Serenity Movie Review

Serenity is the movie sequel to the TV show Firefly. While I loved the TV show and thought it was awesome, I found Serenity to be very frustrating by comparison.

World-Building: Great
Characterization: Decent
Plot: Standard-Issue Sci Fi Plot

I like science fiction because it poses questions about life. Meaningful questions about situations and possibilities, questions about people and how they would react to things, and questions about the world in general. However, there's a class of Science Fiction movie that fails to pose any meaningful question and relies solely on spectacle and action sequences - Serenity falls squarely into this category. Everything from the plot to the music to the characterizations (so woefully changed from the TV show) is generic and has been done before - and done better.

I didn't find any of what made the TV show so wonderful in this film. The biggest change is in the character of River. Whedon did a great job of keeping her character in check during the TV show so while we got hints of her having special powers and stuff it never became overbearing and stupid. In this movie they focused the main plot on River's character and any control over her characterization was lost.

While many fans still bemoan the fact that the series was cancelled too soon, and I do count myself one of them, I also see some good in the cancellation. This movie shows how the TV show could have gone wrong if it had gone on for too long. Instead of the great pace and the slow, deep characterizations we get Super-Ninja-Zombie-Killer!River.

Anything I say is probably going to have little effect on your decision to watch this movie or not, especially if you've seen the show - you won't be able to resist! - but I will caution those who haven't yet been introduced to this universe to go watch the TV show first. It is far superior to the movie in all respects.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Things that bothered me about the movie:

- Simon Tam's character off/changed (he screeches in the beginning of the movie and doesn't get enough close-up shots to show us the emotion he's feeling)
- Where's the intro? The introduction to the show wasn't my favorite thing from the get-go, but it was pretty cool and it grew on me. It was also kind of unique. In the movie this was replaced by generic sci-fi background music #4587690.
- Absence of silence. In the TV show they did something cool: in the shots where we see the spaceship flying through space we get to experience the silence of space. In the movie this silence was replaced by generic sci-fi background music #894211
- Zoe and Wash's relationship was not even present. Some people say that it wasn't obvious they were married. Actually it was, it just wasn't obvious how much they loved each other, and that their relationship could sometimes be turbulent and that Wash was jealous of Mal and so on.
- Mal is back at square one. It was as if the show never happened and he had never developed or grown attached to the crew. Actually, it was like he was a completely different person.
- River is now a super ninja zombie killer.
- Too much of the reavers was shown and they are no longer creepy or mysterious.
- The quiet and slow character moments, the thoughtfulness, are replaced by loud explosion-filled sci-fi fare.
- The black characters in the show are all bad (aside from Zoe who's only useless). We have the bad Alliance teacher who scares Zoe in her dream, The Operative and a few other council folks who are Black. Why couldn't the woman giving that report about the Reavers and feeling bad for them be Black?
- Mal throws that guy off the hovercraft...
- Simon and Kaylee's awesome relationship has been reduced to being simply about sex.

I could go on, but I think that's enough for now. Needless to say, the TV show firefly has gained another avid fan, but the movie was disappointing.