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[hazelk]

I was right! Well I guessed the Alliance made the Reavers.

Still feeling all buzzy from big damn movie going. Make you feel, make you think, make you laugh, I guess it did all that. Didn’t feel quite like a movie though, something choppy about the pacing. Like reading a comic book, jumping from frame to frame each brilliantly composed but from their very distinctiveness not quite running together. Or a vid, it’s a vid of the series that never was. Then again I have the feeling another two sequels and that perception might shift. Thinking back to seeing the first Star Wars and there are similarities. Lots of character sketches, a little backstory, introductions to the different looks of the verse. Then big final showdown. Luke feels the Force and blows into the Death Star, a leaf on the wind.

A leaf on the wind. “I’m a leaf on the wind,” says Wash. Says it three times, three times is a charm. And then he’s dead, skewered Ming the Merciless style by incoming Reavers.

It’s a puzzle but I think what it may do is to answer a question I have about the concept of the Alliance and the quest for human perfectibility. Because if we accept that they’re not evil in intent you have to wonder just how stupid are they? Have they never watched Forbidden Planet? Or The Tempest? Possibly not, as the operative only knew the half of the The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Have they no history? Don’t they know what the eugenics movement became or what happened in Year Zero? And yet the dream persists. I saw a TV programme a while back about savant abilities and the psychologist at the end was waxing lyrical about the possibility of unlocking similar abilities in ‘normal’ people. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to draw like Raphael and be able to play whole symphonies note perfect after just one hearing? Or to fly, fly like a Jedi, like a leaf on the wind. So I wonder if Wash being skewered by the Reavers in his moment of perfection, of triumph is like the blood dripping from River’s axe as the camera pans back and we see her standing on a hill of bones. A warning that we all can dream but that perfection has consequences. Always.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

A warning that we all can dream but that perfection has consequences. Always.

Hmm. Or really, if you've reached perfection what more is there?

I knoW what you mean about the choppiness. On the one hand, thinking about the writing I find it incredibly seamless, the way everything is tied in together. On the other hand, had I not seen the show I would find the beginning in particular rather jarring. It doesn't surprise me that there are comments about how people had difficulty following the film.

Of course, the very speed of the film continues to keep it entertaining on reviewings. I found it particularly enjoyable the second time.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

It was as if it had no negative space in it but I'd happily watch it again.