Some thoughts on the second viewing of Serenity...

[gridlore]

My mom loved it. In her words, "Go River!"



OK, about Wash's death.

First of all, that kind of thing happens in combat. You think you're clear, and you step on a mine, or your own artillery gets you, or whatever. Shit happens, and this is not an overly pleasent universe Mr. Whedon set up for us.

But more importantly, killing Wash makes the stand against the Reavers that much more tense, since a major character had already died! This was not some franchise with forty years of pop culture behind it. It was entirely possible that he was going to pull a Blake's 7 and kill everyone. So when people started getting wounded, there was a serious chance they wouldn't make it. It certainly raised the tension level for me!

Secondly, what a lot of people are citing as an error isn't, really. When they are setting up for the stand, Kaylee comments that she can set the doors to lock out, so the Reavers won't be able to follow them. But we never see her do it. By the time the crew falls back into the tunnel, she's already down and paralyzed by the agent in those darts. That the controls are still operational is shown by River using them to close the doors the rest of the way before doing her Ginsu Chick of Doom routine. So when she opened the doors after the fight, it wasn't an error.

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

Actually it's the first thing Kaylee does. She opens the control box. Then we switch to Jayne setting up the cargo boxes.

The error I keep noticing is "check none these have stuff that goes 'boom'", then they don't. Would you trust the lables?

...

Re: Wash's death.

Joss got to stake someone again.

and

Once again, it takes a half crazed teenaged girl to save the world.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The "Wash didn't have to die" commentary's been annoying me.

[thingunderthest.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with the tension raising.

Perhaps she opened the door with her brain.

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

Correct, in a sense. River's a psychic. Anything Kaylee knows how to do, River can probably find out. Which also explains her sudden ability to pilot the ship.

[thingunderthest.livejournal.com]

True, she is a reader, or near enough.

I would also figure that if the Alliance wanted her as an assassin or other type of operative they would have probably made sure she could pilot if needed and new something about bypasses.

[nimrodjcs.livejournal.com]

When they are repairing the ship at the end, you also see her working on the wiring, so she must know (or have "read") something about that.

[aerothorn.livejournal.com]

ARGH! I did this 'Guess a friends' LJ thing and it skips right past LJ-cuts, so it listed all the spoilers and now I'm all pissed (not at you, of course, just at the bad luck of the situation).

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Which is why I don't do that sort of thing.