(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

A quick note to mention -- a few years ago I posted about rewatching Firefly, and said in the post that I had a much longer and angrier post that I wasn't going to put up because oh my god wank no.

Well, the longer and angrier post was eventually cooled off, whittled down, and polished up, and if you ever did want to read it, now you can -- it's at my "professional" website, Extribulum, under Rewriting Firefly.

*ducks and covers*

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much for writing this. Reading it is so damn gratifying. You nail a lot about Firefly that made it so dissatisfying for me. I saw it not long after it aired the first time, then a year later watched it "the right way" through, and neither time was I hooked but boy oh boy did I have to pretend to be! My whole peer group was practically fapping over the thing and for at least a few years it was all gorrams and reavers. Thankfully all things pass. Would rather have had to put up with Firefly-esce roleplays based on your rewrite easily, there are at least some concepts there one can sink their teeth into (love your Pope!)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Fortunately when I rewatched it, it was with someone who loved it but understood its massive flaws :D She was a very good sounding board for my theories.

[bluebombardier.livejournal.com]

neither time was I hooked but boy oh boy did I have to pretend to be! My whole peer group was practically fapping over the thing and for at least a few years it was all gorrams and reavers

This was pretty much exactly what I faced in college when my friend group collective dove into Firefly. I learned to knit so I could make myself a Jayne hat, the girl who introduced us to the show downloaded a Blue Sun boot screen for her computer, everybody was really into it, and for a time, I managed to ride the wave of enthusiasm, but as I engaged in more literary criticism in my course work, it started bleeding into my hobbies. When I brought up the fact that these characters all spoke Chinese (poorly, I might add), yet there were no Chinese characters in the ensemble cast of NINE GORRAM PEOPLE, the consensus among my (all white) peers was pretty much just "Yeah, I guess, but it's still good!"

Sam, your re-write makes me want to re-watch Firefly, but with some very thick and heavy headcanon goggles on. I predict that it would be over 9000% enjoyable for me. I would make one addition/change to your Inara, and that would be to make her pangender in addition to pansexual. I distinctly recall a canon scene with Book kneeling at her feet, trying to come to terms with something that has shaken his faith, and it packs that much more of a punch if he, in his capacity as the Space Pope, were to look for answers/benediction at the foot of someone that would be considered unclean in traditional Judeo-Christian faith. I was always disappointed that the show never developed the Inara/Book relationship further, because they were definitely set up on opposite ends of a philosophical spectrum, and I would have loved to hear any debates of religion between them, especially since, as you say, Inara is supposed to represent "Eastern" thought, and Book is clearly Western.

Goddammit, now you have me head-canoning things.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

"I understand that the Federation in Firefly is supposed to be evil."

Then you missed at least one point. Apart from the fact that there wasn't a Federation in Firefly. :)

That's all I'm going to say. For the rest, you may be right, you may be wrong.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

My apologies, the Alliance; I've fixed the error in the essay. But if you think they weren't meant to be evil, I can't imagine what your politics are like.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Did you get as far as The Train Job? Where the Alliance is sending urgently needed medical supplies to a disease-ridden community and our "heroes" are hired to steal them? It was never as simple as that. The Alliance did some evil things, but they were never just "the bad guys," any more than Mal and company were "the good guys."

Neither my politics nor Joss's have anything to do with it. The Alliance is neither all good nor all evil; it's lawful neutral, and Mal is chaotic neutral. That's the difference.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't accept the neutrality of the creators of Pax. Thanks for your opinion though!

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I haven't even had a chance to read the whole post yet, but you immediately hit on the thing that struck me the minute the show started and never went away - and I hung in 'til the end. Why, in the name of all that's holy or un-, did Joss have to be so frelling literal with his Wild West metaphor? It was stupid, confining and - imo, though obviously lots of people adore the show and disagree - insulting to the audience. "My head. Do not hit me over it, Whedon. I'm perfectly capable of understanding your point without seeing someone tossed through a holographic barroom window." BtVS (up through "Tabula Rasa," not so much afterwards) and "Angel" were sheer genius. Firefly seemed to me to be an interesting idea badly executed, and I found Dollhouse actively offensive. As for Agents of SHIELD, I have no interest and haven't watched, so I have no opinion. It would be nice to think he'd returned to form, though that doesn't seem to be the general consensus as far as I can tell.

Looking forward to reading the rest of the post.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Bless. I've seen critiqued before, but never so complete, or coherent in suggesting ways to restructure. Your plans for Inara in particular are brilliant. (And I am all in favor of Space Pope.)

[nerakrose]

that was a nice read. i saw firefly and serenity last fall sometime and while i did enjoy most of it, some things did rub me the wrong way. particularly the points you bring up with inara and the lack of chinese characters. that's...weird.

i also don't really get the nathan fillion obsession? is there a meme or something i missed ?

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

I am legitimately curious if you chose to put it up on WordPress because the likelihood of wank as comments on the post itself goes waaaay down on certain platforms. (Not that there can't/won't be any. But compare WordPress to LJ to Tumblr and there's a...range.)

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

If he was trying to avoid wank, I don't think he'd have linked it here and on Tumblr. I think Wordpress is just where he likes to post his more serious, reflective essays, especially from the standpoint as a writer in the business himself.

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, probably. I'm just curious -- I'm fascinated by the way little things in social media can influence response.

Like, the fact that people are already logged in here might have a positive influence on the number of LJ comments Sam has on this post (17) versus the five comments on his WP post. It's a very slight barrier to commenting on WP. Add that to the fact that Sam didn't x-post directly but rather put up a link to another site, and these two minor barriers to entry could cut down on wank. Haven't checked out tumblr or DW yet.

Gah, sorry for the ramble. Basically, I'm super interested in the fandom differences between different social media platforms. :)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's why I always link to the "comment box open" form of fanfic, or at least used to -- it loads faster, and it encourages people to comment :D

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a nice side benefit, but really the reason for putting it on Wordpress was twofold -- part of it was that I am trying to keep up posting there twice weekly, which is VERY hard to do when you're theming your posts on criticism and fiction. Part of it was that I thought it was time it got posted, I'd let it sit for a few years so there would be some distance on it, and it just seemed to slot into Wordpress better.

But yeah, it has had the benefit of fewer commenters. It's not that I don't like open discourse, but it's exhausting arguing with a dozen people at once, as I've had to do on LJ before.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I clearly liked the show more than you did, but you nailed the things I didn't like: most of what Inara did and represented, the use of Chinese without actual Chinese people, and the darned cows in space thing.

[veedub.livejournal.com]

sorry, but i have to disagree. i was charmed from the git-go, enough to buy the entire series and the movie and watch it again periodically. but then i am one of possibly three people in the movie-going public who enjoyed "Cowboys and Aliens."

as for the racial thing, i think that it might have made more sense to have Simon & River Tam be Asian, because of their social class and name, but then we wouldn't have had the opportunity to drool over Sean Maher and be dazzled by Summer Glau.

[(Anonymous)]

See... I have all kinds of issues with the second part of your comment, because you're basically arguing that they should be Asian, but then we wouldn't have awesome/attractive actors playing them. This is part of the problem with underrepresentation of Asians in media/Asian actors in general. Why not make them Asian and find awesome actors to play them? I can think of plenty of people who would have done great jobs in those roles (for starters, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park), or there are any number of 'undiscovered' talents out there. But, they are passed over and so is the opportunity to create roles that would have made more sense, and added needed complexity to the series.

[(Anonymous)]

I wasn't really interested when it first aired because of the western aspect, but gave it a shot on netflix because geeks I respected gushed relentlessly.

I did have stomach dropping moment though when I realized some of that contingent might have been excited by the Confederates vs China undertones more than the Joss plus space physics aspect.

That episode on Persephone pretty much encapsulates the show for me: simulateously icky antebellum subtext with an awesome engineering based empowering moment for Kaylee.

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

YAY! *flings arms around you* I hope you get much less wank than expected.

[laleia.livejournal.com]

I remember when you first posted about watching Firefly, and I remember thinking at the time I'd like to see the longer and angrier post. I'm glad you made the longer post, since it was a great read!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, yeah this piece of writing is in fact fastidious and
I have learned lot of things from it concerning blogging.
thanks.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, much of the Mandarin is unintelligible, or makes little sense. It's a hard language, no disagreement there, but those accents ow. I mean there's a fantastic in-story thing in there about everyone having to rapidly pick up Mandarin, and the evolution of language...but if you're gonna use that you gotta show it.

This is actually one of those really irritating things about Mandarin in Western media, that no one ever speaks it properly, and I do mean ever. Representation blah blah aside, it annoys me from a wholly aesthetic perspective, because argh it stabs my ears.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

That's what I've heard -- the swear words either didn't make sense or weren't properly pronounced. Which I think is kind of a huge indication of how little Joss cared -- he really did just want them saying something you could tell was obscene but couldn't get beeped out.

[(Anonymous)]

As a long time watcher and supporter of Firefly, this critique clarified some things I had wondered and opened my eyes to symbolism I had not realized. I'm actually very uncomfortable with the realization of the symbolism of the Reavers and can never look at them the same way again. I do agree with a lot you said, that there was a disturbing lack of actual Chinese characters and Inara's role never sat well with me. However, I actually am completely in love with all of the Western elements. Despite its problems, I do love the actual genre and the elements in the show are a big nod to what actually started the science fiction genre in books and television: originally, science fiction was just wild westerns in space. However, you seem to have missed a huge obvious clue about the actual Alliance versus Independents war (or if you did, you never covered it). It's the Civil War in the future. Mal is a good southern Confederate farmer who lost the war. Of course, that brings all sorts of uncomfortable parallels, but it's a brilliant move. I agree that I would have liked to see what life was like before the war and more of the Alliance without them being this big bad conspiracy (which is unfortunately Joss's favorite form of federal workers and government). I'm not entirely sure I agree with you on Simon and River's parents, because them being willingly blind to what they helped the Alliance do to River is so much more realistic than them being completely frightened of her intelligence and will. I do like your ideas for Inara and Book and being an anthropology major myself I'm always up for more anthropologists in TV shows that aren't Indiana Jones. Personally, though, the Reavers scared the living crap out of me.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sam. I have ever been a faithful reader of yours, but now, you are kicking one of my most sacred cows in the nuts. I don't disagree on any one point of yours, but in the general overview, I rebel against your critique with every fibre of my subjective, emotional being. Mayhap it all comes down to a general resonance with true Western pioneers, or a simple, visceral connection with this story. I don't know, but it resonates with me more than any story before or since, no matter how irrational my devotion may be. I wish you could see a fraction of why I adore this show beyond all others. Sadly, I have not the skill or talent to articulate why this story is superior.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Sorry! If it's any help, it is totally ok to like it despite the problems with it :D

[petranef.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be so uneasy if you hadn't made many excellent points. So apropos that, in fact, I wish I hadn't read it because now they're gonna bug me. *sigh*

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

Catching up on your blog, I had to comment here. You put int words the things i dislike about firefly, but one further suggestion, what if instead of making Inara male, or in addition to, Mal became female. Asian female lead!