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serenity - review

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Serenity

This is by far one of my favorite movies, mostly because it spawned from one my favorite TV shows. In fact, it is only one of a VERY small handful of TV shows I ever watched, given my loathing of television today.  Who would have ever thought of a marriage of a western with full out science fiction space travel could work so well!

The TV show Firefly was a very short lived TV show on FOX and not all of the episodes even aired.  Only 11 of the 14 episodes aired in the US on FOX (not until Sci-Fi channel picked them up). Plus FOX aired the episodes out of order.

Joss Whedon is the writer and director of Serenity (and Firefly).

Whedon for me is the king of witty one liners. He is a master of being able to say so much with so little and has an amazing imagination and creative streak. He has the ability to write such strong characters and has a wonderful knack of being able to find the actors and actresses who have the right chemistry to pull off the strong characters and work well together.

The big question is, do you have to watch Firefly to see Serenity?  NO

Joss Whedon does a good job by opening the film with pieces of a puzzle that were not given in the TV show which will help new viewers understand what is happening right up front.

The plot of the whole story is you have 7 people on the run.  5 make up the original crew on the ship called “Serenity” who took on two passengers who happened to be running away from the Alliance ( an interesting marriage of government & corporations).

Simon (Sean Maher) has kidnapped his sister River (Summer Glau) away from the Alliance, who was holding her against her will and conducting experiments on her.

Mal (Nathan Fillion) plays the captain of the ship Serenity with his co-captain Zoe (Gina Torres).  Her husband Wash (Alan Tudyk)  pilots Serenity,  Kaylee (Jewel Staite) is the ships mechanic and probably the funniest and most outspoken of the group is the crew hand Jayne (Adam Baldwin). 

In Firefly, the crew takes on Simon and River and later find out they are fugitives running from the Alliance. Also in Firefly you learn of Mal’s hatred of the Alliance.  After humans flee the Earth in search of other worlds the Alliance was created to “govern” all the planets.  A group of outer planets rebelled which started a civil war.  This group was called the “Brown Coats” or Independents.  Mal and Zoe served together in the war in the Brown Coats. They were on the losing end of things as the Alliance won. Mostly because of this, they agree to help Simon and River. 

who played a priest.  I absolutely LOVED this character in Firefly. He was their voice of reason, but it was VERY clear that he had another life prior to being a priest. He knows a little too much about how the Alliance works.  You get a small visit with him in Serenity (as he has left the crew) which gives an even greater tease of his past experience.

Through out Firefly, the “Reavers” are always a group that everyone, even the Alliance fears.  They are described as those who went out too far into space and it drove them crazy.  Even in Serenity you won’t be left hanging or lost with this.

All in all? Both Firefly and Serenity blew me away. The characters are fantastic and you find yourself almost immediately wrapped up in them as if you know them.  Wash was that way for me. Undoubtedly, my favorite character in the whole show.

The special effects (throughout the movie and the tv show) are practically seamless.  The way Whedon handled the detail and presented the films – by the use of sometimes off-focus effects and hand held cameras help make the show more real and even gritty at times.  The marriage of the western feel to keep the grit along with the sci-fi  really does work well together. Add in the fantastic one liners and wit and the creativity of Joss Whedon and it is hard not to have instant success.

You can easily jump in with both feet and watch Serenity, but I warn you, if you love it like I did, you will be dying to watch Firefly. Since both are on DVD, you can actually grab them all.

In fact, I think I feel a need to have a Firefly/ Serenity weekend!

Just a note: Firefly – the tv show has one of the largest followings of any TV show ever produced. Ironically, it did not develop till AFTER the show was pulled off the air.