Oh, Audra, you were thinking of the ilium…
Really enjoyed the Ocean’s heist arc, and looking forward to your examination of other heist movies (as well as my personal favourite of Sneakers).
Next week’s heist movie is fantastic, but I will admit to being a purist and preferring the original movie (“You’re only mean to blow the bloody doors off!”). For several years my wife and I owned a classic mini that was just awesome to drive around city centers. At one point we rigged a CD player in the back to play “Self Preservation Society”, the theme music from the original…
Serenity was an awesome movie to conclude the criminally short-lived Firefly, but if you did not watch the series beforehand some of the emotional content would be diluted. Wash’s death for example would be “Oh, they killed Wash”, unless you had seen the entire series before, where you would be thinking “Oh SHIT, they killed WASH!”.
I loved the background to Firefly and the lack of Alien intelligence was refreshingly different (until Battlestar Galactica came along), as well as their attention to physics and space combat (“No, no, no” / “Yes, yes, yes”).
My one beef with Firefly is the Reavers. I have no problem with psychotic cannibals who want to rip out my spleen, but I do have a problem with rampaging psychopaths being somehow controlled enough to pull it together for aerospace engineering…
Overall though, Firefly was one of the best Sci-Fi series’ ever.
Welcome to the boards, sir.
Thanks DXF - I’ve listened for some time, but started posting only recently.
Barely, and not in an OSHA-approved manner (remember that Serenity had to shed radiation to blend.)
I suspect that the Alliance’s ‘solution’ was to wait them out, figuring they’d eventually end up killing themselves.
Just want to say that I picked up this podcast and I’m instantly hooked, love the banter that you all have.
Listened to the Alien podcast and had to prevent myself from laughing out in the office - talking about money shots on the android. Also loved the interview about batman and the interview with the two members of The Blanks
Going to pick up the Aliens podcast
Is there an intro thread??? Fancy introducing myself and all my love of all thing sci-fi
Welcome to the Fleet. Intro thread’s right over there:
Welcome aboard, Bishop. You’ll find that a lot of the 'casts are like that.
Interesting podcast as ever. In the news part, where Audra was talking about the difference between being an action hero or an actor, vs. being acted upon, made me think of Laura Mulvey’s classic piece, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. It’s a question of being an object of the (male) gaze.
Also, Audra, your Spanish is sounding better, more confident. Me alegro mucho 
I also keep listening to Sean’s rationale for seeing Mal as a bully, and I can understand his reaction to it, given when he’s told us about his attitutes towards authority, but I don’t agree wtih him (still).
I have to say that you have to look at motives before defining someone as a bully. I think a bully only thinks of themselves and never the other person.
One can never say that about Mal - he may be pushy at times but he always cares about his fellow crew members.
THAT’S IT!!! 
Welcome Bishop! Oh yeah, I LOVED doing the Alien 'casts last summer. One of my favorites! Hope you enjoy the forum and stick around!
Yay! I knew you would be familiar with that sort of argument. And thanks re: the Spanish! (Although I’m trying to remember when you would have heard me speak Spanish before?) I’m taking an upper-level course this summer as a continuing ed class to keep practicing and to get better at speaking and writing/reading.
Couple of thoughts on Serentiy/Objects in Space.
The assasin and the operative are clearly very similar. In fact I think they are so similar that I wouldn’t be surprised if in the original Firefly story in Joss’ head they were the same character, with Early intended to be a recurring nemesis throughout the run.
But when it was all cut short and then the movie mounted, it was probably a bit too much of a leap to pull the same character into the film for those people who went to see the movie cold.
The other thing I was thinking about when listening to the cast was Chuck’s comments about him having the typical bad guy verbal excess. While there is clearly some self confidence going on there, I think also a large part of it is that Early is clearly a bit unhinged and damaged, a fact that’s clearly telegraphed when River sees into his head. I think he talks too much because he’s slightly mad!
The Operative actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is good. He has a nice, meaty role in Red Belt. It’s a David Mamet con-game thriller. For my tastes, it’s a little less dry than Mamet’s others. He plays a principled jiu jitsu instructor who gets roped into a rigged tournament.
Red Belt is an awesome movie. Surprised it didnt pop off bigger than it did.
Final fight is one of the best fight scenes ever. Gives me goosebumps every time.
Last thought on the whole Mal is a bully thing. I think the basic problem here is even simpler than the ‘definition of a Bully’ explanation Chuck provided.
Nobody likes a Bully and everyone loves Mal.
Good point. Well, except Sean.
While I can why one would argue Mal is a bully in some brief instances in the tv series (even though I don’t agree with it), I definitely don’t see it at all in Serenity, and not in this specific moment. Mal’s way of asking “Get out, Get in and help, but don’t stand in my way” reflects that urgency and direness (as well as his anger and grief at the massacre, Book’s death, and maybe even a bit of disbelief at just how ruthless the Alliance is at capturing River at any cost) of his choice. Sure he didn’t ask them nicely, but that doesn’t make him a bully. It wasn’t as if Mal didn’t know what the crew (and himself) was feeling and thinking at the time, but by ordering them in such a way it forces them to make that choice - to help protect River or leave the gang and hide - quickly and act fast and get things done so they’d have half a shot of being able to execute the seemingly impossible plans of outmaneuvering both the Alliance and the Reavers to get to Miranda, of which, they don’t even really know what they’re going to find there. So, I can’t see in any way that he was trying to bully his crew into joining him; he certainly wasn’t taking any pleasure of any kind having to bark out those orders; he wasn’t trying to make anyone feel bad about themselves; he wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone into doing what he wanted; he wasn’t threatening them to join him; He gave them a choice to be in or out and wanted them to think and decide for themselves what they wanted to do; and ultimately, he was trying to protect a member of his crew. So… other than perhaps letting his emotions affect his mood so he wasn’t being the most polite with his orders as a leader, how was Mal being a bully?
Anyway. Not to beat a dead horse around. (ETA: Especially since I’m still one podcast behind and thus perhaps all of this has been said and done. :D)
Early vs. The Operator. I think there’s one important difference between the two. I actually didn’t think of Early as someone who believes in a cause (and thus believes himself to be right). I think Early only believes in himself (and the money he gets from being an assassin) - and thus believes himself to be right. So, not really affiliated with the Alliance, but more just a narcissistic slightly nutty hired to kill killer douchebag. If he wasn’t paid enough for whatever job, he probably wouldn’t take that job to begin with. The Operator on the other hand, was someone who believes in the Alliance wholeheartedly - and thus is ok with killing people who would harm the cause, which made him even more dangerous and a much more interesting adversary to the gang than Early was (which I did have problems with OiS). He wasn’t a douchebag, but jsut someone who was so convinced the Alliance was right that he didn’t see what was wrong with any of the things he’s doing (well, until the end of the movie anyway - and that’s the scene where it was really important that it was The Operator and not Early witnessing that video).
And…I loved Moon too, so it’s nice to hear it mentioned. Very interesting if stoic movie, and definitely worth a watch.
Okay, now I’m going to have to watch “Objects in Space” again, because I could have sworn that Jubal Early was a bounty hunter. Not an assassin. It was never about killing River to eliminate a threat; it was about collecting some cashy-money from the Alliance. If I read that wrong, my bad. Also, it’s really strange to read about Confederate officer Jubal Early in The Killer Angels after seeing this episode.
I think what really hurt about Wash’s death was that it followed that extended painful scene of Serenity itself being beaten, battered and broken. More evidence that the ship was the tenth character in the show. As with all Joss projects, he had to show us that no one is safe. And yes, I was a blubbering mess by the time Simon got shot.
Am I the only one who thought River was being trained by the Alliance to be a Reaver exterminator? They knew about them, and they knew they were getting closer to their precious Core planets. That’s my mythology and I’m stickin’ to it. 
And yeah, Jayne is a bully. Most mercenaries are. I think that whole “chain of command” comment to Wash was just made in the heat of the moment. He knows full well he’s not capable of running the ship on his own; he needs a crew. Because when Jayne takes the initiative, like he did on Ariel, bad things happen.
You’re right, Early is a bounty hunter.