CRIMULUS' BLOG

crimulus

Joss just took the sky from me
Saturday, October 1, 2005

I have to admit, I was extremely cautious when approaching this movie,
because, after watching the trailers, so many things stood out to me as
different that there was no way the movie could be any good. All the
characters looked different, spoke differently. But, everyone seemed so
enthusiastic about it, and the messages on this message board all insisted
that if we wanted a sequel, we would have to pay good money and get this
movie broadcast out to the whole world so that Joss and his compadres
could rake in the big dough -- get the "signal out" so to speak.

Well one line from the series sums up this movie perfectly. "He's being
toyed with." It's the most obvious, unnecessary line in any episode
(Shindig) that informs the most minimalized idiot who couldn't get figure
it out. To me it only gains ground as a sentence when Inara blasts forth
her second ironical masterpiece with "Why would I want to leave Serenity."

Anyway, nearly every line in "Serenity" is exactly the same kind of
sentence. Nothing actually ever happens to show you that something was
going on, they just let the crew tell you all about it.


[Spoilers from here on in !!!]

They made a complete and utter mockery of the show. Those of us with a
faint hope of a reincarnation of the show have had our hopes completely
dashed.

First of all, since when was Kaylee the bumbling idiot who was falling all
over the place for nothing but Simon? She was not hopelessly in love with
him, yet now she is slightly more articulate than a valley girl. That is
only because occasionally she spits out the random number of an engine
part. And speaking of Simon, when did he become so stiff? Yeah, Simon
... imagine that they made him more stiff!

And Jayne? When did he actually not become an idiot and gain some kind of
understanding of his surroundings? And Zoe? Show emotion? Question the
captain out loud in any way other than a surface reassurance? Even the
biggest (in many senses), most important character, Serenity, became "...
something out of science fiction," a sterile, technology-overridden
"abomination" of what was once a comfortable, dirty home. WHAT THE HELL
HAPPENED TO MY GORRAM CHARACTERS (WITH MORE THAN ONE DIMENSION) (YES I AM
STILL YELLING)!!!!! Perhaps everyone just forgot how to play their part.
River, except for suddenly being so important, seemed like the old River, although much darker. :( Anyway, why was Shepherd Book just suddenly a
worthless character that only carried any weight with people who already
knew something about him? And why does everyone suddenly speak Chinese
with no accent at all, most of the time with a panned away voice over?

And the music? We always have the music right? NO ! Just as the
trailers suggest, Hollywood only allows for one kind of music in science
fiction--the kind that you get in Star Wars, of course. There is a brief
moment where Jayne, who suddenly is an acclaimed blues guitarist, plays
the intro guitar riff. I was so taken aback. GET REAL! This is not
FIREFLY! If you manage to bring yourself to hanging around until the very
end of the credits, well then you will get treated to a beautiful
finger-picked rendition of the show's opening credit music. But guess
what, the opening credits can never be the same.

But the fact of the matter is, nothing happened in this movie that one's
imagination couldn't have filled out from the trailer, except those
ridiculously horrid things that I have alluded to, but I don't dare to
even mention in this spoiler section. "Serenity," summarily, was a waste
of my devotion to the serious that I grew to enjoy so thoroughly. "And
I'm out twelve bits." (Ok $7.75 and a loss of over two precious hours).

Ok there were brief moments of revitalization for Zoe's stoicism, and at
time I felt like things got back to normal, but when I say brief, I mean
at most 3% of the movie. If anyone thinks Joss is a genius, he is a
genius out of control of his art. He made this movie for those he thought
might pay to see it under the illusion that if he made the story only
available to his adoring fans, he wouldn't lose them in the onslaught.

No one new to Firefly could even begin to grasp the depth of the plot
(beyond good guy does bad thing, bad guy outfights good guy, good guy wins
pyrrhically) because it relied so heavily on connections already developed
in the show, that is the parts of the story line they didn't completely
change (for convenience of the contrived plot and script). And now, those
of us who aren't new to Firfly and loved Firefly have nothing left to hope
for. Any redemption of the show, or a sequel, will be a materialization
of this new, mostly science fiction, somewhat Matrix, somewhat Lord Of The
Rings, somewhat cow fetus, bastardization of a previously inviting, now
broken world that we, the Firefly fans, cannot recognize or even relate
to.

Therefore, this movie will hopefully flop just as quickly as the show.
Joss has toyed with us all, and he took the sky from this Firefly captain.
Perhaps he was so tired of the show he had to alienate all supposrt that
was left. And those "Browncoats" who are still intact, well are now the
Reavers to his Alliance.

COMMENTS

Monday, October 3, 2005 6:02 PM

WASURERA


I'm sorry, I just didn't see the drastic difference in character that you saw. I've seen several fans react the same way, which (I think) is marked by the difference in how we view the show. I saw it as an innovative Sci-fi show with awesome plot and great characters--and I see the movie as the same. Both should be supported for what they are, which is why I shared them with all of my friends.
The characters didn't change drastically. If anything I thought Simon was a bit looser than usual. The biggest change that *I* saw was that Kaylee lost weight. o.0

Monday, October 3, 2005 2:21 PM

XYON


I respect your comments albeit not in agreeance, totally. I can see some of your arguments and some of the replies already addressing them, but you are entitled to your own opinion. I found myself, in my own humble opinion, seeing lots more conflict amongst the crew than I expected. I also found myself clinging to the safety of weekly televison - you know the feeling of everything will be OK because they will be back next week. Same gorram time, same gorram channel. But in the bigger picture of things, I understood a lot of the changes, even if they are sometimes hard to swallow.

What I sincerly hope is that us browncoats don't start lashing out at one another because of a difference of opinion and, agree or not, fight the good fight for a sequel. If no sequel comes, I find myself OK with this film being the end (I do know that there WILL be a series novels coming soon in 2006) as there was a bit of closure.

Monday, October 3, 2005 2:16 PM

CRIMULUS


Finally the site is working well enough for me to post a rebuttal.

I will admit, after calming down after the movie and reading your comments I appreciate the concept of the movie slightly more. But first, let me say, those of you who posted Anonymously I should disregard your statements, because they can't have much merit. I need to say, however, I didn't ever say the movie was bad because of what happened, and I never said the characters _should_ have been one-dimensional. Next time read what I say completely before you react. As much as I absolutely love the Firefly series, I refuse to ever think that these were the same characters that were in it.

As for the music, it just wasn't Firefly music at all. Period. There is no argument there ... did you hear a bassoon? a fiddle? No. That's a fact.

Now, as I was saying the more I think about it I think the story had some merit and it was intriguing. I was blinded from the very start of the movie because of the change of characters. I couldn't get past that just for the movie. Maybe I can bring myself to watch another time.

As for my actively bringing the movie down, I was quite brash when I said I hope the movie flops and I apologize, because as much as the movie turned me off, I can't stop running the episodes through my head and quoting them to the oblivious masses of every day people.

Nonetheless, I refuse to stand behind Joss Whedon so relentessly Zoe-like that I will refuse to find flaws in a movie that struck me so poorly from the beginning.

On a side note, is it weird that Zoe-like sounds a lot like "stoic"?

Anyway, my conclusion is this, what is left for there on the show? The intrigue of Shepherd Book's past? Gone. The tension between Simon and Kaylee? Gone. The tension between Inara and Mal? Gone. The great affection between Zoe and Wash? Gone. Fear of the Reavers? Gone. Fear of the Alliance? Gone. Do you see where I am going with this? ... why does it eat at me so?

Monday, October 3, 2005 2:07 PM

LADYBLUE


Well, I could not agree with you more. The characters were non-existent or too dark. This was definately not Firefly! But then Joss's writing has always been dark. If you look at the Firefly episodes I think he only wrote 2 or 3 of them; all of which were on the darker side. Maybe he should have had Cheryl Cain and Jose write the movie under his direction. Because, let's face it, the guy does have vision.

My only hope at this point is that the movie does well enough that they bring the TV series back or a line of novels would be great as well.

Monday, October 3, 2005 1:50 AM

REALLYKAYLEE


oh dear. i'm sorry you didn't care for it- and i quite understand where you're coming from, but please! this movie had to be different- (i cried from the feeling of manipulation after) and people liked it that way. i brought two newbies and they both wanna see the whole series now! cheer up, mate!

Monday, October 3, 2005 1:43 AM

DONTKISSEMONTHEMOUTH


I didn't dislike it as much as you did. I had a lot of problems with it. I'm still trying to work those out. I know I'm going to see it again tomorrow night. But one thing a lot of my friends who seemed to universally adore it, keep saying is that I have to remember it's a movie, it's going to be different. And OK, I can see where they are coming from. But to my way of thinking, you shouldn't have to make apologies for a great movie.

Monday, October 3, 2005 1:12 AM

ECGORDON


I think a lot of your points are valid, but what it really boils down to is that Firefly was a television show, a medium that allows slow development of plot and character, whereas a movie has to move fast and character development has to take a back seat unfortunately. But I disagree that the characters had changed that much. It is made apparent that they have been going through some very hard times and that sets people on edge, and with Inara leaving Mal is even more bitter. I think it obvious that some of this tone was Joss' original intention, so it should come as no surprise that FOX balked on that.

I doubt if there is a Browncoat that wouldn't prefer to have the series back, but hey, we lost that and the BDM is what we have now. Either support it or not, but don't actively bring it down either. Any further story we get from the 'verse may be closer to what you were hoping for.

Saturday, October 1, 2005 2:25 PM

HELL'S KITTEN


Too much use of the words "us" and "we" in your commentary. I can say with certainty that no one "fan" can speak for every fan.

Aside from that, it's always interesting to read an opposing view. We've apparently been watching different things, you and I.

Saturday, October 1, 2005 5:55 AM

TERRYO


While I liked the movie better than you did - and I had been reading spoilers so I didn't have the same horrified reaction - there is some truth to what you say. We needed more than that brief interlude on Haven to get the sense of community and family. 10 minutes more might have made all the difference.

In one recent interview, Joss even says clearly that Serenity _isn't_ Firefly and he still loves Firefly more. What is sad is that Joss didn't trust the masses to get it, so he eviscerated Serenity to make it palatable. I understand but I don't comprehend... the talk was there was no studio interference so that was either a polite lie or Joss did this voluntarily. Either way, I almost think I would have preferred not to have a movie.

Instead of a movie, maybe just a line of novels, ala Trek Pocket Books. Those were better than any movies because the characters could just go on their way without having to save the universe for the 87th time. And it isn't like their aren't enough talented writers in love with the Firefly 'verse.

In novels, we wouldn't have had that ill-fitting score. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't Serenity. It lost the both the eastern and western flavor. Not sure what it was, even. In fact, if some enterprising (hah - no pun intended) fan took the series music and integrated into the movie ala The Phantom Edit, I think I might come close to loving the movie.

terryo - still processing...


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