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.

Jarhead is based on this autobiography that it seemed everyone in political circles was talking about a year or two ago. [link]

I'm not sure what to expect from it and I'm pretty sure I'll be skipping it unless I hear some compelling reason not to.