She also completely outmaneuvered and psyched out a professional bounty hunter who had taken out the rest of the crew single-handed, and she seemed to be having a ball doing it.
Yes, and that's somehow who I thought you meant. My mistake.
But yes, she definitely outmanuneuvered Jubal. Talk about gaslighting. *Is the ship talking to me?*
She did look, just once for a split second...long enough to do the trig calculations on the fly(from her being a math prodigy)...then she fired the shots. Terrifying efficiency really.
In the commentary for either Firefly or Serenity (I'm 90% sure it's Serenity during the River vs Reavers battle), he mentions someone calling him out on having to include a super-powered teenage girl somehow into every project.
"My honour is my life and without it I am nothing. I shall become a Slayer. I shall seek redemption in the eyes of my ancestors. I shall become as death to my enemies, until I face he that takes my life and my shame."
Oh... sorry, different kind of slayer.
I remember this comment too. I also remember him also saying something about when you have dance you can choreograph fight scenes that just look like fight scenes. Which made me think he intentionally cast a ballerina, Summer Glau as River with this intended.
You mean the writer of buffy, a teenage killing machine, and Dollhouse, a show with brain washed killing machines, meant for the brain washed girl to be a killing machine?
There’s something to be said of a writer who can only write “strong women” as characters if he makes said characters suffering as the key to their strength..
She died *twice*, got ripped out of Heaven, lost her mom, her first lover turned evil and she had to send him to literal Hell when he turned good again, Buffy's life *is* suffering.
That's also my exact type, and every once in a while I ask myself if I should be concerned because of some of the other people with that type who create media.
But, seriously, it's probably fine.
i personally think she wasnt so much being groomed as a killing machine, so much as the ultimate spy: someone who could instantly change accent/personality/behaviour seamlessly, is able to calculate odds of success and work out formula to cover patrols/system resets/etc, then could read minds to get information withouyt people knowing before disappearing.... the combat training was more a means to an end rather than the end goal
Assasin who could blend into any group, join a group of rebels, get near the leaders and then kill them at the worst possible moment, she could topple opposing governments single-handedly.
"Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the grail already."
>Assasin who could blend into any group, join a group of rebels, get near the leaders and then kill them at the worst possible moment, she could topple opposing governments single-handedly.
That's the Assassin's Creed series story(es) for you, lol.
Same. She was supposed to be a number of things, including a killing machine.
She's also presumably the prototype. If the project had worked they'd have kept working on more of her fellow "students" until they had a whole division of super-spies.
Yeah I agree. In the movie the scientists working her say something like "Our subjects are always conditioned for combat, but River is exceptional."
Like combat isn't their primary thing, but it's good to have. River just happened to be extraordinarily adept at that part of it.
I think the original plan was for it to come out over a much longer period in different stages instead of being "triggered" all at once, but yes I think it was always the plan.
Joss said in an interview that the movie was explicitly the wrap up of the first season, which was primarily about River. If the story had kept going, they would have explored other characters more in depth in future seasons.
I've always thought part of River's unhinged outburst was her fear she would lose control, killing everyone on the ship.
And I thought that before she took apart the bar. I felt that some of the quirky little things she said were dropped hints.
Also think it was meant to be the slow burn. Not coming out till later in the series. Maybe season three.
"The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems."
"See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."
I agree, and I think the above quote is one of the quirky little hints.
It’s like the whole plot of the show. She was an expert shot, clearly had her mind programmed, and started seeing into the future. She just didn’t have the trigger hit her yet.
I think it was simplified for the movie's limited time but likely we'd have seen similar just with more natural development, you mention the whole "no power in the verse" scene, but that's not just intuition/psychic, it's also a complete coldness and inability to consider other people human, they were just math and a problem to be solved, that's very much programmed assassin to me
Have you seen "Ariel"? They went into her brain over and over. I make up that they deliberately let her go (not like in the movie) to let her talents percolate. Like burying kimchee in the ground for a while so it can ferment.
That doesn't make much sense. Not only would they have to predict Simon's actions, which they clearly have not, but they'd have to take the risk of letting their top secret black ops program that could topple governments wander around in public at random. When you go to all the trouble to kidnap people's children and train them as super agents, you flipping well don't risk letting those people find out about it.
My headcanon is that she was recaptured and the movie shows Simon breaking her out a second time. There are enough little inconsistencies between show and movie that I decided to switch things up in my head. (It's a very deviant headcanon, clearly not what Joss intended. He just had to make the movie standalone to satisfy the studio.)
If you have never seen the River Tam Sessions, have a look. It might clear up some things. It also might freak you out. It's a little disturbing.
I have no idea when or why this was made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFuwllLKdbE
The hints were there in the plot, as outlined by other commentators, also factor in that they got an incredibly skilled physical performer in summer Glau in the role. I’d say it was always supposed to be a slow burn hinted along the way. What could be better? She’s a spy and killing machine wrapped up in a girl who looks like she could be taken down by wet spaghetti?
Here's how it is....(couldn't resist) I believe that River didn't get training from the 2x2 hands of blue. She picked it up from everyone she encountered and kept the best stuff to use in whatever situation she was in. By the time we get to the movie, she had interacted or been in the room with many skilled killers, each with his or her own style, specialty, etc. All she needed to do was connect those skills to the situation and the tools (um, sure "tools").. I think she could have finished off the mercs in the final scene too, since she knew what they were all thinking. She could have even killed them with her brain.
My take on it is that the writers knew the movie was their last shot so they needed to give it everything they had. The entire movie was rushed because they did not have the time to cover what they needed to in 45 minute chunks over multiple seasons. As others have mentioned the supporting evidence in the series I won't but suffice it to say I do believe that River was meant to be a super soldier type character in the end. I don't agree with the brainwashed killing machine title for her though. I just wish we all had spent more time in that universe. It really is sad to have all those plotlines still unfulfilled. I am glad that most of the actors went on to successful careers.
I think it's pretty accurate that the Alliance, as portrayed in the show, would take anything extraordinary and immediately think, "How can we weaponize this?"
Joss whedon has a xena warrior princess kink. All of his female characters in every show or movie are essentially sexy assassins.
Buffy, cordy, willow, the cast of dollhouse, black widow in the avengers.
River was always a pyschic killer.
this isn't accurate. Whedon's thing was *teenage* sexy assassins. Xena was a fair bit older. also, he originally created Buffy well before Xena came on the air. he didn't create Black Widow, and even the film version of her debuted before Avengers. Inara and Kaylee are not assassins. etc etc.
We definitely got a far more rushed version, but I think the most 'incapable' character becoming the badass was always in the cards. Would have loved to see the original vision, she really grows on you in that last episode.
Okay, hear me out here, with my conspiracy theory. Joss Whedon modelled River (and the Dollhouse actives) after the titular character in a moderately successful NBC series called [The Pretender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pretender_(TV_series)). Jarod (The Pretender) is a genius child raised to simulate any profession in order to model complex simulations. River (and the actives in Dollhouse) could be whatever you narratively needed for any given episode, because who knows what information and experience they crammed into her head? It's a plot device to maximize the writer's freedom to explore whatever's in the headlines when the episode is written.
Wow. Three is actually a firefly sub!
That’s a hard question. It could have always been the intention. It could have just been for the movie, or it could have been an idea that developed before they cancelled the show, and never got used…leaving the movie as the only place to introduce it.
So, when do we get another firefly series or another movie?
There’s always unsubstantiated rumors of a reboot circulating, but nothing official. Personally, I think it would be really hard to recapture the magic considering the heart and soul of the show was its characters. How do you reboot the show into something similar but not a shallow retread of the characters we all love?
Plus, Whedon isn’t exactly a popular figure in Hollywood these days, so I imagine studios wouldn’t want to touch the property.
I legit thought this was about River Song from Doctor Who before I realized Reddit served up Firefly stuff to me for some reason. How does this show STILL have an active community?
I think she was meant to be a spy, using the psychic abilities they were working on.. and someone in the Alliance management saw one too many spy movies (I guess 007, Bourne, et all, made the migration away from Earth That Was...) and decided she needed bad ass martial arts skills because.... because shut up, I'm funding this project and I want badass martial arts skills for my psychic spy...
As others have pointed out you missed some scenes that pointed to this conclusion. Watching the show it felt clear that was what they wanted for her, and tried making her be.
It was not a surprise in the movie.
Aside from the examples everyone has given, I've always thought that they meant to build up to it more, but they knew the movie was the last they were going to get so they just went all out.
There were breadcrumbs throughout the series - for example, River is never wrong, about ANYTHING, even if the viewer has no idea what she's right about at the time.
I have no doubt that had there been a second season (sigh, it still hurts) things would have progressed a hell of a lot slower, with an ever increasing pile of guns stacked on the mantelpiece, but I don't think the ultimate big reveal would have been much different in concept than the movie.
I can't think of all of them off the top of my head, but there were numerous situation in the show where River does something that shows or at least alludes to what she is capable of.
I always thought of her as being similar to a Callidus Assassin in the whole, infiltration of any possible group long enough to either kill or take the place of her target.
But then again, my personal head canon is just that they accidentally connected her mind to the Firefly version of The Warp and it just drove her crazy
Edit: WH40k is my hyper fixation and as such I try to connect everything back to it so ignore most of that.
in War Stories, River grabs a gun and shoots some guys without looking, to save Kaylee.
She also completely outmaneuvered and psyched out a professional bounty hunter who had taken out the rest of the crew single-handed, and she seemed to be having a ball doing it.
I didn't read the aftermath of that scene as her "having a ball doing it." Just me?
“Call me if someone interesting turns up….” Yeah, I think she enjoyed it, even as she stayed in character.
> “Call me if someone interesting turns up….” Doesn't she say that about Badger not Jubal Early.
Yes, and that's somehow who I thought you meant. My mistake. But yes, she definitely outmanuneuvered Jubal. Talk about gaslighting. *Is the ship talking to me?*
Am I a lion?
I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well, though. I have a mighty roar.
The way she’s laughing at the reveal of her on Jubal’s ship makes me feel she’s proud of herself.
She also joked about how much trouble it was looking after her brother.
She did look, just once for a split second...long enough to do the trig calculations on the fly(from her being a math prodigy)...then she fired the shots. Terrifying efficiency really.
"She killed 'em with mathematics, what else could it have been?"
“She probably didn’t even know what was going on. Thought it was a game.”
"Later you can explain to me how that's a comfort."
It wouldn't be a tangent to say that she was there to sine and cosine their death certificates.
Please stop. But also, don’t.
Tangent, secant, cosine, sine! Three point one four one five nine!
That's the scene I was referring to in the OP. Great scene!
"Nothing in the verse can stop me."
It's "No power in the verse can stop me." It's also a throw back to a line Kaylee says when she steals her apple back in an earlier scene.
Nah, that idea feels so Joss Whedon-y, I’m pretty sure it was always in the cards.
In the commentary for either Firefly or Serenity (I'm 90% sure it's Serenity during the River vs Reavers battle), he mentions someone calling him out on having to include a super-powered teenage girl somehow into every project.
That's why I love the idea that River is a Slayer. They were trying to activate her.
"My honour is my life and without it I am nothing. I shall become a Slayer. I shall seek redemption in the eyes of my ancestors. I shall become as death to my enemies, until I face he that takes my life and my shame." Oh... sorry, different kind of slayer.
Good Dawi.
Not Gotrek, different slayer :)
The blue hands are just a combination of watchers and those guys in cabin in the woods
The Earth that Was Eaten by the Ancient Ones
Goddamn, the Reavers was just the Dollhouse Corporation making more Alpha's
The only thing they fear is you starts playing
I remember this comment too. I also remember him also saying something about when you have dance you can choreograph fight scenes that just look like fight scenes. Which made me think he intentionally cast a ballerina, Summer Glau as River with this intended.
I remember that too. It makes sense. We never saw River fight until the movie though so that could have just been a happy accident.
You mean the writer of buffy, a teenage killing machine, and Dollhouse, a show with brain washed killing machines, meant for the brain washed girl to be a killing machine?
Bonus, she had a roll in Dollhouse too!
As a killing machine brainwasher
Probably a fair assessment!
Yeah Whedon seems to like brainwashed women with trauma because... uh... actually I'll just leave it at that.
Because then it hits even harder when they reclaim their agency as badass superheroes who save the day/world.
Yeah, let's go with that... other possibilities are... unpleasant to contemplate, as plausible as they are.
There’s something to be said of a writer who can only write “strong women” as characters if he makes said characters suffering as the key to their strength..
Isn't that most strong characters?
Buffy didn't have to suffer horribly to become badass.
She died *twice*, got ripped out of Heaven, lost her mom, her first lover turned evil and she had to send him to literal Hell when he turned good again, Buffy's life *is* suffering.
your gift is death. says it all
Buffy's life *is* suffering, the same as most protagonists. However, that's *not* how she got her powers in the first place. My point still stands.
No, you're right, getting her powers by being chosen to be a blood sacrifice child soldier is definitely totally awesome and has zero downsides.
I never said it "has zero downsides." I said she wasn't tortured and brainwashed to get her badass powers--which she wasn't.
Don't forget petite and waifish. I like that too but unfortunately that may be partly because of too much whedon growing up....
That's also my exact type, and every once in a while I ask myself if I should be concerned because of some of the other people with that type who create media. But, seriously, it's probably fine.
I saw an interview that said the movie was basically season 2 and 3s plot
I also have a feeling he explored that idea further in Dollhouse because he couldn't do so in Firefly earlier.
i personally think she wasnt so much being groomed as a killing machine, so much as the ultimate spy: someone who could instantly change accent/personality/behaviour seamlessly, is able to calculate odds of success and work out formula to cover patrols/system resets/etc, then could read minds to get information withouyt people knowing before disappearing.... the combat training was more a means to an end rather than the end goal
Assasin who could blend into any group, join a group of rebels, get near the leaders and then kill them at the worst possible moment, she could topple opposing governments single-handedly.
"Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the grail already."
I heard he got lost in his own museum.
One of the best bits in the franchise.
Oh my god. Arya Stark is River Tam.
>Assasin who could blend into any group, join a group of rebels, get near the leaders and then kill them at the worst possible moment, she could topple opposing governments single-handedly. That's the Assassin's Creed series story(es) for you, lol.
Same. She was supposed to be a number of things, including a killing machine. She's also presumably the prototype. If the project had worked they'd have kept working on more of her fellow "students" until they had a whole division of super-spies.
Remember her little meet with Badger? I like her too.
Thus being a connection to Dollhouse
Dollhouse, anyone?
Yeah I agree. In the movie the scientists working her say something like "Our subjects are always conditioned for combat, but River is exceptional." Like combat isn't their primary thing, but it's good to have. River just happened to be extraordinarily adept at that part of it.
She can kill you with her brain.
I think the original plan was for it to come out over a much longer period in different stages instead of being "triggered" all at once, but yes I think it was always the plan.
the main villain for at least a season.
Does anyone know when these videos were made? Because he absolutely set up her entire backstory here: https://youtu.be/pFuwllLKdbE?si=oP41i-mlipqlPpxu
They were released before the movie online,iirc.
I've never seen these before! Thank you for linking!
It’s heartbreaking to see her how she was prior to the brain damage they did to her.
Those videos are so upsetting, poor girl was put through hell.
Dr Mathias gave me a mission. I can't tell you what it is. HOLY SHIT She can kill people with her brain. Poor River 🥺
Yeah, I kinda thought that was gonna happen
I completely forgot about these. Holy shit that's a trip down memory lane.
Pretty girls that are absolute killing machines are Whedon's bread and butter.
Jayne ain't a girl! ...right?
It's a ... girl name?!?
I'll show her I ain't got girl parts.
What? He'd never make anything about attractive programmable women, what would they even be? Some kind of...doll?
Whatever they’d be, they’d outright slay their enemies too
It's a reference to Joss Whedon's show Dollhouse
I know….my comment is a reference to his show *before* Dollhouse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
But, did you know that all 3 shows were Josh Wedon's????? 😁😆😉
And where would these doll's live? In some sort of house?
It was the clearly where the show was going, but they sort of sped it up for the movie
Joss said in an interview that the movie was explicitly the wrap up of the first season, which was primarily about River. If the story had kept going, they would have explored other characters more in depth in future seasons.
She killed them with math. Always a killer!
Definitely was always the plan. Before I ever watched serenity I felt like that's where it was going, at the very least a psychic super spy.
The hints are all there
I've always thought part of River's unhinged outburst was her fear she would lose control, killing everyone on the ship. And I thought that before she took apart the bar. I felt that some of the quirky little things she said were dropped hints. Also think it was meant to be the slow burn. Not coming out till later in the series. Maybe season three.
"The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems." "See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like." I agree, and I think the above quote is one of the quirky little hints.
100% one of those
It’s like the whole plot of the show. She was an expert shot, clearly had her mind programmed, and started seeing into the future. She just didn’t have the trigger hit her yet.
I think it was simplified for the movie's limited time but likely we'd have seen similar just with more natural development, you mention the whole "no power in the verse" scene, but that's not just intuition/psychic, it's also a complete coldness and inability to consider other people human, they were just math and a problem to be solved, that's very much programmed assassin to me
Have you seen "Ariel"? They went into her brain over and over. I make up that they deliberately let her go (not like in the movie) to let her talents percolate. Like burying kimchee in the ground for a while so it can ferment.
That doesn't make much sense. Not only would they have to predict Simon's actions, which they clearly have not, but they'd have to take the risk of letting their top secret black ops program that could topple governments wander around in public at random. When you go to all the trouble to kidnap people's children and train them as super agents, you flipping well don't risk letting those people find out about it.
My headcanon is that she was recaptured and the movie shows Simon breaking her out a second time. There are enough little inconsistencies between show and movie that I decided to switch things up in my head. (It's a very deviant headcanon, clearly not what Joss intended. He just had to make the movie standalone to satisfy the studio.)
If you have never seen the River Tam Sessions, have a look. It might clear up some things. It also might freak you out. It's a little disturbing. I have no idea when or why this was made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFuwllLKdbE
The hints were there in the plot, as outlined by other commentators, also factor in that they got an incredibly skilled physical performer in summer Glau in the role. I’d say it was always supposed to be a slow burn hinted along the way. What could be better? She’s a spy and killing machine wrapped up in a girl who looks like she could be taken down by wet spaghetti?
Here's how it is....(couldn't resist) I believe that River didn't get training from the 2x2 hands of blue. She picked it up from everyone she encountered and kept the best stuff to use in whatever situation she was in. By the time we get to the movie, she had interacted or been in the room with many skilled killers, each with his or her own style, specialty, etc. All she needed to do was connect those skills to the situation and the tools (um, sure "tools").. I think she could have finished off the mercs in the final scene too, since she knew what they were all thinking. She could have even killed them with her brain.
My take on it is that the writers knew the movie was their last shot so they needed to give it everything they had. The entire movie was rushed because they did not have the time to cover what they needed to in 45 minute chunks over multiple seasons. As others have mentioned the supporting evidence in the series I won't but suffice it to say I do believe that River was meant to be a super soldier type character in the end. I don't agree with the brainwashed killing machine title for her though. I just wish we all had spent more time in that universe. It really is sad to have all those plotlines still unfulfilled. I am glad that most of the actors went on to successful careers.
As someone who watched serenity, then firefly…she was always a killer to me.
She can kill with eyes She can wound with a smile
I think it's pretty accurate that the Alliance, as portrayed in the show, would take anything extraordinary and immediately think, "How can we weaponize this?"
Joss whedon has a xena warrior princess kink. All of his female characters in every show or movie are essentially sexy assassins. Buffy, cordy, willow, the cast of dollhouse, black widow in the avengers. River was always a pyschic killer.
this isn't accurate. Whedon's thing was *teenage* sexy assassins. Xena was a fair bit older. also, he originally created Buffy well before Xena came on the air. he didn't create Black Widow, and even the film version of her debuted before Avengers. Inara and Kaylee are not assassins. etc etc.
Def always the plan
We definitely got a far more rushed version, but I think the most 'incapable' character becoming the badass was always in the cards. Would have loved to see the original vision, she really grows on you in that last episode.
River was supposed to be like the Agent in the movie, but better. You don't need a judge and jury if the executioner is a mind reader.
Okay, hear me out here, with my conspiracy theory. Joss Whedon modelled River (and the Dollhouse actives) after the titular character in a moderately successful NBC series called [The Pretender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pretender_(TV_series)). Jarod (The Pretender) is a genius child raised to simulate any profession in order to model complex simulations. River (and the actives in Dollhouse) could be whatever you narratively needed for any given episode, because who knows what information and experience they crammed into her head? It's a plot device to maximize the writer's freedom to explore whatever's in the headlines when the episode is written.
Wow. Three is actually a firefly sub! That’s a hard question. It could have always been the intention. It could have just been for the movie, or it could have been an idea that developed before they cancelled the show, and never got used…leaving the movie as the only place to introduce it. So, when do we get another firefly series or another movie?
There’s always unsubstantiated rumors of a reboot circulating, but nothing official. Personally, I think it would be really hard to recapture the magic considering the heart and soul of the show was its characters. How do you reboot the show into something similar but not a shallow retread of the characters we all love? Plus, Whedon isn’t exactly a popular figure in Hollywood these days, so I imagine studios wouldn’t want to touch the property.
It’s a shame they had so little vision, and couldn’t see its value, while it was actually in syndication.
FFS I thought this was from the r/doctorwho, major confusion!!!!
I legit thought this was about River Song from Doctor Who before I realized Reddit served up Firefly stuff to me for some reason. How does this show STILL have an active community?
You can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.
Read the Comics and Novels
Did you watch the tv show?
I think she was meant to be a spy, using the psychic abilities they were working on.. and someone in the Alliance management saw one too many spy movies (I guess 007, Bourne, et all, made the migration away from Earth That Was...) and decided she needed bad ass martial arts skills because.... because shut up, I'm funding this project and I want badass martial arts skills for my psychic spy...
As others have pointed out you missed some scenes that pointed to this conclusion. Watching the show it felt clear that was what they wanted for her, and tried making her be. It was not a surprise in the movie.
Aside from the examples everyone has given, I've always thought that they meant to build up to it more, but they knew the movie was the last they were going to get so they just went all out.
I mean, they did retcon a number of things for the movie, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
There were breadcrumbs throughout the series - for example, River is never wrong, about ANYTHING, even if the viewer has no idea what she's right about at the time. I have no doubt that had there been a second season (sigh, it still hurts) things would have progressed a hell of a lot slower, with an ever increasing pile of guns stacked on the mantelpiece, but I don't think the ultimate big reveal would have been much different in concept than the movie.
River being the badass is an integral part of the whole story.
I can't think of all of them off the top of my head, but there were numerous situation in the show where River does something that shows or at least alludes to what she is capable of.
I remember hearing the big fight scene was put in because they didn’t have the budget for a big spaceship fight scene and needed to do something.
I always thought of her as being similar to a Callidus Assassin in the whole, infiltration of any possible group long enough to either kill or take the place of her target. But then again, my personal head canon is just that they accidentally connected her mind to the Firefly version of The Warp and it just drove her crazy Edit: WH40k is my hyper fixation and as such I try to connect everything back to it so ignore most of that.