Well, it’s the film that everyone’s talking about at the moment – well the Browncoats are anyway.
I only recently saw Firefly having read a few decent things about it on the net (I certainly never caught any of its airings on the Sci Fi channel). Then it appeared quite reasonably in the current HMV sale. So a couple of weeks or so ago, I bought it and watched nearly the whole series over three days.
The first thing I should say is that I’m not especially a Joss Whedon fan. I saw a few Buffys here and there, and even tried to watch a bit of Angel, but I found it all a bit disposable.
Firefly’s different, with a believable setting, although I’m still not quite sure how the planets and moons relate to one another. Are they in the same solar system? And the dialogue is witty and sharp with jokes and characters who develop. As everyone now knows, the show got cancelled and only really got a resurrection when it was released on DVD.
But the story, incomplete as it was, didn’t die there, and Universal picked up where Fox had left off, greenlighting a feature film – Serenity.
Of course the challenge of the film in such a situation is that it has to appeal to more people than were fans of the TV series. It should be intelligible to all, yet you don’t want to annoy those who’re fully aware of the situation. In fact this potential conundrum is skillfully handled and doesn’t prove to be a problem.
What we get is a fast entertaining and intelligent science fiction film with humour. Serenity is the ship our heroes are based on and its captain, Mal, has more than a passing resemblance to Han Solo. Of course I’m not remotely the only person to observe this, and nor am I the only person to think that the zip and buzz of this film just shows how short changed we were with the three Star Wars prequels.
People get hurt in this film, and the plot is moved on. In that respect, this is absolutely not like an extended episode of the TV series.
Thoroughly recommended.