Well, I didn’t run out on opening week to see it. I waited 10 days. But I went out tonight and saw the long-anticipated movie Serenity.
I won’t say too much about it in case you haven’t seen it. I don’t want to spoil it for you. If you know about it and want to see it, well, what are you waiting for?
In case you aren’t familiar with the movie, here is the background in a nutshell.
Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel, wrote another TV series called Firefly.
The FOX Network ran the series and botched it up. They never ran the pilot until after the series ran and it never got any momentum. It was cancelled.
So Joss came up with the idea of a movie based on the characters and situations in the series. It is called Serenity.
With the movie coming out imminently, Sci-Fi Channel picked up the series and is re-running it. The fans from WB and new ones from SFN form an instant fan-base for the movie.
The series and movie involve a futuristic setting where people have settled a number of worlds out in the Universe. It is a post-civil war setting, where the central government, The Alliance, has won, but a lot of worlds are still quite independant and lawless. Serenity is the name of the Firefly-class ship the characters in the show live and travel in. They are a motley crew of survivors with a mixture of talents led by their Captain, Mal, a survivor of the Battle of Serenity Valley in the civil war. (On the losing side.)
The whole thing is very anti-tech. While they use space travel, their dress is very much rough and rural. Even their weapons run towards old gunpowder-based bullets. The Alliance people tend to run more futuristic in their dress and weapons. But while the setting involves a space ship, it’s really a civil-war style western.
You don’t need to have seen the TV series to enjoy the movie. But it will make it easier to understand. You will already know the characters and their backgrounds, if you have. Nor will seeing the movie spoil the series for you. If anything, if you like the movie, you’ll enjoy the series as each episode stands alone. There is no continuing plot twists, although it does follow a timeline.
The movie gives the basic history, but mostly takes place after the TV series, so the series is a good lead-in to the movie.
So see the movie. It’s a good movie, even if you don’t know the TV show. Who knows, it might make a Browncoat out of you.
