I'm posting this early as an excuse to share this weird promotional clip that people deny is a promotional clip because misdirection and confusion are so epically trendy for Serenity: http://download.ifilm.com/qt/portal/2677821_300.mov
Though it is already, like, everywhere, so you have probably seen it. And it is kind of, like, low-rent. Still.
Registered: Mar 1999
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For instance, the holographic pool table seems kind of questionable. OK, the table itself is not holographic. But it seems like a set of real billiard balls would be cheaper than the virtual kind. I mean, you need sensors in the table, and in the cues, and how do the players know when they've hit anything?
I don't think they ever visit a bar that they can come back to later. Maybe the mudders' one.
Another odd thing is that there doesn't seem to be any indication, on Inara's communication screen thing, as to which profiles hold a recorded message and which a live call.
I like how Jayne laughs when Mal puts down Kaylee's dress-related wishes.
And what's this about lordhood?
Mechanic talk pulls all the boys in.
I sure like this episode.
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Basically, it's American trying (and failing) to understand the British honours system. Knighthood is not the same as being a peer (is lordhood even a word?). I guess it's sort of an attempt to bring in more than just the American West/Chinese cultural mix. This is all the cultures of Earth mixed up and spread around so it's not really surprising that different political systems would be in place. I have no problem with Persephone being 'Britain world'.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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posted
Well, what I was getting at was that this is the only instance of any peerage system in the show, and I wonder about what it implies, if it implies anything. I doubt the Alliance has a King, as it were, and there isn't a royal vibe to it.
This is the sort of thing that can't be answered, really, due to Firefly's demise.
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posted
I imagine it's just how that perticular Planet's government is set up, probably since it is controlled by the land owners who got rich and started lording it over the settlers. That dose ring true to a "Planet Britain" since most of our so called noble families are just inbred decendents of some ancient thugs who managed to get their grubby paws on a lot of real estate.
As for the confused terminology, it would stand to reason that a future society modeling itself (at least in part) on the ancient English nobility woudl get allot of the details wrong. For example, doesn't the Russian title "Tzar" stem from the Roman "Ceasar"?
Point of interest, when River went all English Rose, didn't badger say something like "nice to see someone from the old homestead"? Wouldn't that indicate that the real "English Planet" is elsewhere and that Persephone is actually "wannabe England"? Either that or us southern Engish types have been ghettoed on the far side of the planet.
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Or that there are multiple planets where British culture has been influential.
I take your point about the confused terminology but you'd have thought that sort of thing would be less likely in a society with high-tech recording and data storage devices.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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quote:Point of interest, when River went all English Rose, didn't badger say something like "nice to see someone from the old homestead"? Wouldn't that indicate that the real "English Planet" is elsewhere and that Persephone is actually "wannabe England"? Either that or us southern Engish types have been ghettoed on the far side of the planet.
quote:I take your point about the confused terminology but you'd have thought that sort of thing would be less likely in a society with high-tech recording and data storage devices.
Time and history has a habit of loosing even the most best kept records, imagine how much was lost when mankind abandoned Earth. Plus not everyone bothers to look up stuff like that. Rich nobel wannabes aren't exactly the best educated in the 'verse and if they want to refer to their positions a certain way, exactly who's gonna correct them? Aside from that, one thing you should defiantly have noticed on firefly is that the common languages change quite a bit from one century to the next, in pronounciation and usage.
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Valid points, but we don't really know enough about the evacuation of Earth (quick or slow, organised or frantic, etc) to really assume anything.
Also, we don't know enough (or anything!) about the way the colonies were founded to assume anything about the prominent people in the first wave who assumed power.
Although you're right that if there was a lot of chaos surrounding the establishment of the colonies in the immediate period of the Earth evacuation then any mechanism of acquiring and justifying power could and would have been used, irrespective of accuracy. The easiest was to assume power is to identify yourself with a pre-existing legitimate power, even if that system was very different to that which you replace it with (look at Stalin's appropriation of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible).
Can't belive we got all of that out of one small error in speech (which could just have been condescention on Sir Warwick's part). Ah, the joys of geekdom...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
It doesn't have to be a matter of confusion. The Russian tsar wasn't called that because they were confused, but because Caeser had heavy connotations of power and leadership in Europe. Kaiser is the same.
River specifically says that Badger was from, uh, something Colony. Dyton Colony, according to the Firefly wiki. Of course, that could just be a place on Persephone, rather than a seperate planet.
posted
There are cool... brilliant marketing IMO. Are these clips actually in the movie? Perhaps the crew finds records of River's time at the Institute? Or is this something created just as a marketing campaign?
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