SERENITY Part II. Your thoughts? by THESOMNAMBULIST

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

SERENITY Part II. Your thoughts?

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POSTED BY: THESOMNAMBULIST
UPDATED: Friday, October 11, 2013 15:20
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Friday, April 15, 2011 3:49 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

So I just rewatched SERENITY for... Well I no longer know how 'manyeth' time and I still regard it as good as the day I first saw it !
Now as it's nearing it's end and Mal and River are talking I began to wonder:
What would SERENITY part II be about? What preoccupations are left to explore and what would feel right for Joss?

Plenty of ideas came to mind but I'm more interested to know what the fine folk of FFF.net think....

So your thoughts please.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 3:55 AM

ZEEK

My first thought is Blue Sun. I don't think River is totally fixed yet. I think she feels better now that she understands some of the images rattling around in her head, but I don't think she has it all worked out yet. I think she'll slowly piece together more and more and realize what Blue Sun is doing. My guess is initially Reavers were created by a bad combination of chemicals that Blue Sun was experimenting with including in food. Hence River's freak out with the food labels. The story would have to be changed now that the Reaver history was altered, but they could still uncover some Blue Sun plot and try to fix it.

I just don't know if that would be too similar to the story in Serenity. They'd end up on the wrong side of a power much bigger than them who's trying to keep a secret. Maybe rather than oppose that group maybe they'd have to work with them to fix their mistake. Like uncover that Blue Sun isn't evil they just made a mistake that they don't know how to fix. So, without a cure they're just covering it up. River meets up with some of their head scientists and has to help them find a cure as an outbreak gets closer and closer to the point of no return.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 4:09 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Hey Zeek.

Blue Sun is an interesting angle. When you mentioned food it reminded me of the Soylent Green premise. Perhaps something along those lines but not so obvious as food being people, but maybe a kind of engineered food substitue that becomes as significant as spice during the years of the Dutch East India company... And somehow the crew find themselves pawns in the greater shenanigans of the corporate giants of the 'verse...?

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Friday, April 15, 2011 5:07 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

In Serenity 2, I'd like to see the Operative meeting with River for a debriefing. He suspects there is more to Reavers than space zombies. She has insight from close contact with Reavers.

I want Serenity 2 to start where Serenity ended. At the end of BDM, by the way, the Operative didn't come out in the rain without his umbrella for a poignant (yet pointless) moment with Mal. He was a diversion while mechanics sabotaged the reactor shutter, that big piece that fell off Serenity at the end of the movie. That is the setup for the Operative's meeting with River the next day.

I remember Joss said he wanted to start a movie with a spaceship on fire. This would be the opportunity. Serenity is forced to turn around and go back because she catches on fire from very hot liquid sodium, which cools the reactor, squirting on wet metal. They don't call them Fireflies because the tail-butt glows. It's not very interesting if the piece of Serenity fell off only because Kaylee forgot to tighten a bolt or look for metal fatigue. I want a conspiracy involving the Operative.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, April 15, 2011 7:30 AM

STORYMARK

So hard to say.

Had we gotten a Serenity 2 close to the first, I could see a lot of the above scenarios, River still dealing with her craziness, Blue Sun, etc.

But now, if we ever get one, it'll be a decade or so on, so even if the story doesn't jump that far, it'll have to move forward some at the least.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, April 15, 2011 8:48 AM

BYTEMITE

Somn: Well, I think since Blue Sun is the once thing Joss wanted to cover in the movie, but didn't, I think that's most definitely where the verse is heading now. We already uncovered evil secret government experiments twice, now let's look at the second half of the socio-economic coin, the corporations that together with the government exist to make the verse a crappy place.

I like to think maybe the Inara secret thing might tie into Blue Sun secrets somehow. I mean hey, they made the Pax, who knows what else they've made. Let's look at conspiracy theories about food and pharmaceuticals now, it would be a logical progression from Miranda.

But I actually think that'll be the last movie, in which they collapse the economy of the Core and take down both Blue Sun and the Alliance for good.

So next movie I'll maybe say they build on the Operatives warning that there are still people who will come looking for River and Simon. Then we can do a story about the Academy and some of the "students" who have actually graduated.

Two: While I also agree that the thing falling off at the end of Serenity is more interesting if it has a point, I think we can get Serenity coming in for a crash landing on fire without an Operative conspiracy. After all, why would the Operative waste time talking to Mal if he could just talk to River while they're there? Why let them leave only to force them to come back?

The Operative could have had his meeting with River off-panel. Maybe while he was talking to Mal, River snuck back on the ship and headed up to the helm.

I could see the Operative sabotaging the ship, but not to just bring the crew back. I also suspect that they put something on the ship to track it, since the Operative learned his error just relying on pulse beacons.

Picture this: All of the soldiers the Operative had under his command are now witnesses that the Alliance will want offed. In exchange for their silence, the Operative made a background deal spare the lives of the people under his command for his failure to stop the Miranda broadwave. The piece that fell off Serenity was part of the buffer panel system again, and in the words of Kaylee: "aren't just for show outside of atmo. They also got the grav screen spread across them. With one gone, can't go too fast or the grav forces'll take us apart."

And then the ship with the Academy graduates shows up to chase them, which was why the Operative sabotaged the piece to break off, to slow the crew down. The crew only just gets away because River, despite being unfinished, is still the most promising of the bunch. But it looks hairy for a while, and part of getting away involves looking like they all died in a fiery crash.

Then they find a stowaway, who got on the ship during repairs in case the ambush didn't work out...

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Friday, April 15, 2011 10:09 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

But I actually think that'll be the last movie, in which they collapse the economy of the Core and take down both Blue Sun and the Alliance for good.

I don't think Joss would be so cut-n-dried. His characters despise the Alliance, but he always seemed to view them more ambiguously.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, April 15, 2011 10:21 AM

BYTEMITE

Maybe, but generally all his series end with something near-or-post apocalyptic. The fall of the Alliance tearing itself apart in the process is the only thing I can see that would go there.

So considering that Buffy had the schemes of the evil government of Sunnydale, and Dollhouse had the fall of the Rossum corporation, my guess is that's the most likely story arc.

To be fair to the Alliance, I'm sure Joss will show how things are so much more sucktacular in the core and maybe some rim and border worlds without them, but it won't quite get in the way of Joss' favourite message about people going their own way and eventually landing on their feet.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 11:17 AM

STORYMARK

Well, for one thing, I tend to assume that the "most likely" way for a story to end is the less likely way Joss would do it.

And as for the others (Buffy's evil Mayor, Dollhouse and Rossum and Angel and Wolfram & Hart) - they were all pretty unambiguously BAD groups.

Not so with the Alliance. When he talks about them being an analog for Star Trek's Federation (as opposed to say, Star Wars' evil empire, and we know he's not afraid to make Star Wars parallels with Firefly) I just think assuming that he would go that way is simplistic.

If anything, I could see him bringing down the Alliance, only to have the characters have to discover things were better with them, flipping the expectation.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, April 15, 2011 11:25 AM

DMI

Expired, forgotten, spoiled rotten.

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
In Serenity 2, I'd like to see the Operative meeting with River for a debriefing. He suspects there is more to Reavers than space zombies. She has insight from close contact with Reavers.

I want Serenity 2 to start where Serenity ended. At the end of BDM, by the way, the Operative didn't come out in the rain without his umbrella for a poignant (yet pointless) moment with Mal. He was a diversion while mechanics sabotaged the reactor shutter, that big piece that fell off Serenity at the end of the movie. That is the setup for the Operative's meeting with River the next day.

I remember Joss said he wanted to start a movie with a spaceship on fire. This would be the opportunity. Serenity is forced to turn around and go back because she catches on fire from very hot liquid sodium, which cools the reactor, squirting on wet metal. They don't call them Fireflies because the tail-butt glows. It's not very interesting if the piece of Serenity fell off only because Kaylee forgot to tighten a bolt or look for metal fatigue. I want a conspiracy involving the Operative.

Starting it the next day might not feel right given that no matter what the circumstances, there would have always been many years between shootings. I like the idea of starting a movie with a spaceship on fire (didn't know that Joss wanted to do that) and the idea of keeping The Operative character around, but I feel like he had a real change in heart after seeing that video. It may be hard to believe this could happen, but there was a pretty big deal made about him being a believer and that video seemed to rock that faith. In a sequel, I'd like to see him come aboard about halfway through as a bit of a surprise twist (you know, help the crew out with a problem and gets invited along). He would sort of replace Book's character.

However, I think at least part of a sequel would need to be told in flashback, because Whedon left a lot of clues to things that happened between the series and the movie that I don't remember getting covered in the comic books. For example, why does Mal need that shot in the arm at the beginning? This would also be an excuse to bring Alan Tudyk and Ron Glass back for a bit. As far as plot goes, I figure in the beginning that Mal tries to go back to life as normal but finds he can't be a petty crook (PETTY!?) any more. Then, because of his new reputation as a conspiracy thwarter, he is hired but someone to uncover something about one or some combination of the following: Blue Sun, Parliament, or the real reason they left Earth.

-----------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 11:57 AM

BYTEMITE

Storymark: Yeah, but a pattern's a pattern. If Joss is an anti-authoritarian, he's going to tend to write anti-authoritarian messages. It's not like there's other ways Joss isn't predictable, like his tendency to kill characters. You want to subvert expectations but eventually you start to realize certain elements are just part of a writer's style.

Besides, there are ways the Star Trek Federation isn't implied to be all that good in THAT verse, it's just most of the time we have a view of them from people employed by their military. As I understand it, Deep Space 9 is meant to explore some of the darksides/ downsides of the Federation. On the surface the alliance looks shiny, and it can actually very well do a lot of good for the people it represents, but clearly it can also do wrong, such as experimentation on 14 year olds. In this way, it's like any government.

As for missing the Alliance out on the rim, I'm not sure they can miss what was never really there.

The other option is that the Firefly story arc starts to become really existential, because those are two things that Joss is.

DMI: Good point about starting right after the movie, I was mostly trying to build on two's scenario about there being a reason another buffer panel fell off.

I agree with you that the Operative really did have a turn around, but that doesn't necessarily make him loyal to Serenity or the crew either. It could very well be that the Operative might do some morally ambiguous things just to survive, or to do right by people who depend on him.

The shot in the arm Mal has at the beginning of the movie is an innoculation, the movie says as much.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 12:29 PM

DMI

Expired, forgotten, spoiled rotten.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The shot in the arm Mal has at the beginning of the movie is an innoculation, the movie says as much.

Yeah, but since when does he need inoculations and what are they for/against?

-----------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

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Friday, April 15, 2011 1:00 PM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Storymark: Yeah, but a pattern's a pattern. If Joss is an anti-authoritarian, he's going to tend to write anti-authoritarian messages. . .

DMI: Good point about starting right after the movie, I was mostly trying to build on two's scenario about there being a reason another buffer panel fell off.

I agree with you that the Operative really did have a turn around, but that doesn't necessarily make him loyal to Serenity or the crew either. It could very well be that the Operative might do some morally ambiguous things just to survive, or to do right by people who depend on him.

How about this: keep the Operative as a super-patriot, but because his honor has been soiled, he becomes a super-cynic about the Alliance leadership. Inside he is a different man.

To give the Operative a reason to serve, he's on a personal mission to exterminate the Reavers. But those damn space zombies refuse to lie down and die. No matter how many he kills, there's always more. Where are they coming from? That is why he was talking to River.

I'd send Serenity back to Mr Universe's moon to loot the replaced broadwave equipment and retrieve Mal's pistol from the pit where he dropped it. The Reavers will be waiting for him. They make plans, too.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, April 15, 2011 5:47 PM

BYTEMITE

They're going to foreign planets out on the rim, they probably innoc every time they make planet fall.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 2:29 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

While we're dreaming of a next movie, I want an explanation of River in it. I want a grand unified theory of her ESP.

There is a nice example of getting into another mind, like River does, in the movie Source Code (2011). Physicist and movie consultant Jim Kakalios wrote about what is really happening to helicopter pilot Colter in Source Code:
www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/spoiler-talk-is-the-ending-of-source-cod
e-open-to-interpretation
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/04/12/guest-post
-jim-kakalios-on-the-quantum-mechanics-of-source-code/

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:14 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Hey Byte.

Just wondering, are you intimating that Inara's secret is tied in with Blue Sun from the point of view of helping with a cure; or are they in some way responsible for her condition?

(This could work for me in a way but I would favour that as a side plot that perhaps conflicts with Mal and the crew's intentions and there in causes further friction between Mal/Inara.)

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:52 AM

BYTEMITE

Either or both.

Ask yourself if a "cure" from Blue Sun won't really just make you worse.

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Monday, April 18, 2011 1:47 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

This is why I like fanfic, everyone can write the verse however they wish, meaning everybody gets what they want and I can choose what to read. If Serenity 2 gets made then, for better or worse, people will consider it cannon and I just don't like that, I barely tollerate the movie being considered cannon. I know it isn't a popular position but I feel very very strongly about it.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, April 18, 2011 9:47 PM

VERASAMUELS

Well, we could have Mal or the crew finding out some or all of Book's secret. That could lead in all kinds of interesting directions.

Or Inara's secret - with Simon leading the search for the cure.

I'd certainly like to see Zoe pregnant with Wash's baby, as in 'Float Out'.

'Browncoats:Redemption' is a good place to start. The Alliance attempts to bury the truth about Miranda.

Personally, I'd like to meet Kaylee's parents and/or Jayne's parents.

I'd like to meet one or more Oriental characters. Go a bit down the 'Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon' route with a Buddhist temple and Triad gangs, etc.

Devout Keeper of Jayne's Lunchbox

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Monday, April 18, 2011 11:31 PM

THESOMNAMBULIST

verasamules wrote:

Quote:
Well, we could have Mal or the crew finding out some or all of Book's secret. That could lead in all kinds of interesting directions.

This is the most interesting one for me too. I'd actually like Book's past catching up with the crew and them having to fathom out who Book really was before they can free themselves from the danger.

Cartoons - http://cirqusartsandmusic.blogspot.com

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011 4:37 AM

BYTEMITE

Select to view spoiler:

Book has a cyber eye that records everything he sees.

Since I found that out I've thought that's a perfect way to carry the ramifications of Book's life beyond his death. Maybe he saw something else besides what happened in Shepherd's Tale, something top secret.

The past never stays buried. They visit the graves one day to find them disturbed, and seeking to recover the bodies to restore them to their proper repose, the crew finds themselves knee deep in some brand new plots. It'd be very western.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011 4:40 AM

BYTEMITE

Hey Two, I missed your follow up idea. That would also be a good one.

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Wednesday, October 2, 2013 10:17 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SKull:
Any sequel would need a new theme, or premise to develop, . . .
Without this it might easily be a repeat of what was done with the Matrix trilogy; the first movie had a strong allegory in it but it was basically fully developed in that movie. The sequels therefore had a certain redundancy to them and didn`t really add much.

The story could return to the massacre at Haven. River had the foresight to take the gun camera from fighter plane that killed all the town's people. Every bullet hitting every child is recorded, with pilot and crew commentary, “You shot mother and her baby with one bullet. Way to go, Gunnie!” Or is that too much like Mal and the recording from Miranda? The government apparently was able to shrug off Miranda because it happens long ago to people far away. Maybe the Haven massacre will more widely register than Miranda on the public's mind because it happened last week.

And the Alliance military killing children as a game where they have to murder everyone in Haven to win? That will spark more outrage than a video of old human bones lying in the sunlight on Miranda.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, October 11, 2013 3:20 PM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
You Americans are living with this right now with the anarchist takeover of the federal government, sending public servants home.

Whoa now. There's a difference between our Tea Party "libertarians" and your libertarians. I know that libertarians everywhere else is synonymous with anarchist, but here, "tea party" means "neo-conservative."

As an anarchist, I refuse to be put in that same category as the Tea Partiers. The politicians we have right now on BOTH sides are self-serving morons who are mostly putting on a show to appeal to their base so they can continue to bring in boatloads of money and play their corporate cronyism games and be reelected. Meanwhile a lot of people suffer for that. I have zero tolerance for that horse puckey.

I want a society and sense of community that WORKS and a more humane economy. I happen to believe that comes from removing the corruption in the system. I'm an anarchist because I will go so far as to scour the system clean and level its foundations and start over completely from scratch if that becomes necessary - but I will not do so unless the rest of the public becomes willing and able to do so.

For that end, I participate in grass roots community organized efforts at health and welfare in the hopes that if something does happen to our government and our economy, such efforts could potentially step up and replace those functions in the interim.

As for the Alliance and Blue Sun... They're kinda... EVIL. They're evil as hell, with a few good things they do. They might have healthcare and law and order, but if your government torches whole planets of civilians and renders them inhabitable, I kinda don't really see that as different as the Death Star. Then there's the fact that they're secretly complicit in a system wide slave trade and awful human experimentation. Joss tried to make a nice and fluffy Federation, but that's really not something Joss can do with his anti-authoritarian tendencies.

Maybe the coreworlds need the Alliance (and Blue Sun?), but the rim didn't want them and fought a war to try to keep them out. Much like the completely unnecessary nation building wars America has fought in the Middle East. I want to see a Firefly story where their power takes a hit and they lose their grip on the rim, because their imperialist propaganda that lead to the rimworld takeover was also, in my opinion, evil.

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