Serenity is leaving my local theater. To be replaced with Doom. I can't complain too much about Serenity leaving, though. Sunday afternoon, I think that there were under ten people in the theater.

It's no contest that the trailer for Doom was the absolutely worst trailer at Serenity here. The consensus in my group, which clearly does not match the general viewing public, was that even though Karl Urban looked might cute, it wasn't enough to even come close to saving the movie. It looks like dreck to me, which means it will probably do wonderful box office.

During several Baycons half of the attendance was playing Doom.

I went and checked the largest local theaters, here. Serenity is still playing through the weekend.

Woo! I just checked the local theater and they START playing Serenity this Friday. Yay! No more hour long drives to the theater that was playing it (which incidentally is still playing there, just on a much more limited schedule).

So, um, there was this movie I went to last night - and when I say night I mean it, it started on 11:45pm - and I have some thoughts rambling around my brain that I wanted to share. I skipped nearly 1500 posts. I've threadsucked them and intend to actually try and catch up, but before reading anybody else's opinion, I wanted to write down my own. So I am going to blatantly ignore every single ongoing conversation, and apologize in advance for what will be - if ever - a very lame possible later meara.

Also, this is all so very jumbled up. I've hardly had any sleep (only got back around 3am, and got up before 7am), and the holes in that sieve I dare call brain are big and large. I tried not to write down the things I liked about the movie that I already liked about the show - the grow-up characters, with actual friction between them and still that trust and working-together, when needed, for example. It's hard to tell apart, in a way, what's the show and what's the movie and where the one starts and the other ends in my mind, but whenever something felt "I said it once", I just tried not to say it (or at least, how unnatural to me, to say it with fewer words).

Even what I did manage to write is all fragmented. I wish I had the time to make it pretty, to actually put some thought and structure in it. Some of it is just sentences drifting with no connection to anything else other than their floating at one point in my mind through the movie.I don't know when I'll get to sit and try to write later, if at all, but I decided I'd post it anyway - a mess of a post is better than none at all, right? So, um, anyway, sorry. But, hey, fun movie.

It's not fair to make me laugh while I'm in tears. And then again, and then again. It's not like I didn't expect that, but still. They kept the dinosaurs. That was so absolutely lovely. The first thing I could say, when the movie ended, was about those dinosaurs. The moment I fell in love with "Firefly" the show was those dinosaurs.

When the movie ended, in a room full of science-fiction-convention-geeks (and I say that as totally one of them, well, being there and all, so it's not a criticism!), the credits rolled all the way through (usually, in an Israeli theater, you're lucky if you get thirty seconds, even when there are all sorts of fun stuff hidden throughout). The lights were back on only when the last of the credits finished to roll. I was just sitting there in the dark, trying to hold to one more second in that world.

And people were all: "so do you think he planned that for the Reavers from the start?" and "How do you spell that in English?" and "Oh, the scale of the effects was much bigger" and "It was different from the tv show because - " and "didn't he change Simon's story from the pilot of the show?". And those are all good things to talk about. I'll probably talk about them myself - what I'll be able to, my vocabulary in movies-speak is so very limited (it's not the English, this time, I have nothing to blame). But at that moment, all I wanted to do was slide slowly from that world, that held me for two whole hours. You know, like looking back after you turned to leave? And I think that's the best sign, for me, that no matter what thoughts I may have afterwords, I got inside the movie and its world was real for me. I love it when that happens.

Oh, and the Chinese wasn't translated! When they showed "Firefly" here, the network made the translator translate the Chinese phrases, no matter that the English-speaking original audience couldn't understand them, and that's how they were meant to be. In "Serenity", though, there was no such translation. The Chinese was as non-understandable as it should be. I was so very happy about that (and I'm never happy about being not-able to understand something!).

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I don't think I know how to phrase thoughts regarding actual analysis of the movie. When watching, I was "inside" the experience. I never thought "this is like the show" or "this is different from what they explained on the show" or the like. Also, I don't know to use all those long stylistic words in order to talk about the differences between mediums or techniques or anything. Obviously, it's there, but it's not even that I don't know how to phrase it, I don't think I know how to form the thoughts for it, the actual questions, let alone the answers. So I'm not going to even try to get into that. Just the movie, without any comparisons (other than "this feels like that episode", which are emotional, totally a "me" thing).

Even though I was 'inside' the movie, I remember myself thinking "oh, such a pretty picture!", on more than one occasion. I only remember one of them, now, that didn't involve just "Serenity" moving in space. That image of the ruined planet (Haven, IIRC), and River looking through an empty frame, burning. Just looking through it, standing behind it, her look framed by the flame, with all the ruin around her and she's so alert and so lost.

I loved the shots from River onwards. I'm not sure I explain myself properly. The shots that seemed to move in a direction that seemed to be dictated by a certain movement of river. A hand that's sent somewhere, a strand of hair that move is a certain way, a look that's being glanced in a certain direction. It wasn't the "seeing things in her eyes" from "Objects in Space", but rather the drawing attention to the fact that she sees things differently. To me, at least. I'm still not sure I can explain myself, or even if I have any idea what I'm talking about.

Now, I don't understand a single thing about fighting scenes. My sign of when they're done well is if I can tell who is winning and who is losing without them telling me after the fight "OK, so I won". I was not only able to follow the fight scenes in the movie, both the personal one-on-one and the space-battle ones (though I have no idea who won there, the only thing I figured out was that "Serenity" escaped), but even to realize how beautifully River moves. There's that image of her, with both swords in her hands, drawn each to a different side, her back arched and she forms a sort of half-a-circle with her shoulders - it was just beautiful. Like a waterfall.

I was just so glad to be back, to walk those corridors again with my eyes, to visit with those imaginary friends. The beginning long shot: with the name of the movie being the name of the ship, and how it gets inside and moves inside it. All the way through the corridors, and up and down, and following Mal wherever he went, and just feeling that the ship is really there and people can walk inside it and breath inside it.

I loved the way the Operative walked through the hologram of Simon and River's escape. The beginning of "things aren't what they seem". Also, the way River sees things, the way it's like she's inside somebody else's head - that was looking like the Operative was trying to be inside her head, to figure out what was going inside her and Simon. And in a way, he did. He went through River's head, but noticed Simon's expression, was inside his emotions.

I loved the way River - with her dancer abilities - can choose the most unexpected places to hide, to hold herself, to be in. There was a shot of two characters talking - I can't remember which - and on the floor above, River was lying on the metal grid. We only saw her head, and all the people talking, and it looked completely as if she's part of - not the conversation, but of the minds of the people who take part in that conversation, if that makes any sense.

I loved how, just like in a dance, where each muscle should be stretched as far as it can, where each movement should be as precise as possible for the body to carry it properly, where the slightest change makes a difference in the feel of things, even if one (me) can't see it - that's how River not only moves, but also talks. It's like she's moving her face, her mouth, with the same precision of dancing that she moves her body. Like she sometimes manages to taste the words just the way she senses the earth and the floor with her bare feet

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Mal trying to use River in his robbery makes perfect sense with Mal's own personality - he uses what he can, he does what it takes in order to take care of his crew. Even if that risks them in the process. He - and they - take the risk. The "save what we can" approach, like in "Safe".

Mal throwing off that man who tried to climb the mule to run away from the Reavers - there's a discussion in the Talmud that goes somewhat similar to this ethical dilemma: two people in a desert. Person1 has enough water for just the one of them to get to the end of the desert and survive, Person2 has nothing. The person who doesn't drink the water will surely die. The person who drinks the water will surely survive. Splitting the water means they both don't have enough to survive, so they both die, just as if none of them drank at all. What should Person1 do? The answer is, it's completely OK to drink the water alone, even though it's obvious it will lead Person2 to death. It's OK to take care of your own life, even though depriving this from somebody else means their death.

And that's the kind of grown-up dilemma that has no going-around it, no clever easy-fix solution, no way of out-smarting and out-hero-ing your way of. "Out of Gas". They barely made it safely inside "Serenity" as it were, with only the four of them. They would never have made it with that fifth man. And there was no outsmarting that. So they didn't.

Throwing the loot - which was also throwing their life in the near future, just as vital as air (and probably is) and not falling into the hands of the Reavers - was just as much their death as the actual one. And that's why Mal didn't even consider it long enough before he chose to toss that man. Also, it echoed - though differently, possibly - Jayne's choice from "Jaynetown".

Those are characters that may do questionable things, in a world that not only can't find any easy other solutions for them, but practically the opposite, leaves them with no choice but to having to resort to questionable acts and tough choices. That's science-fiction at its best, for me - the people, the situations they're facing, their choices, the implications of those choices, and the thoughts they manage to make ramble in my head regarding them. I love it when a work of fiction, images and sounds, manages to do that to me.

Mal knows he can get all outrageous, crazy notions, going on the line, in terms of dangers and of ethics, because he has Zoe at his back, and she questions his every move when it seems to her to be worth questioning - leaving that man behind, leaving River and Simon, going all the way with them, deforming the ship. He can play with all possibilities, because she's such a rock, and has no problem challenging him.

In the chase after the mule, when Zoe thought that they're not going to get to "Serenity" on time, she was leaning on Wash. She's the strong warrior, the one who can actually kill them (who later does), but she leaned on his calming words, on him coming to rescue her. She trusted him saying that she could fly the mule to safety, and together, they did manage to save it. In all the action and chase and monsters, I loved that relationship most.

The movie starts with the lecture of the teacher, the attempt to put order and "the way things are" into other planets in other solar systems. It starts with telling the planets what to do, and we can't avoid it, because otherwise it will be impossible to live in them. And then the central ones are so very much inside this process, they think they can regulate anything,, even the outside planets.

The operative wanted a world without sin, and Book, the Shepherd, wanted people to believe in something, whichever it was. He didn't try to correct their ways - for example, the way he treated Inara in the pilot - but to help find peace in their hearts.

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I don't think I'm able to accept that Mal actually went through all this "make the world a better place", wanted to really change the world outside him own little one that he had built. I think he wanted so much to believe in something, when seeing that the one thing he had - the ship and the crew - is falling apart - that he wanted himself into believing in something that the 'old', pre-war, Mal would believe in.

Again, flaws - in a perfect world, there's nothing to learn, nowhere to grow, nothing to become better. In a world without sin, there's no forgiveness, compassion, giving-a-chance. In Judaism, the world was created for people, with their flaws and imperfections 'built in', and not because G-d couldn't create us perfect.

And that's Book's story, isn't it? Being able to go another way.

Book's story, as short as it was, with all those missing pieces, that's what the movie was all about, in a way. A man who chose a way to live his life. A man who found a meaning other than surviving. A man who seemed to not be afraid of admitting that a former life was wrong, that he made mistakes, that he needs to change. And took the steps towards that change.

It seemed that he found a destination at the end of his journey, that he started in the pilot. He wasn't on board "Serenity" anymore, he found a planet to live on, to work in. A physical rest-stop throughout a mental search that didn't end yet.

And even though he wasn't aboard "Serenity" anymore, he was still a member of its crew. Not just in his eyes, but also in Mal's. In a contrast to the way River and Simon were portrayed as apart from the other members of the crew, even when they were still aboard the ship, he was inside even when they were a far distance away.

I loved Jayne quoting Book. The thug, who puts himself first and is willing for everybody else to die as long as it may ensure his safety, is the one who remembers the words of the man of faith, the man who seemed to dedicate his life to that little community built on Haven, to the man who seems so much like his opposite. I loved the relationship between those two characters in the show, I totally understand how come it couldn't be shown in the movie, and I thought that this touch was just lovely as it was, without any further explanations or elaborations. Especially considering the content of that quote.

In a movie, two hours and that's that, pretty much every character can die. There's no "opening credits" immunization, like in most TV shows. So this movie was strange - which could play here? And in a funny tv-land sort of way, Book's death was like a relaxing pat on the hand "look, there, you know that I'm evil and kill characters, so here, I killed you a character, and now you can all relax and watch the rest of the thing", but also exactly the other way around, because, hey, nobody is safe! Not even Mal.

"Leaf on the wind" (I hope I'm quoting right) - and he was exactly that, and anything but. He moved between those two giant fleets, the one led by the person who threatened them for the whole movie, the other but the biggest threat ever presented in that universe, and those two fleets were fighting between themselves, shooting and bombing and responding, and the existence of both of them in that place on that time was caused by "Serenity", the ship was who moved things along. There was complete self-decision in that. "Serenity" maneuvered the situation for that fight to happen. Not at all like a leaf who is being ripped from the branch by a wind and carried by that wind and gravity to wherever the currents may take it, completely dependent on other forces. And yet, "Serenity" got stuck in that situation by others, there was no conscious choice in the sense that the consequences of their actions, of taking River and Simon in, were completely not known to them.

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And in Wash's movement of the ship, as well - he took it between the fighting giants, the fire and the explosives and the heat. His movements were as random and as smooth as a leaf which is falling and being jerked around by much bigger forces, and yet thanks to that, manages to land peacefully on the ground, as if nothing was ever in its way. As if the randomness of things was what enabled it to get to safety. And that same randomness was what, a second later, killed Wash.

And he brought them to safety. He not only did his job, but in a way that a few minutes earlier none of them would have really thoughts possible. It wasn't just "keep flying", no matter the odds that are against them. It was probably one of the hardest things he's ever had to do in his life. And he did it. He saved the crew. He saved his ship. He saved his wife. He was proud of himself. That man who knew he wasn't a warrior and in most places would be shot down first. That man who was willing to live openly with his weaknesses, and wasn't afraid to love such a strong powerful woman. He was probably the most fragile of them all, along with Kaylee - good-natured, looking for the non-violent solution. And still, he chose to live there, on that ship, facing those dangers, with those people who in many cases didn't even follow his jokes all the way. And he saved them. No, he was part of the whole group efforts to save them, he was part of that group, with all the differences and the faults. And there should be rules against being that much of a sap, shouldn't there?

I didn't have time to shed tears over Wash when he died. I had time over Book, but Wash was too sudden, and they all still had to fight for their lives, and Zoe, and I think my hand covered my mouth for all the following five minutes, but I just didn't realize that. I only got to crying later on, when Zoe was snapping out of soldier mode and being a person who mourns, when she could.

Zoe just snapped into soldier-mode, full power on. I don't think it was only because this was what had to be done, right there and then, for their mission and their lives. I think it was the only place she could go inside herself in order to not break down, right then and there. The place of the soldier, before Wash, the part she knew so perfectly how to play, she didn't need to wallow in thoughts and emotions. And it was a part that took each and every one of her senses and thoughts at their full possibly alertness and all her attention, which was only for the best in that respect, at the time, keeping her from drowning, in a way.

Mal talking to Zoe, in the end. All business, both of them. They talk about the ship, but of course, about Zoe herself and how she holds up. But, maybe, also about her faith in Mal, her following him now, still, after Wash's death. About their friendship. About her choosing to continue with him, having faith in something. She had to make that choice again, too. She followed a similar process, as well, because of what she lost.

River managed to give something to Mal, in normal conversation, in terms of a personal simple friendship gesture. She wanted to hear him say something. She gave him the place and the comfort for it. And he was willing to accept it from her. More than the actual words that he said, the fact that the conversation actually took place was what touched me.

Look, it's no secret. I'm the worse kind of sap, I'm hardly even embarrassed by it anymore. And when Mal was talking about love ("Out of Gas"!), even though I could hear that little voice inside my head telling me that the Mal I know, not just from the show but also from the movie, wouldn't ever let his words be that specific, I still couldn't help myself, feeling that he totally earned his right of saying that, that even the Mals of this (yeah, OK, imaginary) world may take down the guards once in a while, especially in front of somebody who sees through all of them anyway, and just let themselves speak put the things that are important to them.

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"Out of Gas" was one of the loveliest deepest love stories I've ever seen on the screen. It wasn't about a love between a man and a woman, but that doesn't make it any less true or the love it shows any less strong. And in that episode, Mal said "everybody dies alone", and that this was the only choice he has when his world seems to lose all the air and freeze and die. But in "Serenity" it seemed that he managed to convince himself, sent to the corner like that, that he still has the ability to be a part of something bigger, that he can still care for those other people, the ones who aren't members of his crew, care enough that for him, from the inside of him, regardless of the facts who have remained completely the same, he's a little less alone. A little less of a drifting object in space.

Believing in something bigger - what, no matter what? As long as it's bigger? Being part of something that is more than yourself, having a purpose outside of just your own life, food and shelter, no matter what that purpose may be? "If nothing that you do matters, all that matters is what you do".

And my heart was so broken for "Serenity" - how they tore her apart, how they made her ugly and bloody and a thing of viciousness, how low they had to take her in order to survive.

And that was a big subject there, too - how low is it possible to go in order to get to a higher cause, how low do you go before you ruin that very own cause with that descent. The Operative and Mal, both, kept dancing on that line. Oh, and the good intentions behind such a low-point, too.

It's like in that book of the "Narnia" series, where the people who believed in the 'evil' god, but their belief was right and true, and they acted well based on that false belief, were told by Aslan, the good 'god', that it was counted for them as if their deeds were done in his honor and in faith in him. What counts more, the intentions or the actual actions taken? When do good intentions stop being enough? How can you tell?

You have to believe for your own self, to drive your actions from your own personal inner core, not have it forced upon you. Forced-from-outside order and behavior will eventually break. There are just too many possibilities, too many paths for entropy to win. Each person has to fight their own internal fight, each day, failing and sobbing and choosing badly and dying and being ugly, in order for the world to not only keep going, but also grow and be better. And that takes faith. You can't work on automat. You have to have some sort of compass.

The characters themselves, the members of the crew - they argue with Mal, the don't let him boss them around without checking inside their own moral code for the way they see what they are made to do. But it's not just that - he also already got their faith, their trust. It's their own beliefs that make them in a way part of his crew. It's the fact that they have such a thing, that they fly by them. And they may be different than his - he accepted Book, with all the obvious differences - but they were there. It was like Book was reminding him, regarding faith, what he was already doing without knowing that.

Giving River a safe-word, just as activating her, is a way less subtle way of the attempts to control that it seems the Alliance is playing with all over the place. And again, it was dangerous. She would have killed Mal, whom she later protected and worked with, without even knowing it. She shouldn't even choose to stop. When she saved Simon and the rest of the crew, in the end, she was petrified and couldn't get herself to actually fight at first, so in a way it seemed like 'activating' her again would be a good solution, or at least one that would prevent all of the others from getting hurt. But when she started finally fighting, it was by her own choice. She was willing to try, to pay the price, to face those monsters. And she could stop on her own. She wasn't a doll (Mr Universe had a doll!), but a real person. Still broken, but in a way whole.

Mal volunteered to the war. It was his own choice. He chose, on his own, to be part of that big tear that ripped humanity apart at the time. He chose to risk his life, definitely change them forever, in order to be a part of something bigger. And that choice led him to a path in which he doesn't want to take part in anything ("none of this means a thing", what River read from him in "Objects in Space").

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I loved it that Mal shot first, without any sort of hesitations or regrets. Just like shooting that cop in the pilot or throwing that man to the engine in "The Train Job". I loved how his search for faith - and not just for him, but also the way Book saw it, Book who knew him well and had a very different moral compass - was not in that ruthlessness of him, but in what guided it. He didn't kill the Operative in the end, not because of the mental voyage he went through the course of the movie, but because it served no purpose. He didn't kill Saffron at the end of "Our Mrs. Reynolds", as well, and it didn't carry an impact, in pretty much the same way.

So that search for an internal compass that is an outer light, that belonging to something bigger, that permission he gave himself to believe in something again - it had nothing to do with the shooting-first, with the argument about the size of the wound of that inside-guy who helped their robbery. That's just the way of life on the frontier, no other choice about that. So the question is what's behind that, what guides that?

Book saying that he killed the ship that killed his people reminded me of his conflict regarding the not-so-Christian things he had to do aboard "Serenity" when he first came aboard on the pilot. His questioning of himself wasn't over. He was still looking, still doubting, still trying to find the path that will be the most right, the least harmless, the most truthful. And he died looking. He died doing exactly that thing that Mal was fighting for - trying to correct a mistake, to find out if something was a mistake, through choosing.

Inara was trained in many ways. In "Shindig" she knew what to do with a sword, but that's not the kind of knowledges that seems to be of any actual use to her in a fight. She didn't raise a hand against the Operative (and when he hit her I was as stunned as when Early made her bleed in "Objects in Space"). Even though swords can kill (and, um, River proved that magnificently later on), she didn't artistically - or any other way - faced the Operative. She used "things aren't what they seem" instead.

Things aren't what they seem.

I loved that the guy who was supposed to help 'save the day' or 'save the world' was a physically-week-looking young man, a futuristic geek, who couldn't even get in touch with the world enough to have a real girlfriend, but a doll instead. And he even staged a wedding (a Jewish one!) between them, without even one single guest, but the whole ceremony. And he had enough equipment, enough looking-ahead and planning on time, enough strength to execute his plan, to actually play that key role in the "saving the day" process.

The guy whose 'wife' is a doll, completely controlled and without any free will of its own, was the guy who ended up helping spreading the word, getting the free-will and lack-of-control message throughout all the planets. And the way that Mal was led to the backup system was through that doll, that will-lacking machine that he managed to use for his needs. So it was the machine who saved the day, in a way. But also, it told the Operative about Mal's whereabouts, and sent him after Mal. And then again, the final fight between them, resulting in the Operative watching the message from Miranda, was what made him stop following his orders blindly and at the end saved the lives of the remaining crew members. So it was that technical creature, repeating mindlessly the dying words of Mr. Universe, who both helped Mal, risked him and saved them all.

Cutting the crew of "Serenity" from the outside world, all the groups of people who ever gave them cover. Mal's issue was his disconnect with the world of men, and the Operative made it as worse as possible, cutting even the little connections that he did make, not leaving him a choice but to be isolated. And from that isolation grew Mal's new faith, grew his new connection, not just to a few groups of people, but in a way to all its - and his - humanity.

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