The Firefly Movie: Serenity Thread (September 30, 2005! The Big Damn Movie Is Out!)

[DaShen]

Originally posted by: RadioHead84

Originally posted by: MachFive

Originally posted by: five40

Originally posted by: MachFive
I repeat: Dubb probably LOVED Transporter 2.

And you played light sabers in front of the theater for the Star Wars 3 opening.

I know I might get beat down for this, but the last 3 movies didn't do much for me.

Personally, I think Lucas had the right idea when he had someone else direct Episodes 5 and 6. For 1, 2, and 3, he should've outsourced the dialog to someone who knows how to write interesting characters, and outsourced the directing to someone who payed attention in film school.

But that's me.

No your actually right on the ball. Lucas is a great man...has great visions, stories and loves special effects...but goddamn he cant direct

QFT

 

[Noirish]

to be honest, this movie is way better than some of the opening date #1 over the summer.

if you divide its gross by theaters, it actually beated flightplan!

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: Noirish
to be honest, this movie is way better than some of the opening date #1 over the summer.

if you divide its gross by theaters, it actually beated flightplan!

Beated?

 

[Crapkilla]

Admittedly, I'm a fanboy, but this movie was GREAT!
Drag you neighbors, friends, pets, hobos, whatever, to get out and see this.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:








I know a lot of people are up in arms over the untimely demise of Wash, but it really ratcheted up the tension for the rest of the film.
I mean, if there is no anticipation that any of the crew are in real jeopardy, the ensuing battles really lose a lot of punch.

 

[sygyzy]

Thanks to some of you for putting spoiler tags. And a big WTF to some of you (JEDI) that didn't. And in case anyone complains that I should have known entering this thread, I'd say 99% of the posts I've read so far have NOT been spoilers. So you should have the decency to respect people who haven't seen the movie.

 

[Crapkilla]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
Thanks to some of you for putting spoiler tags. And a big WTF to some of you (JEDI) that didn't. And in case anyone complains that I should have known entering this thread, I'd say 99% of the posts I've read so far have NOT been spoilers. So you should have the decency to respect people who haven't seen the movie.

Get out there and see it man!!

 

[HumblePie]

Answers and spoilers here:

How do the reavers continue to exist if they were created from a violent reaction to the Pax gas?
First off, there are MILLIONS of Reavers. it was a colony of 300 million people and the woman said a least 10% had the opposite effect of becoming super unmotivated and unagressive where they weren't motivated to live anymore. That left 30 MILLION people to become reavers. that's a whole helluva lot. Plus, chances are, they weren't all men despite those being the only reavers shown. Not only that, they weren't MORONS. They were just SUPER MOTIVATED, SUPER AGGRESSIVE, and sadistic. Just because they got meaner and like to toture, rape, kill, and eat flesh doesn't mean they forgot how to do things they used to normally do like flying a plane. In fact, since they are super motivated, with the motivation need to inflict suffering, they are more then motivated enough to keep as many ships together to cause as much damage as they can.

Wouldn't all the radiation from their ships' cores have killed them all off over time?

See the answer above. Yes their ships were in disrepair because they were msotly OLD. and from the battles. They just did enough work to keep things flying as best they could so they can continue on with their primary purpose of causing havok.

Id the majority of the reaver fleet engaged the Alliance ships and the Alliance came out victorious, does that mean that the reavers, for the most part, now cease to exist?

That wasn't the majority of either fleet. For the alliance, that was what was in the quadrant. For the reavers, that just happened to be the local vicinity of reavers that followed after Mal when he ran through and lured them after him. It was a big battle that took it's toll on both sides but it hardly wiped either side out.

How does Mal know to act like he's paralyzed by the Alliance assassin's blow? Is he a more skilled fighter than I give him credit for?
Yes, he knew what that nerve cluster was. Actually many fighters know many different pressure points if they've been school in asian martial arts. Notice the over abundance of asain influence in the movie and show? The attack the Operative used was called Kiss of the Dragon. It's a difficult spot to hit and do correctly as you are hitting a nerve cluster thats coming out of the spine by the pelvis. You have to hit it exactly right, since there is alot of bone in the area to protect it, and with enough force to cause it to trigger. Which basically means you are sending so much pain through those nerves, it causes an overload in the nervous system. In this cause, it causes your muscles to tense up and spasm for a few seconds. I don't think it usually lasts as long as shown in the movie for the effect but that's dramatization for you. Since Mal was a trained soldier, and recognized the guy's fighting style was to go for pressure points, he DID fight him before and that's how he fought, it's reasonable to assume that was what the guy was going for and Mal recognized it.

Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
Thanks to some of you for putting spoiler tags. And a big WTF to some of you (JEDI) that didn't. And in case anyone complains that I should have known entering this thread, I'd say 99% of the posts I've read so far have NOT been spoilers. So you should have the decency to respect people who haven't seen the movie.

what part of "SPOILERS: " do you not understand dumbass?

 

[Crapkilla]

Spread the word!
This flick needs some bank to get the sequels made and so far it's been a bit underwhelming. It's rare to see a studio take a chance like this anymore without the names Speilberg and/or Lucas attached.


Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome![/quote]

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: Crapkilla
Spread the word!
This flick needs some bank to get the sequels made and so far it's been a bit underwhelming. It's rare to see a studio take a chance like this anymore without the names Speilberg and/or Lucas attached.


Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

[/quote]

Now make sure you -->BUY<-- the DVD's to support the show

 

[Crapkilla]

Originally posted by: djheater

Originally posted by: Crapkilla
Spread the word!
This flick needs some bank to get the sequels made and so far it's been a bit underwhelming. It's rare to see a studio take a chance like this anymore without the names Speilberg and/or Lucas attached.


Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

Now make sure you -->BUY<-- the DVD's to support the show [/quote]

I was going to say something, but since Fox is getting that money, it's not as important to me as people paying Universal to see the movie.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: HumblePie
Answers and spoilers here:

How do the reavers continue to exist if they were created from a violent reaction to the Pax gas?
First off, there are MILLIONS of Reavers. it was a colony of 300 million people and the woman said a least 10% had the opposite effect of becoming super unmotivated and unagressive where they weren't motivated to live anymore. That left 30 MILLION people to become reavers. that's a whole helluva lot. Plus, chances are, they weren't all men despite those being the only reavers shown. Not only that, they weren't MORONS. They were just SUPER MOTIVATED, SUPER AGGRESSIVE, and sadistic. Just because they got meaner and like to toture, rape, kill, and eat flesh doesn't mean they forgot how to do things they used to normally do like flying a plane. In fact, since they are super motivated, with the motivation need to inflict suffering, they are more then motivated enough to keep as many ships together to cause as much damage as they can.

Wouldn't all the radiation from their ships' cores have killed them all off over time?

Umm, no, there are not millions of Reavers. The colony was 30 million people, and she said that a TENTH of ONE percent became reavers. That's about 30 *thousand*, not 30 *million*. One would have to assume, of course, that the reaction that drove those people mad was *extremely* rare (hence one tenth of one percent, which could be hard to detect, as opposed to 10 percent, which is relatively easy), which is why it didn't get discovered during clinical trials of the Pax drug (and of COURSE there had to be trials, not even the Alliance would use a chemical agent on 30 million people for their *first* test).

See the answer above. Yes their ships were in disrepair because they were msotly OLD. and from the battles. They just did enough work to keep things flying as best they could so they can continue on with their primary purpose of causing havok.

Id the majority of the reaver fleet engaged the Alliance ships and the Alliance came out victorious, does that mean that the reavers, for the most part, now cease to exist?

That wasn't the majority of either fleet. For the alliance, that was what was in the quadrant. For the reavers, that just happened to be the local vicinity of reavers that followed after Mal when he ran through and lured them after him. It was a big battle that took it's toll on both sides but it hardly wiped either side out.

You assume a whole lot in that explanation. Nothing of the sort is stated in the film, so you ought to qualify this by calling it what it is: A guess.

How does Mal know to act like he's paralyzed by the Alliance assassin's blow? Is he a more skilled fighter than I give him credit for?
Yes, he knew what that nerve cluster was. Actually many fighters know many different pressure points if they've been school in asian martial arts. Notice the over abundance of asain influence in the movie and show? The attack the Operative used was called Kiss of the Dragon. It's a difficult spot to hit and do correctly as you are hitting a nerve cluster thats coming out of the spine by the pelvis. You have to hit it exactly right, since there is alot of bone in the area to protect it, and with enough force to cause it to trigger. Which basically means you are sending so much pain through those nerves, it causes an overload in the nervous system. In this cause, it causes your muscles to tense up and spasm for a few seconds. I don't think it usually lasts as long as shown in the movie for the effect but that's dramatization for you. Since Mal was a trained soldier, and recognized the guy's fighting style was to go for pressure points, he DID fight him before and that's how he fought, it's reasonable to assume that was what the guy was going for and Mal recognized it.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

You're insane, man. Buffy was one of the best shows *ever* to air. Angel was pretty good, but not as good, overall, as Buffy.

Jason

 

[WalkingDead]

Just saw it. What's so great about it? It's just the big budget B movies version of the TV series. At least they got rid of the Western craps and kept the unintelligible "Chinese" to a minium.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: WalkingDead
Just saw it. What's so great about it? It's just the big budget B movies version of the TV series. At least they got rid of the Western craps and kept the unintelligible "Chinese" to a minium.

huh...i thought it didn't have enough of the vernacular that they used during the show. i guess because i categorize the show/movie as a sci-fi western.

 

[silent tone]

For those people on the fence, here's a promo of the first 9 minutes of the film.

http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/index.html

 

[JEDI]

week2 grosses:

9. "Serenity," $4.9 million

1/2 that of week 1

looks like no sequel

 

[yllus]

Hate to speak ill of a new sci fi venture, but this movie was so-so at best.

Not altogether that interesting characters.
Ship wasn't very cool.
Space scenes/warfare was pretty weak.
Hand to hand scenes/warfare cut away too often to really get a chance to say "wow". Though the girl made up for a lot of that near the end.
Lead actor mumbles way too fscking much.

I just wasn't drawn into it, and expected far better writing from the maker of Buffy/Angel. Wasn't drawn into the characters. Wasn't drawn into the universe. Wasn't drawn into the struggle.

 

[jpeyton]

Loved the movie. I've been waiting for a new great sci-fi movie to hit the theaters and this blew any of the first three episodes of Star Wars out of the water.

Thought the production value was great too, even if they were on a tighter budget that George Lucas. There was only one or two special effects shots that were borderline TV movie, but the rest was awesome.

I am definitely going to rent the Firefly DVDs now, and I'll hold onto the slim hope that this movie/series gets the credit it deserves so more episodes/movies will be made.

It's the closest thing to a live-action Cowboy Bebop that I've ever seen.

 

[ryudo]

Serenity Shindig here, lots of content:

http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2005/10/10/serenity-shindig/

 

[JEDI]

"The movie, unfortunately, does not deal with all of the themes that made Firefly a great television series. As a climactic turning point for the Firefly narrative, Serenity is sometimes unrelentingly grim in the course of transforming the story from one era to the next. By the nature of the medium the ensemble cast is reduced in service of Mal?s journey, which is unfortunate. "

 

[gotsmack]

got a quick question:

Why didn't they just upload the video to Mr. Universe?

 

[HumblePie]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: HumblePie
Answers and spoilers here:

How do the reavers continue to exist if they were created from a violent reaction to the Pax gas?
First off, there are MILLIONS of Reavers. it was a colony of 300 million people and the woman said a least 10% had the opposite effect of becoming super unmotivated and unagressive where they weren't motivated to live anymore. That left 30 MILLION people to become reavers. that's a whole helluva lot. Plus, chances are, they weren't all men despite those being the only reavers shown. Not only that, they weren't MORONS. They were just SUPER MOTIVATED, SUPER AGGRESSIVE, and sadistic. Just because they got meaner and like to toture, rape, kill, and eat flesh doesn't mean they forgot how to do things they used to normally do like flying a plane. In fact, since they are super motivated, with the motivation need to inflict suffering, they are more then motivated enough to keep as many ships together to cause as much damage as they can.

Wouldn't all the radiation from their ships' cores have killed them all off over time?

Umm, no, there are not millions of Reavers. The colony was 30 million people, and she said that a TENTH of ONE percent became reavers. That's about 30 *thousand*, not 30 *million*. One would have to assume, of course, that the reaction that drove those people mad was *extremely* rare (hence one tenth of one percent, which could be hard to detect, as opposed to 10 percent, which is relatively easy), which is why it didn't get discovered during clinical trials of the Pax drug (and of COURSE there had to be trials, not even the Alliance would use a chemical agent on 30 million people for their *first* test).

Nope, there didn't have to be trials. The whole planet could have been the trial, as it was suggested by the movie. Don't assume your current morale standards would apply to anyone else, including governments. Look at what the Germans did as "trials" to humans during Hitlers Reign. Look at what the Japanese did to Koreans at the same time too as well as captured Americans. The only fact we know from the movie was that the "trial" was the planet itself. Also, if we watch the TV series, we learn ALL planets were terraformed differently and that many of them had strange effects when the terraforming process mixed with natural chemicals and elements of the planet. The secon episode of the series, "The train job" is about such a planet where the mines produced a gas that mixed with the terraforming process to give everyone who lives there an incurable and degenerative bone disease.

See the answer above. Yes their ships were in disrepair because they were msotly OLD. and from the battles. They just did enough work to keep things flying as best they could so they can continue on with their primary purpose of causing havok.

Id the majority of the reaver fleet engaged the Alliance ships and the Alliance came out victorious, does that mean that the reavers, for the most part, now cease to exist?

That wasn't the majority of either fleet. For the alliance, that was what was in the quadrant. For the reavers, that just happened to be the local vicinity of reavers that followed after Mal when he ran through and lured them after him. It was a big battle that took it's toll on both sides but it hardly wiped either side out.

You assume a whole lot in that explanation. Nothing of the sort is stated in the film, so you ought to qualify this by calling it what it is: A guess.

Incorrect, no assumptions were made at this part. The Operative states EXACTLY in the movie, call every ship in the QUADRANT. A Quadrant assumes four sections. So to call in every ship there is roughly going to be a FOURTH of the Alliances total military ship force. As for the reavers, a SPACE was pointed to in the movie as being PART of reaver territory. It was ONE area they sent out raiding parties. With those facts, it's easy to deduce that A) there were already raiding parties out like in the opening sequence on the plaent the crew robbed the bank from which means those ships would not have followed mal's crew when they ran to Mr. Universe's planet. B) Not every ship in that entire area of space is going to be ready to fly out or even NEAR enough to fly out to chase Serenity C) The Alliance is scared sh!tless of the reavers but haven't wiped them out yet. If the battle that took place used around 1/4 of the Alliance ships, and that looked like lot to me, imagine four times that and if that wasn't enough to wipe out the Reavers, then there must be a WHOLE LOT more Reavers out there then what follow Serenity. Is any of that a guess or using facts and logical DEDUCTIVE reasoning?

How does Mal know to act like he's paralyzed by the Alliance assassin's blow? Is he a more skilled fighter than I give him credit for?
Yes, he knew what that nerve cluster was. Actually many fighters know many different pressure points if they've been school in asian martial arts. Notice the over abundance of asain influence in the movie and show? The attack the Operative used was called Kiss of the Dragon. It's a difficult spot to hit and do correctly as you are hitting a nerve cluster thats coming out of the spine by the pelvis. You have to hit it exactly right, since there is alot of bone in the area to protect it, and with enough force to cause it to trigger. Which basically means you are sending so much pain through those nerves, it causes an overload in the nervous system. In this cause, it causes your muscles to tense up and spasm for a few seconds. I don't think it usually lasts as long as shown in the movie for the effect but that's dramatization for you. Since Mal was a trained soldier, and recognized the guy's fighting style was to go for pressure points, he DID fight him before and that's how he fought, it's reasonable to assume that was what the guy was going for and Mal recognized it.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

You're insane, man. Buffy was one of the best shows *ever* to air. Angel was pretty good, but not as good, overall, as Buffy.

To each their own I really only watched 3 episodes of Buffy at certain points. Only once was tolerable enough for me to sit through it from beginning to end. I watched the very first episode of Buffy. Couldn't stand it. I later watched an episode where I could describe it but it seems to me like it's the regular episodes for that type. Her running through a graveyard, beating up pimply faced vampires and searching for a friend that was buried alive in a crypt or some such nonesense. The last episode I watched was the end to a season where at the end she ends up in a place with what looked to be hell with millions of vampires around her. All in all, stupid show in my opinion every time I watched it.
Jason

 

[HumblePie]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
got a quick question:

Why didn't they just upload the video to Mr. Universe?

Quote, because they knew he was being held hostage. Which is why Zoe asked that question at the end, if anyone gets there first, let us know. They KNEW the alliance was there and that's why they made the Reavers follow them. Mal had it planned out. When they were talking around the dining room table on the ship, one of the crew already said, the alliance might have him already and will be between us and him as well as the reavers, or something to that effect. Zoe followed by saying they will be expecting this, and Mal said, ohh they won't be expecting this. Which meant he had planned on using the Reavers to follow them, by making them angry as hell, like stirring up a wasp nest by poking it with a stick.

If you note, these characters have a way of passing info along when they mean something else. It comes with being a "bad guy" in terms of always trying to out manuever the law or the Alliance. Take for example the time Anora called Mal. He and Zoe both realized "TRAP" when the message was given, despite you or the rest of the crew recognizing that it wasn't anything more then a business call. Same thing could be applied the conversation with Mr. Universe. How do I know this?? Look at what Mr. Universe said...


When you get here, the ion storm will play havok with your systems but a few pretty pretty lights and some time after I'll have you on my radar.


What does him stating this mean? Obviously the planet is incased in a major Ion cloud as shown in movie. Also, it's obvious the crew has been there several times. So why would Mr. Universe need to warn them about the ion cloud? In point of fact, he doesn't. That was a warning for something ELSE. Which meant, not everything was kosher. He was clueing the crew which is why they didn't upload. Not that the crew didn't expect that anyhow.


anyways, I've watched this movie four times already and have picked up on tons more clues it's nt funny in this movie. There really is a ton of subtleties in this film which explain more then the average movie goer will normally pick up on.

 

[CtK]

Originally posted by: istallion
For those people on the fence, here's a promo of the first 9 minutes of the film.

http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/index.html

thats a hot picture of River

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: HumblePie

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: HumblePie
Answers and spoilers here:

How do the reavers continue to exist if they were created from a violent reaction to the Pax gas?
First off, there are MILLIONS of Reavers. it was a colony of 300 million people and the woman said a least 10% had the opposite effect of becoming super unmotivated and unagressive where they weren't motivated to live anymore. That left 30 MILLION people to become reavers. that's a whole helluva lot. Plus, chances are, they weren't all men despite those being the only reavers shown. Not only that, they weren't MORONS. They were just SUPER MOTIVATED, SUPER AGGRESSIVE, and sadistic. Just because they got meaner and like to toture, rape, kill, and eat flesh doesn't mean they forgot how to do things they used to normally do like flying a plane. In fact, since they are super motivated, with the motivation need to inflict suffering, they are more then motivated enough to keep as many ships together to cause as much damage as they can.

Wouldn't all the radiation from their ships' cores have killed them all off over time?

Umm, no, there are not millions of Reavers. The colony was 30 million people, and she said that a TENTH of ONE percent became reavers. That's about 30 *thousand*, not 30 *million*. One would have to assume, of course, that the reaction that drove those people mad was *extremely* rare (hence one tenth of one percent, which could be hard to detect, as opposed to 10 percent, which is relatively easy), which is why it didn't get discovered during clinical trials of the Pax drug (and of COURSE there had to be trials, not even the Alliance would use a chemical agent on 30 million people for their *first* test).

Nope, there didn't have to be trials. The whole planet could have been the trial, as it was suggested by the movie. Don't assume your current morale standards would apply to anyone else, including governments. Look at what the Germans did as "trials" to humans during Hitlers Reign. Look at what the Japanese did to Koreans at the same time too as well as captured Americans. The only fact we know from the movie was that the "trial" was the planet itself. Also, if we watch the TV series, we learn ALL planets were terraformed differently and that many of them had strange effects when the terraforming process mixed with natural chemicals and elements of the planet. The secon episode of the series, "The train job" is about such a planet where the mines produced a gas that mixed with the terraforming process to give everyone who lives there an incurable and degenerative bone disease.

Nonsense. The movie NEVER tells us explicitly or implicitly that the planet WAS the trial. You cannot with any sort of reason claim that the Alliance would simply toss together a random chemical compound, declare "ah, this should do the trick!" and then immediately deploy it on 30 million unsuspecting people. Yes, we saw in the series that at least on ONE world the terraforming process had unexpected results, and it's perfectly within reason to expect that other worlds would have had their own particular traits that could be affected differently as well, but no such mention is ever made about Miranda. You can't compare the Alliance to Hitler's regime with any credibility at all, as no such inference was ever made in either the series nor in the film.

See the answer above. Yes their ships were in disrepair because they were msotly OLD. and from the battles. They just did enough work to keep things flying as best they could so they can continue on with their primary purpose of causing havok.

Id the majority of the reaver fleet engaged the Alliance ships and the Alliance came out victorious, does that mean that the reavers, for the most part, now cease to exist?

That wasn't the majority of either fleet. For the alliance, that was what was in the quadrant. For the reavers, that just happened to be the local vicinity of reavers that followed after Mal when he ran through and lured them after him. It was a big battle that took it's toll on both sides but it hardly wiped either side out.

You assume a whole lot in that explanation. Nothing of the sort is stated in the film, so you ought to qualify this by calling it what it is: A guess.

Incorrect, no assumptions were made at this part. The Operative states EXACTLY in the movie, call every ship in the QUADRANT. A Quadrant assumes four sections. So to call in every ship there is roughly going to be a FOURTH of the Alliances total military ship force. As for the reavers, a SPACE was pointed to in the movie as being PART of reaver territory. It was ONE area they sent out raiding parties. With those facts, it's easy to deduce that A) there were already raiding parties out like in the opening sequence on the plaent the crew robbed the bank from which means those ships would not have followed mal's crew when they ran to Mr. Universe's planet. B) Not every ship in that entire area of space is going to be ready to fly out or even NEAR enough to fly out to chase Serenity C) The Alliance is scared sh!tless of the reavers but haven't wiped them out yet. If the battle that took place used around 1/4 of the Alliance ships, and that looked like lot to me, imagine four times that and if that wasn't enough to wipe out the Reavers, then there must be a WHOLE LOT more Reavers out there then what follow Serenity. Is any of that a guess or using facts and logical DEDUCTIVE reasoning?

Fair enough that he summoned all the alliance ships in the quadrant. The space pointed to in the film was not described as being "a part of reaver territory", what Zoe said, EXACTLY, is, "that's Reaver territory". Given that just beyond said region is the planet from which the Reavers originated, it's not at all unreasonable to believe or expect that the majority of reavers were in that area. It's also likely that some of them exist in other areas, since Serenity came across reavers once during the series, and all we really know about the area they were in is that it was remote. We have no idea if it was near Reaver space or not.

How does Mal know to act like he's paralyzed by the Alliance assassin's blow? Is he a more skilled fighter than I give him credit for?
Yes, he knew what that nerve cluster was. Actually many fighters know many different pressure points if they've been school in asian martial arts. Notice the over abundance of asain influence in the movie and show? The attack the Operative used was called Kiss of the Dragon. It's a difficult spot to hit and do correctly as you are hitting a nerve cluster thats coming out of the spine by the pelvis. You have to hit it exactly right, since there is alot of bone in the area to protect it, and with enough force to cause it to trigger. Which basically means you are sending so much pain through those nerves, it causes an overload in the nervous system. In this cause, it causes your muscles to tense up and spasm for a few seconds. I don't think it usually lasts as long as shown in the movie for the effect but that's dramatization for you. Since Mal was a trained soldier, and recognized the guy's fighting style was to go for pressure points, he DID fight him before and that's how he fought, it's reasonable to assume that was what the guy was going for and Mal recognized it.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Great movie, watched it and never seen the series first. Could not STAND buffy and never saw angel. Wasn't a fan of Joss at all. However, watching the movie, I downloaded and watch the entire season last night. It was awsome!

You're insane, man. Buffy was one of the best shows *ever* to air. Angel was pretty good, but not as good, overall, as Buffy.

To each their own I really only watched 3 episodes of Buffy at certain points. Only once was tolerable enough for me to sit through it from beginning to end. I watched the very first episode of Buffy. Couldn't stand it. I later watched an episode where I could describe it but it seems to me like it's the regular episodes for that type. Her running through a graveyard, beating up pimply faced vampires and searching for a friend that was buried alive in a crypt or some such nonesense. The last episode I watched was the end to a season where at the end she ends up in a place with what looked to be hell with millions of vampires around her. All in all, stupid show in my opinion every time I watched it.

Jason

Buffy is very alike to Firefly in that it is a *highly* context-sensitive series. Granted, the first episode wasn't fabulous, indeed most of the first season was spent setting up characters and mythology. That's to be expected from a first season episode. Your second example isn't really what I'd call your standard Buffy episode. Yeah, there were lots of vamps (hence the title of the show) and whatnot, but the story was about far more than just running around staking vampires to death. The character of Buffy is actually quite the clever hero, perhaps the best hero ever written for a TV series. She's very much a cross between the classic hero, who always knows and does what's right without much thinking or questioning, and the modern hero, who doesn't always know what's right or even DO what's right. Buffy doesn't always know what's right, but she *cares* about being moral and, in the end, she *always* does the right thing. (Not so much Angel, though. He does the morally wrong thing a *lot* Also, the last episode you mention wasn't a season finale, it was just a 30 second snippit at the end of an early season 7 episode, showing the audience what was soon to come.

If you enjoyed the writing/acting/directing in Firefly the series, I highly recommend you give Buffy a chance. Watch the first 2 seasons (forget the clearly silly premise of a girl with super powers fighting vampires and demons, pay attention to the *themes* and the *characters*) and you'll see what a superlative piece of television Buffy really was

Jason