I always thought his threat of rape was a scare tactic; just something to keep her from squealing. He seemed to be more honorable than that.
What I would have liked to have known was what became of Inara and Malcolm’s relationship. It seemed like there was a lot of misguided “tension” between them.
Kaylee, not Callie. And I didn’t say he was a good guy, I said he was cool, same way Darth Vader was cool. Jubal was an awesome villain, and I don’t see Whedon not making use of such an interesting and entertaining character again.
And I have no doubt that Jubal would have raped Kaylee if he had felt it was necessary to complete his job. One of the things that was interesting about him was that he didn’t seem to be interested in needless cruelty, but I got the impression that if he felt that cruelty was needed, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t be willing to do.
Jubal was way cool, but I’d be mildly surprised if, even under the dream scenario (movie rules, show’s reformed), he shows back up. His death, slow and cold and alone in space, is just too fitting for the character.
I got the impression that he WAS interested in needless cruelty, but that he didn’t like to admit that about himself; he started working as a bounty hunter so that he could justify his cruelty more often. i definitely think he would’ve carried through on any threat he made.
Daniel
I just got hooked on Firefly courtesy of the DVD boxed set on loan from a friend, and I just gotta say: WOW!
I couldn’t say before that I was a Joss Whedon fan, even though I’d heard good things about Buffy and Angel from others whose opinions I respected.
The characters just make this such an outstanding series that I think the FOX executives that pulled the plug on it should be lobotomized via anal probe with laser attachment! Grr! Argh!
Even though I acknowledge that characters and story make any entertainment worth spit (as opposed to just eye-candy special effects), I’d still like to know a bit more about the Firefly universe, such as:
1. Is there only one star system with many terraformed planets and moons, or is there actually multiple star systems? If there are many, then…
2. What are the interstellar drive’s like? Since none have been mentioned, it kind of leads me to believe that Firefly takes place in one star system.
3. What happened to “Earth-that-was?” Meteor? Environmental contamination leading to the collapse of the ecosphere? Nuclear War?
4. What’s the historical/political backstory behind the Alliance and the “Independents”?
I’m assuming that such information would probably have come out in subsequent episodes and seasons, but if anyone has hard info (as opposed to speculation, however intelligent), please feel free to share.
Firefly
To the best damned Show-That-Was…
Another convert! Eeexcellent!
Unknown. The voiceover at the beginning of the show changed a few times in its run: the original voiceover seemed to state that they had only colonized one star system. However, a later voiceover said they colonized “a galaxy of Earths,” which implies hundreds of colonies, at least, which would be unlikely to fit into one solar system. I prefer to think that they’ve colonized dozens of solar systems, because that’s… well, just cooler, I guess. Besides, one solar system with hundreds of inhabitable planets is so high-concept that I think the show would have taken the time to show it off in some fashion.
Again, this is never made clear in the show. If they can go faster than light, it appears that they use the same engine for that as they use for normal, sub-light travel.
I don’t think this is known even to the characters in the show.
There’s a bit more information about the war in one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, but not a whole lot. It’s obviously supposed to be vaguely analogous to the US Civil War, except that it’s easier to root for the underdogs because they don’t have that whole pesky slavery issue. Basically, it was your typical federalism v. states… er, planet’s rights issue, and the federals won again.
Mutant Enemy has been very tight lipped about where they were going with the show, because they’re still hoping to resuscitate the franchise. So, not a lot of details about what they had planned. Although I’m not one for spoiles anyway, so I haven’t been looking too hard.
Amen.
A gravity drive was mentioned in one of the episodes.
OH, Also, lets talk about the language as well.
What langauges were used as well as english? I am not sure. Most sounded chinese, yet I have a great deal of trouble telling any asian language apart.
in Particular the use of Goram. Is this a actual word or just a created word since it sounded so much like G_D damn?
It was Chinese. Apparently, when whatever it was that happened to Earth happened, the two dominate cultures on Earth were America and China. Americans colonized one sector of space (the one the show takes place in) and China colonized another (which we never saw), but there’s been so much cultural cross-pollination that most people speak enough of both languages to get by. It’s not totally clear, but it seems likely that the Alliance incorporates both cultures.
And, IIRC from one of the threads started when the show was still on the air, “Goram” is a terrible mispronounciation of the Chinese word for “shit.”
Where did you hear/read that from? Is this from a pre-Alliance state that existed among the 70+ colonies prior to the actual war and mention of two seats of government (the worlds Londinium & Sinon {sp?})?
I’M NOT READING THIS THREAD!!! I’M NOT READING THIS THREAD!!!*
Damn! When will Netflix send me the next two DVDs for this? I’m halfway through the series, am already hooked, and thought that maybe I could skim this thread and get some insights. But I cast my eyes upon a few spoilers and I know it’s not safe. (Kaylee and Simon don’t kiss? Ever? Bummer! And Shepherd Book is really not a Shepherd? I figured there was something about him, but damn! I don’t want to know more about this yet.)
Anyway, just wanted you to know that I’ll be bumping this thread to the top whenever I finally finish the series. I love this show.
It seems to be more a corruption/slurring of “goddamned” rather than “shit”, given how it’s used - “gorram Fed on board”, “gorram Reavers followed us” etc.
The reviewer at Television Without Pity complained about this, saying if they still believe in God they would still say Goddamned. To which I say, yes, because we Australians still say “God’s Truth”. We haven’t slurred it down to “Strewth” or anything. Language change never happens. Never.
Disclaimer: Normal Australians don’t say “strewth” all that often. Really.
It was mentioned in one of the commentaries on the DVD, but I don’t remember which one. I think it was Joss who said this, but I’m not certain. IIRC, it came from the cultural makeup of Earth when they first started colonizing space: the only two nations with the money and resources to do it were the US and China.
I didn’t know that the Alliance had two seats of government, nor that they had been named. Was that from one of the shows, or do you have another source?
Just repeating what I heard from another poster here on the boards. Although, it’s not like “shit” can’t be used as an adjective. Hopefully, someone who actually knows some Chinese will wander by and sort this out.
Gee whiz! It seems to me that the guy at TWOP has a gosh-darned good point, by golly!
Seriously: if the culture in Firefly is supposed to be analogous to the 19th century American frontier, then these people would take balsphemy a lot more seriously. There is, after all, a difference between swearing and cursing, and most religions tend to disapprove of the latter a lot more than the former. Maybe “gorram” is a Chinese swearword that English speakers adopted as a stand-in for “goddamn,” because it sounds similar but has a totally different meaning.
If I had known that anyone happening by had not seen the whole series, I so would have done a spoiler box. Sorry! :o No one should have the dramatic tension ruined inadvertently. I will say, about Simon and Kaylee, that all is not as hopeless as I make it sound. And I have high hopes for the movie (which, in my head, is so going to happen. And it will be tremendously popular and lo! will come back to tv just as it was, only longer and not messed around with. Yea, I doth believe).
Yosemitebabe: I’m fairly certain Book is now a Shepherd, but I don’t think he was always a Shepherd. He’s got a past, and quite possibly an unsavory one, given his familiarity with crime and criminals.
My personal theory is that he was a high-up Alliance military type, a real Unification War-hero, quite possibly some kind of SpecForce. But after the war he had Doubts; he retired, went into the monastery and got religion, and is now walkabout. The episode “War Stories” kind of bears this out, as he went for a military-style rifle when selecting weapons.
Whatever the etymology of gorram, I think it’s safe to assume from the context, usage, and pronunciation (hard break between syllables) that it’s being substituted for goddamn.
Now that I think about it some, Firefly does seem to have a two-drive system: the two “space turbines” on the outriggers which have been shown “on” even during spaceflight, even though they do seem to be primarily atmospheric drives, and also the yellow drive “exhaust” (field-effect?) out of Serenity’s tail section that gives the class it’s name.
I kinda goofed the first time I watched the whole season: I took them in air-date order (as opposed to the order they came in on the disks), and SWAGed the one listed as “not aired.”
Don’t ask me why. I have since gone back and watched them in disk-order, and the series makes a bit more sense, especially putting “Serenty, pts. 1 & 2” right up front.
Being a Cowboy Action shooter, I get all goose-pimply at all the six-guns and lever guns.
Miller:
Well, in general, I expect they would. In general. Our Heroes ain’t part of the general population. They’re burn-outs, lost souls and wanderers. They could say gorram all day long without anyone on the boat outside of Book getting upset.
In fact, Mal is quite actively not religious, as when Book once asked at the dinner table if anyone minded him saying grace, and Mal said something like “Only if you say it out loud.”
I’m sure that when they’re on the job, meeting contacts and such on different planets and in different towns, that they mind their P’s & Q’s lest they offend the locals.
Oh yes, I’m fully aware “nonsense” words are/were substituted for or corrupted from blasphemous words in religious societies - which is exactly why I find the reviewer’s comment about not just using goddamned so surprising. Such words tend to change over time, and this word had 500 years to change (or however many years it is in the future - is it ever said?).
But, then in fact, the big bad crew of Firefly are doing the equivalent of saying “darn” and “gosh” rather than real swearwords, those milksaps! Unless, like ‘heck’, it has come to be seen in some quarters to be as bad as the real thing. But enough of this hijack.
Ok, Chinese speaker chiming in. Thanks for reminding me about this show and all the fond memories, btw. As for “gorram”, I thought this word was “goh suh”, which is literally “dog shit” in Mandarin. I recall close captioning it and it read “gosse”.
Of course we might be discussing different scenes. I remember they used a lot of different Chinese phrases.
Yeah, they’re two different things. The ship Serenity was occasionally referred to as a “piece of goh suh”, whereas “gorram” is the Firefly version of “goddamn”.
As a Chinese speaker, how did the actors do with the Chinese and could you translate many of the phrases?
I‘m actually watching the series now as I’m in China。 I‘ts interesting to hear the Chinese being spoken throughout the show。
The actors do a pretty good job saying things， actually。