'Serenity' Aims to Misbehave

This is the one and only time I'll make a post of this nature, but I just got back from watching 'Serenity' at the theatre with my wife and Delish from Matilda's gang and, well, I'm a very satisfied person right now. For those who don't know the back story on the movie, it's the end-product of the ever so short-lived TV series 'FireFly' by Joss Whedon. The series was a true sci-fi\western, complete with spaceships, horses, six-shooters, settlers and train-robberies. But beyond the unique mythos created for the show was something that is rarely seen in either television or the big screen these days...truly three-dimensional characters with superbly crafted dialogue. Fictional characters that, if you weren't careful, you'd start caring about as if it really mattered. And it doesn't matter if you hate sci-fi, this was a series that transcended genres with unequaled skill and grace.

It was canceled on television because the executives at Fox weren't happy with what they had received from Joss Whedon. They wanted your typical formulaic show aimed at teenie-boppers and they got an eclectic, very adult drama where characters cursed in Mandarin Chinese and the stories didn't always have happy endings. In retribution, they never showed the 2-hour pilot for the series until the end of its run, they aired most of the shows out of order (and they were extremely sequentially-dependent) and basically gave the creator and cast complete Hell. To make a growing story short, Universal saw the jewel 'FireFly' was and bought the rights to the show from Fox, the DVD set of the 13 episodes was released and sold like wildfire and the green-light was quickly given for a film.

So, that brings me back to the film. I won't review it as there's a jillion commentaries already out there, but I will again say that's the most satisfied I've been from a movie in quite a while. It was the perfect conclusion to the series and wasn't the typical 'everything ends in roses' crap as with most American flicks. As with the series, the dialogue was fantastic and the increased budget really showed in every single facet. The theatre was almost packed and the audience was really into the story, though I suspect more than a few were FireFly fans as was the case with our clan. Fans of the series will be both elated and bummed upon reaching the end credits, but none of us can honestly say it wasn't true to form for the world of FireFly.

I don't know if I'd recommend it to someone who hasn't seen the series. It's an excellent movie, but I truly can't imagine seeing it through uninitiated eyes. My wife said she thought there were a lot of 'normal' viewers in the audience tonight along with us fans and, if so, that's a good sign since all were very vocally engaged with the story. I admit I did hear a lot of good comments from people in the lobby after the movie and they didn't all sound like familar fans of the show. Though on a side note, I surprised myself by going into the movie hoping it might be the start of a series of movies with the cast but coming out almost decided that it should end here. The closure was just that fulfilling.

Anyway, if you haven't seen the show yet, do yourself a favor and go buy or rent the 'FireFly' TV series (only $30US) and watch those until the movie comes out on DVD later this fall. However, if you're a fellow Browncoat, don't hesitate, just go…you might not leave the theatre with a big smile on your face, but you'll be happy nonetheless... Jage