posted
*There are no movie spoilers here, but there might be some series spoilers.*
I'm very interested in learning more about the Shepherd's origins.
Is he some kind of double agent? Was he also a "special" project of the Alliance like River?
Mal seems to trust him. Does Mal know something about the Sheperd that we don't?
More importantly, River trusts him. If Book were an Alliance agent, it is likely that River could sense it with her telepathic powers.
The Sheperd did not appear that frequently in the movie's trailers. That either means he has a fairly small role or that his story arc is suppose to be a huge surprise.
I apologize if this is already being discussed on another Firefly thread. But, come on, can there really be too many Firefly threads?
Feel free to add in your own speculations about the movie! Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Either way, I think Book will have very little screen time. I remember originally that getting him on the cast was hard to arrange because the actor was doing something else. If that something else is ongoing, maybe they'll even have to kill Book off in case they get to do a sequel. That would make me sad, I really like Book.
The trailers show nothing but action sequences and snappy one-liners, so I don't imagine they really convey the movie's substance. They do leave me wondering if there'll be more Jayne than most Firefly episodes, though. That'd be fine with me.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I'm ashamed to say I haven't read the Serenity comics. Yet.
Book is really not my favorite character, but I've always felt Joss had big plans for Book in later seasons.
I guess now we'll never know.
Even if we do get sequels, Joss has made it clear that there are differences between making a TV series and making a movie. He has hinted that many of the story ideas he had for the TV show will probably never be realized in the movie format.
Maybe it'll come out in comic book form.
quote:They do leave me wondering if there'll be more Jayne than most Firefly episodes, though. That'd be fine with me.
He he. Me too twinky. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I hope they don't kill off Book. Not only is he a likeable and interesting character, but removing him would leave a void in the character structure of the show. Someone would have to be added to fill that void.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I agree. Book adds something very important to the group- something to do with the fact that he is by far the eldest and that he is the only one who does not participate heavily in the crime.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Hey, twinky, do you own the comics? If so would you bring them with you when you drive down on Friday?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Darn. I meant to add to that sentence after I realised that Inara and him are quite similar; the crime thing, the religious thing, the fact they are perhaps the two not wanted specifically for something. Book I think balances Inara nicely, provides someone for her to play the aforementioned qualities off of. Think of all the moments when we've really seen something in Inara's character- it's been in conversation with Book or coming up against Book.
I have class; I have to go, or I would write more!
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
"I don't give a hump if you are innocent. So where does that put you?"
With that sneer on his face. Wow... there's got to be something big going on with Book that we don't know about.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Despite their appearance to the public, Shepherds are far far more than a religious organization. Think in terms of the Humanx non-sectarian UnitedChurch for a hard-nosed and not-particulary-religious approach to reality, and of the BeneGesserit for the cold-blooded behind-the-scenes political manipulativeness.
For shepherds are needed to protect the flock from wolves. And there are Wolves coming. Wolves, of which even the Alliance is unaware, and yet the Shepherds intimately know. And dangerous enough that the Shepherds in a certain sense encouraged both sides to the obstinacy which led to the CivilWar.
Cuz -- whether the disputes led to ColdWar, a stalemated war, or the victory of one side over the other -- belligerence leads to militarization. And the resulting newly-created militarized state* will be necessary when the Wolves finally take notice of the new prey in their hunting territory.
* Could have been 'states' depending on what type of war resulted from the hostility between the uncompromising sides.
On an unrelated note, I have a general question about the Firefly universe: where exactly does it take place? The synopses of the movie and the series seem to vary a lot on this. Some say the solar system, some say another solar system, some say merely the universe, and I think some have said different galaxies. I always assumed it was sort of a Star Trek scale: our own terraformed and colonized little corner of the galaxy.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Aspectre, are you getting this information from the comics, from notes of Joss's that you've read (such as the book that has the script and lots of worldbuilding notes and so forth), or from your posterior?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I've wondered about that myself, Jon Boy. If I had to guess I'd say that it's a single solar system, but I could easily be wrong.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
What spoilers? That was pure speculation on my part about the way I would write the series. What JoshWhedon intends to do but I do know that he has considerably more success at writing plots than I do.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jon Boy, in Our Mrs. Reynolds, Mal says "There're more than 70 Earths spinning around the galaxy and the meek have inherited not a one." That suggests a Star Trek sort of thing to me.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: What spoilers? That was pure speculation on my part about the way I would write the series.
I meant rav's post—yours got in the way. But the way you posted that sure didn't sound like speculation. You seemed to present it as mere fact.
twinky: Thanks for the info. I definitely need to buy the DVDs and watch them again.
Edit: starLisa: Ah, that's interesting. I was always curious about what sort of FTL travel they used, but they never say. That really changes my perspective, though. I always imagined that they were in deep interstellar space a lot of the time.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I think Joss says on one of the featurettes that this is another solar system that me moved to after we burned out our original system. But I could be mistaken.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Would the location/situation of the system be a spoiler? I can answer it but don't want to violate thread restrictions.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Beren One Hand: *There are no movie spoilers here, but there might be some series spoilers.*
I'm very interested in learning more about the Shepherd's origins...
...Feel free to add in your own speculations...
Merely followed BerenOneHand's implied request that spoilers would be unwelcome, but speculation about where Firefly is heading was desired.
More speculation -- which is all that I will write in this thread -- it is no more coincidence that a Shepherd is on the ship which RiverTam boarded than it was just luck that Buffy had a Watcher.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:What spoilers? That was pure speculation on my part about the way I would write the series. What JoshWhedon intends to do but I do know that he has considerably more success at writing plots than I do.
Ah, okay. I thought your response had a certain...bouquet.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
It's an interesting idea, though. We've only seen the one shepherd so far. Maybe all of them are cryptic.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Yeah, even if it's travel between solar systems they'd have to be exceedingly close together, since I think it's clear that there's no FTL in the show. If it's one solar system, though, it must be enormous.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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What are some of the things in the series that made you feel like the Shepherd is more than just an innocent religious figure? Off the top of my head:
-Book's ident card.
-Book visiting the monastery during the Ariel episode.
-Book volunteering to stay behind with River in Jayne's Town. Is the hair thing just a bad joke or will there be some significance to the fact that he looked like Albert Einstein?
-Book's knowledge of criminal schemes in Our Mrs. Reynolds.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I don't buy the solar system idea, even if it was Joss' own conception. There are far too many planets and (apparantly) suns, unless it's an absolutely enormous and incredibly a-typical solar system, for it to work. Even if all the planets in a gigantic solar system (say forty or fifty planets, or more) were terraformed, only a small number of them would be at the distance from the sun that enables human life to survive as it does on every planet they visit... Many of these planets appear to be moons, which adds to the number consdierably, especially since some moons seem to be terraformed but practically uninhabited.
Added to that there are at least four planets (or moons) in the central core: Osiris, Sihnon, Ariel and Londinium.
As far as I can tell it seems that the Core is all focused on one Solar System, with perhaps a few outlying planets and that other, very close-by solar systems (although far enough to not be intersecting for obvious gravitational reasons) make up the rest of the alliance planets.
Here's Where I got the Information but some of it is from the comics so very minor spoilers. There is no actual mention of the plot from the comics, almost as if the person hasn't got around to putting in yet.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Early did indeed comment about that: "That's not a Shepherd."
Now that I'm home, the comics say:
quote:After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terra-formed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided that all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. ...
I didn't read this preamble stuff (on the inside cover) when I read the comics, I just read the content. I don't particularly care about this stuff myself in any case. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Well, assuming some of those are moons. Assuming there's a double or triple sun and a complex gravitational system between them as well as these planets being very, very close to one another...
And even then, this system would not have a core. [EDIT: It's possible some of these planets (or even most) would orbit both suns, thus giving the solar system a clearly defined core but still!) Each planet would exist both inside and outside the system depending on the time of the year. Sometimes (during the summer) the planets would have suns on both sides (daylight all day long). During the winter there would be daylight for only half a day, like normal. Moons would have a really really odd day. Spring and Autumn on planets would be weird also, with two sunrises and two sunsets and a short night depending on where the planets were...
*head explodes*
It's either a cluster of solar systems or a Galaxy. It cannot be a single system unless the sun is totaly massive (and therefore unstable and short-lived) and the planets are all squished together in the small circle of terra-formable space.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Fringe of humanity...it can exist anywhere epople do, but only at the edge they have expanded to up to that point. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well, I hadn't given it another thought until people started asking questions in this thread. I just assume that they can travel quickly between systems and that they're close together!
It's only when someone brings it up that I have to at least work through it.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Most of the places they visited in the series were moons. I assumed the core was the inner planets.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I thought it was more a Foundation type universe. Central systems and planets, then the fringe/rim systems and planets.
Kwea, it's clear the center/fringe concepts has its basis in geography (is it called geography if it's more than one world?). Joss's said frequently that it's a repeat of the Old West. So it's the fringe of humanity in large part because it's the fringe of the solar system or galaxy (whichever).
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Well, they completely ignore relativistic effects of travel despite there being no FTL. Either the systems are all pretty close together or Joss just decided to forget about relativity. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I bet Joss misses the old Angel days where he could conjure up portals all over the place and set up mystical centers of power conveniently close to Los Angeles without fans questioning his "logic." Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Alternate Universe. Different laws. Fair enough.
EDIT: Beren, that's what I meant by two or three suns. I couldn't remember the real term for it, but I certainly think that's the only way for it to work. My drawing was much simpler (me being a humble humanties student) but I see it working if it's a tremendouly large trinary star system.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I understood you perfectly Teshi. You expressed your idea very clearly (and I'm a poli-sci major).
I just wanted an excuse to link to that picture. (That person's geekdom makes mine look normal, almost.) Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: Yeah, even if it's travel between solar systems they'd have to be exceedingly close together, since I think it's clear that there's no FTL in the show. If it's one solar system, though, it must be enormous.
Well, how many planets have we seen? Most of the places they've landed have been explicitly called "moons", no? And for all we know, they've put artificial moons in all the Lagrange points of all the planets in the system (within a belt of reasonable distance from the sun).
Though that would be some technological feat.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: I don't buy the solar system idea, even if it was Joss' own conception. There are far too many planets and (apparantly) suns, unless it's an absolutely enormous and incredibly a-typical solar system, for it to work. Even if all the planets in a gigantic solar system (say forty or fifty planets, or more) were terraformed, only a small number of them would be at the distance from the sun that enables human life to survive as it does on every planet they visit...
Some of the moons may be orbiting gas giants. Those can generate heat as well as a sun, even if not as much.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:For shepherds are needed to protect the flock from wolves. And there are Wolves coming. Wolves, of which even the Alliance is unaware, and yet the Shepherds intimately know.
I knew it! It's the Reavers! A massive Reaver invasion of the Core Worlds!
Or maybe it's Blue Sun... Blue Sun is about to take over the Government...
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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