Regarding Joss hating his characters, do you think that:
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Tolkein hated Frodo?
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Alexandre Dumas hated his Musketeers?
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J.K. Rowling hates Harry Potter?
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Lemony Snicket hates the Baudelaire orphans?
CG, I was apparantly unclear in my previous post, so I will attempt again.
Wash’s death was not tacked on melodrama, nor was it pure shock value. Up until that point in the movie, I was enjoying it, but was thoroughly convinced that the good guys would win because…well…they’re good. But when Wash died, the whole movie became much more dramatic, much more real. At that point, I knew that they all could die, that Joss would kill all of them, if it was what his story needed.
That safety net that I had built for myself about them winning in the end was suddenly yanked away, and that gave much more impact to the battle at the end than it would have had without his death. It showed that, ultimately, Joss was going to tell his story, the way he wanted to tell it, and that in his story, people die. As an aspiring writer, I respect that, and I wonder if I would have had the balls to write off as popular a character as Wash simply to tell my story. I’d like to say I would…but, as the Bosstones say, “Never had to, I better knock on wood…”
There is nothing to “complete” because the movie isn’t an exact continuation of the series. Problem solved.
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Shinichiro Watanabe hates Spike Spiegal?
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Dickens hated Sydney Carton?
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that Gamera has never created a character and worked them through a major story or series of stories.
I’m just going to wait untill September and avoid spoilers.
Meanwhile, I wonder if Thomas Hardy hated Tess…
Douglas Adams hated Arthur Dent?
God hated Esau? (oh…er…wait a minute…)
It’s called drama. Bad things happen to the protagonists, otherwise we have no plot; we have three guys sitting around an underground lair cracking Star Wars jokes.
For you, maybe, but my neuroses are persistent cusses. 
I think I was psychologically scarred as a child by missing exactly one of the Kenner ‘Super Powers’ toy line. So close to complete, and yet so far.
Orual - there’s nothing wrong with a character suffering, in principle. There’s nothing wrong with a character dying, especially if the story’s done. It can be done badly, though, and maiming or snuffing a comic relief character is a good example of doing it badly, in my view.
Another example of gratuitous Joss painmongering - about mid-Season on Angel S5, Fred and Wes get back together. They have about… what? One? Two? episodes, before
Fred is irrevocably killed by Illyria. It’s as if Joss put them back together JUST to emotionally wreck Wesley. It’s not organic. It doesn’t mesh or flow. It smacks of him sensing that the series was “too happy” and wanting to twist an emotional knife in the gut of the audience. I hate that.
Why the hell should a comic relief character be sacrosanct? That’s just stupid, flat out stupid. You want to up the drama? You kill a well-liked, popular character at an unexpected moment, thus putting EVERYONE in danger. That’s GOOD writing.
Holy heck. Epiphany. I can put a name to my pain, and it is Batman… er, “Melodrama for Melodrama’s sake.”
You folks keep amusingly suggesting that it’s just drama - but that’s not really true. Gone With the Wind has flow. It meshes. The plot develops organically. You feel for the characters, and they go through some rough stuff. At no point do you think the author said “Hm, I think I need to give the audience an emotional punch in the gut.”
When someone sets out to give ME an emotional punch in the gut, I begin to dislike that person.
Well, I don’t know why you think the scene doesn’t mesh in Serenity, It’s a prefectly organic result of the situation.
As for comic relief characters getting a free pass from pain - I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s good storytelling to insulate some of your main characters in that way.
Actually, it’s the most trite, obvious, oldest trick in the book. It’s hack writing. A better writer would find ways to increase the level of drama without resorting to cheap, obvious tricks.
Don’t exaggerate my position. I didn’t suggest giving them a ‘free pass from pain’.
It’s hack writing if the death is a SHOCK type death that comes out of nowhere. None of the deaths in Serenity are like that at all.
Watch the spoilers, spec. :rolleyes:
I am watching the spoilers. It’s not like I listed the six people who died, or brought up Mal’s fling with Kaylee.
“Oh, God! Not my leg! Please, no! Not my leg!!! NOOOOO!!!”?
Melanie’s childbirth?
The burning of the depot?
Rhett’s leaving Scarlett on the road with a newborn, a sick mother, a senseless ninny, a dying horse and no food?
The burnt out shell of 12 Oaks?
Scarlett’s first view of her dead mother - dead only hours before she finally made it back home?
The madman that is Mr. O’Hara?
“As God as my witness…I’ll never be hungry again!” from our proud, proud Scarlett?
Mr. O’Hara’s death?
Scarlett’s betrayal of her sister?
The near rape in the shantytown?
The death of Frank?
Melanie’s death?
Really, I could go on…suckerpuch after suckerpunch of beautiful, angsty, over-the-top melodrama. And it all works beautifully.
Wait, wait. Was it a random suckerpunch or was it obvious and old? How can it be both?
Watch the movie, Gam :rolleyes:
If you start with the question “How can we increase the drama?” It’s an obvious solution.
If you carry through with the idea in such a way that demonstrates a poor job of thinking it through, it’s “random”, or if you prefer, a “whim.”
Refraining from spoilers in this thread is a matter of respect for other people’s desire not to be spoiled.
For me to buckle and watch the movie just because you folks seem to want me to, has nothing to do with respect. My skipping the movie affects you not one whit.