Serenity

[kenjari]

Other Kenjari and I went to see Serenity last night. I enjoyed the movie, for the most part. The major plot point goes a long way towards explaining why the Alliance is bad. I always thought that Firefly was just a little too vague on that point, although I realize that this was probably something that was meant to be slowly revealed and developed over more than one season. I also thought that the pacing was good. And there were plenty of cool moments.
My biggest problem with the movie is Wash's death. Mind you, I've never been the sort who categorically objects to character death. I think it's also fair to say that the crew were in a situation where it was a reasonable expectation that they wouldn't all make it. But Wash's death seemed too random and pointless from a storytelling standpoint. It didn't serve any real purpose - it didn't have any plot significance, and it didn't provide any character development for Zoe (not even something as simple as motivation to do something truly amazing). It was too quick, too casual, more like a minor character's death.
I'm also wondering if Serenity was less of a movie than a long Firefly episode. I'm not sure how objective I can be about that, though, since I did watch Firefly on DVD, and liked it very much. It seemed like there was an awful lot of stuff that was there just to answer questions or resolve things left over from the series. This is good if you were into Firefly, but if you weren't, it's probably quite a distraction.

Comments

[hca.livejournal.com]

I agree, emphatically, with everything you said, especially Wash's death. I could go on about my issues with that for a long time (the character adds so much; the character's death adds nothing; now Zoe and Mal are almost identical in their hard-edged loss, which adds nothing nothing nothing; you don't need two; Zoe did nothing with the grief) but I think I will spare you the rant, since you put it so succintly and so well.

Apparently Alan Tudyk could not commit to future projects, as he is pursuing a stage career right now. Shrug. Still a blasted bad choice from a story POV. Grumble.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I forgot to add that I also really liked the way Zoe and Wash's relationship was portrayed. It was a good relationship, and fun to watch. And they were married, which is so rare in that genre. If there are future projects, I will miss Zoe and Wash as a couple a lot, an awful damn lot.

[wildpaletz.livejournal.com]

I don't believe it was Alan's choice, actually. I saw Alan & Gina in person at the Serenity preview showing last spring, and the way they talked about it, it wasn't something that he asked Joss to do, not at all. So I'm not sure where you're getting your information about Alan.

[hca.livejournal.com]

Someone told me at Eileen & Pete M's going away party. Eileen herself? Another guest? Can't remember.

Rant I just posted to gee_tar's lj:

I have no problem with major character death. I love major character death. Major characters die with regularity in what I write and what I read.

Wash was the wrong character.

To hop around a bunch - The Shepherd was the right character. Boromir was the right character. Buffy's mother was the right character. So was Spock (before we knew he could come back). In all cases, the deaths of these characters did something different and interesting to those they left behind.

Simon would have been the right character. Zoe would have been the right character.

It's not that I object to a ballsy move that shows how dangerous the situation really is. It's that having Wash there at all, and having Wash's relationship with Zoe there at all, is already a ballsy move. Having Zoe married and talking about kids serves a purpose in Firefly - Zoe has moved on with her life and is therefore different from Mal. Having Wash - a male character, no less! - who is anything but battle-hardened and at the same time anything but incompetent serves a purpose in Firefly.

Killing the Shepherd showed how dangerous the situation was. Killing Simon would have kicked River into a new phase of development. Killing Zoe would have done the same for Wash. What does killing Wash do for Zoe? It makes her just like Mal. We've got one of those.

If killing Wash had prompted Zoe to do some crazy heroic thing that also cost her own life, but won a victory in the movie? I'd be cool with that. But it didn't. She didn't. She closed down and did her job like a professional.

So, yeah, I'm disappointed. What Joss left behind was more interesting than the avenues open to him.

[wildpaletz.livejournal.com]

Oh, no need to repeat that to me--I have a problem with Wash's death too.

It's just that I've seen SO many calls for killing ALAN TUDYK on the boards, and my impression from HIM was that it wasn't his choice at all, that Joss had to persuade him it would be good to for the "story." (Which I agree with you about--story-wise, I can think of other folks. I mean, you might as well kill of Kaylee, in this case.) After all the We HEART Firefly stuff, it felt like a kick in the gut to a lot of fans, myself included. Seeing it twice, months later, helped--I knew what was coming and was able to observe what happened after better. I didn't even register the movie much after that, other than "OMG are they ALL going to die?!?" So seeing it twice helped me see some other things he put in the very end.

And for the record, Alan and Gina both said that he AND Ron Glass are both signed up to be in future Firefly-movies. Maybe flashbacks? Maybe a Wash-bot? One thing that made me annoyed with Joss in his TV series was that he would kill off beloved characters to show that Death Had Meaning and then he'd bring them back. What's with that?

[adamhmorse.livejournal.com]

I have a slightly different take on the deaths. I should begin by saying that I like a lot, but don't love, the show. I hated the movie. Hate, hate, hate. I don't walk out of movies, but I thought about it (actually before Wash died). But I think the deaths can be defended by saying that they "keep it real" and show that the gloves are off. It's a dangerous world, and this isn't some Star Trek universe where Spock can only die meaningfully with a dying soliloquy. This is, of course, incompatible with the feel of the TV show, where there's a strong sense of the usual script immunity. But it makes sense for a movie going for a very different feel. I think that the pointlessness can serve a story purpose, by adding versimilitude. And it means that when other characters get hurt or threatened, you fear, because you know that the writer is willing to be like "sorry, too bad, you die now even though it's not a big dramatic moment."

That said, I thought the underdevelopment of the reactions (esp. Zoe's relatively flat response and Mal's being a cold b*****d who should've died back at the Battle of Serenity when his best friend's husband dies) was lame. I also found the "the Alliance is actually the Empire from Star Wars, evil, evil, evil" much less interesting than the ambiguity of the show, where it's never clear that the Browncoats were the good guys. They thought they were... but so did the Confederates defending their peculiar institution. That's not to say that it was clear that they were actually the bad guys... just that it was at best ambiguous.

Feh.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I love you, man. Thank you for being willing to say that, because I sat in that theater uncomfortable and afraid to do anything other than say "wow I was too tired for this movie" when I simply felt betrayed, and creeped ay how positive everybody else seemed.

Maybe it's that I also felt a bit tricked by the brand of violence in the movie; rape and cannibalism just offscreen _that_ much of the time is too much for me, and the reavers were borderline too much for me back in the series. But I didn't enjoy myself, and I also didn't feel comfortable expressing that I didn't enjoy myself, and well, it sorta felt like being turned on by somebody I trusted. I wish I'd asked somebody for spoilers. I should just accept that I'm not one of "the cool kids" who can handle really scary movies, and ask people for spoilers on the horror factor of movies.

There were parts of the movie I liked a lot. But I wanted to call people who were going on Saturday and warn them to manage their expectations. That wasn't a good feeling.