Big Damn Heroes - Review and Thoughts on "Firefly"

Last night I finished Serenity, the wrap-up movie of Firefly (I know, I know - what took me so long?)  And I have things to say about the series as a whole.  Spoilers shall be discussed and divulged. Read on!



Before I proceed, let me get the requisite bitching at Fox out of the way -

WHO IS THE EFFING GENIUS THAT DECIDED THAT CANCELING THIS SHOW WAS A GOOD IDEA? TELL ME THEY'VE BEEN FIRED AND BANNED FROM EVER MAKING PROGRAMMING DECISIONS FOR ANY NETWORK ANYWHERE!!!!  WE HAVE TO ENDURE TRIPE LIKE GLEE AND AMERICAN IDOL, BUT WE CAN'T HAVE SOMETHING WITH SUBSTANCE???  WHAT THE #@!%$^& HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?????


(seriously, Fox - stick to sports coverage and cable news.  You guys are good at those things - I love Fox NFL Sunday.  But your handling of primetime drama sucks.  Actually, I'm surprised 24 snuck eight seasons past your poo-flinging monkeys - I mean, TV execs).

Okay, that's out of my system...

I have to credit Keith of Traveling the Vortex for getting me onto this idea of watching Firefly.  I said in my review of The Avengers that I didn't know much about Joss Whedon's work (not out of purposely avoiding any of his stuff - I just never got around to it).  I'm not much for vampires and urban fantasy (even before the Twilight puke-fest), so Buffy's not really my thing.  But he suggested I give Firefly a shot.  And I'm so very glad that he did.

As a kid, I grew up on John Wayne movies and Star Wars.  When you grow up on a farm, you watch westerns while your take your baby bottle.  And I get my sci-fi streak from my dad, who is a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars (I only took to the latter, though).  But there was always an arbitrary wall between the two genres.  I suppose a lot of people are that way.  Westerns are about history and sci-fi is about the future - there's no possible way to make the two mesh at all (other than flying your toy Millennium Falcon over your plastic cowboys figures).

Going into Firefly, the only thing I knew was that it took place in space and all the fans were continually pissed at Fox for canceling it.  As I popped Disc 1 into the player and started up the first episode - okay, there was a war, main characters fought and lost, and now...

Holy crap - where did that theme song come from???

Yes, folks - the first thing that got me hooked on Firefly was the country-western-type soundtrack (that's another thing farm kids grow up with).  Then I found out that there were western-style towns, six-shooters, horses, desert landscapes - and a freaking spaceship!!



If I had to peg my enjoyment of Firefly down to one thing it would be that Whedon took the typical sci-fi tropes of a crew on a spaceship and having space battles that most sci-fi-spacey-type shows do, but then he blended it with another genre.  That's one reason Doctor Who works so well for me as well - it's not all about the blasters and military ranks and scientific technobabble and crazy aliens (actually, there are no "crazy aliens" in Firefly), you've got tropes from another genre at work to make it new and fun.  I love the premise of Firefly that humanity is terraforming other planets and then settling Old West-style (honestly, that's probably how it would work in reality).

So, you've got a new twist on established genres - but what do you do for characters? Oh good heaven - the characters make this whole thing work!

But one more thing - I was surprised how many Firefly actors I'd seen in other things before this - Jewel Staite was in Flash Forward on the Disney Channel back in the day (also, Space Cases, which I thoroughly enjoyed as an eleven-year-old), Alan Tudyk I knew from A Knight's Tale (it's weird hearing him without his sort-of-not-really-British accent), Morena Baccarin was in V and Adam Baldwin was in Chuck (for all the sort-of jerks he plays, I hear he's actually quite a nice guy. His Twitter feed's lots of fun).  Funnily enough, I'd never seen anything with Nathan Fillion, which I'm chalking up to a crying shame because Mal Reynolds ended up being my favorite out of all of them (though Kaylee gave him a run for his money).

Let's just start with Mal - Yeah, he falls into all the world-weary-war-veteran-turned-captain-of-a-smuggling-operation-of-dubious-legality tropes we've seen before.  But what I love about Mal is that he also falls quite nicely into the role of captain who cares a lot about his crew/family - almost like a caring father/brother/best friend sort of guy.  And it doesn't matter how long a person's been part of his crew, Mal's going to look out for them (but not in any ostentatious or self-serving way).  It just comes naturally to him.  As evidenced by the end of "Ariel" after Jayne nearly sells Simon and River out to the feds and Mal locks Jayne in the airlock and threatens to throw Jayne out into space for what he did - I actually feared for Jayne the whole time until Mal shut the outside door.

And, damn, does Mal look hot in that brown coat of his (I am a fangirl and I am not ashamed).

Kaylee - Kaylee is just flat-out awesome.  My favorite scene of hers is probably in "Shindig" when she's got her pink frilly dress and she comes to that big fancy party (allow me another fangirl moment when Mal shows up in that nicely tailored suit - mmm... yummy - okay, I'm done) and she ends up talking about ship engines with all those guys around her (after having been snubbed by those really snooty... girls...)  And I also love how she and River become friends.  She's about the most cheerful grease monkey I've ever seen and I love her to pieces.

Jayne - All hail the hero of Canton! (and no, I'm not going to sing it for you).

I liked Jayne.  A lot.  Big tough guy with a somewhat girly name? (and yes, that was a hilarious scene with River)  Whose mom sends him knit hats just because?  With a gun named Vera?  Yeah, he screwed up that one time, but he tried to make up for it by buying the crew apples! (considering how hard it is to get fresh produce in deep space, it looks like the gesture was much appreciated).  If there was something I wish we got to see, it's Jayne's mom.  And, by extension, where it is that Jayne's from.  Only because I'm curious and because it would be super-sweet.

The Siblings Tam - I admit, I wasn't terribly taken with River and Simon at first.  Simon was too pretty and River had the whole "Here's a damaged and very mysterious girl that we're not going to tell you about just yet" thing going and there were more interesting things to enjoy. But they slowly grew on me and I was glad to see them both be accepted by Team Serenity.  Obviously, Whedon had something huge in mind for these two for the second season that never happened (*grumble, grumble* blanking idiots at Fox *grumble, grumble*), but ended up playing out in the movie.  Now - the movie was fine, don't get me wrong.  But the story told in two hours was meant to be revealed over the course of 14 episodes.  I don't think anything was lost, necessarily, but I would have loved it to be the full season.  In the end, however, Simon loosened up and River learned how to deal with her situation and ... well, that sentence is going to end with a wistful What Could Have Been sentiment that's just going to irritate me again and I'm going to leave it there.

(Also, I kept thinking "River Song" whenever anyone said River.  Which is entirely different, but there you go.)

Zoe and Wash - I lump these two together because, well, they're married and I think they're best together.  Certainly, they have great moments apart (Wash and his dinosaurs - Zoe and her general badassness), but their personalities deliberately work together to create something fun.  And I love that there's a happily married couple on board the Serenity and they're just adorable

Inara - She's the conscience of the team (which I think was a deliberate move on Whedon's part, given her occupation).  Inara's the refined mom of the family.  I love how she looks out for Kaylee in "Shindig" and how she goes to her friend's aid in "Heart of Gold" (that was my second favorite episode - only "Out of Gas" beats it for me).  Even though she rubs *ahem* elbows with the upper echelons of Alliance society, she still feels most at home with the ragtag misfits.

Shepherd Book - I know there's a graphic novel out there with Book's backstory and, dammit, I want it!  That's all.

Serenity - Yes, I'm counting the ship as a character (hey, if the TARDIS can be a character...)  At the end of "Out of Gas" (which is my favorite of all these episodes - love me a good flashback), there's the scene showing Mal in the market for a new ship - and there's little ol' Serenity sitting on a hill surrounded by junk.  And she looks so stinking cute!  It made me sad when they had to disguise her as a Reaver ship in the movie.  I want a figurine of Serenity to sit on my desk, she's so cute!

This is getting long, but suffice it to say that I loved Firefly and I wish that I'd watched it when it was airing - maybe if more people had watched, we'd have more of it.  Every time I've heard Firefly talked about, the people who've seen it love it and the people who haven't seen it want to watch it.  I don't know of anything else that gained fans after it got canceled and you'd think somebody would get the idea to revive.  I've often heard talk of someone bringing it back, but I don't know how likely that is.  But you never know.  In the meantime, you can't take the sky from me.



(see what I did there?)

The Verdict Is (FINALLY!) In

I had to see it twice, but I finally have thoughts to share on The Avengers.  Spoilers below the decidedly NOT spoilery (but very funny) video.

 

I have a fun little story to tell.  Actually no, it's not that fun. But it explains a great deal.

The one movie theater that I love going to is the Jordan Landing Cinemark.  This place is a pretty spiffy theater while still being fairly reasonbly priced - the seats are roomy, the staff are friendly and they make their snack bar hot dogs out of unicorn tears.  No, really - they are that good (it's the one time I can justify paying $4 for movie theater food).  This theater is also attracts - shall we say - more higher-class clientele.  I have never had a bad experience going to a movie at Jordan Landing.

Until last Monday night and The Avengers.

I've talked about this before - In the lead-up to this movie, I was as excited as anybody (excepting, perhaps, the people who grew up reading Marvel comics. But that’s a whole ‘nother ballpark).  I have thoroughly enjoyed the Marvel superhero movies and I’ve loved all the continuity that’s gone into these stories. But most of all, I love the characters and seeing where these superheroes come from.  It's a real treat for me, as someone who isn't steeped in Marvel Comics lore, to have a glimpse into these stories and feel like I can be welcomed into the universe and know what's going on without the burden of having to know the source material inside-and-out (which I would love to do, but there's a crapton to read through - never mind having to get it all in the right order).

Sadly, I was delayed in seeing The Avengers, but I had a good reason.  My aunt passed away last week and her funeral was on Saturday in Nevada.  I spent Friday traveling, Saturday at the funeral and with family and coming back home, Sunday passed out on the couch in a pile of travel-worn goo with no desire to go anywhere or do anything.  But I figured I could go see it Monday night after I got off work at 9:00 at night - hopefully the audience would be small and I could enjoy my experience.

Well, turns out the late Monday night showing was a horrible idea.  In short, this is what I had to endure:


- The idiot teenagers who had probably sneaked out of the house so they could canoodle with their boy- or girl-toys in the back of a darkened theater while alternately snickering “OMG his boots r sooo gay!” (meaning Captain America in the dressed-down version of his uniform). Oh, and they kept laughing even after the jokes were over and done with.  Do you know how maddening it is when you are trying to watch an incredibly intense battle sequence and you've got the cast of Degrassi behind you giggling over Odin-knows-what?

   - The married fanboys who finally convinced their extremely skeptical wives to go see it with them. The wives then start clucking to each other about some goofy housewifey thing and how ridiculous their hubbies are being but said hubbies wouldn't give them a moment's peace until they counted this as date night... ALL DURING THE FRIGGING MOVIE!! *headdesk*

   - This one doesn’t bug me as much because at least this audience member is interested in the movie. Still irritating, though. But there was also that one kid who was sugared-up on candy and Coke and keeps asking “Why’d Loki stab that one guy?” “How did [insert character] do that one thing?” “I wanna fly!” Love your enthusiasm, kid, but can you wait until you get to the parking lot?


So, when I walked out of the theater, I was not happy about the movie.  I was too distracted by my very rude and annoying fellow movie-goers and I didn't get the experience that other people got when they tweeted how wonderful this movie was.  And I was extremely annoyed by this because I honestly wanted to love this movie.  In fact, last night I came home and wrote up a whole big thing about how I was so disappointed in the movie and how could they screw it up and what is everyone else thinking and I'm so pissed about this... but then I thought that maybe a second viewing would help.  I then decided to go again after work today and see if I liked it better a second time.

(Don't worry - I did end up liking this movie.  Quite a bit, actually.  I later went back during a matinee to see it again and ended up in a much more amenable audience and figured out that was most of my problem the night before).

At first, I blamed it on the fact that I am not familiar with director Joss Whedon at all.  At the risk of having my geek-cred called into question, I have to confess that I have never been on the Whedon bandwagon.  It’s not a matter of me not liking his stuff; it’s a matter of me never actually watching anything of his.  The most I know about Whedon is that he created Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and a great swath of the sci-fi/fantasy fandom thinks he’s God (I am not being critical here, mind you. I'm just saying that I don't have enough experience with Whedon to make that assessment for myself).

One thing I learned here is that Whedon has a very distinct method of storytelling and it's something I had to be prepared for and I wasn't.  He's like Neil Gaiman in that regard - if I hadn't read at least some of Gaiman's work before seeing "The Doctor's Wife," I would not have know what was going on in that story and I probably would have been similarly disappointed.  However, once I understood how Whedon does things, I was totally on board.  One thing I had difficulty with was the humor - more specifically, the timing of the jokes.  Like Agent Coulson quipping "So that's how it works" after he shoots Loki with the Big Ass Gun after Loki's fatally stabbed Coulson.  That was just one of many mood whiplash moments that had me going "Wait - WHAT?" during my first viewing.

But the second go-round, I was expecting the humor so I was able to better pay attention to the characters and story (helped that the audience wasn't guffawing for five minutes at every little deadpan snark).  In fact, the humor actually enhanced Tony Stark's character, which I did not think was possible.  Tony is hands-down my favorite of the Avengers because he does possess a dark sense of humor and he can pull-off snark in a very natural way.  Plus, his brand of snark actually serves a purpose - I loved the scenes with him and Bruce Banner (the Hulk) looking for the Tessaract and Tony just keeps poking the proverbial bear with the stick (all the while knowing exactly what he's doing).  That's the other thing I love about Tony Stark - he's the scientific genius who can rattle off equations and technobabble, but still keep his "Mr. Cool" billionaire persona.  Also, Tony's interactions with Steve Rogers (Captain America) are pure gold.  Tony and Steve are near-perfect foils to each other - Tony's the dark, sarcastic genius of the bunch while Steve is the All-American Boy Scout who follows orders yet still commands respect, which I love (he is the legendary First Avenger, after all).  It would have been so easy to relegate Cap to be the idealistic idiot wearing spangly Spandex, he became the leader of the Avengers almost by accident and it worked so well.

Also - I have to give mad props to Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.  I tried watching both Hulk movies prior to seeing The Avengers - yeah, I couldn't do it.  They were both kind of long and boring and I just couldn't care.  I'm going to try to Edward Norton movie again, but really, I don't think I need to.  I think I know enough of the Hulk's backstory and his personality just from watching The Avengers.  Really, this movie did for the Hulk as a member of a team what two whole movies of the Hulk as a solo-act did not do.  That either speaks volumes in favor of Ruffalo and Whedon or it speaks to the incompetence of the guys in the other movies (personally, I like to keep things positive, so I'm going with the first one).

Chris Hemsworth is an awesome Thor and Tom Hiddleston is a fantastic Loki.  I am such a fantasy geek - you tell me something's magic and I will buy it (as long as there are set rules and you stick to them).  Everything for me doesn't have to be totally grounded in hard-core, proven science (or even plausible science fiction).  My opinion from when I saw Thor has not changed - the concept of Asgard and the demigods is such a treat.  I get that Thor is a very different hero from any of the others and it takes a certain kind of writer to bring that to bear in this ensemble cast and this is another area where Whedon gets it right.  I love that Thor and Loki are given opportunities to explore their family relationship - Thor gives Loki a chance to quit his Earth-domination crap and come home.  Thor also feels a responsibility to the Earth and wants to stop Loki from causing problems.  But Loki's been slighted and he's going to cause as much havoc and mayhem and he's going to have fun doing it (Hiddleston's performance when he's yanking everyone's chain while being held prisoner on the SHIELD aircraft carrier is wonderful.  He's another one who does the deadpan snarker very well).

I want to touch briefly on Black Widow and Hawkeye - I want their origin stories.  I don't know if those movies are in the works (or maybe just one for the both of them, since it's made evident that their paths cross early-on), but that is something I dearly want.  Maybe it's a tad unnecessary at this point, but I don't care - I WANTS IT, PRECIOUSSSS!!  They are both fantastic characters - either apart or together and I want to see more of that.

(Oh, and every single time someone said “Tessaract,” I kept thinking of the Tessalecta from Doctor Who. Which is completely different).

This is getting insanely long, but here are some of my favorite moments that deserve special mention (there were so many good ones that it was hard to keep this a reasonable length):

- The Hulk beating the ever-loving snot out of Loki.  Especially after Loki started in on his "I'm a god and you will bow to me you stupid human-thing" speech.
- The old man in Germany standing up to Loki when everyone else has bowed down.
- Iron Man patching "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC into Black Widow's jet's PA system.
- Loki in a suit. I know he's the bad guy and all but... damn...
- Agent Coulson explaining to Thor that he got Jane Foster somewhere far away from all the bad stuff happening and Thor being appreciative about it (okay, my little sappy female heart got a little mushy there)
- Anything Agent Coulson does or says (his total fanboying over Captain America was really sweet)
- Nick Fury telling the shadowy SHIELD board of committee director-leader-people that their idea to nuke Manhattan is a "stupid-ass decision."
- And I'm sure I forgot a few, but I'm sure someone else will point them out.

Anyway, Whedon did a pretty good job with this movie (though to be perfectly honest, I would have seen this no matter who the director was - but Whedon was an excellent choice).  The cast was great and the story was put together well and I don't know what else to say about it other than I want another one.  Like, right now. Because that was way too much awesome to be confined to one movie.  There must be more. MOAR, I say!

PS - I still would recommend seeing a movie at Jordan Landing if you're ever in town.  It's not their fault a bunch of ninnies all went and saw the same movie on the same night and ruined my initial experience. But if I find out who those kids were, I would not be opposed to toilet-papering their houses.