Well, and then there's the fan understanding that joss tends to maim or kill the character he believes to be his avatar...so Wash getting a stake through the heart is sort of joss'-psych-profile-meta.

The movie was about River. Mal was great, but the throughline was River. To be about Mal, we would've had to see his Independents background, his loss of faith, and how his character changed as a result of the events in the movie. Other than the deaders, really only River and The Operative changed, with a bit of a shift for Simon.

And I've never been able to watch the bit before "Somebody FIRE!!!" as anything but a GalaxyQuest shoutout.

Galaxy Quest rocks!

Mal doesn't change in the movie? Start of the movie, he's on the run, hiding from the Alliance. He's lost his faith.

He stops running from the Alliance, and life, and goes head first for them -- literally -- and risks his and his crew's life for that. He finds faith again, but not in a god, but in himself. The whole crux of the final Mal/Operative scene -- sadly, mostly removed in the final cut -- is about Mal's changes. (The earlier draft I mailed out a while ago actually includes the the very word 'change', but that sadly went missing).

Galaxy Quest does indeed rock.

I just really didn't like that the momentum wasn't carried forward on it's own, that there was actually a beat in the movie where Wash has to actually say, "we now have to go seek out another character because not a one of us is qualified to do anything with the plot as it stands."

Yes.

Perzactly. They wouldn't have even had to have Book actually cop to his past (although I'd have dearly loved a confrontation between the Operative and Book with at least a hint of recognition, though it would have had a bigtime Vader/Obi-Wan vibe, just to see those two actors square off), and they also could have had him press Mal a bit more like he did during the first visit.

Now see? We rewrote Spiral. We shoulda had a chance at rewriting Serenity. It woulda been great!

Mal didn't change in the way the main character does, but more in the way a minor character does...

But I was awake for about an hour thinking that the movie is actually the story of Mal and River. It's entirely a pas de deux between them. River's survival uses Mal's actions to happen, but more, River's healing, her incorporation, happens because of Mal's actions. At the same time, Mal's healing, his change from on-the-run to taking-it-to-the-enemy, happens because of River's behavior and changes.

Mal is the kinetic force, in a sense the ship, that conveys River to the place she needs to be in order to become a kinetic force in her own right. It's a perfect final chord that the end is the two of them on Serenity's bridge, as equals.

More, including the term "disenfranchised irredentist," but my own Mal is awake now.

So, Frank, when do you start as a screenwriter.

Now see? We rewrote Spiral. We shoulda had a chance at rewriting Serenity. It woulda been great!

Heh. I think I posted in the Buffy thread once the re-write in my head of sesason 5 (in summary form only) where Riley was the Glory host, not Ben (Adam's chip and removal of same somehow opened the door for Glory to start using the time share). Ben would have been a red herring who gets offed/mindsucked at some point. It still would have ended with Giles doing what he did to Ben, except he'd do it to Riley.

Ok. Loves Frank's brain.

Loving on Frank's brain a lot, myself, here.

Raq, I did get the pas de deux thing from Mal and River. If Firefly had gotten three or four years' run, I don't know if that's where the story would have wound up or not. If that's where it was headed, maybe I would have stayed on board for the ride.

But for me, the crew each represented an aspect of Serenity, I guess, everybody fractured in some way and missing pieces. The process of the audience discovering those fracture lines, those missing bits, the process of the characters coming together to mend, or to combine in such a way as to become a whole, finding and lending each other strengths...that was the story.

(Sorry, got interrupted) And the movie didn't tell that story. The entire crew could have been recast with new actors for all the importance those characters had to the movie's story.

It was the bait-and-switch factor that made me feel so betrayed, that none of these characters mattered, only River, and Mal in how he enabled River.

I think I posted in the Buffy thread once the re-write in my head of sesason 5

If someone Nillyed this, I would read it. IJS.

And did I spell the past tense of Nilly right? It looks wrong, but it looked wrong with an -ied too. It's that whole names into verbs issues, I guess.

I'd go with Nillied or possibly Nilly-ed.