I got hooked the same way, Paul.

Some friends took me to see 'Serenity' without having ever seen the series - something I made sure that I caught up on. I have since gone on to get others hooked on Firefly/Serenity.

Great stuff!

If you want to ignore all the inconsistencies between the series and the film, the needless and sensless deaths, and a plot that really doesn't make sense then sure....Serenity is good.

But if you can't stand shit like that you will realize that Serenity is a giant blight on the Firefly world and is a giant turd proving once again that without Tim Minear, Joss Whedon is nothing.

@3 wow. who pissed in your corn flakes this morning? :)

I am actually in a great mood today. Just got back from a great vacation and for the first time ever coming back to work from being off and I am not putting out 7000 different fires.

But nothing gets in my craw more than how terrible Serenity was and the blind faith the Whedonites praise to the film. Their love for Joss is a huge set of blinders to how badly written and produced the film was. It just makes the fan in me cry.

I'd seen Serenity after having watched all of Firefly and found it just as enjoyable.

Akbar, I'd have to say that if anyone could enjoy the film without having first seen the series, then your criticism that the plot "made no sense" is probably incorrect. And I'd wholeheartedly disagree that any of the deaths depicted were "needless and senseless." They must have bummed you way out if you feel that way.

I completely agree with Akbar Fazil, and this is the first time I've been really baffled by Paul Constant's taste. I watched Firefly and loved it, and found Serenity to be actively bad - I wish I could go back in time and prevent myself from watching it. Basically I regard it as non-canon, kind of like Season 5 of The Wire.

I never gave Firefly a fair chance back in the day for the stupidest reason: The fucking theme song. My god, that shit was awful. Luckily, I was coerced into watching Serenity which prompted me to give the series another shot. I just mute the opening so I don't have to listen to that garbage song. So, @3/5 you can knock Serenity all you want, but it led a number of people to the series who otherwise may have never checked it out.

Nathan Fillion's career trajectory makes me sad. Firefly, Serenity and Slither were awesome. Also, Captain Horrible. Now wasting away on some crappy Fox show. I totally agree he could have been the next Harrison Ford.

I don't know what Firefly is, but they ran the crap out of this thing on the scifi HD channel this weekend, and got sucked in and ended up watching the whole thing nearly twice. It's pretty damn good.

@Matt,

Let me rephrase that. The plot worked. It told the story and went through the steps to get from point a to b. What didn't work was in relation to the series. SPOILERS: So the fact that River "MAY" have some knowledge psychically taken from a passing government official about the world of genetic freakdom (and creation of the reavers) was the main reason they were after her the whole time? Seriously? A government who had that much power and control couldn't just dismiss the babblings of a crazy girl as just that? And that one single broadcast of the "proof" was going to topple the alliance and bring it all down? Thats like saying killing an emperor and destroying his huge war machine is going to change the whole game... oh wait ;)

As for the two main deaths, lets review shall we? (spoilers again obviously)
Book: While his death was not so much a problem it was more the pervious scene with Book and Mal discussing his past. The whole "no I don't have to tell you about my past" line was not cute but was more of Joss being an ineffective writer of the character and didn't know how to explain him properly so he instead just stuck out his middle finger to all the fans.

Wash: His death was stupid and meaningless. It was a shock death and nothing more. Also, if you think about what could have been a future story, what good does killing Wash do? Mal no longer has anyone who actually questions his orders and makes him think about things. Zoe would fall back to her 100% "yes man" role to Mal. All of that leads to boring stories. If he really wanted to shock and open up future good stories, kill off Zoe. Mal would be lost without his right hand woman and Wash would be a mess without his Warrior Wife. Thats drama.

And then lets talk about Mr Universe (the media guy with his robot sex slave.) So this guy comes out of no where, is a very one dimensional character (seriously, Badger had more depth than this guy) and we are supposed to care about him? Then they have the nerve to bury his perverted ass next to two deeply loved characters? Talk about dissing their memories.

Since i have opened up this hornets nest, lets discuss my other problems with the film.

-What happened to the hands of blue? Was it so hard to mention them? A throwaway line by The Operative mentioning how he had to deal with their incompetence before taking over the case would have gone a long way.

-In the series Simon is a brilliant doctor but very naive in the ways of the world. His character arc and growth is a major part of Firefly. Yet in the movie, he is now a Super Agent who busts River out (yet in the series he mentions he paid someone to do it.) He also knew nothing of what River was and had to learn what they did with her, yet in the film he magically knows a secret password to shut down her Berserker mode?

-History behind the reavers: made no sense to me. But then, the reavers never felt fully fleshed out to me in the series either.

Firefly was great. Serenity was good, and still better than most movies that came out in 2005. I agree Nathan Fillion's talents are wasted on procedural dreck like Castle, and Whedon needs to not keep going back to Fox for shows.

Michael in Ballard...you have no idea what you are talking about.

Nathan is not wasting away on some crappy Fox show. While he did have a short run on a Fox show called Drive a few years ago (decent potential, but fell short) Nathan is currently the lead on an ABC show called Castle.

It's basically Moonlighting meets Murder She Wrote and a mostly predictable cop procedural show but Fillion gets to shine and be his smarmiest in the role and it is wonderful.

@ Akbar, you've given this way more thought than I have. Please note that I didn't defend the inconsistencies between series and movie, just a) that the plot did make sense (without saying that it wasn't flawed because it was) and b) the deaths were not needless.

I won't flesh out my first point because it doesn't need it, but I will the second. In real life, death can occur and leave a lot of questions unanswered, and Whedon is known for using death like this in his stories. It adds a layer of realism (honestly, wouldn't the sheer unlikelihood of everyone surviving been a flaw?), and can make the story more interesting since relationships and roles shift. If they were going to make more Firefly films, I have little doubt that Whedon and company would have made it work. But I'm pretty sure Whedon wanted to wrap it up, not create a franchise.

IMO most of the flaws are a result of the fact that Fox canceled Firefly halfway through the first season and they probably had to act quickly in order to make a film that would finish the series while there was still interest in it. It's similar to how they had to rush the series finale of Buffy because Sarah Michelle Gellar decided not to renew her contract while that last season was still in production. I'm personally willing to give Whedon some slack given these constraints; but I'd be lying if I said that I thought Serenity was a total success or a great movie.

I, like most fans, caught Firefly in DVD form, post-mortem and was horrified to discover how awesome it was, and that it would never be finished. I was insanely excited for the unexpected movie Serenity, and also possibly as let down as Akbar by the few inconsistencies and the abrupt and shocking deaths of a couple of the great characters. That said, on rewatching I have to admit that their deaths made some narrative sense, as far as establishing tension (without their deaths, the final showdown would have been robbed of all its suspense), and the reimagining of River's escape was worth it for a great scene to open the movie. Though rushed, the basic plot elements about the origin of the Reavers and the reason for River being hunted down do make sense in retrospect, I think. Mr. Universe was admittedly awkwardly shoehorned into the movie, as what seemed like a leftover idea that never got to be in the series.

My favorite bit of the movie is the great tracking shot through the ship during the opening credits that sketches in the characters and their relationships as they come in for a landing.

I'd still much rather have had more of the series, like another two seasons at least. It was easily the most charming and compelling sci fi TV series since the original Star Trek (the modern Galactica was also great, if unrelentingly nihilistic and depressing).

Matt,

I am not saying everyone should have survived, that would be unreal. Just that they killed the wrong character. Why wouldn't Whedon want to create a film that could easily be continued and make more? He was bitter and angry about the cancellation so when he was given the opportunity to do more he decided to be a cranky child and take his toys and go home thus killing any future the series could have had.

Your theory of the source of the flaws would work if they were constrained by time.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Firefly was cancelled over a year before production started on the film. Serenity was given the green light based on the popularity of the DVD release and its huge selling numbers at amazon. Don't let the fans fool you into thinking their petitioning and wearing of browncoats in their normal lives had anything to do with it. Paramount saw the numbers and figured it was a sure bet. Too bad for them once they saw the final product they knew they had a stinker. Thus they buried its release, didn't do shit to market the film properly and killed any word of mouth the picture might have had by putting out all of the free showings. These free showings were filled ONLY with hardcore fans (or friends of said fans) so then nobody later went to pay for it when it came out.

It's basically Moonlighting meets Murder She Wrote and a mostly predictable cop procedural show but Fillion gets to shine and be his smarmiest in the role and it is wonderful.

Sure, he gets to shine, but he's the only good thing in an utterly trite and hackneyed piece of shit. Desperate Housewives was less of an offense to his talent.

Keshmeshi,

I enjoy the show. Its mindless entertainment, I dont expect it to be anything more than that. But a show that he himself loves working on, gets to inject his own personal bits into a character and gives fan service to all his followers makes for an offense to his talent, then I stand ready to offend him every week.

Akbar, I think you're projecting your own bitterness and disappointment onto Whedon when you claim he would have handled any of creations like that. Shoot himself in the foot and derail his career by sabotaging his own movie? Not likely. If you have any links to good articles supporting this, I'm interested in reading them; but if this is your own interpretation of how things went down, I don't buy it.

While I don't have any proof directly to support this, one can easily look at how the story was closed up to not allow anything else to be told and see that he had no intention of letting anything else in the Firefly world get made. And knowing what kind of a prick Whedon is known to be, this doesn't surprise me. Sure its all assumption but honestly, the shoe fits.

While I don't have any proof directly to support this, one can easily look at how the story was closed up to not allow anything else to be told and see that he had no intention of letting anything else in the Firefly world get made. And knowing what kind of a prick Whedon is known to be, this doesn't surprise me. Sure its all assumption but honestly, the shoe fits.

Whyyyyyyyy oh whyyyyyyy did they have to cancel Firefly? Serenity does an ok job of tying up some of the loose ends but not all of them.

And Nathan Fillion is so damn sexy in this show it makes my teeth hurt. That is all.

@3 I don't think they were senseless deaths at all, just kind of par for the course for Whedon characters, kill them as soon as they have any kind of resolution.

I saw Serenity before watching any of Firefly, and I kind of hate suggesting it to people since I think it was so awesome, but we'll never get any more of it. But hey, glad it was suggested.

I think it's really interesting that pretty much everybody who got into Firefly by Serenity likes Serenity, but everyone who watched Firefly first seems to dislike Serenity. There isn't a name for that kind of condition, is there? Liking something because you see the ending before you experience the whole thing? There should be. I've read a lot of comics series that way.

@ 25, I like Serenity, I just don't love it.

I love Nathan Fillion. Shiny.

@25, I've actually only seen those people (who hate one but love the other) on the Internet. In real life, it seems to me as if people either like them both or not at all.