Serenity spoiler thread

[Yoru]

I went this weekend after a lot of prodding by several Firefly-fanboy friends and I have to say I was terribly unimpressed. Not having seen a minute of the TV series, I found a lot of the characters flat, the supplied backstory irrelevant and the setting uninspired.

Throughout the film, I felt that there was a lot going on that I hadn't been clued in on; without any pertinent knowledge of the characters, they felt like a collection of sci-fi cliches, since little, if any, motivation or history is introduced in most cases. I continually was asking myself why, if this Captain is such a prick all the time, this ragtag crew of unlikely (and in certain cases, unwilling, I think) heroes decided to keep following him. Some of them seemed to have (weak) reasons (the doc and River, for example, although I still don't know why the captain decided to take them back after the bar fight) while others, like the Tough Guy whose name I completely forget, seemed to just be there because.

I've never really enjoyed Whedon's writing. The resolution for the love-interest subplot seemed to just spring out of nowhere, and the convenient invulnerability to the villain's signature nerve punch was quite the Deus Ex Machina, as was the villain's sudden change of heart after the broadcast. The whole "Information Wants To Be Free!" theme seemed very Slashdot. From what I hear, the humor is strongly character-driven, so having little information on the majority of the cast didn't help here.

I went with two other folks who'd also not seen a lick of Firefly and the consensus we built was that we'd probably have enjoyed the movie more if we knew the series. Having no supplementary material to support the flick, I felt it was a mediocre sci-fi western, at best.

[Samprimary]

Yes Lum, adults do still go to theaters.  They just don't care about this movie.

Why you doin' this?

[Evil Elvis]

10 years from now, noone will remember Serenity..

But we'll all remember how the prequels sucked.

[schild]

In other news there was a big announcement of the Matrix being released for the PSP on UMD.

Nobody noticed. It was on like 3 websites.

[stray]

To be fair, very few people probably give a shit about UMD either.

[schild]

To be fair, very few people probably give a shit about UMD either.

I don't stand by the UMD as any sort of ally, but I'll say this - it's gaining more marketshare in the DVD market than the games are in the gaming market. The UMDs are selling INCREDIBLY well. It helps since the PSP is the most ideal portable media player on the market for video. If they release one with a harddrive that can play video soon enough it will be hardcore competition for the iPod. All they have to do is market it.

[WindupAtheist]

I've read page one of this thread and now page 5.  I can hazard a guess that the intermediate pages read something like the following:  "OMG PLOTHOLES IN A SCI-FI MOVIE", "umm.. more characterization please, please", "Buffy season 4-7 sucked", "why is this losing to Panic Room: Airplane Edition?", or "NOOOOOOOOOO, Star Wars still rules, even though this movie is probably better than any thing Lucas has ever breathed on".  I think I'll save myself the clicks and inevitable headache.

Actually, it was more like...

"SERENITY = GREAT!"
"Haw haw, look at it flop!"
"WTF?!  WELL SERENITY IS BETTER THAN UO!"
"Um, I'm not sure that's relevant..."
"AND IT'S BETTER THAN STAR WARS!"
"Well Episode 3 got equally positive reviews and lots more money."
"FUCK YOU! STOP TALKING ABOUT STAR WARS!"
"But I wasn't the one who brought it up."
"SHUT UP, YOUR LOGIC AM HURT ME BRAIN!"
"Hey look, Serenity is doing even worse in it's second weekend!"
"AAAAH! YOU STOLE MY FUCKING CLOUDSONG!"

No really.  I actually got a "Well UO sucks!" response, and someone actually accused me of somehow making them talk about Star Wars without ever mentioning it (or even alluding to it) myself.  It was precious.

In other news, adjusted for inflation, such films as Independence Day, Grease, Love Story, Home Alone, and Towering Inferno made more than EP III.

Episode 3 received positive reviews, grossed over three times it's budget domestically, and furthermore I happened to like it.  I really don't know what point anyone is trying to make by pointing at it.  Worse movies have made more money.  Better movies have made less money.  Serenity has made no money.

Why is this puke not yet IP banned.

Hey dipshit, figured out which parts of science are being "unlearned" yet?   

[Megrim]

Get off the sugar high and stop trolling. It's getting old already.

 - meg

[Roac]

Not having seen a minute of the TV series, I found a lot of the characters flat, the supplied backstory irrelevant and the setting uninspired.

Eh.  I saw half an episode once, and have never seen Buffy or Angel aside from 5s segments while flipping channels.  I have no love for the writer, since I have an active dislike of Buffy; the movie looked obscenely stupid (though admittedly I never wathced it), and that thought has stuck with me since.  I still loved Serenity. 

I think the biggest weakness for the characters is that there are just too many of them; it's hard to do a lot with 9 main protagonists, plus baddies.  LotR could do it because it had over 12 hours of footage to deal with, whereas Serenity had just under 2.  The plot holes were mild, and I didn't mind the use of deus ex.  No, it doesn't make a terrible amount of sense, but it moves the story along and feels ok.  I take that for granted anyhow; about any movie has a fair shake of both.  For example, Gandalf was brought back from the dead, literally, by God (Eru).  Although, you don't really get a full understanding of it all without the back story, and granted Tolkien has a much wider audiance than Whedon.

[Cheddar]

<some words>
"SHUT UP, YOUR LOGIC AM HURT ME BRAIN!"
<more words I ignored>

Hahahahahahahahahahahaahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha.

This made my morning.  And I have yet to drink any coffee!!!

Can you please stop shitting in this thread though sir?  Perhaps you can make an anti-Serenity thread.

[Ironwood]

I'm being taken to see this with the wife tonight. 


No matter what I think, I don't think I'll be sharing my views.

:)

[Ironwood]

In other news there was a big announcement of the Matrix being released for the PSP on UMD.

Nobody noticed. It was on like 3 websites.

I think that The Matrix won awards for the amount of suckage tho.  I think the Sequels were so very, very confouding of expectations that it actually shut people off from liking the first film ever again.

I know that when I rewatch the Matrix there's always the little voice in the back of my mind that says 'The Next Two are Going to Suck, The Next Two are Going to Suck.  Kill Prostitutes'.

But, hey, at least I don't post my views on the matter for other people to have the goddamned audacity to say 'You just didn't UNDERSTAND them'.  That'd be awful....

[Megrim]

No no, i think it's perfectly allright to view the first Matrix as a standalone movie. I just blink in mild retardation whenever someone mentions the other two. Then i make a joke about gay sex and everyone laughs heartily.

 - meg

[Ironwood]

Gay Sex IS funny.

[stray]

I find it pretty repulsive myself.

*This has NOTHING to do with how I treat gay people.

Oh, and umm...Sci Fi movie threads suck. There's just no other way around it.

[schild]

Oh, and umm...Sci Fi movie threads suck. There's just no other way around it.

There's a good reason for that. There's about 3,000 movies that could actually be classified as "sci-fi" and after crunching the numbers, which took all night btw, the total number of GOOD sci-fi movies comes to a grand total of 9.

[Yegolev]

although I still don't know why the captain decided to take them back after the bar fight

This is because Zoe (2nd in command) gave Mal (captain) a hard time about not saving that extra from the Reavers.

while others, like the Tough Guy whose name I completely forget, seemed to just be there because.

Jayne is pretty much a "just because" tough guy and doesn't have much of a backstory.  The only character element you missed was in the Jaynetown episode.  Not that I have seen all of the episodes.

[Cheddar]

Oh, and umm...Sci Fi movie threads suck. There's just no other way around it.

There's a good reason for that. There's about 3,000 movies that could actually be classified as "sci-fi" and after crunching the numbers, which took all night btw, the total number of GOOD sci-fi movies comes to a grand total of 9.

Which 9?  I would qualify the Alien series as such, and its younger brother series Predator.  I am trying to think of what else would qualify after reading Mr. Cards spiel. 

[Ironwood]

Oh God.  I spent the weekend telling the wife that Alien wasn't a sci-fi film.

It's really not.  It's a horror film.

[Bunk]

My current pet peave:

Movie ad: "The 24th Century, a lone deepspace probe delving deep in to secrets of the universe. A crew of seven highly gifted scientists exploring the mysteries of the unknown... They find a strange alien probe..."

Which promptly turns one of them in to a raving lunatic who stalks through the ship chopping up crewmembers with a machete.

Fucking Hollywood.

[Ironwood]

Could be worse.  Could be Contact.

[Bunk]

Point taken.

[Cheddar]

Oh God.  I spent the weekend telling the wife that Alien wasn't a sci-fi film.

It's really not.  It's a horror film.

I look at it like Stephen King's book "IT."  Yeah, there are horror parts, but once you get past that (jaded?) it is really an adventure.  It is even better if you are versed in Stephen Kings little world.  Same with Aliens.  I also enjoyed the books written in the Alien universe, even if they are poorly written.  Its the whole storyline that is interesting.  

[WindupAtheist]

The Alien, Predator, and Terminator movies were the Big Three of R-rated science fiction from the late 70's through the early 90's.  But really, I prefer to call them The Things Which Have Killed Bill Paxton.  (For the noobs: Paxton played one of the punks Arnie killed in the first Terminator, as well as a cop in Predator 2.  And fuck you if you don't know who he was in Aliens. :-D )  My ranking of them stands thusly:

-----The Goddamn Best-----

Aliens
Terminator 2

-----Classics-----

Alien
Predator
Terminator

-----Still Pretty Entertaining-----

Predator 2
Alien: Resurrection

-----Teh Sux0r-----

Terminator 3
Alien 3
Alien vs Predator

Fuck you, David Fincher, for making me watch Newt's autopsy!  I saw Alien 3 on it's opening weekend, then told everyone I knew how much it sucked.  I tried to actively contribute to that movie's failure by spreading negative word of mouth.  But yeah, the Aliens books were fun.  And if you can turn up the Terminator books by S.M. Stirling, those are actually quite good.  They take place after T2, but were written before T3 and have nothing to do with that heap of shit.  They do a much better job of capturing the atmosphere and character of the films than T3 ever did, and I've heard that James Cameron is said to like them, and like them better than the third movie.

[Fargull]

Best Bill Paxton Movie

Near Dark

All the rest are pale imitations of greatness.

[WindupAtheist]

Or as I can't help but think of it:  The Colonial Marines Go Gothic!

Paxton only had a small part in it, and it's not really sci-fi or horror, but I'll go ahead and throw Streets of Fire into the ring.  Because how can you not love any movie that ends with a Michael Pare vs Willem Dafoe sledgehammer fight?

[Ironwood]

Quick update:  Can't go tonight.  Why ?  Queues.


The irony.

Right now I wish it was as unpopular as I'm being told.

[Surlyboi]

WUA might be a myopic turdburglar, but I gotta agree with him on the quality of Streets of Fire. Dafoe and Pare beating the shit out of each other is classic.
 
But he forgot Diane Lane's Ellen Aim...

[Fargull]

The only problem with Streets of Fire is that the writing and frankly the acting makes even Daredevil look like shakespear in comparison.

Now, it was a good Rock Opera though.

[Yoru]

I think the biggest weakness for the characters is that there are just too many of them; it's hard to do a lot with 9 main protagonists, plus baddies.  LotR could do it because it had over 12 hours of footage to deal with, whereas Serenity had just under 2.  The plot holes were mild, and I didn't mind the use of deus ex.  No, it doesn't make a terrible amount of sense, but it moves the story along and feels ok.  I take that for granted anyhow; about any movie has a fair shake of both.  For example, Gandalf was brought back from the dead, literally, by God (Eru).  Although, you don't really get a full understanding of it all without the back story, and granted Tolkien has a much wider audiance than Whedon.

See, I think that's the crux of the issue right there; since it had a built-in fanbase, Whedon could afford to give a cursory treatment to most of the characters and expect his viewers to know who they are and why they're doing stuff. Without that, it's a whirlwind of names and faces, some of which, particularly those that receive 5 minutes of screentime, you need to care about for certain scenes.

For example, I could tell that, when the pilot was killed at the end, it was supposed to be a Dramatic Moment with a lot of Emotional Impact. However, since the pilot got maybe 3 minutes of dialog prior to that point, I really didn't care much. I'll admit I was shocked, but that was more due to the abruptness of the scene than emotional attachment to the character.

This is because Zoe (2nd in command) gave Mal (captain) a hard time about not saving that extra from the Reavers.

Okay, that kind of makes sense to me, but I'm still having trouble making the jump from "Scolding: You don't care about helpless people" to "Action: take dangerous, unstable weapon aboard ship, putting self, ship and crew in danger". That latter bit seems to contradict the character at this point, because he's put up some dialog about putting his crew and ship first and strangers later.

I guess it can kind of be connected, with that action being the first point of an attitude change towards caring about other people, but then he shoots a guy in cold blood after the preacher gets killed.

[Morfiend]

-----Still Pretty Entertaining-----

Alien: Resurrectionmovie.

This movie was the biggest waste of time ever. The only good part is whent he head scientist is blabbering about "Beautiful Butterfly". The movie is still a total piece of shit.

[stray]

First Buck Rogers episode (hey, it's movie length at least!): Intergalactic, time traveling, pimp. THIS is Science Fiction at it's finest.

Really. Anything more serious than that is losing the point. Or too geeky. Take your pick.

*This goes for all the intergalatic, time traveling, pimps that for that matter (i.e. Kirk).

And if Kirk or Buck are too pedestrian, then Alphaville. Not exactly a time traveler, but Lemy Caution is still intergalatic. And a pimp.

HOWEVER, the last 15 minutes of the Road Warrior is possibly the greatest bit of action filmed in all of Sci-Fi. So this counts too. For other reasons.

[Cheddar]

Oh man I forgot all about the roadwarrior series!  Thanks Stray [added to must get DVD collection]

[Bunk]

Okay, that kind of makes sense to me, but I'm still having trouble making the jump from "Scolding: You don't care about helpless people" to "Action: take dangerous, unstable weapon aboard ship, putting self, ship and crew in danger". That latter bit seems to contradict the character at this point, because he's put up some dialog about putting his crew and ship first and strangers later.

I guess it can kind of be connected, with that action being the first point of an attitude change towards caring about other people, but then he shoots a guy in cold blood after the preacher gets killed.

It's also dealt with in the series in that Simon saves the lives of some of the crewmembers, including Kaylie (who the Captain has a quasi-fatherly relationship with). Mal comes to realize that having a doctor on board might be worthwhile. Add to that, Mal has a very strong sense of responsibility to his crew. He treated the guy running after them on the planet callously, because he considered it a choice between that unknown guy and puting his crew at risk.

At this point in the story, Mal considers Simon and his Sister as part of the crew, so he's conflicted between being loyal to them and being loyal to the crewmembers that have been around longer.

As for the crew's loyalty - The 1st mate's been following Mal since the war, the Pilot is her husband, the Engineer thinks of the crew as her family, the Whore is in love with the captain, the Doctor and his sister have no one else to help them, and the Merc knows that he sucks at being a criminal on his own.

As for shooting the guy in cold blood - well, that's just the tone of the show.

[Yoru]

It's also dealt with in the series in that Simon saves the lives of some of the crewmembers, including Kaylie (who the Captain has a quasi-fatherly relationship with). Mal comes to realize that having a doctor on board might be worthwhile. Add to that, Mal has a very strong sense of responsibility to his crew. He treated the guy running after them on the planet callously, because he considered it a choice between that unknown guy and puting his crew at risk.

At this point in the story, Mal considers Simon and his Sister as part of the crew, so he's conflicted between being loyal to them and being loyal to the crewmembers that have been around longer.

As for the crew's loyalty - The 1st mate's been following Mal since the war, the Pilot is her husband, the Engineer thinks of the crew as her family, the Whore is in love with the captain, the Doctor and his sister have no one else to help them, and the Merc knows that he sucks at being a criminal on his own.

As for shooting the guy in cold blood - well, that's just the tone of the show.

Well, thanks, now that makes sense.

This movie needed ushers handing out cheatsheets or something before the show. A lot of this material comes from the TV series and I can identify maybe a few lines in the movie meant to reference each fact.