[REVIEW] What I Didn't Get About Serenity
Oct. 16th, 2005 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI said in my previous post that Serenity is a good example of space opera. Unfortunately, space operas have their faults. See below.
It makes no sense to speak of a single solar system with dozens of terraformable planets and hundreds of terraformable moons. A star's life zone is only so big, and you can't cram in huge numbers of planets into a restricted set of orbits without playing cosmic pinballs. If this is a single solar system, then not only is it a solar system with multiple stars (a detail supported by the Alliance's flag, with two big stars and four small ones), but the stars must be fairly young and hot. Either that, or Whedon has no idea what a solar system is and should be ashamed of himself.
The central plot point--the depopulation of the planet Miranda by the Alliance after a peace-inducing chemical was added to the planet's air-manufacturing plants, killing well over 99% of the population and making the survivors the psychopathically brutal Reavers--is certainly something that a corrupt multiplanetary government would like to cover up. There is the small question, of course, of how the depopulation of a planet with a population of tens of millions located in a fairly highly trafficked area of space could be covered up. Did none of the Mirandans have relatives? I might take issue with the film's description of the Parliament as a corrupt body, but the late Roman Republic appears to be a popular model for multiplanetary governments so I'll leave that be. Also, how could tens of thousands of insanely violent people possibly maintain a vast and sophisticated technological infrastructure capable of supporting a large fleet of armed spaceships?
The most important question--something left unanswered by the film--is why the Alliance tainted Miranda's atmosphere. Was it pure malice? Was it the Alliance being "meddlesome"? Or did the Alliance actually have a reasonably good reason for doing what it thought it was doing to Miranda? We didn't get that in the film, and I doubt that this question was broached in the series. Governments don't go about playing with the lives of tens of millions of people unless they have good reasons, and corrupt and authoritarian as the Alliance might be I didn't see any evidence for it being that insane. But then, we are looking at the Alliance from the perspective of the "Browncoats," of people modelled on the real-life Confederates who in turn were opposed to such things as, say, publicly funded roads and schools. Who knows how reliable the crew of the Serenity are?
It makes no sense to speak of a single solar system with dozens of terraformable planets and hundreds of terraformable moons. A star's life zone is only so big, and you can't cram in huge numbers of planets into a restricted set of orbits without playing cosmic pinballs. If this is a single solar system, then not only is it a solar system with multiple stars (a detail supported by the Alliance's flag, with two big stars and four small ones), but the stars must be fairly young and hot. Either that, or Whedon has no idea what a solar system is and should be ashamed of himself.
The central plot point--the depopulation of the planet Miranda by the Alliance after a peace-inducing chemical was added to the planet's air-manufacturing plants, killing well over 99% of the population and making the survivors the psychopathically brutal Reavers--is certainly something that a corrupt multiplanetary government would like to cover up. There is the small question, of course, of how the depopulation of a planet with a population of tens of millions located in a fairly highly trafficked area of space could be covered up. Did none of the Mirandans have relatives? I might take issue with the film's description of the Parliament as a corrupt body, but the late Roman Republic appears to be a popular model for multiplanetary governments so I'll leave that be. Also, how could tens of thousands of insanely violent people possibly maintain a vast and sophisticated technological infrastructure capable of supporting a large fleet of armed spaceships?
The most important question--something left unanswered by the film--is why the Alliance tainted Miranda's atmosphere. Was it pure malice? Was it the Alliance being "meddlesome"? Or did the Alliance actually have a reasonably good reason for doing what it thought it was doing to Miranda? We didn't get that in the film, and I doubt that this question was broached in the series. Governments don't go about playing with the lives of tens of millions of people unless they have good reasons, and corrupt and authoritarian as the Alliance might be I didn't see any evidence for it being that insane. But then, we are looking at the Alliance from the perspective of the "Browncoats," of people modelled on the real-life Confederates who in turn were opposed to such things as, say, publicly funded roads and schools. Who knows how reliable the crew of the Serenity are?
