Dagger75 said:
Did everyone in the theater gasp when Wash died? I was in packed theater for the sneak preview there were gasps then dead silence. I was hoping the movie would rewind and show Wash ducking for cover. It was hard watching the movie a second time knowing what was going to happen. Rough stuff, Joss may be a bastard but I loved it.
Holy crap, was I completely stunned. I think I stopped breathing for the next few minutes, and it still hasn't sunk in. Hated it, but I loved it.
And I can say that it certainly filled its purpose- for the next 20 minutes, I really didn't have any idea who was going to get it next. I almost thought Joss was going to kill the whole damn crew, because the tension was ratcheted so high afterwards.
It was so tense in the theater (which didn't have too many people in it at the time, so there wasn't a mob shared emotion thingy going on), that when River popped her head in on Simon and Kaylee at the end- a funny moment to be sure, but not hysterical- the audience broke into outrageous fits of laughter. I got the sense that they were laughing not so much at the scene itself, but as a release from all the tension and trauma that the end of the movie had wrought, especially Wash's death. Powerful stuff.
I think Book used to be and Operative of Parliment before he became a sheppard.
I didn't get that at first, until I saw some other people suggest it, and now I have to agree with the assessment. It certainly fits.
I think he was probably an Operative, but his sense of remorse over the means he used got to him and he retired. Then he became a sheperd so that he could continue his mission (that he still wholeheartedly, possibly even fanatically) believed in- the Alliance at its core- but in a different manner. Not through violence, but through peace.
Of course, when he joined up with Serenity, he came to a realization like the Operative in this movie, that life on the Rim isn't exactly like the Alliance would have you believe. Hence his "crisis of conscience" in the pilot episode- "I think I got on the wrong ship."
Yes, I am a believer that he, too, was once an operative.
Speaking of whom, wow. What an awesome villain. Great performance, memorable villain. I only wish he'd had a name other than "Operative", because every time I saw him, I was thinking "who the ???? is he?"