But the silent gun firing thing is COOL. Geology, not cool.

Whatever you're hatching (and I won't ask), that's gotta be the coolest work ever.

Hah! If only. Just part of an ongoing conversation in the office about the new social networking tools, and what they're good for other than photos of astonished babies and brides with receipts.

Color and temperature have to do with size of the star. All yellow stars are pretty much the same size and temp. A blue giant (like Rigel in Orion) is very hot, and would have a very large habitable zone, except it also puts out way more of the nastier forms of EM radiation than humans could really deal with.

All yellow stars have similar surface temps, but there is a fair amount of variation in total luminosity and mass, as these graphics from Minnesota State and Penn State show. You wouldn't get a x600 solar diameter star like Betelguese in the yellow range, but couldn't there could be enough variation to make a larger life belt more plausible than that around Sol?

I loved the movie, but I'm just not sure it gives enough information to someone who hasn't seen the show. I agree that there's not enough information about who Inara is and I'm not sure that the horrific nature of the Reavers is established sufficiently. I just don't know. It's probably impossible for me to see it with nonfan eyes. As a fan, there were a few things that bothered me, aside from the obvious Book! Wash! OMG! I understand that they needed to establish relationships quickly, but the Simon business still felt retconned. It's not only that our earlier impression was that he had paid other people to get River out; it's also that he seems much better at being a bad guy than he was early in the series. I wanted more of Kaylee's love for the ship. I wanted the old Serenity, which was my One True Spaceship. I wanted the lights around Kaylee's door. I wanted a scene with them all laughing together at the kitchen table. I can hardly blame Joss and company for not giving me the movie of my dreams, but I there you are.

I understand that they needed to establish relationships quickly, but the Simon business still felt retconned. It's not only that our earlier impression was that he had paid other people to get River out; it's also that he seems much better at being a bad guy than he was early in the series.

This was one of my complaints, after the rage over Wash and Book's deaths subsided. I can maybe see late series Simon pulling that off. Not the Simon that first board Serenity, though. Plus, it invalidates the whole slow realization by the crew, and Simon in particular, of River's abilities if he was told flat-out she'd been made psychic by the Alliance and given a safe word to shut her down if she goes Weapon on people. Plus, why would he have put her in the box and why would River have been so suprised to see him when she was let out. (Not to mention the fact that River is amazingly lucid during their escape, not practically crippled by her psychoses as she was throughout most of the series.)

I wanted the lights around Kaylee's door.

I'm pretty sure there were.

I suppose there could be delayed aftereffects of the stuff they did to River.

And maybe the Feds were looking for River but not Simon, or River would have stood out more than Simon, which is why River had to travel in a box.

OK, I'm reaching here....

Her lucidity has not been a linear progression exactly; only in the very long term has this been the case. She was on/off/on/off for much of the series' run, so I don't see why it's unreasonable to assume she was lucid or not at any given point.

I wanted a scene with them all laughing together at the kitchen table.

This. This is what would have been perfect at the beginning, before they went down to the planet. And then an alarm goes off, and they start their descent.

Also couldn't it have been a Dyson sphere - not the more advanced single shell ones, but a variation on Dyson's orginal design - with the moons not just laid out in a single orbit, but a shell around the sun. (not really even as advanced as Dyson's orginal - fewer larger worlds) That would give you space for a heck of a lot of worlds. You would have to do some very trickly calculations to keep worlds from bumping into one another, but ...

The only thing is, I don't read their technology as advanced enough to move planetary masses into new orbits. The terraforming alone looked to have taken decades to perform.

And is it wrong that, in the scene at the graves, all I could think was "DAMN, Gina Torres is HOTT!!!"?

She looked freaking beautiful in that scene.