Serenity
There are three types of people who will see the movie Serenity:
The rabid fans of the series Firefly , of which this is a spin-off flick. These critters go around calling themselves “Browncoats” and proclaiming their want in life is to do creator Joss Whedon's bidding. They are probably going to lap up whatever scraps their master throws to them. They will see this movie 47 times with a zealously that will make the more casual fans cringe.
The more casual fan . Goes by the name “Cliff” or “Bob” or usually whatever it says on their birth certificate. They could go either way. I saw the film with a bunch of people who would all consider themselves big fans of the show (although not Browncoat-name-your-children-after-the-characters level of fans), and some walked out quite entertained and pleased, while others thought the film betrayed everything the series stood for and wished it had never come into existence.
The general film-going audience . Also known as “people”. This mob has never seen Firefly , probably caught a few Buffy s in their time, but probably aren't geek enough to see the difference between a Browncoat and a casual fan and thus embarrassingly lump us all in together. The success of the film depends on this third audience type.
Serenity is a patchy dose of purposefully fun B –Grade sci-fi action that can't seem to make-up it's mind as to which of these audiences t has been made for, so it pitches to all three.
The first fifteen minutes of the film is dull exposition for the uninitiated. Not only does this most likely leave Firefly fans twiddling their thumbs (or occasionally perhaps taking offence at Whedon's revisionist take on his own material) but the new fans it aims to convert are most likely gonna be left wondering what all the fuss is about.
Whedon forgets that in the case of at least 70% of all movies (excluding sequels and other TV cash-ins, I mean, adaptations - not official percentage) the audience goes into a movie rather unfamiliar with the characters and the world they are about to see. Having a scene like this that fills the audience in all the little details of the world he has created is like if Star Wars made three prequels explaining the concepts of ‘jedi' and ‘the force', thus rendering the whole thing less mysterious and…oh wait. Give the audience some credit, man, they can figure this stuff out as we go along. The best way for the audience to get to know these characters isn't through fifteen minutes drenched in heavy exposition that deters both fans and non-fans alike – it's through the journey.
The other problem with the start is that it instantly shattered a lot of my hope for the film. The series revolves primarily around the mysterious River Tam, a special girl that the government subjected to cruel experiments and will stop at nothing to track down ever since brother helped her escape. Firefly spent a whole season exploring this idea and within seconds of Serenity that mystery is gone. People are calling River a psychic (assumed, but never confirmed in the series), and we find out that people are after her because she telepathically read the mind of a government official and may now know classified and dangerous information. Well, thanks a fucking lot. The culmination of the entire singular season of the show reduced to this. They may as well have just put that info on a title card and saved themselves the awkward exposition.
That isn't the only time Joss sacrifices parts of what made his show so great just to dumb things down for the uninitiated, but it is clearly the worst. At the other end of the spectrum there are a few decisions he makes to blatantly fan-please, as if to make up for these indiscretions, but as one of these fans, I can't say I'm too pleased about them either.
Whedon crams all the much loved characters from the show in wherever he can fit them, when in reality he should have just cut some altogether rather than short-changing them with a pittance of screen time that leaves the fan unsatisfied and the non-fan just confused. If I hadn't seen the show why would I give a crap that some old dude known to the crew as ‘Book' that we've seen for one whole minute on-screen dies?
Look, I could easily come up with another few pages of whining and gripes. I could go through the film scene by scene and dissect exactly where I felt let down – but usually when I did feel let down it wasn't too long before Whedon worked his magic and won me back. As science-fiction, Serenity kills so much of the sterile Star Trek crap, and is a breath of fresh air in the genre. No aliens! No sound in space! Actual interesting characters instead of protocol obeying boring Starfleet geeks! It's funny! There are quite a few times during this film where I genuinely thought it might still turn out great, and it's a compliment to the film that I wasn't sitting in the cinema stewing over the flaws, but rather I put such criticisms to the back of my mind for the duration of the film and just went along for the ride.
I am yet to meet someone who has seen this film that hasn't seen the series. Most people are familiar enough with Joss Whedon to know his name and geekdom are practically synonymous. The story of how this film came to be in spite of the failed series has been told enough times that people are aware there was a series they haven't seen and may feel put off at the thought of seeing the film. The figures from the opening few weeks haven't been great so far, so it makes me wonder why he didn't just make this film for the fans. An uncompromising two-hour long 15 th episode for the series. He might not have swayed the general public, but the casual fans would have loved it and the rabid fans would have probably seen it 94 times instead of 47.
This isn't the film I had hoped it would be, not even close, but it's something. When it's all said and done I'm just happy to have this universe continued in whatever form, and I'll take it, flaws and all.