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I saw a test screening of Serenity Thursday night in Las Vegas. Joss Whedon and Summer Glau arrived just prior to the screening to give a quick introduction and explain that we were seeing a work in progress etc. They came back out after the screening to sign autographs, but I'm not interested in that sort of thing so if there was a Q&A at that point I missed it.
In case you missed the thread title or summary, there are major spoilers here, and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has. I very much recommend that fans not read this thread. There are MAJOR events in Serenity that have enormous emotional impact, and I am glad I saw them unfold onscreen with no warning. Would you really want to go in to The Empire Strikes Back knowing Darth Vader is Luke's father?
The screening print was washed out and had not been color corrected, so it's difficult to predict what this movie will "look" like. Visually, it's darker and dirtier than the series.
Serenity opens with some exposition about humanity's flight from Earth. Cut to River as a child, attending a special class for advanced students. We get a bit of background (she's a rebellious kid) before cutting to a few months ago. Now River is being tortured/experimented on by Alliance doctors, who are showing her off to a visiting official. This turns out to be her brother Simon, who frees River and escapes offworld. These flashbacks are revealed to be taped footage viewed by the Operative, who is tasked with finding River and returning her to the Alliance. There's a lot of exposition in these scenes, and they're generally the least effective parts of the movie.
Then we're introduced to the Serenity crew, which no longer includes Inara or Book. Mal has decided to force River to accompany the team on heists so they can take advantage of her psychic abilities, but Simon is strongly opposed to this. A heist goes awry when Reavers attack, leading to a confrontation between Mal and Simon. The Tams decide to leave Serenity. But shortly thereafter, River is exposed to a subliminal code in an advertisement and turns into a killing machine. Simon turns her off with a safeword, and the pair are soon back on Serenity.
The crew eventually team up with Inara and Book, and discover that the Alliance wants River back not because she's a killing machine, but because she was exposed to their highest level officials and psychically knows their state secrets. It turns out that the Alliance accidentally created the Reavers through a chemical test to create a docile population - 90% of the planet test subjects died through inertia and the other 10% became Reavers. Mal and the others decide to live for something instead of running from things; they will transmit proof of the origin of the Reavers to the Verse and start a civil war.
The movie kicks into high gear after this, and to Joss' credit you simply have no idea what to expect scene after scene after scene (except for one incident, which I'll write about below). There's a real sense that anything could happen to these people - that they might not even win. The entire final quarter of the film is essentially a movie version of Blake's 7 (in many ways Serenity feels more like Blake's 7 than Firefly). Our leads are engaged in a mammoth battle with Reavers and the Alliance, and literally nobody escapes unscathed. In the end, Mal manages to transmit the evidence, although not before two regulars are killed off and several more are on the verge of death.
The movie is amazing if you care about these characters; it's easily the best Firefly story. Unlike the Star Trek and X-Files flicks, this doesn't feel like an expensive episode; Serenity has an epic scope that really pays off. The plot doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense in the end (the Operative basically gives up, and it's unlikely people are going to get riled up about knowing the Alliance created the Reavers), but I don't think fans are really going to care, because in terms of character the movie delivers.
The general audience is probably not going to embrace Serenity - it's a bit confusing even for the fans, and I can't imagine any of the set pieces paying off for people who don't know the characters. Sadly I don't think we're going to get sequels, which is a shame because a lot of questions remain unanswered (Blue Sun and the blue-gloved operatives are never even hinted at).
MAL: This is Mal's movie, no question about it. I don't think this will be a break out role for Nathan Fillion, but he really shines here. This Mal is much darker than his TV counterpart, willing to sacrifice his crew and initially having nothing but malice for Simon and even River. At one point he bluntly says he'll shoot the entire crew. He's allowed Inara to leave Serenity some months earlier without ever letting her know how he feels. This movie is basically about Mal coming to realize he has to live FOR something. At the end, he has accepted the crew as family. He still doesn't have the balls to talk with Inara properly by the end.
RIVER: River is a backtrack here from Objects In Space, a gibbering wreck who hallucinates. Subliminal phrases turn her into an killing machine that will attack any living thing, friend or foe. She can be "switched off" by a code spoken by Simon.
SIMON: Simon is a bit harder than his TV counterpart, willing to doublecross anyone to protect River. When the crew is pinned down by Reavers at the climax (where the viewer genuinely believes any or all of them might die), he finally tells Kaylee he loves her.
WASH: Wash dies. He's impaled by a Reaver harpoon out of the blue, with no warning or foreshadowing. He's the highlight of the movie, with all the best lines. Essentially the same character as the series.
ZOE: Also the same as in the series; she loses her way a bit when Wash dies, but never really mourns.
JAYNE: Now this is the Jayne we were told about on TV but never saw. A big stupid lug, yes, but one who's always willing to ignore Mal's orders to do as he pleases. When he scuffles with locals, it's brutal. And when he decides River is a threat to his safety, he tries to kill her himself.
KAYLEE: Not much screentime for poor Kaylee, who's presented the same as she was on TV. She gets some great lines and a good deal of the movie's heart. She takes on the Reavers with a vengeance once she realizes Simon wants to have sex with her.
INARA: Left Serenity some months ago and has returned to training at the Companions' headquarters. Inara gets to display some resourcefulness, but she's not given a lot to do here and is generally less interesting than her TV counterpart. Decides to rejoin the Serenity at the end, but hasn't come to grips with her feelings for Mal.
BOOK: Book dies. He's left Serenity to be a preacher on a settlement on Haven. We see him very briefly, where he basically points out Mal needs to live for something. He's mortally wounded in an offscreen attack, and dies just after Mal finds him. We never get any follow up on the hints about his past in the series.
SERENITY: Like the TV show, but darker and dirtier. We get a great tracking shot to show us once and for all how the rooms connect, but strangely there are few establishing shots to introduce the rooms. You get a much better sense of the ship in the actual series.
THE OPERATIVE: Chiwetel Ejiofor is wasted here, essentially playing Richard Brooks' role in Objects In Space. He's calm and rational, aware he's an evil man but believing he has a positive role to play in the universe. He lets the Serenity crew walk after the Reaver evidence is broadcast, because River no longer poses a threat with the information already in the public domain. Ejiofor is excellent, but there's not a lot of meat for him here.
REAVERS: The Reavers are something of a let down. It turns out they all basically live together in space instead of flying solo like pirates, and the design work is very obvious SciFi Channel Original movie. But you do get the sense they're the most dangerous creatures in the Verse, so I guess there's that.
DIRECTION: This may get me lynched here, but Joss is not a great director. He's competent, and manages to build up tension quite nicely. He's also got a good sense of timing. But Serenity is clogged by "student film" touches (there's a moment where River comes into focus like a bad art film). He also - and this is one reason I think general audiences are going to walk away unimpressed - can't direct action to save his life. All of the fighting scenes are extremely pedestrian, unimaginatively staged and poorly shot. It's not a fatal blow; they're servicable from a fan POV. But a general audience weened on Hollywood fight scenes is going to yawn their way through some of the gun battles and River's fisticuffs.
I also have to mention the dialog. This movie has a lot of tension and suspense, but it's also one of the funniest movies I've seen in years. The one-lines fly thick and fast but add a sense of desperation to things rather than undermining the tension. However, there's a bit too much of the "Firefly talk" in which characters are fixin' ta do things. More than a few times the down-home rustic speech patterns grate; Joss seemed anxious to really color the Verse more than the TV series, and I'm not sure it worked.
The Firefly theme isn't present anywhere, although a lot of the music was a temp soundtrack. The FX were generally great, including a spectacular space battle involving hundreds of Alliance and Reaver ships with the Serenity just trying to avoid being cut to pieces in the crossfire. There is sound in space, unlike the series.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot. The trailer doesn't do this movie justice, and I don't think print reviews will, either. It probably sounds boring reading this post. But Serenity has an indescribable atmosphere, a palpable sense that living in this world is dangerous. Wash's death and other events are hugely shocking in context, and enough major characters die for the climax to truly have you on the grip of your seat - not least because it actually looks like EVERYONE dies until just minutes before the end of the film. It's great, I love it to pieces, five months is too long to wait to see it again, and I'm glad I got to experience it without learning spoilers.
I'll answer any questions anyone has... |
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