Super SPOILER FILLED Serenity thread

[Rel]

Our plans for last night fell through but we already had Samantha the Red sleeping over at my mom's house. So I took my wife to see Serenity. My second viewing and her first.

I very much enjoyed seeing it a second time and noticed a couple things I hadn't on the first viewing. Probably the most significant was how, when they land on Miranda and discover the dead people, there is this circling camera shot that ends with Jayne saying something like, "Let's get outta here. Everything is dead here anyway." But as he says the last line, the camera comes to rest on Wash.

My wife hadn't seen any of the series but she's heard me talk about the episodes that I have seen. She liked it and now wants to watch the series. Her only negative comment was, "Do they always talk like that?"

Lastly I'm afraid to report that the theatre was probably less than half full and Serenity was showing on only one screen out of 20. I'm guessing it will be pulled by next week or the week after.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

River is a munchkin!

Let's see, she took the major enemy disad, the emotional wreck disad, the psychological programming disad, and a couple uncontrolled ability disads in order to get more combat skill than everyone else in the group put together and be able to pick up any new skill she wants in a heartbeat. And she used the psionics rules.

Munchkin? Every box on the checklist is filled in.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Miranda couldn't be Earth because a) Earth is in a whole 'nother solar system and b) Earth got used up. No more natural resources. There may be a few people left, but in the 500 years since the big exodus, they probably died off.

What kind of nonsense is that? In the intro, they said that earth had too much population to be able to sustain it so they left. Maybe there's more in the series, but the concept of running out of natural resources entirely doesn't make any sense and the contention that everyone would have died off in 500 years because there wasn't anything left makes even less sense. Even if we assume that earth (and all minable planets in the solar system) were entirely stripped of all metals and all fossil fuels were consumed (not that anyone in Serenity seemed to be using fossil fuels), and all the farmland was paved over (though obviously there was still enough to lay up stores of food for the journey to the new solar system so this was unlikely) and all the trees cut down, people have managed to survive for millenia without metal, land we would consider arable, or fossil fuels. Not that they'd have to. Surely, the people who left during the great exodus didn't take all of their stuff with them and left houses and vehicles that contained metal behind them. And, obviously, they were taking up a lot of space on the planet, so, after they left, there would have been land that could have been converted to agriculture or other uses.

It's quite likely that life would be very different for anyone left behind after the exodus than before it and it's even very possible that the society would have disintegrated in the absence of so many people, but it's highly unlikely that everyone would have died because the planet was "used up." Earth is a planet not a roll of toilet paper and planets don't get used up in that sense.

 

[Fast Learner]

Well... there are scenarios where a low-tech environment would not allow for the survival of people on Earth.

1. Poisoning the atmosphere

2. Burning away the oxygen in the atmosphere

3. Complete or near-complete destruction of the ozone layer.

4. Heavy-metal poisoning of the water.

I'm sure there are many more.

There's not doubt that humans are incredibly adaptable, and can survive in amazing situations, but they do have to breathe, they do have to drink water, and they can't survive even reasonably-short-term exposure to unfilitered solar radiation. Without a high-tech basis (if the infrastructure required leaves the planet), you really can't get around those things.

The planet would still exist, but its ability to sustain human life could well be "used up" for the foreseeable future.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Probably the most significant was how, when they land on Miranda and discover the dead people, there is this circling camera shot that ends with Jayne saying something like, "Let's get outta here. Everything is dead here anyway." But as he says the last line, the camera comes to rest on Wash.

He says "These people are all dead for no reason." And I agree that, on second viewing, it's very ominous foreshadowing.

Lastly I'm afraid to report that the theatre was probably less than half full and Serenity was showing on only one screen out of 20. I'm guessing it will be pulled by next week or the week after.

It has been scaled back in US theatres, by about 1700 screens (or down to 1700, I can't remember which) but from all reports, that seems to be a normal dropoff. It's doing very well overseas, and Joss had some wonderful things to say about Serenity and its fans a couple of days ago on his blog.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

True, but I don't think any of those are reasonable interpretations of "used up." They sound more like massive environmental catastrophes.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that all technological infrastructure could or would leave the planet. Sure, you could build colony ships, but people would need somewhere safe to live while they built them and facilities to manufacture the ships, etc. Some of that could be taken with them, but I think a lot of it would have to be left behind.

Well... there are scenarios where a low-tech environment would not allow for the survival of people on Earth.

1. Poisoning the atmosphere

2. Burning away the oxygen in the atmosphere

3. Complete or near-complete destruction of the ozone layer.

4. Heavy-metal poisoning of the water.

I'm sure there are many more.

There's not doubt that humans are incredibly adaptable, and can survive in amazing situations, but they do have to breathe, they do have to drink water, and they can't survive even reasonably-short-term exposure to unfilitered solar radiation. Without a high-tech basis (if the infrastructure required leaves the planet), you really can't get around those things.

The planet would still exist, but its ability to sustain human life could well be "used up" for the foreseeable future.

 

[Rel]

True, but I don't think any of those are reasonable interpretations of "used up." They sound more like massive environmental catastrophes.

Given the terraforming technology we know them to have at the time they departed earth, I find it very difficult to imagine any environmental catastrophe that could not be dealt with on Earth. I find it far more likely that population pressures were getting to the point where overcrowding was reducing the quality of life below an acceptable level.

I think of this as analagous to Larry Niven's "Known Space" series where those who stayed on Earth were limited in the number of children they could have unless they had incredibly good genes (like Carlos Wu) or unless they won the right in the Birthright Lotteries. The Earth government became somewhat oppressive and people spread to the rest of the solar system (mostly The Belt) and eventually to other planets where they could live life with less government control.

This is precisely the attitude that the frontier planets of the Serenity 'verse seem to have. And we all know that a sparcely populated, less industrialized, locally governed society will attempt to buck the control of a heavily populated, more industrialized, centrally governed society. The North won in Firefly too.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Given the terraforming technology we know them to have at the time they departed earth, I find it very difficult to imagine any environmental catastrophe that could not be dealt with on Earth. I find it far more likely that population pressures were getting to the point where overcrowding was reducing the quality of life below an acceptable level.

I think there was more than just using up resources going on. The shadow play in "Heart of Gold" showed flames and things coming from the planet, and I got the impression that there was probably some kind of climactic battle/warfare that was going on and people were forced to flee.

The "used up" theory offered forth in the beginning of the movie, after all, is Alliance whitewashing, so read into it what you will.

 

[River Tam]

As Mal always says, "Half of writing history is hiding the truth."

And I am not a munchkin.

 

[Vigilance]

Killing Walsh shouldn't have been quite so unexpected. He did the same thing to Doyle at the end of the first season of Angel and for much the same reasons. Though it made Walsh's death no less, shocking, effective or sad.

The actor who played Doyle (and who Joss knew from his time on Roseanne) was written out in Episode 9 because the actor was a heroin addict and had become unreliable.

Regrettably the actor died of an overdose.

Chuck