Serenity - Firefly Movie

[The Master™]

I'm so jealous that the movie is being released on Friday in the US!!! And we have to wait until November!!! No justice in the world!!!!

Here is a post from Joss Whedon that was posted on the official Firefly website:

Well boys and girls and boys dressed as girls and girls dressed as Kaylee, the time is almost upon us. This Friday we take that old rust-bucket out of the shipyard and see if she can breach atmo. It's been a long (to paraphrase a band I like) strange trip, and it'll be nice finally to show everybody what it is we've been tinkering with all this time. You already know you have my thanks, from the hardcore fans to the softcore... fans.... let me try that again. From the people manning the booths, buying DVD sets for their friends, getting banners seen everywhere on Australian TV, raffling artwork for ticketholders (Adam Hughes, take a bow), to the most casual fan who just wants to see the flick and won't ever even read this. You guys are the fuel in the engine, the Fire in the Fly, the weird green stuff coming out of Serenity's butt. (Hmmm. Forget that last one. I'm a little bit out of control here.)

Everyone needs something to keep them going. Mal has his ship. Zoe has her integrity. Jayne has Vera. And I've got you guys.

So what now? There have been so many posts about seeing it, seeing it again, the first weekend, the second weekend, being enthusiastic without being obnoxious (and yes, it IS hard to see over the pom-pom of a Jayne hat), buying tickets in advance, making a noise... I honestly wouldn't know what to add. I can tell you this: the movie will play in about 2200 hundred theaters, which is a good number. Too many, and you get empty theaters with no energy -- not enough, and you get, well, not enough. It may be hard to find in some areas but it'll be out there. Leave no multiplex unturned! This is going to be a ground war, peeps -- we have to hold the valley for a long while. However it opens, it needs to HOLD. Instead of the Alliance we'll be fighting viewer apathy, fear of something new, the urge to wait for DVD, and Jessica Alba in a bikini. (Although I have it on good authority that she spends 90% of the film in a huge wooly parka. Make sure that gets out.)

The day this puppy opens, I'll be seeing it with my family (don't worry, there's a lot of them, and they're all paying) and then I'm off to Europe to learn the word 'Browncoats' in nine different languages -- 'cause like I said, it's all about holding. I'll never be far from a computer, though, so I can check in with y'all. Thanks for every damn thing.

And remember, amidst all the urgency to make this an event, all the work and the worry, to take two hours and just enjoy yourself. That is, after all, what all this fighting's about.

-joss.
​

***************************************

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

November? You been eating out of date food again, TM?

Don't know about you, but I'm going to watch it on the 7th October (it's actually on from the 6th at my local)

 

[The Master™]

Eh???

What???

But...

I...

Thought...

It...

Was...

Okay, now I need to hunt around my local establishments... Thanks W_S... Is cheese supposed to smell like fish???

[EDIT] Just checked - Leeds - 7th October 2005... I'M SO THERE!!!

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Okay, now I need to hunt around my local establishments... Thanks W_S... Is cheese supposed to smell like fish??

Stay clear of the blue-veined stuff, man!
It's lethal!

Hope you enjoy the flick, matey. I know I will....

 

[andy_ice]

i so wanna see the film

 

[The Master™]

I've got the 6th and 7th off work... May go to the first showing on the 6th... Love the trailers, but in some cases the trailers are better than the movies...

If I see it on 6th, I'll be sure to review it on here, unless some devious Yank gets in there first!!!

 

[Culhwch]

Should be seeing it on the morrow, so with any luck I'll beat you with that there review, TM...

 

[dwndrgn]

Shoot. If I had the cash I'd see it tonight!! Actually, I might still be able to. Must check in to something...

 

[The Master™]

And here is Serenity in Lego:

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/lego/firefly/index.htm

 

[Culhwch]

Saw Serentity last night and loved it. I was never a big fan of the series - I only caught a handful of the eps, as it was put on TV here late and with no regularity or advertisement, but I liked what I saw. The movie has the same feel but takes it a lot further. A lot of the reviews I saw here kept mentioning how it was good but felt like TV on the big screen, so I went along with this in mind, but I think Whedon handled the transition very capably. There are some great cinematic moments in the movie - a tracking shot early on introducing Serenity's crew I thought was particularly nice. Good story, well-written, with great dialogue, plenty of humour, 'real' characters you relate to and get a feel for, great set pieces. One of the best SF films to come out in recent memory, for sure. It's inevitably going to be compared with Star Wars, but this is a million times better than the prequels, in my opinion. Goes to show that effects and money do not a good movie make - Lucas could learn a few things from Whedon concerning writing and direction. Not to mention heart. Am definitely going to pick up the series DVD when I see it...

 

[The Master™]

So, where is your review???

 

[Culhwch]

I'm no good at reviews, so that's the best your getting. I could have banged a star rating on the end, I suppose, but I'm not one for quantification. Two enthusiastic thumbs up....

 

[The Master™]

Well, this Thursday I will be going to see the film... So I shall try to be more enthusiastic about it...

And "two enthusiastic thumbs up" sounds like a "quantification" to me...

 

[Culhwch]

How much enthusiasm do you want? I said I loved it. And I don't emote readily, believe you me...

I think 'two enthusiastic thumbs up' is qualification, not quantification. One thumb up out of two would have been quantification. It's the enthusiam that makes the difference...

 

[The Master™]

So, what did you enjoy about the film???

And you be careful with those thumbs, you'll end up taking someones eyes out...

 

[Culhwch]

So, what did you enjoy about the film???

I'd refer you to my post above...

...there are some great cinematic moments in the movie - a tracking shot early on introducing Serenity's crew I thought was particularly nice... ...good story, well-written, with great dialogue, plenty of humour, 'real' characters you relate to and get a feel for, great set pieces.... ...one of the best SF films to come out in recent memory.... ....a million times better than the [Star Wars] prequels, in my opinion... ...not to mention heart...

I could pad it out (had plenty of experience doing that at uni), but I feel that covers most bases nice and succinctly.

 

[McMurphy]

Not so serene.

I have got to say that I was not all that impressed by the film. The dialogue, which had some traditional Joss one-two punches, needed some fine-tuning and all the actors mumbled their lines to the point that some of the jokes were lost in the action. The main character seemed extremely muddled for a Hans Solo homage. For example, he has to state that the cause of disclosing the truth to the galaxy was a belief for him that was worth dying for. Obviously, this statement was meant to showcase his transitional character growth, but it doesn't work. Where in the rest of the film was it clear that he wasn't the type of person that would commit to a cause? If the answer is "in the short lived and failed television series" than it is a bit short sighted of the creator to assume that would be all the set-up he needed. To me, Mal always did seem to be a maverick of missions.

Joss short changes himself in the directing department also. Several times the angles he chose and failed to choose undermined the significance of a scene. For example, the mutiny-like confrontation around the table midpoint in the movie got too caught up on figuring out how he was going to get every character on screen by attempting various camera angles. The audience shouldn't see a director struggle through a scene. Another example is at the end when River appears to sacrifice herself in a Matrix meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer one woman showdown, a motif that Whedon has single handedly beat to death, against a horde of baddies is delivered badly. The scene is meant to set up a kick-ass pay-off of a shot of River at the end, so Whedon had a couple choices of how to pack in the best results. First, he could have made sure that the fight was mind-blowing cool. He didn't. In fact, it seemed as if he really wanted to show the fight but didn't really know how by the way he would only show small clips of the fight at a time. This approach only gave the audience a false sense of suspense, not a true one. The cheesy fighting techniques of River may have worked for Buffy in a Fox channel television series, but it comes across as a bit too campy on the big screen. If a director wishes to show an amazing fight scene then a simple rule applies: he must deliver an amazing fight scene. The second method he failed to choose (the one I would have preferred) is that he left it up to us to imagine River's survival. Imagine she flips into the room and, still in a crouched position as the doors behind her seal shut, we, the audience, sees the horde of creatures descend down on her. Next, time is spent altering attention between Mal's fight and the struggling survival of the remaining crew members. After those two scenes have climaxed then have the doors unseal and reveal her pose. It would have been far more powerful.

The cuts to other scenes throughout the film didn't always make sense and was a bit cumbersome in delivery. Perhaps it would have been smoother if Whedon had the saving grace of a Coke commercial between scenes.

In the end, the film is very hit and miss. This is a Joss Whedon work so there is certainly some hits. His wit, when it isn't too garbled, will make you laugh, and a purposeful break in dialogue beat will remind people why Joss Whedon has a cult following.

I imagine that the cult-like following of his work is really why reviews have so often compared it to the episodes one through three of Star Wars (although, as you may notice, never to the original three films in which he clearly drew inspiration. A dirty alien bar. Space gunslinger. Dangerous discussion at a small round table in the back. Violence. Enough said.). The comparisons baffle me a little because, is there anyone that actually believed that the new Star Wars films were good?