Firefly
This is an example of Romantic fiction as elucidated by Ayn Rand in her book, The Romantic Manifesto. These characters act on the basis of their values. While they each know their self-interest, for each that is different, based on their personal life experiences. Thus, the show is about morality: beliefs becoming actions. Those different goals bring tensions and conflicts.
The hero is Malcolm Reynolds. He owns a spaceship, Serenity, that hauls cargo and passengers. Serenity is a "firefly" class ship, called so because the tail lights up when power is engaged. These are sublight ships. The story is set in the early 26th century. FTL does not exist. Terraforming does. China and America have united to dominate Earth; and Earth dominates the Alliance of human worlds. (There are no other sentient species.) Reynolds had been a "browncoat," a fighter in a sessionist faction whose revolt failed. Now, he seeks the frontiers, not quite far enough away from the Alliance. His crew of three consists of a former combat comrade and her husband who is the pilot, and also an engineer. Also along for the ride are a hired gun, a non-denominational Christian "Shepherd," a professional Companion (prostitute), and two refugees, a doctor and his sister.
Each of them has a defined self-interest. Usually, those coincide, thus the crew can function. Often, however, their values are in conflict as their different goals require independent choices in each situation.
The ship's hired gun, Jayne Cobb, was bought out from the men who hired him to kill Malcolm Reynolds. Cobb says, and Reynolds understands, that if the deal is ever good enough, he will turn Reynolds over to the Alliance. Yet, Jayne Cobb is there, at the ready, when he is needed because it is in his self-interest to do so.
"... value is objective (not intrinsic or subjective); value is based on and derives from the facts of reality ... Every proper value-judgment is the identification of a fact: a given object or action advances man’s life (it is good): or it threatens man’s life (it is bad or an evil). ... since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth. "Fact and Value" by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D. here.
Malcolm Reynolds is a smuggler. He achieves that by not getting caught and having the right-looking papers. He and his crew do not need the attention that comes from having the doctor and his sister on board. They are fleeing the Alliance because Simon Tam broke River out of a government lab that was deconstructing her super-genius mind. But Captain Reynolds knows himself and his values. Doctor Tam and River are his passengers, even as they endanger his mission.
The show was touted on Atlasphere (http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/040...).
You can watch the show on Hulu, http://TV.com, and Xfinity.Comcast. If you watch it on DVD, you can enjoy the backstory and commentary about the struggle to create and maintain the integrity of the work. A movie, Serenity, was released in 2005. Much more about Firefly will be revealed by your web browser.
This was originally brought to my attention by "Ba'al Chatzoff" a non-Objectivist on the discussion board "Objectivist Living."
Read the IMDB blub, cast and crew credits here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/
The Wikipedia article is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV...)
The hero is Malcolm Reynolds. He owns a spaceship, Serenity, that hauls cargo and passengers. Serenity is a "firefly" class ship, called so because the tail lights up when power is engaged. These are sublight ships. The story is set in the early 26th century. FTL does not exist. Terraforming does. China and America have united to dominate Earth; and Earth dominates the Alliance of human worlds. (There are no other sentient species.) Reynolds had been a "browncoat," a fighter in a sessionist faction whose revolt failed. Now, he seeks the frontiers, not quite far enough away from the Alliance. His crew of three consists of a former combat comrade and her husband who is the pilot, and also an engineer. Also along for the ride are a hired gun, a non-denominational Christian "Shepherd," a professional Companion (prostitute), and two refugees, a doctor and his sister.
Each of them has a defined self-interest. Usually, those coincide, thus the crew can function. Often, however, their values are in conflict as their different goals require independent choices in each situation.
The ship's hired gun, Jayne Cobb, was bought out from the men who hired him to kill Malcolm Reynolds. Cobb says, and Reynolds understands, that if the deal is ever good enough, he will turn Reynolds over to the Alliance. Yet, Jayne Cobb is there, at the ready, when he is needed because it is in his self-interest to do so.
"... value is objective (not intrinsic or subjective); value is based on and derives from the facts of reality ... Every proper value-judgment is the identification of a fact: a given object or action advances man’s life (it is good): or it threatens man’s life (it is bad or an evil). ... since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth. "Fact and Value" by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D. here.
Malcolm Reynolds is a smuggler. He achieves that by not getting caught and having the right-looking papers. He and his crew do not need the attention that comes from having the doctor and his sister on board. They are fleeing the Alliance because Simon Tam broke River out of a government lab that was deconstructing her super-genius mind. But Captain Reynolds knows himself and his values. Doctor Tam and River are his passengers, even as they endanger his mission.
The show was touted on Atlasphere (http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/040...).
You can watch the show on Hulu, http://TV.com, and Xfinity.Comcast. If you watch it on DVD, you can enjoy the backstory and commentary about the struggle to create and maintain the integrity of the work. A movie, Serenity, was released in 2005. Much more about Firefly will be revealed by your web browser.
This was originally brought to my attention by "Ba'al Chatzoff" a non-Objectivist on the discussion board "Objectivist Living."
Read the IMDB blub, cast and crew credits here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/
The Wikipedia article is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV...)
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
It seems like the entire series is on one disc...can that be right?
I highly recommend watching it and watching the movie again! It's surprisingly relevant.
Alliance agent: "Are you willing to die for that belief?"
Malcolm Reynolds: "I am." Draws his gun and fires several shots at the Allaiance agent. "Cause that ain't Plan A".
The idea is common enough in science fiction. An ST:NG show "Up the Long Ladder" brings together a high-tech society that is collapsing from genetic "replicative fading" and a "back to the nature" colony (also failed) from the old European Union.
1: By the end of the first episode, we know where Simon and River Tam are going. They are simply on the run.
2. They are brother and sister, which is clearly explained and repeated a number of times thorughout the series. How can you miss such an obvious fact? "She's my sister" This is repeated in different words practically every episode.
3: There is no time travel needed. The premise is Robert Heinlein's that as new worlds are colonized, they will have the very simplest of technologies because that is all that can be sustained with a low population, so different worlds go through different stages of social development, and can resemble different eras of Earth's history.
4: What do you mean we aren't told why the companion is there, and where she gets off. (In the lurid sense, we are told precisely where she gets off.) It is explained in the early scene where Inara is introduced to Sheppard book.
I particularly like many of the pro-freedom, even almost Objectivist themes of the book. "Thats what governments are for--Get in a man's way"--Malcolm Reynolds.
This brings me to another Fox dumped SF-FI fanatic supported show: Firefly. Thanks to Hulu.com I survived the first five episodes before saying no mas. Like Virtuality the show fails because it tries to mix Science Fiction with the old western movie shtick. The plot holes are huge. First the show jumps unbelievably from 26th century space opera to 19th century Western and in one episode 18th century aristocracy, no time travel was involved. Second a plot line is left aimlessly hanging. On the first episode the crew of Serenity picks up pastor, a man and his daughter and companion without telling the viewer where they are heading and to get off. It like the writer forgot about the plot and arbitrarily made the passengers part of the crew.
Both shows fails because the produce fell for a common mistake thinking a show success is based on few single elements taken out of context from previous successful franchises. Virtuality fails by taking elements of Star Trek and reality TV and Firefly attempts to mix Space Opera with elements of old west show like Bonanza and throw in rabid fans and astroturfing buzz.
http://www.lionspeak.asinglelion.com/?p=...
Scatcatsnortland, you issue three pronouncements with nothing in the way of supporting examples.
- You were not impressed with the show - that's groovy - to each his own;
- "It had many plot holes" ...How many? What were they? Were they significant enough to detract from the value of the particular episode(s) of which they were a part? We'll never know, but I've had the DVD set since its release and have seen most of the episodes multiple times (they have that kind of replay value,) and I'm drawing a blank on "plot holes" of any Earth-shaking, pan-worthy significance;
- "pure buzz rather than solid writing" - This is simply false - Firefly's (and most of Whedon's other work,) most solid aspect is precisely its writing. But first... "buzz." When Firefly came out I, a sci-fi fan virtually from birth, didn't even know it was there. Quite awhile later I caught word of it - some mention that caught my eye because I'd been a fan of his "Buffy" series (the first three seasons, anyway,) and the commentary I remember ranged from shoulder-shrugs to "meh" from people clearly uninterested in sci-fi as a whole.
As for Whedon's writing, the endless, continual wit of his dialog is matchless and sidesplitting, and his concepts and execution of them are - as Mr. Marotta's piece above accurately states - driven largely by moral choices rather than chance and whim. I shouldn't need to mention that choices-driven drama in contemporary American culture is virtually extinct (you generally have to go to Japanese television, where it's literally everywhere.)
So...some specifics and explanation please.
Speaking of Edmund Rostand's _Cyrano de Bergerac_, she said, "The truth or falsehood of an author's philosophy is not an esthetic matter. You can take it up with the author in a philosophical discussion. ... But for the purposes of a play, you must accept the author's theme as the criterion and judge how well or how badly he carries out his theme." (_Objectively Speaking_ page 119.)
Perhaps we need to lean we are not, and never was and never could be a Christian nation and need to get pack proclaiming the Gospel." --
From the blog of Scatcatpdx.
http://io9.com/5955630/joss-whedon-endor...
Hilarious! I had to laugh with him...
But see also:
http://www.theatlasphere.com/metablog/16...
With art, according to Ayn Rand and a million other university professors, the artist has no control over the viewer and the viewer has no input into the artist: when you find yourself in a work of art, there it is and there it ends.
http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Art/62...
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