Wonderful vid, Juliebird. That's a keeper.

Even though I still really really hate the "first rule of flying" speech.

thanks a bunch, dcp!

Lots of hard work, time, and love went into that vid.

Why do you hate the speech?

I like the message, just hate the metaphor used. I posted about it at dcp "Firefly 4: Also, we can kill you with our brains" Oct 15, 2005 10:00:21 pm PDT

I used fly sailplanes, and I still miss it. It makes me take stuff about flying in books/movies/tv shows too seriously.

Pictures: [link]

I've drabbled about flying a few times.
dcp "The Great Write Way" May 18, 2004 8:20:34 pm PDT
and
dcp "The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time..." May 23, 2005 1:34:57 pm PDT
and
dcp "The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time..." Oct 24, 2005 7:08:25 pm PDT


If you were to ask me, I'd say the first rule of flying isn't "Love." It's "Don't die." There is a famous old quote:

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

— Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. Circa early 1930's.

Space -- "the black'' -- can also be included in that list. Love may be what Mal finds keeps him going, it may be what makes Serenity a home, but it won't "[keep] her in the air when she oughta fall down, [tell] you when she's hurting 'fore she keens." I really wish Joss had used a different metaphor for that speech--one not involving flying and vehicle maintenance.

t /rant

curfew's in a half, so I'll check those out later, but I'll add my own gripes about the speech: Kaylee had plenty of love for Serenity and everyone around her, she knew she'd fail soon "tells you she's hurting before she keens", and Mal let penny-pinching get in the way of making her well, and Serenity broke and the Home had to be abandoned and the Family broken up in Out of Gas.

The reason I love the speech on a non-literal level is a subject that I've touched on twice before in my vids: most blatantly in "Prep for Flight". The idea that you can do what you need to survive, but you're not really living, because you're not loving. And if you can't love, you're not flying. It's almost counter to the concept of "keep flying". I've actually grown to hate "keep flying" because of it, because it means that one is surviving on the most barest limits, and not actually living.

Not actually doing the things that constitute having a life: love, family, home. That "keep flying" isn't as worthy as actually Flying. And Flying means letting yourself fall, means stop trying to survive, and start living, loving, even if it means you crash, and maybe you burn. And maybe you don't come back from that. You don't survive that, but you lived, you flew, really flew.

I wonder if it was a concept that was deliberately meant to have multiple meanings over the course of the story: the pilot ends with "keep flying/surviving", but the movie ends with "flying/living/loving".

And that's a whole jumbled mess of trying to articulate something that I feel about the show and movie in general, and maybe it doesn't make sense, but I'll say that I agree with you in the sense that I wish the flying speech hadn't gone on as much as it had, in such a specific direction, because, yes, the metaphor doesn't match up quite so nicely.

I mean, I don't think that letting love in and allowing yourself to love will keep you alive, keep you in flight, as the speech implies, but I do think that it could make you more in tune with things that need fixing (relationships, engine parts). Where "Love's Divine" differs from "Prep for Flight" is that the latter embraces the idea that "falling [in love] in order to fly" could mean that you crash and burn, whereas "surviving" means you could live a long, healthy, and empty life. But Mal's willingness to die for his belief counters that to a degree.

/ramble makesnosense ramble makesnosense ramble makesnosense.

Maybe I'd be in bed by now if I'd just read your links!

Calling Browncoats: Help get Firefly to number 1

Hi

Sorry if you guys already know but there's a major vote at:

[link] (Firefly in right hand column)

Firefly is in 3rd place and we need more voters to reach number 1. It's free to vote and you can vote every 60minutes.

We were gaining fast on 2nd (BONANZA - and still are) and 1st (XENA) but now XENA have mobilised all their troops and are voting like crazy. So we need more Browncoats to vote and get Firefly to No 1, where it belongs.

Here are the current standings as of 05/02/07:

XENA - 195865 BONANZA - 165550 FIREFLY - 142215

You can also download a timer from here:

Windows: [link] Linux: [link] OSX (and earlier): [link]

Which will open every 60 minutes.

If you use AOL you can vote in AOL Browser and Internet Explorer Browser so getting 2 votes per 60 minutes!

You can keep updated from this thread: [link]

Even 1 vote from you a day will make a difference and the 1st show to reach 250k votes will be inducted into the HALL OF FAME.

Join the battle Browncoats! WE NEED YOU!

Ayceofspades, what site is conducting this poll? What Hall of Fame is this that doesn't have room for both Bonanza and Firefly?

The La Femme Nikita people I know are all over this poll too. I don't get it.

A Google for "Rich Labonte" shows some porn-related links... could this be the guy who was talking about trying to bankroll a second Firefly movie?

That was Ace Underhill you're thinking of. I really don't get the point of these polls. It's not about the best tv shows, it's about which show has the most fanatical fan base.

Ace Underhill!

I wonder how he's doing.