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A review by ihateprozac
Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon
5.0
***SPOILERY PLOT OVERVIEW***
Those Left Behind serves as a deleted episode from the TV series, falling somewhere between the episode Objects in Space and the film. After being screwed over on a job and cheated out of payment, Badger gives the Serenity crew a job extracting treasure from the floating graveyard of The Battle of Sturges: a notoriously bloody battle during the War of Independence. At the same time we see the "Hands of Blue" men approaching Dobson, the Alliance agent that attempts to arrest River and Simon in the pilot. He's grown increasingly resentful over the years, cursing Malcolm Reynolds for shooting out his eye and leaving him for dead. The blue men propose an alliance: he gets Mal and they get River and Simon.
Mal, Zoe and Jayne are ambushed by Dobson and friends while searching one of the empty ships, while the blue men sneakily dock the Serenity in an attempt to snatch the Tams. This leads to a bloody standoff, with Zoe, Mal and Jayne decimating Dobson and co. Kaylee and Simon work to prevent the blue men coming on board, while Wash dislodges the blue men's ship and sweeps in to save our Big Damn Heroes. River, Inara and Book are seemingly useless during the entire ordeal.
We also see both Inara and Book approach Mal about their need to get off the ship. Inara disembarks on the nameless planet from the film (I'm going to assume Sihnon?) and has a wonderfully awkward "I'll miss you" moment with Mal. The book then cuts to a senior figure of the Alliance addressing the Operative from the film. Turns out the Serenity unintentionally incinerated the blue men's ship during the escape, and their work now falls to the Operative.
***END SPOILERY PLOT OVERVIEW***
I'm biased as I adore anything Firefly/Serenity related, but this book was just so wonderfully faithful to the show and film. The likenesses of the characters were incredibly accurate, which is something I don't generally see with TV and film tie-ins. I worried that Jayne in particular would look weird, since hot-as-hell Nathan Stark was made to look like a bearded sexual predator in the Eureka comics. Admittedly Badger and Inara looked a bit dodgy at times, but the likenesses were accurate for the most part. Dobson's likeness was so spot on that I recognised the actor before I realised which character he'd portrayed on the show!
It's such a small detail, but I also think the artists really captured the tone of the show/film when it came to the colouring. The wonderful brown, red, ochre, gold and sepia tones came through in the opening firefight and scenes set in Serenity's galley. They also captured the contrast between sunny Wash and his cold steel surroundings on the bridge, with tones of grey, gunmetal and blue. I really enjoyed the full-page character portraits scattered throughout the text, and the image of the Serenity powering up to escape the blue men was just beautiful. :3
The dialogue was one of my favourite aspects of the text, with the writers managing to perfectly capture the intonation and mannerisms to the point that I was reading along in each character's voice. Mal in particular has a very odd way of speaking which I wasn't sure they'd be able to portray, but they did. I was practically able to hear Book lecturing Mal, and Badger's dialogue seemed to reflect his accent. The illustration and dialogue for Zoe also came together nicely to really represent her dry, sarcastic deadpan sense of humour.
In terms of the storyline, I LOVED seeing more of the "Hands of Blue" men! They were my favourite unexplained element of the show, and I was always disappointed that they weren't incorporated into the movie. There is a reason for this though, as they're killed by Serenity's "burn" during the Big Damn Heroes' escape. We also learn that they're private contractors for the Alliance, and we can speculate that they're from the Blue Sun Corporation. I have to wonder if there are any more of these private contractors working the 'verse though, since the Alliance immediately delegates their failed mission to the Operative. We also unfortunately don't get any word on how they're able to withstand their deadly sonic technology.
I also loved how this tied the TV series and film together, since I felt there was a bit of disconnect between the two. It's hard to articulate, but it just felt so random that Inara and Book weren't on the ship at the beginning of the film. Though Inara had told Mal she wanted off the ship and Book often disapproved of Mal's criminal antics, it felt like there was something larger going on that we didn't get to see. This ties the film and TV show together a little more, though still there appears to be something else going on with Inara (which you can find out if you peruse Wikipedia ;])
Overall: I frakkin love Firefly and Serenity. If you frakkin love Firefly and Serenity too, READ THIS NOW. This is totally awesome, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm 100 biased. :D
Those Left Behind serves as a deleted episode from the TV series, falling somewhere between the episode Objects in Space and the film. After being screwed over on a job and cheated out of payment, Badger gives the Serenity crew a job extracting treasure from the floating graveyard of The Battle of Sturges: a notoriously bloody battle during the War of Independence. At the same time we see the "Hands of Blue" men approaching Dobson, the Alliance agent that attempts to arrest River and Simon in the pilot. He's grown increasingly resentful over the years, cursing Malcolm Reynolds for shooting out his eye and leaving him for dead. The blue men propose an alliance: he gets Mal and they get River and Simon.
Mal, Zoe and Jayne are ambushed by Dobson and friends while searching one of the empty ships, while the blue men sneakily dock the Serenity in an attempt to snatch the Tams. This leads to a bloody standoff, with Zoe, Mal and Jayne decimating Dobson and co. Kaylee and Simon work to prevent the blue men coming on board, while Wash dislodges the blue men's ship and sweeps in to save our Big Damn Heroes. River, Inara and Book are seemingly useless during the entire ordeal.
We also see both Inara and Book approach Mal about their need to get off the ship. Inara disembarks on the nameless planet from the film (I'm going to assume Sihnon?) and has a wonderfully awkward "I'll miss you" moment with Mal. The book then cuts to a senior figure of the Alliance addressing the Operative from the film. Turns out the Serenity unintentionally incinerated the blue men's ship during the escape, and their work now falls to the Operative.
***END SPOILERY PLOT OVERVIEW***
I'm biased as I adore anything Firefly/Serenity related, but this book was just so wonderfully faithful to the show and film. The likenesses of the characters were incredibly accurate, which is something I don't generally see with TV and film tie-ins. I worried that Jayne in particular would look weird, since hot-as-hell Nathan Stark was made to look like a bearded sexual predator in the Eureka comics. Admittedly Badger and Inara looked a bit dodgy at times, but the likenesses were accurate for the most part. Dobson's likeness was so spot on that I recognised the actor before I realised which character he'd portrayed on the show!
It's such a small detail, but I also think the artists really captured the tone of the show/film when it came to the colouring. The wonderful brown, red, ochre, gold and sepia tones came through in the opening firefight and scenes set in Serenity's galley. They also captured the contrast between sunny Wash and his cold steel surroundings on the bridge, with tones of grey, gunmetal and blue. I really enjoyed the full-page character portraits scattered throughout the text, and the image of the Serenity powering up to escape the blue men was just beautiful. :3
The dialogue was one of my favourite aspects of the text, with the writers managing to perfectly capture the intonation and mannerisms to the point that I was reading along in each character's voice. Mal in particular has a very odd way of speaking which I wasn't sure they'd be able to portray, but they did. I was practically able to hear Book lecturing Mal, and Badger's dialogue seemed to reflect his accent. The illustration and dialogue for Zoe also came together nicely to really represent her dry, sarcastic deadpan sense of humour.
In terms of the storyline, I LOVED seeing more of the "Hands of Blue" men! They were my favourite unexplained element of the show, and I was always disappointed that they weren't incorporated into the movie. There is a reason for this though, as they're killed by Serenity's "burn" during the Big Damn Heroes' escape. We also learn that they're private contractors for the Alliance, and we can speculate that they're from the Blue Sun Corporation. I have to wonder if there are any more of these private contractors working the 'verse though, since the Alliance immediately delegates their failed mission to the Operative. We also unfortunately don't get any word on how they're able to withstand their deadly sonic technology.
I also loved how this tied the TV series and film together, since I felt there was a bit of disconnect between the two. It's hard to articulate, but it just felt so random that Inara and Book weren't on the ship at the beginning of the film. Though Inara had told Mal she wanted off the ship and Book often disapproved of Mal's criminal antics, it felt like there was something larger going on that we didn't get to see. This ties the film and TV show together a little more, though still there appears to be something else going on with Inara (which you can find out if you peruse Wikipedia ;])
Overall: I frakkin love Firefly and Serenity. If you frakkin love Firefly and Serenity too, READ THIS NOW. This is totally awesome, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm 100 biased. :D