Serenity Review
by Courtney
Warning, spoilers ahead, don’t come crying to me if you find out who dies and who changes gender and who finds whom strangely attractive because of it and is forced to ask himself some very searching questions.
Everyone on the Internet loves Serenity. But why? Leigh and I decided to find out.
Actually, no. We went to Serenity because I didn’t want to see Corpse Bride and she didn’t want to see Saw II, and we both liked Buffy. So we bought our tickets and headed over to the line.
And then Leigh said, ‘Is that line for Serenity? Dude, I actually think it is.’
And lo, it was. And it was a weird line. As more and more people started lining up behind us, we started to notice just how weird it was. Two or three people seemed to have come in costume, if you can call three-piece suits and blue surgical gloves costume. One fellow we saw was either dressed up as a character from Firefly (the TV series that Serenity is based on) or really did have a nasty head wound.
So the line was weird. Full of sci-fi/Joss Whedon fanboys and girls. And here I have to say that if you like Firefly, you will probably like Serenity very much. All the reviews I’ve read that said the movie is the next best thing to the Second Coming have been written by people who liked Firefly.
Leigh and me, however, had not seen Firefly. Let the ominous music begin.
The weird line went inside and we got ourselves some awesome seats, then started chatting away. Suddenly, to my horror, I realised that in one of the rows below us a large gentleman in one of the natty suits mentioned earlier had a laptop open on the bench-like thing in front of him. On the laptop Firefly was playing. I was sure of it! I expressed my horror to Leigh, but she just rolled her eyes and told me he’d been doing that out in the line, and that I’d looked right at him more than once.
Oh, I said.
(Don’t worry, the review is coming. The ominous music is building.)
So we talked about this and that, and, as she does, Leigh laughed. Really loudly. And I swear, a whole row of young gents down the front turned right around to see what that was. A girl in the theatre! they cried. Absurd! Pish Posh! One guy’s monocle even fell out, I think. I don’t know. It was pretty dark.
Anyway the movie started, after the trailer for Aeon Flux. It looks awful.
And before I forget, there was the movie promotional poster dealie out the front. It said: They AIM to misbehave. Do you get it? Do you GET IT? AIM???
Also, while we were in the line I was wearing my Gryffindor scarf. It made my LOLing at the Firefly nerds that much more delicious.
Alright! Here’s what I thought of Serenity:
It was bollocks.
Leigh enjoyed it, and I kind of did too, but I enjoyed it in the way I do a really old Simpsons rerun. You know what I mean. When you don’t have anything better to watch, so you sit back and let it happen.
But I was absolutely livid at the same time. Everything was wrong with this movie, so I’m going to take it in sections.
Firstly, the characters. Oh Lord, the characters!
The first character to irritate me was River, the mentally disturbed psychic slash ass-kicking machine. She would not be the last. Okay, tee hee, mental people say funny things! She swallowed a bug? How adorably random! Also, how does she beat up Reavers? I mean, physically? The girl was a stick figure with an enormous head!
Simon was okay, because he shut up and did sod-all. You are okay by me, little Simon. Go your merry way! Go!
Well, I tell a lie. Simon did do one thing to annoy me, and that was fall for Kaylee, or as I like to call her, Space Jennifer Aniston. God she irritated me! Well gosh darn consarn it, I’m just a down-home gal YEE HAW! The hell with you, Space Aniston. I thought I’d read a spoiler on the Internet about her death, which consoled me during the first half of the movie, and enraged me during the second when I knew it for the dirty lie it was.
And then what’s his face, the one who got the chest ventilation right in the middle of his trademark line. I liked him. He was okay. But god damn him to hell for being the one who died! It should have been Spaniston!
The wife was okay too. But I suspect I would dislike both of them if they’d got anything like a reasonable amount of character development.
I liked Jayne, briefly. Then he went way over the top with his, you know, I’m a good guy yet I may do some very bad things because I am pretty bad but actually good at heart okay. Some stories do it well. This one didn’t.
Inara? I think that was her name. Sounded like Annora to me, but okay, that’s what I read on the Internet. She was a bloody stupid chook who managed to irritate me in very little screentime. We’re going to be fighting the evil empire ™? Golly, I’d better get changed! Time to put on my flowing robes and dangly earrings, tra la la! Oh, what is it that you say? We’re going to fight off hundreds of Reavers? You guys take the guns, I shall find myself a nifty little crossbow! Reloading? Reloading is for ugly people!
And I can’t explain how much I hate Mal. Mal? Or Space Han Solo? One of those characters is witty, awesome, badass, and human. The other is in Serenity. Could Spolo possibly have been more Hi, I’m a reckless jerk! My plans work because I get lucky! I’ll never get my crew killed, because I’m the wisecracking hero!
The bad guy whose name I can’t remember was boring. Boring I say! We’ve seen the bad guy with a skewed morality dealie before, and we’re sick of it.
(Make sure to keep reading for my awesome sci-fi book recommendations. Characters and plots and universes don’t have to be the same as everyone else’s movies, I promise. Serenity cannot wither nor Stargate stale SF’s infinite variety.)
The universe: Bugger that. It was every futuristic empire ever. And the bar in Space Tokyo was incredibly annoying. I said (like a jerk), ‘I liked this better the first time I saw it . . . when it was the cantina scene!’ Leigh didn’t push me off my chair, so I continued to make those comments right through the movie. I’m just horrible like that.
The plot was your standard stuff; there was a mystery, then a terrible secret of space, then a oh-look-we’re-all-going-to-die thing, then a million to one chance working out, then DEAR GOD WHY the bad guy has a chance of heart and the good guys’ efforts have pulled down the trousers of the evil empire so all of humanity can take a look, and they won’t like what they see.
BY GUM GUVNA THIS PLUCKY GANG OF RAG-TAG HEROES HAS FELLED AN EMPIRE!!!!!
And I hated the dialogue. Yes, I know people all over the world will think it was hilarious, but I was raised on the very finest comedy and I expect better. As Leigh said at the time, if you’ve seen Buffy you can pretty much tell what any character is about to quip. Not when. What. Which makes the whole thing a bit of an embarrassment, frankly.
Finally, the things I liked about Serenity. Yes, there were some things, stop arguing. I said stop arguing! I’ve got my eye on you and I swear to god, one more peep out of you . . .
I liked the bit on Miranda. It was okay. The reporter’s last videorecording, or hologram or whatever was well done. It was scary. And the surface of Miranda was eerie.
However! After they hear the reporter describe how the gases the Alliance added to Miranda’s atmosphere made people die, no one ever thinks hey, maybe we should put our space suits back on! Or not stay down here, breathing up all the atmosphere and such.
Also, the reporter says people on Miranda stopped fighting, then going to work, then living. If that’s so why were the dead people in the building (you know which one) all slumped over computers? Looked like work to me. And River said the people just lay down, which the computer slumpers hadn’t done either. Why would you lie to me, Joss Whedon?
I kind of liked the Reavers, but I like zombie movies. Anyway as it turned out they were just really pissed-off people, which is a lot less interesting. I guess they could be all right in the series though. Who knows.
In conclusion, screw you Serenity. And the hell with you, Joss Whedon, I expected better of you. Make a movie of Angel then maybe we can talk. Only don’t spoil the ending because I haven’t watched those episodes yet okay.
So! You read all that, and now is the time for you hard work to be lavishly rewarded. With books! Here, as promised, is my science fiction recommendation list. This is to prove that not all sci-fi needs to be as formulaic as Serenity. These books would make brilliant movies.
Glory Road
Robert Heinlein
The guy comes out of the army (I think after Vietnam) and doesn’t know what to do. But that’s okay, because a magical girl turns up with a quest and so forth. Heinlein is fantastic, you won’t be sorry you read this book. See how to use logic to solve real world problems! It’s been years since I read it but off you go.
Dune (then Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Chapter House Dune and another one whose name escapes me)
Frank Herbert
Dune is not for cabbages. If you’re not a cabbage, you will probably really enjoy Dune. It’s an alternate fantasy sci-fi sort of universe where spice is an immensely sought-after mind-altering substance that is found only on Arrakis, a planet commonly known as Dune. The House Atreides is given control of the planet, but horrible political things happen, Duke Leto Atreides is assassinated and only his concubine Jessica’s crazy ninja nun skills save their son, Paul. Paul Atreides turns out to be the chosen one prophesied by the Bene Gesserit (the aforementioned order of ninja nuns) to bring balance to the Force, or something. Anyway he has to find refuge with the native people of Arrakis, the Fremen. The Fremen take a lot of spice, which makes their eyes blue from edge to edge. But this is only the beginning! The books span centuries and planets. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. This is a much longer summary than the one for Glory Road. Oh, and I haven’t read the new Dune books by Frank Herbert’s son and some other guy. So I don’t recommend them because I don’t know they’re as good as the originals.
The Many-Coloured Land (then The Golden Torc, The Non-Born King, The Adversary, Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, Magnificat)
Julian May
I have a thing about this in a page of reviews I forgot to ever add to the site, so here’s a link to that. I can’t tell you how much you need to read these books. You are in very capable hands with Julian May, okay? Just trust me. Get the books. They’re packed with the most entertaining characters ever, and I’m fiercely attached to several of them. Read it for Aiken Drum, the trickster archetype. Read it for Mr. Betsy, the enormous ginger-bearded man who dresses in full Elizabeth I costume. Read it for the time-travel. Read it for the mythological in-jokes. I’m getting kind of upset now because of some things that happened in those books to some characters I liked and now I have to move on okay sorry.
The Walrus and the Warwolf
Hugh Cook
Also probably his other books, but I’ve only read a few of them. This was the first one I read, which was probably horribly inappropriate reading matter for a person of whatever age I was at the time. I think it was before I was ten, but I’m not sure. Anyway it’s kind of about pirates – horrible, nasty very very bad pirates – kind of about a futuristic half-sci-fi-half-fantasy sort of world, and almost entirely about the adventures of a young man named Drake Douay. He starts the book by going out to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. Gets roaring drunk, engages in battle with a fearsome watermelon stand, and chops down some royal trees. For this he is condemned to be rowed far out to sea and thrown overboard. Luckily for us, this is by no means the last of Drake’s misadventures. Written by a New Zealander, which explains a lot about it. You’ll probably feel a bit sick and a bit used reading it, but that’s literature for you.
That’s all I’m going to give you for now. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, it makes it annoying to see clichéd old rubbish like Serenity. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Lastly:
HAHA SERENITY NERDS THEY KILLED WASH AND BOOK AND YOU KNOW WHAT I’M GLAD THERE I SAID IT