Serenity Now

I made my 'trek' to see Serenity on its opening weekend. I catched an episode of the canceled Firefly and I thought it was an interesting yet off-beat show. Kinda like a Buffy series, which I adores after I sat through the first season DVD set. History repeats itself, and the fans bought tons of the Firefly DVD sets to justify the movie version. And I'm all for giving a sucker punch to Fox Network for canceling the show, depriving the money they could've had from me, if they kept the show alive.

The movie version was a lot better than I thought, although it wore its obvious root to the TV series with the look and feel of the whole thing. At one point I began to wonder if Joss shot this on Hi-Def instead of films, like Lucas. I liked the fact that there were some long tracking shots to show the characters and the environments. But the visual and the director kept me thinking I'm watching 2 hour long version of the TV show, instead of a movie. Joss is obviously talented writer and storyteller, but, there's nagging feeling that his craft works on better on the small screens than the big screens. (And there's no judgement or prejudice against working in TV worlds, as I know better.)

The dialogues and the characters were a lot better than many of the summer blockbusters I've seen. No throwaway one liner. No cliched episode. Some fresh, imaginative visuals, and setups. With it's morally ambigious lead characters and their morally quentionable tactics, I began to wonder what if Joss wrote Episode III to develop Darth Vader character. Sure, Darth won't talk/quip like Buffy, but her teenage angst, and devil-may-care attitude could've been used for our tormented Anakin to push him over to the dark side with a clever shove/plot.

This movie won't be a Star Wars despite its strength. Although it is entertaining movie, the morally questionable characters and story won't win over people who are used to seeing things black or white, good vs. evil. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Mr. President.) You are either with this movie, or not. I'm with the movie, and I'm gonna scourage the ebay to secure a used copy of the DVD set. Or I could wait till the movie's DVD release and get them all in a bundle deal that will sure to come. In the mean time, go see the movie in the theaters so that Joss can make more movies like this, even if it won't be a sequel to this movie.

The abudant choice of media content clearly gives us the fans the power to give life or death to a movie/TV franchise like this. And I'm all for it, with my time & money.

"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."