Serenity Versus Firefly

[Indyman]

Greetings from Down Under. Absolutely Loved the series Firefly and I think Serenity was an excellent Sci Fi film but I had 3 main issues with it being:

Wash's Death - Was this really necessary?
Shepherd's Death and not being a regular on the ship from the start
Inara not being on the ship until mid way throughout the film

I liked the mutiple personalities on the ship and their interactions and liked the balance (and grace) that Shepherd and Inara brought to the ship and loss of these 2 characters reduced the ship's chemistry. Also the chemistry between Mal and Inara was a major selling point of the Firefly series and I think the movie glossed over this. (I know that the Firefly series closed with Inara's departure)

Was Wash's death absolutely crucial to the storyline? I hoped that they all would live and particularly hoped for a sequel (which I understand is not happening now)

What did you think?

 

[caileybeth]

I was shocked when Wash died, but I guess that Joss felt he should be the one to go and I as a fan have never felt like he made the wrong decision, Although I can't come up with any arguments to say "Yeah, rather him than anyone else."

Strangely I didn't really feel the absence of Book. I guess because he was never one of my favourite characters.

I was kind of sad that there was so little of Inara though, she's cool.

 

[nerd4hire]

Wash's Death - Was this really necessary?

Maybe not, but Wow!!

Shepherd's Death and not being a regular on the ship from the start

There was a lot of stuff I would have liked fleshed out more if I had my way, but I quess Whedon only had so much room in his script.

Inara not being on the ship until mid way throughout the film

On that one, I wonder about something. Would someone who'd never seen Firefly really get the whole Inara thing?

 

[Lyri]

maybe someone who'd never seen Firefly wouldn't get where Inara fit into the crew's lives, but as a fan of the show, it didn't bother me that she wasn't on the ship from the start. at the end of 'Heart of Gold' she said she was leaving, and she had good reasons to leave, even if no one else understood those reasons. so, i understood why Inara wasn't on Serenity.
Book is a whole other matter. mayeb this is just me, but i never figured out why he left the ship in the first place. it just seemed wrong that he wasn't there fromthe beginning, and he died half way through. we never did get to the bottom of this story, and we never found out why the Aliance suddenly jumped to help him as soon as they read his ident card in...aw, i forget the ep, but you know what i'm talking about. i would have liked to have found out what he was...i can remember someone else saying something like 'That ain't no shepard' i think it was the bounty hunter in 'Objects in Space'
Wash's death, while maybe not really necessary, certiantly made an impact...as N4H said, Wow!!

 

[white avenger]

I never saw the "Firefly" series until after I had seen "Serenity," so I wasn't as moved by the deaths of the two origonal characters as fans of the series obviously were. However, it shouldn't really surprise anyone, since Whedon seems to take such sadistic pleasure in killing off his characters. Remember, however, that, in the Whedonverse, death is, to say the least, an impermanent thing.

 

[The Arcane]

Remember, however, that, in the Whedonverse, death is, to say the least, an impermanent thing.

Sadly that only applies in the Buffyverse, and not so much with Firefly/Serenity. That whole damned lack of supernatural stuff and magicks makes bringing back the dead that much harder, hehe. 🙂

As for the deaths of Book and Wash, they were entirely necessary, in my opinion. The fact is that if everybody had walked away from that mission then the movie would have lacked a layer of realism. The fact that the deaths were so seemingly pointless also made for a sense of truth that much science fiction (hell, much any kind of fiction out of Hollywood) lacks.

We aren't talking heroic deaths or sacrifices. No jumping in front of a bullet to save the life of a loved one. Just random death in the middle of a war that they were being forced to fight. In the case of Book we didn't even get to see the attack happen. A fact that only enhanced the ultimate futility of his death and all those around him.

If the entire crew had flown away at the end of the movie with nothing more than a scraped elbow to show for their troubles then the supposed threat that Simon and River were running from, the mighty Alliance, would have looked like nothing more than a colossal joke and any future viewing of the series and movie would immediately be lessened because of it. Try imaging the happy ending and tell me that the movie would still be as powerful to you.

 

[Lorne The Host]

Wash death = one of the awesomest ever.
This is something this movie has that I love with the few others I've seen that do it, a sort of reversal in nearly each scene.

Example: the opening scene.
It's an introduction to the alliance and the war with the independence, oh wait no, it's Summer dreaming while she's been experimented on... oh cool, Simon's there to rescue her, wait, it's actually some new guy watching a clip of the rescue... oh, so the whole thing was the introduction of the main villain. Well done.

Or, it's an awesome heroic action scene, oh my god reavers, oh my god the alliance, bang bang bang, Wash does know how to pilot, oh my god they are barely gonna make it, woohoo, wow, awesome action, cue happy music-BANG death, sad 🙁.

Expectations satisfied and then broken, that's what makes it great.

 

[apocalypse]

Book is a whole other matter. mayeb this is just me, but i never figured out why he left the ship in the first place.

He left in the comic, Serenity: Those Left Behind, because he felt he was being corrupted or some such thing by working/living with criminals. I thiiiiiiink.

 

[Hexaphim]

While I was really sad to see Wash die - I loved the character - it certainly raised the stakes for the rest of the movie. After that you felt like ANYONE could die, and it really heightened the tension.

 

[Lou]

I'm not sure what I think, having JUST finished watching the movie.

I do think that Book's death had a BIG effect. So, it was probably necessary. It was scary and creepy and gave me the willies.

Wash, I'm not so sure about. I mean the crash was bad enough. I had to pause it to pee after he died or I'd have wet the couch. Sadly, I kind of knew it was coming because I dug too deeply in the posts here. I think it would have mattered more if Zoe had gone nutty or something. And, I suppose they tried to make her LOOK like she was going nutty, but she really didn't.

It was strange and I'm not quite sure I'm okay with it. Losing a limb, would have had the same effect...without killing him.

Edit:

And I'm pleased to say I got over my weird fear from the cast being villians from Buffy and Angel. That was actually not so hard.
Although seeing Zoe in that dress at the end of Serenity gave me the creepies...she looked too much like Jasmine.

I think I liked the series better. There was a lot of the "fun" missing from the movie. I know why, but it wasn't as funny and it felt like they had gotten rid of some of the dirt and dust that made Firefly what it was.

Still, I was happy to get SOME answers. I'd liked more info about Book.

I have to ask if anyone else got tickled seeing Serenity "dressed up" like a Reaver ship? My husband looked at me like I had lost my mind, but I just thought it was so funny. Like seeing a two year old dress up for Halloween and really thinks he's SCARY! Or dressing a toy poodle up like a doberman. It was just adorably funny. At least as funny as seeing Mal dressed up like a companion. I guess they just made it too "cute" of a ship to look too "scary".

However, since Western Sci-Fi would have normally been very close to the bottom of the bucket of things I'd voluntarily watch and I got schnookered in within 5 minutes...I've got to be of the opinion that Joss, is indeed, a God-like person and I'm happy to be a rabid sheep who will, from now on, watch whatever he tells me to.