of a question I had about the Reavers... how are they still around? The experiment on Miranda happened a number of years ago, right? Everyone sort of vaguely remembered it sometime in the past. The Reavers are all made up from the minority of one planet's inhabitants that reacted badly. Reavers also like to kill things and seem to be all bottled up on ships together. And they don't seem the sort to have kids. I suppose they could keep prisoners just for the purpose of breeding, but even so, it seems unlikely that infants could survive in such an atmosphere.
My point is, wouldn't they have all died off by now?
And no, I didn't get the impression that River was cured. I think she's still a nutcase, but outting that secret and releasing the trauma of holding it in and not understanding it seems to have taken the edge off.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
30,000 or so Reavers to start with, a decade or two of being around. A totally uncivilized people would die out, yeah, but they have to have some sort of society, or they couldn't build and operate ships. Have we seen Reaver women?
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
And on a crazy fad diet like "only the flesh of weak human cattle", surely they'd waste away to nothing without some decent carbohydrates and Vitamin C.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Highly praised in US Cannibals Weekly, by the way, though they occasionally seem to have a weird bias in some of their stories. (Angelina broke up Brad and Jen by convincing Brad to tear open his wife's abdomen and feast on her entrails?)
There does seem to be a small number of people, among the hardcore fans, who are too upset about Wash to appreciate the movie. That sounds dismissive. What I mean is, for whom, like MinutiaeMan, that act ruined the film for them. But consider the fate of every happy romantic relationship ever on Whedon's other two TV shows. It's a history filled with murder, inadvertant lycanthropy, wedding alter abandonment, and more murder. I strongly suspect that, had Firefly lasted five or seven years, it would not end with the same cast it began with.
So, basically, these people were doomed from the start, and violent, depressing death was surely a part of Firefly's very DNA, as it were. Which doesn't mean anyone has to like it; just that its presence in the movie doesn't represent a break with the series.
(An argument could be made that one of the reasons Firefly the series is so great is its limited length, I think. I mean, I'd still donate body parts for more, but there's something to be said for brevity, and for getting out before the inevitable heartbreak.)
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
I think the terraforming blurbs that the movie was careful to mention.. several times, goes a long way to explaining the number of worlds.. and moons. their ancesters had interstellar travel, energy weapons, and apperently, advanced planet altering technology. At one point, Mal sells a valuable laser, left over from the original settlers, so they apperently have lost some tech... It's a given, so you have to accept it, no matter how it might grind against your personal ideas of realism.. or the movie isn't for you.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
The terraforming stuff wasn't anything new. Even modifying the gravity of a world to Earth normal was mentioned in the series.
B.J.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
And the Lasiter, the ancient laser pistol they stole, wasn't valuable because it was the best laser pistol, but because it was (one of) the first. In "Heart of Gold" we see a modern laser pistol, and it is both smaller and sleeker than the Lasiter. (Although there does appear to be a slight battery problem.)
There's no reason to believe that people, at the time of Firefly and Serenity, aren't more technologically advanced than previous generations.
I saw the film again today, with my father, and I think I actually enjoyed it more the second time.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I never got the impression that the Reavers built the ships they operate. I think they got them from whatever happened to be in the area at the time of their creation. Then they added to their fleet by stealing other ships. How a completely chaotic society could operate a ship, though, is beyond me. Even entering destinations would be a problem, not to mention engineering. Though that would go a long ways to explain why they have no core containment and why their ships are always smoking like a redneck's lawnmower.
MIght also explain why they just sit there in orbit of the planet and only send out small raiding parties. They can't organize themselves to do any more than that.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: My thoughts:
(Though dammit, the idea of 70+ habitable planets and moons in one single star system located somewhere within 10-15 light-years of Earth is quite ludicrous in my mind. I don't care if Galactica did the same thing... That just rubs me the wrong way.)
There seems to be some inconsistencies in that. There's two opening narrations, the one by Book says "After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terra formed and colonized." While Mal's goes, "Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths..." So the movie goes by Book's intro, that it's all one giant solar system.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Ah, but neither opening narration is present on the DVD set.
B.J.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But here's the problem: Even with Book's narration, his line referring to "hundreds" of new Earths being settled stretches the credibility of the whole story taking place in one solar system even more. It strains credibility already talking about a few dozen habitable planets and a few dozen more habitable moons, but hundreds? Sorry, that's one of the things that I just can't buy -- on a rational level. I have no problem with suspension of disbelief, of course. I wouldn't be watching sci-fi otherwise. Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Ahahhhh. No. I fail to see the point.
Upon careful scouring of the trailer, River is wearing a different outfit in her Buffy moment than the 'motion suit' she's wearing at the start. But it does seem to be a very similar color.
Also, in the sequence where Mal is in his room looking at the video snap of Inara, you can see a black on white image of what appears to be the galaxy on the wall near his desk. A rectangular portion of this galaxy is greyed. It's beyond the depth of field, and so I couldn't really read it...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There's a list of what purports to be nearly every world in the 'verse in that book, the, uh, "Visual Companion" I think. Well, every planet plus "border moons." I was going to buy it, but then I didn't. I was hoping it would have more in the way of production art and pictures of shiny spaceships. And then there's that pernicious deleted scene from "Our Mrs. Reynolds."
If one really wanted to nitpick, he might complain that Chinese characters do not lend themselves to a digital world as well as Roman ones do. Consider the size of the keyboard containing even only the most commonly used characters. There are a lot of kludges available, of course, but from what I gather (and I am exceedingly ill-informed here, so don't set your foreign policy by me or anything) putting Chinese (or Japanese, or any of the languages which use an "alphabet" descended from the Chinese system) on computer screens by way of keyboards is a real problem. So you might expect that, in the future, the Roman alphabet would muscle out the Chinese when it came to computers.
So how come this movie isn't number one, is what I want to know.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I believe it was, on a dollars-per-screen basis. Give it another week, I'm betting it will make MORE money this weekend once the word gets out how uber it is.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Deleted scene, you say? Does it involve more "Biblical" quotes from Saffron?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
A History of Violence made more money per screen than Serenity. Into the Blue, alas, is making more money per screen. (Depending on who you ask; I guess there is some error in reporting. All the huge Whedon nerd sites are all over it.) Obviously, the problem is that Serenity the movie lacks the Inara spongebath scene from "Serenity" the episode.
We've discussed it before, but the scene in question is on the Firefly DVD set, and contains a reference to the "more than seventy earths spinning about the galaxy." (There's that word again.)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
So here's what I see as the only two irreconcilable differences between the show and the movie, and one of those can probably be fudged, though it is weird.
Anyway, one, Simon spends the series trying to figure out what was done to River, yet at the beginning of the film he sits through a presentation on exactly that. I mean, I can see how he might be distracted, and perhaps he sprung the escape plan just after arriving; I don't think we can tell how long he and the scientist guy had been talking prior to that scene. Still. (I don't, incidentally, have any real problem with Simon being present. It doesn't contradict anything he said in his TV speech, though why he said "they said they could get her to Persephone and then I could take her wherever" instead of "they could get us to Persephone," but perhaps he didn't want to discuss the details.)
The other thing, and the thing I think we can squint at and explain away, is the Alliance's curious response to River's escape. In the show the Alliance issues regular warrants for her and Simon, and even a seemingly low-level federal agent like Dobson knows that she's "important to the Alliance brass." They even go so far as to enlist the help of private citizens, like Jubal Early. Yet in the film the operative is dispatched and suddenly everything is super hush-hush. "No warrants issued," they say at one point. So what changed?
It seems to me that we can get away with saying that we see multiple agencies with different security clearances taking multiple approaches, maybe. River escapes and general law enforcement is alerted, and then the people in charge of the project dispatch their own agents, perhaps concerned that having anyone who isn't in the know apprehend her means the potential leak of all sorts of secrets, and then finally the operative is sent out from the very highest levels with orders to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Maybe the program intentionally downplayed River's importance at first, hoping some random street cop would pick her up and send her back before the government's really scary agents started to nose around.
While I'm rambling, various background stuff tells us that the Alliance evolved from the U.S. and China, neither of which have parliaments, so where'd that come from?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
OK, just one more thing: DVD by December? Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
That's mighty fast.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Well the Big Damn Flanvention also happens to occur in December. I would hope the DVD release might coincide...
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: ...While I'm rambling, various background stuff tells us that the Alliance evolved from the U.S. and China, neither of which have parliaments, so where'd that come from?
The US (America) evidently had long ago usurped the UK according to the Official Visual Companion that I flipped through at B&N the other night. Also the American capital planet is Londinium. Not that that in any way explains it...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Huh. So, like, were you disappointed that there were not nice full page plan views of ships in that book as well?
I imagine "parliament" was thrown in mostly for storytelling purposes. It sounds mildly exotic to us Americans, and conveniently combines legislative and executive powers, thus no need to bring in a president figure to complicate the plot. (Er, and a prime minister wouldn't count just because.)
Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
I've just got back from seeing it in the UK. I loved it. Sure there were some things that bugged me, but not enough to spoil it.
One thing I've just thought with regards to Wash's death - anyone else think it's really, really similar to Trinity's in Matrix Revolutions? Apart from the really important fact that Wash doesn't go through a 3-hour long overblown death speach that sends the audience to sleep. I have a small fantasy that this was a subtle slap from Whedon to the Wachowskis, essentially saying "This is how you make a good movie!". Wash didn't need a goodbye speech to show the emotion between him and Zoe (And indeed the audience), it was shown much more clearly by Zoe losing her head and trying to charge the Reavers. Methinks Mr. Whedon has a much better grasp on human psychology than either the Wachowskis or Lucas, and this is why his work kicks so much butt.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:I imagine "parliament" was thrown in mostly for storytelling purposes.
Jayne at one point in the series says "She's in congress?" I think from this we can assume there's also a body by that name, since it doesn't seem likely that Jayne of all people would know the word if there wasn't.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Perhaps 'congress' is simply the vernacular for Parliament. They are at least superficially similar.
I have a completely unrelated question. I'm no good at math, WTF was River writing on her notepad.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I would not read much into what Jayne says in general. I mean, "noble as a grape"?
(Was anyone else weirded out by Summer Glau's voice coming out of that girl's mouth? And then later Whedon is the voice of that old man in the bank. Bizarro.)
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I'm not sure what she's writing, but why would they have kids write on graph paper? Also, I can buy the pen she's using at Meijer, or pretty much anywhere else.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Why wouldn't they use graph paper? At work, that's all we use. That's all I used in college, too. Yes, I'm an engineer, but rarely does anyone actually do any graphing on paper. Sketches, yes, but that's done ignoring the lines.
B.J.
Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
The stuff on River's notepad does not look like anything in particular, and the lines do not seem to be related in any way. There are a few equals signs in there, but if you were hoping for a famous equation or two I don't see them. I think they are supposed to represent general notes (Of far higher quality than any I made in my undergraduate career).
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I think I would find trying to write or read on graph paper somewhate distracting.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Yes, well, you're an artist. You're probably most at home with unlined paper. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Also, I can buy the pen she's using at Meijer, or pretty much anywhere else."
Now if we could get some Fruity Oaty Bars. . .
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
They're not mandatory!
I hope I am scooping the internet here: Inara's weapon at the final standoff changes from a fancy high tech dart launcher thing that looks kind of like a bow in the close-ups to a genuine old fashioned bow in the wider shot when Zoe is losing it.
After checking, apparently I am not.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Maybe she had both a long bow and a hand-gun version and just switched when one ran out of ammo. I remember seeing that she had a bow and it seemed rather silly to me to fight an bloodthirsty psychotic horde with a weapon that can only be fired once every 5 or 6 seconds.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
In that scene I paid less attention to what Inara was shooting with and more attention to what she was wearing. Yum.
But the bow did seem to be a rather nifty weapon, and did manage to off a few Reavers.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
The regular bow didn't test well. They CGI'd the super dart-caster/glowy-revolver thing in later. Except not in every shot.
For a movie that I've only given a B, I've seen it 3 times in the theatre now and just the other night purchased the Official Visual Companion. In a related story, I do have a scanner. No, I will not scan the entire script.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Did they really? That's, I don't know, that's really strange. Great effects work, I guess, though now that I know it would probably be obvious.
Weird.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Whole script, no. Interesting pre-production sketches or caps of the REALLY KICKASS SPACESHIPS? Please.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There aren't nearly enough spaceship pictures in it. I mean, there are some. Just not enough.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
To be sure, plan views would have been very nice.
quote:Originally posted Mark Nyugen: Interesting pre-production sketches or caps of the REALLY KICKASS SPACESHIPS? Please.
Any explanation in there as to why we didn't get any city ships from the series?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Well, whenever we saw a city ship it was off by itself, probably patrolling the outer fringes of the solar system. The Operative's fleet was probably meant for assault and assault only, and they'd need to move fast and be capable of atmospheric flight. Call me crazy, but I just can't picture those city-ships flying through an atmosphere very well...
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Agreed. The Dortmunder and her sister ships (have we seen more than just her? Was the ship in the episode Book got shot the same one as in the pilot?) are more than likely just giant mobile space stations, meant for enforcement and projection of the Alliance's power by sheer force of presence, as well as firepower.
MY question to y'all would be if you thought whether ot not the new Alliance ships seemed to fit in with the established design motif of the city ships and their companion gunships. On the inside, the city ships were pretty spartan (and dare I say rather cheap-looking). The movie pwns the series sets, and uniforms while we're at it...
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, the three such ships seen (that I recall) all have different commanding officers.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Outrageous five-and-a-half-month bump, but I have thoughts.
I don't have a problem with Simon being actually part of River's rescue - it makes more sense than just paying some people you don't know from Adam to extract her and deliver her to you. And it rather puts "Ariel" in context, that when he hires the Serenity's crew to help him infiltrate an Allience facility, it's something he's kinda done before. And, posing as he did as some Alliance bigwig, I can imagine Dr. Swordfallerstein wouldn't even dream of giving him actual details of what was done, medically speaking, to her. The problem lies in the fact that for most of the series he appeared to be not only ignorant of what had been done to her, but also why - whereas it was made pretty clear to Simon in his persona as visiting VIP that she'd been turned into a wetwired assasin with enhanced psychic powers.
So we'll never know what Book's story was. I'm thinking former/retired Operative.
I'm sure I've encountered the idea of a merciless killer doing what eh does because he knows his actions will help bring about a better world before; however, I did like the way the Operative's eyes were opened to the realisation that maybe the people planning this better world have slightly distorted values. But you'd think the mere fact that they're OK with the idea of employing him might have given him some clue.
I kept thinking of Generations (which wasn't a bad film, really, it just lacked the scope we wanted in a Trek film), in terms of seeing a ship we'd become familiar with, from a big-screen perspective. It even crashed at the end! Bit surprised they managed to repair it so well. And what is it about genre movies which have a denouement in a shaft or cavern high above some nasty certain death thingy? X-Men 2 (sorta), The Avengers movie, I Robot, at least two of the Star Wars films, Insurection (and even Nemesis and Generations after a fashion). . .
I'd got the impression from somewhere that Kaylee died. Good to see her live and kicking, and shagging up against the engine again, saucy minx. Wash was a surprise, although in hindsight being in a relationship with another character usually means certain death.
Using distant female screaming as a kind-of shorthand for offscreen Reaver nastiness got to be a bit overused. The idea (from "Bushwhacked?") that just seeing Reavers in action turns you into one has alweays seemed a bit daft to me, and I'm glad it didn't crop up here.
So, quite positive overall. Let's hope something more comes from it.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
The thing about the merciless killer is that while the person may feel that they are necessary for some secrets to protect the creation of better worlds, killing one to try to make it so changes the scope ever so slightly. I also liked the way he ran for his life in to the escape pod.
I think I will watch it again, I bought the DVD for a change and haven't seen it since the night I bought it.
I figured one of them would die, it was a had to happen thing to me, two I did not expect.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Oh, and "Parliament" needn't contradict "Congress" - they could have upper and lower houses, just like the UK Parliament which has a House of Commons and a House of Lords.
And that looked suspiciously like a Borg manipulator arm Simon had on at the beginning. . .
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I never got the impression he was so much concerned about his life when he ran for the escape pod. I think he was mostly just trying to finish his mission. He knew Serenity was headed for the surface and that they might make it, so that's where he needed to go to get the job done.
Plus... things were exploding.
The whole sequence where Serenity is trying to make it to the surface is just totally cool. All the dodging and swerving and stuff blowing up and EM weapons being fired. And when Serenity finally goes into a freefall spin, the editing is magnificent, with Jayne flying across the galley.
Cool.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee: And that looked suspiciously like a Borg manipulator arm Simon had on at the beginning. . .
I thought that too! No, but it's his baton/brain grenade thing tucked under his arm.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Oh, and "Parliament" needn't contradict "Congress" - they could have upper and lower houses, just like the UK Parliament which has a House of Commons and a House of Lords.
Or the planet that Jayne's from has a local government called Congress as opposed to the Alliance government which is the Parliament.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Wraith Johnson is right!
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
FINALLY rented and watched it last night. I don't know if its been mentioned before but there was an overt and yet cute homage to Forbidden Planet. The Rescue pod on Miranda was "C-57D" which IIRC was the ID for the saucer from Forbidden Planet.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:I did like the way the Operative's eyes were opened to the realisation that maybe the people planning this better world have slightly distorted values. But you'd think the mere fact that they're OK with the idea of employing him might have given him some clue.
Well, it's sorta the same issue that we were faced with Section 31: do the ends justify the means? Obviously the Operative believed that they do, but the point of the movie was that it's a slippery slope of justification, that leads to things like the Pax experiment. It was that revelation that created a chink in the Operative's psychological armor, that allowed him to question the almighty Alliance.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: FINALLY rented and watched it last night. I don't know if its been mentioned before but there was an overt and yet cute homage to Forbidden Planet. The Rescue pod on Miranda was "C-57D" which IIRC was the ID for the saucer from Forbidden Planet.
Yeah, well at least it's mentioned in the trivia at IMDb.
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