SOUNDHACK'S BLOG

soundhack

Movie thoughts (spoilers)
Friday, September 30, 2005

Well I just came back from a 10:25PM showing in Arlington VA. The pretty big stadium theater was less than half full, I hope that is because it was pretty late!

What follows are my reactions to the movie, so don't read further if you haven't seen it. As this is a blog, I'm not trying to convince anyone my opinions are right, so please no flames either. I just want to put down my thoughts on my blog so I can remember them later.


First off, I think this movie was great. I am going to write things that may sound like nitpicking criticism, but in general I liked the movie a lot. Not as much as the series themselves, but this movie was certainly better than any other movie out this year that I've seen.

This brings up one of the main thoughts I've had, the difference between the small screen and big screen. Some professional reviewers have mentioned this, but the BDM sometimes feels like it has the sensibilities of a tv show. While I don't think this is necessarily true, there are a few points.

It is obvious that a tv series, even an abbreviated season like Firefly's, has more opportunity for character development than a single movie. You don't go to see a movie (at least not anymore) to see character development. A good example to me is the Star Trek (TOS only, I hate TNG) series/movies. I derive pleasure watching Star Trek movies not to see further development of the characters I know and love, but to see them live and breathe and behave the way I expect them to do. I go back to watch the tv episodes to see the subtle and not so subtle tiny bits and pieces of scenes and dialogue that develop characters and their interaction with each other. Sometimes I even find something new or a different interpretation, even now after having watched each episode literally hundreds of times.

Back to Firefly/Serenity. Having less than a full season means that I haven't gotten to know the characters as well as Star Trek ones. That means any new avenue such as this movie is to me an opportunity to see more character development. I don't know them well enough to just be content seeing them "live and breathe" (and die too). And as I've said above the movie is not the best way to get character development. Also, 2 hrs is not enough time to develop all of the characters. I am sure Joss made a conscious decision to focus on a few characters (Mal and River) at the expense of others to tell at least part of their story well, both for us and for people who havent seen Firefly. But to me, I really miss the development of the other characters (they seemed to be playing roles as opposed to living their lives) and to tell the truth I don't think there was that much development with Mal or River anyway. We may come to understand why River is the way she is, but that isnt development, thats more like a living history we just read/saw.


For in essence, what made Firefly so special was not the ship (pretty and special as it is), Mal himself (dashing and heroic that he is), or any single character (although Inara IS hot ) What made me fall in love with Firefly was the way the characters interacted with each other, and how the interaction itself developed each character. Maybe why my favorite episode is Out of Gas, becase I think that episode more than any other was about how each character felt about the other, and the ship. In that sense, I would rate that one hour episode better than the movie.

I have more to write about that, but this is already getting too long. I will have to break this up into multiple entries over days I guess.

The other major point I thought was how the sensibilities of Joss and a tv-show based story affected my reaction to the plot. Call me heartless, but I didnt see that big a deal with what happened on Miranda. I never saw the inhabitants, I didn't see their lives or their hopes/dreams, in short I didn't care what hapenned to them. Now that sounds pretty cruel I know, but thats the way it is for me. I am sure that if this plot was in the tv series, we would slowly get introduced to Miranda and its inhabitants, etc. and THEN when they get wiped out it would be a total shock. Again, to fit in a 2hr movie there just wasn't enough time to care for an entire planet. The fact that Joss thought we all would I think belies his experience in TV.

Another shocker I bet---I also didnt understand why the Alliance was so afraid of this "secret." There is enough evil in the world, both in reality and in fiction, that mistakes/accidents, even in huge scales like planet-wide, are not as reprehensible as deliberate massacres and genocides. If the Alliance spinned the deaths, I am sure it could have sold it without much harm coming to anyone.

I'm going to open a huge can of worms and tie this with whats going on today. Look at whats happening in Iraq. Whatever the reason we invaded Iraq (does no one remember we invaded for WMD anymore, not democracy?) the simple fact is that, because of our actions, thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens have been killed. We didnt actually blow them up, but our actions caused their deaths. Exactly the way the Alliance tried to help, they didnt forcibly execute anyone, but they were ultimately responsible for a lot of deaths. And look how the current administration has spun this. By using magical words like "freedom" and "democracy" it has basically white-washed what they have done without much controversy. Why couldnt the Alliance (clearly a more insidious government, or is it?) do the same?

On a similar vein, there is often the discussion of trying to tie Browncoat/Alliance antagonism with Democrat/Repulican antagonism, each side arguing that their side is more like Browncoats. I don't want to argue that in particular, but what River said in the very beginning struck me hard. About people meddling in other people's lives. Again going back to Iraq, if you want to take the high ground and say we invaded not for WMD but to bring democracy to them, aren't we meddling? I don't want to hear the same old line about "Well saddam was a tyrant killing his own people" Let's face it, we are getting to the point where more Iraqi citizens have died since our invasion as in all of Saddam's reign, if we havent passed it yet. People have to live their own lives the way they want. If they truly wanted freedom under Saddam, then they would have revolted. It would have been fine if we helped them, by supplyingfood, supplies, weapons, but to unilaterally say "you are miserable under Saddam, we are going to take him out and give you democracy" sounds a lot like the Alliance's "we know whats good for you" line.

Whew I have only scratched he surface of my reactions to seeing the movie. I really don't want to argue with anyone, again this is just for me to remember my thoughts. so please no nasty comments or email!

COMMENTS

Saturday, October 1, 2005 3:32 AM

ATILLA


I think the operative hit the point with the Alliance. The general knowledge of what happened will not end the careers of the people involved, it will damage them. As for the damage, the creation of "THE REAVERS" is the damaging element. The poweres that be in this case are pulling the "We are in power because we protect you and make the world a better place." card. Miranda damages the card, puts a mark on the back so that whenever it is held up, you can see it clearly and think, "Yea but what about the hurricaine". Oh sorry, Miranda.


POST YOUR COMMENTS

You must log in to post comments.

YOUR OPTIONS

THIS MONTH'S ENTRIES

ARCHIVES

2005 December

2005 October

2005 September

2004 March

2004 January

OUR SPONSOR