Serenity Review
Disclaimer and Warning: I am not a Firefly fan. I did watch a couple of episodes, at least partially, to see what my friends were talking about. Watching those episodes did not make me want to watch more of those episodes. I do not like sci-fi. There are specific things about the genre, in general, that I do not like1. Also, my take on the relationships in the movie seems to be drastically different from that of people who watched the TV show. I did enjoy the movie, however, there were things about it that I did not enjoy, including its sci-fi elements. This is not a squeeing review. It is objective and critical. But I reiterate, I did enjoy the movie. In fact, if a bunch of y'all were getting together to see it somewhere near me, I would probably go with you.
Disclaimer and Warning Part Two: The version I saw of the movie was, I think, not the final edit. This was about three weeks ago (Not sure - peach1250 do you remember when we went to it?). I know it wasn't the final edit because there were glitches on the soundtrack. But more about that in the actual review, so as not to spoil anyone.
So quickly, and by category:
Relationshippy Things:
I see no slash here. Can't even imagine slash in this fandom. IMO this movie was all the Mal/River show. Which was fine with me. I actually like that ship, and I got the impression that the whole point of the movie was to set up the Mal/River sequel where they get rid of Inara and move on to their destiny. I walked away from the movie with absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they are each other's destiny. Again, I like the pairing. I've looked for fic for it and couldn't find much. I'm hoping that post-movie there will be more. No other relationships in the movie interested me. The one that might have (Zoe/Wash) seemed to be downplayed, a lot. I didn't even realize they were married! I only just found out by checking a character guide for the spelling of Zoe's name. The primary one that was played up (Mal/Inara) was clearly both a smokescreen and a set up for that sequel I mentioned above. The other one that was played up (Simon/Kaylee) was quite unappealing. But I did enjoy all of the Mal/River parts.
Things I liked:
The Firefly fans at the screening were all very cool and fun and great people.
Jayne is funny, and I like him. I also liked Book a lot. Joss' dialogue is always clever and witty and he pulls it off for the most part. The plot was actually pretty good. I liked the explanation of what happened to the planet and how the reavers came to be. I liked the Mal/River relationship. I liked Mal, River, Zoe, Wash and (to a lesser extent) Kaylee, in general, and I think all the actors did a fine job. The stunts and special effects were all great. The costume design was wonderful and all of the sets were done very well. The fight scenes were choreographed fairly well, though please see my comments under "editing" below. I don't have any strong memories of the soundtrack, so I must be neutral on it, but again, please see my comments under "editing" below. Overall, It was a very nice adventure, and a fun way to spend an evening, and I'm grateful that peach1250 invited me to go.
Things I think might have been not good ideas, especially considering there will probably be a sequel:
Killing Book was plenty angsty and IMO enough impetus for the gang to get all enraged and save the day. I can see no reason for Joss to kill Wash. Wash could have added a lot to future movies. In fact, this non-fan kind of wondered why Wash was in the movie, at all. His character was the least developed. Because his role was so minimized in the movie, I had few emotional ties to him, so his death didn't provoke the emotions it was intended to provoke. I think this was a booboo on Joss' part. It would have been much better to keep Wash around and develop his character in future movies.
Killing the media guy. Can't remember his name now. I think he could have been useful in a sequel, also.
However, I'm pretty certain the bad guy will be back in the sequel, fighting on their side this time, especially since he adamantly stated that he would not be.
Things I did not like:
The setting -- see 1 below. The inside jokes (again if Joss wants new people in this fandom, he needs to move away from that). Inara, generally. Simon (but he deserves a rant all his own). But mostly I am going to use this section to rant about ...
The Language:
I absolutely am driven crazy in a very, very bad way by Joss' invented dialect. Poor peach1250 has already had to listen to me rant about this for about half an hour. Or maybe more. Time gets away from me when I'm ranting about Joss' contrived language in Firefly. I know that he has fun with that sort of thing. I think he did it sort of okay in BtVS. The teenspeak may have been annoying, but hey, they're teenagers, and their speech is supposed to be annoying. It at least sounded like a dialect/slang that might actually spring up on its own among modern teenagers in California. The dialect/slang in Firefly, however DOES NOT WORK. And it just drives me absolutely frenzied crazy! The Chinese element of it is fine. I have no problems with that. I would expect a future society formed by earthlings to contain either some Chinese or Japanese elements (or both). The problem is the psuedo-western speak. The speech patterns that arose in the American West2 came from the mixture and subsequent isolation of the speech patterns native to those who settled the area. Why Joss Whedon thinks a bunch of Scots-Irish people from the 1800s would settle planets of the future is beyond me. The speech patterns he's created for Firefly are not organic and sound contrived to me and just grated on me horribly. Considering the amount of folklore he must have studied for BtVS, it's even more absurd. And I think I'll stop there, before I get myself too worked up.
Okay, so moving on to my other rant:
Simon:
I apologize in advance for ranting about Simon. I hope that this doesn't make y'all all hate me. I cannot help it. I took an immediate hatred to him in the first scene. I am actually repulsed by him. Part of the problem is that I do not find him physically attractive, at all. He reminds me of that guy in QaF UK - the guy who played Stuart, who I also cannot stand. It's something about the shape of their faces - the weird pointiness. Hell, maybe someone with those facial features hurt me as a child or something. At any rate, one look at him and I was shuddering. Literally. Plus, he is a nasty little sanctimonious prick. Yuck! Again, apologies to those of you who like him. I just ... ick! Sorry! His inclusion in the Kaylee storyline made me like her less.
Actually, if you took him and Inara and put them on a ship together and sent them off to the ends of the universe, I'd be very happy.
Editing: The version I saw with peach1250 a few weeks ago could not have been the final edit. There was one place where Mal's sound just went away - perhaps they were unsure about what he was going to say there. Also, I think they needed to cut about 8 minutes out and add about 2 minutes back in. The 8 minutes out would be: The fight scene in the bar was too long. Very well choreographed, but too long. I'm assuming the person who choreographed it put at least 4 "storylines" for it, so that Joss could choose which worked best. I'm guessing the version y'all saw was shorter and that it's much better with the tighter editing. Also, the chase scenes (I think there were 3??) were all just a little too long - same thing going on there. The 2 minutes in would be transitions between scenes. They were choppy and jarring in the version we saw and needed little splices and some computer editing to make them work better. I'm not faulting anyone for this. That's actually how it should be done. Just saying I don't know what the final edit looked like. Also, I think if the editing had been tightened up I would remember the soundtrack better. I am very sound-oriented, and that's usually one of my favorite parts of a movie, so if peach1250 gets this on DVD eventually, I'll probably borrow hers to see how the choreography and soundtrack turned out in the end.
The Thing that made me guffaw when I got home from the movie and still makes me giggle like a madwomen whenever I think of it:
Joss is so fixated on that image of his Super Heroine, surrounded by her fallen enemies, with her head down and that curvey weapon in her hand. Hee! I actually think this is a cute obsession. I bet his notebooks in high school had doodles of Super Heroines in that pose!
So, to wrap up. While it's not really my cuppa and there were some things that bugged me, I enjoyed this movie, and I had a fun time going to see it with peach1250. I also like the Mal/River ship and would probably read fic for it.
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1 I also don't like Westerns, and sci-fi is westerns set in space. I don't like the sterile environments, I don't like the moralizing and black and white characters, I don't like the lack of mystery and suspense, and I don't like the formulaic plots.
2 ... which, in historical terms and for the sake of researching folk language, includes such places as Ohio and Tennessee, and is not restricted to the region known as the "desert west," as films and TV shows would have you believe.
[Edited to add: My mood on this entry was "irate." I was not irate when I wrote the entry, nor have I ever been irate about Firefly or Serenity. I have no idea how that happened, but I've changed the mood now.
Disclaimer and Warning Part Two: The version I saw of the movie was, I think, not the final edit. This was about three weeks ago (Not sure - peach1250 do you remember when we went to it?). I know it wasn't the final edit because there were glitches on the soundtrack. But more about that in the actual review, so as not to spoil anyone.
So quickly, and by category:
Relationshippy Things:
I see no slash here. Can't even imagine slash in this fandom. IMO this movie was all the Mal/River show. Which was fine with me. I actually like that ship, and I got the impression that the whole point of the movie was to set up the Mal/River sequel where they get rid of Inara and move on to their destiny. I walked away from the movie with absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they are each other's destiny. Again, I like the pairing. I've looked for fic for it and couldn't find much. I'm hoping that post-movie there will be more. No other relationships in the movie interested me. The one that might have (Zoe/Wash) seemed to be downplayed, a lot. I didn't even realize they were married! I only just found out by checking a character guide for the spelling of Zoe's name. The primary one that was played up (Mal/Inara) was clearly both a smokescreen and a set up for that sequel I mentioned above. The other one that was played up (Simon/Kaylee) was quite unappealing. But I did enjoy all of the Mal/River parts.
Things I liked:
The Firefly fans at the screening were all very cool and fun and great people.
Jayne is funny, and I like him. I also liked Book a lot. Joss' dialogue is always clever and witty and he pulls it off for the most part. The plot was actually pretty good. I liked the explanation of what happened to the planet and how the reavers came to be. I liked the Mal/River relationship. I liked Mal, River, Zoe, Wash and (to a lesser extent) Kaylee, in general, and I think all the actors did a fine job. The stunts and special effects were all great. The costume design was wonderful and all of the sets were done very well. The fight scenes were choreographed fairly well, though please see my comments under "editing" below. I don't have any strong memories of the soundtrack, so I must be neutral on it, but again, please see my comments under "editing" below. Overall, It was a very nice adventure, and a fun way to spend an evening, and I'm grateful that peach1250 invited me to go.
Things I think might have been not good ideas, especially considering there will probably be a sequel:
Killing Book was plenty angsty and IMO enough impetus for the gang to get all enraged and save the day. I can see no reason for Joss to kill Wash. Wash could have added a lot to future movies. In fact, this non-fan kind of wondered why Wash was in the movie, at all. His character was the least developed. Because his role was so minimized in the movie, I had few emotional ties to him, so his death didn't provoke the emotions it was intended to provoke. I think this was a booboo on Joss' part. It would have been much better to keep Wash around and develop his character in future movies.
Killing the media guy. Can't remember his name now. I think he could have been useful in a sequel, also.
However, I'm pretty certain the bad guy will be back in the sequel, fighting on their side this time, especially since he adamantly stated that he would not be.
Things I did not like:
The setting -- see 1 below. The inside jokes (again if Joss wants new people in this fandom, he needs to move away from that). Inara, generally. Simon (but he deserves a rant all his own). But mostly I am going to use this section to rant about ...
The Language:
I absolutely am driven crazy in a very, very bad way by Joss' invented dialect. Poor peach1250 has already had to listen to me rant about this for about half an hour. Or maybe more. Time gets away from me when I'm ranting about Joss' contrived language in Firefly. I know that he has fun with that sort of thing. I think he did it sort of okay in BtVS. The teenspeak may have been annoying, but hey, they're teenagers, and their speech is supposed to be annoying. It at least sounded like a dialect/slang that might actually spring up on its own among modern teenagers in California. The dialect/slang in Firefly, however DOES NOT WORK. And it just drives me absolutely frenzied crazy! The Chinese element of it is fine. I have no problems with that. I would expect a future society formed by earthlings to contain either some Chinese or Japanese elements (or both). The problem is the psuedo-western speak. The speech patterns that arose in the American West2 came from the mixture and subsequent isolation of the speech patterns native to those who settled the area. Why Joss Whedon thinks a bunch of Scots-Irish people from the 1800s would settle planets of the future is beyond me. The speech patterns he's created for Firefly are not organic and sound contrived to me and just grated on me horribly. Considering the amount of folklore he must have studied for BtVS, it's even more absurd. And I think I'll stop there, before I get myself too worked up.
Okay, so moving on to my other rant:
Simon:
I apologize in advance for ranting about Simon. I hope that this doesn't make y'all all hate me. I cannot help it. I took an immediate hatred to him in the first scene. I am actually repulsed by him. Part of the problem is that I do not find him physically attractive, at all. He reminds me of that guy in QaF UK - the guy who played Stuart, who I also cannot stand. It's something about the shape of their faces - the weird pointiness. Hell, maybe someone with those facial features hurt me as a child or something. At any rate, one look at him and I was shuddering. Literally. Plus, he is a nasty little sanctimonious prick. Yuck! Again, apologies to those of you who like him. I just ... ick! Sorry! His inclusion in the Kaylee storyline made me like her less.
Actually, if you took him and Inara and put them on a ship together and sent them off to the ends of the universe, I'd be very happy.
Editing: The version I saw with peach1250 a few weeks ago could not have been the final edit. There was one place where Mal's sound just went away - perhaps they were unsure about what he was going to say there. Also, I think they needed to cut about 8 minutes out and add about 2 minutes back in. The 8 minutes out would be: The fight scene in the bar was too long. Very well choreographed, but too long. I'm assuming the person who choreographed it put at least 4 "storylines" for it, so that Joss could choose which worked best. I'm guessing the version y'all saw was shorter and that it's much better with the tighter editing. Also, the chase scenes (I think there were 3??) were all just a little too long - same thing going on there. The 2 minutes in would be transitions between scenes. They were choppy and jarring in the version we saw and needed little splices and some computer editing to make them work better. I'm not faulting anyone for this. That's actually how it should be done. Just saying I don't know what the final edit looked like. Also, I think if the editing had been tightened up I would remember the soundtrack better. I am very sound-oriented, and that's usually one of my favorite parts of a movie, so if peach1250 gets this on DVD eventually, I'll probably borrow hers to see how the choreography and soundtrack turned out in the end.
The Thing that made me guffaw when I got home from the movie and still makes me giggle like a madwomen whenever I think of it:
Joss is so fixated on that image of his Super Heroine, surrounded by her fallen enemies, with her head down and that curvey weapon in her hand. Hee! I actually think this is a cute obsession. I bet his notebooks in high school had doodles of Super Heroines in that pose!
So, to wrap up. While it's not really my cuppa and there were some things that bugged me, I enjoyed this movie, and I had a fun time going to see it with peach1250. I also like the Mal/River ship and would probably read fic for it.
___________________________________
1 I also don't like Westerns, and sci-fi is westerns set in space. I don't like the sterile environments, I don't like the moralizing and black and white characters, I don't like the lack of mystery and suspense, and I don't like the formulaic plots.
2 ... which, in historical terms and for the sake of researching folk language, includes such places as Ohio and Tennessee, and is not restricted to the region known as the "desert west," as films and TV shows would have you believe.
[Edited to add: My mood on this entry was "irate." I was not irate when I wrote the entry, nor have I ever been irate about Firefly or Serenity. I have no idea how that happened, but I've changed the mood now.