butterfly | Serenity: Humanity in Sci-Fi (Reply)

Side note: one of the things that I see, in pro movie reviews, are 'compare and contrast's that are about saying one thing is better than another. Most recently, several reviews of Serenity are saying 'so much better than the new Star Wars' flicks. This is a mindset that I can somewhat understand, but one that I most emphatically don't share. It seems to be based off of the zero-sum game -- the idea that love and appreciation are finite and that to love one thing diminishes the amount of love that one can hold for another, similar, thing.

Now, I only live in my own head, but for me, love is not a zero-sum game. Love is infinite, and I have found that loving new things only increases my appreciation for the things that I loved already. Ex. loving Star Wars gave me a whole new wave of understanding and love for science fiction in general. I tend to think of this as a good thing. I do understand why reviews would do that, as they assume, perhaps, that one can't see all the movies in the world and want people to prioritize based on their preferences. But this does, I think, explain why I'm not overly fond of movie reviews in the first place.

Main note: So, I have something of a rule. I do my best to appreciate things for what they are, not for what I wish them to be. How successful I am at that is debatable, but I think that it makes me happier as a fan.

We all go into every situation with our pasts behind us, learning forward over our shoulder, whispering into our ears. I do think that my particular past has given me a hesitancy about making judgment calls, something that is good in some situations and bad in others (like most qualities are). I'm diplomatic and I'm a peacemaker, and I dislike saying that one thing is better than another. I will say that I like something better, but that's really not the same thing at all.

There are four categories for me:

1. Not For Me -- which covers everything from boring to low-quality to 'just not my style'. If something is 'not for me', then I'm not watching it, reading it, or analysing it. It has no impact on my life and I will often end up forgetting that I checked it out at all. Examples range from reality tv to shows like Smallville or up to extremely high-quality shows like Farscape.

2. Background-- something that I can easily watch, but not something that I will go out of my way to see. Examples include most sitcoms made ever.

3. Intriguing -- something in the material draws me to it, but the work as a whole is not something that inspires me to adore it without question. Examples include Stargate (Daniel!) and Harry Potter (Draco!).

4. Inspiring -- a piece of work that I feel passionate about as a whole, something that I love and adore and have made a part of my mental landscape. Which includes all three of Joss' shows, Battlestar Galactica, and, most recently, Star Wars, among others.

Now, I'm exceedingly polyfannish -- I adore many shows and such, all at the same time. I don't see them as competing for my attention, though it might appear that way from the outside (I can't say for sure, as I can't see myself from the outside). My love for Buffy leads to my love for Fraser to my love for Simon, and so forth. In my head, it's all connected, all part of the grand tapestry that is Art That Matters To Me.

One of the big themes of the Serenity movie is belief. The other is love. Both are things that are, to me, essential in my relationships with category four source material. Because every tv show is an act of faith, where the viewer decides how much they trust the creator and how much they love the material.

Something that I have seen brought up is whether Wash's death was necessary. Now, in the Jossverse, characters die. They die for all the varied reasons that people die in real life -- natural causes (Joyce), accidental violence (Tara), as casualties of war (Anya, Wesley), or from a deliberate act of murder (Fred, Jonathan, Jenny) or a martyr to a cause (Doyle).

One thing that Joss always does is give his characters one last moment to shine before they die, which is a kindness that the real world doesn't always grant. Wash got to make a hell of a last flight. He was a big damn hero, a pilot who pulled off an amazing landing in the vein of his heroics in War Stories.

Still, he did not, of course, have to die. But if Wash doesn't die, then the uncertainty of that last half-hour, those moments of fear, those are gone. Seeing Zoe's reaction to Wash's death, seeing her actually losing control in a fight and failing to hold her position, that would be gone. And part of Joss' point would be gone, because part of his point is that people die, and then you have to go on. Life doesn't end just because one person's life has ended.

This is what I said, way back when I was first talking about the movie, long before it opened and I watched it.

Just that the show makes me so aware of both the fragility of humanity and its bloody-minded determination.

The movie, too, reminded of those things. Wash dies because it would be unrealistic for no one to have died. He died because heroes die, and because the Reaver ship that they attacked at the beginning of the fight, to start it, that ship never lost sight of its original target. It followed them down to claim them.

The Reavers are supposed to be terrifying, all the more so now that we know their origins, of their original innocence (they were all innocent, once upon a time). For them to leave no mark on the crew of the Serenity would be to declaw them. Book's death showed us the power of the Alliance. Wash's showed us the power of the Reavers. Symmetry. Balance. Both rigid control of the Alliance and the savagery of the Reavers are shown to be ultimately destructive and monstrous.

In all things, I do enjoy a certain kind of balance.