The Operative himself also told Mal he wasn't sure the Alliance would listen, Mr. Broom. Why give that so little weight in comparison?

Bon - he mightn't have known, but I can see no reason Mal would know more than The Operative.

The Operative himself told the Alliance that River Tam was no longer a threat. The fact that this gets mentioned at the end of the film suggests they're going to let her go. Sure, it's possible they won't, and that a potential sequel will include more we're-coming-for-you action, but it's also possible that they crew's been given an out.

I think it depends on where the next installment will be. If we go back to TV, we're likely to go back to smaller scale, stealing food to put money in the bank, then smuggling mud to put food on the table sorts of things. If it's another feature, then it'll be another big epicy type thing. Independants Strike Back is my guess. Civil war could be good.

Though he himself may not have known.

I thought he specifically didn't want to know.

While Miranda may have been the biggest of the secrets (or may not have), I don't think the Operative or anyone else knew for sure that she knew about it until later - the danger was that there was a host of things she might have known.

But this fits with the ending - they got the Miranda story out, sure, but it was the Operative's statement that she was "no longer a threat" that will (for the timebeing, or whatev) get the Alliance off their backs. The Miranda story being out doesn't matter, except possibly in the sense that they got bigger things to worry about right now - it's the threat assessment, which might easily be taken as meaning that she's dead.

There's no reason that the Alliance still wanting River means II would have to be about her. It just keeps them out of the light, still on the fringes.

The Operative himself also told Mal he wasn't sure the Alliance would listen, Mr. Broom. Why give that so little weight in comparison?

For entirely deus ex reasons--they've already done that story. If they're still hunting for River, I'm thinking it'll be in more of a taken-as-read fashion, like in "Safe" or "The Train Job," where it may be mentioned but not be nearly the strongest plot thread. Having them hunt her all over again makes it feel like a TV series on film, which is clearly not the feel they're going for.

See my post above.

Yeah, was still writing my post when you posted that. We're thinking along the same lines.

I felt very much like you do after my first viewing. It took me a long time to accept Wash's death in particular, and what that would mean for my concept of the Firefly 'verse. In the end, I did come to accept both Book's and Wash's deaths, and I was able to watch it again this weekend without being totally emotionally undone like I was the first time. I think part of it is that I almost see the movie and the TV show as two separate universes, now. There's a clear divide between the two in my mind, that is helped along by the changes in Mal's and Simon's characterizations in the movie. So I appreciate them each on their own merits, but not as two parts of one continuous story, if that makes sense.

Thank you, Kate. I'm trying to get to that point. DH wants to see it again, and if I'm gonna, I'd like to do it while I can help box office figures, so probably this Friday. Friday does count toward weekend box office, right?

I do hope the next one (if there is one) is sort of light on the River ish. I'm pretty done with River, to tell the truth. I still want Book backstory; almost anybody's backstory, actually, rather than waifweapongurl.

Well, the Operative thought that the reason they were after River (other than that she is the Alliance's weapon) is that the doctor allowed her in the same room as a bunch of very powerful and ambitious people.

I don't think he knew about Pax until he was there.

Objects in Space really made me love River's story, so I was glad to see it addressed in the movie.

I'm probably most curious about Inara's syringe and what that plotline was going to be since I do feel fairly confident that Book was probably an operative, or some similar government cop with a dark history.