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meepa · 12-31-2005, 10:54 AM

I was a big fan of the series. Like someone here said, it's like watching Star Wars with an emphasis on Han Solo. One of the biggest things I liked about the show was 1) no aliens and 2) it was not "epic". By this I mean, we were following the story of a truly rag-tag group of people who were scraping by against (the background of) multiple oppressive forces. However, the story is still focused on the characters simply making a living, NOT saving the galaxy single-handedly. I thought this was very fresh, made the story more "relatable", and allowed the awesome character development to shine through instead of worrying about a "save the world" plot that tends to mute everything else out.

I really enjoyed the movie, but now having said everything above...

Spoiler: I did not like the fact that the movie went in a different direction than the show in that it became much more epic. I'm not against "explaining" the universe more, e.g. how the Reavers came to be, but I didn't like the fact that it was "the crew against the Alliance" to bring out the truth. It began to feel too much like typical action movies where a small group takes on everybody and wins. This was even worse, in my opinion, when they turned River into an unstoppable superhero soldier. I thought they were making her eerily strong by just having her with some psychic abilities in the show. That, to me, made her fill a "niche" in the crew. Having her totally psychic as well as Rambo^3 just makes the rest of the crew look insignificant, which is BAD when the glory of the Firefly universe is the strength of each individual crew member making up a hole.

When Wash died, I thought they were going to go in a darker direction and have the entire crew sacrificed in the process of broadcasting the truth about the Reavers. I would have been okay with that, but then it went entirely too "Hollywood" with the ultra happy ending and the "I'm down but I'm not out" super-recharge battle. Note: I'm referring to River, not the Captain.

So in the end, I liked the movie a lot, but I didn't like it as much as I could have since it went away from what interested me personally from the show.

Oh, and one more quibble. Normally I have a healthy dose of "suspended disbelief" when watching sci-fi, but did anybody else think "WOW everything sure is close together" in Serenity. In Firefly, it seemed like they actually had long voyage times (what with the cosmos being pretty... big). But in this film, it felt like, "Hey, we're only 30 mins away from here, and once there, only 2 hours away from there, then only 10 mins away from our final destination!"

12-31-2005, 10:54 AM	#50 (permalink)
meepa Insane	I was a big fan of the series. Like someone here said, it's like watching Star Wars with an emphasis on Han Solo. One of the biggest things I liked about the show was 1) no aliens and 2) it was not "epic". By this I mean, we were following the story of a truly rag-tag group of people who were scraping by against (the background of) multiple oppressive forces. However, the story is still focused on the characters simply making a living, NOT saving the galaxy single-handedly. I thought this was very fresh, made the story more "relatable", and allowed the awesome character development to shine through instead of worrying about a "save the world" plot that tends to mute everything else out. I really enjoyed the movie, but now having said everything above... Spoiler: I did not like the fact that the movie went in a different direction than the show in that it became much more epic. I'm not against "explaining" the universe more, e.g. how the Reavers came to be, but I didn't like the fact that it was "the crew against the Alliance" to bring out the truth. It began to feel too much like typical action movies where a small group takes on everybody and wins. This was even worse, in my opinion, when they turned River into an unstoppable superhero soldier. I thought they were making her eerily strong by just having her with some psychic abilities in the show. That, to me, made her fill a "niche" in the crew. Having her totally psychic as well as Rambo^3 just makes the rest of the crew look insignificant, which is BAD when the glory of the Firefly universe is the strength of each individual crew member making up a hole. When Wash died, I thought they were going to go in a darker direction and have the entire crew sacrificed in the process of broadcasting the truth about the Reavers. I would have been okay with that, but then it went entirely too "Hollywood" with the ultra happy ending and the "I'm down but I'm not out" super-recharge battle. Note: I'm referring to River, not the Captain. So in the end, I liked the movie a lot, but I didn't like it as much as I could have since it went away from what interested me personally from the show. Oh, and one more quibble. Normally I have a healthy dose of "suspended disbelief" when watching sci-fi, but did anybody else think "WOW everything sure is close together" in Serenity. In Firefly, it seemed like they actually had long voyage times (what with the cosmos being pretty... big). But in this film, it felt like, "Hey, we're only 30 mins away from here, and once there, only 2 hours away from there, then only 10 mins away from our final destination!"