Metaplanar Babel

Damn you, Joss Whedon!

*cough*

Finally saw Serenity. It was awesome. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. If you have, go see it again!

More later, when it’s had time to fully digest.

The following is pretty much all going to be spoilers, so ah.. don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the movie.

Never more will the treacherous T-rex make his inevitable betrayal. Never more will Wash lighten the mood of the crew in times of terrible stress. Of all the characters on board Serenity, Wash is the one I would have wanted to lose the least. Damn you, Joss Whedon!

Anyway, as I said before, the movie was absolutely fantabulous. The story was friendly to the folks who’d never seen the series, but showed hidden depths to those who had. It was the little things that intrigued me about the show, and I was glad to see the movie was much the same way. The bond between Simon and River is fascinating, perhaps more so to me because I don’t have any siblings - I was glad River finally had a chance to return Simon’s loyalty in a very significant way. I also found the few interactions between Mal and River to be very interesting - I find myself wondering where JW is going with that. Is River finally going to take a more active role in things, as it seems? I was a little disappointed in how little a role Inara had, but the scene where Mal gripes that he wishes Inara was anywhere but on his ship was priceless and a perfect example of Mal’s inner conflict between doing what’s right and surviving at all costs.

Really, the movie had to be about the little things, with so many important characters. The fact that JW managed to get so many little bits of personality across in the relatively short span of the movie while still working in an “epic” overlaying plot seems pretty amazing to me. The characters seem so real to me - though I can see how they might not have seemed that way to someone new to the setting.

The one other thing that I was very mildly disappointed with was that there was far less “western” styling to the movie than we saw in the series. The only real western flavor was found in Haven - so many of the other cities and planets we saw were very technological. I guess that was JW’s attempt to placate the newcomers, but I missed the frontier towns; that cross of science fiction and old western were a huge part of what made the series so unique. That said, I think what was done with the movie made a lot of sense and fit pretty well, I’m just nostalgic a bit for the old-timeyness of the series.

Overall, the movie rocked. There was a nice mixture of humor, sadness, and intensity. I’ve read a few reviews that really liked the “dogfight” near the end, and I have to agree with them. Of course, there was the nice contrast between the chaotic nature of Serenity’s drop into atmo at Mr. Universe’s place and Wash calmly saying “I am a leaf on the wind, see how I fly”. I was so unprepared for that phrase to be followed by a harpoon through the hull.. Cruinh pointed out a bit of foreshadowing to this from earlier in the movie, but I missed it. Damn you, Joss Whedon! All I can say is, there better be a sequel and/or return of the series. I’ll be waiting most impatiently.