Firefly and Serenity

Firefly and Serenity

Yey! Double feature! :D

I think I’m going to commit a deadly sin of the internet, and that is speak my mind about a show that almost everybody loves. Yes Firefly and its movie Serenity, but I think that someone has to raise the voice and say the truth.

So without sugar coating as always let’s take a look on this show that people think is more than good.

I never got why this show is popular I mean is poorly written the characters aren’t that great and highly interchangeable because none of them is quite unique, and the plot can’t find itself no matter how much time you are willing to give it.

I remember when it was new I was a big fan of Buffy and Angel, loved the world, the mythology the interactions, how everybody evolved, so I thought that  it was going to be great a Sci Fi show that had a western vibe (Because that are the sci fi stories, pretty much westerns) But I had a big disappointment when I saw this show, it was all over the place, the characters made no sense and the main story was forgotten after the first 10 minutes of the pilot.

But I thought that I might didn’t remember it as well as I believed so I watched again on netflix and came to the conclusion that is as bad as I remember.

But you might say “Is a great show” well not for me, and here is a dissection to make my point.

First let’s start with the characters, what is wrong with them? Well to start they are way too many you have the Captain, his second in command, the pilot, the gunner, the priest, the doctor, the doctor’s sister, the mechanic and the space whore. So you have a main cast of 9 on the first freaking episode, what do they want? Apparently they are smugglers and are paid to move the Doctor’s sister away from the evil government  (they are just evil) but as smugglers their job is to move and sell merchandise not to steal it and what do you see in episode 2? The crew stealing a train because some guy paid them for that, that is not smugglers that is pirates so they didn’t had it that clear and needed Ser Davos to clear it. Also, the traits of the characters are repetitive like Jayne and Zoë are basically the same character, one is more comedic than the other but in essence are the same, both are the tough guy good for fighting, then we have Mal, Wash and Jayne those three are a comic relief and OK in a core cast of 9 you can have it but you need to let it develop with time, that makes the whole plot look silly and you miss the plot also the interactions between Kaylee and Simon are more comedy. One thing it never sounded right to me was the space whore (things by its name, so back off) yes she was an expensive prostitute, but a prostitute at the end, and she was supposed to be the most important member of the crew for being a diplomat, give me a break. In the era of the cowboys and all that western vibe, prostitutes where the lowest of the food chain, below horses and Mexicans and you want to make me believe that she is going to give them diplomatic powers? Pfff!! Also the relationships on the ship are forced like hell, if that were a copper pipe it would broke years ago. Look at Buffy who was the main cast, Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow, and Xander and Willow are just support characters you can center on Buffy to learn about her, and then get involved with the rest and eventually add more characters, that’s how you start a series, not just vomiting all the characters you want to put there from beginning. I mean even in the series The 100 where is supposed to be 100 people you center in a main cast of 5 and then they give you a little more taking out some and adding others, you know, keep it fresh.

Other problem is the narrative. OK you have the hole cast and crew of Gone with the Wind and you want to force feed me the back story and traits of each character as fast as you can so you can still have something to call an episode? That is just speeding up the process shamelessly the worst is that you don’t have the time to care for any of the characters because it was like the old joke of a cream pie to the face they throw at you all the story they can but is just fluff and no substance so you watch them and don’t care for them. Another problem with the narrative is the sequence of the episodes and that is that there is none, as long you watch the first episode first you can watch the rest in any order, there is no continuity on the episodes that there actually should be because in one Inara say that she is leaving the ship and the next she is still there, so I suppose she is not ready to go? She changed her mind? Anyway.

The plot, Ah the plot, or better said the lack of it, why do I say the lack of it you say? Well you need a big picture to thread across the individual episodes that will give you a reason to follow the series week after week. Something like the big evil to conquer of escape from an important mission, anything, and you may say “They have to hide from the government” no shit Sherlock! But that is a consequence, or a tool for an end, not a plot. There is people looking for River but you never feel it like a problem is just there and that’s it. Then you have all the crew, that ton of people that is on that ship, everyone is a “mystery” why are they there? Like the priest, he is one useless passenger on the ship and it looks that there is no reason why they keep him onboard, unless he is paying rent there is no need of him.

The universe, here is a great problem because you are dropped into a new universe with their own rules and everything, which I have no problem with but then there is a lot of exposition about everything, and again is force feeding their believes and systems, the writers don’t let the universe to unravel by itself, and the problem is that they don’t deliver the key points of the universe, they give you colour and folklore so you have an impression of what it is but again no substance, is like the Shan Yu stuff that is mention in one episode, that would be more interesting if we had known the character that mentioned a little more no just a few minutes for a couple of episodes, I need to learn more of the character to make me an idea of what is happening inside his/her head but by saying that and then giving exposition about who was Shan Yu, something that pretty much everybody on the show should know at least a little. Another big problem for me is that the Chinese is a culture so important in that universe that people speaks the language, and read those devil scratches they call writing when actually humanity tends to the easiest, that’s why English is so popular, I mean not even the Chinese like Chinese, so to make it a universal thing is too farfetched for me. Other big, big problem for me was that there was no aliens, is way to selfish to think there are no alien life forms in the universe, but here no, everybody are humans and everybody speaks Chinese. The feeling of western is so forced that it doesn’t feel like it, I mean one episode they rob a train, other they rob a bank, other they go “Unforgiven/Magnificent seven” and defend a whorehouse, the show forced too much the western thing that lost it, why? Because they should be more like Pirates of the Caribbean, because that was more suited to the smuggler thing, they are evading the government trading goods of doubtful precedence and with that the show could have been cheaper because the ship would have been a part of everything but no they forced the western thing and ended nowhere.

The tone of the characters is well away from what they wanted to what they are, they tried to make the antiheros and be like taken from an early ‘90s comic book but ended with a bunch of boy scouts that they say they are mean and hard but they are a bunch of do goodies softies that are almost from a Saturday morning cartoon. You want antihero you go all the way, with the mentality of that’s my goal and fuck everything in my way.

There is like the headhunter of the Government but is so disappointing one would expect a Grammaton cleric from equilibrium a man hard that projects power just by stand in front of you or a rabid monster for the seek and destroy only purpose, or a guy that looks normal but deep inside you feel he has something wrong, but no we get this out of shape guy that talks like he is reading his lines without payment and he would prefer to be somewhere else.

So in short, there are too many characters, the universe has more holes than a Swiss cheese there isn’t enough plot to sustain a series, I don’t care for the characters, tries too hard to be something, nothing develops not the plot, or the characters or the universe, so is a mediocre first try of a sketch.

But then why people love it so much, well most of the people that like it are writers or nerds that want to be writers, the characters every one of them are the best in what they do, and a stock character of some sort of RPG so people wants to be them because they are the “good guys” but also some kind of antiheros that they are not so people want to think is a good show or at least original, which is not.

And the other part, the writers they see the story and they fill the gaps with their own ideas, the characters that we don’t know anything about they create the backstory on their heads, and also create the whole thing that could have happened in the future, but that doesn’t make a great show, that makes a good first bible of a show to get interested people and get investors.

The movie is no better, first by some reason we learn that River is the best fighter in the universe because the government made her that way, thing that could have been useful in the show, then she needs to go to a planet and there you learn that the government is more evil and experimented on people, and River was there and all the planet died or turned into Reavers (I’ll go back to the Reavers in a moment) wait a second, River was taken when she was little because she had ESPN or something and they trained her and experimented on her but, How did she end in that planet? How she survived? How the government took her again? If the Reavers are so wild and angry why they didn’t killed each other? How the Reavers create a society? How does that society works? Why they didn’t killed the other half of the population that where sleep? If only where a colony that went crazy why the government didn’t vaporized the Ravers? If the Reavers are like animals, how do they manage to make the ships fly and keep formations and feed the fuel and keep them working?

The Reavers are a great part on Firefly and Serenity because they are like the random factor, the chaos but they are just a cameo on the series and you never have a good glimpse on them, they are again the children cartoon mean guy, you never see what’s beyond that because there isn’t they are just crazy psychos. In borderlands they handled way better, because Psychos are just crazy people that run and kill people they don’t fly ships or have a big pack they are loners because they would kill each other, and in Red Faction: Guerrilla the idea of the crazy people around is there but they are not actually crazy that’s just a screen to make the government leave them alone, they are they brain of the resistance, scientists against the government.

So the main goal of Serenity is to broadcast a video of the planet saying that the government created the Reavers and killed people, but most of the people already know that the government is evil and other don’t even care so is a worthless plan that will have no repercussions on the story.

Well that was long but if you made it this far well congrats :P

 

So I finished, send the hate troops