Any One Going To Go See Serenity?

[Kana]

Actually I thought that some of the character performances were a bit flat, and that that about 2/3rds into the film, the plot kinda died with the whole save the universe thing...But considering this is probably 6 months to a year after the end of the series, and it seems they have been on hard times with money and jobs and such, it might explain alot of how they were feeling/acting...I think the series was better, and the movie tried to capture as much of that as it could in spots, but really didn't get all of what I loved in the series...Good film despite all of that.

Kana

[Emperor's Child]

I thought it was pretty good... Some great special effects (the space fleet battle was really nice), but the rest seemed rather moderate quality. Good Character development with the captain and some primary crew (and the girl), but others were practically written out. I guess it is hard to compete with the gold standards of Star Wars / Star Trek, or dare I say Battlestar Galactica (the TV series)...

[Atrocities]

This series pioneered a lot of what you now see in BSG and even in the last Star Wars movie. The movie was a lot darker than the series and given the fact that it was dramatically cut down for $$ and time sake, I think they pulled it off brillantly.

By far its one of the best Sci-Fi movies I have seen in a good long time not counting ROTS.

I would give it a 7 out of 10.

[Kamog]

I'll probably go see it sometime soon. I don't know anything about Firefly but it sounds like everybody who watched it liked that show.

[Emperor's Child]

Didn't the way they ended it seem to you that the producers were not intending any future for a continued TV presence? It seemed to me that the ending was done in such a way that it said "OK fans, now just sut up about another TV series."

[El_Phil]

I'll be seing Serenity when it comes out, hears what I hope it's like.

Serenity

[Richard]

El_Phil said:
I'll be seing Serenity when it comes out, hears what I hope it's like.

Serenity

That's hilarious...

[Parasite]

I have heard a RUMOR about there being at least two sequels planned. This came from the captain of a Browncoat ship, so I would expect it to be either true or crash commercialism trying to get us to see it one more time.

I also remember in the DVD extras where Joss was talking about the number of characters that he needs to do a TV series and of how many are needed to do a movie. I need to watch it again to be sure of it, but did not he give some numbers and stuff? What, someone dies???

Good news... While I was manning a table of space literature outside of the new 3-D IMAX movie Magnificent Desolation, I heard from the movie manager that he had thought that Serenity would be a "flash in the pan" movie, where this week and gone the next. But that attendance stronger than any other movies opening including the Golf movie he had thought would be tops.

[Atrocities]

There won't be any sequals. Weekend box office revenue was so far under projections that the movie is going to be pulled within a couple of weeks. This is so damned depressing.

Total US Gross $10,100,000 after this weekend. They forecasted at least twice that.

So if your going to go see it, better get hopping. It really is a must see on the big screen as opposed to the small screen TV.

[Atrocities]

Reviews are all good though so hopefully word of mouth will help keep the moive alive until it hits the 150,000,000 dollar mark. (Break even point)

Serenity
Good space opera packs payload

Release Date: 2005

Ebert Rating: ***

BY ROGER EBERT / Sep 30, 2005

The thrill of a fistfight in a movie was altered for me forever the day I visited a set and watched the sound men beating the hell out of a Naugahyde sofa with Ping-Pong paddles. There is a moment in "Serenity" when I remembered that moment -- no, not during a fistfight, but during a battle in interplanetary space. There are so many spacecraft, so large, so close together, it looks as if collision is a greater danger than enemy fire. Imagine spaceships in a demo derby.

As the battle continued and the heroes were hurled about inside their own spaceship, which at times looked curiously like the interior of a loading dock, I made a note: "More banging than in your average space movie." Then something shifted inside my ears and I somehow knew I was hearing sound men, pounding the hell out of garbage-can lids, sheets of steel and big piles of pots and pans.

I say this not with disapproval, but with affection. "Serenity" is an old-fashioned space opera, and differs from a horse opera mostly in that it involves space, not horses. It takes place in a solar system of a dozen terraformed planets and "hundreds of moons," and there is a war going on between the Alliance, which runs things and wants everybody to be happy, and a group of rebels who begin to make disturbing discoveries. As the film opens, a psychic named River Tam (Summer Glau) is rescued from Alliance mind-washers by her brother Simon (Sean Maher), and then we learn that River was unwisely exhibited to a roomful of important Alliance parliamentarians. Because she can read minds, she knows their secrets.

River and Simon are soon enough allied with a team of free-lance smugglers on a banged-up old ship named Serenity. Malcolm (Nathan Fillion) is the captain, and his crew includes the pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), his wife, Zoe (Gina Torres), the engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite) and the tough guy Jayne (Adam Baldwin). On their trail is the most competent and feared of the Alliance's agents, The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor).

Science fiction fans will recognize the plot line and most of the characters from a short-lived Fox series named "Firefly," which (I learn in a letter from Stephen McNeil of Sydney, Nova Scotia), was canceled in mid-season, but not before the episodes were carelessly shown out of proper order. What a crock, especially considering that Joss Whedon, the TV series author (and writer-director of "Serenity") earlier created "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," and so deserved the benefit of the doubt.

"Serenity" is made of dubious but energetic special effects, breathless velocity, much imagination, some sly verbal wit and a little political satire. Turns out the Alliance was simply trying to bring contentment to its crowded planetary system, by distracting them from their problems and making them feel like they had a life. River is in possession of a secret about this process that the Alliance would do anything to suppress. Like Brave New World and 1984, the movie plays like a critique of contemporary society, with the Alliance as Big Brother, enemy of discontent. But as River observes, "Some people don't like to be meddled with."

Some of the dialogue sounds futuristic, some sounds 19th-century, and some sounds deliberately kooky. (Captain Mal: "Do you want to run this ship?" Discontented crew member: "Yes." Mal: "Well, you can't"). There are also unanticipated scenes of real impact, including a planet where -- but see for yourself. I'm not sure the movie would have much appeal for non-sci-fi fans, but it has the rough edges and brawny energy of a good yarn, and it was made by and for people who can't get enough of this stuff. You know who you are.

Cast & Credits

Capt. "Mal" Reynolds: Nathan Fillion
Zoe Warren: Gina Torres
Hoban "Wash" Washburn: Alan Tudyk
Jayne: Adam Baldwin
Kaylee: Jewel Staite
Simon: Sean Maher
River: Summer Glau
Shepherd Book: Ron Glass
The Operative: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Universal presents a film written and directed by Joss Whedon. Running time: 119 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sequences of intense violence and action, and some sexual references).