Come anticipate Serenity with me!

"So pleasant are the Browncoats that at the screening Sarah McKinlay--a woman wearing a floor-length dress and a vest inscribed with quotes from various Whedon shows--gives handwritten thank-you cards to the studio publicist and theater personnel. Handwritten thank-you cards. The studio flack, acclimated to the more, shall we say, adolescent behavior of other sci-fi fans, looked as though he might cry."

Yeah, the characters endear themselves fairly quickly.

when i booked my tix for edinburgh, duder said '... and congratulations for not buying tickets for the joss whedon film'. wonder if he meant 'aka it's shit'.

A. It wasn't my first instinct. And then I realized, again, I'm making this movie as a singular event for people who've never seen the show, with an understanding there will never be another. Now, that doesn't mean there will never be another - that means you have to make your movie that way. Taking out some beloved characters means that everybody's life is on the table. Without that, the last half-hour is a bunch of noise to me.

joss whedon interview in the ny times

Screw A History of Violence--THIS is the English speaking film of the year, not counting the cursing in Chinese.

It's a delightful film. If you're not charmed, I mail you fifty cents--FIFTY cents, cold cash. Change.

I've been watching the series and it's been growing on me but I feel that, like the series, this movie might be doomed to a small cult audience. To me, this should be a big summer EVENT type sci-fi film but it looks like the studio is content to pitch it to nerdy existing fans which I think is kind of sad. I think if they pitched it as "OMG, big amazing exploding spaceship extravaganza" it might convert a bigger audience but pushing the clever-clever Whedon dialog angle isn't going to win anyone over.

If they pitch it the wrong way, it dies on word of mouth alone (cf. Starship Troopers, where everyone went in expecting straight sci-fi/action and came out pissed).

This film was a crowd pleaser. Plenty of gunfire and explosions and PERILOUS SITUATIONS! Swords too! For sure there was snappy dialogue, but it wasn't ninety minutes of the characters sitting around mouthing variations on 'well shit, ain't i just too witty for words?".

I don't know, the show is pretty satisfying on those terms. I think if you get the mainstream audience in there it might not be totally what they expect but they might like it anyway. I'm sure it's more exciting than Nu Star Wars.

If they pitch it the wrong way, it dies on word of mouth alone (cf. Starship Troopers, where everyone went in expecting straight sci-fi/action and came out pissed).

Hmm, I guess. I don't see how it can hurt though because the fans will see it anyway.

If you advertise it as super-blammo sci-fi and people come out going 'that kind of sucked, it wasn't serious action at all' and then your comedy and satire become flaws rather than the point of your movie (again, I'm thinking of the Starship Troopers backlash). But if you advertise it as wise-cracking outlaws (who just happen to be in space), the audience won't be surprised.

When I first saw the trailers, I was actually surprised at how sci-fi they made it look, but Whedon says elsewhere the Old West mythologizing has been cut back heavily (too bad).

are you nuts that was the worst thing about the show

It puts the opera in space opera. It's like the Whedon of the last episode of Buffy--in particular her monologue and the montage of girls rising up.

And it has no compunctions about it. And he has a crew to pull it off. It's like...Mr Smith Goes to Space, basically.

Damn if that ain't kinda OTM. But with more pathos.

this morning hurt us both.

How about late-ish, 8.30 or 9? Can I confirm tomorrow? I'm taking a night class w/ my downstairs neighbor & have to check the times, think I'll be done by 7.30 but want to be sure.

We're taking a bigass posse to Manhattan Friday night AND Saturday afternoon.

It's all part of his weird Kitty Pride fetish.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1109313-1,00.html

Most of the other things that stuck out to me would constitute spoilers, so I guess they'll have to wait.

I didn't care for Mal's tone. One of the best things about the show is the sense of family and camraderie in the crew. (Kaylee refers to this during the movie, even.) But in this he's much darker, threatening to shoot crew members, boot the doctor, etc.. Logical, having seen Shepherd Book dead and all - but I don't think the darkness was ever earned dramatically. It seemed more like a plot device, like he had to be darker than Han Solo/Indiana Jones but still good at heart. And there were flashes, like the end, of the TV show Mal, who was much more likable as an archetypal rogue hero.

The deaths would have been even bigger shocks if every major reviewer didn't mention that MAJOR CHARACTERS DIE, and even then they aren't irreplaceable. It's not like Mal died, or even River.

Really hated cinematography of those Minority Report-blown out-soft focus scenes inside River's head. Yuck.

more spoiler space

.

Jack Greene is anything but a TV DP. The only TV-looking bit--that is, wide coverage mixed with medium close-ups--was the bar scene which to me looked like Joss saving money.

How was Wash a mystery? Book--you could have gone either way. It seems very Whedon that his mystery stays unexplained.

Christ--I'm a nerd.

A lot of the shots were blocked to fit small-screen dimensions. This didn't hurt too much most of the time - just looked like in Whedon's future people will have smaller "personal space" zones, but it did detract from both of the Mal/Operative mano a mano combat sequences, which offer two men fighting but little sense of the space they're fighting within.

Book--you could have gone either way. It seems very Whedon that his mystery stays unexplained.

I dunno. His mysterious past stays fuzzy in the details, but it seems pretty clear that he represents a likely possible future for the Operative, just as the Operative represents a likely possible past for Book (and, like Early in Objects, a possible v1.0 of River).

Oh, and best movie of the year so far for me, for all of the terribly old-fashioned reasons that make Whedon such a strong craftsman.

That would be pretty all of Act III then...

Looks to be a flop over here - opened at #2 with weak numbers and fell to #8 on Friday's numbers.

As many a Joss-directed episode of Buffy and the "Objects in Space" episode of Firefly show, Whedon has a really unique visual sense with a clear debt to Depalma and early Goddard.

The TV-ish aspects of Serenity are, I think, purely a function of budget and priority. He'll always choose chracter and performance over everything else.

He visibly didn't have the cash for very large sets, or extra for digital 'extensions' of what he did have (with the exception of some long shots on the Miranda planet.)

So when in doubt, he falls back on TV-style cost cutting, blocking, as noted, pretty close to avoid showing the oft-teensy sets or using simple camera moves that would do the same.

If you want to appreciate how good he can be visually, there's the terrific opening one-er shot, where the camera moves through the spaceship (and so establishing its parameters and character) while also introduing us to each chracter in some defining moment--all without an edit.

For composition, there's the great visual gag where he starts close on Kaylee and Simon starting to have sex and pulls back--implying The Big Rhapsodic Love Moment--only to leave enough room at the top of the frame for River to peer curiously down at their fevered rutting. Great stuff.

Here's the longest version of an interview I did with him that ran in a few places:

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=8369

Budget? What a cop out. The spaceships, sets and everything all looked realistic enough. What was lacking was any decent production design to show us something new rather than a weak pastiche of the Stars War & Trek. Visually there was just no imagination to the film which is too bad because otherwise I think it could have been big.

otm! i still enjoyed it, though.

"co-written" - did he tell you who's been ghosting then?

I started watching the show again on DVD, there are a few more weak spots than I remember (the doctor is a terrible actor), but River is much funnier than I remembered and some episodes are just mind-blowingly brilliant (Our Mrs. Reynolds, for instance).

Yes, it made complete sense. There's some pretty brief exposition at the start and then you're straight into the action. There was nothing where I felt confused by what was happening.

I'll definitely be getting the series on DVD now too.

It was very, very good indeed!

They should have had Saffron in the movie!

I don't necessarily agree with that (I'm not sure what you were looking for - is it even possible to break out of the way we think spaceships will look?),

Absolutely! It's not just about how spaceships look though but how buildings and clothings look, what the music and sound design is like, what the lighting and color pallete are, etc.

but the show's Western theme did offset some of the generic futurism that you find in sci-fi.

I think the westernisms are the weakest part of the show though there were slightly less of a presence in the movie. I agree with you that the western themes were an attempt to break out of a generic sci fi mold but to me it feels like a very poorly executed gimmick rather than a genuinely unique vision of the future.

I've read all his X-Men comics and so on. I'm not sure why. I didn't care about any elements of the story or characters.

"Ain't had nothin' twixt my neithers in more'n a year that ain't run on batteries"

Martin OTM. I watched the first two episodes on Sunday, and am not convinced that I need to see any more or the film.

i watched the double-length pilot and then watched it again with the commentary on marvelling at Joss pointing out all the things i just didn't see on the first viewing. watched the rest of them in the space of a week or so.

the 'Bodies In Space' episode is a) great and b) also works as another introduction to the characters, give that a go. (again the commentary is excellent)

'Bodies In Space' is the last episode, yes?

Jayne = Sabretooth on a leash, ergo awesome.

Book wasn't available for all the filming, according to one inteview i read, which probably accounts for the downplaying.

why doesn't joss whedon just write fucking musicals for crying out loud?

LOOKS LIKE A REAVER, SMELLS LIKE A REAVER, MUST BE A REAVER, IN MY DREAM
DOOT DA DOOT DOO DOO DOODADOO DADOO-DOO

Answer: "burn the land and boil the sea ... since I found serenity"

I always thought fifth element was pretty cheeky and now in comparison it seems like greg bear wrote it

meaning star wars ep 4-6 is now actually based on hal clement's Mission of Gravity

I always thought fifth element was pretty cheeky and now in comparison it seems like greg bear wrote it

-- El Tomboto, Thursday, January 31, 2008 2:27 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

lol

I tried reading "Eon" once. I got about halfway through and couldnt work out wtf was going on anymore and gave up.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61cpOY0saTL._AA280_.jpg

This is about to be on telly, is it worth watching if you haven't seen Firefly?

(Sorry if this is covered already, didn't read the thread in case of spoilers.)

I don't know what having seen the show would add to the experience but I thought it was really good and seemed like a standalone film.

Cool, thanks, will give it a go. May end up only half-watching anyway as I'm bloody knackered.

it's more poignant after the series

yeah, it's an okay sci-fi flick but better as a conclusion to the series if you're already invested