*is excited*

That sounds a lot like Dark Angel, although I'm not bothered coz I quite liked it and thought it had potential that was wasted in mushy love story archs. If Joss gets Jessica Alba for this too I might become a huge fan...

quote:

Originally posted by DNNDNDNDNDNNDNDNDN:
I think Whedon is a VERY creative person, I am not really a big Firefly watcher but I love Buffy and Serenity, Serenity I found a surprisingly good (what I mean is that I accidentally saw the film) Although I've heard that he's athiest and often shows it in his work. I don't mind this, an artists' opinion really shouldn't matter, just the quality of the work. I mean, Phillip K. Dick used drugs and was hospitizled insane and look at what he did!

Check out the rest of Firefly. Makes at least one of the deaths in Serenity even more heartbreaking.

As for the atheism: while he's personally vocal about it, he seems to understand *why* people are religious and seems interested in how good ethics work regardless of religious background.

Really? Who shows that? There really aren't any meaningful people of faith in his work other than Angel, who only becomes a truly competent champion when he gives up his faith, and Book, from Firefly, who, based on River's telepathy in "Objects in Space," is some kind of a hypocrite, or at least has a lot to hide.

Also, he's been quoted as saying that coming to the realization that there is no God is, "a very important and necessary thing to learn." While agree that he isn't hostile about his atheism, he is by no means friendly towards religious faith, in his fiction or otherwise.

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
...seems interested in how good ethics work regardless of religious background.

Dweller, Justy's point (and forgive me if I'm wrong, Justy) is that Joss' characters are, for the most part, not religious, but continually have to face choices of right and wrong, good and evil, and even the nefarious not right but not wrong either. I think the point Joss is trying to make is that ethical behavior has very little, if anything, to do with religion. Mal is a great example of someone operating under a non-traditional moral code, yet still managing at least some ethical behavior (Train Job, Safe, and the movie for a start).

I dunno about the *why* people are religious part, though. I don't understand it myself so I'm unlikely to recognize it even if Joss is expounding on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
Really? Who shows that? There really aren't any meaningful people of faith in his work <...>

<closes eyes to Angel-related comment >

I wonder how much this is a product of the genre, though. I seem to vaguely recall a commentary of Buffy in which they said they didn't want to go into the religious thing (crosses, Chritsians, etc) coz it'd be too difficult to tackle -although maybe I dreamt this.

But at any rate I've always wondered about that in fantasy stuff, because it IS difficult to include a religious view (whether an existing or an invented one) within a body of fantasy/sci fi and make it convincing, non-preachy and still worth watching. And if you're dealing with vampires in a contemporary world, then I suppose it becomes very difficult not to fall into a Christian God=good vs. Devil=bad theme, which would probably be detrimental to the show (because it's basically a pop cult show that wants to explore other issues).

And same with Firefly, it's in space, it's the future, there's all these themes going on in the first season and then the show got cancelled. (I don't remember "Objects in Space", Dweller, but even though Book obviously has a dodgy past, he is a character who does seem to be very much at peace and have great wisdom, so that can be seen as a positive effect of religion in that character.)

1. I always thought Book was an example of the positive effect Faith can have on a person - I always got the impression that it was his finding his faith that transformed him from a potentially less-than-virtuous soul into the Preacher Man.

2. If we're going to mention bad examples of faith in Whedon, surely we can't ignore Father Mal in the last season of Buffy.

And on an almost completely unrelated note, let me brag about just having had the pleasure of translating the words Joss himself. Words he's written for a script, as well as words From His Mouth And In His Voice.

It would be job heaven if it all amounted to more than a few shitty 25 minutes or so, but oooh, the wordgasm...

quote:

Originally posted by Tongster:
...surely we can't ignore Father Mal in the last season of Buffy.

Caleb. The character's name was Caleb.

[grumps] 'Father Mal' indeed [/grumps]

I just don't know that Book was anything more than someone who was using religion as a place to hang his shingle. He acted pious on the outside, but the few glimpses we got of his interior, it just didn't seem sincere. Hard to say based on one phrase picked up telepathically by a crazy chick, but it was a pretty nasty thing to think with that pleasant a face on.

Oh, and when the Israelites were preparing to invade Canaan, Caleb was one of the twelve spies sent to investigate. Only he and Joshua reported that the land was ready to be taken and that they should invade, and only they were marked as faithful enough to survive long enough to enter the Promised Land.

Nice bit of naming, that.

I don't know how much faith you should put in those flashes of River's, though. Except for Jayne's, "I got stupid. The money was too good," I don't know that I believe any of them are "truth". They may be River's interpretation of emotions or thoughts she doesn't understand, but I think it's like the stick/gun- "It's just a symbol. It doesn't mean what you think it means."

We know Book has a past because of his fighting skills, connection to the Alliance, and the way he knows things about the government that a preacher wouldn't be likely to know. But I'm not willing to take River's version over Book's actions during the show's run. It could be he was hiding his past behind religion, which would make sense to me considering Joss' pov, but it could also be he was trying to atone for his past or search for a better future.

I agree with Tongster about Book there, and it's true that organised religion is a poor fit for Whedon's work. But i attribute that mainly to the constant theme of personal responsibility for actions rather than any appeal to a higher power.

incidentally, in all of Buffy, i think the only character that attended church was Riley.

We can trust what Jayne thought and what Mal and Inarra thought - they were just giving inner voice to the tension we'd seen in their relationship from the start. So if we can't trust what Book thought then it's either because the scene was badly written, which seems unlikely, or because we were listening in on thoughts Book might not even be consciously aware he was having.

Hrm. I have a thought.

Jayne is the show's Cordelia in the sense that he has a motivation, he follows it and then deals with the consequences; thought, action, reaction, human behaviour stripped down to its bare essentials. He's arguably stupider than Cordy, but of a similar mind. So, what River read as his thoughts is pretty much exactly what he was consciously aware he was thinking.

The exchange between Inarra and Mal was all about a relationship the two share that neither were willing to recognize. Some of the louder bits may have been consciously thought, but much of it, if not all, was hidden inside them.

So, when she was reading Book, she was reading what he thought on some deeper and more base level, that level that he had lived his life at for years or maybe even decades and had not yet expunged. That makes the scene no less jarring, but at least less contradictory.

Thanks, that was helpful, even if I'm utterly wrong.

As far as the lack of appeal to a higher power goes, I have to say my favourite thing about Angel is . . . something clover can't read, and I forget how to post in white. It happens after an elevator ride to hell, let's just put it that way.

quote:

Originally posted by Murphy:
incidentally, in all of Buffy, i think the only character that attended church was Riley.

And Spike. Who both boned her. Coincidence? Probably.

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
As far as the lack of appeal to a higher power goes, I have to say my favourite thing about Angel is . . . something clover can't read, and I forget how to post in white. It happens after an elevator ride to hell, let's just put it that way.

Lol, that's so sweet!

FTR:
[colour:white] and then [/colour], with American spelling.

I never thought Book was thinking what River heard at that moment. I thought the ones for Jayne and Book were from the past, rather than straightfoward mind-reading.

I mean, why would Jayne have been thinking that right then?

Because Objects in Space occurs after Ariel, and that scene in Objects in Space occurs during a time when, based on other dialogue, the subject of River and Simon is on Jayne's mind.

And if the thoughts are of the past, then why are Mal's and Inarra's all about the very present? I mean, the narrator doesn't step out to tell us about what she's hearing when she hears those things, so I guess the reading could be inconsistent.

I've been rewatching Angel on DVD lately, and I think I'll be checking out the Season 6 Comic Series after another issue or two are out. I always liked Captain Forehead better than Bitchy lol