Joss Whedon

Joss answers YOUR questions

Posted by: on Jul 15, 2005 12:07pm EDT

Q.: Why do you think that Mal’s blend of harshness and undying loyalty to his crew make him such an appealing character to fans of the show?

A: Mal’s a leader. People respond to a leader because, quite frankly they want to be lead. A leader is somebody who does not always do what’s likeable and has to make decisions nobody else wants to make, and that’s the kind of character Mal is. He’s also clearly somebody who’s in pain which people I think both respect and want to protect him from and he’s somebody who is not cut and dried and noble, he has a good quirk to him, a sense of whimsy which is something that people also look for. The other thing about being a leader is loyalty to the crew is your first command, it’s your first priority. Mal could not be a leader if his crew didn’t know that what he was trying to do was keep them alive and whole and that he would never abandon them. He’s not just out for himself no matter how many times he’s going to tell you that he is.

Q: How difficult was it to come up with new technology for your ’verse, without it becoming a clone of other sci-fi movies/shows?

A: Firefly and Serenity distinguish themselves from other science fiction in terms of their technology because they don’t really have very much. I don’t know anything about science and I’m much more interested in a hands-on rough-hewn world than I am in everything being convenient so I seldom come up with any cool inventions which is very good for a guy who stopped taking science when he was fifteen.

Q: If there was one thing you wanted your audience to take away from your work what would it be, and why?

A: The one thing I would want an audience to take away from my work is that people who do not think they have strength in them do and that everybody has the ability and chance to be stronger and better and happier than the world seems ready to let them.

Q: When you create, do you start with a character in your head and build the world around them or does the world come first and dictate the type of characters you need to build to populate it?

A: The answer is yes. But to go on a bit more, a story starts in any number of places. It could be the idea for a place, a world, a person, literally a car, a gun, a moment, an outfit, it doesn’t matter. Stories grow from everywhere, they’re like some hideous alien moss that can just sprout up.

Q: Firefly is full of smart, strong, interesting women. How would you characterize the state of equality between men and women in the Serenity ’verse?

A: In the Firefly verse a lot of the chauvinism of past and present has disintegrated. There are new prejudices, some things never die out. And there are some very old-fashioned beliefs and a lot of conflicting beliefs on some of the planets, but it is definitely easy to say that any woman in that world has as good a chance as any man, at least on our ship and the places our crew’s from, of doing whatever they want.

More questions and answers to come next week!