Current mood:	het up yet fascinated
Current music:	Symphony X - Paradise Lost - A Masterpiece

Yeah, I know....
... I've been procrastinating like a very procrastinating thing, but... but well, it seems I've turned out to be a bit of a coward, after all.

It's all Joss Sodding Whedon's fault!



Alright, no, it's my fault because my probbo is that I have to diss Firefly for reason of personal integrity, but, at the same time, I'm not that keen on seeming to diss on my friends' taste. Anyway, I have too much respect of their intelligence, so here it goes and the devil take the hindmost!

So Firefly is not exactly bad per se, it's got its moments, it's entertaining up to a point and certainly doesn't require the audience to exercise their brain to get what La Whedon wants audiences to get. JKR's much touted anvils have nothing on the man's Everest-sized ones. But, not unenjoyable at all. Actually first viewing, if done while silghtly intoxicated, is quite pleasant. But then my brain, no matter how torpid at that point, kept screaming things at me I couldn't successfully ignore.

It's a fucking western for fucksake! Alright, this is only pertinent to me as westerns bore me to tears. I see nothing romantic or even remotely interesting about a genocide retold so it was all the victims' fault. Well, obviously, in this case we have all the trappings and none of the injuns who tend to make modern westerns so embarassing, so a minor point.

Then we have a Baldwin! ANOTHER FUCKING SODDING BLOODY BALDWIN! WHAT ARE THEY? THE WEASLEYS OF HOLLYWOOD? ONE BIG FUCKING HAPPY BALDWIN PANTS-AT-ACTING FAMILY? GAAAAAAAAAH! It's Jayne. I thought I had seen his face in - I am truly sorry but I can't remember whose icon it was -somebody's icon and, though I hadn't seen his face, it's a Baldwin's face, of course I'd seen the clone somewhere. UGH.

Then the women. Could one be more cliché if one tried? Nope. Cliché women to a man. Zoe... why the fuck did Mal have to go in drag when he has a perfect homicidal maniac female second-in-command? One can be forgiven to think actually Mal wanted to be a lumberjack and wear suspenders and a brarh just like his dear mamarh which should segue into my only real beef with series, but that's for later - Zoe is a man in drag. I know, it's tragic, but what can one do? I actually would have preferred it a LOT if Zoe was an actual male man in actual drag, it would have been not only funnier, but also more credible. The whore... well, she's almost alright as a character if she din't have a secret crush on Mal. Instead of having a bona fide intelligent whore, for once, a cold hearted mercenary bitch, yes, but NOT stupid; an independent female figure who's using male supremacy devices for her own good in spite of the culture, which would have been interesting. But no, we can't make Bush cry, now, can we? SO she's another much cherished male chauvinistic cliché: the tart with a golden heart. *sigh* And what of the grease monkey? Nothing, really. She don't really exist except as a sort of token female-in-male profession thingie. Chewbacca has more lines than her! Also more personality. Also, she is in love with Mal as well and truly fuck knows why because I'd rather be eaten by rabid penguins than have sex with Mal.

Not because he's ugly - alright, he's not my type bu he ain't ugly - but because he has NO PERSONALITY WHATSOEVER.

But all of the above are not real problems, or better, they are minor effects of the real problem of this thing. It's shallow. It has no layers. It means absolutely nothing but: "I, Joss Sodding Whedon, being convinced that stealing quips left, right and centre and repeating a formula to annihilation, hereby proclaim I am TEH WIT of the world and all I write shall be based on how many quips I can cram into a 40' TV thingy." Also, it's the absolute worst of USA culture made tangible. There's no flight of imagination, everyone is a 100% red-blooded American - and I must say that the faux Chinese really irritated me, rilly rilly RILLY RILLY irritated me, languages express cultures, not random sounds, you sodding illiterate! - and space is USA, only bigger, only not really bigger. It's all small village stuff, there's no sense of infinite possibilities in there. And did I mention it's SHALLOW? Actually it's a lot like HP. Author has a set of arbitrary rules for right and wrong and there you go, the whole universe is no bigger and no more varied than a four room flat.

In their infinite imbecillity - well, alright, am paradoxing here, I know it's not really true - comics manage to be more open to differences than Mr Whedon's tiny lil universe - his mind is tiny, petty and closed tight. He's truly JKR's ideal husband. And when I say comics I'm not talking about the best of them, but about the worst.

I thought he had taken the central idea from Paul Anderson, but - though he has - that doesn't matter, because Paul Anderson had the literacy, intelligence and self-irony to use a mixture of pirates and Phoenicians for his daring Space Merchants (seamen) Astronauts. The stories are spiffy AND witty AND they are a lovely satiric commentary on capitalism and Merchant Ventures and his characters are people from different cultures who manage to express their fucking differences in startling and interesting ways. So I take it back. Whedon has learned nothing at all from Anderson.

And to jump to a different thing altogether. Symphony X - the favourite band of a friend of mine who's dead now, but who was a GREAT human being - have made a cantata based on Milton's Paradise Lost, only... Well it's a love story, in a sense. First there's the love story between Lucifer and God; then God betrays Lucifer and he - broken hearted - seeks revenge and damages himself and the world; then he falls in love with humanity and renounces immortality and all the trappings of a God-ordered reality; then he becomes human but a human who will never anymore bend to the 'Good and Evil' vision of reality; the thing ends with Lucifer trying to find a way to be a person whose moral sphere is human and relative. NOW this has layers, depth and an interesting take on things. I'm quite sure they know Sandman, but it's more of an impression of a take on a character. There are no direct or indirect quotes. Veeeeeeeeeery fascinating. And the music is not half bad as well.

In the midst of all this, I've also realised I can't stand Just For The Sake Of It Violence and Ultimate Solution To Everything Violence. It's BORING! I don't really mind anything, if it has some sense in the story, but I can't be having with this 'shoot 'em first, think later' attitude that seems to permeate everything lately. I haven't seen a film or watched TV for months because of this. I mean, DWJ, Pterry, Gaiman, and lots more authors use violence to underline a point or illustrate a situation or culture or what-the-fucking-ever, but they are NEVER used by violence or tricked into implying that it solves problems. Oh, and back to Firefly, who the fuck cares about the Evil Empire of Evilness when the stories and characters couldn't give a Fire-flying fuck about politics, social values or anything but the good ol' American dream of making money by screwing everyone else? Are they rebels? Nope. Are they organising a resistance movement? Nope. So who gives a fuck about Evil Empires? What they are - and this is really TEH PITS - is Conferates against Yankees. Bunch of Scarlet O'Haras to a man. Yay Hollywood, down New York, that kind of retarted thing.

Alright, that's all. Hope I haven't offended anyone.