#shoulda had more screentime in his first appearance

[jelly-o630]

I need more episodes with Kabru right the fuuuuuuuuuuuck now

You know what FINE

WHATEVER

I'LL DO IT

I'LL WATCH DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON

BUT JUST KNOW I'M ONLY DOING IT CAUSE OF BOREDOM AND PEER PRESSURE

i'm getting sick and tired of all the fanfic and analysis I have to scroll past when on this damn website

[melonkittii]

hello. im ready to make a thread of my initial thoughts

spoilers under the cut for the eleventh hour gn (obviously) (also its a pretty long post lol)

the opening sequence caught me fully off guard and i like it so much. pair it with the dramatic irony of them yelling at barry towards the end. juicy stuff. love it so much

my favourite running joke with lucretia is her introcard always having some veiled reference to The Events. one of her proficiencies being 'remembering the dead' certainly holds true

lucretia ^v^ face is real. look at her.

i noticed the running background joke of affirmative mugs that aren't actually all that affirmative. it was very funny. World's Sheriff

the ren and taako scene. i feel no need to elaborate

speaking of that though, the opening to magic lessons starts a running motif of taako being actively bad at fire evocation, despite telling everyone that he remembers being very good at it. i wonder if he had someone close who would do that for him instead

i like that taako actively cares abt the others' wellbeing, up to and including waiting for them to join conversations, etc. its noticeable that he pauses and waits for everyone to respond before he continues. he cares ok

ren <3<3<3<3<3<3<3

the lucretia monologue from merle's lunar interlude is, in my opinion, as an expert on Lucretia Moments (tm), one of the most fucked up things she ever says. and seeing it in the comic definitely made me feel a type of way. i love you lucretia. i want to shake you around so bad

correct me if im wrong but lucretia and merle laughing is the first time lucy's ever gotten silly in the comic right? they tend to cut her jokes in favour of playing her more seriously but it was so sweet and refreshing to see her being so comfortable. makes me so excited for the stolen century comic

extremely mad that the "shoulda leaned away" "I LEANED AWAY" joke was lost. but not as devastated as losing the skeleton DnD debate. they cut all of the best travis moments from the arc

changing their death count from like, 8? to well over a hundred was an interesting choice. i think it works well to convey the narrative stakes a little better since they cut the old-june interludes.

i dont know if this was intentional but starting the last loop on chapter 111, which is the exact amount of years that the stolen century and lonely decade span, made me insane. this may be just an innocuous choice though. who knows

losing redmond and luca makes sense definitely and i love more ren screentime but man the running bit of griffin attempting to foreshadow lup over and over again and noone ever getting it is so dear to me. edward and lydia are definitely a better set for that though. rip skeleton man

istus <3<3<3<3<3<3<3 i cried a little over her in my twitter live tweet. kissing the pages

[static noises] in taako's chalice sequence was fully expected and yet i still got blindsided by it somehow. i had to put the book down for a little while. it was the only panel that made me do that

cried a little at glamour springs too. he looks so sad :,(

the crying at taako's sequence certainly didnt prepare me for the emotional state i went into ravens roost in. magnus burnsides i am holding you. i am holding you. i am h

little june looks like istus and i think that is so incredibly good.

YELLED OUT LOUD WHEN THE RED RBE APPEARED. OBVIOUSLY. IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SCENE

i already mentioned the dramatic irony but what i love the mot abt this sequence is how like, stressed out barry looks. like he has no grip on this conversation whatsoever. it conveys his desperation really well considering how imposing he's (tried to) be in all other scenes

taako saying lup's name out loud after barry says it is profound to me because one thing that's always fucked me up in the podcast is that before he remembers he never once says it. its always "L-U-P". barry is the only one who remembers how to say her name. so seeing taako say it now was like. gut punch. ow

ignore the rest of this thread because taakitz date is real so who cares about anything else /j. i missed my man so bad. so happy to see him around

i KNEW the drawing would be the ending stinger and it STILL got me. FUCK the suffering game comic will be so good

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Can we have the tea on why firefly getting cancelled was a good call tho?

My confidence on this website grows in direct proportion to my follower count, and thus the opinions I post get steadily more controversial.  I actually got a mostly-positive response to my pro-Twilight post, so [glances around nervously] [dons fake beard] here it is:

IMHO, the producers were right to meddle in Firefly after its pilot, and they were right to cancel it after 12 episodes.

I enjoy Firefly.  I’ve rewatched “Safe” and “Out of Gas” over a dozen times, I had a Serenity poster on my wall in college, and I’ve got Mal’s quote about statues as an epigraph in my current NaNoWriMo project.  However.

First: they were right to kill the pilot.  (And I don’t mean Wash.)

The biggest problem with the first first episode, in a nutshell, is Mal.  He’s a potentially intriguing character, but he’s not likable, he’s not competent, and he’s not entertaining.  No antihero has to be all three, but every antihero has to be at least one, right off the bat.  A couple examples of antiheroes that got whole shows:

Dexter Morgan (Dexter) is a literal serial killer, so definitely not likable, but the pilot showcases that he’s terrifyingly competent with cellophane and also has an entertaining interior monologue.

Greg House (House MD) is questionably competent, and not that likable, but he’s highly entertaining because he immediately makes us laugh.

Jed Bartlett (West Wing) is largely incompetent at social matters, and he’s not funny at first, but he’s immediately charismatic and likable.

Frank Castle (Punisher) isn’t classically entertaining, and he’s not likable, but he’s shown as highly competent from minute one.

Malcolm Reynolds isn’t funny at first.  He responds to insults by punching Simon in the face or throwing Jayne out of the room, barely tolerates Zoe’s fond teasing, and doesn’t joke around much.  Malcolm Reynolds isn’t likable at first.  He acts openly contemptuous toward Book’s and Inara’s chosen professions, seriously considers killing Simon for trying to protect River, loots corpses, and ignores Kaylee.  Malcolm Reynolds isn’t competent at first.  He fails twice to find a fence for the protein blocks, fails to detect either Simon’s or Dobson’s lies, gets himself and his first mate shot in a bad deal, and barely escapes with his life.  He tells Simon that any day where he manages to keep his ship in the air counts as a success.

I don’t want to watch an entire show about this guy after seeing just the pilot, and I sympathize with anyone who feels the same way.  The only moment in 120 minutes of screentime that intrigues me is the smash cut between Mal announcing to Simon that Kaylee died and Mal roaring with laughter with the rest of his crew over a prank well-pulled.  It’s competent, funny, likable, and enough to make me want to tolerate this guy long enough to see what he’s going to do next.  I don’t blame the producers for demanding that we see Simon-pranking guy more, Simon-punching guy less.

The other tone or setting inconsistencies in the pilot — the characters riding horses when they’ve got a faster-than-light ship, the dirt and platinum constructions, the Chinese vendors offering street meat made out of dog, the heroic depiction of the vainglorious Confederate Browncoat cause, the crew all being fluent in Mandarin but not having a single Asian character in the whole cast* — make it hard to get a sense of what the show is meant to be.  The different elements just don’t make sense together.

Contrast that with “The Train Job,” the second first episode.  There are undeniably Western and sci-fi elements, but they actually make sense together: instead of characters inexplicably swapping land speeders for horses, there’s a spaceship swooping low over a bullet train.  Crow uses frontier weaponry, but it’s an intimidation tactic, and he does own a blaster.  The Asian-influenced elements make a lot more sense, appearing mostly as background details that hint at a melding of cultures.  Mal is warm and affectionate with his crew, willing to joke around to entertain the audience, and at least 43% less misogynistic toward Inara.  Niska plays an important role in plot and character, setting up the possibility that we haven’t heard the last of this plot and also acting as a foil to the Serenity crew, who might kill the occasional unarmed prisoner but at least do their best not to poison entire towns.

Is “The Train Job” as unique an episode as “Serenity”?  Nope.  Does it do a better job at getting someone who’s never heard of this show before to want to tune in next week?  I think so.

And then the cancellation.

Obviously, we’ll never know if people would’ve kept on turning in, because the series got less than a single season.  And I think that was the right call, from the producers’ point of view.  Firefly as a show might not have had the budgetary demands that, say, Game of Thrones did, but even an amateur like me can take one look at that series and go “damn, that looks expensive.”

There are NINE (9!) main characters, with series-regular salaries.

CGI was a lot more expensive and time-consuming in 2002, and literally every episode includes some exterior footage of the ship.

Every single episode involves the characters, or at least the cameras, leaving the ship and going to different phantasmagorical settings.

Even “Out of Gas” and “Objects in Space” had to take the time and money to build the junkyard and Jubal Early’s ship, respectively.

“Trash,” “Serenity,” “Jaynestown,” “The Message,” and “Heart of Gold” each introduces (and requires a build for) an entirely new fake planet.

Every single episode involves minor characters, and over half of them involve crowd scenes that require hundreds of extras.

Horses.  And cows.  Cost money.  As Wash says, shoulda gone with the counterfeit beagles.

The Serenity set itself was built to scale.  That’d save money in the long term, but in the short term required more camerawork to actually film in partially-enclosed locations.  When you add in the fact that the on-planet shots always required dollies, cranes, and similar equipment, it adds up.

On a similar note, “the Firefly shot” (as it became known) requires days of planning followed by hours of shooting to include all of the characters in one single extremely long camera pan (almost five minutes long, the second time it happens).  As a stylistic choice, it was a pricey one.

If Firefly had been spectacularly successful right from the start, it might have been able to justify its enormous budget.  The fact that it was modestly successful didn’t justify the amount of money it was sucking from other projects.  Over 90% of shows that make it as far as network deals never even get a pilot; over 90% of shows that go so far as shooting a pilot never make it past that first episode.  The network decided to spread the love (and the budget) around, rather than sinking it all into a single project currently taking the place of maybe a dozen other potential shows.

Not only that, but Firefly didn’t have a ton of options for cutting its budget down.  It could use fewer camera tricks, but that wouldn’t change the need for CGI just to convey the basic premise of the show.  It could cut a character or two, but the cast would still be unusually large.  It could have fewer on-planet scenes, but there’s only so much one can do with the characters if they’re cooped up inside their ship the whole time.  Firefly was also leeching resources away from that team’s two other enormously successful projects – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel — and the low ratings of Buffy’s season 6 and Angel’s late season 3 into season 4 reflect that fact.  If it’d been allowed to continue, Firefly ran the risk of killing both those golden geese without ever getting to the point of producing eggs itself.

Do I wish there was more of the show out there?  Yes.  Do I wish the show had had time to evolve, hopefully into something with fewer problems of casual racism?  Hell yes.  Would I have pulled the plug as well, if I’d been in the room when it happened?  Probably yes.

*I am aware of the theory that, given the heavily Asian-influenced settings in the “Safe” flashbacks, the popularity of “Tam” as a Chinese last name, the choice of dark-haired light-skinned actors, and specific elements of the family’s pressure to excel but conform, that the Tams are meant to be Chinese.  Given that all four actors are white, and that there are already ample problems with anti-Chinese racism in this show, I strongly prefer not to ascribe to that theory.