(Spoilers for Firefly series and Serenity movie follow)
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Okay, say you have the power to assemble the full cast and crew and bring Firefly back to television for several seasons of new episodes. You can choose to do so in one of the three following ways:
1.) Have the new episodes set after the events of Serenity, and bring back everyone sans Wash and Book, who of course, remain dead.
2.) Bring back everyone - Wash and Book included - and have all the new episodes set during the 6 or so months between the final episode of the original run and Serenity. In this case, it’s understood that the events in the movie still eventually take place, so no time traveling or changing of future events will occur. The comics set during this time can either be adapted to film or thrown out entirely.
3.) Completely ignore the events of Serenity, bring back the entire cast (Wash and Book included), and pick up where the final episode left off.
I chose option # 1 because the characters should be a little older, as the actors are. After all, it just wouldn’t be the same without the same actors playing the characters! I also quite liked the film.
The movie just seemed like a rushed, extra-long episode to me. By the end of it, I actually cared less about the characters I’d come to enjoy over the season. I’d prefer just to ignore that it ever got made.
Personally, I’d go with option 2. The show just wouldn’t be the same without Wash, so option #1 isn’t ideal. And, even if Serenity wasn’t perfect, it was still good, so I’d hate to ignore it completely. Plus, since we know that he’ll end up biting the dust soon, all of Wash and Zoe’s scenes together will be even more meaningful.
But I would not rule out the occasional flashback. Learn how Wash & Zoe got together. Learn about Book’s past. And show a bit of what happened between the end of the show & the movie.
In the ideal world, the movie (or at least, that particular movie, at that time) would never have gotten made, but the series would have continued as a series. But I don’t think that it’s really possible to put the genie back into the bottle, so that rules out choice 3. And of the other two, I like both Wash and Book, and think there’s a heck of a lot of room for story development, especially since there’s no hard-and-fast reason that it can’t be more than a six-month gap (if there’s something in the movie that says it is six months, that’s a small enough detail to retcon away).
In particular, the movie represented a really big jump from “River is creepy, and maybe there’s something to that” to “River is psychic”, and we were starting to see some interesting character development in the Wash-Zoe relationship towards the end of the series (with Zoe wanting to have a child, and Wash objecting, most notably) that could have been explored a lot more.
(side question) I’ve never seen the series (Firefly), but I’ve seen the money (Serenity). Doesn’t the movie break continuity with the series? If I remember correctly, in the movie the people aboard the ship meet Summer Glau’s character (River) for the first time, but they already should have known who she was. How is that correct?
Post-Serenity. I think it would be a slightly darker[?] Firefly now that members of the Serenity crew are dead, but I would really love to see River come into her own as a character, now that a lot of her issues have been laid to rest - her journey of learning how to be normal. Though I would worry about the capacity to make her vastly overpowered, since she is a psychic and has ridiculous martial arts skillz. I’d definitely be glad to see the Reavers out of the way, it was my least favorite plotline. I also had this theory that Zoe might be carrying Wash’s kid (because of that one line in “Heart of Gold”) and I want to see how the crew would deal with having a tiny person on board.
Simon eventually leaves Kaylee and heads back to the inner system worlds.
Zoe and the heartbroken Kaylee take over running Serenity, getting mostly legitimate jobs.
Mal and Inara settle on a frontier world, where Mal, to his own surprise, becomes the local lawman, and Inara settles in as a farm wife, punching out a series of babies. Mal’s share of Serenity brings in enough income for them to live comfortably, and they are both quite happy.
To everyone’s surprise, but most especially his own, River moves in on Jayne with the calm force of a glacier (she can, after all, see his gentle side). Eventually he gets into politics, and winds up in the system Parliment, rising to Speaker after a few years. People remark about how amazingly well Jayne manages to anticipate every move of his opponents. They love his graceful, but somewhat eccentric wife, and never suspect how much of his success is due to her.
Option one. The actors have aged too much for 2, and I don’t like the idea of ignoring the movie. I might go so far as to opt for a next-gen approach, with a new ship and crew, and the old crew making guest appearences.
I would also like to add that the second some character on the show looks like they are about to go down the procreate route, the ship gets hit by an asteroid and everybody dies.
Are you sure about that? I will have to watch it again (I believe it’s available as an “instant play” at Netflix), but I distinctly remember she and her brother showing up at the ship, and the people at the ship saying “why would we take this young girl on board, everyone will be looking for her?” It sure seemed like she was someone totally new to them.
P.S. I will have to find out what you call that kind of typo, where your brain and/or your keyboard comes up with a different (but similar) word).
