← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Stanley
Thread ID: 20765 | Posts: 17 | Started: 2005-10-26
2005-10-26 20:54 | User Profile
I don’t know how many science fiction fans there are here, but I think the television show Firefly and the movie Serenity have plenty to offer non-fans. They’re smart and funny, with deep and complex characters. [url=www.thornwalker.com/ditch/reynolds_serenity.htm]Libertarians[/url] love it, so do [url=http://www.fireflyfans.net/feature.asp?f=39]neoconfederates.[/url] (I don't believe creator Joss Whedon is either, but he shows the world from his protagonist's point of view.)
Firefly is a “Space Western.” Set in the year 2517, in another solar system with dozens of terraformed worlds, it’s the story of Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the spaceship Serenity. Mal is a bitter man who has lost his faith. He fought on the losing side of a war that unified the system under the control of the Anglo-Sino Alliance. Now he’s turned to a life of crime, dodging the Feds (as he calls them) and the Reavers (cannibals who have lost all trace of humanity) at the frontier of civilization. With him are his first mate and former comrade-in-arms (Zoe,) his pilot (Wash, Zoe’s husband,) Kaylee (a sweet young woman with a knack for fixing engines,) Jayne (big, dumb, violent and loyal only to himself,) Inara (a Companion – or as Mal calls her, a whore,) Book (a preacher with a mysterious past,) Doctor Simon Tam and his sister River. I got to know and love them all, even Jayne.
The fourteen episodes of Firefly follow the capers of Serenity’s crew. They’re great by themselves, but they are only an introduction to the much larger story that Joss Whedon intended to tell. Serenity, the movie, shows events that would have happened in the second season of Firefly.
The movie is so full of surprises that I don’t want to spoil any of it. The Old West theme is played down and the political theme, which was in the background of Firefly, becomes important. Whedon also throws in a big dose of horror – some of the scenes are gutwrenchingly graphic. This is not a movie for children. Neither is the TV show (Edit: more for sexual content than for violence.) And since Zoe's black and Wash is white, this is not one for Yggdrasil's list.
Together, Firefly and Serenity tell one of the best science fiction stories on film.
Edit: Serenity's box-office was disappointing, and it's near the end of its run. The DVD should be out in December. Firefly is also available on DVD. The Sci-Fi channel has been running it on Fridays at 7PM EST. It will begin again with the pilot on Nov. 11.
2005-10-27 08:02 | User Profile
It sounds interesting, Stanley. Thanks for the tip. I'll try to catch those sometime.
2005-10-28 13:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]It sounds interesting, Stanley. Thanks for the tip. I'll try to catch those sometime.[/QUOTE]Highly recommended. Get the Firefly TV series DVDs and watch them in the proper order, starting with the pilot. Fox idiotically showed the series out of order, never aired several episodes, and only showed the pilot last, after they had cancelled the series. The Firefly DVDs are a joy to watch. This is what TV could be if more people cared about intelligent writing and first class acting, instead of idiotic formulaic sitcoms and reality TV junk.
Serenity is gone from most theaters, so not much chance of watching it now. However, the DVD will probably be out this December. Although you do not have had to have watched Firefly to understand Serenity, it does add to your appreciation of the movie if you are already familiar with the TV series.
I suppose if you are a rabid anti-miscegationist you'll be bothered that Zoe (Gina Torres) who is black (or part black?) is married to Wash (Alan Tudyk) who is white. Or that the preacher, Shepard Book, is also played by a black (or part black?) actor, Ron Glass (best known from the old TV series Barney Miller). Otherwise the cast is white (not sure about Morena Baccarin; her bio says she is Brazilian but she's exotic looking and could be southern European or middle eastern for all I know; she very dark but has European features).
In fact this cast is pretty white in spite of the usual bows towards "diversity". Strangely, even though everyone in this future is supposed to know how to speak Chinese, there are no asian characters (the Alliance that won the recent war in this future is a fusion of Earth's last two superpowers: the USA and China).
It is no accident that the losing side of the war, the Independents, are modeled on the South. Mal, the captain of Serenity, is sort of a space faring Jesse James crossed with Han Solo; sometimes bank robber, sometimes smuggler.
This is a series that anyone interested in science fiction should watch. The producer/director/writer/creator of the series, Joss Whedon (best known for his Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, TV series) is an atheist but he's not anti-religious; he assumes that 500 years into the future people will still have pretty much the same religious beliefs, and one of the main characters is a Christian preacher (about whom we never learn his full story thanks to the early termination of the TV series) played by Ron Glass. The character Mal (played by Matt Fillion) is anti-religious, having lost his faith along with losing the war. Undoubtably that theme would have been expanded on too had the series continued.
The Alliance is pretty much everything we loath about our current government, but there is still room on the frontier for the crew of Serenity to avoid it. For a liberal, Josh Whedon doesn't seem to harbor any illusions about the benevolence of big government. In other words, this is not Star Trek where the writers always assume the general benevolence and general good will and competence of the Federation government, ie, a technocratic big government utopia. The Serenity universe is more like our reality: the bad guys have won. The technocratic utopia is just another corrupt plutocracy run by corporations (ie, Blue Sun).
Joss also isn't afraid to cast blacks as villians, both the bounty hunter in Objects in Space (the last Firefly episode) and the Alliance Operative in the Serenity movie are both full blooded negroes, and both do an excellent job at being creepy villians.
Anyway, do yourself a favor and buy or rent the Firefly DVDs. Watch them in proper order and give yourself a chance to get sucked into the story. It is slow going at first but it really draws you in.
2005-10-28 13:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stanley]I donââ¬â¢t know how many science fiction fans there are here, but I think the television show Firefly and the movie Serenity have plenty to offer non-fans. Theyââ¬â¢re smart and funny, with deep and complex characters. [url=www.thornwalker.com/ditch/reynolds_serenity.htm]Libertarians[/url] love it, so do [url=http://www.fireflyfans.net/feature.asp?f=39]neoconfederates.[/url] (I don't believe creator Joss Whedon is either, but he shows the world from his protagonist's point of view.)
Firefly is a ââ¬ÅSpace Western.ââ¬Â Set in the year 2517, in another solar system with dozens of terraformed worlds, itââ¬â¢s the story of Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the spaceship Serenity. Mal is a bitter man who has lost his faith. He fought on the losing side of a war that unified the system under the control of the Anglo-Sino Alliance. Now heââ¬â¢s turned to a life of crime, dodging the Feds (as he calls them) and the Reavers (cannibals who have lost all trace of humanity) at the frontier of civilization. With him are his first mate and former comrade-in-arms (Zoe,) his pilot (Wash, Zoeââ¬â¢s husband,) Kaylee (a sweet young woman with a knack for fixing engines,) Jayne (big, dumb, violent and loyal only to himself,) Inara (a Companion ââ¬â or as Mal calls her, a whore,) Book (a preacher with a mysterious past,) Doctor Simon Tam and his sister River. I got to know and love them all, even Jayne.
Ha! Everyone loves Jayne, the big lummox! But not everyone takes him seriously.
Mal to Jayne: "Well, my days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle."> The fourteen episodes of Firefly follow the capers of Serenityââ¬â¢s crew. Theyââ¬â¢re great by themselves, but they are only an introduction to the much larger story that Joss Whedon intended to tell. Serenity, the movie, shows events that would have happened in the second season of Firefly.
The movie is so full of surprises that I donââ¬â¢t want to spoil any of it. The Old West theme is played down and the political theme, which was in the background of Firefly, becomes important. Whedon also throws in a big dose of horror ââ¬â some of the scenes are gutwrenchingly graphic. This is not a movie for children. Neither is the TV show. And since Zoe's black and Wash is white, this is not one for Yggdrasil's list.
I think this is a case where the quality of the show, and its underlying messages, override any concerns about it not being "White enough". My admittedly fallible antennae don't detect any Inner Party agenda when watching Firefly. I don't think Joss Whedon is Inner Party, but he is a third generation TV writer, so he's pretty much absorbed Hollywood leftism all his life and it seems normal to him; it's probably a miracle he isn't more stereotypical Hollywood liberal, but he seems able to rise above that and tell ripping good yarns. This is just plain good storytelling, so enjoy it for what it is. > Together, Firefly and Serenity tell one of the best science fiction stories on film.[/QUOTE] Agreed. It's right up there at the top of my list alongside Farscape and Babylon 5.
2005-10-28 17:16 | User Profile
Excellent link by the way (that Stanley linked to above); this fellow is right on target:
[url]http://www.fireflyfans.net/feature.asp?f=39[/url]
Yes, he passed judgement and killed people on his own authority, and that is decidedly a "bad" thing in today's "law and order" climateââ¬âyou are supposed to beat the crap out of them, then arrest them and turn them in for trial and prosecution; we have, in this society, supposedly a "rule of law" that ensures "justice." (Please pardon the hysterical and derisive guffaws in the background.) Malcolm Reynolds lived by a rule of honor that demands justice. He was in this respect quintessentially Americanââ¬âand, to be more specific about it, quintessentially Southern American.
And that, my friends, may really have been a problem for Firefly. The conscious patterning of the Firefly milieu on the Confederate defeat that Whedon publicly stated was the case may have not set very well in the Yankee-dominated halls of Political Correctness that rules modern America, be they "liberal" or "conservative" ("neoconservative"; again, the two are virtually indistinguishable). Firefly was an unabashed post-Civil War space Western where the losers were the good guys; and everything about the series echoed that, from the desert settings of the frontier moons and planets, the costumes, the music, even the characters' patterns of speech. We knew who these people really were. They had no slavery to fight for, only the right of self-governanceââ¬âand, just the other day, I read where the National Park Service is "renovating" the Gettysburg Battleground to rid it of its purported "pro-Southern bias," the "myth of a Lost Cause" that was "based on the notion that the war was fought over states' rights, not slavery."
Here's a hint for you modern would-be "historians": the war was fought over states' rights. Slavery was just the pretext. Read the accounts of the time. Everybody said so, including, foremost of all, the "great emancipator" himself, Dishonest Abe Lincoln, who said, some of you may recall, that he was out to "preserve the Union," which he would do if it meant freeing all the slaves, or freeing none of them at all. But of course, the "new" Gettysburg will be patterned after the "Holocaust Museum," i.e., another shrine to political victimhood. (Contrary to popular present-day propaganda, World War Two was not fought over what Hitler was doing to the Jewsââ¬ânobody on "our" side knew or, if they did, even cared what was happening to the Jews back then.) Which is to say, another excuse for the black man to get his "historical revenge" against the white man by making believe that punishing people for the sins and/or crimes, real or imagined, of their ancestors somehow constitutes "justice."
There were hints, of course, that some sort of racial and social antagonism existed in the Firefly universe. For one thing, the Alliance, to which Reynolds and his crew were opposed, is officially known as the "Anglo-Sino Alliance"; the crew was prone to breaking into Chinese when agitated (admittedly a ploy to bypass the censors); and there is a line in the original script to the pilot episode, "Serenity"ââ¬âthough it is missing from the episode as airedââ¬âin which the barker who attempts to get Reverend Book (Ron Glass) to board his ship, the Brutus, announces, "We are not interested in Asian or Catholic passengers, thank you." These elements, I suspect, would have been manifested as the series developed, if it had been allowed to develop, Whedon not wishing to overwhelm his audience with too much at once, and wanting to have something to draw upon in the series' future, if it had been allowed to have a future.
Firefly's greatest transgressions against the modern American Statist Quo, however, were in my estimation twofold and related. To be sure, this was not the mindlessly smarmy "optimistic" vision of the future that is Star Trek in its post-original incarnations; and that, to be sure, is a "sin." But Firefly, in its way, was, in this post 9-11 climate, almost downright seditious. The Alliance enforcersââ¬âthe "bad guys"ââ¬âwere called "Feds." The attempt to unite and homogenize people was seen, by Firefly, as not a "good" thing; and yet it is the undeniable Zeitgeist of the modern age and behind every bit of mischief and misadventure in the world today, including what happened on September 11, 2001. Most people believe in it, reflexively. Nor do most people agree with Captain Reynolds' words (as quoted by Reverend Book in the episode "War Stories"), "The government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." It is, after all, supposedly "our" government, "the system" over which we, the people, are presumably "sovereign," simply because we have a "choice" between drinking a bottle of slow poison or shooting ourselves in the stomach, politically-speaking, come election day. Do not think that Firefly was not drawing allusions and parallels to our own society and its attendant beliefs, or that this implicit criticism went unnoticed by the powers-that-be.
But most of all, living "beyond the law" as Reynolds and his crew had to, the moral universe of Firefly depended not on the "rule of law," but on its much-maligned and deliberately-misunderstood alternative, the rule of honor. And Firefly made the case, through Reynolds, as persuasively as it has ever been made in American fiction, print, TV, film or otherwise, in my opinion, for the ultimate superiority of the rule of honor over the rule of lawââ¬âat least for uncommon people, if not the run-of-the-mill herds of swine, sheep, slaves and robots held to be so dear today.
For you see, the rule of honor demands what law must defer: individual responsibility, personal culpability, what is fair and what is just, of every man (and woman) who lives by it. Nowhere is this made more clear than at the climax of the episode "Ariel," in which Reynolds is about to space Jayne for betraying River and her doctor brother to the Feds. Jayne, after some hemming and hawing, admits his guilt, and his reasons for the betrayal: "The money was too good. I got stupid." This makes little impression on Reynolds, who turns and walks away: he knows Jayne is guilty, and why. What turns him back around and stops him is when Jayne asks what Reynolds plans to tell the others, and says, rather pathetically:
"Make something up. Don't tell 'em what I did."
I, for one, could see the wheels turning in Mal Reynolds' head: He's ashamed. There may be something of a man in him after all.
It is then, of course, that Reynolds closes the outer hatch before Serenity leaves the atmosphere, and spares Jayne's life.
Some of you may think this is only in my imagination; and to be sure, I do not imagine that Joss Whedon has sat down and thought about the rule of honor as I have, or would even support or espouse it, as I do, other than as a fictional device for the development of one of his characters. And yet there it is; consciously or not, it is in there, and it underlies every single thing that Reynolds does. Honor is his roadmap in life, his way of finding his way through the wilderness. It says to him at every turn: This thing I can do and live with myself; this thing I can't. It is in the end what makes him a "good" man, in the conventional sense, and an American, and, ultimately, a Southerner.
And it is the greatest offense, the greatest affront, that Firefly could give to our vaunted modern age, and why, in my opinion, Fox never gave the show any kind of a chance.
2005-10-28 18:29 | User Profile
Thanks for the further info, grep14w. Now you guys have really got me itching to see this. I'm wondering why I'd never heard of this show/movie before.
2005-10-28 18:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Thanks for the further info, grep14w. Now you guys have really got me itching to see this. I'm wondering why I'd never heard of this show/movie before.[/QUOTE]
Same here Angler but in my case it was that for the past five years I only had satellite programings and it was not there, will try to get the DVD's.
2005-10-28 19:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Thanks for the further info, grep14w. Now you guys have really got me itching to see this. I'm wondering why I'd never heard of this show/movie before.[/QUOTE]The only reason I managed to watch Firefly when it was on TV was because I had TiVo which found and recorded it for me (I knew about Firefly from the Internet since I was already a fan of Joss Whedon's work); otherwise the scheduling was pretty screwy and the TV series came and went without most people being aware it had ever existed, so without TiVo I probably would never have seen it. Like the reviewer above notes, Fox essentially killed it by mismarketing it and mucking around with the schedule.
2005-10-28 20:39 | User Profile
I started watching Firefly this summer on the Sci-Fi channel. They'll show the pilot again on Nov. 11, 7PM EST.[QUOTE=grep14w]Ha! Everyone loves Jayne, the big lummox![/QUOTE]The first time I saw him I wanted to see him spaced. I changed my mind about the time Mal did. I like to think Jayne was changed at the end of Serenity, that, like the others, he found something to believe in bigger than himself. But I suspect that he'd find it hard to break his old bad habits.> I think this is a case where the quality of the show, and its underlying messages, override any concerns about it not being "White enough". I agree, but I put in the warning for those who wouldn't. I also should have warned about the sexual content in the series.
2005-10-28 21:19 | User Profile
I don't know what all the excitement is about. A black women plays the husband of the white central character of the show. The "Christian" minister hangs out with a bunch of criminals. The heroes here are good guys relative to the government.
Also, Joss Whedon who created Fire Fly is also the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer where he pushed homosexuality (specifically lesbianism). He uses Firefly to promote miscegenation. I hardly see a need to tolerate that in his Firefly when there are so many sci-fi shows that do not have miscegenation. Besides, if Firefly were successful, you'd see more shows race mixing.
Fox didn't show the 2-hour pilot first because they thought it was too boring. Then the series was cancelled after one season because of low ratings. If the series had lasted longer, you'd no doubt see that Christian minister used to bash Christianity with, along with themes of the occult, homosexuality, etc.
2005-10-28 22:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I don't know what all the excitement is about. A black women plays the husband of the white central character of the show.[/QUOTE]I gave a warning to those who would find the show unwatchable for that reason.> The "Christian" minister hangs out with a bunch of criminals. Book asks himself, "What am I, a man of God, doing with these people?" It's one of the most interesting questions of the show. No direct answer is given, but I think you can work it from the clues that Whedon drops.> The heroes here are good guys relative to the government. Yes, exactly. That's what the excitement is about.> If the series had lasted longer, you'd no doubt see that Christian minister used to bash Christianity with, along with themes of the occult, homosexuality, etc. In the show as it stands there is none of the former. There is lesbianism. Should I be more specific in my warning about sexual content?
2005-10-28 22:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I don't know what all the excitement is about. A black women plays the husband of the white central character of the show. We already warned you about that. If you are bothered by it, don't watch. Stanley made this very clear at the start of the thread.> The "Christian" minister hangs out with a bunch of criminals. Sort of like Christ himself. I thought Christians were supposed to immitate Christ. Hanging out not only with criminals, but with a prostitute, as well, is this particular minister. Are you trying to immitate the arguments of the Pharisees? Modern Christianity does indeed have a distinct Pharisaic flavor.> The heroes here are good guys relative to the government.
Yes. No one's saying they are angels or do gooders. And thank goodness they aren't; that would be boring.>
Also, Joss Whedon who created Fire Fly is also the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer where he pushed homosexuality (specifically lesbianism).
I'm sure he doesn't see it as "pushing" lesbianism but if you are so uptight about that, don't watch. The white race is not exactly in danger because guys like to see two women together. We stopped breeding as a race long before lesbianism was being "pushed".> He uses Firefly to promote miscegenation.
He sees people as individuals. That's a mistake, but it's a very white mistake. He's not "pushing" miscegenation so much as he thinks he's being "color blind" and simply chosing the best characters for these roles regardless of race. I don't have to agree with everything I watch before I watch it; that would be boring, and I feel a little sorry for those who do. But it is their choice.> I hardly see a need to tolerate that in his Firefly when there are so many sci-fi shows that do not have miscegenation.
Really? Seems to me they all have them - if not interracial, then you have your interspecies miscegenation, or at the very least, potential micegenation thanks to "mutliracial" casting. When you have different races together, there will be miscegenation. I can't think of any Sci Fi of the last half century that would measure up to strict WN standards.> Besides, if Firefly were successful, you'd see more shows race mixing.
Newsflash: we are going to be "seeing" more shows about race mixing, no matter what. Josh Whedon and Firefly have absolutely nothing to do with this fact. Firefly failed, and yet we are seeing more shows about race mixing anyway. Your premises are fallacious.
Josh is a liberal who believes in "individuals". He doesn't "push" race mixing; he assumes that 500 years in the future it has already happened. For instance a lot of the white looking rich people have Asian sounding surnames. It's science fiction. 500 years from now, if the human race looks this comparatively white, I'm going to assume that our side won somehow. This is much better than we have any right to expect given our complete inability to accomplish anything as whites, in the here and now.
But as Stanley noted at the beginning of this thread, there are some elements that make this series innappropriate for Ygg's WN movie list. We warned you. We weren't claiming that Firefly was "safe" for every single uptight person who considers himself or herself "WN". We are assuming most people have the maturity to decide for themselves whether they should watch this or not - the themes of Firefly are decidedly worth supporting and the series itself is of a much higher quality than most other TV (which is also "race mixing", if not more so). If you only care about the non-white cast and if such things freak you out, don't watch. If you can get past those things and enjoy Firefly for what it is, then watch. Simple. We aren't trying to dictate to you; please don't presume to dictate for anyone else.
Fox didn't show the 2-hour pilot first because they thought it was too boring.
The 2-hour pilot was some of the best TV I've seen, period. The Fox execs were either morons or were deliberately sabotaging the show. I suspect they are simply dolts, but the reviewer I quoted above suspects it was the pro-Confederate symbolism of the series which irked them. Either way, the decision not to show the pilot was detrimental to the success of the series, as it made no sense without the pilot; also Fox showed the episodes out of order, further screwing things up and making it difficult for viewers to figure out what was going on.> Then the series was cancelled after one season because of low ratings. Cancelled after 11 episodes, about a half season, mostly because they put it on a "sure death" time slot late Friday nights and constantly interrupted or delayed episodes due to late baseball games. Kind of hard to build an audience when potential fans don't know when to tune in to watch the show.> If the series had lasted longer, you'd no doubt see that Christian minister used to bash Christianity with, along with themes of the occult, homosexuality, etc.[/QUOTE]Occult! Oh, my. On a sci fi show.
You obviously have not watched Firefly. The character of the Christian minister is very sympathetic and nowhere does Firefly bash Christianity; on the contrary most of the characters are at least conventionally pious and think the captain, Mal, is more than a little bit rude for not allowing Shepherd Book, the Christian minister, to say grace out loud in the pilot episode. Yeah, one of the characters is a courtesan (prostitute) and there is in fact a brief lesbian scene in one episode. Horrors! You've been warned. Don't watch. This is not a show for everyone.
Of course, this is doubly ironic since Firefly is a "sci fi/western" and if there's one thing the wild west had a lot of, it was prostitutes. All perfectly legal. That stuff tended to get written out of the history books when the culture got more prudish. Lesbians were around, too; it's a historically documented fact that lesbians have always been around. Most people prefer their history "sanitized".
This constant "stick-up-our-butt" attitude is what dooms paleoconservativism to marginal status; it's not enough to say we don't approve, we have to turn everything into a metaphysical threat to our very existence as well. Absolutely no flexibility. We can't use Firefly as a teaching tool to reach unaware whites because it isn't 100% pure according to some puritanical notion of racial, sexual, and religious correctness. So we throw the Firefly "neo-confederate" baby out with the "miscegenation" bathwater. I mean, it's either our way or the highway, right? Don't start the newbies out slowly by getting them thinking about the government vis a vis Firefly; throw them in the deep end with Jud Suss and Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation and hope they can "figure things out" themselves!
There are such things as "half a loaf" you know; you don't have to like it, but it is there just the same.
2005-10-28 22:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stanley]I started watching Firefly this summer on the Sci-Fi channel. They'll show the pilot again on Nov. 11, 7PM EST. If you can spare the cash, the DVDs are worth getting. Excellent extras, and commentaries.> The first time I saw him I wanted to see him spaced. I changed my mind about the time Mal did. I like to think Jayne was changed at the end of Serenity, that, like the others, he found something to believe in bigger than himself. But I suspect that he'd find it hard to break his old bad habits. I think Jayne was definitely changing as early as the Jaynestown episode; he saw the consequences of his own past misdeeds in the Mudders and their statue of him. He had a chance to look at himself in the mirror and didn't like what he saw, so to speak. That transformation was definitely kicked up a notch by his betrayal, and second chance, in the Ariel episode. Jayne started developing a conscience. > I agree, but I put in the warning for those who wouldn't. I also should have warned about the sexual content in the series.[/QUOTE]Yeah, this isn't a show for the kiddies.
2005-10-29 03:52 | User Profile
Whedon has taken some heat from the politically correct. I got one of my links from [url=http://www.exisle.net/mb/lofiversion/index.php/t10838-50.html]this site[/url] where the fans learn to their horror that Whedon is guilty of sympathetically portraying the second most evil people on earth. They do their best to deny the awful truth.
When the show began Whedon had [url=http://flatdisk.net/exonews/xtra/josswhedon.htm]this[/url] to say about Mal: > ''Mal's politics are very reactionary and 'Big government is bad' and 'Don't interfere with my life,''' Whedon explains. ''And sometimes he's wrong -- because sometimes the Alliance is America, this beautiful shining light of democracy. But sometimes the Alliance is America in Vietnam: we have a lot of petty politics, we are way out of our league and we have no right to control these people. And yet! Sometimes the Alliance is America in Nazi Germany. And Mal can't see that, because he was a Vietnamese.'' So the Alliance is a good thing, with a few minor flaws, just like America today. Once you've quit laughing at that, note that Joss would rather compare Mal to a Vietnamese than a you-know-what. Well, he was talking to a NYT reporter.
2005-10-29 13:54 | User Profile
Most sci-fi shows about the future feature evil governments. Start Trek is an exception, not the rule. Firfly is moral garbage.
2005-10-29 16:26 | User Profile
[quote=Happy Hacker]Most sci-fi shows about the future feature evil governments. Start Trek is an exception, not the rule. Firfly is moral garbage.
I saw the film, it is pretty good. I won't foam at the mouth over it, since I have a critical mind, but compared to a lot of what hits the silver screen these days, it is better than average, and it does NOT go loopy over special effects, which I appreciated as a movie goer who prefers a good story to a load of fancy trappings.
Moral garbage? Perhaps, on a level of detail compared to standard Christian principles, but its general theme of honor as a positive trait (which gets lampooned far too often in popular media and popular culture) and setting on the frontiers, like a lot of Westerns I enjoyed as a kid featuring John Wayne, is morally upright.
It is by and large an appeal to a Libertarian audience, at the political level, so it does not surprise me that PC, liberal, and paleocon sorts would find its message of mixed or dubious value.
I liked the use of dialect, slang, and stilted language a great deal, story and politics aside. And I think that gal who played Zoe is either Cuban or Puerto Rican by birth.
AE
PS: Wheedon did a show called Angel that was full of demons, devils, angels, and all sorts of occult stuff. It's off the air now, I saw bits of one episode and decided . . . not for me, thanks.
2005-10-29 17:12 | User Profile
I wanted to see this and last night it is already off of most of the theaters here in Dallas. Therefore it must be a good movie. Instead we saw Dreamer, excellent! Little Dakota Fanning is an awesome actress.