"”Just finished watching Firefly on DVD. This is badly edited, but I'll put it out there. I've been thinking about Hollywood, "genre" movies and the Serenity movie's prospects...
I think N4H had mentioned at one point that "nostalgia" became a more common tool of expression with films"”perhaps starting in the early 70's"”when the Boomers started to make films and the old studio system started to break apart. These directors started to self-consciously refer to conventions and styles from earlier films of the 20's, 30's, 40's.
Spielberg and Lucas were part of this goup. They were nostalgic too, yet they were going against the grain at the time"”making films that were NOT filled with overtly adult, cynical, anti-hero, anti-establishment themes. They ushered in the modern era of the "blockbuster". It was a return to movies as escapism. The modern blockbuster is built on the foundation of sci-fi and adventure serials from the 30's and 40's, and also film noir, pulp fiction and comic books. I guess you could see these directors as less cynical than their peers (or maybe more self-absorbed, childish? Not sure. Maybe the cynics are the ones that are self-absorbed).
The next generation of genX filmmakers are, in a way, even more nostalgic, "childlike", hyper-referential than those Boomers. I'm thinking of Tarantino, Rodriguez"”those who are kind of carrying on the pulp-comic-nostalgia tradition. They're even more faithful, in a superficial, visual way, to their sources. Yet, they're less faithful in that they're much more cynical, detached, skeptical of the messages in the original material. Or, maybe you could say that they're more interested in the moral ambiguity of the pulps and film noir than the moral clarity of the adventure serials. (The thing is, even with the moral grayness of the original pulp-protagonists, you sense some internal conflict. There's not much internal conflict or reflection with Tarantino, etc...)
I think you can put Joss in this genX filmmaker category, to a degree. He's somewhat cynical, hyper-referential. But he seems more open to the "quaint" ideas of morals, values, ethics"”good vs evil"”all that good stuff. I think it could be argued that Joss is actually the most faithful to the original spirit of the pulps. Plus, there's all the childlike fun of the adventure serials. I find him the most compelling because of that.
Firefly is like a good distillation of the pulp-novel, film-noir and adventure-serial. Yet it has that postmodern, overly complicated self-consciousness too.
Now, I'm thinking that true "blockbusters" have evolved to the point where they can't afford to appeal just to the 13-30 American male demo, if they ever did. It's just not cost-effective. Tarantino and Rodriguez do well, but are they in blockbuster land? Seems like modern blockbusters have to appeal to males, females, young, old"”all on an international scale"”so a strong romance, or at least some amount of time spent on "relationships" (in addition to action) is seen as vital to get enough asses in the seats, and perhaps in the seats multiple times. And there need to be broadly comprehensible, relatable themes and visuals. In America, they're most commonly rated PG-13.
I wonder if maybe the "blockbuster" target demo has been steadily declining in average age? The originator, Jaws, was not aimed at young teens and little kids, was it? It may have even been rated R by today's MPAA. As much as I love Spidey and the modern comics movies, they're kinda dumbed-down, kiddie-fied in terms of language, themes, cultural references"”compared to, say Close Encounters or even the Indiana Jones movies. Even the first Superman movie seemed aimed more at adults than kids, though it certainly appealed to them too.
It's steadily become a kid-dominated movie culture, since the late 70's, I think. It's reached its peak with the modern comic book movies and Pixar. The recent attempts at "adult" blockbusters, all the historical epics, have been relative failures. Is it that they all suck? That there's more entertainment options out there? Dunno.
I guess maybe that (despite the increasing vulgarity and abrasiveness of some music, film) the culture has become much more protective of kids and kid-centered since the very lax, anything goes 70's...
So, were does this leave Serenity? It's not budgeted to be a blockbuster. It won't be marketed as such (in terms of cash at least). It doesn't seem like kids and young teens would be its target demo. Yet, it fits the source material that inspired the blockbuster genre, almost too perfectly. I'm thinking it's going to be almost too cute, clever, sophisticated, subtle, to be anything approaching blockbuster territory. But who could say for sure? Joss is kind of an anomoly. And the grass-roots-fandom-previews may have an effect...
