pres.umptuo.us

Update: First nine minutes of serenity viewable at Vivadas.

I’ve been holding off on my review of Serenity so I could gather my thoughts and give a more thought-out review, as opposed to my usual first impressions.

Serenity is best described as a “western in space,” created by Joss Whedon, the mind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. While most would list it as “science fiction”, the world has nothing in the way or lasers, teleporters, or robots, but instead has people carrying revolvers and rifles, and wearing leather and trenchcoats.

Bottom line first: Serenity was really good. I’m still deciding on whether or not it beats out Batman Begins as my favorite film this summer, but the two of them come really close.

I am a huge fan of the television show it was based on, Firefly, which FOX decided to cancel because they aired the episodes out of order and confused the heck out of everyone and instead kept wonderful shows like Fastlane on the air. With that in mind, I already knew all of the characters and was familiar with the universe the movie was set in, so my expectations and experience may differ from people who haven’t seen the show. Nonetheless, I saw it with another hardcore fan and two people who had never seen the show, and we all really enjoyed it.

The thing about Firefly that I enjoyed the most was all the dialogue and story between the characters. Whedon has a way to make things funny and very real at the same time. Because of the way a movie has to develop a plot and characters in two hours, I kind of missed the great dialogue the show had. But the movie does an admirable job of keeping everything in line.

The death of a couple of the main characters also came as a shock. From reading around on message boards, I learned that Whedon isn’t afraid of killing characters, as a reminder that none of them are “untouchable.” One of the deaths left me thinking, “What? He’s not dead. Get back up!” and I kept waiting for him to show up with a bandage around him with some lame explanation of it being only a flesh wound. And naturally, the next scene showed several of the characters getting shot and wounded, and I was actually scared that everyone was going to die. I don’t think I’d ever cared so much for characters in a movie before.

There’s been some debate with Ron about whether or not the ending left it open for sequels. I argued that it just seemed like it wasn’t finished, but that’s probably me wanting to see more of the adventures of the crew of Serenity. But he’s right in that most of the loose threads have been tied up.

But screw reasoning. I want more.

The boxed DVD set of Firefly (Now ranked #5 on Amazon) is highly recommended for anyone who sees the film and really enjoys it, and recommended for everyone else in general. Check the movie out for sure. I’m thinking about going back a second time.