Serenity by Author’s Name

Buena forma de rematar la serie. Aún así es una lástima que Firefly no tuviera más temporadas

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Every philosophy student should watch this movie!! The characters can be seen as dialectic interlocutors representing different shades of morality. This film is definitely among the more unique in our time. It is as exciting as Indiana Jones, but is layered with deep philosophical complexities and moral ambiguities that many modern art house films don’t even get quite right.

As most people know, this film grew out of a short-lived series called Firefly, which, admittedly, I didn’t know about before this film but have since watched in its entirety. It is set in the future, in a post-war Reconstruction-esque Era where several worlds are run by the Alliance, a Sino-American, culturally fused mega-government that is, after all, just trying to make a better world. The numerous system of worlds governed by the Alliance have forced them to spread their presence thin, leaving wiggle room for fringe settlers to live by their own laws (or lack thereof), similar to the American frontier era.

Malcolm Reynolds is captain of the Serenity, a firefly class space vessel that is as iconic as the Millennium Falcon or the Black Pearl. He fought for the browncoats, a resistance group who fought against the Alliance in the Unification War. I’d coin the term “vicarious schizophrenic” just for Mal. He’s that complicated a character! For the crew with which Mal has surrounded himself, I would make the argument, are a complex of Mal’s many manifested personalities:

Zoe – the Spartan who never diverts from her sense of purpose.
Wash – the light-hearted adventurous pirate, filled with wanderlust.
Kaylee – the suppressed inner child, innocent but adaptable and capable.
Jayne – the churlish brigand, always calculating his advantages in any situation.
Simon Tam – a man of moral purpose with a deep hatred for the Alliance, who abandoned a potentially comfortable life to resist the Alliance, who victimized his sister.
River Tam – an otherwise gifted individual, twisted into something dark by the Alliance.
Shepherd Book – warrior/preacher searching for cosmic purpose, who explores a realm where Mal himself won’t venture, but who comes to teach Mal that belief doesn’t necessarily have to involve something spiritual.
Inara – a high class courtesan and Mal’s soul mate, whom he petulantly alienates (implying Mal’s self-hatred).

The dialogue in this movie rivals some of the best I’ve ever seen on film. It delves so deeply into the fabric of humanity and all of its moral dilemmas. Here are a few examples (disclaimers: I did my best to be exact. I’ve only seen this movie three times, so please forgive any inaccuracies):

(my personal favorite!)
Mal: Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

(while experiencing a rough landing)
Mal: Just get us on the ground!

Wash: That part will happen pretty definitely!

(before the payroll robbery)
Mal: I don’t plan on any shooting taking place on this job.

Jayne: Yeah, but what you plan and what takes place ain’t exactly been similar.

(Simon protesting River’s involvement in the payroll robbery)
Simon: Do you understand what I’ve gone through to protect River from the Alliance?

Mal: I do. It’s a fact we here have been courteous enough to keep to our own selves.

Simon: Are you threatening me?

Mal: I look out for me and mine. That don’t include you unless I conjure it does. Now you stuck a thorn in the Alliance’s paw. That tickles me a bit. But it also means I have to step twice as fast to avoid them. And that means turning down plenty of jobs. Even honest ones. Come a day there won’t be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don’t push me, and I won’t push you.

(during the payroll robbery)
Mal: I see a head rise, violence is going to ensue. Probably guessed we mean to be thieving here, but what we’re after here is not yours. So, let’s have no undue fuss.

(after rescuing Inara from the Operative)
Inara: This isn’t a war, Mal. You came to that training house looking for a fight.

Mal: I came looking for you.

Inara: I just want to know who I’m dealing with. I’ve seen too many versions of you to be sure.

Mal: I start fighting a war, I guarantee you’ll see something new.

(after realizing the Alliance is hunting River Tam)
Shepherd: You have a plan?

Mal: What, hiding ain’t a plan?

(Later in that conversation)
Mal: I could’ve left her there. I had an out. Hell, I had every reason in the `verse to haul anchor.

Shepherd: it’s not your way, Mal.

Mal: I have a way? Is that better than having a plan?

(before the story’s climax)
Mal: You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Sure as I know anything, I know this. They will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now. Maybe ten. They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.

There are many, many more that I have omitted. This story could be used as a study on human nature and a makeshift morality achieved through dialectic. There is nobody here that is essentially good or essentially bad. Instead evil is represented by the Alliance, which is really no more than a metaphor for how badly a seemingly benevolent ideology can be twisted. A core belief held by the Alliance is that, as Mal stated, they can make people better, the opposing viewpoint being that humanity should be free from such intervention, no matter how bad it might get. We have been seeing a similar struggle play out globally since the Cold War in the two forms of state governance that have dominated the world since then, and in our attempts to spread the ideals therein by force when deemed necessary. Exactly who is right has not been determined, and I don’t think ever will be. Atrocities have been perpetrated by all sides. Mankind will continue ever to find its moral equilibrium within the many shades between right and wrong, and struggles such as Mal’s and the crew of Serenity will be those that punctuate the very essence of it all. The story of Serenity always was and always will be the story of mankind, in its largeness and its smallness.

Worth a watch show cases what happens when elitist build a authoritarian regime in the guise of democracy. Which is why the franchise was probably canceled…

The movie begins with a narration: “Earth-That-Was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many. We found a new solar system, dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Each one terraformed, a process taking decades, to support human life. To be new Earths. The central planets formed The Alliance, ruled by an interplanetary parliament. The Alliance was a beacon of civilization. The savage outer planets were not so enlightened, and refused Alliance control. [At about here, you realize that this is sounding too much like a political ad, or maybe indoctrination. Then, sure enough, you see the speaker, a teacher standing in front of her young charges. She continues:]
The war was devastating. But the Alliance’s victory over the Independents insured a safer universe. And now, everyone can enjoy the comfort and enlightenment of true civilization.”

One of the students is the young River Tam. She tells the teacher why the Independents would have rebelled: “We meddle … People don’t like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do. What to think. Don’t run. Don’t walk. We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right.”

It’s not just the plot and acting of “Serenity” that are excellent. It is the way the story is told; how it unfolds. First the disembodied voice, which turns into the teacher, which turns into a memory of the now 17 year-old River the subject of terrible experiments, which turns into an archive video being watched by The Operative. And this all happens before the opening credits!

The archive video is of Simon Tam rescuing his little sister, River, from the Alliance laboratory. And now the two are on the run from the Alliance, aboard the Serenity, a Firefly class transport ship. Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds was a Brown Coat, an Independent squashed by the Alliance. Now he’s trying to make a living smuggling and salvaging, on the ship he named after the Plains of Serenity, the last great battle of the failed war of independence.

It is a hard way to make a living. As Mal tells the unhappy Simon, “I put this crew together with the promise of work, which the Alliance makes harder every year. Come a day there won’t be room for naughty men like us to ship about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here’s us, on the raggedy edge. Don’t push me and I won’t push you.”

The themes of “Serenity” are universal, sometimes troubling. The dialogue is snappy. The humor is great and frequently campy. Our first view of the ship Serenity shows it in trouble. The pilot says, “This landing is going to get pretty interesting.”
The Captain looks at him: “Define interesting.”
Pilot: “Oh God Oh God, we’re all going to die?”

I saw “Serenity” in the movie theater before we even knew of the prequel TV series, “Firefly”. Now, we have both for home viewing, and I strongly recommend watching the TV series first, if possible. The movie does stand alone and gives you sufficient background. But the experience will be richer if you have seen the TV series first.
DVD: Firefly: The Complete Series
Blu-ray: Firefly: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

BONUS EXTRAS on the Serenity [Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy]:
To access the digital copy of the movie, you need to download from a Universal Studios site, using the activation code included. The info sheet in the Blu-ray case states it “may not be valid after 12/31/12”. It can be watched on an iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
“U-Control” refers to Universal Studios’ HD/Blu-ray interactive format where the viewer uses the remote to access special items.
1. Visual Commentary (U-Control on Blu-Ray). Watch the movie with picture-in-picture of Joss Whedon (director) and cast members watching and commenting on the movie.
2. Additional picture-in-picture (U-Control on Blu-Ray). Interviews, rehearsal footage and behind-the-scene footage.
3. Digital Tour of Serenity (U-Control on Blu-Ray)
4. Mr. Universe’s Compendium (U-Control on Blu-Ray) This is background and added information on organizations, weaponry and people in the Serenity universe.
5. Alliance Database (Blu-ray)
6. Commentary by writer/director Joss Whedon (DVD) I enjoyed re-watching the movie with Whedon’s commentary. Joss talks about needing a villain. “Somebody who would believe so strongly in what he was doing, that he would do anything. The exact opposite, of course, of the hero. In casting Chiwetel Ejidfor, we found the perfect person because he brings such depth and soulfulness and regret to everything he does.”
Whedon says that he likes to cast comedians in drama roles. Comedy, he says, “is the hard one.” If the actor can do comedy, then they can do drama.
7. Deleted Scenes (17 minutes) Interesting – one deleted scene showed the Operative researching Mal. He finds out that the Battle of Serenity had a 68% casualty rate for the Independents. Soldiers like Mal kept fighting for 2 weeks after the generals surrendered.
8. Outtakes (6 minutes)
9. “Future History: The Story of Earth That Was” (10 minutes) Joss Whedon tells how he came up with this version of the future, which is supposed to be 500 years from now. For example, there are two universal languages used, English and Chinese. In Joss’s imagined future, these two superpowers merged when Earth set out to colonize.
It’s also interesting how he “chose” his hero: “I just wanted to tell a story about people who are living in space, but not living in grandeur. And not living in great portent, but were more the fringe people. People that the Enterprise would have blown right past and never noticed.”
And the hero’s background: “There’s very little American fiction about the people who won the [Civil] war, about the North. The people we all like to be identified with, we’re all interested in, is the South, because we love losers.”
10. “What’s in a Firefly” (10 minutes) Fascinating look at how they worked scenes, such as the mule skip chase scene after the beginning bank robbery. Both CG and visual effects people explain how it was done.
11. “Re-lighting the Firefly” (25 minutes, from 2005) The story of how Joss Whedon and others pulled together a film to tell the story that was left unfinished in the prematurely cancelled TV series. Commentators include Whedon and most of the “Firefly” cast. The most memorable moment was the San Diego ComicCon, after the show’s cancellation and before the movie was finished. On the last half of the last day of the convention, 5,000 people showed up to see Josh and the cast.
12. Joss Whedon Introdution (6 minutes) This is Whedon’s introduction to a draft of the movie (not the final cut).

Excellent, excellent film. The perfect example of the Space Cowboy movie!

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