Serenity: Grim's Official Review

[Sidhe]

Ditto that. I really can't quite get my head around why they decided to axe it. Idiots.

[Tameon the Dragoon]

The series wouldn't work if it were brought back, due to two events that happen in the movie. I won't post spoilers, though.

 

This was probably the best movie to come out all year. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, and I've never been able to say that! That part with the Reavers and the Alliance and Serenity duking it out in space was incredible.

 

"I am like a leaf on the wind..."

 

Heheh.

[Grim Squeaker]

Ditto that. I really can't quite get my head around why they decided to axe it. Idiots.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, Fox are clearly stupid. They seemed to be surprised that when they showed the episodes in the wrong order, putting the pilot at the end of the show running and randomly changing showing times so no-one knew when they were meant low ratings. And low ratings means axey-axey. Stupid bastards...

[Meira]

Okay, this might be a rumour since I haven't actually seen the magazine, but apparently Gina had said in an interview that Joss had said that they would have work for seven years. That really makes one weep...

 

But it great that we'll get a movie. Really great.

[Kulyok]

Short version:

 

yawn.

 

Longer version: (spoilers, but minor ones)

 

The general impression of the film was of something without a beginning, without an end, and without anything even slightly resembling a structured and coherent plot. The characters give away enough to understand what is going on(and it is painfully obvious how these are info-dumps), but that's it.

 

Next: the absence of main character. Null. There is a girl, about whom every second male persona says how alluring\intimidating she is, but by the looks of her, I do not understand how she could be sexually attractive to anyone but a man who just spent fifteen years in prison. The fact that she performs mass killing\maiming twice, wearing nothing but a thin and revealing combination(which, incidentally, shows that there is nothing whatsoever to reveal) does not add to the impression, either.

 

There are six or seven lead male and female characters, the crew of this "Serenity". Cardboard ones. Perhaps if the number was decreased to three or four, it could work, but as it was, the only reason why I could tell one from another was because they all had different hair colour. I felt sorry for them only once, when the pilot got hurt, because the guy actually had no screen time(read: was not as annoying as others).

 

Comic relief. (groan) Guys, jokes below the belt are not funny. A girl with a traumatized mind peeping at her brother having sex is not funny. (sigh) But it's not like they are going to understand, I guess.

 

The Main Evil Character. In the beginning of the movie, I actually thought he had personality. Ha! As if. When he reached for his sword for the fourth time and started to say the same lines over and over, I thought I would dislocate a jaw from yawning.

 

A SPOILER:

 

 

 

Logical flaws. How could be the unknown gas released onthe whole planet? How? No tests, no experiments at all? No wonder it killed thirty million people.

 

Special effects. Ok, nicey-nice, but Star Wars had it. Other films of the same genre had it. Give us something new, guys! Something original! But no, they wouldn't.

 

And my Parthian arrow: the scripts for the main characters were worse than Padme-Anakin dialogue in Star Wars II and III, and that's saying something.

[Rabain]

LOL- all your arguments are exactly the same as the ones that Joss Whedon himself was worried about. The fact that anyone who had not seen the series preceeding the movie would not be clued in to much of the plot or its history.

 

If you had seen the series you would have answers to all your questions. Sad...but true.

 

One note: you say "Give us something new" yet bemoan the fact that there is an absence of one "main" character. Surely the absence of one main character is something new. In fact it is something I would like to see more of...there is too much dependence on one "superstar" lead actor in most movies these days.

 

The main evil character is a dupe for the "Alliance", he is meant to be repetitive and cliche. That was the point, most players who are pawns of their "bosses" behave in this way. This was meant to draw your attention to the "mindlessness" of believing in "one true way" and this was highlighted by the fact that the main "herione" is almost a clone of the main evil character, personality-wise at least.

 

Admittedly the scripts were somewhat lacking compared to the scripts of the TV series but then there are different rules for movies I guess. Not being a Director/Producer myself I won't hazard a guess as to what they are but suffice to say I prefer the TV series over the movie even though the movie did close up most plot points of the TV series well enough.

[Domi]

There is a girl, about whom every second male persona says how alluring\intimidating she is, but by the looks of her, I do not understand how she could be sexually attractive to anyone but a man who just spent fifteen years in prison. The fact that she performs mass killing\maiming twice, wearing nothing but a thin and revealing combination(which, incidentally, shows that there is nothing whatsoever to reveal) does not add to the impression, either.

 

Chemise, or slip, is perhaps a better word than combination; I have not seen it used here As for this trend of putting some sickly fragile girls into the roles of the super-powerful females it is highly annoying. The only movie where I believed the female performances of toughness was Matrix.

 

And my Parthian arrow: the scripts for the main characters were worse than Padme-Anakin dialogue in Star Wars II and III, and that's saying something.

 

Okay... and I thought that nobody can beat the emotionally charged "I truly, deeply love you..." dialogue!

 

I guess, I will wait for it to be out on DVD...

[Tameon the Dragoon]

I never got the impression that River was supposed to be sexually attractive.

 

Also, the Alliance dude was neato. The fact that he repeated the same lines everytime he killed someone only made me hate him more. It is good when the main villain is hate-able.

[Ghreyfain]

He's like Jules from Pulp Fiction!

 

I also think the hippy girl was supposed to be really good at kung fu because her mind was honed by the Alliance. Like Pai Mei, the old sensei from Kill Bill. Mind over matter.

 

I thought it was a pretty kick-ass movie, myself.

[cliffette]

I never got the impression that River was supposed to be sexually attractive.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Me either. I thought the impression of the male population was "she's creepy", "she's very young" or "she's dead weight". I don't think her outfit was meant to be sexy either - it looked like she was wearing a bunch of rags that highlighted her fragility when she wasn't kicking butt.

 

The series would have been excellent. As a movie... not quite. It definitely had strong "this was meant to be a series and the characters would have been developed much better and you would feel much more for the characters if we'd had more time" element.

 

I think Joss' style is to start from cardboard cutouts then make them act in unusual ways... a slow process, hence the movie suffering in this respect. The dialogue wasn't too bad, though the 'rousing speech' moment was very very cheesy. I kept hoping that a shark would jump out and eat one of them, but no.

 

Still I enjoyed it muchly! There were some shining moments. More River combat scenes would have been good.

[trance1881]

If im not mistaken and I could be the show firefly is on tv its either on the channel FX which is pretty much a fox cable channel or its on fox itself. I havent seen the movie it doesnt look very appealing.

[Kulyok]

He's like Jules from Pulp Fiction!

 

Yeah. He was the most interesting one in the whole movie, actually. But this semi-redemption in the end - yaaawn.

 

I also think the hippy girl was supposed to be really good at kung fu because her mind was honed by the Alliance. Like Pai Mei, the old sensei from Kill Bill. Mind over matter.

 

It could be, and the fact didn't annoy me that much. Kicking ass is good. But she was so ugly, it was nearly eye-bleeding. Heck, even Thora Birch in her stead would look better.

 

The thing is, a month ago I saw "The Island" - and after "The Island", this one is crap. "The Island" had an actually intelligent plot, a nicely done villain, a hero that was so dumb it was actually endearing, a HAWT heroine, cool special effects - actually, the final battle of the hero and the villain in Serenity looked as a bad copy of Island's - and it wasn't boring. Yay.

 

By the way, what Serenity also copied from Island (or was it the other way around?) was that black villain was redeemed. In both movies, it killed the character.

[Grim Squeaker]

I'm lost for words. The Island and Serenity are nothing alike.

 

Semi-redemption? It wasn't a redemption its just that the job was over and this guy doesn't hold any kind of grudge.

 

People finding Rver attractive? Errr... doesn't happen. And why does you thinking she's ugly make her a bad character?

 

As for her arse-kicking, well she's a psychic trained for combat so I imagine she'd be pretty damn good at fighting.

[Meira]

It could be, and the fact didn't annoy me that much. Kicking ass is good. But she was so ugly, it was nearly eye-bleeding. Heck, even Thora Birch in her stead would look better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So, um, does that mean that for female character to be interesting and the film to be good she has to be *hawt*? For that's more annoying than having fragile girls kick-ass could ever be. That way we would could only have movies with Keira Knightly and Scarlet Johansson or whoever the hawt flavour of the month currently happened to be. A rather boring thought really (in my opinion of course).

 

I always felt sorry for River, she does not get to be a teenager because she was used by the government as a guinea-pig. The moments when she can laugh and have fun are so few - in a way it reminds me of how it's sometimes with people that have mental illness: some days are good and some are everything but good. The fact that what she can now do is supposed to be scary and upsetting was really well portrayed in the TV series - I don't yet know how well it's done in the movie, as I have not seen it yet. (And thus I have been reading this thread very carefully...) How it will seem to people that haven't seen the series I will of course never really know.

 

I didn't go see the Island but the synopsis sounded like Matrix rip-off rather than anything to do with Serenity.

[cliffette]

Hey Meira, I haven't seen the series.

 

I liked it, but I have a feeling that it would be way way better for those who have seen the series as you'd be familiar with the characters already. And if you see it and decide you don't like it, you can wipe it from your memory and make up your own ending, as I was forced to do for the series "Angel". Damn you, Joss Whedon with your stupid Cordy-being-taken-over-by-demon plot!

 

Check out rottentomatoes.com for the critics' views on both movies. They've got some great lines.