Wow.
Five parts of an extended Firefly episode, leavened with one part Aliens, one part Bourne Identity, and one part Magnificent Seven. A rich dense-pack of suspense, humor, philosophy, action, blood, gore, shiny bits, love, hate, anger, violence, heroism.
I’m sure the bruises from Margie’s fingers digging into my leg will fade in a week or so.
Joss introduced the film (on film, not live, alas) with a fine little monologue that I hope to God is on the DVD when it’s released.
I have no idea if this movie will be a commercial success, just because it’s not a movie — it’s a collapsed version of three seasons of the highlights of a series that never was allowed to be, all rewoven into something that works, but is not like any traditional, simple, straightforward action flick that a non-Firefly-watching audience would expect. There will be those who criticize it for relying too much on knowledge of the TV series, and I can’t answer that charge because I’m too knowledgeable of it myself.
But, damn, that was a wrenchingly fine couple of hours. And if there’s a chance that those critics are wrong, it’s worth your time to go see it, even if you’re not a Firefly fan. (And, if you’re not, let me know — I’ve a DVD set that might change your mind.)
There’s not a lot that could be cut here. It feels almost too tight as it is. If cuts are needed for length (it was just a scosh over two hours, I think), I hope Joss is the one who gets to make them. The biggest question is, how can some of the major spoilers not be spoiled in the next four months. I have no idea. But they will not be revealed here (and I will redact or delete any comment I think qualifies as such, something I am generally loathe to do).
I have no idea, even if the film is a success, how they can craft a sequel, given what’s resolved here one way or another. But, then, Joss is good at having ideas I don’t, so I trust he can.
Expect the unexpected, especially when you least expect it. And then realize that the point is you won’t know what to expect. Except some damn fine entertainment.
To avoid being spoilery – yeah, what you said.
Did any of the cast come to your showing? We had Sean Maher and Morena Baccarin come to the Boston show. They stayed afterwards and signed lobby cards, but alas I had a 60+ minute ride home and work this AM. If it had been Adam or Jewel, I would have stayed 🙂
Alas, no, no cast members in Denver (at least none that were there openly). Since both I and De had to get up at 5 this morning, our quartet left pretty quickly to go back and rescue the sitter (Rachel and Katherine seem to have had a very fine evening) and hit the sack.
To Joss’ credit, there was wild cheering and laughter all during his introductory video, all of which cut off as soon as he continued to say anything. Folks wanted to hear what he had to say.
Yeah the same thing happened at our showing. It was like a switch, as soon as he opened his mouth to continue – instant silence.
Xkot’s review (non-spoilery through the comments as of the moment): they got Nathan Fillian and Ron Glass in Austin (I’m beginning to feel left out, though it doesn’t sound like Chicago had anyone, either; Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres were in San Francisco; Adam Baldwin was in Seattle; I saw reference to Joss and Summer Glau being in Vegas).
AICN very spoilery reviews here. One worthy note:
Much has been said so far about how certain characters get pushed to the back and how a film simply can’t support nine main characters. While it’s true some characters are less focal than others (notably Shepard Book and Wash, and Kaylee to an extent), every character is given several moments to shine. And when these characters are on screen, they are so well-defined – and there is so much truth to them – that the film would seem empty without them. However small their part may be, they are all integral.
Agreed.
For those wondering, btw, the movie is about 99% complete — the music track is not finished (what’s there isn’t bad, but it can use some punching up and twanginess to bring it on par with the series), the print was rough, and the sound tended to drop out on occasion. But the fx were all in place, and any roughness did not detract.
There is (at least one one place — it was inconsistent) sound in space. I know this is a huge bug-a-boo for some folks. Didn’t particularly bother me, though I wouldn’t mind it going away (if you told me this was part of the “test” showing, I wouldn’t be surprised; I also wouldn’t be surprised if music replaced it in the one scene I noticed it).
The more I consider things, the more I worry, though, that this movie will not engage as well for newcomers to Firefly. A lot of the drama depends on knowing something about the relationships present — Zoe to Mal, Zoe to Wash, Book to Mal, Inara to Mal, Kaylee to Simon, etc. There’s some stuff in there to address it, but I’m not sure it’s enough for someone who walks in cold to be fully enough impacted by where those relationships are and where they move to in the film. While it’s nice that we don’t get hit by a recap bat, I still see this as a problem.
That said, some folks I’ve read have wondered why the movie, which is so ready, got pushed back to September when Sith and WotW will be out this summer. The fact is, though, Serenity isn’t a movie in competition with those epics; it’s not an epic (and some of the bits of the movie that work the least are those of epic proportion), but a set of character-driven stories in an sf setting. The comparisons, because of the sf label, though, will be to Spielberg and Lucas — and, frankly, Serenity can’t go toe-to-toe with those films on expectations and grandeur (and doesn’t need to).
One of the things the movie finally seems to settle is the cosmology of the setting — the ‘Verse is apparently a single system of planets, dozens of them, many (most?) of them terraformed, with loads of moons. Travel, including by Serenity, is intra-system. The “core worlds” are those, well, evidently, close in to the sun.
Um … okay.
Well, while it gets around the whole FTL drive thing (though how they got there from Earth-That-Was is not discussed in detail), it still seems a bit goofy. I mean, you can terraform Earth-sized planets, I might posit, but the planetary setup here seems extremely dubious (the whole sunlight question being one thing finnessed), as well as the question of what remains out on the fringe seeming even more odd.
I realize that Joss probably needed to settle things for the movie, but even if FTL drive is an unscientific trope, it’s at least an accepted one, whereas this one seems not so much.
I don’t think it will bother most people, though.
Hey Dave, I posted some thoughts and stuff about the Austin screening over at my LiveJournal, linked in the URL there. I emailed you in the morning, but feared I goofed on your email address.
You mentioned the fact that the resolution of the film makes a sequel impossible. Ron and Nathan alluded to the fact that, should the film take off and another film become a possibility, it would likely be a prequel. Some point between the end of the series and the film.
We can discuss specific comments over email, if you like.
Oh, and PS, there’s no spoilers over there, either.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/reytheist/102857.html, to make it easier for people to click on.
Rrg. Some locations seem to have gotten swag (miniposters, keychains). Nada in Denver. No stars. No swag.
But a great gorram movie.
You mentioned the fact that the resolution of the film makes a sequel impossible. Ron and Nathan alluded to the fact that, should the film take off and another film become a possibility, it would likely be a prequel. Some point between the end of the series and the film.
Hey, Rey!
Hmmm. I didn’t say it was impossible (though it would be, perforce, different), but that’s an interesting idea. Not sure how the viewing audience would treat it.
In attendance from our local circle: Margie, me, Doyce, Jackie, Dave, Lori, Randy, Stan, John B., Lee, De, and a few other (gaming?) folk I didn’t recognize.
With the size of the group, we were kind of scattered in smaller clusters. At one point Doyce walked up to us, and we began (Lori started it) chanting “Doyce! Doyce! Doyce! Doyce!” Which got echoed by a couple of people behind us, who turned out to know him (the Firefly/SF/Gaming/Con circle in Denver not being *that* huge).
I had my “Big damn heroes/Ain’t we just” tee on. Doyce had the Firefly promo tee I picked up for him at the SDCC a couple of years back (neither of had our FF caps). Randy and Lori both had Serenity tees. Geissinger had his Blue Sun tee. Doyce and Jackie passed out “Keep Flying” buttons.
Didn’t take a pic in line, for some odd reason. Actually, ran back into the house just as we left to grab my camera (in case there were Stars), left it in the van over by Red Robin, got in line, remember it, walked back there with Jackie, brought it back, got told they were not allowing in any cameras, took it back to Stan’s car, left it there when we left. 🙂
For me…
Things I noticed:
Some of the start of the movie was a bit too rough (not cleaned up rough cuts I would expect, underexposed, CGI a bit too rough).
After a series worth of doing a wonderful job of not having sound in space, to have bloot, bloots and boom, was a bit annoying. I wouldn’t mind just having music there, interspersed with all of the sounds of chaos from the various ships involved when inside of those ships. Much more of a dramatic effect…Silence….WERwerdfbnjehb…Silence….sdhfbuhbfhef…Silence.
But, I expect that that was a studio request that hopefully Joss will be able to disabuse them of prior to the final release.
And yes, the cosmology STILL bugs me on oh so many levels, but for a RPG verse it would just be mechanics (“out of gas” still sucks though).
It would be very easy to do a sequel based on that ending, still lots o’ unresolved issues.
My final thoughts:
Daaaamn….
I! Want! More!
This is one of those series that I had every intention of watching, but never got around to. Several of my buddies who are fellow Sci-Fi fans did their best to get me to watch it, but the series was well underway by then and I caught all of one episode before it was canceled.
Still, I have the box set on my wish list and once I’m employed again I hope to squeeze out enough spare cash to pick it up and check it out from the beginning. Your enthusiasm for it has piqued my interest.
Les…
Too bad you don’t live here…because you’d have at least 3 copies of the series thrust in you general direction right now.
P.S. Here’s hoping that you get a job offer soon!
Also…
So. Very. Jelous of Rey for getting swag and having Nathan and Ron at the showing.
Julia’s comments here.
Denver tickets for the second screening are at http://www.movietickets.com/pre_purchase.asp?house_id=4162&movie_id=50511&showdate=17.
A pretty spoilered review — but one that I can stand behind at least 95% — can be found here. Warning: It’s preceded by a (presumably) just-as-spoilered review of Sith, which I quickly scrolled past.