You Can't Take The Sky From Me

I’ve waited awhile to post about Serenity… I wanted to make sure that I was over the OMFG-this-movie-rocks feeling you get when finally see a long anticipated movie. Being of sound mind at this point (now that the movie has been out for a couple weeks,) I can now state for a fact that… OMFG, this movie rocks!

Apparently, if you’ve never seen the short lived series that the movie was based upon, Firefly, you will still undoubtedly enjoy the movie, but you’ll be missing the heart of the movie. For example… for anyone familiar with Joss Whedon’s work (i.e. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, etc…) you know that the man has no problem killing off primary characters. It definitely creates suspense because nothing is predictable… he creates an atmosphere that anything goes… anything can happen. Anyway, he does exactly that in Serenity… he kills off a couple primary characters. This is much more of an impact for those who watched and enjoyed the series (in all honesty, if you watched the series, I guarantee you enjoyed it!) than those coming into the movie with no prior knowledge of the cast of characters.

So what makes the series or movie so great?

Joss Whedon! Joss is a fantastic writer! He was obviously involved with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (as he created them,) but he also wrote great scripts for other films such as Toy Story, Titan AE, etc… He is very character driven… this is what can make a bad movie with a horrible plot good, or a simply good movie great. Take the original Star Wars Trilogy for example. Most would agree that The Empire Strikes Back is the best, simply because of the attention and development of all the characters (George Lucas is great, but thank God Irvin Kershner directed this one!)

Each character in Firefly is great because the actor/actress portraying them fit the part perfectly, and each of the character is so sufficiently developed that I can easily say there isn’t a bad one amongst them. That’s really hard to find in a TV show or movie. Nowadays, it’s all about special effects, or commercialization, etc… there’s a major lack of originality in the film and TV industry.

So what’s it about?

Firefly is all about life on the frontier of space and the freedom of having a ship to call your own and only yourself to answer to. There are lots of parallels to the expansion of the west... including six shooters (the Alliance… the melding of the US and China into the last government on Earth… controls energy and more advance weapons) and characters including a preacher and a town prostitute. There is a blend of action as well as snappy dialog and plot twists (something Joss Whedon is known for.)

No aliens are included in the series as humans can be alien enough when left on their own and away from most justice and organized systems. The crew and passengers of the Firefly-class ship, Serenity, learn to work together finding their own strengths and more freedom then they’ve ever known.

It truly is one of the best series to come along in a while with interesting characters and great plots… so naturally it didn’t last very long. Fox television canceled it after only 9 episodes had aired (all 11 episodes are included in the DVD set.) It fortunately has found a new batch of fans with the series release on DVD with enough interest (and overwhelming sales) to convince Universal Studios to buy the rights. In turn, they created the film, Serenity!

I posted the lyrics to the Firefly theme last week. What I like most about the lyrics is that it describes the main character, Captain Malcom Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion) so perfectly! Here’s an audio clip of it for those interested in hearing it.


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