Malcolm Reynolds

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Firefly character
Malcolm Reynolds
Gender Male
Born 20 September 2486
Homeworld Shadow
Occupation Captain of Serenity
Notable relatives Mother (Name unknown)
Portrayed by Nathan Fillion

Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds is a character in the science fiction television series Firefly, played by actor Nathan Fillion. In the series, Reynolds is the captain of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity. The character was named #18 in TV Guide's "Greatest Sci-fi legends" list in 2004.

Contents

[edit] Production details

Conceived by Joss Whedon, the character Malcolm Reynolds was the only definite character he had in mind when formulating the ensemble cast. He wanted a hero, but not a hero in the classic sense; someone that is "everything that a hero is not."[1]

In the proposed pilot, Mal was much darker and considerably more closed-off. FOX network executives objected, and asked that Mal be 'lightened up'. For the second episode ("Train Job"), Whedon created a more "jolly" Mal Reynolds.[2]

[edit] Casting

Whedon approached Nathan Fillion to play the lead and after explaining the premise and showing Fillion the treatment for the pilot, Fillion was eager for the role.[3] Fillion was called back several times to read for the part before he was cast. He noted that "it was really thrilling. It was my first lead and I was pretty nervous, but I really wanted that part and I wanted to tell those stories."[4]

[edit] Costume design

Los Angeles prop shop Applied Effects was approached by Randy Erikson to create Mal's main gun, and gave them a week and a half. Erikson provided a foamcore conceptual mockup and the base guns, one of which was a five-shot .38 caliber Taurus model 85 revolver. Erikson researched American Civil War-era revolvers for inspiration and the final mockup had a brass or bronze look, with the revolver a little elongated. The biggest challenge was masking the shape of the original revolver and still keeping it operable.[5]

GBB Custom Gunleather was tasked with creating Mal's gun holster, which was made out of oak-tanned carving leather[6] The character's coat, relic of his time as a Browncoat, was a collaboration between Firefly costume designer Shawna Trpcic and Jonathan A. Logan, a leather artist. Trpcic sketched her idea and a cloth mockup was created before the final was made with domestic-farmed deerskin. The cuffs are actually the sleeves folded back, evoking the style of Oriental robes with their silk linings. Three coats were made for the character, one called "Number 1" coat and another called "The Hero" coat. The Number 1 coat's bullet hole is drawn in, while The Hero version has a detailed cut and sewn repair.[7]

[edit] Character biography

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Malcolm's main mission is to keep his crew alive and to keep his ship flying. As Firefly writer Tim Minear stated in an interview: "It's just about getting by. That's always been the mission statement of what the show is -- getting by."[8]

Mal was born on September 20, 2486 and was brought up on a ranch on the planet Shadow. Raised by his mother and "about 40 hands", Mal apparently received a fairly decent education whilst growing up. Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity in a wide range of literature varying from the works of Shan Yu (a fictional psychotic dictator) to poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (he has, however, no idea "who" Mona Lisa is).

Mal volunteered for the Independents army during the Unification War against the Alliance, gaining the rank of sergeant during that time. His loyal second-in-command Zoe was by his side for most of the war, surviving many dangerous conflicts with him. The show mentions three such battles, including the Battle of Du-Khang in 2510 (featured in "The Message") and a long winter campaign in New Kashmir (as told by Zoe in "War Stories") where he commanded a platoon. Mal was also involved in the ground campaign during the Battle of Sturges (Serenity: Those Left Behind comics), which according to Badger was the "bloodiest and shortest battle in all the war", although Mal considers it a distant second. Mal fought in many more battles, but the turning point for him and the Independents came with their physical and emotional defeat at the Battle of Serenity Valley on the planet Hera. On-screen information from the film Serenity suggests that Mal was given a brevet promotion to Captain during the Battle of Serenity Valley to take command of the ever-increasing number of Independent troops who were losing their officers at the hands of the Alliance. This might explain why, in one of the deleted scenes from the Firefly pilot, Mal is described as having commanded at least 2000 men. On-screen information in Serenity shows him to have been attached to the 57th Overlanders Brigade; in the series pilot, Badger calls it the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade", though it is unclear whether that was a disparaging nickname coined by Badger himself or the actual unit sobriquet (According to Alliance records shown in a deleted scene in the film Serenity it is the unit's sobriquet). [citation needed]


The following is on-screen information from the movie Serenity:


Name: Malcom Reynolds
Gender: Male
DOB: 2468|09|20
Social Control #: 099.836.5.4112


Son of a Rancher, born on the planet
Shadow. Bound by law five times:
smuggling. tariff dodging.
transporting illegal cargo

After the war, Mal acquired his own ship, an old (broken) 03-K64 Firefly-class transport whose previous owner was a man named Captain Harbatkin (Mal never got around to changing the registration papers). Mal named the ship Serenity after one of the most decisive battles of the Unification War. On board Serenity and during his various travels, Mal continues to wear his brown coat and wields a standard issue officer's pistol as his weapon of choice, a gun which he has had since the war and which he has modified extensively.[citation needed]

[edit] Major themes

Though Mal loses faith in God and religion, he retains a strong faith in humanity. Though wary in his personal dealings, he puts great stock in the fundamental goodness of people in general. This faith in an individual's abilities to do the right thing manifests strongly in his very negative view of governmental institutions. "Governments," he says in the pilot, are for "getting in a man's way." The Alliance, whose government seems particularly fond of interference and regulation, is thus his logical nemesis. His contempt for the Alliance never completely disappears (although he once said that he "wouldn't mind makin' a buck off 'em", implying that if the Alliance wanted to hire him for a job, he might consider it), and, although he was on the losing side of the Unification War, years later he tells an Alliance officer that he's "still not convinced it was the wrong one". Though he loathes the Alliance, he acknowledges he lost the fight against them and is now looking purely to keep out of their reach; this is best summed in his comment in Serenity, "I just wanna go my way." However, throughout the course of the film Serenity, Mal comes to learn more of the Alliance's dark secrets, which rekindles his fighting spirit and causes him to once again take up the fight against the oppressive regime. Mal expresses his newfound resolve during his speech - "They [the Alliance] will swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave." His anti-government attitude is reflected in his choice to live on a spaceship, drifting from world to world, as far away from Alliance interference as possible.

[edit] Motivations

Fillion shares his view on the motivations of the character he portrayed. Mal has lost so much each character in the crew he has gathered on Serenity represents an aspect of himself he no longer has. "In Wash, he has a lust for life and a sense of humor he's lost. In Jayne, he has selfishness. In Book, he has spirituality. In Kaylee, he has innocence. Everybody represents a facet of himself that he has lost and that's why he keeps them close and safe, and yet at arm's length."[4]

[edit] Conflicts

  • Badger - Mal and Badger are frequently at odds, Badger finds Mal's apparent arrogance to be an impediment to their business relations and has been shown to act with hostility towards Mal and his crew.[9]
  • Niska - When Mal does not finish the job for him during "The Train Job" he is later held to account for it in "War Stories"
  • The Operative - the antagonist of the movie Serenity.

[edit] Relationships

  • Zoe - very close. They fought and survived a war together. She's the one person he can count on the most.[9]
  • Inara - unresolved romantic/sexual tension between them is one of the character arcs of the series.
  • Kaylee - the two seem to have a older brother/younger sister relationship
Spoilers end here.

[edit] Reception

Fillion won the "Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award - Male" award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA for his role as Malcolm Reynolds. Fillion also won the SyFy Genre Awards in 2006 for Best Actor/Television and was runner-up for Best Actor/Movie.[10]

The character was named #18 in TV Guide's "Greatest Sci-fi legends" list in 2004.[11]

In the New York Times review of the movie Serenity, Manohla Dargis had this to say about the character and Nathan Fillion: "Mal is no Neo redux; he's closer to Indiana Jones, if absent Harrison Ford's rakishly handsome looks and star magnetism. Like the rest of the cast, Mr. Fillion is a charming performer, but he borrows rather than owns the screen, which dovetails with Mr. Whedon's modest aspirations for this film."[12]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Whedon, Serenity: The Official Visual Companion, 11
  2. ^ Whedon, Train Job: Director's Commentary, Track 1
  3. ^ Interview with Nathan Fillion - Dreamwatch Magazine 107. whedon.info (2003-09-09). Retrieved on 2006-07-11.
  4. ^ a b Whedon, Firefly Companion, Vol 1, 26
  5. ^ Whedon, Firefly Companion, Vol 1, 79-80
  6. ^ Whedon, Firefly Companion, Vol 1, 81
  7. ^ Whedon, Firefly Companion, Vol 1, 83
  8. ^ O'Hare, Kate (2002-10-31). FOX's 'Firefly' Keeps the Lights On. zap2it.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  9. ^ a b Joss Whedon (Director). (2003-12-09) The Complete Series: Commentary for "Serenity" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
  10. ^ SyfyPortal Awards. Retrieved on 2006-10-08.
  11. ^ Captain Mal Reynolds features in '25 Greatest Sci-fi legends' list. Whedonesque.com (2004-07-27). Retrieved on 2006-07-16.
  12. ^ Dargis, Manohla (2005-09-30). Scruffy Space Cowboys Fighting Their Failings. New York Times.

[edit] References

  • Whedon, Joss (2006). Firefly: The Official Visual Companion, Volume 1. UK: Titan Books. ISBN 1-84576-314-9.
  • Whedon, Joss (2005). Serenity: The Official Visual Companion. UK: Titan Books. ISBN 1-84576-082-4.
  • (2003-12-09) Train Job:Director's Commentary [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
The Firefly series
Episodes Serenity | The Train Job | Bushwhacked | Shindig | Safe | Our Mrs. Reynolds | Jaynestown
Out of Gas | Ariel | War Stories | Trash | The Message | Heart of Gold | Objects in Space
Spin-offs R. Tam sessions | Serenity: Those Left Behind | Serenity
Characters Derrial Book | Jayne Cobb | Kaylee Frye | Malcolm Reynolds | Inara Serra
River Tam | Simon Tam | Hoban Washburne | Zoe Washburne | Minor characters
Terminology Moons and planets | The Alliance | Blue Sun | Unification War | Serenity
Reaver | Browncoat | Firefly slang | Companion
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