Serenity

http://www.serenitymovie.com/

I was a big fan of the show Firefly on Fox and have been looking forward to this movie for quite a while. I was going to go see it on Monday the 26th, but I had screwed up my schedule and couldn't make it. OK on to the actual movie:

Synopsis -

Joss Whedon- the Oscar(r)- and Emmy-nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel-now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity.

The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family - squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

When Mal takes on two new passengers-a young doctor and his unstable, telepathic sister-he gets much more than he bargained for. The pair are fugitives from the coalition dominating the universe, who will stop at nothing to reclaim the girl. The crew that was once used to skimming the outskirts of the galaxy unnoticed find themselves caught between the unstoppable military force of the Universal Alliance and the horrific, cannibalistic fury of the Reavers, savages who roam the very edge of space. Hunted by vastly different enemies, they begin to discover that the greatest danger to them may be on board Serenity herself.

Serenity is written and directed by Joss Whedon; produced by Barry Mendel; and executive-produced by Christopher Buchanan, David Lester and Alisa Tager.

My Impressions -

First let me state that I am not a film critic, but I know what I like and I really like this movie. There were some small things that bothered me

• First, The opening sequence when the teacher is talking about leaving "Earth That Was". The shot shows either nukes going off or ships launching and suddenly about 30 ships flying away from the Earth. As this is happening the teacher is talking about the Earth becoming overcrowded and resource depleted. This leaves the impression that one day everyone just said, "Hey you know what Earth is a mess and I'm leaving now" all at the same time. Minor point I know but I didn't like it.
• Second, A continuity error between the show and the movie. In the show the Dr. (Simon) didn't know what had been done to River. Here in the movie it appears he had pretty specific knowledge. That really impacts on the plot of at least two episodes of the show.

There are probably more errors that people will point out in other blogs but I didn't catch them. Now for the things I liked:

• The characters. Most people probably find the characters two dimensional but I felt it was more of a family dynamic. In families everyone has a role that they tend to play and they mainly stick to that role. That was the feeling I had here. There were moments where characters stepped outside their role and you could see the discomfort and confusion of the others. The actors were all good and believable in their characters. I have never been a big Adam Baldwin fan but I like him as Jane.
• The feel of settling space. I don't know if Josh Whedon read any of Jerry Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legion / CoDominium novels, but this movie has one of the same themes found in those books. Namely that the settling of terraformed worlds will not be a Hi-Tech affair, but will be roughly analogous to settling the American West.
• The underlying themes. I don't know if these are what Whedon intended, but here is what I took away. People have a responsibility to fend for themselves and their family. The government should not be too involved in an individuals personal affairs. Fanatics on both sides of an issue generally take matters to extremes that are not necessary. Some times it is necessary to be a fanatic and take a stand. Some things are bigger than the individual and are worth sacrificing for. Since I agree with all those propositions I probably tended to like the movie a bit more.

As for the rest, the visual and sound effects were good, the movie was about the right length and the dialog was occasionally a little corny but didn't seemed forced.

Overall the best movie I have seen this year.