Wits in Space!
August 8th, 2006
Porpoise, Dormouse, and I just re-watched Joss Whedon’s Serenity on DVD—which is fitting, because we all saw it together in the theater. At that time, I hadn’t yet started The Ottery, I hadn’t yet watched any episodes of “Firefly” (the TV series of which Serenity is a continuation)—in short, my life was sadly lacking.
I’ll always be thankful to “Firefly” and Serenity for allowing me to offer proof that I don’t automatically dislike all sci-fi involving spaceships, just spaceship sci-fi with “Star” in the title. The key, of course, is not actually the title, but the fact that “Firefly” and Serenity are well-written. Now, that said, I know that creator Joss Whedon drew a lot of his inspiration from Star Wars. Bully for him. However, his writing style, his characters, and his world-creation appeal to me much more.
In case you’re not a “Browncoat” (inside term referring to “Firefly”/Serenity fans), both are set in our world in the future, a future in which the U.S. and China, as the two greatest superpowers, have united to form the Alliance. Thus, there are Chinese cultural influences peppered throughout the series and movie—our characters usually swear in Chinese. Also, the Earth “got used up,” and so humans spread out to populate other planets. The Alliance extends its influence over the central planets, which see themselves as the sole representatives of civilization. Planets on the fringes, however, rebelled. The rebels, known as “Browncoats,” fought their quixotic last at the Battle of Serenity Valley.
Skip a few years. Browncoat Malcolm Reynolds, one of the few survivors of the Battle of Serenity Valley, now runs his own spaceship—aptly named “Serenity”—with a crew that assists him in his outlaw life. They conduct their heists mainly on the fringe planets, where life resembles that of the Old American West, only with better technology and Chinese swear words. One of my favorite details: Serenity’s crew refers to their small land hovercraft as “the mule.”
Occasionally Mal and the crew take on passengers, the most notable of whom is River Tam, who, at the time she is brought on board by her brother Simon, seems to be merely a mentally troubled teenage girl. However, she gradually reveals more of her true nature in the TV series, including the fact that she can read people’s minds, and in Serenity, we learn that, due to Alliance experiments upon her, she is a fearsome human weapon, and that she knows a big secret.
From the Serenity trailers, I originally thought that the Alliance Operative was pursuing River because of her ability to kick, punch, and incapacitate people while looking extremely graceful (actress Summer Glau, who plays River, is a ballet dancer by training). But early on in the film, we discover that the Operative is after her because of the secret she knows, a secret that could potentially undo the Alliance.
Through the events of Serenity, the ship’s crew learns this secret. I don’t think I’m giving too much away to say that it involves the theme of trying to eradicate human sin. It’s definitely an interesting theme for me, and it seems to be one that moviemakers think has wider resonance, because you may have noticed that it’s also a theme in the recent Batman Begins. In fact, I saw Serenity and Batman Begins at about the same time, and the thematic similarity of the two were a major part of what made me consider starting The Ottery.
Both Serenity and Batman Begins send the clear message that any attempt to make humanity sinless will fail—and, in many cases, it will even backfire. I wonder whether this is an idea particularly appealing to Gen-Xers and subsequent generations who, having seen the Baby Boomers’ idealism dissipate in broken relationships, have no such illusions about human perfectibility.
If you watch the deleted scenes from Serenity (and I highly recommend that you do), you’ll see that Whedon, though he’s not exactly religious himself, allows the movie to introduce another perspective on sin. Shepherd Book, a preacher who had at one point been a passenger on Serenity, recites the following prayer:
Lord, I am walking your way.
Let me in, for my feet are sore,
my clothes are ragged.
Look in my eyes, Lord, and my sins
will play out on them as on a screen.
Read them all. Forgive what you can,
and send me on my path.
I will walk on, until you bid me rest.
Kind of a high-tech cowboy King James Version of the Lord’s Prayer. I’m sad that Joss deleted it. His commentary track for this scene says that he originally swore he would never cut it, but that he eventually came to see that it interfered with the film’s momentum. Momentum, shmomentum. Give me theme development! (And of course, since it’s me, it doesn’t hurt that this theme development is in the form of a prayer.)
I also liked this scene because Shepherd Book is officially my hero. In the “Firefly” episode “War Stories,” he saves the day by shooting the villain’s legs. Zoe asks him, “Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?” “Quite specific,” Book answers. “It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.”
Tee hee! Not exactly my ideal pacifist position, but a lot funnier (and more appropriate to a space-Western).
Anyway, I wish there had been more Shepherd Book in Serenity. In fact, as much as I liked the movie—and I did like it, in spite of being very, very scared of the Reavers—my biggest problem with it was its change in tone from the series. The subject matter does demand a darker tone, but, still, I feel jarred by the discontinuity. Maybe it’s mostly because Whedon had planned to continue the story arc in TV series form, where things could have developed more gradually. As any anguished Browncoat will tell you, though, Fox cancelled “Firefly” in 2003, after 14 episodes. Whedon considers it a miracle Browncoat revolution that this little, ragged, but beloved, show was revived and allowed to continue on the big screen. Watching Serenity, though, I miss the humor of the small screen. There’s still a lot of witty banter and brilliant dialogue, of course, but not as much as in the “Firefly” episodes.
Guns and weapons failed against the Alliance, and I have my doubts that exposing and broadcasting their secrets will defeat them, either. But laughter? Maybe that could bring them to their kneecaps.
Entry Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized
13 Comments Add your own
1. Dormouse | August 12th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I agree that Serenity is darker than the series, but, like its older, earthbound siblings (Buffy and Angel), all of Firefly’s silliness and wit and humor is really just a way of holding back that darkness. Black humor and humor-in-the-face-of-death is one of Joss’s trademarks (witness the two lines of his that were left in the first X-Men movie), but I think it’s a trademark because he’s more than usually aware of exactly what’s waiting to devour his characters. (”From beneath you it devours.” Sorry. Got off track there for a mo’)
The fact is that Joss creates characters we love desperately. We love them because they’re flawed and they struggle and they have intense backstories and witty banter that never quite feels as forced as that written by Aaron Sorkin. But our love for them is desperate because we recognize that Joss also creates characters whose lives are doomed to be short. (Possibly also nasty and brutish.) Buffy dies for the first time at the age of 16, the second at the age of 20, and will probably not live to see 40. Angel and Spike are technically immortal, but barring intervention by a Slayer army, they never walked out of the alley where they made their last stand. And Mal Reynolds knows that his life will end when he bleeds out from a gunshot wound on some backwater planet on the edges of the ‘verse.
Jayne says to Book in the episode “The Message” that his kind of life doesn’t last very long, so he will seize all the living he can while he’s got the chance. And I think that’s why Joss’s characters are so witty, even as they face their deaths. They’re living as much as they can, even up to the last moment.
So why the lapse of humor in Serenity? B/c Serenity is Buffy’s 6th season. The bonds of friendship and love aren’t holding people together, the world is shattering around them, and there’s no coming back from where they’re headed. Worst of all, it’s the most innocent among them who die, and always in moments of brief triumph. Most people don’t like the 6th season, b/c it’s so dark, and not nearly as funny as its predecessors. (Even the 5th season, which featured the death of Buffy’s mother, was lighter than the 6th.) But for my money, and I feel this way about Serenity, too, the darker edges make for an even better show.
2. theotter | August 12th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Yup, I agree with you about the humor being a way of holding back the darkness. I don’t have an artistic problem with Serenity–I don’t think Whedon (I don’t feel familiar enough with him yet to call him “Joss”) could have done otherwise.
I suppose you could compare the “Firefly”/Serenity tone difference to the first few Shire-bound chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring versus the rest of Lord of the Rings. You wouldn’t care about the characters as much if you hadn’t seen them in lighter days. But there’s much more time given to developing the epic side of LOTR–maybe that’s why I feel a jolt in Serenity. It seems like it’s over too quickly. Again, I wish Whedon had been given the chance to develop the dark tone over the course of the series–but what’s done is done, and I’m pretty satisfied with the result anyway.
SPOILER BELOW (hide your eyes, ye unintiated ones)
He didn’t really need to kill Wash, though. Simon would have been a perfectly acceptable victim. Much more dispensable. D’you think Whedon killed off Wash just so River could pilot?
3. Dormouse | August 12th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
No, I think Joss had to kill Wash. Not so that River could fly, but for the same reason that he killed Tara and Joyce on Buffy, and Fred and Wesley and Cordelia on Angel.
B/c Joss, as one of his (evil) characters once said, doesn’t go for the kill when he can go for the pain. He kills the innocent characters because it’s their deaths that spur the others to impossible action. Simon’s death wouldn’t be mourned in the way that Wash’s was–not even by River. River loves her brother, but she is both more and less than human now, and her grief could never compare to Zoe’s. It’s part of what makes Joss a great storyteller–he knows how to strip his characters down to the bone, wrench their hearts beyond bearing, and yet keep them alive and moving.
4. theotter | August 13th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Yah, I know. Killing off Simon wouldn’t have worked plotwise. But he’s the character I like least, so I would prefer for him to die–which is, of course, why Whedon didn’t kill him off (not because of me personally, of course–from what I hear, no one really likes Simon that much, and thus his death wouldn’t have much emotional impact).
5. icelimbo | August 13th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Otter, I had no idea you were interested in Firefly/Serenity. I’ve been nuts about the ‘Verse for a year and a half now, and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed Joss’s creations (after a year and a half you have no need to call him Whedon).
I’ll take just half a second to mount at least the start of a defense of Simon, though I must admit he isn’t my favorite character either. Have you ever noticed Simon’s hands? Well, you should – they’re noticed by the camera in almost every episode, and constantly in episodes that he’s a major part of. Sometimes he even enters rooms hands first. Why this focus on his hands? Because (like Wing Biddlebaum in “Winesburg, Ohio”) he’s a _giver_ who primarily interacts with those around him by _touch_. He’s a surgeon. His hands are always the first thing that reach River when she’s distressed. What’s Kaylee’s complaint about their tentative, barely-there relationship in the TV show? – that they get along well, like each other, but he “goes all stiff.” He prevents himself from touching her, even though he wants to. It’s part of the respect for her that he has, even if she doesn’t realize that and needs to be told. It’s amazingly important that her legs are across his lap in one of the first scenes in “Objects in Space,” exactly when River reads/projects him saying that he’d be there, in the hospital with his work and his friends, right now, ie. if not for River. River’s not the fish out of water on Serenity – it’s Simon, and Simon knows it. Where is Simon effective? Only on Ariel, a Core planet. Not dealing with Early, not with Dobson, not even really with the villagers who want to burn River as a witch. The most he can do is die with her there, and though that’s noble and heartbreaking, it won’t move the villagers to stop the sacrifice. Simon isn’t a Big Damn Hero. But what little he can give: comfort to his sister, physical healing to the crew, he gives. There’s a definite journey between when he tells Mal to run instead of immediately helping Kaylee when Dobson shoots her, and when he can admit his feelings – his one regret – to Kaylee when they all expect to die. It’s partly about him and Kaylee, but mostly it’s about something much more, which is what River recognizes when Simon gets shot and she says “You take care of me, Simon. You’ve always taken care of me. My turn.”
Okay, that was more than half a second. I really love this show. Anyway, two tidbits to share with you. First, in the original draft of the movie, Wash didn’t die. Joss realized what Dormouse said, that the real catalyst for action has to involve pain, and as Dormouse already noted, the innocent suffer – Book and Wash. (And Mr. Universe, but he’s, well, meh, especially with the 30 pieces of silver line.) I haven’t seen Buffy or Angel (vampire stories really aren’t my thing) but I have no trouble believing what Dormouse was saying about what Joss puts his characters through. An interesting idea for a parallel would be J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter – she herself has commented that why characters with increasing closeness to Harry keep dying in books 4, 5, and 6, is because she is following the epic stories of old (e.g. Odyssey) where the hero is slowly stripped of all his/her companions before the final evil. Mal is alone against the Operative, River alone against the Reavers. And that line of heroic myth has backing. Then again, there’s also Tolkien, who makes as strong a statement _against_ such an idea: Aragorn is aided by Gandalf and Legolas and Gimli (these last two friends of a depth that has not been seen before in elf and dwarf) against the armies of Sauron, and Frodo is not alone against the Ring (and Shelob, and Gollum) because he has Sam. In fact, what will doom Frodo is his choice _away_ from Sam, to be alone with the Ring, which he makes, before Gollum attacks for the final time.
Lastly, a note about the darkness in the movie. One, it’s the movie, bigger and with more ability for sounds and lights and effects, so the story has to be bigger and weightier. Second, the show was going to darker pretty fast on its own if it had continued. Do you remember in “Serenity” the episode how when the Reaver ship is passing by, Inara is in her shuttle and takes out a box with a syringe? Many people have assumed (as I did for a long time) that it was a poision that would have killed her before the Reavers could get to her. Tim Minear, Joss’s producing partner on the show, revealed at one point that late in the first season, there was going to be some kind of situation where a Reaver invades Inara’s shuttle (probably at some point where she was separated from Serenity) and attack her. She is able to inject herself with the syringe, and the Reaver then rapes her. But the Reaver dies before he can mutliate and kill her, because what’s in the syringe is a poison given to every Companion in case of a forced sexual encounter – the poison does not act upon its host, but upon whoever has intercourse with them. Pretty grim and awful, and I really would have had a very hard time watching that episode if it ever had been made. Frankly, I’m thankful it wasn’t. But all that to say, the show would have gotten very dark by the last few episodes of season 1.
Joss had originally planned for the story arc of River and the Reavers (name similarities intentional) to last over the first 2 seasons of the show. After that, he had ideas, but has never shared them with the Browncoats. He has said that a lot of things had to get dropped from compressing another season and a half into a two hour movie, one of them being the Hands of Blue, who were initially going to play a major role in the first 2 seasons. A hint of how they were going to – and part of what the future might have held – is within the 3-part comic book series “Those Left Behind” which Joss wrote the summer before the movie came out, and bridges the story between “Objects in Space” and the movie. But I won’t tell you what the hint is – you’ll have to find the comic books on your own. A second 3-part comic book series is going to happen at some point in the next year or two, and the current info says it’s supposed to happen in-story, no idea where, but definitely before the events of the movie. As to other places the series could have gone, Niska and Saffron are still out there, and Book’s backstory was never really explained (which could well catch up to the crew even after Book is dead), and of course Inara’s almost unknown backstory, and Mal’s more-known-but-still-sketchy backstory. We also have no idea what made Zoe join the Browncoats in the first place either. There’s really lots of places to go…
Lastly lastly, in order to succor good graces from you for writing such a horribly long post, here is a link you will love: the abbreviated Serenity:
6. theotter | August 14th, 2006 at 4:46 am
Hmmm . . . the link didn’t come through. When I clicked it, it led to some Australian IT site.
Yes, even though I am visually impaired when it comes to movies, I have noticed the focus on Simon’s hands and the attendant symbolic overtones. I haven’t yet seen the episode where villagers want to burn River as a witch.
Again, I think I would have had less difficulty (and the difficulty that I did have was relatively minor) with a more gradual development of darkness, over the course of the TV show. I’m also with you about being glad the Inara-Reaver episode never happened. Blech. Part of the reason the Reavers are so bone-chillingly scary in Serenity is that the camera never actually focuses on them. We see them, but they remain vague enough to be terrifying. It seems like the planned Inara episode would have interfered with that.
Your comparison to Rowling is interesting, because, since book 4, I’ve felt that she kills off characters rather gratuitously. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the books, because I do. It could be that I just prefer the Lord of the Rings-type arc, but I think it has more to do with the fact that neither Rowling’s “evil” nor her “good” are very convincing to me. There’s not enough at stake, as far as I’m concerned, to justify killing off characters for epic reasons–I haven’t yet accepted it as epic. I do think Rowling is great at writing about the foolishness and shortsightedness of the Ministry of Magic. She _knows_ that, and you feel it when she writes. Harry’s struggles against Umbridge and Fudge are, to me, more engaging than his encounters with Voldemort. (And you know that’s not because I don’t get excited about mythic good vs. evil, because I do. Witness LOTR.) Hmmm . . . maybe that’s why I like _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ (the book) best–wimpy old Voldy doesn’t make an appearance. The most important adversaries are the Dementors, who, again, I feel that Rowling knows (Think she’s ever been clinically depressed? I would guess so.) Of course, I like the movie of _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ best because Alfonso Cuaron is way smarter and more skilled than any of the other directors of the franchise.
Wow, huge digression there. La la.
7. icelimbo | August 14th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Sorry the link didn’t post. Let’s try again:
http://www.jerrythefrogproductions.com/Serenity.html
The “what do you do with witches? burn them! and what do you burn apart from witches? more witches!” episode is “Safe,” episode 4. That’s also where “Big Damn Heroes” comes from – absolutely wonderful exchange between Mal and Zoe.
Also I forgot to add one small detail about where things could have gone, too – if you look for it, the “Blue Sun” logo pops up everywhere in the Verse: billboards, commercials, food cans, ships, cargo crates, etc.
Since you continued the digression, I’ll respond briefly by saying that I too do not feel an “epic” nature to the HP series. I enjoy the books, and appreciate the cultural value of the series just fine (and also very much like the 3rd movie, mostly because the style and cinematographby is heavily inflenced by the German Expressionist films of the 1910s-20s). But epic? No. I’m not sure I’d go with _gratutious_ as the word for the way she kills characters. For books 4 and 5, I’d go with _sudden_ – both deaths happen in the blink of an eye, with no forewarning, and so it was hard to feel very much when they happened. Book 6, I’ll admit, she got me caught up in the moment there, and the death (whether real or staged) had a good build-up and was well done.
And I slogged though Book 5, disliking it almost all the way. One of the few bright spots for me was Umbridge and her machinations – very good idea to have that year’s DAtDA teacher be so cruel and useless to our protagonists. Even Moody was _useful_ as he was trying to get Harry killed.
And since we’re digressing right and left, I must defend my boy and respond to Dormouse by saying that Aaron Sorkin’s writing is not forced – it’s crafted. Very big difference, at least to me. And now I’ll shut up entirely.
8. Dormouse | August 15th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Oh, I love Sorkin–I really do. I just think that Joss’s dialogue flows more naturally. I suppose “forced” was too strong a word. I’ll back your “crafted,” but there’s a double-edge to my support there. B/c craft, of course, is by definition not natural.
I disagree with you both on Harry Potter, though. I do get an epic feel, but maybe my standards for epic are entirely different. (I am, after all, a Star Wars fan.) And I love OotP. It’s easily one of my favorite of the books.
9. theotter | August 15th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I think Dormouse may have been channeling me when she described Sorkin’s dialogue as “forced” compared to Whedon’s, because I had made the exact same comparison to Porpoise just a few days before. But you (icelimbo) already know how I feel about Sorkin.
And yet you like me anyway. There’s generosity.
I agree that the HP 6 death is done better than the others. Mostly ’cause it involves Snape, who will undoubtedly die a noble death in Book 7.
10. theotter | August 15th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Oh, and I greatly enjoyed the Serenity hand puppets–thanks for the link. I especially liked it when the fans showed up in their little brown coats.
11. icelimbo | August 15th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Yeah, sometimes we just show up in our little brown coats. Tee hee. (No, I did NOT just giggle!) I would agree that Joss’s dialogue flows more smoothly, and that Sorkin’s is less natural – I did choose “crafted” intentionally. I guess I just like a crafted snarky comeback better than a naturally flowing snarky comeback. But in general I do love the snarky comeback in everyday usage. Otter, you will of course watch the Studio 60 pilot and post about how bad it is, leading me to verbally abuse you and point out all the ways you’re wrong, right? I mean, pretty please? I could giggle again if it would convince you. (No, I did NOT giggle earlier!) And my guess is Snape will undoubtedly die a noble death in book 7 _defending Harry_ in some capacity. And you know, Dormouse, I almost wrote in the earlier post that HP didn’t strike me as epic, but then again Star Wars never struck me as epic either. So, I’m not sure whether I just proved your point or you just proved mine…
12. theotter | August 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Ish. No promises about “Studio 60.” By the way, did you know that you can already rent the “Studio 60″ pilot from Netflix?
I hold out more hope for “30 Rock.” Let’s play 30 Rock, Paper, Studio 60. Rocks always crush scissors (or 60’s).
13. Dormouse | August 17th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Icelimbo–I think the point that was proved was that everyone has different standards for epic, and we’re probably both right.
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