The thing that bothered me most was the ret-conning of how River was broken out of the facility. Apparently Joss knew he was ret-conning it, and it CERTAINLY made for a powerful intro to show Simon breaking River out himself...but it doesn't track with what was strongly implied in the series (that others got her out and delivered the carton of Frozen!River to him) AND that Simon who calmly stood as the basket pulled them up to safety just does NOT track with the Simon of the first several eps who cringes and winces and ducks at ANY confrontation; that early Simon we saw quite simply had not yet done those kinds of things. By "Ariel"...yeah. And it is important that he did GET there...but it was a journey and in a flashback to before that journey had been taken in canon continuity, it was disorienting to see him being the Simon of later--and even MORE in control, I thought
( ... )
I kept thinking of Simon in Jaynestown, "I'd like to buy...some...MUD. I'm a BUYER."
How could he have been such a smooth actor/liar rescuing River before that? I discussed this with doeeyedbunny on the way home and she said it's because Simon can only do it in extreme circumstances. He works best under pressure, he's a trauma surgeon.
That, and it's possible he had more time to "rehearse" the part he was playing in this case - in "Jaynestown" he had the role of mud buyer handed to him by Mal without a lot of warning. (I just re-watched that ep last night.)
It wasn't Simon's confidence that threw me so much as how much information the doctor was giving him while he was bragging about River; the intent of what they did to her was made a LOT clearer than I expected given how little Simon knew about what they did to her. I need to go rewatch the pilot and "Ariel" to be sure, but it seemed to me on the show that Simon didn't even have an inkling of River's psychic abilities.
Okay, so not as inconsistent at I'd thought in one way, but more inconsistent in another way I hadn't thought of at all. I missed that about his knowledge of what they were doing to River.
Slightly off-topic: I've been noticing a bunch of Firefly actors on last seasons's Justice League Unlimited... Morena Baccarin, Gina Torres, and Nathan Fillion so far (those last two in the same episode--"Hunter's Moon"!
Adam Baldwin does a voice too, he's Jonah Hex in that time-travel ep that opened the last season, and he was playing opposite Ben Browder who voices Bat-Lash (the cowboy with the flower on his lapel).
Even though she wasn't really developed so much in the movie, I found myself marveling at the versimilitude of the face of the actress who plays Inara...Yeah, can't remember her name... Anyway, I never really noticed how mobile it was until the movie. The first scen between her and the Operative, where we get an extreme close-up of her face as she wears this mona-lisa smile that goes flat was very good, I thought. And then during the last scene with her and Mal, we saw it again, with the uncertain smile on her face. When have we ever seen Inara looking uncertain? I thought it was well done...
Although now we come to the larger question: why did Inara choose to stay on Serenity in the first place, and what kind of woman keeps flash bombs in the ready?
The actress is Marena Baccarin (if I'm spelling that right) and I agree, she's wonderful in the role. She shows the steel beneath the apparently delicate exterior, Inara's grace and confidence.
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How could he have been such a smooth actor/liar rescuing River before that? I discussed this with doeeyedbunny on the way home and she said it's because Simon can only do it in extreme circumstances. He works best under pressure, he's a trauma surgeon.
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It wasn't Simon's confidence that threw me so much as how much information the doctor was giving him while he was bragging about River; the intent of what they did to her was made a LOT clearer than I expected given how little Simon knew about what they did to her. I need to go rewatch the pilot and "Ariel" to be sure, but it seemed to me on the show that Simon didn't even have an inkling of River's psychic abilities.
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Although now we come to the larger question: why did Inara choose to stay on Serenity in the first place, and what kind of woman keeps flash bombs in the ready?
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