As my long time readers might recall, I watched a show called Firefly a while back and greatly enjoyed it. This week, thanks to one of my co-workers, I had an opporunity to drive 5 & 1/2 hours to plant my butt in a packed movie theater at 10 o’clock with a broken air conditioner. That is to say, I was able to attend a special preview showing of the Firefly movie, Serenity. Though the movie hasn’t quite been completed yet; it was fanatastic!
It started off with a short speech by Joss Whedon. He basically thanks the fans for their support and asked them to continue that support by asking them to help promote the movie. Then the movie was off and running. It appears to pick up at least a couple of years after the t.v. show ended1. Not all of the crew is still flying on Serenity though most are. The Alliance is still after River and they seem more desperate than ever to get her back. Desperate to the point where they’ve sent an unamed agent after her. During this agent’s introduction, we get treated to see a holographic recording of Simon rescuing River from the facility where they were experimenting on her; as well as finding out one of the reasons the Alliance wants her back so badly.2 Overall, I thought the story worked very well for fans of Firefly but I’m not sure how well it will play with people who never watched the tv show. The movie doesn’t have any big-name actors and it hasn’t been getting much in the way of promotion from the studio. I hope it does well at the box office (mostly in hopes of the tv show being revived).
Closing thougts about the preview:3
- The preview didn’t have much in the way of music. This really bothered some people and it is one of the things that they’re still working on.
- There weren’t any credits; again this is something they’re working on.
- Supposedly there were some placeholders for special effects that aren’t complete yet, but I didn’t catch them.
1 Supposedly there is a comic book coming out in July (?) that covers what happens between the show & the movie.
2 I bet you’d like it if I told you why, wouldn’t you?. Too bad, this preview-review is going to be spoiler free. :p
3 Sorry, but 11 hours of driving in 2 days plus watching the movie at 10 o’clock, staring straight up at the screen from the front row, doesn’t exactly leave me pumped up for writing an indepth review. Maybe I’ll have something more to say after the official opening on 30 Sept 2005.
This is a must see movie for any fan of Fire Fly!!
I can’t wait to see this again in September when it is done comepletely…
I just realized, there’s no review of the finished product!
I’m quick to pan movies that I approach with high expectations, I’ll admit. But I have no room to grouse, here. I liked it. Lots. It was outshone only by Batman Returns in 2005.
Now that the dream (of a Firefly show somehow living on) is dead, I’d *still* recommend the movie and the series to pretty much anyone. In fact, even though I’m currently borrowing the series from Mr. Site Editor, I’ll very likely own it soon.
That is something we shall have to remedy then, isn’t it. 😉