Talk:Malcolm Reynolds

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Malcolm Reynolds article.
Article policies

See Talk:Kaylee_Frye for reasons to not create seperate articles for Firefly characters. If Serenity spawns iconic sequels there may be an argument for these tho. — Jeandré, 2005-01-09t16:12z

Contents

[edit] "Malcolm" in Vulcan language?

The above is mentioned in the Trivia section. The attributed source has the following quote concerning this:

"I think it’s a lovely name. Malcolm is the Vu word for serenity." 
- T'Pol to Malcolm, in his dreams

Does anyone else think that rather than "Malcolm" actually being a word in Vulcan (Vu?), the more likely explanation is that the quote is a reference to the Firefly universe? --Pentasyllabic 04:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

    • I guess we could look to see when it aired... it it's as you say, then we'd need to reword it as an influence on other shows plange 06:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Mal an atheist?

So as to avoid a revert war, I thought I'd bring this here. Basis for putting it in is "Saying God is not welcome on his ship and, more plainly, that help from "on high" never comes" - does that unequivocally mean he's an atheist? I'm an agnostic and could say the same things, hence why I reverted it originally. What do others think? --plange 03:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Atheist" strikes me as too loaded a term to use without an explicit statement within the canon. I don't have specific citations at the moment, but I've gotten the impression that Mal is angry at the God he used to follow, which still implies a belief in the existence of, but without the faith in, God. (Even the terms "belief" and "faith" have too many meanings in this situation. Ugh.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jeff Q. Mal never says he doesn't believe God exists, but he expresses anger towards God. Most atheists I know aren't angry at God, because they don't believe he exists. This leads me to believe he's not one. Perhaps someone will ask Joss this one. Pending any more evidence to the contrary, I propose we do not count him an atheist. Othersider 05:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I certainly got the sense that he was, given his attitude towards Book and experiences in the war (he was initially a believer of God, but apparently He fell out of favor when the independents got the snot kicked out of them). Whedon himself is an atheist, and I could easily see him writing his own opinions into the character, but that's highly speculative and shouldn't be used as evidence of jack squat. Just my two cents. EVula 05:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep, but in the end, it's speculation on our part. In Finding Serenity, a commentator argued that Book's role on the ship for Mal was to challenge him and lead him back, kicking and screaming, into belief, etc., so since others have thought different things based on what they saw, it definitely means we can only rely on what was specifically stated. --plange 06:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mal's Age

Where does Mal's date of birth come from? --Nalvage 05:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, past-me, it apparently comes from a screen glimpsed in the movie Serenity. Here's a screencap [1]. This would make Mal around fifty at the time of the show, and impressively well-preserved. --Nalvage 17:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
In this page Mal is told to be born on the 20 September 2486, but the notes below say: "Conjecture based on the age of actor Nathan Fillion. The specific date comes from an information screen viewed by The Operative in Serenity, though it gives Mal's birth year as 2468, which would seem to be inconsistent with the dates in the series itself and Mal's apparent age. (Could this have been a transposition of the year given here?) Similarly, some early promotional material for the series gave Mal's birthdate as September 20, 2472." --Galaxia may the force be with you 14:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galaxia92 (talk • contribs)
It doesn't make any sense for Mal to have been born in 2468. It makes him 16 years older than Zoe, and 50 (turning 51) in the Serenity movie. They must have transposed 2486 into 2468 in the movie. They did a surprisingly lousy job on that information screen. They list his name as "Malcom". Looks like they got his name and age wrong. DOSGuy (talk) 10:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Serenity blooper?

In Serenity, it lists Mal as a "Captain" in the Independent Army, 57th Brigade. However, he was of course a sergeant...is this an error or a reference to the fact that he is now captain of the ship Serenity?

He ended up the defacto captain of the remnants in Serenity Valley when the entire chain of command down to him was killed, commanding (if I remember correctly) around 2000 people. Battlefield promotions aren't official, but may be retroactively confirmed. --StarChaser Tyger (talk) 05:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Motivations

To quote the page at the moment "The Firefly RPG suggests that the planet Shadow was bombarded by the Alliance, thus rending it inhabitable, providing a proper Motivation" Unless my understanding of the FireFly/ Serenity universe is particularly broken, then planets are rendered inhabitable (or habitable) by terraforming, and less habitable to uninhabitable by bombardment (viz : Reavers and reaved worlds). But since I've only just finished watching the first 2 discs of the series , I'll let someone who understands the univers better than I disentangle this. A Karley 02:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shan Yu?

The biography lists Shan Yu as a literary influence- are we sure this isn't Sun Tzu? Because I think this is just someone mis-hearing a line from the 'War Stories' episode... If I'm wrong, then I stand corrected. But I think that this is a mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.253.109.140 (talk) 16:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Shan Yu is the guy mentioned in "War Stories". The name's probably inspire by Tzu, but it's Shan Yu on the show. --Nalvage 16:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To detailed?

This seems more like something that would go in a Firefly Wiki:

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

Name: Malcom [sic] 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: no
convictions

I removed it, but am open to arguments as to the necessity for including it. --plange (talk) 04:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References.

The following is completely unreferenced: the lead, "Character biography" except for one sentence, "Major themes" lead, conflicts with Niska and the Operative, and "Relationships" except for 1 sentence. Also, are the 3 companion books and DVD commentary reliable, third-party publications like the NYT? -- Jeandré, 2007-12-09t19:01z

Added the ref to lead, and added some other refs, but I also instead added the {{unreferenced}} tag to the sections you mention so it will be immediately clearer to editors and readers what sections are unsourced. The sources you mention above are not 3rd party, but there are several other 3rd party sources in the Notes area so not sure why you state they are missing? --plange (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Inara

"- - unresolved romantic/sexual tension between them is one of the character arcs of the series, but their relationship never materializes due to Mal's general inability to fully accept Inara's profession." I think this is the writer's interpretation rather than a fact. If Mal had a morality problem with hookers, why would he have slept with the bordello mistress in "Heart Of Gold"? Maybe he wants to be a gentleman and not sleep with Inara because he's also her landlord (sort of), or because he's jealous of her clients and wouldn't want to bond with her unless he can have her fully for himself. But naturally this is all my speculations, all I'm saying is that we can't really know if Mal has a problem with Inara's profession. --Seko (talk) 00:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I've deleted this info. It could very well be that it's Inara who doesn't approve of his career (He is a "petty" thief, afterall), or maybe it's something completely unconnected (Inara has displayed a consistent streak of fear at becoming to emotionally attached to any place or person, and Mal has had an extremely dark outlook on everything ever since the war). JBK405 (talk) 02:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)