Today I watched Serenity, another DVD that I recently bought. This movie wraps up some of the story lines from the Firefly TV show. Firefly is one of the best TV series I’ve ever seen, it has lots of action, is quite funny and has a very special touch. Some people describe it as a mix of space western with some comedy, drama and science fiction elements. Unfortunately only 14 episodes were made of this show as Fox cancelled the show – which was really a huge mistake.

The director refused to give up the show and as fans from all over the world adored the show and the DVDs sold beyond expectations he was given the chance to make a feature-length Firefly movie. About two years after Firefly was canned Serenity was released in movie theaters, this movie became quite popular and received extremely good reviews.

Here’s a quick overview about what the Firefly TV show was about (copied from Wikipedia):

The series is set in the year 2517, after humans have arrived at a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a Firefly-class spaceship. The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters who live on Serenity. Director Joss Whedon pitched the show as “nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things”. The show explores the vicissitudes of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war, as well as the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in a fusion of the two cultures, as well. According to Whedon, nothing has changed in the future: there are more people with more advanced technology, but they still have the same problems politically, morally, and ethically.

Some of the main characters of the show:

– Malcolm Reynolds: The captain of the Serenity spaceship
– Zoe Washburne: Second-in-command onboard Serenity and one of Mal’s war-time friends
– Hoban Washburne: Serenity’s pilot and Zoe’s husband
– Jayne: Pretty funny and strong guy who’s always seen with weapons, he’s a mercenary.
– Inara: A companion. She has a strained relationship with Mal.
– Kaylee: The ship’s mechanic, has a strained relationship with Simon
– Dr. Simon: A doctor, River’s brother
– River: A traumatized girl, the Alliance has conducted experiments which changed her.
– Derrial: A shepherd

Serenity shows more of these good-hearted space pirates and a large part of the movie revolves around River. During one of the opening scenes we learn that the Alliance is after her because they fear she knows something terrible about them. An assassin is send after her, which will make the life of Mal and his crew pretty hard..

Great movie, I give it a 9/10. The makers really managed to pull of a lot with a relatively small movie budget. The DVD also contains lots of goodies like deleted scenes, bloopers and lots of behind the sets footage. I liked watching these extras as they seem to reinforce that all actors on the show genuinely loved their character, they all had a lot of fun.