I just came back from the seeing the movie. Twice.

I didn't mean to see it two times in a row. I went with my two friends, then as we left I saw someone in a Jayne hat. I had to go ask if he bought it or someone made it. His friend had, who was there. We started talking. My friends left and I chatted with these various people. The person who knitted the hat also made a really cute Jayne hat ipod cover. She's going to be posting the pattern for it sometime soon in the lj knitting comm.

I was totally chatty cathy, they wanted to know where I got my Blue Sun tshirt and then I ended up going back in and watching the movie with them. It was very interesting.

The second time there was more cheering and laughing and gasping. Especially on the Wash's death. It's amazing how fast your reaction can change.

As for the movie. Even though I knew the big Wash spoiler I tried to avoid everything else because I didn't want to know. The first time I saw it I hated all of the retconning of Simon and River. I was fully prepared to hate the movie because it bugged me so much. But then I started liking it more and really enjoyed it.

THere were tons of things I loved, and if I weren't so tired I could probably name them, nice little touches like when they come back from the original job and Jayne's there with his leg and everyone walks around him or over him or just ignores him. I liked the fight scenes.

I noticed that Jewel Staite has lost weight since the series, it kept kind of throwing me off because Kaylee was thinner. Some of tension between Simon and Mal bugged him, especially Mal saying Simon wasn't part of his crew,etc, since I thought by the end of the series they had established that Mal was accepting them.

Joss really should have cut back on the dialect/slang stuff, it was jus way too much at times. I'm speaking as someone who loves the way they talk. It seemed like it was heavy handed about Zoe and Wash being married, plus she didn't say Sir enough.

And the weird thing that kept bugging me was the colors. The movie was very cool colors, gray and blues and greens, and on the series it's more warm colors, tans, and browns, etc.

One of the guys I was with on the second viewing had the theory that Wash and Book died because Alan Tudyk and Ron Glass are the only two with "real careers" and probably wouldn't be available in the future.

Back from movie.

... I feel really, really silly for saying this, but I have to: a lot of my enjoyment of the movie is gone due to Wash's death. I understand the narrative reasoning behind it, but.

shrugs

I can't really explain it. I'm not going to turn into one of the insane "OMG YOU KILLED!" -kittenboard people, but Wash's death did take a large chunk out of my "Yay Movie!" glow.

It seemed like it was heavy handed about Zoe and Wash being married, plus she didn't say Sir enough.

I have read I don't know how many reviews that said that the marriage was something they totally didn't catch in the film. My response is, "How many times does Wash have to call Zoe 'wife' or Zoe refer to Wash as 'my husband' before people pay attention?"

Were these people not watching the movie when Wash and Zoe were together?

I dind't really read the review that the paper ran, I know it wasn't really positive. I didn't want to be more spoiled, but I did catch at the very end where the reviewer called the movie predictable in many ways and cited Mal and Inara's relationship as part of the predictablity. I need to go back and read the review tomorrow and see what it all says.

After reading the Edelstein review where he cops to not knowing about the marriage, I was listening for that. Zoe's first line is something about her husband but they called each other "baby" after that, IIRC.

Like last time, I decided I didn't want to see Wash die, so I didn't.

The first Zoe calls him "her mister" but it's kind of hard to catch. But I'm sure that at least once Mal refers to Wash as "your husband".

The previews before the movie were: Saw 2, The Legend of Zorro, Stay,Harry Potter, Doom, and this movie called Jarhead with Jake what's his name from Donnie Darko and Jamie Foxx and someone else. It looks like it's one long ass recruitment ad. My friends are both ex Marines and they were snicker at it. It's very slick looking and the trailer uses Kanye West's Jesus Walks. Oh! and Aeon Flux.

Oh, god, Jarhead looked awful -- I'm so used to the story where the kid's all excited to go into the marines and then gets shellshocked and embittered. Here, he's all excited to go into the marines, and by the end, he's all "yay marines". WTF?

Yes, me & Jilli have pretty similar views. Both of us were completely unspoiled, both regretted seeing Book die, especially after he was given so little screen time, but that pales into insignificance compared to the shock at seeing Wash die. It's not even the suddenness or brutality of the death, it's that IT'S WASH! He has been our favorite character for some time and we're still pretty numb from the whole experience.

I have to credit Joss, that killing Wash with such swiftness and then sweeping into the fire-fight really made me wonder if anyone else was going to die. Every single injury made me wonder if this would be the next death. I confess I had a moment of fear that Firefly was taking the 'Blakes 7' route. Most movies these days rarely make you believe the characters are really in mortal danger but Joss managed to do it. So hats off to a masterful play.

That doesn't change the fact that I am fucking furious that he killed Wash. Wash was the teddy bear of the crew, the nice guy, the guy you'd want to have as a friend. I really would have preferred to have seen anyone else but Wash get killed. It was heartless.

I feel like Joss gave us these great toys, and we loved them and treasured them and made other people interested in them. Then he came back & swept up the toys with promises of greater things. Then before our eyes he broke two of the toys so that we could never play with them again.

So, while I understand the clever manipulation to make the audience truly fear for the lives of the crew, making the death be wash seemed just mean fucking spirited. I'd planned to see this movie a number of times in the coming week, but I don't have to stamina to see Wash die more than once a week.

Damn you Joss for making us care.