As I’m the only one complaining about his death at the moment, I’m assuming you’re including me as a “weenie who [doesn’t] like seeing main characters die” which you would know is incorrect if you had read my posts.
I’m not familiar with Thomas but Tom can go eat a bullet.
I’m sure many fans of Tess would wish it so, but the dude’s already dead.
I’ve seen the movie twice so far (I hate that I can’t re-watch it as easily as the DVDs - yet) and will probably see it at least a couple more times in the theater. I don’t think it beats either Out of Gas or Objects in Space if you rank it against the Firefly episodes, but I still liked it a lot. I actually cried when I saw it this afternoon - at several points: when Book died, when Wash died, when Mal and River are in the cockpit and he’s talking about love. Seeing it a second time gave me an opportunity to try to think about what was going on; the movie seemed to rush by the first time.
Really liked the Operative (and like WhyNot’s interpretation of his behavior).
To me, part of the changes in the characters from the series to the movie can be attributed to: 1) the length of their stay on the ship, and 2) the absence of Book and Inara in their day-to-day lives. I think that both of these characters make Mal a better, less angry person. I think he might have risked taking the extra guy on the mule if one or both of them had been there.
In a way, the movie seems like an extension of Objects in Space. At the end of that episode, Mal and River have developed a relationship that they didn’t have before. The movie builds on that. The exchange in the cockpit had the same underlying feel as their scene together at the end of Objects.
I love the shots that make clear that River is a dancer. Summer Glau moves so beautifully through the movie. There was a bit too much fighting for my taste, but the choreography was amazing.
easy e, I also thought for a moment that the Operative would become part of Serenity’s crew.
I think that Book and Wash will be back at least in flashbacks. Has anyone else considered that Zoe could be pregnant? Not a clue how this could be handled in a movie, but it would be unusual…
Those are just my random thoughts of the moment. I agree that it has some of the weak spots others have mentioned, but overall, I thought it was a really effective expansion of the concept onto the big screen.
GT
Yeah, but Tom isn’t.
I got the opposite impression, that it was if that “bonding” never happened. Mal kicks them off the ship.
I’m out of the loop. I take it Tom isn’t Thomas Hardy.
Hey, can I digress, or can I?
Mrs. RickJay was able to go see it with me, pregnant or not. Yay!
It was pretty good, but speaking as someone who wasn’t a fan of the series and therefore isn’t emotionally involved in the success of the franchise, it was not a GREAT movie.
It’s interesting that the show’s fans seem most likely to criticize the death of a major character and how it happened. Frankly, it doesn’t matter a whit to anyone who isn’t a Firefly nut; as a movie device it worked just fine, and is really a very minor variable in the grand equation of the movie’s quality.
If you step way back, and look at the forest instead of the trees, the movie’s primary weakness is its absolute by-the-numbers formulaic plot. It was the same damn story we’ve seen in a hundred other movies, told the same way; snappy, irony-filled dialogue doesn’t make up for that. Just a few too many really tiresome cliches.
Overall, though, still a very good space opera, good effects, ten times better than any of the lousy-ass Star Wars movies we’ve been subjected to recently, or most sci-fi movies. Prior to the movie we saw a trailer for “Aeon Flux.” Holy shit, now that’s going to be a TERRIBLE movie. “Serenity” was a thousand times better than that dog’s gonna be.
I admit I’m obsessing a bit but I really liked that tree.
No. Tom’s Mini-Picard and Mr. Hoshi Sato.
Technically doesn’t he just kick Simon off the ship?
That’s more because of Simon than River, though, isn’t it? And before Mal and Simon fall out, Mal takes River along on a job.
I think Mal thinks of River as his own little sister. It’s difficult for him because River’s behavior is so unpredictable, but he pretty much sums it up in the scene where River is aiming the gun at him. He asks her whether she’s a fully functional human being and says he’s always thought she is (or can be)… or words to that effect.
Have I mentioned I hate not being able to re-watch this on DVD right NOW?
GT
I’ll see your “Aeon Flux” and raise you a “Doom.”
Good
Lord.
…and I love ID almost as much as I love Whedon (but less then I love pie)
Enjoyed it, will see it in theaters again, went home and watched a couple of eps of Firefly and re-read the comic.
I took a “normal” to see the movie, when it ended he said: “Well it picked up at the end,” and my honest answer was "yup,’ 'cause the beginning felt slow, not sure it it really was, or because I new the show too well, or because I spent a good deal of the movie analyzing it and hoping it would blow me (and the general public) away.
The thing that pissed me off? I heard all the good jokes, saw all the cool moments and knew all the key plot points from the goram trailers… except for the Kalyee vibrator thing, Hi-larious.
I saw it in a crap theater in Chelsea with piss poor sound, what did Mal say in the end? The stuff about the first rule of flying, I only caught half of it.
Almost everybody was in the cockpit; it’s hard to clearly picture a crash that would have only killed Wash.
I wonder if Alan Tuydek wanted to work on other projects, or if it was just Joss Whedon’s decision to abruptly kill off the most easily likeable character (beside Kaylee). Just the sort of thing he’d do; on “Buffy”, for instance, he decided to kill off Tara, in spite of her popularity. As a writer, he often uses the theme that there are things worth dying for; that theme loses its edge if nobody ever actually dies. So the movie starts with the crew doing an out-and-out robbery, and ends with them going into deadly danger for no other reason than to do the right thing.
Still, hate to see Book and Wash go. But that’s the thing about the show (and movie); it’s not like on “Star Trek”, where a previously unseen security officer will be introduced at the beginning of the episode, and dead within 15 minutes. “Firefly” didn’t have any side characters; there were nine very distinct personalities, each acting as the star of his own movie.
The scene of River beating up the whole bar certainly showed off Summer Glau’s balletic flexibility. Did you notice that Cynthia Rothrock move? Sort of a warm-up for the later scene with the Reivers. My impression about the Reivers is that, one on one, they’re not necessarily any more skillful than a good normal fighter; just more savage; and they usually work in packs.
Spaceships with skeletons strapped on the outside and ravaging hordes on the inside: that’s something we haven’t seen before. Reminded me of some of the more rambunctious space opera from John Campbell’s day.
I know they wanted the movie to be accessible to people unfamiliar with the show; but it seemed like they went backwards with the relationship between the Captain and Dr. Simon Tam. It was pretty well established on the show that Mal considered Simon and River part of his crew; they even helped rescue him from that space station.
The Operative was a great character, but it was a stupid movie cliche that Mal didn’t put two in his head after he was momentarily disabled by Inara’s handy exploding incense. That just didn’t make sense, either morally or logistically. Of course, the Operative is necessary for the rest of the plot to unfold. Whedon, like me, is strong on character, dialogue and overall story arc, but a bit weak on plotting.
Why didn’t the Reivers shoot River? Because they typically want to torture, rape, mutilate, skin, and eat people who are still moving around. They have issues.
The skeletons are cool, yes, but I can’t help thinking that they should be burning up on reentry :).
Quite the opposite, Simon decks Mal and announces that they’re going to leave the ship, then Mal enthusiastically agrees. That said, once this decision has been made, not only do Simon and River never actually leave the ship for any extended period of time, but Mal doesn’t seem to make any real effort to get them off.
And as someone else pointed out, yeah, it did seem like the crew was rubbing eachother raw without Inara and Book to defuse the situations. Book being Mal’s concious, and Inara being just about the only person on the ship who not only is willing to stand up to him when he’s being a jerk, but just about the only one who he will ever defer to in such a case.
As a side note, I like the little touches of how the different crewmates interact. Major massive-life threatening crisis becomes imminent, and suddenly Jayne is Mr. Passenger Relations, keeping everyone safe until the immediate crisis has passed (ie: the engine has stopped exploding, the ship has stopped crashing, etc.)
I also liked how Simon went and got Kaylee from the engine room. Little stuff like that.
Dang, Kaylee was hot.
Oh, and one more thing. I was talking to a friend after the movie about how I was half expecting for the entire ship to just ISPLODE. BOOM. And then after giving the audience about 3 seconds to take that in, have “Produced by Joss Whedon” pop up on the screen.
Of course, I was the guy who suggested that Buffy should end with a shot of the Earth, as portrayed by a paper-mache model stuffed with blackcats and confetti, blowing up right after the happy ending. 
FWIW, Alan Tuydek is replacing Hank Azaria in Spamalot.
Not really. It could have been something as simple as his harness snapping and him splitting his forehead on a sharp corner of his console. Equally as abrupt, serves its purpose just as well, and doesn’t feel as cheap.
That said, I’m going to stop talking about Wash’s death now. I did enjoy the movie otherwise and even though it knocked a star off its rating, that still leaves it with four instead of five.
Am I the only one who though Mal’s fight scene at the end resembled Luke and Vader’s fight in Empire strikes back.
“Mal, I am your father”
I plan on seeing it again, to much happened so fast I fear I missed way to much the first go around.