Ah, the season 9 trailer. A taste of what could have been, if not for... well, if not for Epic Space Battles in Space. And Monty Oum. Not Monty in and of himself, but the fact that RT had Monty available to them and were completely high on the possibilities of what they could do with animation. There is just no other reason for season 9 having such a thin and unintelligible thread of a plot, for the Freelancer base of ops being aboard a ship (which I'm pretty sure wasn't originally the plan, because in the trailer they're clearly on a Pelican coming from a sim base and had they been heading home to a shipboard HQ, they would've had their own medical bay and no need to crash a civilian medical station).
I guess wacky sim base adventures and a groundside training facility like we were always led to believe Freelancer had... wasn't cool enough. :/
I still love the season 9 trailer, for all the reasons you said here. It was a great set-up, leading us inside the shadowy world of Project Freelancer for the first time by way of characters we already knew. (The unreasonably long Wash essay I'm writing devotes a whole section to that trailer despite it being non-canon because of the way it sets up the role Wash will play throughout the Freelancer saga, that of the audience proxy--hence him asking questions like "what do you call them--AI things?" which ultimately ends up kind of being to the detriment of the narrative and Wash's characterization, but that's its own rabbit hole.)
I have very complicated feelings about season 9. It's a narrative disaster, a very poorly-planned opening to a very rushed story arc that discards continuity (not to mention effective storytelling) in favor of flashy fight scenes. It also gave me my favorite character, not just in RvB but in anything, ever. Season 9 shows off a whole line-up of beloved characters--and sacrifices characterization and relationship development in service of a plot that barely holds up around the flashy action sequences that comprise most of its runtime.
But probably my most complicated feelings come from what season 9 does to Maine. In many ways, the Maine that I now know and love would not exist without the season 9 we have--because that Maine is based almost entirely on nonverbal characterization and that characterization is pretty entirely the creation of Monty Oum because no one else gave one single fuck about making Maine a character. Maine as I think of him is largely built on what Monty brought to the table--the way he fights, the way he interacts with his teammates in and out of the field, even the little gestures and the way he moves. (That Maine and Wash were friends is something I cling to fiercely, not only because of the trailer but because of what interaction we get between them in season 9 before Sigma, little though it is.) How little Maine speaks even before his injury, itself became characterization to me. And all of that, I'm fully aware, was unintentional on the part of writers who did not care and did Maine incredibly dirty because of it.
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I guess wacky sim base adventures and a groundside training facility like we were always led to believe Freelancer had... wasn't cool enough. :/
I still love the season 9 trailer, for all the reasons you said here. It was a great set-up, leading us inside the shadowy world of Project Freelancer for the first time by way of characters we already knew. (The unreasonably long Wash essay I'm writing devotes a whole section to that trailer despite it being non-canon because of the way it sets up the role Wash will play throughout the Freelancer saga, that of the audience proxy--hence him asking questions like "what do you call them--AI things?" which ultimately ends up kind of being to the detriment of the narrative and Wash's characterization, but that's its own rabbit hole.)
I have very complicated feelings about season 9. It's a narrative disaster, a very poorly-planned opening to a very rushed story arc that discards continuity (not to mention effective storytelling) in favor of flashy fight scenes. It also gave me my favorite character, not just in RvB but in anything, ever. Season 9 shows off a whole line-up of beloved characters--and sacrifices characterization and relationship development in service of a plot that barely holds up around the flashy action sequences that comprise most of its runtime.
But probably my most complicated feelings come from what season 9 does to Maine. In many ways, the Maine that I now know and love would not exist without the season 9 we have--because that Maine is based almost entirely on nonverbal characterization and that characterization is pretty entirely the creation of Monty Oum because no one else gave one single fuck about making Maine a character. Maine as I think of him is largely built on what Monty brought to the table--the way he fights, the way he interacts with his teammates in and out of the field, even the little gestures and the way he moves. (That Maine and Wash were friends is something I cling to fiercely, not only because of the trailer but because of what interaction we get between them in season 9 before Sigma, little though it is.) How little Maine speaks even before his injury, itself became characterization to me. And all of that, I'm fully aware, was unintentional on the part of writers who did not care and did Maine incredibly dirty because of it.