Movie #3 of 2021:
Serenity (2005)
When the show Firefly was canceled — before the planned end of its first season, after airing its episodes all out of order — it left a lot of plotlines open and a lot of strengths on the table. Fans were outraged, and as the series gained further followers via its DVD release, it became enough of a nerdy cult classic that this big-budget revival / sequel was greenlit and ultimately released a few years on.
It’s a bit of a strange film, as much a conclusion to the preceding 14 hours of serialized narrative as a totally standalone adventure. The script is nimbly written for both halves of the bifurcated audience that that suggests: for those viewers who already know about these characters and their ‘verse and don’t want to sit through unnecessary exposition and the ones who do need at least a little hand-holding to properly set the scene. One of the big successes of the piece, in my opinion, is how it manages to satisfy those opposing demands to produce a title everyone can enjoy — which I can attest to, having actually been a member of each camp in turn myself.
For the familiar crowd, it’s pretty clear anyway that this is not just a super-sized installment of the television program. The tone is subtly different, more of a Star Wars-esque space opera than the sci-fi western of the small screen. The iconic theme song and similar cowboy musical cues are gone. The main cast members return in all their dusty glory and spouting the same clever Joss Whedon quips, but circumstances for a few have changed, and there’s no sign or mention of any of their previous friends, opponents, or even acquaintances. This project is definitely its own independent story, despite the background that many of us bring to it.
And what a story! It condenses the existing conflict and unused plans for later seasons to present a powerful galactic government seeking to recapture the escaped psychic they’ve experimented upon, while her shipmates race to figure out what secrets worth killing over might be locked inside her traumatized mind. The action is exciting, but it also enables a continued thematic exploration of the tensions between the rigid control of civilization and the anarchic liberty of the frontier. It’s a fine underdog tale too, with a freedom of information message that I remember playing well in the Bush-era protests of the time. The Operative is a fascinating new foe, one particular death is cruelly effective, and the whole thing functions as a far better sendoff to this franchise — give or take the subsequent comic books — than the original TV finale.
Of course, there are some issues. We’ve still got the orientalist set dressing and frequent Chinese code-switching without any meaningful presence of Asian performers on camera. The only evidence of Judaism in this future is a minor ally who stomps a glass in the video of his wedding to a sex robot. Shepard Book is sort of awkwardly squeezed into the picture and then poorly-utilized. And the plot beats are almost too frenetic to address everything in full, as though the creative team knew this was their last big chance to wrap up the continuity and didn’t have room to let anything breathe. The cracks are apparent, the closer you look.
Mostly it all works, however. A propulsive interplanetary sprint is not such a bad framework, and the representation is disappointing but unsurprising given the identical situation in the earlier run. Overall, this is a great final showing for the crew of the Serenity, and one I’d say holds up today.
[Content warning for jump scares, gore, cannibalism, and suicide.]
★★★★☆
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