Serenity was in my red envelope this week after a series of events led me to the film. When it was released, I had been intrigued by it purely because of its status as a science fiction film, and most of the people that I know who saw it generally had favorable things to say about it. What I didn't realize until later was that Serenity was the spinoff or continuation film of the series Firefly, which aired on and was quickly cancelled by Fox in 2002.
I remember actually trying to watch Firefly when it originally aired, at least for a couple of episodes. I didn't get it then. I was not, at that time, a viewer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel and did not really give too much thought about Joss Whedon. I didn't understand why Firefly was a western or what its wacky if clever and slightly campy sense of humor was all about. I quickly got bored and stopped watching it.
I was never initially a fan of Buffy or Angel either, even though friends of mine absolutely obsessed over those shows. I never gave either a chance until Buffy was near done with its original run, and I started watching the episodes in syndication. I was only mildly and experimentally interested, initially turning it on in the background, wanting to casually see what all the fuss was about. Then, I encountered a few episodes, I'm not sure in what season, that featured James Marsters and the Spike character. This hilarious and good looking bad boy vampire with a convincing English accent (it took me a while to discover that Marsters is from Ohio) and a soft spot for crazy Drusilla and eventually Buffy herself drew me into Buffyverse faster than any other character or story arc.
So, then, I started ravenously consuming Buffy episodes, initially in the hopes of seeing more Spike, and made it my mission to see all of them. I was instantly hooked despite Spike and finally got it: why the show was so popular amongst people of my age group and why Joss Whedon wasn't just a flash in the pan. What was especially satisfying was that the show reached a perfect conclusion and provided closure for most of its storylines while leaving a little wiggle room for branching characters into its sister spinoff, for after Buffy, I realized that there was this show called Angel, which brought Spike into its fifth season, and I started watching those too. Angel was cancelled but in the sense that it wasn't renewed for a sixth season, so it was ended in its prime, during the height of its storytelling and adventures but was brought to an open-ended and yet still satisfying conclusion. I now own both series.
Some of the friends who enjoyed Buffy and Angel couldn't get into Firefly, but I had some other friends who found Firefly before the other two and sung its praises incessantly. They had become obsessed with this unusual show and loved Serenity when the film was released just about as much. I was a little wary of these friends because, even though I'd grown to love Joss creations, I remembered my initial go-round with Firefly and couldn't make myself excited to try it again; however, when I signed up for Netflix, I added Firefly and Serenity to my queue, thinking it was a low-risk strategy for giving both vehicles another chance. Netflix is great for this, after all.
Now, these movies were well over 100 on my queue, and I had no intention of watching them before their number was up, but one of my obsessed friends bought Firefly for himself for Christmas and, when I visited his house over New Years, recommended that I borrow and watch it. I agreed, as it was during holiday repeat season for live television, and because I wanted to give it another chance, as I've said.
It took three or four episodes (which was probably more than I allowed the first time) to see why Firefly has captured the imaginations of and interested friends of mine to addictive proportions, but I finally get why Firefly has become such a cult favorite. The show is actually quite good, with a great story, great story possibilities, interesting characters portrayed to colorful effect by a group of relatively unknown but talented actors, and great production values, such as convincing visual effects and real-seeming costumes and sets. The show is good, but as everyone knows, Fox cancelled Firefly after airing only 11 episodes (14 were produced) after stringing Joss along for quite a frustrating ride, and, as such, the adventures of Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew were ended without giving them proper closure, as Joss hoped to sell the property to another network.
He was unsuccessful in this venture, but Firefly had enough fan support through fan campaigns and DVD sales, that Universeral picked up the property to make a feature film. That is how we get to Serenity.
I loved Firefly the series, but as a fan of the story aspect of any given TV show or film, I felt a palpable sense of loss and lack of closure upon reaching the end of the series. It's six years old, and yet I felt about as jilted as anyone else who had grown to love the series in its original run when I reached the last filmed episode.
It's a quirky concept: Earth becomes too over-populated, so humans engage in space exploration and find another solar system with new planets and moons. These worlds are "terra-formed" to various degrees of success to make them habitable by humans and are controlled by an "Alliance" of what was formerly the United States and China, the last two remaining superpowers. As such, people often speak a combination of English and Chinese, though the latter is usually reserved for profanity and colloquialisms. Some settlers resentful of the Alliance's omnipresent and often dictatorial control wage an uprising, which leads to civil war, between the Alliance and what is known as the "Independents" or browncoats. The Independents lose and are scattered throughout the galaxy to make their way as normal citizens, though some are outlawed by the Alliance. Mal was one such soldier, with a past he's never quite put to rest. He ends up purchasing a Firefly-class spaceship and acquiring a crew, including a former co-soldier named Zoe (Gina Torres), who becomes his first mate; her husband and pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Alan Tudyk), a genial wisecracker; a sunny, positive chief engineer with an innate talent for understanding mechanical workings named Kaylee (Jewel Staite); and a hard-nosed, slightly dim gun-for-hire named Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin). The ship, called Serenity, and its crew travel the galaxy committing various acts of theft and smuggling for paying customers, often accompanied by violence, and none of which ever go smoothly, much to Mal's chagrin. This line of work has become especially tricky after Serenity picks up two passengers, a doctor named Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his addled sister River (Summer Glau), who, it turns out, was captured by the Alliance as a young, prodigal girl and was experimented on, to the point that she possesses unusual abilities, including the ability to read minds. Serenity also houses a registered "companion" (sort of a courtesan) named Inara (Morena Baccarin) and a preacher named Shepherd Book (Ron Glass). The series concentrated on their exploits as well as the Alliance's focus on Simon and River, as Simon gave up his promising medical career to break River out of the Alliance facility holding her, thus becoming fugitives whom Mal allows passage on his ship against his better judgement. The movie picks up where the series left off and runs with some of these themes, providing a high body count and few answers offering closure to the series; the Alliance and a hired assassin is after River, but River has had a psychic premonition about a place called "Miranda" that is beyond space occupied by the Reavers, holdovers from the series that are cannibalistic humans incapable of moral judgement, who pillage ships and eat their occupants. Mal and crew must figure out what the vision means while the assassin chases after them in pursuit of the Tams.
Serenity takes all of the best elements of the TV series to the scale beftting a major motion picture. The performances are still good, the visual effects are pretty awesome, there are some engaging and fun action sequences, a great science fiction score that keeps one engaged, and a decent attempt at answering some questions left unanswered by the cancellation of the series. What is disappointing about the movie, however, is that the story is far more simplistic than any hour episode written by Joss and really provides no closure with regard to the series (though it shockingly provides closure to some characters, which I won't spoil). The ending implies certain changes of landscape that sound like an ending or closure to series storylines but fails to provide some answers and actually leaves me feeling even less satisfied than the last produced episode of Firefly. In many ways, I wish I could just erase the movie from my mind and hold onto Firefly's ending because I'm not sure that the film gives the characters' proper justice.
Also, the story itself felt more artificial than any of the episodic stories of the series. Since it was probably Joss' last attempt at giving his characters something to fight for, the characters made some choices and had some motivations that didn't seem to jive with what was learned on the series for the sake of the bigger-budget motion picture and its action-oriented story. Plus, Summer Glau's River had something different about her in the film than it did in the series, possibly owing to the lapse of a couple of years.
That's not to say that Serenity isn't an entertaining film, because it's very interesting and still provides enough thrills that engaged me. In fact, there are more than a few people who have discovered Firefly through Serenity; though I think someone new to the story watching Serenity cold would probably have a different experience. In the end, I just can't love the film or the direction of the story taken, as it provided me less closure than I'd hoped. Maybe Joss thought sequelization was possible, but it's been four years, and I read that the film didn't make budget until the release of the DVD. This is more than likely the last we'll see, at least in motion picture form (or television), of Serenity and its crew, and, therefore, Serenity leaves me less than serene. I, thus, feel the film deserves a 7 for being shaky but entertaining. As to the test, for both the series and the movie, I think I'm not going to buy either one. The lack of closure is too frustrating, and, besides, rich though the universe of Firefly is, I prefer the darkly sardonic Buffyverse and its cast of characters more.