Early in the episode "Objects in Space" River is wandering the decks of Serenity. We eventually (on the ssecond view at least) figure out that we are experiencing the crew and the ship through River's altered and enhanced perceptions. After seeing each character and hearing a private thought from each of them, River finds herself in the main hold. She perceives a stick sitting on the deck, odd. The camera angle shifts and we see that the deck is covered in autumn leaves, even more odd. If we hadn't picked up the weirdness of the sequence before this moment, we certainly know something is up now. River says "It's just an object; it's not what it seems." We then see that the stick isn't actually a stick, but is actually one of Jayne's (very large) handguns.
The visual of the scene made me laugh a little and remember back to when I was a kid and my mother wouldn't let me have toy guns. Naturally, everything that I could find that had a 90-degree angle turned into a gun. Even sticks; especially sticks. If the stick was too straight for a gun then it was a sword. I imagine that this is a somewhat common experience for little boys everywhere, and is thus immensely amusing when River's imagination sees a stick in the place of a gun. This is something that Whedon has constantly given us, we see something and attach a meaning to it. He strips it down, reverses the meaning and throws it back at us to react to. I only expect him to continue to doing brilliant things. Excuse me while I go and watch Serenity again.
3 comments:
This was such a re-watchable episode and I'm so glad you picked up on it. Every little line, angle and movement, each time you watch it, comes at you anew, just like River becoming aware of her surroundings in the episode.
So right on about the sticks as guns and swords, I grew up in a house like that and my brother's both turned in to Army Rangers, so much for no guns :)
I noticed Whedon present a challenge of perception such as this a great deal in every episode - I just finished watching the entire series.
Also, something I noticed when rewatching the episode: the only people who are honest in their thought and whose actions coincide with these thoughts are Wash and Zoe. The next closest is Capt Mal. What surprised me was how very far Shepherd Book's thoughts were from his words; it opens up an entirely new depth to his character that is hinted at in other episodes that I wish I could have seen developed more.
Yeah--Shepherd Book's "thoughts" (if that's what they truly were) are all kinds of disturbing.
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