Well, it's hard to improve upon a series as solid as Firefly, but given its short but very sweet run, it didn't have much opportunity to jump the shark. This post is likely going to be fairly short, too, since I don't think I can come up with a lot of stuff I'd redo. However, since the show was too good to last, feel free to post what you think would interesting directions for hypothetical episodes to move in.The Movie: Serenity: My main complaint is that it felt artificial, inflating the crew's importance. Exposing the Reaver origin and spreading the word across the solar system(s) felt kind of like shoving the crew into a typical Hollywood B plot, rather than flow naturally. The characters were handled well enough, and the Operative was a good adversary, but they could have figured out something else to do with them. One angle I think I would have preferred to take would have having him as one of the Hands of Blue going after River, or maybe a rival of some sort for Shepard Book.
And I'm about tapped out already.
5 comments:
1) planetary disaster on one of the moons requires evacuation of everyone to another moon in that system. Serenity is one of the few ships in the system. A morality play ensues when the crew realizes that the population is desperate and willing to pay anything for transport, gems, gold, anything. How many can (or should) be stuffed into the ship? What do you do with those who willingly offer sex for transport? And most of all, what will Mal do when he discovers that another ship's crew is taking advantage of the situation by committing atrocities? And how will the crew feel about those who they don't get to before they die?
2)River is an uncontrolled telepath, and deadly. How about a story about how she comes to terms with people's secret thoughts that they would never carry out? Does she attack Jayne for imagining rape? Would she slap Shepard Book for thinking how easy it would be to cheat at cards? When she learns that even the best people have evil thoughts, will she despair?
3) There is a defector among the "Hands of Blue" and he's being chased by Blue Sun. His partner (they always travel 'two by two') was killed while learning something horrible - of which is only hinted to the defector. The defector ends up on Serenity, as a permanent crew member. He figures out that one clue about his partner's discovery and death is locked inside of River's head. His desire to unlock the clue from River causes conflict between him and Simon. He both scares and fascinates River.
You know, just these lead me to think of dozens more. I'd love to watch these too.
I want to see the episode where I'm a folk hero.
HJ
Actually, the Hands of Blue story was already done in the movie-prequel comic. ("Those Left Behind", I think?)
There's also been another pre-movie comic where Mal is being hunted because the Alliance believes he was a "Dust Devil", basically a group of Browncoats who continued fighting after the end of the War by using terrorist tactics against the Alliance.
So, just some hints about what's already been done. I've got nothing I'd like to have seen, honestly, apart from Book's backstory.
Oh, and for anybody who hasn't read the comic, the Hands of Blue turned out to be independent bounty hunters hired to track down Serenity. There were only ever two of them.
Part of the artificiality of Serenity's plot comes from its origin as an entire second season. If that story had been spread over many episodes with filler and character development stuck in where needed, I think it would have given us more warm fuzzies. As it stood, it was rushed and, as you say, a bit too Hollywood.
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