I enjoyed the movie. I didn't love it. Book's death I accept very sadly (I want backstory!) since Ron Glass isn't in good enough health anymore to film another TV series. Wash was a shock, but I like what it did. It made the audience hurt and that's a happy thing in a movie like this. Simon being the one to break out River is like the Mule changing from a 4-wheeler and trailer (destroyed in War Stories) into a modified flying forklift from Batman Beyond (too expensive for our crew to operate), a necessary change to tell this particular story. And the Mule chase was a cool scene, so I'll give them that one without argument.

What I saw Mal do to The Operative was something referred to in combat circles as The Muppet Dance. Break the clavicles and dislocate the shoulders, causing both arms to hang limp so when the person tries to retaliate they look like a Muppet. But the 'two by two, hands of blue' guys were scarier.

As for the grand revelation of the movie I'm left at odds. I thought it was a cheap way out. I also think the crew's actions in the movie would have a significant effect not only on themselves, but on the 'verse as a whole. Maybe not enough to break the Alliance, but certainly enough to severely erode what support they might have had from the border planets. And that would certainly alter the powerbase of the solar system. Perhaps this is what Joss had in mind for the Season 2 (3?) finale, but I think I prefer my 'verse the way it was.

Oh yeah. Hello (again?) folks, it's been a few years since I had martinis with the Atlantic Canadians. Good to be back on Buffistas.

While skimming, I saw that a few folks mentioned that Wash's death was pointless. In the context of BDM1, it is a little pointless. Where we will really see the point of it is in BDM2 and BDM3 (if we are so lucky).

There was no "to be continued" at the end of this movie. Also, I took from joss' comments, that although he hoped for more, this movie was supposed to be a stand-alone and not part one of a 3-part trilogy. So, Wash's death had to be important to me in THIS film. It wasn't. It was important to me because of the TV series. Because he was the guy with the dinasours. (And actually, I wish that while Wash was waiting for them to come back from the bank robbery, we had seen him do something like play with the dinasours again. He had too little screen time and something like that would have added some weight to the character.)

Wash was such an accessible character for me (in the series) that I don't even care about BDMs 2 and 3, with him dead. I know there's meta-spec that AT mightn't have been available for future BDMs, but still...

Part of the reason of seeing BDM2 and BDM3 is seeing how the characters move on and deal with his loss. Just like we are. Don't you want to see this?

No. Completely uninterested in a 'verse that contains no Book AND no Wash. Wish them well. Glad there're working. Hope all goes well. I'm done.

That may change, but right now, no. This isn't mourning. It started to be mourning. But this doesn't feel honestly earned, even with the oblique twist Joss is famous for. It's not Jenny's death, or Joyce's death, that leaves me in the story and mourning the death of a beloved character. This is having my face slapped hard enough for believing in a rare good onscreen marriage of real characters to knock me completely out of the story, and past caring what happens to the cardboard images that are left.

This is having my face slapped hard enough for believing in a rare good onscreen marriage of real characters to knock me completely out of the story, and past caring what happens to the cardboard images that are left.

I'm not quite at that point, but that's close to how I feel.

Mal: "you'll have to tell me about that one day"

Book: "No, I really don't"

I got all pissy about this exchange after the fact, 'cause that line was totally from Joss to me. Fandom says, you have to tell me that great and intriguing backstory. And Joss says, no, I really don't have to tell you.

The changes to Book & to Simon were the most irksome. Definitely the relationship between Book & Mal was weird. And Book became much less interesting as portrayed in the movie. Simon was completely different (and heterosexual!) and I just sort of ignored him throughout.

With everyone else, it just seemed like I got less of them and less of their characters than I wanted. Not that they were inconsistent in their characterization, just that I was unable to see the subtler nuances that I loved in the show.

Wash's death is upsetting, and mostly because of the loss of the wonderfully portrayed relationship.

But, you know, it doesn't necessarily have a payoff because there isn't necessarily a follow-up. If I never see the characters again, then Wash's death is just a part of the narrative, and not a living breathing thing that we have to deal with.

It's interesting to me that if we do get to continue, that the "weakness" given to Zoe isn't an internal flaw, but an external pressure, a happening. No matter what, I will miss that partnership's dynamic.

Zoe being the sole exception to my "cardboard" crack. But only by a narrow, narrow thin line, the residue of the respect and belief I had for their relationship, for each of them as characters, and for Torres' fine, rich, textured underplaying of Zoe's grief.

then Wash's death is just a part of the narrative, and not a living breathing thing that we have to deal with.

To clarify, yes, I do know the difference between fiction and reality. I just mean that if the story stops as it stands, then Wash's death is only significant in its value to the narrative structure. Yes, there is danger. Yes, they live in this world that is almost impossible to deal with. Yes, there is no inherent fictional safety. But if the story is told further, then Wash's death must be dealt with in its other aspects, and frankly, I'm not sure it would be. In the next putative movie, viewers would have to be brought up to speed from this movie, and that would mean Wash would be this sadly mentioned character from the past and Zoe would be the tragic warrior queen with the history of sadness. Which is totally selling short the genuinely detailed characterization that came before.

I saw the movie last night in the East Bay (Emeryville), sold out crowd, a few costumes, a few Jayne hats. There was laughter and gasping and applause. Most of the audience stuck around through the credits, hoping for more I think, some nod to the fans.

I saw it in the previews, and this time Wash's death didn't feel so crushing. Still terrible, and I started to squirm when I knew it was coming, but this time, I was more with ita:

The bitchslap put more life into my fiction, and for me, not in a bad way.

The one thing that annoyed me was I don't feel I got a real reason why River had to go with them on the first heist. The fingerpointing at the man on the floor with the gun didn't justify her being there for me.

Most of the audience stuck around through the credits, hoping for more I think, some nod to the fans.

It's already been noted, but there was a nod to the fans, in the form of a reworking of "The Ballad of Serenity".

a real reason why River had to go with them on the first heist

The way I understood that was, they needed her to identify the guy with the code to the safe that opened the vault. Identifying the guy with the gun was just incidental.

Which reminds me of one thing that bugged me about that scene. The guy with the safe code says something to the effect of "so, you're The Browncoats, huh?" Like they're a club or gang or something, "The Browncoats".

Also, "I swallowed a bug" cracked my shit up.