solitary_summer | (no subject)

It's one of these spells when I don't much feel like writing -- lj-entries specifically. Maybe it's laziness. But somehow, this time it feels as if the reason for the lack of motivation to update is that I might actually have become a little calmer and more secure in myself, no longer afraid that my life, or any 'progress' (mentally, emotionally) made will immediately become insubstantial and slip away from me, unless I record every tiniest step.

I never really realised (and probably wouldn't have cared, because not caring was a good thing) to what an extent I did it, but I think I must have shut myself down so completely at one point that it takes time and effort to expand again, to open up to emotions, positive emotions, especially considering that I've never been the most open person in any respect. It's almost like I'm very slowly learning to feel a wider spectrum of emotions again, to feel more fully, to see a world I've been blind to (made myself blind to, haven't dared look at) for a very long time. Learn that I can be a person, not just some object or puppet, more or less helplessly flung around, only reacting, but never acting; that I can have influence over my own life, that if I chose to I can determine how I see the world, and how I see myself in relation to it, positive or negative. And maybe enjoying looking at art as intensely as I do at the moment is a step upward, forward, and perhaps I should complain less, when there are good things in my life, but instead realise that changes, if they are to be true changes, and not just rebellions where you're flying blindly from one thing and often end up in a very similar place only decked out somewhat differently, take time.

And then I look at my pictures which are always ... Not exactly cold, not exactly lifeless, not exactly sterile, but very close to either; almost empty of life, the static, quiet moments, incongruously picked in places often bustling with people, and wonder what they say about me.

Watched Serenity earlier this evening, and is it just me or are all the characters ever so slightly off compared to their Firefly counterparts? It isn't so much noticeable with the 'minor' characters, except that they seem somehow less, less interesting, less well-rounded, less lovable. If I only knew movie!Zoe, Wash, Kaylee, Jayne, Simon and Inara, these people would not particularly interest me and I certainly wouldn't have fallen in love like I did. Super!Buffy River I can accept if I must, but Mal ... It's not as if he isn't messed up in the series, but in the movie there's an even harder edge to his character, occasionally bordering on the faintly unpleasant. Now, there's very little JW hasn't been able to convince me of, given enough time and build-up, but the jump is a little too sudden, like moving from the AtS S1 to the end of S3, cutting out all the intermediate character development. Generally speaking, the humour is lacking, and a certain warmth that balanced the brutality and general gruesomeness of the Firefly-verse. Instead we have redemptive heroism and Mal exchanging platitudes about how love keeps the ship flying with River ... In my opinion JW tells his stories better when he has more time at his disposal and can focus on the character's development rather than the plot's -- he isn't a bad story-teller by a long way, but they are certainly his greatest strength and (again, IMO) more often than not the driving force behind his plot developments and twists.

::sigh:: So much for not updating. Also, ::adds picture, because she can::

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Agreed to everything you wrote about Serenity. I saw the movie before I ever watched the show, I remember being so excited because this was OMGJOSSWHEDON and then being quite disappointed because of the lack of humour and general, well, Whedon-ness. Also, WHY WHY did he have to kill off Wash and Book? It made no sense at all! Yeah, I know, people dying not always makes sense, and JW has made that abundantly clear in Buffy and Angel - still. It. Made. No. Sense. And it made me angry, especially Wash. I *liked* Wash. *sigh*

I'm happy that you're feeling more balanced. I wish I could say something insightful and profound about that, but I can't think of anything, so "I'm happy" will have to do.

You're right about the deaths, and they annoy me because I felt that despite the general fucked-up-ness, Firefly was somehow more positive (mature?) than Buffy or Angel -- I'm not sure this makes any sense, it's really only a feeling I can't define... It starts out bad, but it felt like they were going for something positive, maybe achieving it, not just angst and more angst. There never was any real hope in Angel and I'm actually surprised Buffy ended as vaguely positive as it did; Firefly, as far as one can say after only 13 episodes, felt a bit different to me. I believe if either Wash or Book had been killed in the series, it wouldn't have been so random. It's almost as if JW was making sure that if the series was dead, it'd better be (and remain) *very* dead...

what you described about yourself seems very true to what i've seen here in the year (??) that i've been reading your journal. of course i am far away and only on the outside, but you have definitely become richer.

Thank you. It's good to hear that an outside opinion/confirmation...

oh and about serenity! we really disliked it because of the changes you noticed. i read in various serious fan livejournals that JW had wanted to make the original series that dark and deadly and hard-edged with all the people v. unpleasant etc and the network wouldn't let him, so part of what he was doing with serenity was instantiating his true vision of the characters and setting -- nasty people, hard places where people die at the drop of a hat.

i don't know if it's true or not, but it didn't make me like the movie any more. i wanted the people i had grown to love from the tv show, not these strangers with similar faces.

Hm, I'm not so sure this would even have worked on a tv series -- you can make a two hour movie dark and violent throughout, but 22 episodes? You need to lighten up occasionally, have a little humour, a little love, or else even the tragedy loses its force of impact after a while. Look at AtS S5, there was literally nowhere to go in the end. It reminds me of something Trent Reznor said, I think it was about producing Marilyn Manson's Antichrist superstar, that (I paraphrase) you can't just put one hard & brutal track after another because people will get tired after a while, it's much more effective to alternate louder and more quiet tracks.

Then again, I've always liked JW's story-telling and characterisations despite minor grievances, so perhaps he'd have been able to pull off an even darker and harder Firefly and made me like it. Although it's not as if Firefly in its current form is all hearts and flowers and baby bunnies, it's plenty depressing in its worldview, but it also has a certain something to balance that