Okay, now the tables have turned. Being completely new to Firefly, I now know what it was like for those of you who had never seen Buffy or Angel. It's a completely different world and concept from the "vampire" shows, but I found myself interested in wanting to see more of Firefly. I'll admit, like Michelle in her post, that I too am not a huge Sci-fi fan. The only show related to that particular genre that I am a huge fan of however, is the Terminator franchize (which curiously enough, Summer Glau was recently a part of).
I've read a lot of comments in particular about the character of Mal, and how he seems to be too masculine. I thought that too as I was watching the episode, but attributed it to the fact that he was the captain of the ship. That title alone demands a certain level of respect, so there automatically should be that sense of male pride/power. He is ultimately responsible for everyone travelling under his command and it wouldn't have worked at all if Mal was a push-over kind of guy, so I liked that strong masculinity aspect. On a personal note, it was refreshing to see Nathan Fillion play this kind of role because to be perfectly honest, he creeped the hell out of me as Caleb in the 7th season of Buffy.
Another shout-out to Michelle for posting the fun Firefly facts...it helped! I was also confused in the beginning as to why there were random bits of Chinese dialogue thrown into the English language, but the idea of China and America merged together into the Alliance, made perfect sense. Very creative on Whedon's part, along with the Chinese style fashion (loved Kaylee's outfit!)
I've been a fan of Summer Glau since she portrayed the Russian ballerina in Angel's Season 3 episode, "Waiting in the Wings," so I'm extremely interested to see how River Tam will evolve. Her character, having been manipulated into an attempted creation of a perfect assassin, and having her emotions removed, seems to be what Summer is really good at doing. Her character Cameron--in the short-lived Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles--seems to be another machine completely devoid of any human emotions, but truthfully, Cameron is sophisticated enough to have that capability. So I'm interested to see if that's the case with River.
Overall, there's a lot of themes running through this show: masculinity/femininity, Western vs. Future, political, economical, social, morals/ethics, you name it, this show probably has it. Moreover, someone commented that all of these characters who seem to fit into stereotypical portrayals, should not be judged at face-value, but rather be untrusted because of what is below the surface. This fact alone makes me want to continue watching to see how it all unfolds. Also, I thought the visual effects were really cool!
And finally just because I can say it: FOX SUCKS!! ;)
2 comments:
I actually found the character of Mal to not be as sterotypical as I would have expected from a Sci-Fi Western. I was intrigued by a lot of his actions, and felt like he was not too one way or the other, he was irrational and crazy, like when he told Simon Kaylee was dead, and he was undeniably sweet in the scenes with Kaylee where he was protesting being a nice guy.
There is a lot of dissonance in his character, he shoots the Marshall guy point blank essentially, but he tries incredibly hard to avoid a fire-fight with Patience.
I can already find myself frustrated that this show got canceled because I keep thinking these characters are very complex and need time to develop.
Fox does SUCK.
I found Mal's character to fit well with his position as the captain of a scavenger vessel. To trade in illegal materials salvaged from vessels and any other freelance work takes some balls, and the sarcasm that we see from Mal's character emerges from this wild frontier lifestyle. Its hard for me to imagine going from job to job working on a vessel like the Serenity for a significant amount of time, with very little sense of security and ability to "settle down." Mal's character is hard and untamed, just like the lifestyle that comes with his profession.
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