Hello all. My first post in these threads although I’ve enjoyed reading them all.
This is also my fave, up there with ‘Out of Gas’. I also really enjoyed the commentary. I agree Joss verges on the pretentious but it really added to my appreciation.
I’d also like to say thanks to you all. I bought the Firefly DVDs on the back of people’s recommendations on the Dope and it was certainly well worth it. The shows haven’t aired on TV over in the UK yet (as far as I know) so I feel like I’m a member of a secret club - any other non-US Browncoats out there?
On another note I’ve managed to con my way into a press screening of Serenity which should be happening in a week or two.
I didn’t think the commentary was pretentious (although I can understand that view), it is just that that is really how his thought process worked. He knows how to use things from his past. He writes from viewpoints, not from action sequences.
(And I, too, went out and read Nausea just because of the commentary. It was interesting, but, to my older female eyes, seemed very much a young man’s type of book. And the narrator of the book had red hair–I wonder if that is something else that made it appeal to Joss.)
In watching this episode this weekend, I noticed for the first time that all the interactions in the teaser are about physical relationships–Simon and Kaylee are clearly flirting, with her feet in his lap and his story containing nudity; Jayne and Book are talking about sex (or lack of); Mal and Inara, well, you can cut the attraction with a knife; and Wash and Zoe are getting it on. I wonder if we can maybe contrast that with Kaylee and the ship–it has a physical element, highlighted by her feet and her touching of it.
I missed connecting the No Touching Guns line, and how River solved this problem without touching guns. Thanks! (And there is the touching again–she shouldn’t have a physical relationship with guns, but rather with the ship–to the point where she finds it easy to imagine being one with it.)
Did anyone else notice that the planet that Serenity flies over at the beginning has roughly the same swirly color pattern as the ball that Kaylee and River are playing jacks with at the end? I thought that was a nice touch.
Given how she suddenly wakes up when Early approaches, it seems possible to me that she’s actually listening through the group immediately above and paying attention to Jubal on the hull beyond. She does pretty much disappear at that point, after all.
It’s from the blooper reel (can be viewed here). At the beginning of the show, when the camera approaches the ship and flies through all the wiring and ductwork, the editors inserted a few seconds of the Falcon diving into the Death Star from Return of the Jedi. Pretty funny, partly because it takes a few moments to register the transition and realize what you’re looking at.
I didn’t notice it at first, but it’s mentioned in the commentary. After that, it pretty much jumps out and smacks you in the face…
As others have said, the commentary is very much worth listening to. I’m not sure that pretentious is the right word to describe it. I think there are a couple of places where Joss is a bit too self-congratulatory. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to hear about the sources for ideas that are brought to life in the ep and the degree of intent to the structure and content of the episode. It doesn’t feel deliberately constructed to me, but the commentary lets you know how well thought out it is. So, I’m thinking he earned the right to be proud of his work, but sometimes the way he expresses his pride edges toward (over?) the line to bragging.
Cervaise, I think you’re right about River listening through the group. Or maybe she’s listening to both the group and Early. Once she starts to talk to Early, she goes back and forth between him (and Simon) and the rest of the crew, giving you the sense that she’s comprehending all the pieces of the puzzle at once. Guess I’ll have to go back and re-watch with this in mind. (Such a sacrifice! :D)
Was this the episode where he got up, because of all the noise, we all presume he was going to see what all the fuss was about. Instead, he slammed closed the door. :smack:
Jayne might have saved the day, had he known. OTOH, River had access to the ship’s intercom, and she could have woken up Jayne had she wanted to. But Jayne is too unpredictible, so River let him sleep.
I still think those two are kinda sweet on each other.
I thought this was a rather weak episode. I don’t know what about it makes me rate it poorly–I think it’s the sum of the parts. I didn’t like Jubal’s character (and not just because he was “bad”), the whole “is River part of the ship?” thing was unnecessary. Give me something like the pilot, “Out of Gas,” “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” or even “Heart of Gold” over this.
I’m curious, easy e. What was it you didn’t like about Jubal? What would you have done instead of the “River is part of the ship” angle? Just wondering (he’s probably my favorite of the bad guys in Firefly and I really liked the mind games that River played with him - and the crew).
Also, I have to say, when the actor who played Early explained to Kaylee all the “unseemly uses he could use her body for” was pretty awesome. Sick, sick, sick. But very well done. He had me cringing in the corner, right along with Kaylee. This guy is truly evil!. I love it!
The slick part is that you can tell he doesn’t really care. He’s not interested in Kaylee at all. But he knows what will get her to cooperate, and he’s completely dispassionate about scaring the daylights out of Kaylee. I’m pretty sure his objective, which he achieved perfectly, was to get her to submit quietly, without waking the entire ship with screams.
I think if he could have, he would have spirited River out of there so silently that the crew would wake up the next morning to find her simply gone, with no trace of a struggle or any sign that an intruder had been there.
Love this episode, probably my favorite after “Out of Gas.” Most of my favorite moments have been mentioned already, although I have to again draw attention to Early’s “Little man looooooooved fire” line, which is the funniest moment in Firefly, bar none.
I didn’t think Joss’s commentary was pretentious at all. He’s certainly speaking from a more academic perspective than you usually find in DVD commentary, but he was never ostentatious or self-satisfied about it. On the contrary- he seemed perfectly aware that what he was saying could be construed as “pretentious” by some, and was constantly trying to offset that perception with his usual array of wry banter and self-deprecating jokes.
I don’t know much about philosophy in general, but I thought his commentary was very effective in making the episode more than just an extremely well-told story with vividly drawn characters. There was never a moment where I thought, “Oh, he’s just saying that because it vaguely fits, in retrospect.” Instead, as in his commentary for the similarly carefully-crafted Buffy episode, “The Body,” his comments made me aware of the little details and big filmic devices that were purposely placed to suit his thematic purpose.
