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trinityvixenLast time I got into Simon (sigh, I really must stop that), and this time I think I'll tackle Mal and Zoe (okay, really, am stopping that now). The war between the Alliance and the Independents is shown to have more of an impact on those who survived it in Serenity than was ever dealt with in the series. It's an interesting choice to have both movie and series start with the war, and it's very telling the differences in perception of it from the teacher in the Core and the soldiers in the trenches.
The interesting part, however, is that the soldier's-eye-view is the one that is less disturbing. Given our current political climate, the inability of those so luckily removed from the fighting to sympathize with a soldier's plight is the most chilling reality of all. It's a cruel detachment propagated down the line from those in charge to those with minimal authority--the teacher being our example (that she then stabs River in the forehead and is revealed to be one of the less evil Alliance types doesn't help the creep factor). Mal's loss of faith at Serenity Valley is devastating, to be sure, but it moves us to empathize with him, as we watch his sunny disposition die.
Yes, you read that right: Malcolm Reynolds had a sunny disposition once upon a time. In "Serenity" and "The Message," Zoe is much the same as she was in the series, if a tad more taciturn, but Mal is a happy guy. He believed in the cause (as Serenity reveals, he was a volunteer), and he was younger and more fool hardy. He seemed to be having fun at fighting the war. When they lose, it shatters him into what was the Mal we become more familiar with in Firefly. The issue of the war and how it changes Mal is a possible bit of ret-conning. All through Serenity, though, people make issue of the scars of the war and how awful it must have been. The truth is something different. Like Tracey says in "The Message," it's the real world that's hard to survive. No matter what people imply about Mal's increasingly short temper and seeming lunacy over his choices in Serenity, the truth is that that is not war-Mal (sounds like an action figure--hope it looks better than the ones they made). It's PTSD Mal, the survivor who, like the soldier, fought to survive, only now he's not running on faith, he's flying by his wits and thin trust spread out among nine people, most of whom he doesn't even get along that well with.
Mal says, "If I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new." Serenity is supposed to show us that side of him. I would say it doesn't.
In Serenity, much is implied by Mal's dismissal of the constant nay-saying about his war record. Everyone, friend, foe, and stranger throws it in his face. He tells the stranger that the war is over in such a dismissive way that we are to infer the scars are there but the issue is moot. Zoe brings it up, how he's changed since, gotten less heroic (or more, depending on whose definition you use, your own or Zoe's from the movie), and he sneers at the idea that personal integrity that leads to loss is worthier than duck-and-covering and saving your own. The Operative tries to sympathize with him as the loser of a war, in a respectful fashion that suggests he doesn't care what side Mal was on; he sees Mal has been commended and understands that he performed deeds worthy of acclaim. Mal tells him he just isn't interested in rehashing the past.
Then there's Jayne. Some hero, but not as stupid or unaware of the complications behind Mal and Zoe's behavior as one might think. "Battle of Serenity, Mal. How many besides Zoe walked out of it?" This is as close to touching upon the dangers of being Mal-that-was as anyone gets. Mal's left it behind, or so he says. He's haunted by it, he's no longer happy and trusting all the time--but he is still trying to get out of Serenity Valley. He is still convinced there are angels out there somewhere who are going to pull them through. It takes the length of the movie for Mal to realize he is the angel, or must become it, if he intends to ever get out.
I love the clash with Jayne in the movie because it's the most tense between them without being an out-right fight since that one exchange at the start of "Objects in Space": (it's paraphrased, I don't have it memorized, my apologies)
Jayne: Can we move this conversation in a not-Jayne's-fault direction? I didn't make them fugitives and I didn't make her crazy. Hell, I didn't even want 'em on the ship.
(Mal takes one step closer to Jayne, glancing at Wash and Zoe behind him and lowering his voice.)
Mal: Oh, is that the direction you want this conversation to go?
Just like that, in Serenity there's just the frisson of simmering violence under Mal's skin, and the equally frustrated and visible aggravation all over Jayne. They don't have to one be wrong and the other right, which is why the struggle is so fascinating. Mal is being hopeful and taking a risk; Jayne is being practical and voicing reason (I know: what!?). Put another way, Mal is being difficult and thinking only of revenge; Jayne is being heartless and thinking only of himself. They neither of them are totally on the level--if Mal is 'right' he's doing it for the wrong reasons, and the same could be said about Jayne.
I classify this as another interesting war moment not because the subject is discussed or challenged, but because it's a miniature war played out. Jayne's kind of thinking is why Mal and Zoe were left behind in the Valley. Mal's kind of thinking is why his soldiers fought so hard to win despite obstacles--something which, historically, is remembered, honored, and lauded (the American War of Independence had its share of those impossible victories which kept the army afloat until French intercession).
When Jayne mocks that valor, Zoe tells him to leave, something Mal couldn't do. Zoe hasn't lost her faith even though she lost the war, too. Mal took it as a strike against what he'd practiced, what he'd believed. He told his soldiers they'd make it, and they didn't. When he tells the crew his plans to broadcast the Miranda footage, he makes no beef about it, "I'm asking more of you than I have before--maybe all." Zoe, on the other hand, hasn't given in. There's a moment or two in the Reaver fight where she loses it, but she snaps back to herself, her concern for those under her charge; she says she doesn't expect them to live through it and nearly gets herself killed stupidly, but she puts herself right back into the fight to cover the noncombatants and she makes sure they're well behind her. Even when they retreat, the others are the first ones in, though neither Simon nor Inara were wounded (at the time).
It's heartbreaking to me that at a time when Zoe has just lost all, unlike Mal, she's still trying to keep what's left from the get-go. There's no cutting of losses with her. She bounces back beautifully, and part of why Wash's death destroyed me is that it wounded her like Serenity Valley did Mal...but she is able to survive it. Mal was hurt by a betrayal on the field of battle that he can't come to terms with; Zoe is able to use her battle training to adjust to her loss and realize that there's still more she can have, and what she had with Wash is better than not having it. Mal doesn't have it--he doesn't have that cute flippant attitude he once did--and, even with her husband dead, Zoe has more than he does. I can see her grieving and getting on with her life. She'll remember the fights and the bad vibes between her and Wash and the pain of their separation, but, again unlike Mal, she'll have the good things there to keep her flying.
Sigh, I think I'm going to cry again, and I'm at work, so I have to stop now.
The interesting part, however, is that the soldier's-eye-view is the one that is less disturbing. Given our current political climate, the inability of those so luckily removed from the fighting to sympathize with a soldier's plight is the most chilling reality of all. It's a cruel detachment propagated down the line from those in charge to those with minimal authority--the teacher being our example (that she then stabs River in the forehead and is revealed to be one of the less evil Alliance types doesn't help the creep factor). Mal's loss of faith at Serenity Valley is devastating, to be sure, but it moves us to empathize with him, as we watch his sunny disposition die.
Yes, you read that right: Malcolm Reynolds had a sunny disposition once upon a time. In "Serenity" and "The Message," Zoe is much the same as she was in the series, if a tad more taciturn, but Mal is a happy guy. He believed in the cause (as Serenity reveals, he was a volunteer), and he was younger and more fool hardy. He seemed to be having fun at fighting the war. When they lose, it shatters him into what was the Mal we become more familiar with in Firefly. The issue of the war and how it changes Mal is a possible bit of ret-conning. All through Serenity, though, people make issue of the scars of the war and how awful it must have been. The truth is something different. Like Tracey says in "The Message," it's the real world that's hard to survive. No matter what people imply about Mal's increasingly short temper and seeming lunacy over his choices in Serenity, the truth is that that is not war-Mal (sounds like an action figure--hope it looks better than the ones they made). It's PTSD Mal, the survivor who, like the soldier, fought to survive, only now he's not running on faith, he's flying by his wits and thin trust spread out among nine people, most of whom he doesn't even get along that well with.
Mal says, "If I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new." Serenity is supposed to show us that side of him. I would say it doesn't.
In Serenity, much is implied by Mal's dismissal of the constant nay-saying about his war record. Everyone, friend, foe, and stranger throws it in his face. He tells the stranger that the war is over in such a dismissive way that we are to infer the scars are there but the issue is moot. Zoe brings it up, how he's changed since, gotten less heroic (or more, depending on whose definition you use, your own or Zoe's from the movie), and he sneers at the idea that personal integrity that leads to loss is worthier than duck-and-covering and saving your own. The Operative tries to sympathize with him as the loser of a war, in a respectful fashion that suggests he doesn't care what side Mal was on; he sees Mal has been commended and understands that he performed deeds worthy of acclaim. Mal tells him he just isn't interested in rehashing the past.
Then there's Jayne. Some hero, but not as stupid or unaware of the complications behind Mal and Zoe's behavior as one might think. "Battle of Serenity, Mal. How many besides Zoe walked out of it?" This is as close to touching upon the dangers of being Mal-that-was as anyone gets. Mal's left it behind, or so he says. He's haunted by it, he's no longer happy and trusting all the time--but he is still trying to get out of Serenity Valley. He is still convinced there are angels out there somewhere who are going to pull them through. It takes the length of the movie for Mal to realize he is the angel, or must become it, if he intends to ever get out.
I love the clash with Jayne in the movie because it's the most tense between them without being an out-right fight since that one exchange at the start of "Objects in Space": (it's paraphrased, I don't have it memorized, my apologies)
Jayne: Can we move this conversation in a not-Jayne's-fault direction? I didn't make them fugitives and I didn't make her crazy. Hell, I didn't even want 'em on the ship.
(Mal takes one step closer to Jayne, glancing at Wash and Zoe behind him and lowering his voice.)
Mal: Oh, is that the direction you want this conversation to go?
Just like that, in Serenity there's just the frisson of simmering violence under Mal's skin, and the equally frustrated and visible aggravation all over Jayne. They don't have to one be wrong and the other right, which is why the struggle is so fascinating. Mal is being hopeful and taking a risk; Jayne is being practical and voicing reason (I know: what!?). Put another way, Mal is being difficult and thinking only of revenge; Jayne is being heartless and thinking only of himself. They neither of them are totally on the level--if Mal is 'right' he's doing it for the wrong reasons, and the same could be said about Jayne.
I classify this as another interesting war moment not because the subject is discussed or challenged, but because it's a miniature war played out. Jayne's kind of thinking is why Mal and Zoe were left behind in the Valley. Mal's kind of thinking is why his soldiers fought so hard to win despite obstacles--something which, historically, is remembered, honored, and lauded (the American War of Independence had its share of those impossible victories which kept the army afloat until French intercession).
When Jayne mocks that valor, Zoe tells him to leave, something Mal couldn't do. Zoe hasn't lost her faith even though she lost the war, too. Mal took it as a strike against what he'd practiced, what he'd believed. He told his soldiers they'd make it, and they didn't. When he tells the crew his plans to broadcast the Miranda footage, he makes no beef about it, "I'm asking more of you than I have before--maybe all." Zoe, on the other hand, hasn't given in. There's a moment or two in the Reaver fight where she loses it, but she snaps back to herself, her concern for those under her charge; she says she doesn't expect them to live through it and nearly gets herself killed stupidly, but she puts herself right back into the fight to cover the noncombatants and she makes sure they're well behind her. Even when they retreat, the others are the first ones in, though neither Simon nor Inara were wounded (at the time).
It's heartbreaking to me that at a time when Zoe has just lost all, unlike Mal, she's still trying to keep what's left from the get-go. There's no cutting of losses with her. She bounces back beautifully, and part of why Wash's death destroyed me is that it wounded her like Serenity Valley did Mal...but she is able to survive it. Mal was hurt by a betrayal on the field of battle that he can't come to terms with; Zoe is able to use her battle training to adjust to her loss and realize that there's still more she can have, and what she had with Wash is better than not having it. Mal doesn't have it--he doesn't have that cute flippant attitude he once did--and, even with her husband dead, Zoe has more than he does. I can see her grieving and getting on with her life. She'll remember the fights and the bad vibes between her and Wash and the pain of their separation, but, again unlike Mal, she'll have the good things there to keep her flying.
Sigh, I think I'm going to cry again, and I'm at work, so I have to stop now.
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Date: 2005-10-12 01:41 am (UTC)Really liked the Bop CD, too. "Want It All Back" is probably my favorite track -- it has a lot of guy appeal.
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Date: 2005-10-12 01:55 am (UTC)Watch the Firefly, love the Firefly.