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thebratqueenOkay, final Serenity post. Herein is my review of Serenity. If you're looking for an EXTREMELY SPOILER FILLED RECAP of the movie you can go here. If you're looking for a spoiler free review you can go here.
This is now my detailed review of the movie - what works, what doesn't, etc. THERE ARE SEVERE, I AM NOT KIDDING, BIG-TIME SPOILERS TO BE FOUND HERE. I'm talking everything from plot points to camera angles. DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSPOILED!!!
Okay, now to get into the nitty gritty of the film.
The film works. When I watched it I kept the idea in the back of my mind of trying to look at it like somebody who'd never seen Firefly before, never heard of Joss before, but was curious about the film and wanted to try it. I think that person will like it.
What really works for the film is that it's smart in a way I think audiences would like a genre movie to be smart. It takes cliches and makes the characters aware of them. Granted, this is a classic Joss technique, but remember this is one of the first times people are really going to see that technique on the big screen. They don't realize the influence he had on stuff like Toy Story and the one line of X-Men that everyone liked.
This is part of why I think it's going to do so well with the time of release it has. Granted, there's always the chance that the audience will be fickle and tired of scifi movies by then. But if it came out now Star Wars would have destroyed it. It would've been a pip squeak next to a giant. But by September you may have enough people who are tired of Star Wars, but still interested in a fresh approach.
It's basically a crap shoot, I think. Either they're going to be so tired of Star Wars that any sci fi movie will only be annoying, or they'll be just the right amount of tired of Star Wars where a movie of the same genre can come in and capture their interest by showing that it doesn't have any of the weaknesses that Star Wars has.
The big-time one will of course be the dialogue. Now I'll be the first to tell Joss to dial down the quips, but Firefly has just the right amount of it. What's key is that the quips don't work as "Oh look how clever we are." but rather as more realistic dialogue. If the quippiness of Buffy worked because the audience wished it could be that verbally clever, the quippiness of Firefly works because it pops balloons into the very parts of scifi that often push people away. The characters are not impressed by the epic pomposity around them, thus they feel more like real people to us than they do like archetypes.
Another big thing that I think will stand out to people is the setup. Mal is not a classic hero. He doesn't come on with a hero's theme and get lit dramatically. He's got the dedication of his crew but he's not Star Trek perfect. Also you have the mix of characters and character types, which again is something that would've caught people's attention on TV if the show had been given a chance. But it's still in evidence in the movie and I think that will appeal to people. The mix of male/female in particular is going to be very striking. Geeky girls are not new to the genre, but you have a cute girl who knows mechanics and cheerfully talks about using vibrators. Female security officers aren't new, but you have a sexy woman who's possibly more bad-ass than the captain yet still has a loving relationship with her husband.
I could go on and on but if you're reading this you know the characters so you get the idea. I think the layers of the characters will be instantly evident to people and will appeal to them. I think it'll be a "click" in their minds of them wondering why nobody has ever tried this before.
You also have things like the gritty realism - things are dirty, the ship isn't perfect, etc. It harkens back to the early Star Wars and how the ships of the rebels weren't perfect either. It was touches like that which helped to make Star Wars connect to people, and which helped push it away when the later movies came out. The later movies were pretty, but not real. This feels real.
The behind the scenes work is also phenominal. By the end of the movie Mal has had the ever-living shit kicked out of him and the makeup on him is just gorgeous. He's dirty, he's bloody, one of his eyes is all fucked up - amazing job on the part of the makeup team.
The fight sequences are also extremely good. River's ballet-fu is a beautiful thing to behold and will also probably make people sit up and realize this is not your average scifi film. The other fights of the film are also well choreographed, and don't come off as feeling too "stunty" like the later Buffy fight sequences did.
And I must, must give props to the oner that Joss pulls off when we get onto Serenity itself. I know he adores them, I know he can abuse them, but this is just amazingly done. Take the oner that opened up Angel s5: it was good, it took skill, it did convey the idea of the flow of life at the W&H offices but it did occasionally have to employ unnatural camera movement in order to maintain the shot. I'm not saying that makes it horrible, I'm just saying that as good as it was it did hit up against the boundaries of what a oner can do.
The Serenity oner, however, is perfect. The camera moves naturally - so much so that I'd be willing to bet that many won't even realize this is one single shot. I don't know that I would have realized it if part of my brain wasn't keyed in to notice whenever Joss does this. Heck, for all I know they buried some edits in there when the camera pans past solid parts of the set, but OTOH I doubt it because why set up the dynamic of a oner and not do a oner?
The whole thing - I can't do it justice to talk about it but the flow, the movement, who you focus on and when and why, what's going on in the foreground, what's going on in the background - perfect. Absolutely perfect. And it does exactly what a oner is supposed to do, which is give an idea of the flow of life inside of the ship at that moment, while at the same time giving you an idea of the ship. We travel up, down, all around and Serenity the ship becomes a real thing to us. The set isn't a set. We're in a ship and we believe we're in a ship. Nothing else could convey the same emotion.
It's the twisting of cliches that leads into things like Wash's death, and I want to talk about that for a sec b/c I know there were those who felt this was classic Joss gratuitous killing. It's not. I know it feels like that because it comes seemingly out of nowhere, but really it doesn't. See, Tara is arguably a gratuitous death because her death is a random act to set off a plot point that Joss felt couldn't happen any other way. (I'm not saying that's the be-all end-all interpretation of Tara's death, I'm just citing it as one example of many of Joss's schtick of "I did the unexpected without realizing you so expected me to do that because doing stuff like that is my schtick.")
Wash's death has the trappings of a death like Tara's, but taken for what it is it really isn't. Book's death is arguably like that but Wash's isn't.
See here's the thing, and this ties right back into why I think people are going to watch this and realize this is not your average scifi film: Book's is the death you expect. Book's the redshirt. He and Mr. Universe are the ones you expect to die. These are the deaths that the audience might be sad about, but won't be shocked by. They're the "safe" deaths which are starting to become meaningless in storytelling. I'm not saying it isn't sad that Book dies, or that Mr. Universe dies, I'm just saying that to the audience who doesn't know the show these are the deaths that they're just going to nod their heads to.
Wash, however, takes things up another level. His death has a greater impact because we thought we saw the obligatory deaths. This goes right back to how the entire movie is about taking the cliches and breaking new ground. The main crew isn't supposed to die. Now I know, Joss does that. He's killed Jesse, and Doyle. But this story needed a death. This story exists on its own and needs to tell the audience that big shit is happening, scary stuff is going on. The scene with Simon and River would be a cliche if not for Wash's death. We don't believe that Simon and Zoe and Kaylee might die if not for Wash dying.
Now I'm not saying that only has meaning for the stuff that happens later. I'm not saying Wash is a sacrifice for the gods of River kicking Reaver ass. I'm saying that Joss can't come into this story expecting to coast on his reputation. For the audience we're trying to attract he effectively has no reputation. He's got to show them that when he tells them that a situation is dangerous, the situation is dangerous. You can't do that and have everybody come out in one piece. One piece is fake danger. And frankly that holds true even for those of us who know about Jesse, and Doyle, and Tara, and so on. It's the old saw of writing: show, don't tell. We need to see that our protagonists are facing danger, making sacrifices, and truly making significant choices when they say they're going to do what they do. That doesn't work if it's just words, and it doesn't work if all that happens is some attractive bruising and the occasional limp.
Now, that being said, there are some things that if you know Joss do leave you rolling your eyes. For starters I hope some dear friend pulls him aside and tells him to edit out some of the five million shots of River's feet because there's having a fetish and then there's making your own personal kink porno film and airing it for all of the world to see. Nothing wrong with your own personal kink porno film, I'm just saying I suspect he doesn't realize how embarassing it's going to be to have everyone aware of this.
Also there's the repetition. I was telling the girls I saw it with that I was starting to get an Anne Ricey vibe off of Joss. See, when Anne created the character of Claudia you read about her and thought to yourself how interesting it was for an author to explore the idea of an adult trapped in a child's body, including the implications of what adult sexuality would be like for someone in a non-adult form. Then you read all of Anne's other books (god help you) and realized that it's not so much Anne having this avant guade approach as it is that no, she just likes writing about little girls who have sex.
Joss is starting to give me the same vibe. Buffy was cool as the idea of the classic horror movie victim who defends herself, but when you take Buffy and add in Illyria and then River you start to think that it's not so much that Joss has an original approach so much as it is that he likes to write about skinny little girls - or those in the body of skinny little girls - who "surprise" you by kicking ass. This doesn't mean that Buffy's a bad character or Illyria or River. They're all cool characters in their own right. It's just to say that if nothing else I think maybe Joss needs to give up on it being a "surprise" that the wee girl kicks ass and instead just admit to himself that he likes writing about tiny girls who are ass-kickers. There's nothing wrong with that. Just embrace it and treat it for what it is. He also needs to not reuse blocking from one character to another.
I think that's also part of why the River/Illyria vibe was strong for me prior to this. During the movie it wasn't as strong. Though Fred's whole arc reminded me of River and Simon, River's arc didn't do the same in reverse, which is good (and more than how it was handled on the show). That being said, as powerful as the Simon/River "It's my turn" scene was, it is yet again another example of how Joss should give up shoehorning River concepts into Fred's body, b/c yeah, shades of Wes's death and Illyria's subsequent ass-kicking. With Illyria it was annoying because it didn't make nearly enough sense. With Simon/River it clicks, and then you retroactively get annoyed that Joss blew that particular wad in the wrong place (esp since at the time he would've known he could do that scene in Serenity).
In terms of other weaknesses there were two that stood out to me. The first is Simon. He starts out very strong in the movie and then all but vanishes. Now I'm not saying he had to star in the film. I get that there's only so much time to devote to each character. But Kaylee didn't have a lot of screentime and still managed to be interesting and bring something to the party when the camera was on her. Simon starts out interesting then gets relegated to what feels like the same blocking and task over and over: Someone is hurt, typically River, and Simon kneels down beside them and looks at them in a worried/comforting manner.
Now this is possibly something that can be tidied up with editing, b/c it was the repetition of the blocking that stood out more than Simon's lack of lines. Also I admit to being undecided as to whether this is a problem per se or perhaps if it's meant to be an indication of how Simon and River do not have traditional brother/sister roles. In other words, if River is the ass-kicker, perhaps Simon's blocking is meant as a show don't tell way of indicating that his ability to help is more along the lines of traditional "female" roles of quiet support and nurturing. Though part of me wishes if nothing else that they devoted a little more to indicating that this was a sacrifice on Simon's part, because while his speech to Kaylee at the end is nice, you kinda don't actually see him sacrificing himself. Yeah, you get that at the beginning with the flashback where we're told how he gave up his money and his medicine, but Kaylee is more immediate. I feel like if we're spending this much time to show nothing but Simon taking care of River, throw in a line or some blocking to indicate him giving up something else to do so. Like maybe indicate he's lost sleep, or show a second of him wanting to talk to Kaylee but then River has a freakout. It could be only a couple of seconds, but would go far in impact.
Editing-wise I also felt that how Inara was handled during the first Mal/assassin fight was a litle weird. Again because it gave me the same dead space feeling that I got off Simon in the later parts of the film. I don't think that it needs to be reshot, just edited a little tighter.
The second weakness that stood out to me was the final Mal/assassin showdown. We spend the entire movie tweaking every possible cliche only to end up in an abandoned flame factory? I get that Mal not killing the guy is another twist, but I think the setting itself needed a twist of its own, especially since it's so video-gamey for no good reason. I kept flashing back to Galaxy Quest: Why is this even here? If nothing else throw in a line or something to address it. I know Mal gets his snarky comment about Mr. Universe and his gift for understatement, but really it needs something more b/c frankly the scene itself makes no sense. Why is it so hard to get to? Was the bridge to it broken? Does Mr. Universe only send his robot wife to do maintainance and repairs? Other? I hold out hope that possibly in post we get a line or shot edited in that shows that Mal was ready to take the easy way over only to be thwarted by whatever reason.
Random comments:
I was surprised at no line of exposition to tell people how Simon and River got onto Serenity. I guess the audience who doesn't know is supposed to believe that Simon bought his way onto the ship right after rescuing River.
The Simon/River rescue does seem to retcon the canon that we know, but OTOH possibly he put her into cryo to help heal whatever was done to her? I dunno, I'm just guessing.
I got the vibe that River was supposed to be "cured" now that she knows about Miranda. Joss, take a lesson from Fred and don't go down that route if there's a second movie. Your crazy girls aren't as interesting once they're not crazy.
Lots of beefcake, very little cheesecake which is another cliche twisted. Sure Inara has her satiny amazony outfit for the final Reaver fight, but she's mostly in the background and we don't get lingering shoots of her boobs. OTOH Simon and Mal go shirtless. Mmmm... shirtless Simon and Mal...
Not as much of the Firefly patois and definitely not as much spoken Chinese. Part of me wishes they'd had more confidence there, but OTOH I can see why they dialed it down. Given a choice, I'd rather they dial it down and addict more people then be strict about a dialogue style that only a few of us bought in to. On the third hand, Deadwood's real popular and talk about your Western shows with a unique dialogue style. So who knows?
Related to that, River gets one line where she says Chinese then says something in English that really felt to me like a translation of what she just said. Now maybe I'm wrong since I don't speak Chinese, and I get that the crazy girl trying to comfort herself will probably repeat her words. But I felt like the impact was lost by what amounts to insta-translation. Let her stick to Chinese, let the audience know from her tone that she's trying to comfort herself, and if anybody wants to know what she said they can check IMDB or the DVDs when the time comes.
I didn't have a problem with Mr. Universe, though I do wish they'd thrown a line or something to explain why they had to take the recording to him personally, b/c when you see a scene of the guy who records all transmissions talking to our guys via transmission, it does make you wonder why they don't transmit the recording. I'm perfectly willing to believe there's tons of good reasons - hell, maybe the Alliance uses Windows and Serenity is on Mac OS - but I think that's a reason you need to onstage. It's too apt to make the audience go "Wait a sec" in the wrong way.
ETA more random comments:
They dialed down the cowboy stuff to the point where I wonder if people will scratch their heads at Mal trying to stop a Reaver ship with a pistol. I'm too close to the material, even as a previously borderline fan, to be able to judge if people will get it. OTOH one of my friends barely knows the show and had no problem with that that I know of.
I will be willing to bet that Kaylee's line about vibrators will be cut before the movie is released. That just strikes me as the kind of positive comment about female sexuality that the MPAA will freak out about and tell them to cut or else give the movie a stricter rating.
ETA yet again:
I possibly missed it, but I would've liked a stronger reason for why River was useless during the first part of the Reaver fight b/c as it was it felt like her sanity went at the speed of the plot. Which it can do sometimes, but paired up with the cliche of the abandoned flame factory it was a little much for me. Simon being hurt shocking her out of it was good, the crash in and of iteself being too upsetting felt like a stretch.
I can't believe I forgot to mention that if you're spoiled for Wash's death, you pick up on foreshadowing. For instance on Miranda Jayne gets a line about how the people died for no good reason and the camera cuts to Wash. More subtle is Zoe's earlier line about a hero being someone who gets people killed.
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boniblithe's LJ, but I wonder how non-fans will react to Zoe after Wash's death. I think it is 100% in character for her that she will swallow her freakout and do the job (albeit with a far more self-destructive zeal) but I wonder if people who don't know Zoe that well will scratch their heads and ask why she's not more freaked out about her husband dying.
But again all of these are minor quibbles in what's otherwise a very strong film. I'm looking forward to seeing it again, especially with the final music and whatnot. I wonder if we'll get a redux on the Serenity theme over the closing credits?
Spoilery talk ends.... HERE.
All of which is to say that everything that went into this movie will, I think, have an impact on the audience. I think they will see this and realize this is something very special being put in front of them. It's definitely a movie I would have no problem whatsoever heavily pimping out to people, and you can expect me to do this as time goes on. I wasn't a huge fan of the show when it was on, but I'm also happy to admit when I'm wrong. This is going to sound very arrogant but I don't mean it to be: this has earned my fannishness. And I say it that way not because I'm proclaiming from on high that my attention must be earned, but because I want it to be clear that I'm not loving this movie because Joss made it, or I'm dying for any form of new Jossesque canon now that Angel's off the air, or anything like that. I did not come into this with a pre-hoped desire that this movie would amaze me. If it sucked I would have called it on sucking. This movie does not suck.
And now I get to catch up on LJ and all my deadlines for this weekend. I suppose somewhere in here I should also feed myself. ;)
This is now my detailed review of the movie - what works, what doesn't, etc. THERE ARE SEVERE, I AM NOT KIDDING, BIG-TIME SPOILERS TO BE FOUND HERE. I'm talking everything from plot points to camera angles. DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSPOILED!!!
Okay, now to get into the nitty gritty of the film.
The film works. When I watched it I kept the idea in the back of my mind of trying to look at it like somebody who'd never seen Firefly before, never heard of Joss before, but was curious about the film and wanted to try it. I think that person will like it.
What really works for the film is that it's smart in a way I think audiences would like a genre movie to be smart. It takes cliches and makes the characters aware of them. Granted, this is a classic Joss technique, but remember this is one of the first times people are really going to see that technique on the big screen. They don't realize the influence he had on stuff like Toy Story and the one line of X-Men that everyone liked.
This is part of why I think it's going to do so well with the time of release it has. Granted, there's always the chance that the audience will be fickle and tired of scifi movies by then. But if it came out now Star Wars would have destroyed it. It would've been a pip squeak next to a giant. But by September you may have enough people who are tired of Star Wars, but still interested in a fresh approach.
It's basically a crap shoot, I think. Either they're going to be so tired of Star Wars that any sci fi movie will only be annoying, or they'll be just the right amount of tired of Star Wars where a movie of the same genre can come in and capture their interest by showing that it doesn't have any of the weaknesses that Star Wars has.
The big-time one will of course be the dialogue. Now I'll be the first to tell Joss to dial down the quips, but Firefly has just the right amount of it. What's key is that the quips don't work as "Oh look how clever we are." but rather as more realistic dialogue. If the quippiness of Buffy worked because the audience wished it could be that verbally clever, the quippiness of Firefly works because it pops balloons into the very parts of scifi that often push people away. The characters are not impressed by the epic pomposity around them, thus they feel more like real people to us than they do like archetypes.
Another big thing that I think will stand out to people is the setup. Mal is not a classic hero. He doesn't come on with a hero's theme and get lit dramatically. He's got the dedication of his crew but he's not Star Trek perfect. Also you have the mix of characters and character types, which again is something that would've caught people's attention on TV if the show had been given a chance. But it's still in evidence in the movie and I think that will appeal to people. The mix of male/female in particular is going to be very striking. Geeky girls are not new to the genre, but you have a cute girl who knows mechanics and cheerfully talks about using vibrators. Female security officers aren't new, but you have a sexy woman who's possibly more bad-ass than the captain yet still has a loving relationship with her husband.
I could go on and on but if you're reading this you know the characters so you get the idea. I think the layers of the characters will be instantly evident to people and will appeal to them. I think it'll be a "click" in their minds of them wondering why nobody has ever tried this before.
You also have things like the gritty realism - things are dirty, the ship isn't perfect, etc. It harkens back to the early Star Wars and how the ships of the rebels weren't perfect either. It was touches like that which helped to make Star Wars connect to people, and which helped push it away when the later movies came out. The later movies were pretty, but not real. This feels real.
The behind the scenes work is also phenominal. By the end of the movie Mal has had the ever-living shit kicked out of him and the makeup on him is just gorgeous. He's dirty, he's bloody, one of his eyes is all fucked up - amazing job on the part of the makeup team.
The fight sequences are also extremely good. River's ballet-fu is a beautiful thing to behold and will also probably make people sit up and realize this is not your average scifi film. The other fights of the film are also well choreographed, and don't come off as feeling too "stunty" like the later Buffy fight sequences did.
And I must, must give props to the oner that Joss pulls off when we get onto Serenity itself. I know he adores them, I know he can abuse them, but this is just amazingly done. Take the oner that opened up Angel s5: it was good, it took skill, it did convey the idea of the flow of life at the W&H offices but it did occasionally have to employ unnatural camera movement in order to maintain the shot. I'm not saying that makes it horrible, I'm just saying that as good as it was it did hit up against the boundaries of what a oner can do.
The Serenity oner, however, is perfect. The camera moves naturally - so much so that I'd be willing to bet that many won't even realize this is one single shot. I don't know that I would have realized it if part of my brain wasn't keyed in to notice whenever Joss does this. Heck, for all I know they buried some edits in there when the camera pans past solid parts of the set, but OTOH I doubt it because why set up the dynamic of a oner and not do a oner?
The whole thing - I can't do it justice to talk about it but the flow, the movement, who you focus on and when and why, what's going on in the foreground, what's going on in the background - perfect. Absolutely perfect. And it does exactly what a oner is supposed to do, which is give an idea of the flow of life inside of the ship at that moment, while at the same time giving you an idea of the ship. We travel up, down, all around and Serenity the ship becomes a real thing to us. The set isn't a set. We're in a ship and we believe we're in a ship. Nothing else could convey the same emotion.
It's the twisting of cliches that leads into things like Wash's death, and I want to talk about that for a sec b/c I know there were those who felt this was classic Joss gratuitous killing. It's not. I know it feels like that because it comes seemingly out of nowhere, but really it doesn't. See, Tara is arguably a gratuitous death because her death is a random act to set off a plot point that Joss felt couldn't happen any other way. (I'm not saying that's the be-all end-all interpretation of Tara's death, I'm just citing it as one example of many of Joss's schtick of "I did the unexpected without realizing you so expected me to do that because doing stuff like that is my schtick.")
Wash's death has the trappings of a death like Tara's, but taken for what it is it really isn't. Book's death is arguably like that but Wash's isn't.
See here's the thing, and this ties right back into why I think people are going to watch this and realize this is not your average scifi film: Book's is the death you expect. Book's the redshirt. He and Mr. Universe are the ones you expect to die. These are the deaths that the audience might be sad about, but won't be shocked by. They're the "safe" deaths which are starting to become meaningless in storytelling. I'm not saying it isn't sad that Book dies, or that Mr. Universe dies, I'm just saying that to the audience who doesn't know the show these are the deaths that they're just going to nod their heads to.
Wash, however, takes things up another level. His death has a greater impact because we thought we saw the obligatory deaths. This goes right back to how the entire movie is about taking the cliches and breaking new ground. The main crew isn't supposed to die. Now I know, Joss does that. He's killed Jesse, and Doyle. But this story needed a death. This story exists on its own and needs to tell the audience that big shit is happening, scary stuff is going on. The scene with Simon and River would be a cliche if not for Wash's death. We don't believe that Simon and Zoe and Kaylee might die if not for Wash dying.
Now I'm not saying that only has meaning for the stuff that happens later. I'm not saying Wash is a sacrifice for the gods of River kicking Reaver ass. I'm saying that Joss can't come into this story expecting to coast on his reputation. For the audience we're trying to attract he effectively has no reputation. He's got to show them that when he tells them that a situation is dangerous, the situation is dangerous. You can't do that and have everybody come out in one piece. One piece is fake danger. And frankly that holds true even for those of us who know about Jesse, and Doyle, and Tara, and so on. It's the old saw of writing: show, don't tell. We need to see that our protagonists are facing danger, making sacrifices, and truly making significant choices when they say they're going to do what they do. That doesn't work if it's just words, and it doesn't work if all that happens is some attractive bruising and the occasional limp.
Now, that being said, there are some things that if you know Joss do leave you rolling your eyes. For starters I hope some dear friend pulls him aside and tells him to edit out some of the five million shots of River's feet because there's having a fetish and then there's making your own personal kink porno film and airing it for all of the world to see. Nothing wrong with your own personal kink porno film, I'm just saying I suspect he doesn't realize how embarassing it's going to be to have everyone aware of this.
Also there's the repetition. I was telling the girls I saw it with that I was starting to get an Anne Ricey vibe off of Joss. See, when Anne created the character of Claudia you read about her and thought to yourself how interesting it was for an author to explore the idea of an adult trapped in a child's body, including the implications of what adult sexuality would be like for someone in a non-adult form. Then you read all of Anne's other books (god help you) and realized that it's not so much Anne having this avant guade approach as it is that no, she just likes writing about little girls who have sex.
Joss is starting to give me the same vibe. Buffy was cool as the idea of the classic horror movie victim who defends herself, but when you take Buffy and add in Illyria and then River you start to think that it's not so much that Joss has an original approach so much as it is that he likes to write about skinny little girls - or those in the body of skinny little girls - who "surprise" you by kicking ass. This doesn't mean that Buffy's a bad character or Illyria or River. They're all cool characters in their own right. It's just to say that if nothing else I think maybe Joss needs to give up on it being a "surprise" that the wee girl kicks ass and instead just admit to himself that he likes writing about tiny girls who are ass-kickers. There's nothing wrong with that. Just embrace it and treat it for what it is. He also needs to not reuse blocking from one character to another.
I think that's also part of why the River/Illyria vibe was strong for me prior to this. During the movie it wasn't as strong. Though Fred's whole arc reminded me of River and Simon, River's arc didn't do the same in reverse, which is good (and more than how it was handled on the show). That being said, as powerful as the Simon/River "It's my turn" scene was, it is yet again another example of how Joss should give up shoehorning River concepts into Fred's body, b/c yeah, shades of Wes's death and Illyria's subsequent ass-kicking. With Illyria it was annoying because it didn't make nearly enough sense. With Simon/River it clicks, and then you retroactively get annoyed that Joss blew that particular wad in the wrong place (esp since at the time he would've known he could do that scene in Serenity).
In terms of other weaknesses there were two that stood out to me. The first is Simon. He starts out very strong in the movie and then all but vanishes. Now I'm not saying he had to star in the film. I get that there's only so much time to devote to each character. But Kaylee didn't have a lot of screentime and still managed to be interesting and bring something to the party when the camera was on her. Simon starts out interesting then gets relegated to what feels like the same blocking and task over and over: Someone is hurt, typically River, and Simon kneels down beside them and looks at them in a worried/comforting manner.
Now this is possibly something that can be tidied up with editing, b/c it was the repetition of the blocking that stood out more than Simon's lack of lines. Also I admit to being undecided as to whether this is a problem per se or perhaps if it's meant to be an indication of how Simon and River do not have traditional brother/sister roles. In other words, if River is the ass-kicker, perhaps Simon's blocking is meant as a show don't tell way of indicating that his ability to help is more along the lines of traditional "female" roles of quiet support and nurturing. Though part of me wishes if nothing else that they devoted a little more to indicating that this was a sacrifice on Simon's part, because while his speech to Kaylee at the end is nice, you kinda don't actually see him sacrificing himself. Yeah, you get that at the beginning with the flashback where we're told how he gave up his money and his medicine, but Kaylee is more immediate. I feel like if we're spending this much time to show nothing but Simon taking care of River, throw in a line or some blocking to indicate him giving up something else to do so. Like maybe indicate he's lost sleep, or show a second of him wanting to talk to Kaylee but then River has a freakout. It could be only a couple of seconds, but would go far in impact.
Editing-wise I also felt that how Inara was handled during the first Mal/assassin fight was a litle weird. Again because it gave me the same dead space feeling that I got off Simon in the later parts of the film. I don't think that it needs to be reshot, just edited a little tighter.
The second weakness that stood out to me was the final Mal/assassin showdown. We spend the entire movie tweaking every possible cliche only to end up in an abandoned flame factory? I get that Mal not killing the guy is another twist, but I think the setting itself needed a twist of its own, especially since it's so video-gamey for no good reason. I kept flashing back to Galaxy Quest: Why is this even here? If nothing else throw in a line or something to address it. I know Mal gets his snarky comment about Mr. Universe and his gift for understatement, but really it needs something more b/c frankly the scene itself makes no sense. Why is it so hard to get to? Was the bridge to it broken? Does Mr. Universe only send his robot wife to do maintainance and repairs? Other? I hold out hope that possibly in post we get a line or shot edited in that shows that Mal was ready to take the easy way over only to be thwarted by whatever reason.
Random comments:
I was surprised at no line of exposition to tell people how Simon and River got onto Serenity. I guess the audience who doesn't know is supposed to believe that Simon bought his way onto the ship right after rescuing River.
The Simon/River rescue does seem to retcon the canon that we know, but OTOH possibly he put her into cryo to help heal whatever was done to her? I dunno, I'm just guessing.
I got the vibe that River was supposed to be "cured" now that she knows about Miranda. Joss, take a lesson from Fred and don't go down that route if there's a second movie. Your crazy girls aren't as interesting once they're not crazy.
Lots of beefcake, very little cheesecake which is another cliche twisted. Sure Inara has her satiny amazony outfit for the final Reaver fight, but she's mostly in the background and we don't get lingering shoots of her boobs. OTOH Simon and Mal go shirtless. Mmmm... shirtless Simon and Mal...
Not as much of the Firefly patois and definitely not as much spoken Chinese. Part of me wishes they'd had more confidence there, but OTOH I can see why they dialed it down. Given a choice, I'd rather they dial it down and addict more people then be strict about a dialogue style that only a few of us bought in to. On the third hand, Deadwood's real popular and talk about your Western shows with a unique dialogue style. So who knows?
Related to that, River gets one line where she says Chinese then says something in English that really felt to me like a translation of what she just said. Now maybe I'm wrong since I don't speak Chinese, and I get that the crazy girl trying to comfort herself will probably repeat her words. But I felt like the impact was lost by what amounts to insta-translation. Let her stick to Chinese, let the audience know from her tone that she's trying to comfort herself, and if anybody wants to know what she said they can check IMDB or the DVDs when the time comes.
I didn't have a problem with Mr. Universe, though I do wish they'd thrown a line or something to explain why they had to take the recording to him personally, b/c when you see a scene of the guy who records all transmissions talking to our guys via transmission, it does make you wonder why they don't transmit the recording. I'm perfectly willing to believe there's tons of good reasons - hell, maybe the Alliance uses Windows and Serenity is on Mac OS - but I think that's a reason you need to onstage. It's too apt to make the audience go "Wait a sec" in the wrong way.
ETA more random comments:
They dialed down the cowboy stuff to the point where I wonder if people will scratch their heads at Mal trying to stop a Reaver ship with a pistol. I'm too close to the material, even as a previously borderline fan, to be able to judge if people will get it. OTOH one of my friends barely knows the show and had no problem with that that I know of.
I will be willing to bet that Kaylee's line about vibrators will be cut before the movie is released. That just strikes me as the kind of positive comment about female sexuality that the MPAA will freak out about and tell them to cut or else give the movie a stricter rating.
ETA yet again:
I possibly missed it, but I would've liked a stronger reason for why River was useless during the first part of the Reaver fight b/c as it was it felt like her sanity went at the speed of the plot. Which it can do sometimes, but paired up with the cliche of the abandoned flame factory it was a little much for me. Simon being hurt shocking her out of it was good, the crash in and of iteself being too upsetting felt like a stretch.
I can't believe I forgot to mention that if you're spoiled for Wash's death, you pick up on foreshadowing. For instance on Miranda Jayne gets a line about how the people died for no good reason and the camera cuts to Wash. More subtle is Zoe's earlier line about a hero being someone who gets people killed.
I mentioned this in
boniblithe's LJ, but I wonder how non-fans will react to Zoe after Wash's death. I think it is 100% in character for her that she will swallow her freakout and do the job (albeit with a far more self-destructive zeal) but I wonder if people who don't know Zoe that well will scratch their heads and ask why she's not more freaked out about her husband dying.But again all of these are minor quibbles in what's otherwise a very strong film. I'm looking forward to seeing it again, especially with the final music and whatnot. I wonder if we'll get a redux on the Serenity theme over the closing credits?
Spoilery talk ends.... HERE.
All of which is to say that everything that went into this movie will, I think, have an impact on the audience. I think they will see this and realize this is something very special being put in front of them. It's definitely a movie I would have no problem whatsoever heavily pimping out to people, and you can expect me to do this as time goes on. I wasn't a huge fan of the show when it was on, but I'm also happy to admit when I'm wrong. This is going to sound very arrogant but I don't mean it to be: this has earned my fannishness. And I say it that way not because I'm proclaiming from on high that my attention must be earned, but because I want it to be clear that I'm not loving this movie because Joss made it, or I'm dying for any form of new Jossesque canon now that Angel's off the air, or anything like that. I did not come into this with a pre-hoped desire that this movie would amaze me. If it sucked I would have called it on sucking. This movie does not suck.
And now I get to catch up on LJ and all my deadlines for this weekend. I suppose somewhere in here I should also feed myself. ;)
