Serenity: Grim's Official Review

[Menelanna]

About River's combat abilities:

.... Even so, the fight scenes would have been much nicer if they were *cough* a tad more realistic. Multiple times, a 200-poundish guy comes charging at her at speed, she pulls a move (either a grab-his-neck then throw, or a simple punch to the jaw), and the guy goes flying off in the opposite direction. ...

 

ummm actually River throwing the guy across the room is not too unrealistic. If you hit or manuver someone properly even someone like little me (5'5 and 110 lbs) could throw big guy (lets say...6'4 and 210 lbs) across the room if he was running at me. It is all about redirecting his momentum in a different direction or just moving it up and over you.

[WizWom]

About martial arts > superior numbers:

I don't care how pretty it looks, one black belt is not going to defeat ten white belts. Unless, of course, the white belts play by the rules and patiently wait their turns, and don't use the unsportsmanlike tactic of simply grabbing a limb & holding on (a tactic which, I must note, would be the very first thing a Reaver would do).

 

Um, dude... you don't know Martial Arts, it seems, or haven't had access to a proper actual combat sytle.

Fact: My brother, half trained (4th section of 7 to be black belt first degree) was assaulted while putting a Chung Moo Quan poster on the window of a Karate school by the Instructor and 3 senior students. My brother got a bruise. Instructor had a broken leg, students were not in court, so I don't know what happened to them. My Brother is now a 4th degree black belt. I was learning a 7-man defense form. at 3rd section. I'm quite certain that Carl would have no trouble with a gang of 10 thugs. Even if they were armed with knives or clubs. He can quite literally choose a major muscle and remove it from an assailant. Or knock anyone out with a single blow.

 

John C. Kim, who brought this combat style to the U.S., wanted to demonstrate it at a Karate tournament, when he first got here. They did not want to let him show his form. So, the story goes, he forcibly sat all the instructors and contestants down, and showed his forms. There is a huge differeence between your corner Karate/Jui Jitsu/Judo storefront Dojo and a real combat school. Heck, even a Marine can take on 10-1 odds against untrained thugs.

[Domi]

The bow was replaced by a CGI laser gun for the final movie, though...

 

He said it was something like a crossbow, though, and attracted so much attention to it, so watching the series I was expecting a bow to show up every minute, and when it never happened I was a bit bewildered. Why did he even talk about something that never ended up anywhere?

 

BTW, fencing episode was one of my favorites. "Swor... what?!"

[SixOfSpades]

Why would a Shepard stay on a ship full of law breakers?

Because he's not a Shepard?

About Book:

Actually, yes he is a Shepherd. From what I've seen/heard, the most likely explanation of Derrial's character is that he's a former Parliament operative. Not as high-up as The Operative, but pretty close. After the defeat of the Independents, the need for Alliance combat operatives would logically diminish, so Derrial petitioned for a resignation--and got it. (He was getting a little old to be a functioning field agent.) No longer strictly bound to the Alliance, he joined an abbey and assumed the surname of Book, after the Bible. The monastic life might have appealed to him because he needed some Higher Power to obey, or because he wanted to retain some layer of protection between himself and dirty society (he's unused to interacting with real people, after all), or perhaps because he needed a way to atone for some of the things that the Alliance had him do.

The reason Jubal Early (the bounty hunter in 'Objects in Space') says Book isn't a Shepherd is because Early is a psychic, and in the few seconds he spent in 'contact' with Book, Book wasn't thinking like a Shepherd--he was thinking like a former Operative. Book keeping guns in his locker could be explained by saying that he bought them after seeing just what kind of ship Serenity was. He (almost) certainly didn't carry them them on board with the rest of his stuff he brought from the Abbey, but once he saw what kind of scrapes the crew regularly gets in, he thought it best to play it safe--perhaps to forestall an attempted mutiny by Jayne or something.

 

About Inara's weaponmastery skills:

She seems to have had about as much combat training as I have--not a lot. I can use a staff decently well, certainly well enough to instruct a total newbie in the basic rudiments, and I've done a bit of archery, too, but against a pack of Reavers, I'll take the gun, thanks. Although I do like the "hockey stick" metaphor, that's quite believable. Also, about changing her bow into a gun: Didn't quite work. I've only seen the final edit, and even so, on my very first viewing, I was all "Why is she holding that gun like it's a bow?"

 

About elementary physics:

It is indeed possible for a scrawny girl like River to take somebody like Jayne and throw him across the room--provided she does it in the (general) direction in which he was already moving. If all you're doing is applying a perpendicular impulse (either sideways, to change his direction, or vertically, to lift him off the ground and thus "throw" him), is simply a matter of strength and what you're braced against. (If you apply the force vertically, you're braced against the floor, which tends to work pretty well.)

But a lighter person, standing alone on a bare floor, recieving heavier person incoming at speed and actually reversing his direction of travel, while remaining in the same position herself? I'm sorry, but that simply does not happen. It's called conservation of momentum. You can look it up later. Now, Spider-Man could do it, because he has the required capabilities: He can grip the ground with his feet, thus bracing himself quite securely, and he's about 8 times as strong as a regular human being of the same size. Take away either of those properties, and Spidey gets knocked clear across the room, just like River Tam should have been.

 

About overpowering numbers in combat:

Sorry, just not going to buy 1 guy with only 4 limbs repelling 10 other guys at the exact same time. Granted, a skilled fighter can take out an opponent in a single blow, there's no question about that. But if 10 guys rushed him at the same time, he would be able to hit, maybe, 5 of them before the rest just glommed on and basically rendered him completely immobile. The key to martial arts is speed, and when each of your limbs is suddenly 150 pounds heaver than you're used to, your speed tends to drop off somewhat. In all probability, your brother vs. four guys was actually your brother vs. one guy, followed by your brother vs. three guys who were already spooked after seeing what happened to their instructor. Besides, Karate is not about grabbing--if those had been Judo students, the outcome would probably have been quite different--and they were almost certainly trained to engage an enemy one-on-one in the first place.

("You use different moves, when you're fighting half a dozen people, than when you only have to be worried about one!")

[cmorgan]

Nice Princess Bride quote to bring in! You just didn't do the spacing...

("You use different moves, .... * grunt*when you're fighting .... half a dozen PEOple ..... than when you

 

I just realized you were actually quoting the original source, sorry. Pluss I'm OT. But I just had to smile!

[devSin]

oh my god like ten years later peeps

[Meira]

BTW, fencing episode was one of my favorites. "Swor... what?!"

 

 

About Book:

 

I guess we'll never know for certain what was the deal with Book. Different theories are fun though. I think I'm most fan of the Operative theory, though not quite as you explained it. More in the vein of Book being still an active operator in middle of a quest of keeping an eye on River. Obviously the events presented in the movie would have played out little differently if the series had not been cancelled.

[Domi]

It is indeed possible for a scrawny girl like River to take somebody like Jayne and throw him across the room--provided she does it in the (general) direction in which he was already moving. [etc]

 

I think it was clearly intended for River's powers to be unexplicable and beyound what is realistic. Cliched, yes, but I liked how it was handled in the series. Too blunt in the movie imo.

[Menelanna]

I agree with Domi. I loved how there were so many times in the show where it was sorta like "Wh...Wait can she really do THAT!" or "What the heck! What is going on!"

My favorite episode with River was "Objects in Space." I still do not get exactly what was going on at the begining of that show when she was hearing everyones conversations but they did not seem to notice her.

The movie was a lot more blunt on the fact that River is not normal. But it was still REALLY good. I still love the fact that a 90 lb nothing girl K.O.ed like a 220 lb Jayne...twice.

[Domi]

Well, really who did not knock Jayne out? Even Simon managed, granted he cheated with the druggs (though that was probably the funniest Jayne's knock-out in the series)

 

My favorite episodes gotta be Shindig, Jayne's Town and Ariel.

[Menelanna]

Well, really who did not knock Jayne out? Even Simon managed, granted he cheated with the druggs (though that was probably the funniest Jayne's knock-out in the series)

 

My favorite episodes gotta be Shindig, Jayne's Town and Ariel.

 

yeah that was the best Jayne knock out!

another knock out I liked was when Mal hit him in the head with a wrench and put him in the air lock! thinking of it Jayne does get knocked out alot huh? and 99% of the time he does deserve it!

also thinking...what main character on the show has NOT been knocked out at some point?

[Domi]

Zoe! If you don't count her pretending to be dead in Serenity-pilot.

[Menelanna]

oh wait Inara was never k.o.'ed! But Zoe did sorta get knocked out during "Out of Gas". Not a person knocking her out I guess, but she was still unconsious for quite some time. "Out of Gas" was a very interesting episode. (i loved seeing how everyone ended up on the ship! Jayne's was the best!!)

[Meira]

Inara gets knocked out in 'Our Mrs. Reynolds'.

[Simbriant]

About River's combat abilities:

.... Even so, the fight scenes would have been much nicer if they were *cough* a tad more realistic. Multiple times, a 200-poundish guy comes charging at her at speed, she pulls a move (either a grab-his-neck then throw, or a simple punch to the jaw), and the guy goes flying off in the opposite direction. ...

 

ummm actually River throwing the guy across the room is not too unrealistic. If you hit or manuver someone properly even someone like little me (5'5 and 110 lbs) could throw big guy (lets say...6'4 and 210 lbs) across the room if he was running at me. It is all about redirecting his momentum in a different direction or just moving it up and over you.

 

 

My wife is 4'8" and weighs 90 lbs. Before we were married I saw her beat the crap out of a 6 foot, 200 lbs man so it is possible for a smaller figure to deal out punishment to a larger one.

 

Needless to say, I try very hard not to get my wife POed.

 

I understand what you are saying about the movie though. The fight scene does look a little unrealistic. It's Hollywood though. They think the more they exaggerate things the better it will look.