Far from serene
Serenity, dir. Joss Whedon.
Not many TV series that get cancelled before they even finish their first series get turned into big-budget (well, OK, medium-budget) feature films. But then most TV series don’t spring from the mind of Joss Whedon. For those of you who don’t already know, Whedon was the writer, producer, and sometimes director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel. Firefly was to be his new baby—a sci-fi western set in a post-civil war galaxy where folks swear in Chinese and the Alliance (think Yankees) ruthlessly crushes any remnants of Browncoat (think Confederate) resistance.
As with Whedon’s previous work, the series featured a quirky, genre-blending premise, his trademark snappy dialogue, gunfights, kung fu and comedy seamlessly woven with surprising moments of genuine pathos. It got cancelled 11 episodes into its first season, but the dedication of its fans (they paid for ads in Variety magazine lobbying for the series to be resumed) and the DVD sales of the unfinished series were enough to convince Universal to put up the cash for a feature-film version: Serenity.
The story follows ex-Browncoat Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew of smugglers as they unknowingly take on board some very dangerous cargo in River Tam (Summer Glau). River has escaped from some kind of experimental torture by the Alliance, which has turned her both psychic and schizophrenic—psychic enough to know secrets the Alliance wants kept secret, but too insane to know that she knows them. The Alliance wants her back before she comes to her senses. Squeeze Mal and his crew between the Alliance and the Reavers (think cannibalistic zombie Hell’s Angels) and the fun begins.
Whedon does a surprisingly good job of compacting the series-long story arcs, multifaceted ensemble performances and shifting character perspectives of Firefly into a two-hour feature without losing too much of the complexity of the series. (He even manages to tie up one of the story threads left dangling by the abrupt cancellation of the series—the origins of the mysterious Reavers.)
It may not have the most original of plots, but it manages to be funny, clever and full of action, with none of the turgid mysticism of the Matrix films or the bloated self-importance of the recent Star Wars instalments. You certainly don’t need to have seen the series to enjoy it, but if you like the film, grab the series on DVD and keep