Serenity
Jaimie and I actually got out on a date and went to see Serenity on Friday. It was a good movie. I look forward seeing what people who haven’t seen the series have to say about it.
The movie was scarier than I had anticipated. I have to admit that I’m rather weak-stomached when it comes to movies that are even slightly scary. I didn’t watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the longest time despite my wife’s urgings because I thought it would be too frightening for me (it wasn’t even close to being scary). Looking back on Serenity, a lot of the scarier parts were done very indirectly - you only saw flashes of what was happening and your imagination filled in the rest.
As I commented on M’s Livejournal (definite spoilers), what made the Alliance dangerous is that they’ve decided that they know what will make people better and they decide to force people into the proper mold “for their own good” or “for the betterment of mankind”.
As C.S. Lewis put it:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Anyhow, if you want to explore this theme further, Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch and Eric Flint’s Belesarius Series are good stories revolving around that idea.
October 3rd, 2005 at 12:11 pm
It was reveiwed last night on “Eber t& Roper” they completely scrambled the plot but gave it a glowing reveiw.