CONTINUITY

• Book and Inara have both left Serenity at this point, establishing that the film is set a while after the series, previously thought to have been six months ago. Mal tells Simon that he’s sheltered the Tams for eight months, a time that seems to be impossible when considering the chronology of the show. As a result, no clear time since the series’ end is established in the movi

• Simon and Kaylee finally get it on in the movie after avoiding their mutual attraction throughout the series.

• Inara has been at the Companion training ground for some time. She did indeed leave following the series and the comic book. She’s back onboard Serenity by the movie’s end, and Mal openly admits at one point that she distracts him.

• Book has established a community called Haven on a moon relatively close to Reaver territory. He is not mentioned as being a member of the crew, but is greeted as such. He knows of the Operative and his methods, hinting that he was a former Alliance Operative himself. He dies during the movie, leaving questions unanswered.

• The origin of the Reavers is revealed: they were an experiment by the Alliance to create the perfect human, which ultimately went wrong. That is the secret that River has carried and what has made her insane. She gleaned the information from key officials of Parliament that visited her during her experimentation, which was probably a continuation of the project and an attempt to develop her into an assassin. She’s also been coded with subliminal messages that set her assassinations off.

• During his initial scene over the cortex with Inara, a scar can be seen on Mal’s chest, which he got when Crow threw his blade at him in The Train Job.

• During the funeral scene, Zoë can be seen wearing a slinky dress, an allusion to Shindig, when Wash told her that he would buy her a slinky dress.

PRODUCTION

• Serenity had a budget of $40 million. It was announced as greenlit on March 2nd 2004, by Universal, who had bought the rights to it from FOX. All nine principal cast members from the series were announced as returning for the movie. Shooting was completed on September 17th 2004.,,,Although critics of Firefly have been skeptical that a major motion picture based upon a short-lived series has a chance at success, fans of the series hope that the film might lead to, if not a revival of the series, at least a film franchise.

In addition to traditional advertisement methods, Universal sought a few unique approaches to promoting the film. Hoping to generate buzz through early word-of-mouth, Universal launched an unprecented 3-stage campaign to sneak-preview the movie in 35 US cities where the television series had earned high Nielsen Ratings. The first stage of screenings was held in 10 cities on May 5, 2005. The second stage, held on May 26, 2005, added an additional 20 cities and was also the source of controversy when individual theatres began selling tickets before the official announcement was released, leading some shows to be sold out before being announced. The third round of screenings, with an additional 5 cities, was held on June 23, 2005. The screenings proved a success, with all three stages selling out in less than 24 hours, the second-stage screening in DC sold out in a mere 22 minutes.

Australian audiences were the first outside North America to get preview screenings. After an exclusive Sydney test screening, Melbourne held a public screening on July 21, 2005. This was followed by a film festival screening on the Gold Coast on July 22. Public preview screenings were held in Adelaide and Sydney on August 1, and Perth on August 4. Further screenings were held in Victoria, Tasmania, and Queensland in late August. Preview screenings were also held in the United Kingdom on August 24, in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Dublin. Several of the screenings in all the countries featured the attendance of Joss Whedon and the film's cast, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Whedon also attended two Q&A sessions after sold-out screenings of the finished film in Melbourne and Sydney on September 12 and 13.

Universal also utilized a viral marketing campaign, producing five short videos that were "released" on the internet between August 16 and September 5. These short films depicted excerpts of counselling sessions with the character River Tam while she was being held at a "learning facility" known only as "The Academy". The counsellor in these sessions is played by Joss Whedon himself. Taking place before the events of the movie or the television series, the videos shed some light on the experiments and torture "The Academy" conducted on River, "documenting" her change from a shy child prodigy to the mentally unstable character of the series.

RECEPTION

• Serenity was critically acclaimed, getting "Two Thumbs Up" from Ebert & Roeper and The San Franscisco Chronicle calling it a triumph, while The New York Times described it as a modest but superior science fiction film. Many critics praised the film as fun and smart, providing a clever mix of genres while also harkening back to classic sci-fi adventures. Though other reviewers felt the film was unable to overcome its television origins, and while perhaps being an amiable spin-off, it did not successfully accomplish the transition to the big screen. 

Serenity has received a fresh rating of 80% from the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes. It has also been well received by users of IMDb, who have rated the film well enough for it to gain a spot on IMDb's list of the top 250 movies of all time. But despite the reviews and unique marketing strategies, the film came in at #2 its opening weekend, earning $10.1 million from 2,188 theatres, a $4,610 per screen average. While the opening weekend numbers failed to meet some expectations, Universal Pictures, the movie's distributor, noted that "the opening was where we thought it would be."

TRIVIA

• The safe word phrase that Simon uses to shut River down, "Eta kooram nah smech", is a Russian expression ("Это курам на смех"). Literally, it means, "That's laughter for chickens;" colloquially, it means, "That's absurd."

• Several references to the movie Forbidden Planet exist, including the name of the failed colony, Miranda (the name of Prospero's daughter in The Tempest, which Forbidden Planet is based upon), and the vessel labelled C57D, which was the name of the main spacecraft in Forbidden Planet.

• Renowned comic book artist Bernie Wrightson, co-creator of Swamp Thing, contributed concept drawings for the Reavers. Other comic book artists who contributed to the production design include Joshua Middleton and Leinil Yu.

THE COMIC BOOK

• Bridging the gap between the end of the television series and the beginning of the movie is a three-issue comic book series titled Serenity. The comic is written by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, illustrated by Will Conrad and Laura Martin, and published by Dark Horse Comics.

The story focuses on the crew of Serenity taking a salvage job from Badger following a botched theft on a backwater planet, and the pursuit of River by the omninous blue-gloved men seen in the television series. The story is considered part of the Firefly/Serenity canon. Each issue of the series features three different covers, with each cover featuring one of the nine main characters, each by a different illustrator, including Joe Quesada, Bryan Hitch, Tim Bradstreet and John Cassaday.

The first issue was published in July 2005, and the final one appeared in September. The comics quickly sold out on release, with both the #1 and #2 issues going into second printings.

Serenity

Those Left Behind (Part 1) | Those Left Behind (Part 2) | Those Left Behind (Part 3)

Synopsis | Continuity, Notes and Trivia