Serenity Thesis (aka This Is What I Do When I Get Bored)
Recently I watched Serenity, this movie can be interpreted as some people’s view of politics. There is a line in the movie where the Heroine (if you will) says in a flashback scene “We meddle.” in response to the teacher in this particular flashback asking why the Independents fought so hard against the Alliance forces during the Civil War that took place. The Heroine further explains that the government is meddlesome, and states that people don’t like to be meddled with always being told what to do. Taking this point of view in mind this can be loosely related to world relations and politics.
The movie is full of action, and allows a new viewer (one not familiar with the television show it is based on) to follow along with the story without feeling as if they are missing an important part of the story. It opens on the aforementioned scene in which our Heroine River is a young girl at school, and her teacher is giving a lesson on the Civil War in which the Alliance won. The Independents who fought against them were not unlawful by any means but felt that there world was a better place without a strong controlling government to rule over them. In some aspects they can be compared to the war protestors and hippies of the 1960’s and 1970’s. They wanted to live their lives in a civil and peaceful manner without the semblance of martial law dictating their lives. The entire premise of the movie is that River is a psychic, referred to as a Reader. She has a heightened sense of emotions that allows her to read people, and the things around her. She has been scientifically altered to be a human machine without having any biomechanical parts to her being. This leaves her flawed and broken emotionally and mentally, an encrypted message triggers her to recall a repressed memory that is not her own, causing her to fight her way to a world that had been created but was deemed inhabitable.
River coerces the group she is a part of including that of one Captain Malcolm Reynolds who as it turns out was a Sergeant for the Independent Army to pursue this planet that is called Miranda. On this planet they find a world of dead bodies, there is a recording of a woman who explains that there was a drug released into the air system as a test to see if the human psyche could be altered to be less hedonistic and less violent. Unfortunately it worked too well and people stopped doing everything and eventually died. However there was a small group, as quoted in the film roughly 1/10 of the population that it did the exact opposite of it’s intend. It turned them into something inhuman, as well as cannibals. Mal (as his crew refers to him) and his crew along with River take this message to a man referred to as Mr. Universe who is a recluse that has access to every form of communication and has the ability to hack into the news feeds which will allow them to share this information with the world. In the end it is not clear as to whether this does or does not end or change the government or the control in which the Alliance has over the majority of the worlds but it certainly allows for people to believe that if there is something wrong then you can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.
The movie is full of action, and allows a new viewer (one not familiar with the television show it is based on) to follow along with the story without feeling as if they are missing an important part of the story. It opens on the aforementioned scene in which our Heroine River is a young girl at school, and her teacher is giving a lesson on the Civil War in which the Alliance won. The Independents who fought against them were not unlawful by any means but felt that there world was a better place without a strong controlling government to rule over them. In some aspects they can be compared to the war protestors and hippies of the 1960’s and 1970’s. They wanted to live their lives in a civil and peaceful manner without the semblance of martial law dictating their lives. The entire premise of the movie is that River is a psychic, referred to as a Reader. She has a heightened sense of emotions that allows her to read people, and the things around her. She has been scientifically altered to be a human machine without having any biomechanical parts to her being. This leaves her flawed and broken emotionally and mentally, an encrypted message triggers her to recall a repressed memory that is not her own, causing her to fight her way to a world that had been created but was deemed inhabitable.
River coerces the group she is a part of including that of one Captain Malcolm Reynolds who as it turns out was a Sergeant for the Independent Army to pursue this planet that is called Miranda. On this planet they find a world of dead bodies, there is a recording of a woman who explains that there was a drug released into the air system as a test to see if the human psyche could be altered to be less hedonistic and less violent. Unfortunately it worked too well and people stopped doing everything and eventually died. However there was a small group, as quoted in the film roughly 1/10 of the population that it did the exact opposite of it’s intend. It turned them into something inhuman, as well as cannibals. Mal (as his crew refers to him) and his crew along with River take this message to a man referred to as Mr. Universe who is a recluse that has access to every form of communication and has the ability to hack into the news feeds which will allow them to share this information with the world. In the end it is not clear as to whether this does or does not end or change the government or the control in which the Alliance has over the majority of the worlds but it certainly allows for people to believe that if there is something wrong then you can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.