You are fooling yourself, Captain. Nothing here is what it seems. You are not the plucky hero, the Alliance is not an evil empire, and this is not the grand arena.
So, the word 'evil' is getting used a lot in the comments. Let's use some examples: *1. Honour-bound:* A soldier calls an airstrike on a building, after someone has tried to ensure that there is no other way to resolve the conflict, and that if they do not do it, more harm will happen to innocent people. The strike kills the targets, and it turns out that a bunch of children were also killed. The soldier feels guilt, and tries to make sure that mistake never happens again. If a chance arises to avoid collateral damage, he will take it, even if it means risking a worse crime being committed by the enemies who will escape, because it is wrong to kill innocents. *2. Pragmatic:* The soldier calls the airstrike. He's aware that there's a possibility of collateral damage, but decides that it's a risk that must be taken, and that the consequences of doing it will be worse. He feels deep regret for the collateral damage, but rationalises that it had to be done. If a chance arises to avoid collateral, he will weigh up the risks and decide if the victory is really worth the brutality. *3.Cold:* The soldier calls the airstrike, expecting that the children will die, but simply not caring because they are not part of his objective. He puts the blame on the enemy for being in a building with innocents, and goes ahead without a second thought. If the chance arises, he will only call off the strike if he thinks it will endanger his longer-term objectives. *4. Evil:* The soldier calls the airstrike, knowing that it will kill the children and being glad for the opportunity to send a message to his enemies. He values the chance to show his ruthlessness and to put terror into the local population. Even if a chance arose to avoid the collateral damage, he would not take it, and might bring forward the attack to avoid any innocents escaping. In all instances (so long as no chance arises to avoid collateral), the strike kills the bad guys and a bunch of children. The outcome is the same, but the intention is different. I'd say Kaylee is 1.5; Mal is 2.3; Jayne is about 2.8; the Alliance are about 3.2, and someone like Nishka is a definite 4.
tSp289 I will call 1 to 4 bad. The good guys are the ones that wouldn't call the airstrike in the first place because they would accurately investigate if there were innocents in the building before calling any strike. That should be a well known possibility in the military that shouldn't need to be lived in person to be taken seriously. Anyway, I understand that 1 to 3 can be bad-but-not-evil.
Mal isn't a "good guy" in the same way that Han Solo is not a "good guy" at least before he gets in with the rebel alliance. They work outside the law and that inherently makes them sketchy. But the whole point of Firefly is that the lines between good and bad look different depending on what perspective you take. Like when Mal points out that people who have statues erected of them were usually sons of bitches in one way or another or that writing history is a lot about covering up the truth. There are good aspects to unification and good aspects to independence in Firefly but the government has become overpowered. Anyway, damn good show and fuck fox for canceling it.
"Seem's odd you'd name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of." "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
Tribute to all the comrades you lost during the battle. Tribute to the cause that died in that battle. Tribute to the faith that died in that battle. Serenity is not a happy name.
You do realise that the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars are the bad guys, right? Not only do they intend to bring down a government which is in the process of rebuilding the galaxy after a devastating war an keeping the economy going, they are straight-up terrorists, obviously well-armed and well-funded ones, who ostensibly fight for some Republic, but are led (and funded) by aristocrats. Though admittedly, the Galactic Empire is a Fascist government. I'm not saying they are the good guys, just because they freed the galaxy from the idiosyncratic tyranny of the kidnapping Jedi Order and abolished slavery. I don't think there are any good guys in Star Wars. Even the system governor of Tatooine, Jabba the Hutt, seems to enjoy executing capital punishment, which does not make him very likable.
I would say they're not "the good guys", but they're not really villains, either. They're just petty criminals who used to be soldiers and can't let go of the fact that they lost. And I love them for that; it made for great television.
+Jay BB For me that's what make the series so good. It's not a bunch of goodie goodie good guys fighting mustache twirling bad guys Withvery few exceptions the characters that apeeared in more then a scene or two havee been shown doing both good and bad things. I mean yeah there's also the fact that for a show with only 13 episodes and a movie there was good character development and it did a good job combining heartfelt moments and comedy.
+Jay BB You do also hav to keep in mind that Joss planned for Firefly to be seven seasons long. I have to wonder if River's story would have gone that way if the show had continued or if the 'academe' would have turned out to be a legitimate thing that helped her but in her illness she thought it was hurting her. It's not unheard of for schizophrenics to think their doctors are out to get them. Simon is over protective enough to be suspicious of anything River said was hurting her. Their parents might have even known about the schizophrenia but due to stigma in the Core they chose to hide it from Simon and the world. (that would explain why they ignored the clues in her notes. ...whoops that comment got away from me.
Tamashi88 There was the episode War Stories where River shot those 3 guys with greater ease then Jayne and Zoe were. That could have been a hint that he was planning on taking it in a somewhat similar direction, of course River wasn't being attacked so it would be easier for her.
Dont you love how that plaid hipster college guy is ripping on Kaylee for being a "self taught" mechanic as though that were bad? despite her being the best mechanic in the verce in all! Talk about a college snob, no wonder he like the Alience.
I thunk the point was that she lacked an expansive "liberal education" where she would know about a lot of subjects such as phylosophy, law, economics history, civics, etc. Not that she is "dumb" but she is unlikely to really understand the full context of how and why the war went down and how good or poor of a job of governance the Empire is actually doing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of Alliance vs brown coats wasn't about right and wrong, but the trade off between freedom and order. On one hand you had the fringe territories where life was hard and short, but you had the freedom to live your life however you wanted as long as long as you didn't piss everyone off and get shot in the face. On the other hand you have the Alliance which takes care of it's citizens and managed to eliminate crime, poverty, and illness. However the cost of such prosperity was that the government had to run every aspect of your life.
the problem with the alliance was not how they treated the core worlds, it was how they abandoned the people they sent to the outer worlds, while still expecting them to loyal subjects. It was about the failures of a centralized government. Yes, in the core worlds the alliance was mostly good, but in the outer worlds it was the brown coats who were the good guys sticking up for the people. The power vacuum was most likely the result of the alliance defeating the brown coats and leaving the outer worlds without their minutemen.
Martin Charytoniuk Haven't you got the memo? Not agreeing with someone is hating these days, and doing it more than once is harassment. (granted you have people fighting that idea, but cracked is not one of those groups far from it)
flabbergast But hating on them because of there skin colour or gender is totally not racist or sexist. Because you can't be sexist against men or racist against white people.
Actually, I hate on Firefly. I never thought it was as good as people gush on about. The 'ragtag crew of outcasts in a beat-up spaceship just trying to make a,living' thing was done much, much better in 'Cowboy Bebop.' And at least that show didn't have a whole lot of hokey wild west motifs and a dimwitted Johnny Reb mentality.
It seems to me like both sides have their shades of grey to them and have done both good and bad for Humanity. My point of contention is that many Firefly fans fail to realize this and act like the Alliance is completely evil while the Browncoats are these brave noble heroes who can do no wrong.
This why the series was so good! All of the crew had visible flaws, but were still badass. This makes viewers not only project themselves onto the characters, but also relate to them in that they were also non-perfect human beings.
I don't know if this has been pointed out yet but River wasn't kidnapped by the Alliance, she was enrolled in one of their schools that (supposedly) was for advanced students after the parents had searched for a school best suited for how intelligent she was. She didn't start out with the extrasensory abilities, she was just extremely intelligent.
And then she was kidnapped from that school and brainwashed into a very dangerous weapon by the Alliance in order for them to clean up their mistake: The Reavers. Serenity clears this up.
Do you have any canon sources to confirm that the whole Academy wasn't just a testing ground to find psychically gifted children that could be turned into weapons? Just wondering, since the information I have doesn't say anything about this.
no she was not kidnapped, that was the school. If you watch the show her letters to her brother become more cryptic over time. this is what alerted him to the problem.
Something he forgot to mention; the Alliance is responsible for River's abilities in the first place. Their experiments caused her to be able to read minds, and they trained her as an assassin. The Alliance is evil, as are many of the villains they encounter on the show. They are just small and large scale evil.
The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault? Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I don't murder children. The Operative: I do. If I have to. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Why? Do you even know why they sent you? The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world? The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster.What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done. See the alliance wants to establish complete control, and any one who doesn't play by their rules has no place in their world. Fascism, Marxism, Oligarchy, what ever you want to call it...it's not freedom.
Hate to be on this side of the argument, but your example doesn't hold water. His statements are based on his own ethics, not necessarily any government policy. The alliance does employ him - and may approve of his methods, but his personal decision that he does not fit in with "good people" is a separate matter.
MrStuchi But the fact that the alliance would employ such a man shows that they're not good. Keep in mind, I'm not saying Serenity's crew is good either. Both them and the Alliance are bad, it's just Mal and the gang never restricted anyone's freedom, or killed an entire planet. And how great was Chiwetel Ejiofor in Serenity? One of my favorite villains.
IveGotToast The alliance employing such a man could have also indicated desperation. The operative could have been the only one with any plausible chance of success. For a real world parallel, look at world war II era Britain and Winston Churchill - the British people were fully aware of the fact that he was a bigoted and war-crazed sack-of-shit; but he was elected anyway. That's because he was the right man for the job at hand. Churchill's victory didn't mean that all British people were evil who considered natives from British colonies as sub-human canon-fodder. In fact, Churchill's spectacular defeat at the following elections, even after having won the war - proves that sometimes decent people have to avail the services of unpleasant individuals to get an unpleasant job done, after the completion of which the unpleasant individual becomes eminently disposable.
Jayadratha Bose they hired chiwetel to bury anyone who could be a threat. that is VARY much goverment policy. his own ethics were just his view but what he does is all at the orders of evil government jerks
wow cracked, you managed to figure out that the browncoats were based on the confederates. Sure am glad that Joss and crew didn't discuss that in the DVD special features for the series and again for the movie or we firefly fans may never have known. Bravo! can't wait for next weeks topic about how star-trek is basically Oregon trail in space, or how star-wars is the basic "journey of the hero" story. i know lets discus how "Avatar" is the same plot from dances with wolves and Pocahontas.
QSpark *"Uhh i am auch a hipster i knew something you told me beforehand"* you didn't comprehend the argument behind it, the news wasn't that they are the confederates, the news is that they are legitimately the ignorant badguys, and that was just the last piece of the puzzle to back it up. This was a well spun argument with a change nice in perspective, cry more please.
Yeah, I mean, Serenity SPOILERS as it is, that's actually the crux of the movie and is basically New Guy's point in drawing comparison between the "Space Obama" and real Obama.
+Michael Angelillo Yeah, you're right. In the process of creating a mind-altering substance to pump into the air as a means of pacifying the population (and with no signs of consent from the public), they created an insane tribe of cannibalistic rapists feared throughout the galaxy. The proper figure is 0.1% (1 in 1000) people became reavers. The other 99.9% became mindless zombies that couldn't function. They weren't just too passive to fight the reavers, they were too passive to do anything. So, not only was the original premise unethical, they attempted to achieve this end through an even more unethical science experiment on an entire colony of people; ending in the near total genocide of the planet's inhabitants, minus the fraction of the population that became possibly the most dangerous tribe of hyper-aggressive raiders ever known. So it's an accident like downing a bottle or two of vodka and driving a semi truck will probably lead to an 'accident'. Sure, there's a chance no one dies, but no one's going to be on the drunk trucker's side if he rams a school bus full of children.
+Michael Angelillo well the other part of the problem might be that 99.9% of the population relaxed themselves to death. I think Miranda had a population of 30 million.
Creating the Reavers doesn't make the Alliance evil, that was an unintended side effect. 99.9% of Miranda relaxing the,selves to death is also no evidence of the Alliance being evil, since that was also unintended. The attempt to render the population placid through unconsented psychotropic drugging of an entire planet's population, by use of the atmospheric terraforming systems, however is evidence of the Alliance being evil. Going out of their way to keep their involvement in the creation of the Reavers secret, including spreading propaganda claiming that the Reavers don't actually exist and removing an entire planet from all maps, history books and conscious memory, while refusing to move even a finger to get a handle on the Reaver threat, is evidence of the Alliance being evil.
2nd word.... Shadow. Mal's homeworld. Destroyed by the Alliance. Made uninhabitable, and killing his family and the rest of the entire planets populace.
Shadow was different. They were at war. Is the United States considered bad because they dropped the atomic bomb on Japan? A lot of people would say so, but also a lot of people understand that we were at global war and that was quite possibly the only way to win and potentially save millions of more lives in the long run. Destruction happens in wartime. There's collateral damage on all sides, and that happened to include Shadow. Miranda, on the other hand, was genocide in peacetime, covered up from the entire galaxy to save the hides of government officials.
Well, in actuality, a lot of people understand that we were at global war and that a nuclear bomb, let alone two of them, was -still- completely unnecessary and that Japan was on the verge of surrender -without- being nuked. We did it to send a message, not to Japan, but to the whole world. 'We have the bomb, the loaded gun pointed at everyone's head.'
Well actualy the bombs did some good if not in the planned way. Japan was desperate for honourable way out, and combination of retaining monarchy, and Nukes offered that. They could say to their people and soldiers, The enemy has a superweapon that will turn our country in one great boneyard, and we can not do anything to stop it...
BLASPHEMY! And entirely fascinating. I LOVED it. That's one (of countless) reasons Firefly is the greatest tv show ever; the characters (mostly) cannot be pigeon-holed into 'good' and 'bad' categories.
Well said. The reason it was liked by so few ( me included) is it doesn't follow that hero troupe we see so much in science fiction.fiction. Mal and crew do so very underhanded things ( steal medicine desecrate bodies of friends). They are just your regular guy trying to survive in a world(Verse) they don't like. They even fought to keep that world out.They lost but didn't give up trying to survive in their own way and also to throw a big FU at the Alliance.The Alliance although views as bad guys are no more evil than governments we have now ( and I mean the Democratic ones).
Joss even says in the commentary that he intended to show that the Alliance wasn't inherently evil but had it's fair share of corruption. I feel he did that well as I thought the very same thing before actually rewatching the movie with commentary turned on.
1 crucial fact missing is what the alliance did to river and the fact that the alliance LITERALLY KILLED A PLANET and tirned 10% of the pop into reavers. Nuff said
Apparently they did not kill a planet, because 10% of the population is still alive and reaving. It was kind of an important plot point that the intent was an entirely different outcome.
PLEASE. The Alliance didn't experiment on River because she had powers, they GAVE her powers by experimenting on her. Basically TORTURING her. And what about the Reavers' origins?! sounds pretty gorram evil to me
The Alliance was incredibly forceful, and there was a reason the Browncoats rebelled. If the Browncoats were in this time period, maybe they would be a bit pissed but to cause a war.... The Government had to have been pulling the last straw.
The Alliance weren't monitoring River's unchecked natural psychic powers, they gave her psychic powers to turn her into a weapon. She was a genius to begin with, which is why they experimented on her in the first place and messed up her mind to make her into an assassin. It's kinda a huge point in the series...
I'm thinking her psychic powers, while reduced, were the source of her intelligence, the reason she was naturally gifted at anything she did. I think the reason the alliance stripped her amygdala might be that it regulated her psychic ability in addition to emotion.
it would make sense they removed what is responioble for emotion to make it easier to control her and make her a perfect weapon something that would not think twice when told to kill @@jbard9892
I'm super late to the party, but besides the horror of the alliance's Planetwide genocide on Miranda, they blasted all life off of Shadow as well. Part of Mal's being so lost is that his entire home planet was destroyed. I think firefly's point is that there aren't many good guys. Also Mal IS well educated and Book doesn't hate the alliance anymore because he's so shackled by guilt over the thousands of alliance lives he took. And Book can't really afford space rent. Mal just gives him a home.
How did Book take _Alliance_ lives? He can just show up to any Alliance facility and get immediate medical treatment simply by identifying himself. I figured him for an Alliance veteran trying to redeem himself from whatever atrocities he committed FOR the Alliance.
Interesting video. I always thought it was interesting that Firefly had an episode featuring a bounty hunter named "Jubal Early" -- presumably named after the Confederate general in the Civil War.
Haaa nice breakdown. I have a feeling Joss would have addressed this if Firefly had more seasons LOL. Finding out your heroes are on the wrong side? That's such a Whedon move. I love the new guy!!! He's like Blonde Dan!
+flameshadow117 It's not like they didn't make it clear that they were not the villains to begin with. How many times did they reference things like 'let's go be bad guys' and 'honey if all were right we'd be in jail'? They know they're pirates. Hardly a revealing idea.
+flameshadow117 Actually both were on the wrong side. While Brown Coats might have been fighting against oppression (still vague on the reason for the war), Mal and his crew were definitely brigands and smugglers... BUT that doesn't automatically make the Alliance the good guys, I mean they hired agents who would kill children, they did experiments on River (and the video seems to imply it was because of her abilities while I suspect the experiments are what GAVE her the abilities - most likely to use her to root out dissenters), and they covered up the fact they created the Reavers by trying to pacify people (without consent). Mal's speech about why to make the information public in Serenity is spot-on... the Alliance aren't the good guys, they're power-hungry control freaks (so I now think the war with the Brown Coats wasn't about good vs evil as much as the Alliance wanted everything under their control and the Brown Coats wanted autonomy) willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power.
1) "Building space station and space navies and stacks of medicine" Actually, the hardly ever share that medicine and wont' even leave a regiment of police officers to help the town from where it was stolen. Also the space stations with state of the art facilities? Won't even help a DYING man (Ep. Safe) just because the station isn't a hospital for anyone (show proper documents and you'll get treated though) 2) All the people running the worlds that, after the war, should be under alliance control - how the hell is the alliance making it better? 3) There are various hints that Mal got a formal education (Rime of the Ancient Mariner) 4) As far as River being Akira - It's implied that they gave her powers in an attempt to create a bio weapon, not the other way around. If you're going to make a case against a show, please at least get people who know the show, it's all I ask.
Extremely late because I just got into the show, but Mal was a high-ranking officer of the space military? He's not going to be an idiot. Also, all the areas they listed as bad places "outside of alliance territory" were literally Alliance territory.
I'm kind of surprised that more people don't know about this already. But one of the points of the series is that "good guy" and "bad guy" can be sometimes quite murky. And that there can be multiple points of view.
Considering the Alliances willingness to kidnap, torture and experiment on a little girl and then kill they're own people just to find River shows how corrupt and evil they are. Plus the crew always do the right thing in the end. Also remember (episode 11?) with that rich bio weapons designer who killed entire towns of people to steal artifacts and was allowed to do so by the alliance? Evil, Browncoats for the win!
+Brielor That and the fact that the Alliance created the power vacuum to begin with all of the planets and moons that were part of the Independents had their entire governments removed after the war and replaced with alliance appointed Governors and magistrates Burgess and Higgens were given control by the Alliance. Oh and for nothing else the Alliance killed 30 million people with a their little experiment on Miranda the people that didn't die became Reavers and proceeded to kill and torture countless others and the Alliance lied about everything and continues to deny the Reavers' existence.
I liked the new guy in this skit. I feel like this level of trolling where he messes with view points in the cracked style we know and love is perfect for him. Keep up this and the good work.
The curious thing is many of the problems the Alliance faces could possibly be solved with more control. In the form of regulation and reforms. Now as for the whole Miranda incident, the only way to fix that would be to prosecute the people responsible, as well as cutting off connections with Blue Sun Corp., those bastards are more trouble than they're worth.
3:57 River wasn't born with psychic powers. The Alliance gave them to her in the facility. They wouldn't have to worry about River destroying a planet or something if they didn't give her the powers in the first place.
+Raver Reviews Exactly what I was thinking during that argument. She was unquestionably brilliant and creative, but it was the experiments they performed on her brain that unlocked those "powers".
+Jason Betts exactly were not dealing with natural borne psykers, or siren's or ghosts, we are dealing woth childen that were taken from thaier familys and had horrific experments don't on them to make them into mind reader soldier.
+Raver Reviews She was born with some of her powers. It was clear from the flashback scenes that she was hyperaware as a child, smarter than her brother, probably a polymath. The conditioning and hypnosis applied by the alliance was probably to quickly instill skill sets like combat training, situational awareness, as well as the triggers necessary to use her. It's not clear from the cannon how much of her 'Reader' abilities are innate and how much is learned or imbued.
Irish Identity Before her time with the Alliance though she never displays any "paranormal" abilities. She is definitely in the top tier of human genius and body awareness, but I think the alliance through conditioning and brain surgery unlocked those hidden abilities.
Right she wasn't psychic until they started experimenting on her brain to make her so to make her a better assassin. She was a super genius, but no psychic or other powers.
Personal Theory: I believe that the show DollHouse is a firefly prequel that shows how the Earth that Was got used up. The Blue Sun agency is trying to make River a Doll.
So... why does everybody hate him? It feels like everybody hates the new guy just because they call him "the new guy". Basically I'm comparing you all to teenagers hazing the new kid in highschool. Which is a tradition, I have never fully understood.
Well, the series new guy weekly is really all we know of him, and new guy weekly is scripted horribly. Since new guy weekly is pretty bad, everyone assumes the actor is bad. In truth, he was actually pretty good in this video, but he left such a bad first impression people think this would be just as bad.
I don't care what they call him, I just find him extremely annoying. I'm sure he's a nice guy, it's not personal, I just don't think he has the charisma of the others. There was a STTNG episode about Junior officers ("Lower Decks") that tried to focus specifically on the junior officers on board the ship, and I found it just as annoying as the SG1 episode about the "Other Guys" who are not part of the main crew who watch the main crew. I haven't quite jigged what irritates me so much about these types of things, I like the idea of following the lesser-acknowledged characters, but whenever they're done, they feel heavy handed and... I'm not sure. Haven't quite sorted it out, but basically, when I'm watching The New Guy, he just irks me as badly as the TNG junior officers or the Other Guys. When I figure it out, I'll be able to explain better. But I don't care what they call him, I just find him extremely irritating.
Nice try, but nope. I don't idolise heroes. I never really cared for the main characters on TNG, either, so it wast the threat of replacement or infiltration into a group I really like. As far as SG1, I pretty much watched for RDA and Shanks bromance and snarky comments. Once that's gone, I don't really care much about the show. As far as the New Guy, it has nothing to do with what he's called, but his videos just grate. I don't idolise anyone at cracked, either. I have certain writers/actors I prefer, but there are very few people I idolise.
Damian Washington was just in a new episode of Rom.Com and he was brilliant. First time I've ever seen him. So it's nott he fact that this guy is new, it's his personality.
***** Sounds like xenophobia and territoriality, instinctive behaviors. His contrarian remarks are a symbol of outsider or "other" differences in culture, race, etc.
I just want more of this show. Twenty years later and it seems like a far fetched dream to see this show or it’s like again but now more than ever we need a show like this. Andor proves there is at least a passionate if not large audience for a show like this and with Fillion and Tudyk now huge stars with brand appeal it seems like such a great opportunity to bring the show back. I’m preaching to the choir and we all know it’ll never happen but I power in the verse can stop me from dreamin.
Andor is a big budget version of Blake's 7 than Firefly. Although it still follows the same beats as Star Wars with the hero's journey and all. You couldn't make something like Firefly today because it's Neo-confederate propaganda, which will send a firestorm of lefties demanding its plug be pulled.
The morals of Firefly are ambiguous because it reflects real life, where politics are confusing, morals are fuzzy and the only thing you can be sure of is your own personal code.
The alliance didn't give a single shit when a colony's life saving med shipment was nicked from right under their nose. A better analogy would be the Alliance is England while the browncoats and outlying planets are scotland
Lets step back and counter a few points you made. "Ignorant maybe.. remember these are criminals living outside the system in a wild west analog" - They are criminals today, they were officers in the armed forces of a rival coalition government that went toe to toe with the alliance and fought for years. This armed forces would have had officer training schools, chains of command and training which would include a vast array of technical requirements. Mal or Zoe (notice the selective choice to avoid wash, who was also in the military). Also its rather ignorant on your said to assume that criminality is based upon ignorance, its not. Lets also address kaylee, no she is not self taught. For guys who profess to watch the show you forgot that her father builds and repairs ships. She was educated in the highly technical trade of spaceship repair by her father in the trade, this is more common then you think and is not at all a sign of ignorance.. If the alliance was not using the occupied worlds of the independents as revenue sources rather than actually providing for the citizenry it now inherited as part of the peace accord and surrender of the independents to the alliance on unification day, then a clear genius like Kaylee would be heading up a university or a major shipyard, instead the alliance has completely and criminally mismanaged the people and resources that it has taken. As for the "earth was used up" this was not the Apocalypse, to claim it was is a gross over simplification on your part. earth could not sustain the vast population and as such huge migration moved from it. the earth that was, is a term used in this fictional universe to describe a place and time that can not be returned to; not because of some religious event as you used, but for more practical concerns that the vast distances that the colony ships of the 'Earth Fleet' had to cover makes return an impossibility. You will note that only minor items from the planet made it to the triple star system (similar but further away than Alpha Centauri) which we refer to as the 'verse'. These ships in the show are not traveling to other star systems, but rather to planets locked into a close nit stellar system of multiple suns. The Earth likely continued on as it was, it likely sent out other fleets to other systems and their likely was stations built in the vast gulf between stars. The 'verse' was likely a one way trip, a chance for those rich, desperate or repressed enough to start over. In likelihood some of these were organized criminals or political terrorists. The irony would be if the founders of the Alliance may have started off as criminals given the choice of staying in jail or being sent one way to the void to support the colonists. As for the "in and out of alliance space" this seems to not be an educational thing, but more a right of original citizenship. In the same way in Israel if you are a natural Israeli citizen you have far more rights of travel then those born in the occupied territories. This system makes no sense, other then to economically favor one group that, is in theory, supports the government, where the other does not. This system is one that at its core is an unjust system. Your attempt to justify the alliance mutilation of a child is cringe worthy. River was not like this, her powers did not come naturally. Again, I have to question if you bothered consulting the source, but the writers made it very clear, rivers powers are made not natural. Also you seem to glance over the many other children in that facility. Tell me how many hundreds of thousands of children has this experiment mutilated or killed, at what point does your morality say this has gone too far? Yes the US government did horrible things, unconscionable things like the tuskegee experiments, however at its core it was a pursuit of a cure. This entire experiment is to make assassins and turn a gifted child into a killing machine with NO FREE WILL. This happened and was sanctioned by the highest levels of the Alliance government (see serenity movie). As was the forced experimentation of the population OF AN ENTIRE PLANET! If this makes you not question the legitimacy of a government... I frankly have to weep for you. As for the equating the confederacy which fought to maintain the use of human chattel slavery. It was not a war to gain Independence, it was a war to maintain the status quo against the tide of national sentiment that human chattel slavery was wrong and must be ended. This however has nothing to do with the war of conquest by the Alliance on the worlds of the independent systems. The revolutionary war was one of freedom of repression, it was a rebellion from the current government to form a new one that represented the people here, prior to the war there was no legal representation in Parliament for the common people of america. Next point, you clearly did not read Killer Angels, as the book is about the events and perspectives of the officers who fought in the battle of Gettysburg. This is not the reconstruction era, you completely misunderstood or cherry picked the interview. Here is the exact quote: "It was The Killer Angels. It's a book. I think it won the Pulitzer. It's a very detailed account of the Battle of Gettysburg that I read in London when I was on one of my vacations where I didn't write anything, but I did come up with Firefly and a couple other shows. I read The Killer Angels. The minutia of the Battle of Gettysburg and the lives of the people in it really made Firefly just pop out of my head. I want to get into people's lives this intimately. I want to do it in the future and show that the future is the past. So I built the structure of the world and the look of the show on the Reconstruction Era." So your attempt to equate the browncoats with confederate solders is just a grossly wrong The closes modern equivalent we have is the US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent disbandment of its military. This left thousands of former soldiers out of work, military equipment scattered and for sale to fly by night airlines operating on the razor thin line of the law. Hows that for a troubling thought.
+Moi “Starboy” Levin Oh, he doesn't, because he's a smarmy fuckwit who doesn't actually understand the things he criticizes. For example, just because the idea was based on the Civil War, does NOT mean that Whedon has a boner for the Confederacy or their ideals. Inspiration != one-to-one translation, sorry. The Alliance: - killed an entire planet (of its OWN PEOPLE!) performing an illegal experiment on the populace, then covered it up, ultimately leaving the Reaver threat unchecked, despite the fact that their "space navy" is vastly superior. But hey, the Reavers stick to killing "the poors" out on the edge of space so "Why bother, right?" Oh, not to mention the experiment wasn't to cure some disease, it was to control people's emotions, making them more docile and malleable. - performed even more illegal experiments on unwitting children(!), to turn them into psychic-assassins. When River accidentally gleaned the Reaver cover-up info, they send more assassins to kill her, and anyone in their way. Screw due process. Does that sound like a benevolent government? I wish I could say this was Cracked's weakest TV/movie analysis, but we all know that's not even true. Just piss-poor. So disappointed, DOB (even though you were the voice of gorram reason here). Shame.
Thank you, somebody that gets it! Also there might be more people who are doing the same experiments to River, she went through something called an academy. Maybe the academy was just covert up to select people with higher brain waves and turn them into brain wash super soldiers. My guess is to remain control and kill protesters or another rebellion sense there no threat to there power since the Brown Coats lost the war. All the main reason to hate Foxs. Also if anything Mal in way is a true American who believe in freedom and equality, well until he was crush at the Brown coats war. I miss Firefly. ;(
There is something of a difference between "inspired" and "analogue" for a TV show. And why is it that this person who claims to be a Firefly fan completely ignores Serenity?
I think it's more in the analog category, since many traditional westerns had former confederate soldiers as the complicated cynical hero, and mal seems direct,y taken from that
I thought I was going to have alot of issues with this video, but I don't. I haven't seen Buffy or Angel, but what was said here resonates with what Whedon might have done, based on what happened on Dollhouse. Firefly could've gotten so dark.
Am I the only one who saw the Civil War metaphor from the very first episode -- thus finding the "surprise" conclusion of this Cracked video UNsurprising? Am I the only one who, in seeing the parallel bet. the Brownshirts and the South, liked the Brownshirts all the more? :)
pandoradoggle *Cardassians* are a Star Trek race, not from Firefly. *Kardashians* are the real people in the media who I must assume espurious was referring to
The Maquis were doing the exact same thing to the Cardassian-settled planets. Neither destroyed either. They just introduced a poison into the atmosphere that made it uninhabitable by the other - not entirely uninhabitable. That's why they throw in that line about the Maquis moving to the worlds they Cardassian-poisoned, and the Cardassians moved to the world Sisko Human-poisoned. Wasn't that what the Maquis wanted in the first place, anyway? To go back to the planets they had to leave?
***** The Federation didn't and wouldn't have approved of Sisko's decision to poison the atmosphere of that planet just to get Eddington. I'm actually kind of surprised they just sort of treat it as a throwaway line. "You didn't get permission to do that, did you?" They never revisit (as far as I know) the fact that Sisko basically committed a war crime just to apprehend the guy. I know that my previous point was that it all worked out in the end, but really, it wasn't the Federation; it was Sisko, and the Federation more or less just went along with it because everything worked out. As for the morality of the whole situation, it was the Federation's treaty with Cardassia that created the Maquis in the first place. It ended the war, but it put the Maquis' colony worlds in Cardassian space or in the demilitarized zone, and it put them in a position of being without Federation support and having to defend themselves when the Cardassians came to try to take the colony worlds from them. So, they ended a war, but in doing so, they abandoned the colonists who would later become the Maquis. It was worth it to the Federation, but the Maquis didn't get any say in it. They even show us in TNG that the Federation at one point considered (and attempted) using subterfuge to forcibly relocate the colonists back into Federation space.
The entire argument is invalid, because in Firefly, as in real life, there are no "good guys". Everyone is evil, no exceptions. Sorry I had to make you face that, but that's life.
Yeah. It's crazy how most people in the US were racists and a lot were super violent, right? But only one side fought for slavery. The US did went on to genocide the natives though, so you're absolutely right. Both sides suck.
Also, the part about the government monitoring River because of her brain craziness...she wouldn't have been so crazy if it wasn't for the experiments they did on her. That was the point, right? The screwed with her brain to "turn her into a weapon", and then they want that weapon back.
Just to point out, Wash is from a central planet (I think it's mentioned in the episode Ariel) and attended flight school. So you would expect him to have a fairly good education. Also being Baer on the American civil war doesn't really affect anything as the context is completely changed re. Slavery, the nature of the union keeping them together and brainwashing. Like game of thrones is based on the War of the Roses, a British civil war, and that doesn't determine which faction you root for in Westeros because the context is different.
The Alliance made River a weapon. As far as we can tell, with the exception of the Reavers the Alliance has no enemies necessitating the creation of a psychic assassin, so to do so is proof that they are bad. Even if you think of them as some order imposing bureaucracy, they have clearly become bad, and the argument in Firefly is that the war was proof. They shafted the border worlds, then crushed them underfoot when they tried to create a border planet government in touch with their needs. I get that this is satire and as a fan of the Sith and Devil's Advocacy I am all for arguing the unpopular view. But what we see in Firefly is pretty clear that the Alliance is at best only good for rich people, and at worst flat out evil in the methods they employ to keep power. I would agree that the Alliance were the good guys if it weren't for River and the agent in the movie. The creation of the Reavers can honestly be considered misguided good intentions. Arguably the agent can be written off as a necessary evil, but to take away the freedom of someone as affluent as River shows that the government doesn't even truly protect their wealthy law-abiding citizens.
Not that I agree with the video at all, but there was a purpose to River being mind played. This was shown in Serenity. She was a weapon to fight and kill the Reavers.
+Studio Bisque No. She was an experiment. They wanted to create an obedient little assassin for whatever dirty job they needed done. Only this particular subject had (or developed) telepathic abilities and found one of those dirty secrets. So they casually try to murder her and her brother so they don't have to take responsibility for their actions.
Have you not seen Serenity? It is very clear that they were trying to clean up their mistake of the reavers by creating a weapon. They were only trying to kill River in order to clean up another mistake: her getting out.
+Studio Bisque Have you not seen Firefly, the show that the movie is based on? The alliance are NOT the good guys in this particular case. They kidnapped one of their citizens and cut on her brain, they've murdered their own men, they send assassins and bounty hunters to hunt down the Tams down simply because they had the audacity to say enough to the oh so benevolent and "noble" alliance. A government that murdered an entire planet population of approximately 33 million and turned the ones that didn't die into a bunch of psychotic, canabillistic rapists. And then lied to the faces of family members of said population in order to cover up their crimes.
+Studio Bisque A result of an unethical, immoral, (though well intentioned) attempt to "make people behave and all of it based on the arrogant notion that they have the ability and the right to do so.
The Unification War was VERY LOOSELY based on the American Civil War (emphasis on the word LOOSELY). The politics behind the two wars were completely different. In the American Civil War, the southern states mutinied against the union to form their own nation in order to continue owning slaves. The act of breaking away from the union to form their own country was straight up treason, and owning slaves is just wrong. In the Unification War, The Independent Planets were just minding their own business when The Alliance came along and said "You're in The Alliance now". The Independents said "No we ain't, now fuck off". So The Alliance invaded Independent Space and they went to war. It's more like if Communist Russia made all of the surrounding Slavic countries forcibly join the Soviet Union all at once instead of one at a time like they historically did, but they all put up a fight and lost.
First and only episode of Cracked I'll ever see unless gunpoint. Interesting topic, crap arguments for both sides. Rewatch firefly and rethink everything.
They forgot about Miranda project. Allliance has hugely fucked up with chemical human modification. Which is a big lesson for humanity. And Mal with his crew will spread this info throughout the verse. Doesn't this rehabilitate them?
+Batyr Bek Also from a big perspective no one is a bad guy in our basic understanding. Niska type of guys with their example show us how not to live and importance of improving life quality not allowing ghetto to conquer space and hearts.
Following the law is completely irrelevant in determining whether someone has strong morals or not. Laws and moral decisions are correlated. Like killing someone or stealing from someone are examples. However not paying taxes is not amoral. Smoking weed is not amoral. Prostitution is not amoral. These are things where we're taught a distorted reality so that we can accept the logical inconsistencies. Getting other people to steal from someone else is not moral. However that's exactly what voting is. You're requesting a person to go steal from your community members to serve your ideals. Killing in defense of innocent life is not amoral. Many governments have this as being illegal. Kidnapping someone and locking them in a cage because they took action to preserve their life or someone else's life that was threatened .. thats amoral and that's what these governments do.
Tax evasion is immoral. It is stealing from the community. Some countries don't have taxes, but in those that do, refusing to pay taxes is stealing from the public. In no country in the world is it illegal to defend yourself. It is illegal to claim self-defense as an excuse to kill someone.
I'm not going to take a political stance here, but: Some people consider mandatory taxes as inherently immoral. To put the idea behind it simply, *any* entity that uses the threat of force in order to deprive people of their property is fundamentally violent and abhorrent. It doesn't matter if the entity in question is a thug in an alley with a knife, an organized crime protection racket, or a government. The only real difference is how polite they are and how much paperwork you have to fill out. If you subscribe to that view, it must be understood that going along with such an immoral act is immoral in itself. To put it another way, a refusal to pay taxes isn't stealing from the community, it is a refusal to let the community steal from you. The point there is that morality is subjective. Killing in self defense may be illegal where you live. It is absolutely not where I live. That does not mean that you can just "use it as an excuse" though. Unless there is overwhelmingly clear evidence (like video footage) that you genuinely did act in self defense, the government *will* build a case against you, and there will almost certainly be a trial in which you are held accountable for your actions by a jury of your peers.
No other entity aside from government can make you use a service and then charge you for it. They literally make monopolies which prevent the free market from offering innovative solutions. This is why so many government programs run into problems.
Yeah maybe because the south had started a completely bloody terrible war, because they wanted to keep people enslaved. The south was almost mainly the reason for hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. And also when has a country treated another country with respect immediately after a war?
+kmckee33 Did they start the war? I guess technically they did when they fired in fort Sumter. How ever, Jefferson Davis spent months trying to get a peaceful succession to the point of sending envoys to Congress asking for the evacuation of Union troops from Confederate lands. each and every time they were turned away. The South was looking to get rid of slavery anyway, since they could not trade with other civilized countries because they would not trade with slave holding nations. The Union army caused just as many, if not more atrocities than the south did. Ever hear of Sherman's March to the sea? That's a great example of Union brutality. As to your last point, Britain to the US after the revolution. Us the the Japanese after we nuked them. Us to the Germans after ww2. Reconstruction was a ridiculously tyrannical time in the US for the South. Had Lincoln not been assassinated I doubt heavily it would have been that bad.
kmckee33 One more thing before I head to class, the Civil War was NOT about slavery, despite what your 8-12th grade history teachers would have you believe. The premise was added towards the end of the war so that the public would not support the South in the future or present.
"Even Kaley, their technical expert, is self-taught"...oh well, fuck, I guess that only makes her uhm, I dunno, a friggen GENIUS? The idea that "education" trumps intellect and intelligence in spite of disadvantage is the reason for why colleges are sapping our generation dry. I've seen idiots upon idiots, educated and with honors. It's not a foolproof technique of ensuring a person is informed, articulate, and an innovative, useful member of society.
My top ten videos are 10) if bullies were honest 9)the first episode of the anti heroes 8)the second and third episode of the Harry potter series 7) breaking bad for kids 6)10 ways science says you can appear more attractive 5) dispatchers from goddamn space 4) new guy weekly an exclusive interview with dan o brian 3) organizing the first hunger games 2)future house 1) the 6 most unintentionally creepy sitcom characters after hours
+Blood Angel Firefly was too smart for the average Boobus Americanus - and since the brainless outnumber everyone else, and have more money by virtue of sheer numbers. . . guess who gets catered to? The dimwits who drool every time a Tardashian farts in public.
New Guy, the Akira style blow up is only possible because the Alliance meddled in the first place, they didn't monitor her because she displayed powers, her powers manifested because they messed with her brain, plus Reavers! (although the backstory for them didn't occur until Serenity so maybe that's why Daniel didn't bring it up).
Well obviously leftists would see any rebels against a tyrannical fascist galaxist (idk what you'd call a globalist, but for the galaxy) government as the bad guys. Firefly was unique in many ways, one of the ways is by giving an honest look at both sides of the argument. Instead of nearly every movie where the establishment is the good guys and terrorists are always bad, or star wars were the rebels are good & the empire is cartoonishly evil; Firefly shows the goods and bads of both sides. A classic: Freedom vs Security, centralization vs localized powers. Freedom is dangerous corruptable on the local level requiring individuals to be strong independant & active. Security being the opposite. Firefly is as much the bad guys as the patriots in the revolutionary war were. In the exact same respect.
Firefly IS great because individuals are striving on their own paths. Mal and Zoe want freedom from the Alliance. Wash loves Zoe and does all he can to keep them all alive. [ :-( ] Kaylee keeps the engine running as best she can, Doc tries to protect his sister, River is on a quest to uncover the truth and end her insanity, Shepard seeks inspiration, and Jayne is Jayne - looking out for No. 1. Inara wants to run her business while struggling with real feeling for Mal. Firefly the ship is really the show, struggling to make it in the 'verse, ultimately canceled, and yet rebounding and still successful in making a movie. 15 years on and it is still a great show, because real life is separated in the very successful haves (Alliance) and the rest of the have-nots . . . .
Point of order. River's "vast unchecked abilities" came after the Alliance meddled with her brain to create those powers. She was just an exceptionally smart kid before they did that. So New Guy cannot argue that the Alliance seized her to protect others. They created what she is by their unauthorized surgeries. Plus, the Operative in Serenity makes it clear that their reason for pursuing River is the information she obtained from being in the same room with Alliance leadership (including the secret of the Reavers) rather than any concern of uncontrolled powers directly. So I'm calling foul on his argument.
I paused and disliked as soon as I saw new guy. I will unsubscribe if I see him again in anything other than new guy weekly, because that way, at least I have a filtering system, and I don't have to see a guy that I hate with the white hot heat of a thousand suns, whereas otherwise, I just pause and dislike the vid because I hate him so much. I know how you make your money, and one person doesn't make a diff; but a few hundred do. And everybody hates that new guy.
Hey buddy, guess what! Great news! No one gives a shit whether you subscribe or not! Hope that cleared that up for you! Have fun pal! Also, don't try to hold your subscription hostage to get things you want! Makes you seem like a douche bag! You're not a douche bag are you? Nah, of course you aren't!
First of all, I like the new guy. Secondly, I have to honestly ask you why you took the time to complain about the free content you enjoy on this channel. If you don't like what you see, turn it off and look at something else. Why would you say a hurtful thing about someone trying to entertain people? You must realize that the new guy reads comments. Do you really not care about other people's feelings?
Ok that is a little harsh i don't love him but he can be something great. I think you don't like him because he has not had a chance to bounce ideas off of others in new guy weekly so i think this was a good presentation of what he could do.
My one comment probably doesn't mean much against the tidal wave of youtube hate but I have to say I really like the new guy in this. It seems like he was a definitely a good addition to the cracked team.
