Instapundit notes:
CHEW THE FAT WITH CHEWBACCA: Adventurecon is in Knoxville. Also here, and perhaps more interesting to InstaPundit readers, Ron Glass (Shepherd Book from “Firefly”).
OK, so Instapundit is older than me, but come on. Ron Glass isn’t “Shepherd Book from Firefly”. Ron Glass is “Hey, isn’t that the guy from Barney Miller?”.
Trivia: on an episode of Dinner for Five, former cop Dennis Farina asserted that Barney Miller was the most realistic cop show ever made. Take that, “The Wire” fans!
17 Comments
I have to say, I didn’t mind him biting it in Serenity- he was my least favorite character. I always feel Hollywood does spiritual characters much in the same way they do rock bands- as if someone who has no experience with rock pictures how a rock band should be and what they should sing.
Any time I decided to tune into the show, it was always the same damn episode on, so I’ll have to wait to comment until I’ve borrowed the DVD collection from someone.
I did enjoy the movie a lot.
Agreed. Joss Whedon is so distant from a spiritual worldview that he decided that he needed a character like this, tried to be even handed and fair by making him a nice guy…and then also made him basically incoherent, without any strong point of view (except, that he doesn’t like it when River rips up his Bible).
Killing him off in Serenity was fine by me (unlike killing Wash, which sucked).
The issue with killing Walsh was that it was so…uncalled for? It was just as if Whedon had said “hey, lets kill someone off with absolutely no dramatic effect whatsoever..OK?”
dff- I have the series on DVD
Well, not having seen the series, I have to say I kind of liked the killing of Wash - I wasn’t terribly invested in any of the characters, and thought it was a nice way to reflect the impersonal nature of life, if you know what I mean. Shit happens. Howard Chaykin did this to nice effect in American Flagg in the 80s. A supporting character who was just getting interesting is shot dead, and the story doesn’t slow down in the slightest - there’s barely a glance in the rear view mirror.
The treatment of the Shepherd guy in the movie did bother me, though. I recall he was saying some stupid shit like “Mal, you’ve got to choose what to believe” while he’s dying, or something. Am I remembering correctly?
As if all things one could believe are equally good and equally useful to the believer. I wanted to hear Mal say something like “Well, I’ve been thinking about embracing National Socialism… will that do?” This kind of treatment suggests either some sort of moral vacuum in the heart of the artist or a fear of offending anyone (whether investors, producers or audience) with whatever meaningful thing he might have chosen to have that character say.
Another problem I have is that in the rough and tumble frontier, I would imagine pussy, feel good religions are wiped out rather quickly by religions that preach you “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.”
Preacher would have been a much better character if he had been the future equivalent of a bible thumping frontier preacher with a drinking problem.
RE: Wash- As long as hot women aren’t killed off, I won’t complain too loudly.
re: frontier religions - sure, that would be cool. Of course, not having seen the series all I’ve ever seen Shepherd do is cough up some blood, imply that all things are equal, and then die.
The Justine Bateman of Space Frontier preachers?
Or the Demi Moore if you will-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091680/
Of course the penultimate Hollywood band has to be “The Carrie Nations”
Both good cites, but IMO neither nearly so absurd or low-production-value as Satisfaction… not that I’ve watched it, but I’ve surfed past/through it. Probably the lowest point in Neeson’s career. ;-)
I agree w/ DFF that killing Wash tells you “this is a real universe, with real physics, and real shit happens for no good reason”.
Also, Whedon has said that killing Wash just before the big battle was very intentional - it reminds the audience that anyone can die, and makes the fight with the Reavers seem like everything really hangs in the balance.
I can see his point.
It still sucked, though.
“but IMO neither nearly so absurd or low-production-value as Satisfaction”
Are you serious? This is a Russ Meyers film where talking about here. I would imagine that Neeson was paid more than the entire budget of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” even adjusted for inflation. Lets not confuse absurd and low production value with “Shitty Movie”.
And if Whedon wanted to do that, he should have killed off Mal. Preacher and Wash were the obvious redshirts in Serenity’s crew. It was a no balls move on his part.
By saying “low production value” I meant to imply that whatever they spent, they didn’t get anything for it. I wasn’t confusing low budget with shitty movie. My point is that as far as I can tell based on the bits I’ve seen, Satisfaction is a far shittier movie than Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or that Cusak thing.
And I disagree about Whedon - do you think the point of a movie script is to show the writer has balls, at the expense of customer satisfaction? Because I think that’s all killing the protagonist off 2/3 of the way through the film would have accomplished - besides maybe making a sequel even less likely.
No, My point was that Whedon killed off the 2 characters in Serenity that were the only 2 with no character development either in the movie, or in the series- scenery if you will. If he wanted to show fans shit happens, it should have been with a character that fans had something invested in.
“I am a leaf in the wind”
it should have been with a character that fans had something invested in.
I don’t know if I had anything invested in him - I watched the movie first and then the series. But I liked Wash a whole bunch.
Watching the series and knowing the bloke was doomed was interesting.
Ah, OK - not having seen the series (as I mentioned above) I didn’t realize that. But that doesn’t change my observation about killing off the main protagonist 2/3 of the way through the movie.