Joss Whedon is My Master Now

[anotheranon]

Things I noticed upon 2nd viewing of "Serenity" (no, I've not had it on constant DVD rotation since September):

• The thing about Serenity's costumes isn't in the cut, it's in the detail. The operative's diagonally pieced sleeves, Zoe's weathered side zipped top, and the buttons on Mal's breech hems all serve to make the pieces more than mere "jacket", "vest", "pants", they really do :)
  
• Summer Glau was excellently cast - graceful AND predatory, vulnerable AND terrifying.
  
• Is it just me or was Jayne constantly eating something?
  
• Joss Whedon is a master storyteller, bar none! This is modern mythology, folks!
  
• Seeing a movie with an audience consisting mostly of fans is just fun on a Rocky-Horror type level - everyone gets the joke :)
  

Deeply tired and headachey now because I'm up way past my bedtime (such a lightweight, me). Time to snooze.

Comments

[skill-grl.livejournal.com]

An extension on the first bullet point . . . I'd like to schedule coffee and pick your brain about costuming and fan stuff.

I'm glad y'all had a fabulous time.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Hope you had fun at poker :) The movie was great, but it was definitely a night for staying indoors - very, very muggy.

Will mail you privately re: coffee.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

No it's not just you ... Jayne seems to be constantly munching out of little foil bags in this film. :p

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Which sorta makes me wonder, with Mal saying that they're doing the payroll robbery because "we need to eat sometime this month", where is Jayne getting this food? Could he be doing sneaky underhanded stuff for food?

A question that cannot, alas, be addressed in the "short" narrative of a 2 hour movie. Perhaps Firefly will go the way of Buffy and have sequels in graphic novels?

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Jayne's usually pretty good about the "be prepared" thing when it comes to his own survival ... those packets look like some sort of emergency rations to me and I'm willing to bet that he has a crate of 'em stashed under his bunk. :p

There is one Firefly/Serenity graphic novel in print ... it fills in a few of the gaps between the series and the film, features the "two by two, hands of blue", and sets up why the Parliament has escalated to sending an operative after River. I have a vague recollection of hearing that more were planned ... I'll certainly post the info if/when a new one appears. :-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Trust you to know all about the existing graphic novels - thanks! I'll set D. to looking..

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Knew about it and posted about it twice in LJ ... when I came across the prepublication news and again when I got and read my copy. You must have been speedreading on those days. ***GRIN***

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I may well have been speed-reading - zipping through is my default so it's hard for me to slow down :/ My apologies if I cavalierly skipped it, or thought you were referring to the graphic novelization of the movie itself!

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

***twinkles*** Nothing to apologize for ... I'm a speedreader myself and am constantly sailing by stuff (which I think is cool because on the second, slower read I get "surprises" that I missed the first time). Just wanted you to know that I hadn't been selfishly withholding information, since the graphic was released in February 2006 (the original five comic books came out either just before or at the same time as the movie ... can't quite recall).

in which i just go on and on...

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

I thought the "need to eat" thing was more of a figure of speech than a literal "we're out of food" as in that one Cowboy Bebop episode. During the initial descent at the start of the movie, when people go to strap themselves in the camera trucks across a table full of plates/dishes, at least some of which had food.

I hadn't noticed Jayne always eating til you mentioned it, but you're so right! Sometimes he's drinking (presumably alcohol) instead, though. And like the other poster said he does often seem to be sniffing stuff too.

Oh while I'm here, I get the combination of English and Chinese (Mandarin, right?) dialogue, but do you know why there is often of Japanese writing on things? (It's mostly Chinese, but not all.) I will ask my flist if needed but figure good odds you already know the answer. :)

Oh and one more thing... if you know where I could steal the Mal "I aim to misbehave" icon... I'd be in your debt!

Re: in which i just go on and on...

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

During the initial descent at the start of the movie, when people go to strap themselves in the camera trucks across a table full of plates/dishes, at least some of which had food.

Didn't remember that, but, yeah - that was an awfully full table if they were literally suffering for supplies :P

but do you know why there is often of Japanese writing on things?

Actually, no I don't! I don't know enough about the languages to tell the difference, though I think a lot of Chinese characters were "borrowed" by the Japanese.

As to why, I can only speculate: the art directors/set designers/Whedon don't know or can't tell the difference. I read somewhere (yes, the nebulous "somewhere" that I can't remember/can't find) that all of the Mandarin is poorly pronounced because none of the actors know Chinese. Perhaps the same ignorance is at work with the text?

Re: in which i just go on and on...

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

Initially there was no way of writing Japanese. Some time around the 4th century AD the Japanese had contact with the Chinese and adopted their writing system, called kanji in Japanese. Since kanji is idiographic rather than phonetic, a given symbol had the same *meaning* in both languages but was *pronounced* totally differently. The Japanese use *both* pronunciations, which they call readings.

Over time the Japanese started using kanji as a phonetic alphabet, to "spell out" the sound of Japanese words. Thankfully someone realized this was nuts, and they invented a new alphabet (aka syllabary), phonetic like ours, called hiragana. For reasons which are not entirely clear to me they also invented a second redundant syllabary, katakana. Every sound in Japanese is represented by 1 hiragana and 1 matching katakana. The 2 scripts are called kana, and there are rules that say when to use one or the other.

Typical Japanese writing combines kanji and hiragana; the kanji represents the stem, root or infinitive, and hiragana are used to add the different endings, as when a verb is conjugated. Hiragana is also used for words which have no kanji, articles and some other parts of speech. Katakana is mostly used to write "loanwords" borrowed from languages other than Chinese, and the names of foreigners.

Anyway. In Serenity there's a bunch of katakana. (I didn't notice any hiragana but it may be there.) Why it is there... I do not know. Whoever wrote it must have known it was Japanese and not Chinese. It just seems like very little in Joss Whedon's work is accidental, so I have to wonder.

Re: see, you already know more about this than I do!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I have no idea - much as I love the show I don't know a lot of the behind the scenes stuff (betnoir, wanna pitch in here?)

Again, I would recommend fireflyfans or other Firefly/Whedonverse communities or websites - guaranteed, someone has already pondered this and done the legwork for you, it's just a case of finding it :)

Re: icon

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Start at fireflyfans and ask/look around: I've found most of mine through them or their Friendslist.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Hell, if you were out thisaways, I woulda taken you to the movie costuming exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. They had costumes from Serenity on display so that you could get a close-up look at the detailing.

Baldwin apparently came up with the notion that Jayne had to always be touching or eating something during his scenes. Thus, the constant eating.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

They had costumes from Serenity on display so that you could get a close-up look at the detailing.

[envy] I'm well aware that they come up with a new movie costume exhibit each year, but I didn't know they included non-award winners. PLEASE tell me you or someone you know took photos! Mannequin stills help resolve the twin issues of "hey you, turn around" and "stop moving for a gorram second!"

Baldwin apparently came up with the notion that Jayne had to always be touching or eating something during his scenes.

Thinking upon this more, it DOES seem that in the series he was usually touching or sniffing something, but I don't remember the constant nibbling, so I noticed it more this go round.

[semmie17.livejournal.com]

Baldwin is tipping his actor's hat to Dean Martin's constantly-drinking character in the 1960 version of Ocean's Eleven (and Brad Pitt picked up on this in the 2002 version) where the second-in-command is always nervously eating/drinking/smoking something. It's a method actor's way of "constantly reminding the audience of the ensemble's vulnerable humanity" or whatnot. Sam Shepherd writes the eating-action into a lot of his plays as a substitute for the chainsmoking we see in pre-1970 movies, and the director Guy Ritchie uses the technique as well.

If it is done subtly, it brings out the humanity of the character. If it's done in an annoying, munchy manner, it can be hilariously irritating on a subliminal level. :)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

If it's done in an annoying, munchy manner, it can be hilariously irritating on a subliminal level.

Or, just hilarious. I remember Pitt's constant noshing in Ocean's 11 and because he was usually eating something huge, greasy, and awful I found it funny that he still looked like Brad Pitt :P

[semmie17.livejournal.com]

:)) I thought so, too. Rusty (the character) is going to weigh 300 pounds by the time he's 40, from all that nervous eating. :ppp