A Proud Nerdy Moment

I've got the sci-fi TV show Firefly on the brain. Oddly enough, LJC just wrote about it too.

BiL gave me a book to read about the movie, Serenity. There is a great interview in there with creator Joss Whedon (who also created Buffy the Vampire Slayer) that includes comments on working logistical necessities into the script.

Two of the main characters, Mal [seated] and Inara [far left] suffer unrequited love at the beginning of the movie. Inara has left Mal's ship and is hanging out planetside. She gets held hostage. Mal flies in to rescue her from the bad guys and they escape with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Joss: "I added what I thought was a very clumsy piece of writing about a trunk" left on the Firefly ship, in order to give Inara clothes to change into and a weapon to fight with later.

Both Nathan Fillion (Mal) and Morena Baccarin (Inara) had their own takes on the trunk.

Nathan: "You know I looked through all that stuff. I've smelled that stuff."

Morena: "You know I left that trunk on purpose, that has all my best smelling stuff, so that he wouldn't be able to forget."

Joss: "It was just an extraordinary process for me, because learning about your own screenplay from the actors is so gratifying. It means they're invested, it means they're intelligent, it means there are layers there that you get. And when it's bigger than you are, that's what makes it art."

Of course, this made me think of what Joss said during the director's commentary of Serenity.
He asked Nathan Fillion to ad lib a line when he is being chased by human cannibals across a desert planet.

Nathan (to Zoe, the pilot): Faster! Faster would be better!

Joss: Why do I even write? That was perfect!