Firefly: Serenity

[Leon2309]

For the basic back story, all we got in the show (which I believe may not have shown up on the DVD's, would have to rewatch them to check) was this opening narration by Mal on a few episodes:

[opening narration for episodes: Safe, Ariel, War Stories, Heart of Gold]

Mal: Here's how it is: The Earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths. Some rich and flush with the new technologies, some not so much. The Central Planets, thems formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity. She's a transport ship; Firefly class. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher for some reason, and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too, took his genius sister outta some Alliance camp, so they're keepin' a low profile. You understand. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.

Pulled from IMDB Quotes page for Firefly, link to the original page below:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/quotes/qt0351423

As for my opinion of the series? I didn't see it until a few years after release(think I actually saw the movie first, after reading a fanfic crossed over with something else) but I watched it, I think on Netflix, and enjoyed what I saw enough to get the DVD collection, and wished there was more.

[clearspira]

I don't get the complaints about the worldbuilding. I actually dislike shows that try to bash you over the head with their exposition and a complete lack of subtle. Firefly did it right. I like how they demonstrate the fact that Chinese culture and language have become commonplace-you can have very much white characters with Chinese last names. Rustic and simple characters like Jane swear in Chinese because it's become vernacular, like how many Spanish words seep into American English.

It also doesn't bash you over the head with an overtly EEEVIL Alliance government. They're necessarily super evil, even if they have a few dark secrets. For the most part they're just a government that is a bit more authoritarian than many of the outer colonies might have liked. Wars are very seldom fought because Just And Righteous Heroes and Vile, Evil Overlords. The British Empire wasn't explicitly evil, but they still had enough lapses in justice that the American colonies rose up against them. "Taxation without Representation" is a fairly esoteric concept to fight a war over if you don't know the full context of it. And people don't constantly talk about things that people already know.

That's not to say the show is perfect, but I think the way they teased out the worldbuilding instead of hitting you over the head with it was very well done.

The thing is, most people (myself included) aren't demanding an episode wherein somebody lays out a 45 minute long powerpoint about the full structure of the Alliance Government or the various sociological, political, and economic factors that caused the war. All I want is something more specific than the folksy bullshit Mal and Zoe keep spewing about people doing their own thing or whatever. Like a few lines of dialogue, describing what they saw as the reason for fighting. Not only would this give us more context for the setting than "a war happened, these assholes lost," but it would tell us more about Mal and Zoe. All we know is they are against the Alliance, but telling us why they chose to fight in the way (ie, specifics about the causes of the conflict) would give us a deeper look into who they were. Did they see it as fighting off an invasion, thereby demonstrating their loyalty to the land they were born on? Did they grow up believing in the ideals espoused by Alliance Society, only to see its excesses become too much to bear, thereby demonstrating their hatred of hypocrisy and disillusionment in the society to which they were born? All we ever get from them is what they are against. Their explanations of the war never tell us what they are for (or used to be for).

*Also, the British Empire wasn't explicitly evil? Tell that to India or China...

Good and evil are a matter of perspective, society, culture, and interpretation. Even the so-called ''big'' crimes like rape in which pretty much everyone today can agree is one of the worst things you can do was perfectly legal until only a few decades ago as long as you did it to your wife. And lets not even get into pederasty.

The British Empire in India is a good example for a rational discussion. Yes, they went in and conquered the place, but they also helped demolish the caste system in the process. If you were in the bottom caste whose prospects in life was to amount to nothing more than a servant or toilet cleaner, would you hate the Empire or would you find yourself secretly nodding before joining everyone else's chorus? And no, I am not arguing in favour of the Empire, I am arguing in favour of good and evil not always being black and white.

[Makeshift Python]

For the basic back story, all we got in the show (which I believe may not have shown up on the DVD's, would have to rewatch them to check) was this opening narration by Mal on a few episodes:

[opening narration for episodes: Safe, Ariel, War Stories, Heart of Gold]

Mal: Here's how it is: The Earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths. Some rich and flush with the new technologies, some not so much. The Central Planets, thems formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity. She's a transport ship; Firefly class. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher for some reason, and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too, took his genius sister outta some Alliance camp, so they're keepin' a low profile. You understand. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.

Pulled from IMDB Quotes page for Firefly, link to the original page below:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/quotes/qt0351423

As for my opinion of the series? I didn't see it until a few years after release(think I actually saw the movie first, after reading a fanfic crossed over with something else) but I watched it, I think on Netflix, and enjoyed what I saw enough to get the DVD collection, and wished there was more.

There were actually three intros. The first was narrated by Shepard Book for the first four aired episodes ("The Train Job", "Bushwhacked", "Our Mrs. Reynolds", and "Jaynestown"). Starting with "Out of Gas" it was replaced by a redone intro with Malcolm Reynolds narrating with the one you quoted, and then a third one was basically an extended version of the second. When you watch them specifically in air date order, you can how they changed it over time. When you watch it in production order that Whedon recommends they switch up.

Here's the original by Book:

Book: After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying

Here's the second by Mal.

Mal: Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with the new technologies, some, not so much. Central Planets, them as formed The Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule. A few idiots tried to fight it, among them, myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too. Took his genius sister outta some Alliance camp, so they're keeping a low profile. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.

Here's the extended version of the second, with added bits bolded for emphasis.

Mal: Here's how it is: The Earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths. Some rich and flush with the new technologies, some not so much. The Central Planets, thems formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity. She's a transport ship; Firefly class. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher for some reason, and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too, took his genius sister outta some Alliance camp, so they're keepin' a low profile. You understand. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.

[Philistine]

My own interpretation was that the Alliance was infested with a rich urban elite - smug, arrogant assholes who believed they had a monopoly on both intelligence and morality, and therefore that everybody who didn't think exactly as they did was stupid, evil, or (more likely) both. The frontier worlds had a completely different set of problems from the wealthier, urbanized worlds, and wanted to be free to address those problems without having an inappropriate/irrelevant (or exploitative) set of priorities imposed upon them from off-world. The casus belli in this case, then, would simply be encroachment by the Alliance - under the guise of "bringing the light of civilization" - into territory that the Independents regarded as theirs. Wars don't always involve a grand moral or philosophical underpinning, you know. Sometimes it really is as simple as, "I want that." "Can't have it, it's mine." "We'll see about that."

Beyond that, from various statements by Whedon I believe it's very much intended to be ambiguous. We see the Browncoats as "the good guys" because that's who two of our protagonists fought for, and they still have frequent negative interactions with their former foes; but when you look at the setting in detail, you get something like the "What have the Romans done for us?" scene in Life of Brian.

See, the problem I have with that specific interpretation is we never get any impression from Mal or Zoe that was the case. They never refer to the outer colonies "being invaded" or anything. If they had, I could be like "okay, so they were perhaps defending themselves from invasion or at least saw themselves as fighting off invasion," which is as good a casus belli as any on a person to person level. Maybe that's not exactly what happened, but it could at least explain what the cause supposedly was. But they keep spitting out folksy bullshit about "folks wanting to do things their own way" or some such nonsense, which is vague enough to be basically meaningless. And I doubt it was a matter of principle about hating smug, rich assholes since its not like Zoe or Mal ever implies they wanted to create some kind of utopian state that tore down the barriers between the "haves and have-nots." I mean, it's not like I wanted either of them to be the equivalent of a space Thomas Paine, spitting out the future equivalent of the "Common Sense" pamphlets. Just some indication of their reasons for fighting beyond just "grr...Alliance evil, blah blah blah"...

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much my impression is founded on the opening scene of the movie - the flashback to River's school days (https://youtu.be/g-alzyvTtVE). When the teacher asks why anyone would resist the "light of civilization" being offered by the obviously benevolent Alliance, most of River's classmates decry them as savages, or even conflate Independents with Reavers. But River's answer is different:

"We meddle... People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."

Does it describe an explicit casus belli? No. But it does point to the underlying cultural and social factors that led to the conflict between Alliance and Independents, which IMO is generally more important.

[bz316]

I don't get the complaints about the worldbuilding. I actually dislike shows that try to bash you over the head with their exposition and a complete lack of subtle. Firefly did it right. I like how they demonstrate the fact that Chinese culture and language have become commonplace-you can have very much white characters with Chinese last names. Rustic and simple characters like Jane swear in Chinese because it's become vernacular, like how many Spanish words seep into American English.

It also doesn't bash you over the head with an overtly EEEVIL Alliance government. They're necessarily super evil, even if they have a few dark secrets. For the most part they're just a government that is a bit more authoritarian than many of the outer colonies might have liked. Wars are very seldom fought because Just And Righteous Heroes and Vile, Evil Overlords. The British Empire wasn't explicitly evil, but they still had enough lapses in justice that the American colonies rose up against them. "Taxation without Representation" is a fairly esoteric concept to fight a war over if you don't know the full context of it. And people don't constantly talk about things that people already know.

That's not to say the show is perfect, but I think the way they teased out the worldbuilding instead of hitting you over the head with it was very well done.

The thing is, most people (myself included) aren't demanding an episode wherein somebody lays out a 45 minute long powerpoint about the full structure of the Alliance Government or the various sociological, political, and economic factors that caused the war. All I want is something more specific than the folksy bullshit Mal and Zoe keep spewing about people doing their own thing or whatever. Like a few lines of dialogue, describing what they saw as the reason for fighting. Not only would this give us more context for the setting than "a war happened, these assholes lost," but it would tell us more about Mal and Zoe. All we know is they are against the Alliance, but telling us why they chose to fight in the way (ie, specifics about the causes of the conflict) would give us a deeper look into who they were. Did they see it as fighting off an invasion, thereby demonstrating their loyalty to the land they were born on? Did they grow up believing in the ideals espoused by Alliance Society, only to see its excesses become too much to bear, thereby demonstrating their hatred of hypocrisy and disillusionment in the society to which they were born? All we ever get from them is what they are against. Their explanations of the war never tell us what they are for (or used to be for).

*Also, the British Empire wasn't explicitly evil? Tell that to India or China...

Good and evil are a matter of perspective, society, culture, and interpretation. Even the so-called ''big'' crimes like rape in which pretty much everyone today can agree is one of the worst things you can do was perfectly legal until only a few decades ago as long as you did it to your wife. And lets not even get into pederasty.

The British Empire in India is a good example for a rational discussion. Yes, they went in and conquered the place, but they also helped demolish the caste system in the process. If you were in the bottom caste whose prospects in life was to amount to nothing more than a servant or toilet cleaner, would you hate the Empire or would you find yourself secretly nodding before joining everyone else's chorus? And no, I am not arguing in favour of the Empire, I am arguing in favour of good and evil not always being black and white.

Okay, I realize that this is outside the bounds of discussing the relative merits of the show, but what the hell are you talking about with that British helped end the caste system nonsense? The caste system in India existed throughout the entirety of the history of the British Raj. Legal caste-based discrimination didn't end until 1948, AFTER India achieved independence.

[clearspira]

I don't get the complaints about the worldbuilding. I actually dislike shows that try to bash you over the head with their exposition and a complete lack of subtle. Firefly did it right. I like how they demonstrate the fact that Chinese culture and language have become commonplace-you can have very much white characters with Chinese last names. Rustic and simple characters like Jane swear in Chinese because it's become vernacular, like how many Spanish words seep into American English.

It also doesn't bash you over the head with an overtly EEEVIL Alliance government. They're necessarily super evil, even if they have a few dark secrets. For the most part they're just a government that is a bit more authoritarian than many of the outer colonies might have liked. Wars are very seldom fought because Just And Righteous Heroes and Vile, Evil Overlords. The British Empire wasn't explicitly evil, but they still had enough lapses in justice that the American colonies rose up against them. "Taxation without Representation" is a fairly esoteric concept to fight a war over if you don't know the full context of it. And people don't constantly talk about things that people already know.

That's not to say the show is perfect, but I think the way they teased out the worldbuilding instead of hitting you over the head with it was very well done.

The thing is, most people (myself included) aren't demanding an episode wherein somebody lays out a 45 minute long powerpoint about the full structure of the Alliance Government or the various sociological, political, and economic factors that caused the war. All I want is something more specific than the folksy bullshit Mal and Zoe keep spewing about people doing their own thing or whatever. Like a few lines of dialogue, describing what they saw as the reason for fighting. Not only would this give us more context for the setting than "a war happened, these assholes lost," but it would tell us more about Mal and Zoe. All we know is they are against the Alliance, but telling us why they chose to fight in the way (ie, specifics about the causes of the conflict) would give us a deeper look into who they were. Did they see it as fighting off an invasion, thereby demonstrating their loyalty to the land they were born on? Did they grow up believing in the ideals espoused by Alliance Society, only to see its excesses become too much to bear, thereby demonstrating their hatred of hypocrisy and disillusionment in the society to which they were born? All we ever get from them is what they are against. Their explanations of the war never tell us what they are for (or used to be for).

*Also, the British Empire wasn't explicitly evil? Tell that to India or China...

Good and evil are a matter of perspective, society, culture, and interpretation. Even the so-called ''big'' crimes like rape in which pretty much everyone today can agree is one of the worst things you can do was perfectly legal until only a few decades ago as long as you did it to your wife. And lets not even get into pederasty.

The British Empire in India is a good example for a rational discussion. Yes, they went in and conquered the place, but they also helped demolish the caste system in the process. If you were in the bottom caste whose prospects in life was to amount to nothing more than a servant or toilet cleaner, would you hate the Empire or would you find yourself secretly nodding before joining everyone else's chorus? And no, I am not arguing in favour of the Empire, I am arguing in favour of good and evil not always being black and white.

Okay, I realize that this is outside the bounds of discussing the relative merits of the show, but what the hell are you talking about with that British helped end the caste system nonsense? The caste system in India existed throughout the entirety of the history of the British Raj. Legal caste-based discrimination didn't end until 1948, AFTER India achieved independence.

Think about what you just wrote there please:

The caste system ended 1 year after the British left India.
A 3000 year old system.
A year after the British left.
3000 years.
1 year.

You don't think there may just be a ''weeny-bit'' of a connection there?

[GreyICE]

I mean, we keep hearing from the two veterans (aka, people WITHOUT any objectivity on the subject) about how terrible the alliance is, but it seems like most of the places that have little to no Alliance control are pretty shitty: colonies with slavery, company towns with no workers rights, religious communes where the locals straight-up burn women as witches? Is that what they were fighting for?! WTF?

I mean this is freedom vs. authoritarianism in a nutshell. Freedom includes the freedom to be both great and shitty. Authoritarianism always looks wonderful when you look at the top percentage - the rich on their literal floating islands, the top doctor and child genius. While the authoritarians need the free places to be shitty, they need little people on the bottom to feed into their monolithic state.

It really is a metaphor for America and the "third world" in many respects, with the Inner Colonies playing the part of America.

P.S. The British formalized the caste system and turning it into their method of administration. The coincidence of it collapsing 1 year after the British left shouldn't tell you the British undermined it, it should tell you the British were propping it up. The strength of the Indian caste system waxed and waned, sometimes as strong as noble ancestry in Europe, sometimes about as meaningful as, well, noble ancestry in Europe. The British administered the colony in strict caste system manner, making it extremely rigid and inflexible. When they left, it collapsed.

[Freeverse]

I don't get the complaints about the worldbuilding. I actually dislike shows that try to bash you over the head with their exposition and a complete lack of subtle. Firefly did it right. I like how they demonstrate the fact that Chinese culture and language have become commonplace-you can have very much white characters with Chinese last names. Rustic and simple characters like Jane swear in Chinese because it's become vernacular, like how many Spanish words seep into American English.

It also doesn't bash you over the head with an overtly EEEVIL Alliance government. They're necessarily super evil, even if they have a few dark secrets. For the most part they're just a government that is a bit more authoritarian than many of the outer colonies might have liked. Wars are very seldom fought because Just And Righteous Heroes and Vile, Evil Overlords. The British Empire wasn't explicitly evil, but they still had enough lapses in justice that the American colonies rose up against them. "Taxation without Representation" is a fairly esoteric concept to fight a war over if you don't know the full context of it. And people don't constantly talk about things that people already know.

That's not to say the show is perfect, but I think the way they teased out the worldbuilding instead of hitting you over the head with it was very well done.

The thing is, most people (myself included) aren't demanding an episode wherein somebody lays out a 45 minute long powerpoint about the full structure of the Alliance Government or the various sociological, political, and economic factors that caused the war. All I want is something more specific than the folksy bullshit Mal and Zoe keep spewing about people doing their own thing or whatever. Like a few lines of dialogue, describing what they saw as the reason for fighting. Not only would this give us more context for the setting than "a war happened, these assholes lost," but it would tell us more about Mal and Zoe. All we know is they are against the Alliance, but telling us why they chose to fight in the way (ie, specifics about the causes of the conflict) would give us a deeper look into who they were. Did they see it as fighting off an invasion, thereby demonstrating their loyalty to the land they were born on? Did they grow up believing in the ideals espoused by Alliance Society, only to see its excesses become too much to bear, thereby demonstrating their hatred of hypocrisy and disillusionment in the society to which they were born? All we ever get from them is what they are against. Their explanations of the war never tell us what they are for (or used to be for).

*Also, the British Empire wasn't explicitly evil? Tell that to India or China...

Good and evil are a matter of perspective, society, culture, and interpretation. Even the so-called ''big'' crimes like rape in which pretty much everyone today can agree is one of the worst things you can do was perfectly legal until only a few decades ago as long as you did it to your wife. And lets not even get into pederasty.

The British Empire in India is a good example for a rational discussion. Yes, they went in and conquered the place, but they also helped demolish the caste system in the process. If you were in the bottom caste whose prospects in life was to amount to nothing more than a servant or toilet cleaner, would you hate the Empire or would you find yourself secretly nodding before joining everyone else's chorus? And no, I am not arguing in favour of the Empire, I am arguing in favour of good and evil not always being black and white.

Okay, I realize that this is outside the bounds of discussing the relative merits of the show, but what the hell are you talking about with that British helped end the caste system nonsense? The caste system in India existed throughout the entirety of the history of the British Raj. Legal caste-based discrimination didn't end until 1948, AFTER India achieved independence.

Think about what you just wrote there please:

The caste system ended 1 year after the British left India.
A 3000 year old system.
A year after the British left.
3000 years.
1 year.

You don't think there may just be a ''weeny-bit'' of a connection there?

No.

[J!!]

the brits helped india the same way the cardassians helped bajor

clearspira has invested a great deal of his personal identity into a british nationalist narrative. he needs to believe the empire was a good thing, because it is intertwined with the belief that he is a good person. as such, he reflexively reacts to any criticism of the empire as though it were an insult against himself: denying the reality of the criticism when he can, and redirecting the criticism when he can't.

[CrypticMirror]

the brits helped india the same way the cardassians helped bajor

clearspira has invested a great deal of his personal identity into a british nationalist narrative. he needs to believe the empire was a good thing, because it is intertwined with the belief that he is a good person. as such, he reflexively reacts to any criticism of the empire as though it were an insult against himself: denying the reality of the criticism when he can, and redirecting the criticism when he can't.

Yup. All that Britain ever did "for" India was in the name of making it easier for England to extract its wealth more efficiently for itself.

Usually you see it in the argument "but the railways"; which were built with the blood of Indian natives on the bodies of Indian natives, for the ease of the British in either extracting assets, moving troops, or letting the toffs travel to and from their cooler hot season homes in the Himalayan foothills. They were never about making life better for Indians. Same with any social changes made, it was easier to try and reshape Indian society to be as much like Britain as possible [and where it wasn't possible, to use them to help play indigenous groups off one another in the name of divide and conquer, to prevent determined resistance] because they meant the British administrators had to make the least adjustments themselves.

Lather rinse and repeat for each and every colony across the globe.