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[Zone]

If you have not seen this movie there are spoilers below you may want to skip...

I think we discussed this movie all ready but as one of da guyz has become recently obsessed I have seen it a couple of times  in the past month and want to vent some of my critiques here.

Overall there were some good characters, sadly not as fleshed out as would have been possible in a three year run on tv but good none the less.  Malcolm and Wash are by far the most memorable. Zoe and Jayne and to a lesser extent Kaylee are decent support - Jayne has some good lines too.  But then I've always noticed and liked that actor. Just as I've always liked Ron Glass, but Book was always sadly underdeveloped, and the doctor was just a meat puppet, and our McGuffin, River was still not as interesting as she should have been.

The plot was no better or worse than one of the tv episodes, I find it hard to believe that the only reason they wanted to stop Simon and River, however, was that she knew about a dead planet.  The other nonsensical plot device was Wash's death.  As a writer I strongly disapprove of this kind of audience chain jerking.  Book's death was logical and reasonable.  In story it worked. There was a reason for it.  Wash's death was just an emotianal goose that did not further the story and was simply a poor excuse for high drama.  He was in fact a necessary foil for Mal and more importantly Zoe.

Adam Baldwin asked an aquaintence of ours if anyone ever noticed that Jayne had a thing for Kaylee.  Did you?  The only evidence I ever saw of anything like that was in the original tv movie Serenity when she got shot.  If he was playing Jayne like he had a thing for Kaylee, I'm guessing it was of the Middle School era type crush things...

[Gabriel]

Well, it's not like Jayne was much of a big thinker or mature indevidual. I think 8th Grade crush is about as deep as he would be able to get. Of course, I really never noticed an attraction. He seemed much more interested in Safron and the hooker he had in that unaired episode.

Gabriel

[kv]

Sadly, I've already had a long in-depth conversation with someone about whether or not Jayne had a crush on Kaylee.

Her stance was that if not for Simon being around, Jayne would have scored. *shudder*

But look at Jayne- most of his emotional level is grade school. And in the first episode, before you ever really knew anything about the characters, Kaylee is all into the doctor, and Jayne is teasing her like he's a jealous little kid.

Like Zone said, it also showed up in the show when Kaylee was shot.

Honestly, I think he has some sort of emotional attachment, although she doesn't return it (at least, not on the level that he does). So he has a crush on her, and she either doesn't know about it, or doesn't feel the same way, so she doesn't bring it up.

 That's my .02Y

  As for Walsh dying... I liked it. I know it was opposite of the story- it didn't blend with anything, and they spent the entire movie making him a major character, only to kill him in the last ten minutes. But too often I'm able to predict hollywood movie endings, especially for romcoms and horror movies, which are the literary equivalent of supermarket tabloids. (I mean, the guy and girl who look the best together will end up together. Even if one or both of them have a significant other- they either have to die or turn out to be jerks, so they can break up and the pretty couple can get together at the end) Wash dying was a shock to me- something that made me realize that maybe these characters weren't so immortal, and maybe they COULD die at any time. I kind of expected Book to die, especially with the lack of focus on him, but Wash catching it shook me up, and made the end of the movie that much more interesting.

At least for me. Of course, I loved the movie.

  -kv

[swirler]

yeah the wash thing bugged me i was just thinking baout that the other day
wash and kaylee are my two favorite characters, hands down
i see no reason to kill him off other than to get rid of the actor/character fromt he roster
which just sucks IMHO
and yeah the "only after the tams for this one thing" seemed like a stretch to me
im not saying i cant see that government hiding something like that, thats very believable
the thing that isnt believable is that things changed much because of it. sure maybe some people lost faith in the government, and a few more rebels started back up
but seriously, they can spin, deny or any number of things to that kinda stuff
and the public will go back to thinking their mundane thoughts
people would just forget about it or move on
i find it hard to believe it would change too much
i also find it hard to believe the guy who stalked them, and killed everyone he came in contact with would just be all buddy buddy and a changed man at the end

I did like the movie btw

im just saying, some stuff i dont buy

[Zone]

If you watch Serenity of DVD take a look at the deleted scenes. There's one that they should not have deleted that expounds on the hunter's 'change of heart.' It wasn't a change of heart so much as it was an acknowledgement of defeat.  He had lost - the first time he had I think - and the loss was a loss of everything he knew about himself, so that he asked Mal about how he could go on after he had lost all at Serenity Valley.

My complaint about killing Wash is that its bad story telling.  An author should always have a reason, a justification if you will, to bump off a major character and Wash was a hugely popular character.  The rule in Hollywood also extends to the comic relief - its not so funny when you kill them off.

[kv]

It might be bad storytelling (I don't agree with you there) but it was more like real life- it gave the feeling that anyone could die, and it made the end of the movie more exciting for me.

Kinda like finding out that someone major dies in a Harry Potter book, and you read the whole book on the edge of your seat, not really sure who is safe. I was a little shocked that Dumbledore bit it. More than a little- very shocked.

  -kv

[AJStarhiker]

Personally, I'm wondering what else is rattling around in River's brain.  I mean, the whole Miranda/Reaver thing can't be the only sensitive information she picked up while they were experimenting on her.

[Gabriel]

Well, for one, she probably knows all about the proccess involved in "creating" her and who else was in the program. The thing I really wanted to see was another "recruit" from River's program coming after her, or working as a spy, or something like that. I'm pretty sure that would have cropped up eventually. And you can bet your sweet bippy that whe knows all about Sheperd Book.

Gabriel

[Zone]

Yeah, there was so much hinting about Book in the series, it was a real cheese that we saw none of the payoff in the feature.

[Gabriel]

I'm sure Joss Wheadon wasn't pleased about it either. After all, you can't hit EVERY target in a 2 hour movie.

Gabriel

[Capt_North]

I liked the series, and the movie. It was kinda dissappointing to see characters like book and Wash died, but it gave the movie flavor and some realism.

And the alliance didnt send the operative after river simply because of Miranda, they did it because they didnt know what was in her head, and it could have been any number of dirty secrets that make that little mistake look like a dandilion in a field of 4 leaf clovers.

And as for spinning the whole situation, its not a complacent group of people, enless your counting the inner planets, but lotta worlds where the alliance doesnt do anything but watch the peoples farmsteads get burned down by bandits, and their own men. People hear of something like that and you've got some slight paranoia going, and if they wanna do some small project people could go "Hey, what bout that there one place?" and all heck could break loose. so it would be more "Ounce of prevention is worth a hundred times more a pound of cure" .... or something along those lines.

I've heard alot saying Joss really wasnt happy with the movie, to small of time to get out to much stuff, so he probally went with one of the biggest points, and the reason the crew was drawn together as it was, the tams and protecting them. It would have been awesome to learn more about book and other story points that were missed, but just not enough time for it.

And yes, i could totally see Jayne having a bit of a "Crush (Or at least a pitched tent in his jeans)" for kaylee, he did seem rather intent on hearing what she did in her "off time" when she was talking to the captian about simon. then again... if it had a female figure im sure it had his interist. Oh well.

[kv]

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people complain about Wash dying, but to be honest, I think it was a great plot device. I mean, people who watched the show might have liked Book, but anyone who only saw the movie (or didn't like Book to begin with) weren't going to care if he died.

Wash, on the other hand, was a main character. Like I said before, and I'll probably end up saying again, the first time you saw the movie, Wash's death was a shock. A big one, especially for fans of the show. And once Wash was dead, it opened up the possibility that any of the characters could die- and given the situation they were headed into, it's even likely they were going to die.

I thought it made the sacrifices they had made seem more real- rather than a bunch of off-screen friend deaths (like Patience showing up face-down for half a second in the movie- I guess she finally got hers), or even a minor character in the movie (like Book), Wash made people sad when he died.

  -kv

[Gabriel]

I have to admit, the crew really got it's hoop handed to them in that final battle. I HATE when you have the big, climactic battle in a movie and all of a sudden the aliens/mosnters/bad guys are being taken out left and right when one or two of them nearly killed everyone in the beginning of the film. This movie actually had the bad guys beating the drek out of the good guys and the good guys barely limping away from it. Nice.

Gabriel

[kv]

Yeah, I also really liked the Operative/Mal fight. I mean... I just really liked it. Mal, who spends all of his days with a pistol as his defense, was better at that, and the Operative, who killed people with a sword through the whole movie was better at that.

  -kv

[AJStarhiker]

Yeah, only reason Mal beat the Operative is 'cuz shrapnel damaged that nerve clust the Operative always went for.  Gave Mal the opportunity to get a good surprise attack in.