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norsegirlSo I finally saw serenity last night and I'm torn. As a stand-alone movie, I highly recommend it. If you've never seen Firefly, go see this movie. If you have seen Firefly, proceed with caution. Now I'm going to talk spoilers, so turn back if that's not what you're looking for.
Yes, I've left a bunch of space, trying to keep people from spoilers again. Scroll down for words.
Okay, so as a movie, it had a few holes. Little details like 30 million people just vanishing never to be seen or heard from again and with absolutely no explanation and none of them had a single friend or family member on another planet that didn't say in twelve years "hey, where's Bob, I wonder what he's been up to lately"?!?!?! Not to mention, the government has a new drug that they think will elicit a desired response, but it has two possible very undesirable responses with no acceptable middle-ground. Why did they think it would do what they wanted it to, and how would they have discovered that through tests without finding out the undesirable effects that affect 100% of the population, not a couple unlucky few. I mean, whether it's creating a reaver or just stopping what you're doing and dying, if one or the other happens to EVERYONE, you'd think a couple of tests would have been done that would have shown these outcomes?!? But for the purpose of creating an interesting movie, I can overlook plot holes like this. I mean, I overlooked the abandonment of the laws of entropy and conservation of energy for the Matrix, so I can overlook this bad science as well.
The other bad as a movie problem I had involved the final fight between Mal and the Operative. Why in god's name do you have a place that is virtually impossible to get to - um, yeah, I can so see Mr. Universe swinging across chains and hanging on to dear life to get to his back-up - which is then easy-peasy to get out of? Why do characters nearly kill themselves to get somewhere and then are able to just walk out of the same place? So after you're beat to a pulp, and one of your eyes is so red you probably can't even see, that's when you find the button that activates the catwalk?!?! It reeks of fabricated tension and excitement. I like my thrills to be a little more plausible. I'm thinking of the scene in Galaxy Quest with the "chompers". But that's still just a minor quibble.
We finally reach Miranda, the Alliance is hot on our tails, this place is the reason they're all hot, and there's a sky full of reavers above us, but there's this weird beacon that might have all the answers. So let's all march off through town, half of us unprotected and unarmed and go have a lookie shall we? Even though in EVERY television episode we've always left someone with the ship, both to protect it and in case things go South, in this situation, where I'm honestly surprised things didn't go South, let's leave absolutely no one there and have no back-up plan at all, just so we can ensure everyone sees the big mystery resolved first-hand and we don't have to waste screen-time explaining the situation to anyone who would have stayed behind because that was a strong strategic decision. Um, yeah...
Those were my only problems with the movie as a stand-alone work.
As a fan of Firefly however, I have a lot more issues.
#1 The characters - I don't feel that any character, with the possible exception of River, was used to their full potential. I also don't feel that most of the characters were kept true to their tv selves. Mal was a lot less likable. Inara was a door-mat. Simon wasn't stiff enough. Jayne wasn't quite confrontational enough (and I don't feel like he was given enough incentive to stick around to the end, any good self-serving mercenary would have mutinied before Haven, or at the very least would have walked off on them at Haven). River was a lot more with-it than in the series. In the series none of her lines or actions made any sense and you didn't get the feeling that there was anything going on in her head other than wacky, unpredictable madness. In the movie, she only goes-off when the appropriate trigger is applied, she doesn't have any lines that make the other characters go "huh?" and she largely seems mostly put-together and very consciously aware of the moments when she is not. The Operative was a total copy of Jubal Early, so much so that I even thought it was the same actor until I came home and IMDB'd it. Kaylee and Book were pretty true to character, but also didn't get a lot of screen time, so it's not like it really mattered. Zoe and Wash were nicely true to character, and I didn't have any problem at all with how they were written. How they were treated is another matter entirely.
#2 So, now we go on to the spoiler part of the review - the deaths.
Book - he didn't have to die. Jason brought up that his living as the only survivor of the attack could have been plausibly explained by the same mystery that resulted in him receiving medical treatment from the alliance in the series. I feel like the whole mystery behind his origins and the reasons he knows so many non-preachery things was just wasted. We established in one scene that the characters still don't know anything about his background, so we can't go there in a prequel. So why did we establish and build-up this mystery just to kill it unanswered? I figure Joss had decided he didn't want to have the possibility of coming back to answer it, so he ended it the only other way he could.
Wash - I don't think he really had to die either, in terms of a story-telling device, I think this was more about sending a message. Jason talks a lot about the debates they have at his work of fun vs realism. Realism is having your character fight more poorly once injured, realism is wasting valuable processor time on making trees grow over the course of your game-play (no kidding, this was a suggested feature in another company's game that they put a lot of work into until they realized that the processing required for this "feature" outstripped the needs of all other aspects of the game combined and contributed NOTHING to the actual game-play). Fun is throwing a little bit of realism out the window so that the game clips along and is enjoyable. Wash was fun. He had brilliant quips that most of us can't come up with to save our lives. He was the lightest character of the bunch (with the possible exception of Kaylee), with no dark secrets and nothing to him but love for his wife. His death was quick, unexpected, shocking and ultimately pointless. He didn't die saving them all, he didn't die so others could live. It wasn't a "hero's" heath, it was just a death. Which is reality. His death to me represented the choice of realism over fun in this film. The whole movie (and some of the characterizations) were a lot darker than the series. This was explained to me as Fox-TV people making Joss lighten up Firefly from his original vision and the film being closer to that original vision. But here's the thing, I was a fan of the series, not of the concept of the series in Joss' head. I was a fan of what I actually saw, and I don't think the movie was true to that. As a literary device, his death was supposed to throw you off and make you worry because anyone could die. Its effect on me (combined with Book's death) was to make me think they were just all going to die and to emotionally disengage from the situation. I stopped caring because at this point I figured Joss had made the decision to end it. He killed the comedic relief, he killed off the other mystery unanswered. He tied up every loose end there ever was. The series is now wrapped, none of them serve any further purpose, why not kill them all?
Finally, there was a complaint from some other fans about not being allowed to mourn. We saw Book die, he got his chance for last words, we got to mourn his passing. Wash was dead and then we were on to something else without even a pause. And the funeral, well, let's just say that Joss spent more time on the funeral of a guest (the message, episode 14) than he did on the funeral for the crew members in this film.
In essence, I didn't feel like he cared any more. This whole movie was the funeral for all of the characters and the 'verse itself. He was pissed that the series ended when and how it did. He used this movie to tie it all up and make peace with the story for himself. He doesn't intend to return. He didn't want to leave it open for sequels, thus leaving himself open to feeling frustrated at not being to tell the further story. It's over. I didn't wait this long for that. Given the choice, knowing what I know now, I would have preferred if the movie never got made. Or, that he'd made the same movie, but not passed it off as a continuation of the series. It was a fine movie, but it wasn't Firefly to me.
Yes, I've left a bunch of space, trying to keep people from spoilers again. Scroll down for words.
Okay, so as a movie, it had a few holes. Little details like 30 million people just vanishing never to be seen or heard from again and with absolutely no explanation and none of them had a single friend or family member on another planet that didn't say in twelve years "hey, where's Bob, I wonder what he's been up to lately"?!?!?! Not to mention, the government has a new drug that they think will elicit a desired response, but it has two possible very undesirable responses with no acceptable middle-ground. Why did they think it would do what they wanted it to, and how would they have discovered that through tests without finding out the undesirable effects that affect 100% of the population, not a couple unlucky few. I mean, whether it's creating a reaver or just stopping what you're doing and dying, if one or the other happens to EVERYONE, you'd think a couple of tests would have been done that would have shown these outcomes?!? But for the purpose of creating an interesting movie, I can overlook plot holes like this. I mean, I overlooked the abandonment of the laws of entropy and conservation of energy for the Matrix, so I can overlook this bad science as well.
The other bad as a movie problem I had involved the final fight between Mal and the Operative. Why in god's name do you have a place that is virtually impossible to get to - um, yeah, I can so see Mr. Universe swinging across chains and hanging on to dear life to get to his back-up - which is then easy-peasy to get out of? Why do characters nearly kill themselves to get somewhere and then are able to just walk out of the same place? So after you're beat to a pulp, and one of your eyes is so red you probably can't even see, that's when you find the button that activates the catwalk?!?! It reeks of fabricated tension and excitement. I like my thrills to be a little more plausible. I'm thinking of the scene in Galaxy Quest with the "chompers". But that's still just a minor quibble.
We finally reach Miranda, the Alliance is hot on our tails, this place is the reason they're all hot, and there's a sky full of reavers above us, but there's this weird beacon that might have all the answers. So let's all march off through town, half of us unprotected and unarmed and go have a lookie shall we? Even though in EVERY television episode we've always left someone with the ship, both to protect it and in case things go South, in this situation, where I'm honestly surprised things didn't go South, let's leave absolutely no one there and have no back-up plan at all, just so we can ensure everyone sees the big mystery resolved first-hand and we don't have to waste screen-time explaining the situation to anyone who would have stayed behind because that was a strong strategic decision. Um, yeah...
Those were my only problems with the movie as a stand-alone work.
As a fan of Firefly however, I have a lot more issues.
#1 The characters - I don't feel that any character, with the possible exception of River, was used to their full potential. I also don't feel that most of the characters were kept true to their tv selves. Mal was a lot less likable. Inara was a door-mat. Simon wasn't stiff enough. Jayne wasn't quite confrontational enough (and I don't feel like he was given enough incentive to stick around to the end, any good self-serving mercenary would have mutinied before Haven, or at the very least would have walked off on them at Haven). River was a lot more with-it than in the series. In the series none of her lines or actions made any sense and you didn't get the feeling that there was anything going on in her head other than wacky, unpredictable madness. In the movie, she only goes-off when the appropriate trigger is applied, she doesn't have any lines that make the other characters go "huh?" and she largely seems mostly put-together and very consciously aware of the moments when she is not. The Operative was a total copy of Jubal Early, so much so that I even thought it was the same actor until I came home and IMDB'd it. Kaylee and Book were pretty true to character, but also didn't get a lot of screen time, so it's not like it really mattered. Zoe and Wash were nicely true to character, and I didn't have any problem at all with how they were written. How they were treated is another matter entirely.
#2 So, now we go on to the spoiler part of the review - the deaths.
Book - he didn't have to die. Jason brought up that his living as the only survivor of the attack could have been plausibly explained by the same mystery that resulted in him receiving medical treatment from the alliance in the series. I feel like the whole mystery behind his origins and the reasons he knows so many non-preachery things was just wasted. We established in one scene that the characters still don't know anything about his background, so we can't go there in a prequel. So why did we establish and build-up this mystery just to kill it unanswered? I figure Joss had decided he didn't want to have the possibility of coming back to answer it, so he ended it the only other way he could.
Wash - I don't think he really had to die either, in terms of a story-telling device, I think this was more about sending a message. Jason talks a lot about the debates they have at his work of fun vs realism. Realism is having your character fight more poorly once injured, realism is wasting valuable processor time on making trees grow over the course of your game-play (no kidding, this was a suggested feature in another company's game that they put a lot of work into until they realized that the processing required for this "feature" outstripped the needs of all other aspects of the game combined and contributed NOTHING to the actual game-play). Fun is throwing a little bit of realism out the window so that the game clips along and is enjoyable. Wash was fun. He had brilliant quips that most of us can't come up with to save our lives. He was the lightest character of the bunch (with the possible exception of Kaylee), with no dark secrets and nothing to him but love for his wife. His death was quick, unexpected, shocking and ultimately pointless. He didn't die saving them all, he didn't die so others could live. It wasn't a "hero's" heath, it was just a death. Which is reality. His death to me represented the choice of realism over fun in this film. The whole movie (and some of the characterizations) were a lot darker than the series. This was explained to me as Fox-TV people making Joss lighten up Firefly from his original vision and the film being closer to that original vision. But here's the thing, I was a fan of the series, not of the concept of the series in Joss' head. I was a fan of what I actually saw, and I don't think the movie was true to that. As a literary device, his death was supposed to throw you off and make you worry because anyone could die. Its effect on me (combined with Book's death) was to make me think they were just all going to die and to emotionally disengage from the situation. I stopped caring because at this point I figured Joss had made the decision to end it. He killed the comedic relief, he killed off the other mystery unanswered. He tied up every loose end there ever was. The series is now wrapped, none of them serve any further purpose, why not kill them all?
Finally, there was a complaint from some other fans about not being allowed to mourn. We saw Book die, he got his chance for last words, we got to mourn his passing. Wash was dead and then we were on to something else without even a pause. And the funeral, well, let's just say that Joss spent more time on the funeral of a guest (the message, episode 14) than he did on the funeral for the crew members in this film.
In essence, I didn't feel like he cared any more. This whole movie was the funeral for all of the characters and the 'verse itself. He was pissed that the series ended when and how it did. He used this movie to tie it all up and make peace with the story for himself. He doesn't intend to return. He didn't want to leave it open for sequels, thus leaving himself open to feeling frustrated at not being to tell the further story. It's over. I didn't wait this long for that. Given the choice, knowing what I know now, I would have preferred if the movie never got made. Or, that he'd made the same movie, but not passed it off as a continuation of the series. It was a fine movie, but it wasn't Firefly to me.
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Date: 2005-10-03 12:52 am (UTC)But yes, agreement on all parts. Good movie, but not Firefly, and I like the show better.
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Date: 2005-10-03 03:32 pm (UTC)I also realized last night that it was lacking a lot of the "space cowboy" Western stuff, which despite not being a fan of Westerns in general, I really liked in this series. Definitely not Firefly - sigh.