Serenity spoiler thread

[Pococurante]

What's wrong with just enjoying it for what it is?

Agreed.  For the hardcore there is always something like this.

[Nevermore]

Wasn't the video clip a hologram?  Serenity is an old ship, does it even have anything that could read a holographic clip on what's probably a newer storage device?  With a ship that decidedly low-tech, it could be explained by something as simple as having data on a flash-rom but having an old computer with just a 3.5" floppy drive.  So the data had to be hand-delivered.

[Samwise]

I actually do own The Physics of Star Trek, as well as the NCC 1701-D Technical Manual.     One of the things I always liked about Star Trek was that they made a pretty decent effort at preserving verisimilitude.

Wasn't the video clip a hologram?  Serenity is an old ship, does it even have anything that could read a holographic clip on what's probably a newer storage device?  With a ship that decidedly low-tech, it could be explained by something as simple as having data on a flash-rom but having an old computer with just a 3.5" floppy drive.  So the data had to be hand-delivered.

Even if that were the case, there was obviously equipment in the Miranda lab that was able to read the data.  At best, they could have cannibalized that hardware, which they've obviously pretty good at doing - if Kaylee can repair an engine with spit and elbow grease, I'm pretty sure she can install a new "disk drive". 

At worst, they could have taken their nice hi-res camcorder down there and made a "bootleg" 2-D copy off the image to transmit to Universe (and maybe some of Simon's terrorist friends while they were at it).  Wouldn't be quite as good as the real thing, but it'd make a lot of sense to hedge their bets by transmitting and copying everything they could before making that risky run through Reaver space with the only known copy of this vitally important data.

[Pococurante]

Wouldn't be quite as good as the real thing, but it'd make a lot of sense to hedge their bets by transmitting and copying everything they could before making that risky run through Reaver space with the only known copy of this vitally important data.

Yeah this little plot device is the one that usually breaks immersion for me.  Just another straw proving to me "Hollywood" really doesn't get the concept of digitized information.

[Samwise]

How can you say that about Hollywood when they've produced fine movies like Hackers and The Net?

[Merusk]

I actually do own The Physics of Star Trek, as well as the NCC 1701-D Technical Manual.     One of the things I always liked about Star Trek was that they made a pretty decent effort at preserving verisimilitude.

Which wasn't originally the case.  I recall reading that Gates McFadden was the one who actually pushed for some sort of logic and coherency to the sequences, otherwise it would have still been just a bunch of random buttonpushing.

Also:

Wouldn't be quite as good as the real thing, but it'd make a lot of sense to hedge their bets by transmitting and copying everything they could before making that risky run through Reaver space with the only known copy of this vitally important data.

Yeah this little plot device is the one that usually breaks immersion for me. Just another straw proving to me "Hollywood" really doesn't get the concept of digitized information.

I agree that in this day and age not being able to make a copy is a pretty crappy plot device.  In '77 when data rates were so much slower and capacity that much smaller, it was an understandable lack of foresight.   Even the original ST had silly things like droping ships logs in escape buoys, and computer 'tapes' vs the isolinear chips of TNG.

[Pococurante]

Hehe actually it was The Net that was in my mind as I typed that... not that I mind any opportunity to watch Bullock be cute.

[Polysorbate80]

I think it boils down in part to Mal just wanting a fight.  He's got a lot of anger and grief boiling over, and sees the opportunity to make stuff go smash.

There's shitloads of 'what-ifs' that could be asked (like, what if the Operative only had one ship in the trap and the Reavers wound up steamrollering over them and Mr. Universe and the Serenity crew).  Sometimes shit just happens the way it happens, so if there's nothing *too* glaringly illogical I'm willing to overlook it.

In this case, the basic logic and behavior seems sound, they just have to stretch coincidence a bit to make the big conflict resolve in the desired manner.  Not a major issue to me.

[Bunk]

Sam, just let it go.

And you deserve a kick in the nards for even refferencing Independance Day in the same thread.

[Samwise]

Sam, just let it go.

NEVAR!!!1111

[WindupAtheist]

Serenity:  An 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 10.1 million dollar opening.
Episode 3:  An 82% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 108.4 million dollar opening.

The only people who didn't like Episode 3 were opinionated internet dweebs, and if there's one thing both Lucas and Whedon have proven in their own different ways, it's that opinionated internet dweebs don't really mean shit.  But don't worry, I'm sure Fox is rushing to pump out the sequel to a flick that got it's ass kicked by the second week of some shitty Jodie Foster movie, and barely squeaked past the third week of Corpse Bride.

[HaemishM]

Watch out everyone, WUA HAS THE HIGH GROUND!

[tazelbain]

Ya, gives us geeks hell. Such a Stoic Warrior for Pop Culture, you are.

[WindupAtheist]

Thread:  OMG Serenity = luv, I hope there's a sequel!

Me:  Phew, not with these box office numbers.  LOL n00bz.

Thread:  Um... well.. that last Star Wars SUCKED, yo!

Me:  Say what?  It got equal/better reviews and ten times as much money.

Thread:  Well... um... well...  You're a POOPFACE!!

[Daeven]

That little boy is you, Browncoats.  Suck it down.  Your tears of anguish are sweet nectar to me.

This, from the guy who thinks UO is the second coming of Robot Jesus?

...

[Shockeye]

WUA, stop trolling in this thread.

[Daeven]

Turning trivial technical problems into epic heroic feats is just one of my pet peeves, is all.  (Another one is taking a very difficult technical problem and trivializing it, like the magical cross-platform computer virus in Independence Day.)

I enjoyed the movie, I'm just noting that toward the end the plot started to tear itself a couple of holes.

Did you ever see the movie Outbreak? Where they magically develop 80 bajillion gallons of 'viral anti-serum' from one Rhesus Monnkey?

Yeah. Your technical quibbles bore me. When someone achieves that level of reckless abandon with reality in film, I'll let you know.

[Daeven]

The only people who didn't like Episode 3 were opinionated internet dweebs

NooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!111!1!1

[Samwise]

Did you ever see the movie Outbreak? Where they magically develop 80 bajillion gallons of 'viral anti-serum' from one Rhesus Monnkey?

Don't get me started on the "we have to find the magic monkey" bit.

[Bunk]

Turning trivial technical problems into epic heroic feats is just one of my pet peeves, is all.  (Another one is taking a very difficult technical problem and trivializing it, like the magical cross-platform computer virus in Independence Day.)

I enjoyed the movie, I'm just noting that toward the end the plot started to tear itself a couple of holes.

Did you ever see the movie Outbreak? Where they magically develop 80 bajillion gallons of 'viral anti-serum' from one Rhesus Monnkey?

Yeah. Your technical quibbles bore me. When someone achieves that level of reckless abandon with reality in film, I'll let you know.

Outbreak - the same movie where the heroine gets the bad disease that destroys all of the cells in your body - is minutes from dieing from it - gets the 'viral anti-serum' - and gets better in about ten minutes, suggesting that the cure regrew all of her liquifying organs...

[Samwise]

Outbreak - the same movie where the heroine gets the bad disease that destroys all of the cells in your body - is minutes from dieing from it - gets the 'viral anti-serum' - and gets better in about ten minutes, suggesting that the cure regrew all of her liquifying organs...

The magic monkey made everything better.  Duh.

[Pococurante]

Don't make me invoke Total Recall...



/sigh

[Ironwood]

Watch out everyone, WUA HAS THE HIGH GROUND!

Seriously, Episode 3 and all the other Star Wars Prequels sucked.  Bigger gross because the grown ups kept expecting something decent (heh - owned) and the kiddies actually, you know, GO to the cinema, as previously mentioned.

Seriously, mate, they sucked.  Awful.  Total Poop, the 3 of them.  God.

Really.

Oh, just so, so bad.  Like, Moronic bad.  Awful tripe.

Urg.

And the acting, Jesus.  The script, the romance, too many effects.  Oh God, I'm being ill here.


Oh and those shoes with that dress, Jeeesus...

[Sobelius]

As someone who'd only ever seen one episode of the show, but who is a Joss Whedon fan nonetheless:

- overall, a pretty intelligent and entertaining story, but not enough to want to see again; I was hoping to be interested enough to want to rent or borrow the TV series DVDs, but no, it just didn't engage me more than at the surface level

- I felt a lot like an outsider -- it was obvious there was more to all of these characters than what was on the screen; what was on the screen was mighty pitiful from character development standpoint (so little so that, as I said above, I'm not finding myself wanting to check out the TV series). There was just enough to give me a flavor of who these people were and why they were together, but it felt really one-dimensional. The budding romance between the engineer and the doctor was, from my view, based on nothing more than a couple of exchanged glances. Jayne was a one note character, in fact they all felt pretty one-note.

- BIG problem for me from a story perspective: the film went so quickly from flashback to present, I got no sense that much time had passed between the time River was rescued by her brother and when they were on the ship. Seemed like a couple of weeks at most. Especially because the flashback stops before we see what ship River and brother escape onto -- it was clear there was a ship above them that helped them escape from the Alliance and I assumed it was Serenity. The friends I saw the movie with said 8 months (the TV series, basically) passed between the rescue and the movie. This was not clear at all to me.

- Biggest gripe for me is watching the tough assassin kick the shit out of the captain and the captain seems to be made of some
Buffy-like indestructibile material. He was pummeled to a pulp, took a bullet and sword wound to the gut, and the assassin just can't finish him off?

- Another gripe: he shoots the assassin in the chest (on the buddhist planet); the guy says he is wearing body armor; then he doesn't just take another shot to the guy's unarmored head? Same in the final fight -- I thought for SURE he would just have shot him in the head and said something like "should have worn body armor on your head". After all, the captain was shown to be accurate with a pistol when rescuing Jayne by shooting the reaver harpoon out of his leg (and also by shooting the "take me with you" guy in the head, and also by shooting the alliance soldier who was surrendering at Haven).

I didn't think the movie ended with any sense that another sequel was planned. It felt very "over" -- though I thought maybe Whedon was hoping the movie might cause a revival of the TV series.

IMHO, they should have done with Serenity/Firefly what they did with Family Guy -- brought it back to TV rather than go the movie route.

For what it's worth, I'm still amazed at what has been done with the new Battlestar Galactica TV series. Despite a couple of "Hollywood-take-on-networking-technology" moments this season, it's the only must-watch show for me these days.

[Margalis]

Does anyone remember that movie The Great White Hype? 

Ha ha I liked that movie.

That said, I don't care if the underdog wins or loses, it just depends on the dog. I have no ill will towards Serenity, Joss just isn't my cup of tea.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, yeah.  Serenity is going to rack up 8x it's opening weekend so it can spawn a glorious franchise.  Episode 3 sucked, critics and box office be damned.  Blah blah blah.

Anyway, what made GWH that much funnier was the fact that *everyone* in the movie was a parody of someone in real life.  Not just Sam Jackson's character being a thinly-disguised Don King.  The entire thing was a spoof of the internal politics of pro boxing, with the names changed.  I can't recall his name at the moment, but Jeff Goldblum's character was based on a reporter who was widely believed to be on Don King's payroll.  A while after the movie came out, said reporter did in fact betray King by running off with the Norris brothers and promoting them himself.  True to life, neither came to any success afterward.

[schild]

I'll take The Fifth Element with a chaser of Event Horizon over a remastered showing of the ORIGINAL Star Wars Trilogy while getting my balls washed by the cast of Serenity. Joss Whedon is the diet coke of Sci-fi. That said, Lucas is the Pepsi One of sci-fi and WUA is just positively insane.

[Shockeye]

Pepsi Clear (or was it Pepsi Crystal?) of Sci-Fi, maybe... but not Pepsi One.

[schild]

Pepsi Clear (or was it Pepsi Crystal?) of Sci-Fi, maybe... but not Pepsi One.

See, Crystal Clear Pepsi was the only Pepsi product I ever liked. Pepsi One is trying so hard to be Diet Coke but it just can't be. It stands no chance. And let's not even talk about Pepsi with Vanilla. That just tastes like carpet cleaner.

[WindupAtheist]

Isn't it just great?  A bunch of anti-fanboys cry all over their blogs about their childhood being raped, to which Lucas responds with "Shut up interweb, you don't matter."  And after a $380 million domestic gross and the best reviews of any Star Wars movie for Episode 3, guess what?  He gets to be right!

George Lucas 1
Interweb Goons 0

Then Joss Whedon somehow bamboozles a major studio into coughing up $40 million to make a flick out of a failed television show with less relevance to the moviegoing public than friggin' Farscape.  "I have a bad feeling about this."  But never fear, for Joss has the internet on his side!  After all, it's an undeniable fact that out among the vastness of the web, there's a fanatical cult following for literally every goddamned thing ever made.  Surely if he can flog this grass-roots following hard enough, they'll do his marketing for him and the day will be saved.  One ass-kicking courtesy of a shitty Jodie Foster movie later, and the best than can be said is that it'll probably make back it's budget once DVD sales are tallied.  Oops.

George Lucas 1
Interweb Goons -1

Todays lesson, kids, is that "internet buzz" doesn't mean nearly as much as having a project whose concept doesn't make you wonder if the studio in question is being headed by a shaved chimp in a suit.  That you can't count on a scary cult of a few thousand smelly nerds to each buy 8000 tickets to your film.  And that if you're going to make a movie out of a television show, you should probably pick one that people have heard of.

Oh, and the former Don King lackey, on which Jeff Goldblum's Hype character was based, is Mike Marley.

[Surlyboi]

Event Horizon SUCKED.

Great lead up turns quickly into a shitty second-rate horror flick...in spaaaaaaaaace!

I'm as big a SW fanboy as there is and even I can admit the prequels blew large monkeys. Then again, I'm also so delusional as to think UO is anything other than a mouldering corpse being continually propped up by a bunch of grieving fans that want it to keep going. It's like somebody turned the "Weekend at Bernie's" movies into an MMO and its fanbase.

That said, me and the Surlygurl saw Serenity again tonight. She cried again when Wash and Book bought it, but we picked up on a few things we'd missed the first time, like River's "They never lay down" comment about the reavers.

[Samprimary]

I'm not allowed to think that the prequel sucked if the numbers don't agree with me?

[Margalis]

The quality of something is obviously not directly related to mass appeal. The fact is, the three Star Wars prequels did suck.

Obviously it made sense from a business standpoint to release them, and obviously some people were going to like them. That doesn't mean Star Wars is a great, any more than it means that Tommy Boy is better than Seven Samurai.

There are a lot of objective criteria by which SW utterly fails. Awful diaog, fixation with CGI, tons of plot holes, etc. But Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. Of course it was going to do well. The fact is, it could have been 10 times worse than it was and still do well. We all know that.

Just like StarCraft 2 could be a repacked Dark Reign 1 and do 10x better than Dark Reign 1 did. That's just the way things work.

Now from a business standpoint, I don't see how making a Firefly movie makes sense. You are right that everything under the sun has a cult following on the web. If the following was large, the show would have gotten ratings and not been cancelled.

How did this discussion turn into SW vs. Serenity anyway?

[Samwise]

I'm not allowed to think that the prequel sucked if the numbers don't agree with me?

No.  Popularity is directly proportional to quality.  Except when ninja elves are involved.

[stray]

Sorry to be rude, but who gives a fuck? REALLY. There's entirely too much thought put into it here. Love it, hate it. Whatever!

[edit] I'm just saying....

Because wasn't there like a fucking twenty five page thread on this? Really now. The cup is already overflowing!