I am going to e3 and working on a website for an upcoming computer game by the guys who made D2. Tragically, that game is not diablo 3, and I will be shocked if there is any mention of D3 at e3 this year, or perhaps even next year, given the disarray at blizzard following the complete dissolution of bliz north and everyone who was "allegedly" working on D3.

 

They didn't change the way Simon rescued River in the movie, they just showed it to you.

Note that the ship in Serenity (the movie) is NOT Serenity (the ship), you can tell by the design and the fact that Serenity doesn't have any kind of extendable platform like that.

The movie doesn't mesh perfectly with the series though, because in the series Simon keeps saying he doesn't really know what was happening to River at all, and claims to know nothing about her fighting abilities, but in the movie he knows that she is training to be a deadly weapon and is psychic. Possibly he was just lying through the series in order to stay on board the ship, but knowing Simon's character, I think he'd be sensible enough to warn the rest of the crew about River and the fact that he has a safety word to control her.

The movie is set about 6-8 months after the series, and there is an official comic book that covers the intervening time - some people on Amazon say it is good, while others say it is pretty ho-hum.

River does have a few moments of weirdness in the series, but nothing like the movie.

Best episodes: Our Mrs Reynolds, Trash, Out of Gas, Ariel. Objects in Space and War Stories are quite good too.

 

"They didn't change the way Simon rescued River in the movie, they just showed it to you."

what?

movie. simon infiltrates and goes on a dangerous raid to break her out personally, escaping on a cable lift out of an elevator shaft up to the serenity.

tv show. simon's a wimp who first meets the serenity crew buying passage with his sister in a box in deep sleep, after she was delivered to him by some guys he heavily bribed to smuggle her out.

 

That's just what Simon told the others that he did after he first arrived.

Obviously if he wanted to stay on Serenity he had to make himself appear non-threatening - saying he infiltrated a top Allience research facility to break out his psychic warrior sister isn't particularly non-threatening or endearing.

 

My impression from the TV show (and this is based on just the 1st 2-parter, so it might be elaborated later) is that Simon is very wimpy and had nothing to do with river's rescue, beyond bribing people to smuggle her out to him.

When River woke up from the deep freeze on the Serenity, she didn't know where she was and seemed shocked to see her brother. said something like, "I didn't think you'd come for me." which made it seem to me that she hadn't seen him in years. She recognized him during the rescue in the movie, and wouldn't have reacted that way on the Serenity a week later, right?

 

You really can't base anything on the way River reacts at all. She is much more mentally unbalanced and fragile in the series than she was in the movie.

Presumably Simon would have put her into the freezer very shortly after he rescued her, so its conceivable that when she woke up later she'd have no idea how she was rescued or who rescued her, much like someone who is asleep can have conversations with people, or walk around, and not have any memory of it later.

They say at some point in the series that Simon devoted his life, status and savings to rescuing River and now he has to live with the fugatives in the ass-end of space and it is really not what he wanted for his life. That is echoed in the movie by the doctor who was experimenting on River saying that he was so driven to break River out that there really wasn't anything he could do to stop him.

Merely raising money to bribe thugs (and his family was very wealthy to begin with, so that wouldn't be hard) to smuggle River out doesn't seem like it would put him in that much personal trouble, so it seems likely he was much more involved in the breakout attempt than what he suggests.


In any event it doesn't really matter - I suspect that Joss probably always intended for River's rescue to be something very dramatic and costly/difficult for Simon, and he simply never had time (or the right setting) to adequitely cover it in the series, so he did it in the movie. He said that writing the opening sequence for the movie was one of the hardest things in the script, because of all the information he had to get across and still make it intelligable.

 

*notices one of her own interests within that long entry*

Oooo.....new digital SLR camera! What brand? Canon? Nikon? Something else? Hope she enjoys her class. The basic 'f-stop' stuff (what it does, why you use it) isn't that hard to learn, you can get most of that out of a book, really. But classes are more fun.

I love my Canon EOS 20D, although I've heard the Nikon's are more durable if you're rough on handling. :)

Anyway...have fun with the new toy!

 

I think Charlies Angels 1 was far superior to CA2. CA got 5.7 on imdb and CA2 got 4.2, so I'm not alone.

CA did have many more rediculous physics-defying stunts, but the ones that were in CA2 were generally far far worse. Such as the angels somehow overcoming terminal velocity and managing to fall faster than that truck, or whatever it was, as it fell off the cliff.

CA also had much more of a story and wasn't so fixated on making cute little set-pieces as you noted about CA2.

CA is estimated to have cost 122M and grossed 264M worldwide, while CA2 was estimated at 160M and grossed 259M, so not a great track record for the return on investment, possibly why they quit while ahead and didn't bother to make a CA3 - likely to be a clanger if everyone assumed it was just like the other two.

 

Kim--

Nikon D50

It's a bit too much camera for my skill level, but I suppose that's what the classes are for.

Any examples of your photos on line?

 

D50 is the one my co-worker got. Really nice feel. Fairly quick focus and refocus and they try to make the transitioning film folks feel better by making a "click and film advance" sound when it shutters. A bit heavy to lug around for normal travelling. Haven't tried out how well it does macro, but an excellent job in what I thought were dim lighting conditions.

 

Not about cameras or firefly, but...
Flonase gave me frequent nosebleeds for several months before I realized what was going on. It helped me with allergies, but it wasn't worth it.

 

Looks about on-par with the RebelXT, which is also a good camera in a similar price range.

As to pics on-line...yeah, I post some now and then - tho like most people 99% of what I post on the internet are snapshots. :)

I'm no pro, either. I have some photography tech knowledge from family & classes, but I haven't practiced enough to get really good at it. I liked film photography in my teens/early 20's but it was too expensive and a hassle w/the developing, so I stopped for many years...digital SLR's have revived my interest again, and it's been interesting.

I still don't practice enough, or have the equipment (besides the camera body) that I'd like, tho, which usually has me grumbling about the overly-soft or grainy quality of my pictures compared to the great clarity in many shots I see around the net.

I'm typically more into close-ups - not neccessarily macros. This might be because the lens that came with my camera seems to work better with those than long-shots. hah. I just posted these:

http://www.crimsonkeep.com/item/237

And friends seemed to like these:
http://www.crimsonkeep.com/item/188
http://www.crimsonkeep.com/item/190

Cheers.

 

Woah, those shots are awesome :) good work