Month: October 2005

So today we went to “Warbirds over Salt Lake” (or, depending on who you believe, “Warbirds over Utah”). This is a R/C model event that’s all about flying the scale-model military aircraft.

It was pretty good fun. During the drive in, the weather changed from calm to 15-20MPH winds. Unfortunately, for many of these people showing off $4000+ model airplanes, that’s simply too much wind to fly in where they’re concerned about crashing the model. This basically meant that only the most devil-may-care pilots flew.

So not a lot of planes in the air, but the ones that were were flown with style, panache, and reckless disregard for the safety of the aircraft 🙂 It was great fun!

Unfortunately, there was one crash: a scale model twin-engine B-25. It was pilot error, clearly: the pilot initiated a downwind turn at far too low an airspeed and altitude, tip-stalled, and turned his beautiful bird into an expensive trash bag full of firewood. Alas, you never like to see that happen. This particular pilot had taken his bomber model up four times the same day, working hard to keep the fans entertained when so few pilots were willing to brave the wind. He easily had flown more than every other pilot, save one indefatigable P-51 pilot who kept his bird in the air most of the day.

Must have been exhausting.

Me? Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like shilling out the $10 pilot fee to get into the air. I had a “warbird”, of a sort… a ParkZone F-27 Stryker. It’s a foam model, darn near indestructible, and if you do crash it, repairs are just some 3M Super 77 adhesive and strapping tape away. Trying to herd four children, though (and later in the day, 3 children) pretty much precluded my participation, too.

Next year, I’ll have to arrange a babysitter for a child or two so I can actually fly in the event!

Anyway, despite the steadily increasing winds, we had a great time. The one big plus about the high winds–up to 30MPH at times!– was that the downwind passes were extremely fast. It was amazing to see a 35% scale Corsair blow by at greater than 90MPH land-speed while doing an 8-point roll.

I decided to haul out my Stryker for some backyard-field fun afterwards, but when the plane began flying backwards at full-throttle 8 minutes into the flight, I decided it was time to haul it in. The two little boys with me get bored after about 10 minutes of flight time with my plane… it’s much quieter and smaller than the big, noisy, gas-guzzling giants flown at the field today.

Anyway, if you’re in the mood for some cheap entertainment, this is a great time of year to find a local model airfield and learn what events are happening there. They’ll generally have food, friendly people, and lots of airplanes in the air.

— Matt B.

Last night, Christy and I went to the 7 PM showing of Serenity, Joss Whedon’s movie which carries on the story of Firefly, the critically-acclaimed cult-hit television series. Spoilers, discussion, thoughts below. If you haven’t seen it, best vamoose your gorram hide till you got it taken care of.

The Audience and the Theater

The first thing that struck me as we entered the theater was the audience. It wasn’t very large, for opening day of a hoped-for blockbuster hit. The theater was about 2/3 full. This is definitely not the opening day of the next Star Wars movie, eh? However, it was really interesting to listen to the conversations around me. These people were discussing the story, the plots, wondering whether the bad guy would be one of the “two by two, hands of blue” or something completely different, and waiting with very expectant anticipation for the movie to start.

Curiously, the movie opens with little fanfare. There is no blast of trumpets, followed by a familiar soundtrack. The opening is quiet, almost reserved, with no opportunity for the applause that often accompanies the opening of a fan favorite on its first day. You are plunged into a new, unexpected story, meeting a young version of River Tam in a dream sequence, and shortly thereafter reliving her escape at the hands of her brother, Simon.

The Opening

I’ve gotta say this: Simon is a convincing character, dressed in his military outfit. I seriously did not know what was going on for the first minute of the escape sequence, until just before Simon made it clear he was rescuing River, and not just observing her. River is disturbing as always, being where she shouldn’t be, doing things she shouldn’t do.

Unfortunately, the entry for the villain was all too expected. The moment the scientist and his two guards stormed into the records chamber demanding the assassin’s authorization, I knew they were going to die. There was no way they couldn’t! I thought, however, that the line “Well, I didn’t happen to bring a sword with me today” was a very clever segue into the assassination sequence. For once, in a movie, the reaction of an onlooker (the hall of records girl who had let him in) was believable. She’s petrified, moaning and tearful at the deaths she’s just witnessed.

The Witty Repartee

One of my favorite things about Whedon writing is the plethora of memorable one or two-line interactions between characters. The only sad thing about them in this movie is that several of the best ones were in the teaser trailer! But here are the ones I got a kick out of.

Mal: “Define Interesting.” Wash: “Oh God, Oh God, we’re all gonna’ die?”

River: “I swallowed a bug.”

Mal: “Do you wanna be Captain?” Jayne: “Yeah, I do!” Mal: “Oh. Uh…. well, you can’t!”

Kaylee: “It’s been more than a year since I had anything betwixt my nethers didn’t run on batteries!”

Wash: “I am a leaf on the wind.”

River, to Simon: “You’ve always protected me. My turn.”

Simon, to River: “Am I talking to Miranda now?” River: <makes face like “I can’t believe you just said that” and “that was dumb, bro” put together> Simon: “Never Mind.”

Zoe: “I will not turn this ship into an abomination!”

The Storyline

My main complaint about the storyline is that, to my mind, it didn’t seem to go where the TV show was taking it. Of course, since it’s a stand-alone movie, that’s not entirely unexpected, and I’m sure if someone sees the movie without knowing the TV series, this makes more sense. They did a great job of providing background for those people who had never seen the movie, I thought.

For once, I was very surprised when I learned the secret of the movie. It wasn’t so much that 30 million people had been killed by the government. I kind of expected something along those lines. It was that, through this failed experiment, the Reavers had been created. That was utterly unexpected! Given that the Reavers have been the bogeymen of both the series and the movie, I’ve never been satisfied with the explanation that they were men who “ain’t men. Or they forgot how to be. Now they’re nothing. They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothing, and that’s what they became”. They wrapped this up very nicely.

The ending

OK, the space battle scene was amazing. It was all too brief, actually: seeing Serenity dodging, weaving, with Wash at the controls hurtling the ship around–and into–obstacles was really exciting. Alas, I realized, this was not an end to the Reavers as a plot device. Given that 30 million people perished on Miranda, there is ample opportunity to keep showing more and more Reavers in future movies and series.

I’ll have to watch the movie again, but I got the sense that the bad guy had a unique sense of honor. Much like Jubal Early (one of my favorite bad guys from the series — I wonder if they based this bad guy on him?) there is a perverse logic to what he does and how he does it. In the opening scenes, he doesn’t kill the scientist right off: he allows him to choose his own fate first, then does it for him when he fails to fall on his sword. When the weird guy with all the TV screens betrays Mal, the villain offs him with no explanation or further discourse. It’s as if he has no respect for his intended victim due to the betrayal.

“Guy killed me with a sword, Mal…” That’s a haunting line, for some reason.

Best camera shot sequence, IMHO: The blast doors open. Camera rises from the floor. River is silhouetted, posed, axe in one hand, sword in the other, dead Reavers in a circle all around her. The wall behind her implodes. Soldiers enter. Close-up of axe. A drop of blood falls to the ground. A finger tightens on a trigger. River’s eyes contract.

“Stand down.”

Loved it.

So what did you think of the movie?

— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: So much food; so little time!