By “cheap tension-elevation”, do you refer to the feeling that anyone could die at any time, such that in the climactic scene, I was on the edge of my seat, and every bullet that hit a hero, every dart, every punch, felt to me as if it could be fatal?
Because that was tension-elevation, but it sure wasn’t cheap. He had to kill a major and loveable character to pay for it.
Daniel
Plus, put yourself into the gunner’s position. You’ve been following this ship for hours, not able to get a shot off. You’ve survived flying through the space battle, re-entry, and landing, and the ship is in your sights. What do you do?
Fire.
I’m certainly not gonna say that you should have found him compelling. The reason I did find him compelling is that he’s got one of my favorite motivations for a villain: he was a plausible zealot.
One of my favorite, and formative, political books is Isaiah Berlin’s The Crooked Timber of Humanity. He sets forward the argument that most of the twentieth century’s worst atrocities were atrocities commited in the name of utopia: of building a worker’s paradise, or of building a perfect Germany. If you have to break some eggs to make an omelette, the reasoning goes, then when you’re making the perfect omelette, there’s no limit to the number of eggs you can break.
It’s this belief in the perfect omelette that makes utopianists so deadly, so terrifying. And The Operative displayed such belief in spades.
It was his calm belief in utopia, and his willingness to kill to achieve it, that I found so fascinating. The fact that it’s rare to see a villain with this motivation made it all the more interesting to me.
Daniel
It’s only cheap if in the sequel they find a cure for a spike through the chest and he rejoins the crew. If he’s dead dead then it’s not cheap.
Cheap deaths are all the superheroes who make noble sacrifices only to be resurrected a few years later by companies who want more marketable characters back on the roster.
They were ruses to obtain the cooperation of the people. You don’t think Stalin, Lenin and Saddam believe that stuff do you?
I absolutely think Stalin and Lenin believed it. Without that belief they wouldn’t have been so dangerous. I can’t speak to Saddam.
Daniel
Moving to a new topic for a minnute, I realized last night why I’m having trouble with the new Kaylee. It’s not because she’s better looking with those few extra pounds (she’s beautiful either way), it’s because that really thin woman isn’t Kaylee, it’s that bitch Heidi. (OK, she wasn’t entirely a bitch. Still.)
–Cliffy
A happy ending? From Joss? “The King Of Pain?” 
Where have you been for the last 7 years? Joss doesn’t do happy. Joss does “Be thankful some of us made it” and “Go Down Fighting The Good Fight.”
Cliffy - I miss the old Kaylee, too. Curvier was better.
I thought the Operative was one of the most compelling movie villians since Darth Vader. And more interesting than Vader, by a healthy margin. It’s not just that he, per Daniel, is a True Believer. Most True Believers believe their devotion to the Cause washes their sins away, and makes them clean. But the Operative sees himself as he really is: he acknowledges that he’s a monster, and that there’s no place for him in the world without sin that he’s willing to kill for. But the whole purpose of his being is nonetheless to bring about that perfect world he won’t belong in.
That degree of moral clarity about himself that most True Believers lack is what gives his role a weird sort of integrity. That, and a great job by Chiwetel Ejiofor of portraying those aspects of the Operative’s character.
One of the things I like about Joss Whedon in general is his normal unwillingness to make his bad guys into one-dimensional cartoons. The Operative in the movie, Badger, Patience, Saffron, and even Niska in the series, are bad in interesting ways.
Dobson and Atherton Wing in the series are cartoonish in their badguyness, IMHO; I guess not every bad guy can be a real human being, even in Joss’ capable hands.
Looks like mentioning Stalin set off WWII ads below.
Wonder what would happen if I mention that I think NAPOLEON didn’t believe his own stuff, either.
I’ve repeatedly ranted on Joss’s tendency to tear down rather than build up. The only reason I stayed with Buffy and Angel was because when he tries to be funny, he’s VERY funny.
If it doesn’t float your boat, c’est la vie. But why would you possibly expect anything different from a movie he wrote? That’s like saying you love that Jack Kirby but can’t stand those crazy gadgets he draws. It’s what he does.
Although even then he pushes a little in the other direction. There’s one scene with Dobson from the pilot where he’s just done some terrible thing and someone hits him. When he falls, his wedding ring is very prominently in the shot. It’s just for a second, but it shows that there’s obviously more to Dobson than wthe exceedingly unpleasant things we’ve seen of him.
–Cliffy
So you’re not interested in any movie in which someone gets dumped, or someone loves another but is not loved back, or serial killers brutally murder people and dump their bodies in a river, or a galactic empire rules the known universe with an iron fist, or two lovers must hide from their love from their families, etc, etc…
Don’t be silly. Nobody would pay money to see a movie about that!
But it’s not, really. Yes, he seems to have some bizarre compulsion now and then to do it, but it’s not a usual thing. Look at the Buffy show. Buffy dies in season one, she gets better. Miss Calendar in Season Two - death serves the plot. Angel in Season Two - yeah, it’s all weepy and star-crossed lovery, but it’s been built up to. Foreshadowed. Season three was light on death for our heroes, as was Season four. Season Five - we get the Body - Ack. The worst example of Joss’s excesses kicking back in. And we get Buffy - a heroic, sacrificial death - and she gets better. I could go on…
Basically, the two big established character deaths that aren’t heroic sacrifice or plot-essential and that stick are Tara and Joyce. Tara’s was used as a springboard for the plot at least, but we’ll count it. Two in seven years.
And look at the Firefly TV show in comparison to the movie. Maybe there would have been deaths later, but it was decidedly lighter in tone, and the better for it. Gee, why would I expect a movie sequel to a TV show to have the same general tone?
Not what I said at all…
We just read the evidence in radically different ways. Whatever. But now you know, this is the way Whedon works, so don’t be surprised when it happens next time. Because it will.
–Cliffy
Except, Serenity does have a happy ending. The good guys win. Kaylee finally gets Simon. Inara is back on the ship. River is safe from the government, and maybe not insane anymore. Hard luck for Zoe, sure, but on balance, things worked out exceedingly well for the heroes. The happy ending is far more effective, because the heroes earned it, through hard sacrifice and suffering.
That aside, it’s trivially easy to disprove your basic thesis that audiences only want happy endings. You know what the highest grossing movie of all time is? Titanic. Tell me that one had a happy fucking ending.
Why do you think killing Wash was to “defy” the audience? Judging by this thread, the reaction to Wash’s death has been overwhelmingly positive. People are bummed, sure, but there have only been a few people who have objected to the manner of his death, and only you have objected to the death at all. Whedon’s reputation in this regard is well known, and despite that, his poularity continues to grow.
Also, why is countering the audience’s expectations a poor motivation? That’s the hallmark of a talented storyteller. Predictability is the death of drama.
Well, considering the extent to which Joss Whedon is actively engaged with his fanbase, it’s pretty stupid to think he does anything out of spite for the people responsible for giving him a career. They guy loves his fans. He’s also talked at length, both in print and in audio commentaries for his various shows, about his ideas of what makes good drama and how to tell an effective story. So, really, there’s quite a bit of evidence about his motivations, and most of it points at him being interested in storytelling and moving his audience emotionally.
I’ll echo what a previous poster said about Wash’s death being “cheap.” There was nothing cheap about it: he lost one of the most popular characters in the franchise. That’s pretty damned expensive. As to what he achieved, I think he scored a resounding emotional slam-dunk. Look at this thread! We’re on, what page eight? Discussing the death of someone who doesn’t technically exsist! For the last week, every now and then I still stop and think, “Fuck, I can’t believe Wash is dead.” I don’t remember the last character death that affected me this deeply, at least from a movie or TV show.
There’s nothing wrong with escapism, but if that’s all you want out of art, you are missing out on one of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition.
They don’t “only want”, they “prefer.” And it’s not like anyone went to see Titanic without being psychologically prepared for the - spoiler - big boat sinking at the end.
I don’t. I refused to draw a conclusion on the matter. You quoted my entire post, but you don’t seem to have read it.
And I’m not laying down the gospel from on high, here - just explaining why one shouldn’t be incredulous that another person is upset at laying down eight bucks to see the movie version of a rollicking scifi Western show they enjoyed, only to get jabbed in the eye with a fire poker.