New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | September 30, 2005

Whether you're a smuggler, a libertarian, a registered companion, an existentialist, or just, like me, a Ron Glass completist, you'll be happy to read Julian Sanchez' take on Serenity, the new Firefly movie adaptation.

Comments

|9.30.05 @ 2:21PM|#

Sorry, Tim, but I personally thought that Ron Glass was the worst part of the series. I was hoping that he'd be cut out of the movie because his acting was ridiculously bad. In fact I think that it was his horrible acting that had a lot to do with Firefly feeling hokey. I'm going to see the movie, but like Jar-Jar Binks in the new Star Wars movies, I'll just pretend that Ron Glass's character doesn't exist. If you get rid of Ron Glass (AND the character, of course), then you've got a really good quality movie.

Jeff P.|9.30.05 @ 2:24PM|#

In keeping with the libertarian under-the-radar not-quite-legal frontier spirit of the series, I will be downloading it this weekend.

Also, go find the three-issue Whedon penned comic which bridges the series to the movie.

|9.30.05 @ 2:26PM|#

well, i was pressured into going with my friends to see this movie tonight. so maybe now i can appreciate it more because of perceived political underpinnings.

you know, like i can appreciate bob dylan more now that i know he was secretly a right-winger all along.

M1EK|9.30.05 @ 2:32PM|#

Neither the libertarian ethos nor the statist one is portrayed very well in the series. Haven't yet seen the movie, but I find it difficult to believe that, unless you're desperate to see People Just Like Me!, you can come away with a Paen To Libertarianism.

What it generally shows is that colonies with no government suck just as bad as the ones with governments. It's more of a paen to gun ownership, as far as I read it.

|9.30.05 @ 2:55PM|#

I am now even more curious to see this movie. A friend of mine at work wants to loan me the entire "Firefly" DVD series. She thinks I'll really like the story. It sounds like I will.

|9.30.05 @ 3:02PM|#

or even be fond of berets

The problem with berets having the status that they do is that they are very comfortable and are one of only two kinds of headwear that fit my huge head.
The other is a ski cap, of course, which makes me look more like a terrorist than a beatnik - also not good.

|9.30.05 @ 3:17PM|#

you could wear both, and be a terrorist beatnik.

|9.30.05 @ 3:32PM|#

Hasn't a Congressperson changed the name of berets to freedom caps yet?

|9.30.05 @ 3:44PM|#

Julian, thanks for the spoiler warning. Article bookmarked for reading later tonight.

:-)

|9.30.05 @ 3:44PM|#

A terrornik. Or a beatorist.

I've long been intrigued by this series, but never had the chance to watch it on TV. However, just reading the "quotes" page in the entry over at us.imdb.com made me decide that I had to buy the series on DVD. Which I haven't had time to watch yet either. Maybe when the movie comes out on DVD, I'll buy it and not have time to watch it either. Meanwhile, I sure am enjoying reading about it.

|9.30.05 @ 3:52PM|#

Shiny.

Britton|9.30.05 @ 4:07PM|#

The series is damned good.

|9.30.05 @ 4:09PM|#

WARNING!!!!! SPOILERS!!!!

STOP READING THIS POST NOW!!!!!!







I'm a little disapointed. Joss just recreated the end of Buffy, with all the same characters.

Consider:
River - Buffy (Teenaged girl with super powers)
Mal - Giles (The father figure to the girl)
Zoe - Willow (Another female who can kick ass)
Jayne - Spike (Dominant male fighter)
Simon - Xander (Need I say more)
Kaylee - Dawn (Female side kick)
Inara - Anya (Capable female side kick)

Joss DOES seems to have a thing for kick-ass teenaged girls....

Also, from what I understand, FOX has locked up the right to a TV series for 10 years (or something like that), so there won't be another series version. Personally, I'd take the series.

I could have been as good as B5, but we'll never know now.

|9.30.05 @ 4:49PM|#

WSDave:
Aside from the weird fascination with teenage girls who kick ass, I think you're stretching here. Zoe/Willow, Giles/Mal, Simon/Xander, and Inara/Anya are really *very* different characters, even if at a high level of abstraction, you can find descriptions that fit both. (Even there... Simon, though technically her brother, is much more of a "father figure" to River than Mal--who, recall, spends a chunk of the movie intent on booting her off his ship.)

zach-
"perceived"? The creator of the show has explicitly said that he's strongly influenced by existentialism and that Mal is a libertarian.

|9.30.05 @ 4:59PM|#

well julian, that's just how he perceives his show. ha!!

(i haven't read the article yet, as i'm seeing the movie tonight.)

|9.30.05 @ 5:03PM|#

This all just begs the question, and I think you guys are losing sight of the real issue here: Which ship would be better at smuggling Romulan ale through the Neutral Zone, the Serenity or the Millennium Falcon?

|9.30.05 @ 5:06PM|#

Julian,

Mal, in the last scenes, steps into the father role. I was making the comparison based on the end of the movie conditions. I think both Wash and Book added to the character mix. Sadly, no more. 2 hours is never enough time to explore characters well. I'll take the series.

|9.30.05 @ 5:26PM|#

Stevo-
Well, since the Falcon has FTL and Serenity doesn't, I think that's a decisive advantage-Falcon.

|9.30.05 @ 5:35PM|#

Stevo strikes again.

Nice one!

|9.30.05 @ 6:53PM|#

Sounds like a cool movie that I had never heard of. I might watch it now (meaning I will watch it if I can get a date). I wouldn't have watched had I not read the article as I would have guessed it to be another Star Treck rippoff.

WSDave,
What the hell are you talking about; "as good as Babylon 5"? I never could make it through an entire episode of that B5. Horible effects, and a pointless boring story.

|9.30.05 @ 6:57PM|#

Also,
all the sci fi shows today seem to be about shooting laser guns at eachother. Which was an awesome idea in the 70's when Star Wars came out.

I am thinking talking monkeys will have figured out a better way of killing eachother by the time we are flying from inhabitable planet to inhabitable planet.

My pet theory would be something the like of altering brain waves so the people you want dead kill themselves by stopping thier own heartbeats or something.

Of course it is more fun to watch people zap eachother.

|9.30.05 @ 7:08PM|#

Some very creepy agents in the "Ariel" episode of Firefly actually use a weapon very much like that: They pull out a little rod and hit a button, and everyone in a 100 yard radius starts bleeding out the eyes.

|9.30.05 @ 7:15PM|#

Stevo- Are you daft man? Of course the Falcon would win. It did the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs. Twelve Parsecs!

|9.30.05 @ 7:42PM|#

LOL, Shem.

Well, since the Falcon has FTL and Serenity doesn't, I think that's a decisive advantage-Falcon.

OK, admittedly I haven't seen the show yet. But I have read a little bit about the contention that the Serenity doesn't have FTL. I believe this has been traced to a statement by Joss Whedon to the effect of, "You know, I don't know that FTL even exists in the Firefly universe." However, I heard Whedon has also made a statement confessing that he is pretty much scientifically illiterate.

The Firefly universe has at least a dozen planets in it, maybe two dozen. (I've seen a list.) Even allowing for terraforming of Venus-like and Mars-like worlds, and maybe even some larger Jovian moons, and even allowing a multiple-star system (I think maybe up to a trinary system might be plausible) where each sun has it's own stable habitable zone, there's no way you can have access to that many habitable Earth-like worlds without being able to travel FTL.

Therefore, I have no choice but to take the unusual step of being unable to accept the creator's own word on the subject as canon, because it's so obviously an error.

If any actual dialogue from within the show indicates a lack of FTL technology, I'd like to know. That's more problematic, because the fictional universe itself must be self-consistent. My fallback position is that the ships themselves can't go FTL, but there must be some kind of "corridors" linking the inhabited systemsm, in the usual speed of light limit can be surpassed or short-cutted even by STL ships. (Maybe in the vicinity of a cosmic string, maybe. Or through a stable wormhole.)

In the latter case, Julian is probably right, the Falcon wins. Unless there's an FTL corridor running through the Neutral Zone, and the Serenity can evade detection and capture even while confined to that narrow corridor.

PS: Yes, I'm a dork.

|9.30.05 @ 8:17PM|#

On the subject of Serenity vs. the Falcon, please remember that the Romulans have cloaking technology, and would be more inclined to detect the noisy Falcon than they would the silent Serenity. The Falcon has guns, which Serenity does not, meaning there would be more explosions and lots of ale would atomize in the process.

Also remember that Jesco von Puttkamer, special science advisor to the production staff of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, informed the crew that spaceships don't make noise in a vacuum and can't execute F1-style maneuvers using conventional combustion engines. Since Whedon hews more closely to the no-sound principle, it's likely that the Romulans wouldn't hear Serenity moseying on through the Zone.

|9.30.05 @ 8:34PM|#

Aside from the weird fascination with teenage girls who kick ass

What do ya mean, "weird"?

|9.30.05 @ 8:49PM|#

Twas a decent enough film, but I agree with the skeptics that Julian's making too much out of what is basically a space western - a genre with a pedigree that goes all the way back to John Carter and beyond. Before this article, the Mal dude seemed more like a Wyatt Earp burnout than a libertarian. And what about the ridiculous ending - apparently it's just that easy to show people, whether government agents or freelancers, the error of their ways !!! The writer need to read more Abu Ghraib apologetics.

"However, I heard Whedon has also made a statement confessing that he is pretty much scientifically illiterate."

You don't say. No bio-engineered humans (other than the girl who seems, as per usual, to be engineered for karate fer crying out!), no nanotech or smart materials, no singularity, no intelligent systems etc, etc, etc. But they have great propulsion systems to allow them to fly from planet to planet like in Amazing Stories from the thirties. And when they have spaceship duels its with the good guys sitting behind gun turrets and going shew ... shew ... shew, like chewie and Han did in episode 1. Apparently, the US military today has better targeting systems today. Oh, well ...

|9.30.05 @ 8:57PM|#

If the limits of our universe guide Firefly, there's no possible way that some gate system could exist in the Firefly universe and remain consistant. Such a setup would require stable gate points for ships to enter and exit, gate points that would likely be A) Expensive as hell to produce/operate (presumably requiring the government) and B) incredibly easy to keep track of. All the government would have to do is rig up some sort of surveilance system on the gates and they could be fully aware of the system in which every ship was located. Additionally, a limited number of possible gates would mean that the likelihood of private (and, presumably, bribable) gates would be incredibly small. The only method I can think of that would avoid gates would be to to have some sort of ansible linked with a computer in-system that could work with a wormhole generator on ship to produce a corridor. This has an incredible amount of problems though, not the least of which the fact that it's just as tracable as the fixed gate positions.

Andrew-Yes, but the fact that the Romulans don't acknowledge the fact that there's noise in space means that they would never have any reason to listen for it, would they?;)

|9.30.05 @ 9:12PM|#

Shem: "Stevo- Are you daft man? Of course the Falcon would win. It did the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs. Twelve Parsecs!"

Hmmm...since a parsec is a measure of distance (3.26163626 lightyears), not time, I don't understand.

|9.30.05 @ 9:15PM|#

Charles-It skirted so close to a black hole cluster that it managed to shave not just time, but distance off the 12 parsec Kessel Run. That, my friend, is why the Millenium Falcon will always be the coolest outlaw vessel ever, anywhere.

|9.30.05 @ 9:19PM|#

Shem, thanks!

I guess I missed the details of that episode.

|9.30.05 @ 9:56PM|#

Ah, the old matter of the parsec, a unit of distance, being used as a unit of time.

It's certainly not spelled out in the movie, but Shem's explanation seems plausible.

Not as plausible as, "George Lucas simply doesn't know what a parsec is," but close.

Where in heck is thoreau? He could make sense of this nonsense. That's what physicists are for.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to White Castle. If I leave now, I can get there in 15 miles -- or even sooner.

|9.30.05 @ 11:33PM|#

I went to a midnight showing last night. A lot of local browncoats should up in costume, and there were more than a few fans wearing "cunning hats." There was a raffle and Firefly trivia contest, and I scored a movie poster. We also had a "Man They Call Jayne" sing-a-long.

I don't care what the "skeptics" say, I thought it was a great movie. We all had a lot of fun at this shiny shindig, and like the sky, you can't take that from me.

|10.1.05 @ 12:03AM|#

The movie flat out says it's a solar system, with many planets and more moons.

Still silly. Especially with all of the characters talking about the 'Verse in the series. It'd have to be some sort of binary and a close one at that if they don't have FTL and have had time in the last five centuries to terraform and spread several billion people around (minus those that died in the wars that it appears wracked the Earth That Was). Really, the best fit might be Alpha Centauri, in terms of distance and being a three-star binary (trinary?), but I don't think all of those stars are promising for life.

As for the Kessel run, some have explained that as passing through a black-hole laden area, and that Solo took a short cut through it.

Either that, or, hyperspace is a one-to-one mapping of the real universe that is more compact, and the Falcon's speed was such a large fraction of the speed of light in hyperspace that the distance observed onboard was relativistically contracted to 12 parsecs from a larger and well-known value [to people in the Star Wars universe]. And for some reason space travel buffs there use this as an estimate of speed.

Or George Lucas doesn't a parsec from his perineum.

|10.1.05 @ 12:41AM|#

Frank of [e-mail],

Hey, you stole my identity!
I challenge you to the Thunderdome!
Two men enter, one man leaves!

|10.1.05 @ 1:34AM|#

What the hell are you talking about; "as good as Babylon 5"? I never could make it through an entire episode of that B5. Horible effects, and a pointless boring story.

When it first aired, I totally agreed. After reading so much good about it, I bought all the dvds. Considering that it's a 5-year continuous story, trying to watch an episode here or there will make no sense and be completely annoying. Watching the series straight through shows the genius of the story, and the effects get a little better and become far less of a distraction then they were at the beginning.

/end B5 defensive rant

|10.1.05 @ 1:54AM|#

Julian, a decent enough article. I'm not well-versed enough in Sartre, Camus, etc to comment one way or the other. Usually I'm wary of people who try to dress up their favorite show/comic book/movie/album with references to classic philosophical types; mostly because the Wachowski brothers managed to screw up a perfectly good concept with an idiotic level of philosophical navel-gazing, cross-references, and deliberately obtuse dialogue.

However, where the Wachowski Bros failed horrendously, Joss seems to have succeeded, so I'll go with the flow regarding the philosophical bits.

On a more lighthearted note...

Forget Serenity vs. Millenium Falcon.

What about Mal Reynolds vs. Han Solo?

Just to make it fair, Han can be the version from the shitty EP VHS tape my parents recorded off of HBO in the early 80's, and not the pansy-ass "Greedo-shot-first-and-Han-blasted-him-in-self-defense" version that Lucas put in the revamped version.

My vote goes to Mal. Anyone who remembers the not-quite-a-standoff from the two-hour pilot should know why.


Regardless, I just got back from a showing of Serenity, and I'm positively giddy with nerdy contentment.

|10.1.05 @ 2:31AM|#

As for the Kessel run, some have explained that as passing through a black-hole laden area, and that Solo took a short cut through it.

Actually, this is the official "let's cover our shameful ignorance" line contrived by Lucasfilm. Originally though, it was almost certainly George "ass from a hole in the ground" Lucas's mistake.

|10.1.05 @ 2:34AM|#

And Han would have beaten on Mal like a red-headed stepchild. Could Mal have survived a year in carbonite? I think not. We're talking about a hero versus a legend here. Just no contest.

Tim Cavanaugh|10.1.05 @ 4:04AM|#

Sorry, Tim, but I personally thought that Ron Glass was the worst part of the series. I was hoping that he'd be cut out of the movie because his acting was ridiculously bad. In fact I think that it was his horrible acting that had a lot to do with Firefly feeling hokey. I'm going to see the movie, but like Jar-Jar Binks in the new Star Wars movies, I'll just pretend that Ron Glass's character doesn't exist. If you get rid of Ron Glass (AND the character, of course), then you've got a really good quality movie.

Jeez Louise, I won't even ask if there are any Steve Landesberg or James Gregory fans on this thread!

|10.1.05 @ 5:43AM|#

All hail Julian and Tim for giving sci-fi geeks a moment to feel good about the state of sci-fi flickdom. Very entertaining movie. I hope Joss Whedon gets very fat off the profits and rents himself countless companions.

|10.1.05 @ 10:41AM|#

OK, admittedly I haven't seen the show yet. But I have read a little bit about the contention that the Serenity doesn't have FTL. I believe this has been traced to a statement by Joss Whedon to the effect of, "You know, I don't know that FTL even exists in the Firefly universe." However, I heard Whedon has also made a statement confessing that he is pretty much scientifically illiterate.
The Firefly universe has at least a dozen planets in it, maybe two dozen. (I've seen a list.) Even allowing for terraforming of Venus-like and Mars-like worlds, and maybe even some larger Jovian moons, and even allowing a multiple-star system (I think maybe up to a trinary system might be plausible) where each sun has it's own stable habitable zone, there's no way you can have access to that many habitable Earth-like worlds without being able to travel FTL.
Comment by: Stevo Darkly at September 30, 2005 07:42 PM

Here is the best explanation I've seen on the matter, from somebody on Slashdot. Note that an A.U. is an "astronomical unit" the distance from the earth to the sun. Pluto is about 40 AUs from the sun.

Re:FF would be good if it had a consistent backsto (Score:3, Interesting)
by chiok (858005) on Tuesday May 10, @08:16PM (#12494205)
It is a single star system with hundreds of planets. Their sun is a blue star. The big corporation in the series, Blue Sun, is named so because of their sun.
If the blue sun is a main sequence star (and not a supergiant), then it's stellar mass will be around 50 and it's biozone range (the range where liquid water can occur) would be between 500-750 AUs. That's freaking huge. It should be enough to fit in the hundreds of planets that livable range.
However, don't take the science too seriously.

The beginning of the movie explicitly states that it's one solar system, with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons.

The situation in the Firefly universe, without Faster Than Light technology, would be analogous to using steam engines for ships and trains in the 1800s. You could get anywhere in in a reasonable amount of time (days, weeks?), but travel is slow enough to leave large portions of the system fairly isolated from any central control, even after the Alliance victory in the civil war.

Some quick calculations:

750 AU radius = 1,500 AU diameter

1,500 AUs x 150 million km = 225 billion km (the diamater of the system, or at least the habitable zone).

speed of light = 300,000 km/sec

225,000,000,000 km
------------------------------ = 750,000 seconds
300,000 km/sec


750,000 seconds = 12,500 minutes = 208 hr 20 min = 8.7 days

So it would take about 9 days to cross the Firefly system at the speed of light (travelling in a straight line through the blue sun). By comparison, it takes electromagnetic radiation about 1/2 day to travel across our solar system (80 AU diameter).

Since time-dialation effects aren't mentioned in the series nor movie, spaceship travel much slower than the speed of light. In the episodes where they were smuggling cattle from one planet to another, I believe they made reference to having the cows on board for "weeks."

|10.1.05 @ 10:44AM|#

I just knew that there'd be some Reverend Book-haters here... I'll let the intelligent readers of the forum figure out why I think that.

Then again, I'm not totally enamored with him myself, either; for a man of God, he is quick to embrace the fuzzy ethics that prevail on the edge of the 'verse. True, Jesus famously associated with prostitutes, but always with the goal of repentance clearly present. Whereas Book settles in and becomes one of the gang.

|10.1.05 @ 11:04AM|#

Hey, you stole my identity!
I challenge you to the Thunderdome!
Two men enter, one man leaves!


I accept your challenge!! May the sweatiest Frank win!

|10.1.05 @ 12:21PM|#

Shepard Book's acceptance of becoming one of the gang probably has more to do with his mysterious past than with his being a Shepard. I think he was deliberately written to be a character who'd been involved with some awful things and decided to become a man of God as a result.

This would make him a direct counterpoint to Mal, who had been involved with some awful things and lost his faith as a result.

|10.1.05 @ 12:40PM|#

I just knew that there'd be some Reverend Book-haters here... I'll let the intelligent readers of the forum figure out why I think that.

Because the Alliance didn't abort every black baby before he was born?

|10.1.05 @ 12:44PM|#

In addition to what Nobody Important said, many of those moons are in orbit about gas giants. It's thought that the heat from some gas giants could make its own biozone range, where light is from the sun and most of the heat is from the giant.

The gas giants could be farther than the biozone of the star in that case, depending on the amount of heat coming from each, which could put some of the moons out much farther than 750 AU.

This would even make sense, if there are frontiers beyond the Alliance. The Alliance could just have consolidated most of the biozone, and then moved onto the moons where the Independents lived.

I'd still like some binaries though, because we never really see blue star light on the planets.

Though for the most part, the Firefly 'Verse seems to be about as big as a computer video game world, in light of the fact that somehow the Reaver ships around Miranda where so dense that Mal had to pass through them rather than just spend some extra time to go around or slip through where the separation was kilometers, not hundreds of meters at most.

In the theater I had a hunch that Book may have been an ex-Operative, but it didn't play out.

|10.1.05 @ 2:05PM|#

WARNING, HUGE SPOILER IN POST

Everyone that's arguing the viability of Joss Whedon's universe in the show and movie is failing to see the forest through the trees.

Julian had it spot on in my opinion and having seen the movie last night, I came away amazed at how thoughtful and well written a scifi movie could actually be. Whedon may plead ignorance to the physics, but in my opinion, that allows him more time to actually ponder the story and bring a clear message, which he did.

And while Washburn's death annoyed many fans of the series, after getting over the immediate shock, I saw the genius of it. Just when the audience is finding itself a bit dettached from the characters, having just witnessed and amazingly skillful manuever that is not relatable, Whedon brings the hammer of reality down, forcing the audience back to Earth, thinking "wow, these people are human, and death can happen". I really felt compelled and tense throughout the rest, like somehow, maybe, they could actually lose. It is something that is hard to pull off, but just like in "Band of Brothers", random deaths happen and they lend an intimacy and credibility to the story. It a bold and brilliant move in my opinion.

I simply cannot praise this movie and the series enough. I never got into Whedon's "Angel" and "Buffy" series, but if Firefly ever returned, I'd glue myself to my chair an hour a week for sure. Star Wars was good because it was the first. Serenity is good because it is the best, and I don't say that lightly.

|10.1.05 @ 2:21PM|#

I saw Serenity last night. I've seen better episodes of Farscape. ...which isn't an insult.

I purposely avoided Firefly when it was on television; it came out just as Farscape stood on the gallows. I blame a lot of people for that injustice.

I blame Spielberg's Taken, as well as the (then) new management at the SciFi Channel that perpetrated the crime. ...but I also wanted the fans of science fiction on television--with their legions of mindless Star Trek and Buffy fans--to pay for their crimes. ...They don't deserve the privilege of missing great television.

Maybe someday, in a better world, there will be an audience worthy of this. ...'til then, here's hopin' they never make another episode of Firefly.

|10.1.05 @ 3:08PM|#

jf,

"What the hell are you talking about; "as good as Babylon 5"? I never could make it through an entire episode of that B5. Horible effects, and a pointless boring story."

"When it first aired, I totally agreed. After reading so much good about it, I bought all the dvds. Considering that it's a 5-year continuous story, trying to watch an episode here or there will make no sense and be completely annoying. Watching the series straight through shows the genius of the story, and the effects get a little better and become far less of a distraction then they were at the beginning."

All very true. Come into the middle of any multi-episode story arc, from Gilmore Girls to Battlestar Galactica, and you'd be lost and bored.

Tom Crick,

Not to worry, another episode of Firefly is at least 10 years away.

Julian,

I stand by my previous post. I saw the movie again last night, and not once did Mal/Giles ever tell River/Buffy to get off the boat. Every other character did, but not him. He wanted River/Buffy to use her powers for his crime. Even after she flipped out in the bar, he went down and kicked Jayne/Spike out of the way so he could gently retrive her.

|10.1.05 @ 3:09PM|#

"Everyone that's arguing the viability of Joss Whedon's universe in the show and movie is failing to see the forest through the trees."

No, I'm not. I give Whedon a pass on the physics and enjoy the story.

That doesn't prevent me from enjoying one of my favorite pasttimes, kibbitzing science fiction and analyzing the hell out of it. Even if Firefly/Serenity is only near-SF, not full fledge science fiction.

Simply put: I can have my cake and eat it too.

|10.1.05 @ 3:56PM|#

Nobody Important: "750 AU radius = 1,500 AU diameter...= 8.7 days"

Or you could just use the Google Calculator. :)

|10.1.05 @ 4:49PM|#

And Han would have beaten on Mal like a red-headed stepchild.

Mal's a better shot.

Britton|10.1.05 @ 4:59PM|#

"In the theater I had a hunch that Book may have been an ex-Operative, but it didn't play out."

That would really work in the series.

|10.1.05 @ 5:56PM|#

Mal's a better shot.

If you just go by the movies then you can make that argument. But, if you accept any of the other material then there's no chance. It's established repeatedly that Han is both a master sharpshooter and ambidexterous. Again, Mal just can't compete.

|10.1.05 @ 8:06PM|#

OK, how 'bout the Tusken raiders vs the Reavers?

|10.1.05 @ 10:08PM|#

The Reavers would make handbags out of the Tuskens which they would then sell to other Tuskens, after which they would kill the customer Tuskens and take back the handbags. Just to be dicks.

Come up with a hard one why don't you?;)

|10.1.05 @ 10:28PM|#

C-3PO vs Simon...

Jabba the Hut vs Badger...

Yoda vs River...

Padme vs Inara... ::drools::

|10.1.05 @ 10:33PM|#

Hmm, maybe that should be Jabba the Hut vs Niska... that's a better matchup, methinks.

|10.1.05 @ 10:40PM|#

C-3PO vs Simon...

They begin slapping at each other like little girls, but finally sit down and commiserate about how rude everyone is. Until Chewbacca and Jayne come along and rip them limb from limb.

|10.1.05 @ 10:46PM|#

Shem,

In the sequel, it will be revealed that Blue Sun is a clothing conglomerate run by the Reavers. Think Tyler Durden's soap in Fight Club...

|10.1.05 @ 11:09PM|#

They could sell authentic Cravats made of real Croats. Basqes made of Basque nationalists. Authentic Scottish Kilts, although I admit to being mystified as to how they could get tartans dyed on.

What?

|10.1.05 @ 11:11PM|#

C-3PO vs Simon

Draw. Threepio can't take a life due to his programing, and Simon can't take a life because he's a hopeless pussy.

Jabba the Hut vs Niska

Hmm...in a straight fight, or using all their various resources? Because Jabba would probably win in the first case, but in the latter it would be very close. Like, almost too close to say.

Yoda vs River

Yoda. He's got like 80 gajillion years of experience on her. Plus he still has his amygdala.

Padme vs Inara

Us. When beautiful women beat the hell out of each other, we all win.

The real interesting battle would be the Galactic Empire versus The Alliance, starting at a roughly equal point with regards to resources. See how a Dark Lord of the Sith fares against an all-powerful police state. Almost makes me feel bad for Palpatine.

|10.2.05 @ 1:10AM|#

Shem,

The Empire would totally kick the Alliance's ass, because the Alliance would have to get an executive order to war signed in triplicate before they could intiate hostilities and by that time Palpatine would have the Death Star 3 warming up a few thousand miles above Parliment.

James Anderson Merritt|10.2.05 @ 2:31AM|#

Mediageek says, "Mal's a better shot." Maybe so, but the two times he had a good shot at the Operative, he didn't take the head-shot. If he had, either time, we would have had a very different movie.

I am still thinking today about the Operative's explanation for his behavior. To put it bluntly, he seems to claim that evil acts are necessary to create good ends, that the "society without sin" must be built atop a foundation of sin, committed by monsters such as himself, who do not belong in and will never enter the perfect kingdom.

That seems so wrong, on so many levels. It's hard to imagine how a reasonably intelligent and cultured person -- as the Operative seemed to be -- could buy it, much less dedicate his life (and sacrifice the lives of so many others) to it. But perhaps the inculcation of such a warped mindset is the result of whatever training is used to create an Operative in the first place. I suspect that Shepherd Book was, at one time, just as midirected an Alliance agent as the present Operative is in this movie; as this Operative went through a painful change of mind and heart, so did Book. Will this Operative become a man of the cloth as Book did? Did he know Book? Were they related? Perhaps future episodes in the Firefly/Serenity story will tell.

Anyway, I mention the "evil acts are necessary to create utopia" mindset because it strikes me as uncomfortably close to the assertion that government is a "necessary evil."

Thoughts?

|10.2.05 @ 3:07AM|#

It's hard to imagine how a reasonably intelligent and cultured person -- as the Operative seemed to be -- could buy it, much less dedicate his life (and sacrifice the lives of so many others) to it

And yet, it's a recurring theme in human history. The Nazis built an empire on the skulls of 12 million innocent people. The Soviets and Chinese did the same thing. And, in each occasion, thoughtful, otherwise humane people stood at the forefront and called for blood to be shed. We're very good as a species at rationalizing the evil we inflict on others. We're so good that we do it without even noticing most of the time; every single one of us. I don't know what it is that prompts one person to step back and look at their actions while another continues to goose-step through the gates of hell, but the fact is that some people just lack the self-reflection to realize the evil of their actions without some outside power forcing them to account for their sins.

|10.2.05 @ 9:36AM|#

And yet, it's a recurring theme in human history. The Nazis built an empire on the skulls of 12 million innocent people. The Soviets and Chinese did the same thing.

Even today, many academics -- who should be smarter -- have romantic notions about communism. The only problem with communism is not that it doesn't work, or killed millions, but "people aren't good enough for it."

And I think the only reason academia and Hollywood accept the ideda of World War II -- or at least the war against Germany -- as a "good war" is not because it ended the Holocaust, but because we were helping the Soviet Union.

The war against Japan was simply a racist endeavor.

|10.2.05 @ 10:44AM|#

SPOILER ALERT


Saw it yesterday. Mr. Wheadon does like his themes. I liked the use of "Serenity" thoughout the story. It starts out as the location of the last stand of the brown coat rebellion. It becomes a ship ironically tied up simultaneously with Mal's leftover revolutionary fervor and his attempt to create a hearth (with that great dining table, etc.). The Alliance uses Pax to force serenity on a whole population, and in the process creates the suicidally dispassionate and the Reavers.

It is nice to something in space turn out vaguely literary. Good job, Joss. I was scared it was going to suck because the trailer made it look like a Jet Li movie. Julian and Tyler Cowen convinced me to go, and I'm glad I did.

|10.2.05 @ 2:36PM|#

And I think the only reason academia and Hollywood accept the ideda of World War II -- or at least the war against Germany -- as a "good war" is not because it ended the Holocaust, but because we were helping the Soviet Union.

I think that might have been true in the 30s and 40s, but these days I think anyone in Hollywood (or anywhere else for that matter) would be hard pressed to name our allies in WWII, or any other war that's not being currently prosecuted. And even back then, Communism was about being fashionable for most of those people, just like today AIDS/Debt relief is about being fashionable.

As for academics, that might be correct when it comes to the Chomsky-style Linguist with an axe to grind, but any academic who has done any study of the events surrounding WWII can tell you that not only was the Holocaust the main reason why the war in Europe couldn't possibly be anything but justified, but also that there were plenty of reasons why the Empire of Japan deserved to fall. In fact, I'm dangerously close to getting a BA in East Asian History, and in all my years of being lectured I can't recall a single Professor express anything other than disgust at the disgraceful actions of the Japanese wherever they conquered.

I can't argue that there are people who have romantic notions about Communism, except to say that there are people who have romantic notions about Fascism and Nazism too, which is sort of ad hominem, but still fairly relevant.

If I may be so impolite as to ask a personal question, approximately how old are you? I think I can guess, but curiosity drives me to determine if I'm correct.

|10.2.05 @ 8:31PM|#

Regarding the Kessel run bit, the usual retcon is that Star Wars FTL travel somehow involves "folding" the fabric of space. Under this assumption, the ship with the best navigation computers (a technology that, except as far as droids go, doesn't seem particularly well evolved in the setting) will have the least actual distance to travel, as the computer can cut corners better, wich translates to a speed advantage.

Of course, the more likely explanation is true, and this is just something fans came up with because they had a hole to paper over.

Haven't seen Serenity yet, but I will as soon as it gets to the only theaters in town I'll go to (Alamo Draft House; most movies go better with a beer or three). I've got the DVD, although I missed the original airings. I got the DVDs after seeing a couple of episodes from the recent re-airing, and I quite enjoyed the show.

Other than that, I have to speak up for Babylon 5 as well. Definitely the best of the recent sci-fi series, maybe the best overall (Star Trek TOS and Twilight Zone definitley have individual episodes that rank in the same area, but stinkers like "Spock's Brain" drag the entire series way down). I've got a liking for those epic, over-arching storys, but they're incredibly rare in US movies and television series, so it's always nice to see another.

Also part of the reason I enjoy anime and manga so much. It's hard to find series like Berserk (28 volumes and counting) or shows like Hunter X Hunter (70 some TV episodes, plus three shorter OVAs) from US sources.

|10.2.05 @ 10:11PM|#

OK, how 'bout the Tusken raiders vs the Reavers?

On an open battlefield, Tusken Raiders all the way. They're somewhat more organized, and they're easily the best group of marksmen in the entire Star Wars universe.

Seriously. Those guys can shoot. Look at Episode I during the pod race sequence. Here are all these pods screaming along at hundreds of miles an hour, and the Tusken Raiders are tagging them with pot shots.

Plus they have Banthas.

In close quarters, it would be a close fight, I suspect, with the edge going to the Reavers.

|10.3.05 @ 2:46PM|#

Sigh, looks like I came late to the party. As a huge fan of the series from the DVDs, I think the movie was great. I took my roomate along who was unfamiliar with the show, and he loved it too. But, it's not a hard sell for most of my friends when something involves hot teenage girls kicking ass juxtaposed with zombieesque space pirates. In fact, if I ever made a movie that would be it, only with more robots and a heavier emphasis on space prostitutes. Enough of that.

Neither the show nor the movie is explicitly libertarian, but those themes are certainly present, as Whedon intended. Perhaps the best line on that tack is from the show when Mal says, "Ain't that why government exists, to get in a man's way?"

It's honestly refreshing to sci-fi of this stripe again, harking back to the Golden Age. These days, scifi films either try to hit you over the head with some Big Idea or ignore substance completely to deliver blockbuster effects. While both are fine, Serenity walks the thin line between the two fairly well, delivering an honest-to-god character driven flick that's both fun to watch and gives you something to muse on. I was quite worried about this movie, as bringing anything from small screen to big is a daunting task, let alone a failed yet cult-followed series. Again, he walks the line fairly well, catching up outsiders well enough without boring the fans or recovering too much territory. It's not perfect, but it's very good and much better than I expected.

|10.3.05 @ 3:12PM|#

On the Han vs Mal debate. I think Mal wins a fistfight. Han can kick some butt, but Mal was a soldier on the ground. In a firefight, I have to give the edge to Han, although Mal might get a dying shot off. Overall, Han has the edge, mostly because he's frikin' Han Solo. As for headshots, I don't believe Han shot Greedo in the head either. You're trained to aim for the chest, although it was silly for Mal to think the Operative wasn't wearing body armor.

Raider vs. Reavers is just a straight-up blood bath coming down to numbers. The Reavers are going to land on top of you and just keep coming. Death means nothing to them. The Raiders will retreat and regroup if necessary which is a big problem in this scenario. They would need to keep the reavers as far away as possible and snipe them to win the day. If it's a close quarters battle and the Reavers have similar (or possibly slightly fewer) numbers, they'll ignore everything else and will not stop until the Raiders are digesting in their stomachs.

I think it's a stretch to match up the Buffy and Firefly cast directly. Mal certainly is not a father-figure to River. Throughout the series and movie he's torn between doing what's right (which may mean nothing more than thwarting the Alliance) and doing the smart thing and kicking River off the ship. He wrestles with that decision, which is interesting in itself as he's normally ruthlessly pragmatic. River really loves Serenity itself, and seems to feel whatever small affection she does for Mal simply because he's the captain of the ship.

Yes, both River and Buffy kick ass but they're very different characters. I think the best match up is Xander and Wash, as both are fairly worthless in a fight yet competent in their own way, and largely intended for comic snippets.

|10.3.05 @ 4:27PM|#

Xellos- But supposedly the Kessel Run cannot be taken in hyperspace, being too close to the black holes of the Maw Cluster. That's what makes it so difficult; it's 12 hours of straight flying, during which time the pilot has to pay complete attention to his flying, often with antismuggling forces on his tail. The explination provided in the sourcebooks and other material is the one I gave; that either he flew much closer to the black holes than the usual and supposedly bent space, or it was a malfuntion that he later dressed up.

I agree, Mal would win in a fistfight. Han was in the Imperial Navy; not exactly known for it's hand-to-hand training. As for the Tuskens vs. Reavers fight, I still give it to the Reavers easily. Consider this; the stormtroopers could easily take down Tusken Raiders, given their superior armor and weaponry. And, the Reavers in turn could easily handle Stromtroopers. So, unless they're fighting in the heart of the desert, the Reavers have a nearly unassailable advantage over the Tuskens.

|10.3.05 @ 7:45PM|#

I don't know much about the series, but why don't the Reavers attack and eat each other?

James Anderson Merritt|10.4.05 @ 2:45AM|#

Xellos said, "Star Trek TOS and Twilight Zone definitley have individual episodes that rank in the same area, but stinkers like 'Spock's Brain' drag the entire series way down."

Why ya gotta hate on "Spock's Brain"? Maybe the execution of that episode was cheesy and hokey, but the "high concept" still impresses me: a dumbed down population of females who control males (which they use as muscle) by providing "pain and delight" as necessary; all dependent on a mechanized city that is controlled by a succession of pilfered brains, which are wired into the mechanism so as to retain the sense of bodily functions as they control city infrastructure; a knowledge machine that can temporarily impress great skill and education on a human mind; a neuro-stimulator that provides critical life-support to the brain-dead (or in the case of Spock, the brain-less!). There was a lot to think about in that episode -- ideas that the cyberpunks and others revisited and claimed as their own in later years. The cool thing is that you'll get caught up in criticizing the show's cheesiness and hokiness, but years later, the high-concepts will still be impressed upon your brain cells, for consideration at your leisure. In that way, "Spock's Brain" is like a Top 40 song that speaks of peace and freedom: you may hate the song for its bubblegum nature, but you can't get it out of your head, even so, and eventually, you take time to ponder the lyrics that have repeated in your head, off and on, for decades afterward. In the case of the sneakiest, most diabolically talented songwriters, you'll find a message or an attitude in the lyrics that you never knew was there.

|10.4.05 @ 7:42PM|#

This will probably never be read, but ...

Jet Goodson, Nobody Important and others:

Good work and some interesting speculation on the physical background of the Firefly universe. (By which I mean the "background 'world' in which the stories take place," not the literal entire universe.) I can probably buy the idea of a single system with a hot blue primary and lots of terraformed worlds and moons. I remember reading a book (by Sagan, I think) that showed diagrams of various star types' biozones, and the ones for the hotter starts were HUGE.

Although this also means accepting the following:

1) A mass migration of human beings at slower-than-light speeds from Sol System to the new home system. Maybe a ragtag fleet of big ships each carring thousands of people in hibernation. Let's speculate that they take a few centuries to travel 10-30 light years. This would mean that, although the Firefly universe is set about 500 years in the future, humanity spent most of that time traveling from Earth to the new system. The worlds of Firefly were then settled only 100 or 200 years ago (very, very roughly analogous to the span between the settlement of New England and the time of the Civil War and the classic Old West).

2) Why choose a blue sun instead of a more sunlike star? Dunno. Maybe because bluer, hotter stars are also younger stars (they have to be, because they only stay stable maybe a couple billion years), and their planets would tend to be richer in metals (for industrialisation). Maybe the nearer sunlike yellow starts didn't have any suitably-sized planets, even for terraforming, in their relatively narrow biozones.

3) When did these planets get terraformed? It would probably take a couple centuries at least. Hypothesis: The mass migration of human-bearing ships was preceded by smaller, faster (but still sub-light) automated "seeder" ships bearing smaller cargoes consisting of terraforming packages. For example, upon arrival, the automated ships dump blue-green algae into the target planet's atmospheres to create an oxygen atmosphere. Then, when suitable, they parachute down plant seeds, eggs of primitive animals, fish eggs, etc. Maybe they turn loose breeding stock of higher animals too; or maybe the humans bring those when they finally arrive.

4) Hot blue stars don't stay stable (stay on the main sequence) long enough for their planets to have much change of developing complex native life. Except for maybe some bacteria, the lifeforms of the local planets would have to be 100% imported from Earth. I assume there are no alien animals at all in the Firefly universe? All the animals you see are "Earthlife"? If so, this is consistent with the speculation above.

I wonder which system humanity migrated to? It can't be too far. The nearest hot blue star is Sirius (8.6 LY), but it has a collapsed small companion -- I don't know whether the companion's orbit would permit stable orbits of other bodies in Sirius' biozone. But I think there are a few other hot blue stars within a few tens of lightyears from Earth. Vega is one, but it's a very young system just starting to possibly form planets, last I heard.

Procyon? About 11 LY away. A bit cooler than Sirius, a bit hotter than Sol. Also has a potentially troublesome dwarf companion.

Other candidates? Altair? Fomalhaut? Castor? Denebola? I'm not sure these are all main-sequence (non-old-giant) stars.

OK. I have to break out my DVDs and actually start watching the series.

Justin|10.10.05 @ 8:19AM|#

I'm sure most who have seen both Serenity and Firefly will agree the movie has more impact in the context of the series -- unfortunately a lot of people interested (or potentially interested) in Serenity will never see it. For the sake of promoting the movie, I've compiled some key moments from the series into a video. Spread the word Browncoats!

http://centripetalnotion.com/2005/10/10/07:37:41/